Allan and the Ice Gods (15 page)

chief, have called down curses on my head; and, that I might never

weaken in this matter, on the tribe, too, if I myself should break

that law. And yet you are still bitter against me. Have you then

ceased to love me?”

“Would you know the truth, Wi?” she answered, looking him in the eyes.

“Then I will tell you. I have not, I who never had a thought toward

another man. I love you as well as I did on the day when you killed

Rongi for my sake. But hearken—I love not Pag, who is your chosen

friend, and it is to Pag that you turn, not to me. Pag is your

counsellor—not I. It is true that since Fo-a was killed all water is

bitter to my taste and all meat is sprinkled with sand, and in place

of my heart a stone beats in my breast, so that I care for nothing and

am as ready to die as to live, which I thought I must do when the huge

cave dweller hurled you down. Yet I say this to you—drive out Pag, as

you can do, being chief, and, so far as I am able, I will be to you

what I was before, not only your wife, but your counsellor. Choose

then between me and Pag.”

Now Wi bit his lip, as was his fashion when perplexed, and looked at

her sadly, saying:

“Women are strange; also they know not the thing that is just. Once I

saved Pag’s life, and because of that he loves me; also, because he is

very wise, the wisest, I think, of all the people, I listen to his

words. Further, by his craft and counsel, and with the help of the

gift he gave me,” and he looked at the ax hanging from his wrist, “I

slew Henga, who without these should now myself be dead. Also, Foh,

our son loves him, and he loves Foh, and with his help I have

fashioned new laws which shall make life good for all the tribe. Yet

you say to me, ‘Drive out Pag, my friend and helper,’ knowing that, if

he ceased to sit in my shadow, the women, who are his enemies, would

kill him, or he must wander away and live like a wild beast in the

woods. Wife, if I did this, I should be a treacherous dog, not a man,

and much less a chief whose duty it is to do justice to all. Why,

because you are jealous of him, do you ask such a thing of me?”

“For my own reasons, Wi, which are enough. Well, I ask, and you do not

grant, so go your road and I will go mine, though among the people it

need not be known that we have quarrelled. As for these new laws, I

tell you that they will bring you trouble and nothing else. You seek

to cut down an old tree and to plant a better in its place, but, if it

ever grows at all, you will be dead before it keeps a drop of rain

from off you. You are vain and foolish, and it is Pag who has made you

so.”

Thus they parted, Wi going away full of sadness, for now he was sure

that nothing he could say or do would change Aaka’s heart. Had he been

as were the others of the people, he would have rid himself of her and

taken another wife, leaving her to take another husband, if she chose.

But Wi was not like the rest of the tribe; he was one born out of his

time, a forerunner, one with imagination who could understand others

and see with their eyes. He understood that Aaka was jealous by

nature, jealous of everyone, not only of other women. That which she

had she wanted to keep for herself alone; she would rather that Wi

should lack guidance and help than that he should find these in the

dwarf Pag or in other men. She was even jealous of her son Foh,

because he loved him, his father, better than he did her.

Now, with Fo-a it had been otherwise, for, although he had loved her

so much, she had taken little note of her father and had clung close

to her mother. So, when Fo-a was killed, Aaka had lost everything;

moreover, she knew that she herself was to blame, for when Wi went

hunting, as he must, she would not suffer Pag to protect the child,

both because she hated him and because Fo-a liked Pag. Therefore,

through her own folly, she had lost her daughter, and knew that this

was so, and yet blamed, not herself, but Wi, because Pag was his

friend—which caused her to hate Pag so much that she would not suffer

him to guard Fo-a. From that moment, as she had said, water had become

bitter to her, and all meat full of sand; she was soured and different

from what she had been—indeed, another woman.

In the old days, with a kind of trembling joy she had thought how one

day Wi might become chief of the tribe; now she did not care whether

he were chief or not; even to have become the first woman in the tribe

gave her no pleasure. For the blow of the death of Fo-a, although she

knew it not, had fallen on her brain and disturbed her reason—the

more so because she was sure that she would bear no other children.

Yet, deep in her heart, she loved Wi better than she had ever done and

suffered more than she could have told because she feared lest some

other woman should appear to whom he might turn for the fellowship and

comfort she would no longer give.

Now, all these things Wi knew better than did Aaka herself, because by

nature he was a man with an understanding heart, although but a poor

savage who as yet had no pot in which to boil his food. Therefore, he

was very sad and yet determined to be patient, hoping that Aaka’s mind

would right itself and that she would change her face toward him.

When Wi reached the cave, he found Pag waiting for him with food,

which Foh, who had gone before him at the break of day, served with

much stir and mystery. Eating of this food—it was a small salmon new

run from the sea—Wi noted, oddly enough, that it was cooked in a new

fashion and made savoury with salt, shellfish, and certain herbs.

“I have never tasted the like of this before,” he said. “How is it

prepared?”

Then, with triumph, Foh pointed out to him a vessel hollowed from a

block of wood which stood by the fire, and showed him that in this

vessel water boiled.

“How is it done?” asked Wi. “If wood is placed upon fire, it burns.”

Next Foh raked away some ashes, revealing in the heart of the fire a

number of red-hot stones.

“It is done thus, Father,” he said; “for days I have been hollowing

out that block of black wood which comes from the swamp where it lay

buried, by burning it, and when it was charred, cutting it away with a

piece of that same bright stone of which your ax is made. Then, when

it was finished and washed, I filled it with water and dropped red-hot

stones into it till the water boiled. After this, I put in the cleaned

fish with the oysters and the herbs, and kept on dropping in red-hot

stones till the fish was cooked. That’s how it is done, Father—and is

the fish nice?” and he laughed and clapped his hands.

“It is very nice, Son,” said Wi, “and I would that I had more stomach

to eat it. But who thought of this plan, which is clever?”

“Oh! Pag thought of it, Father, but I did nearly all the work.”

“Well, Son, take away the rest of the fish and eat it, and then go

wash out your pot lest it should stink. I tell you that you and Pag

have done more than you know and that soon you will be famous in the

tribe.”

Then Foh departed rejoicing, and afterward even took the pot to his

mother to show her all, expecting that she would praise him. But in

this he was disappointed, for when she learned that Pag had hit upon

this plan, she said that, for her part, she was content with food

cooked as her forefathers had cooked it from the beginning, and that

she was sure that seethed flesh would make those who ate of it very

sick.

But it did not make them sick, and soon this new fashion spread and

the whole tribe might be seen burning hollows in blocks of wood,

cutting away the char that was left with their chipped flints, and

when the pots were finished, making water boil with the red-hot stones

and placing in it meat that was tough from having been stored in the

ice, or fish or eggs, or whatever they needed to cook. Thus, those who

were old and toothless could now eat again and grew fat; moreover, the

health of the tribe improved much, especially that of the children,

who ceased to suffer from dysentery brought on by the devouring of

lumps of flesh charred in the fire.

On the afternoon of this day of his quarrel with Aaka and of the

boiling of the salmon, Wi and his counsellors again met the tribe in

front of the cave to declare to them more of his new laws. This time,

however, not so many attended because, as a fruit of the first law, a

number of them were laid by hurt, while others were engaged

quarrelling over the women, or, if they belonged to the unmarried, in

building huts large enough to hold a wife.

At once, before the talk began, many complaints were laid as to the

violence worked upon the previous night, and demands made for

compensation for injuries received. Also, there were knotty points to

be decided as to the allotment of women when, for example, three or

four men wished to marry one girl, which of them was to take her.

This, Wi decided, must be settled by the girl choosing which of them

she would, an announcement that caused wonder and dismay, since never

before had a woman been allowed to make choice in such a matter, which

had been settled by her father, if he were known, or, more frequently,

by her mother, or sometimes, if there were none to protect her, by her

being dragged off by the hair of her head by the strongest of her

suitors after he had killed or beaten the others.

Soon, however, Moananga and Pag pointed out to him that, if he stopped

to hear and give judgment on all these causes, no more new laws would

be declared for many days. Therefore, he adjourned them till some

future time, and set out the second law, which declared that, in

future, no female child should be cast forth to be taken by the wolves

or to perish of cold, unless it were deformed. This announcement

caused much grumbling, because, said the grumblers, the child belonged

to the parents and especially to the mother, and they had a right to

do with their own as they wished.

Then an inspiration seized Wi and he uttered a great saying which

afterward was to be accepted by most of the world.

“The child comes from heaven and belongs to the gods, whose gift it is

and who will require account of it from those to whom it has been

lent,” he said.

These words, so amazing to the people, who had never even dreamed

their like, were received in astonished silence. Urk the Aged, sitting

at Wi’s side, muttered that he had never heard anything of the sort

from his grandfather, while Pag the Sceptic, behind him, asked:

“To what gods?”

Again an inspiration came to Wi, and he answered aloud:

“That we shall learn when we are dead, for then the hidden gods will

become visible.”

Next, he went on hastily to declare the punishment for the breaking of

this law. It was terrible: namely, that the casters-forth should

themselves be cast forth to suffer the same fate and that none should

succour them.

“But if we had no food for the children?” cried a voice.

“Then, if that is proved to be so, I, the chief, will receive them and

care for them as though they were my own, or give them to others who

are barren.”

“Surely soon we shall have a large family,” Aaka remarked to Tana.

“Yes,” said Tana. “Still, Wi has a great heart, and Wi is right.”

At this point, as though by general consent, the meeting broke up, for

all felt that they could not swallow more than one law a day.

On the following afternoon, they came together again, but in still

fewer numbers, and Wi continued to give out laws, very excellent laws,

which did not interest his audience much, either because, as one of

them said, they were “full to the throat with wisdom,” or for the

reason that, like other savages, they could not keep their attention

fixed for long on such matters.

The end of it was that no one came at all to listen, and that the laws

must be proclaimed throughout the tribe by Wini-wini with his horn.

For days he might be seen going from hut to hut blowing his horn and

shouting out the laws into the doorways, till at last the women grew

angry and set on the children to pelt him with eggshells and dried

cods’ heads. Indeed, by the time he had finished, those in the first

huts, where he began, had quite forgotten of what he was talking.

Still, the laws, having been duly proclaimed without any refusal of

them, were held to be in force, nor was ignorance of them allowed to

be pleaded as excuse for their breaking, every man, woman, and child

being presumed to know the laws, even if they did not obey them.

Yet Wi discovered that it is much easier to make laws than to force

people to keep them, with the result that, soon, to his office of

lawgiver, he must add that of chief magistrate. Nearly every day was

he obliged to sit in front of the cave, or in it when the weather was

bad, to try cases and award punishments which were mostly inflicted by

certain sturdy fellows who wielded whips of whalebone. In this