“Carr-tarr-pharr” the bird shrieked back.
Tempted to face fate alone, I dismissed my retinue.
Toward dusk, I was within sight of what seemed to be a village or the home of some tribe. My only companions were my camel and my parrot, which had become quite tame, and perching upon the animal’s head, formed a bizarre and radiant crest. I waited until it was dark. Meanwhile, I drew upon the center of my turban the shape of the sun with a chemical an alchemist of Egypt had taught me to use and a large crescent moon upon the camel’s forehead; while the beak of the parrot I dotted with many points to represent the stars.
A heavy smoke that smelt of tallow rose leisurely, punctured at times by sparks that were immediately stifled and devoured. Around the fire, in a wide circle, men and women were squatting, their heads bent. Their backs were black, and in many cases, scarred with wounds. At an angle, a white-haired man was beating ceaselessly a large kettle, with an iron stick, growling at intervals. The sound of his voice was like the mooing of a lonesome cow. My approach was unnoticed, for the steps of my camel were slow, and the ground was wet with recent mud. Suddenly my parrot called out: “Carr-tarr-pharr.”
The natives jumped up: men with colossal mouths and jaws, and tiny eyes, and women with enormous breasts that fell below their big, circular bellies.
“Carr-tarr-pharr… Carr-tarr-pharr…” They seemed paralyzed. The chemical I had applied to my turban and my companions, was shining like a white fire. A woman shrieked and groveled at the feet of my camel. The rest did likewise. Soon the entire tribe, swaying to and fro in rhythmic exaltation, prostrated themselves before me. For hours they continued the prayerful swaying of buttocks and bellies.
Weary at last of this adoration, I motioned my worshipers to rise. I spoke to them in a dozen languages. They did not understand. I clapped my hands. They groaned and beat their heads. I urged the camel to move. They held his legs.
“Divinity is a precarious occupation,” I thought. “I may be forced to die astride my camel.”
My hope lay in the fact that human backs could not endure forever the same posture; also that the enormous nostrils of these people would soon detect, as I did, that the lamb they were roasting, was beginning to burn. I was right. One woman, by long instinct, no doubt, forgot the divinity she was worshiping, and turned her head, her breast beating against her side. I caught her eye, and bade her rise. She growled something. The rest growled in return, and rose. I made a motion with my fingers to my mouth. They began to dance. The old man, who had beaten the kettle, looked at the sky, then at me, and bowed very deeply. I understood that he meant that I was Heaven-descended. I nodded. He no doubt thought of me in terms of both the camel and the parrot. I was one, and yet three. It was an amusing idea, which pleased me greatly.
“Carr-tarr-pharr… Carr-tarr-pharr…”
They imitated him: “Ca-ta-pha… Ca-ta-pha…”
My parrot was making my name divine, and no doubt immortal, but by the time it was uttered by these enormous mouths, it was hardly recognizable.
The dance continued,—a wild lifting of legs, slapping of bellies, and waving of arms, accompanied by raucous sounds and the ceaseless beating of the iron kettle. Meanwhile, however, three of the women lifted the lamb from the fire and placed it upon the ground to cool.
I descended. The people saw nothing curious in this disentanglement of the three personalities, nor did they consider it extraordinary that Heaven should accept the piece of roast lamb which they offered. My fingers were burnt, but to show my friendliness, I did not relinquish the morsel. They ate not alone with their mouths, but with their entire faces, including the hair that nearly reached their eyebrows. I was too amused to feel nausea, but I could not help thinking that my camel was more genteel in her habits. The parrot called out my name from time to time, and always the rest answered him, like a distorted echo.
“What a High Priest you would have made in Jerusalem, my polly!”
Their gorging over, they began to dance again, with even greater gusto. They were not at all embarrassed that Heaven was watching them, squatting on the stump of a charred tree. Heaven was kindly, it was quite evident. He did not broil them, like mutton; he did not blind them with the white fire of his turban. Like the stars above, he smiled upon them.
I thought their dancing would be eternal. My head became heavy. I began to doubt my own consciousness. Perhaps, after all, I was the sun, and they colossal black stars dancing a mad dance in my honor. My eyes closed. I fell asleep…
“Carr-tarr-pharr… Carr-tarr-pharr…”
“Carr-tarr-pharr… Carr-tarr-pharr…”
I woke up with a start. It was already morning. The parrot, perched upon the camel’s head, was screeching my name and flapping his wings, while all about me, in a large circle, the natives kneeling, their faces to the ground, were echoing the bird.
Already somewhat accustomed to the idea of my apotheosis, I stretched and yawned.
XX: CA-TA-PHA UP AND CA-TA-PHA DOWN—I MAKE A SAINT—MAN OR MONKEY—KOTIKOKURA
WHEN I had learnt sufficiently of the language, I engaged in conversation with the white-haired man. “Who is your god?” I asked.
“Ca-ta-pha.”
“But before he came among you, who was your god?”
“Ca-ta-pha.”
“How do you explain that?”
“He was up, now he is down.”
“Is he not still up? Look!”
He pointed to a tree. “The tree is up.” Then to its shadow: “The tree is also down.”
His subtlety pleased me. It reminded me of the priests in Jerusalem. “But during the day, the sun does not shine on his forehead. Is he a god during the day, as well as at night?”
“Always. When he is tired of shining up, he shines down; when he is tired of shining down, he shines up.”
“Is the camel also a god, and the parrot?”
“You are the father, the camel is the mother, the parrot is the son.”
“How can the camel have a parrot as a son?”
He shrugged his shoulders, and his large mouth opened as if to swallow an enormous piece of meat. “Ca-ta-pha is god.”
I gave him a gold coin. He did not know its significance, but his joy in receiving it was immense. He bent to the earth, rose, danced about me like a top. He shouted: “God Ca-ta-pha has given me the sun.”
I thought, “You are doing the Universal Dance of the Golden Calf, my poor gorilla!”
Ever after, he was considered as a saint by the rest, who trembled at his approach. He assumed the dignified air of a high priest.
I was the mighty god of war. Marching at the head of my people, I vanquished tribe after tribe. At the sight of me, our enemies either ran madly away, leaving behind them booty and food, or falling upon their faces, accepted my divinity, and relinquished their independence. My tribe became rich beyond its wildest dream. The smoke, thick with the smell of animals roasting, mounted like an endless offering to the Lord of Bounties, and the dances and orgies never ceased.
I asked why it was that a woman was not presented me as wife.
“Ca-ta-pha is God. There is his wife.”
They pointed to my camel, which, overfed, was munching like a giant cow, a wisp of hay between her enormous wet lips. I accepted their logic. A successful god must never contradict his worshipers.
I grew weary of hearing my name invoked several times a day at the caprice of the parrot, and seeing the black bodies surround me, faces in the mud, and posteriors raised upward like hillocks. I realized why the gods prefer to live upon the tops of mountains, or in the sky.
But a god must disappear, as he appeared, suddenly and unexpectedly. On the morning decided upon, I ordered my tribe to go into the woods, and not to budge until the moon rose, when they might return. They shivered and fell on their faces.