AN ENTHUSIAST DISCOURSES ON PRE-HISTORIC REMAINS
"Then really," said Wanda, "you are not worried?"
The priest turned his glance upon her. He observed her anxiety.
Although she forced herself to hide it, her pale face was shadowed and
her eyelids fluttered lightly. He tried to reassure her.
"No," said he, "certainly I would prefer to know that Redeski had
reached Post 28. He ought to have got there last week, but when
you come to think of it, what of it? He is only six days late on
his schedule, and in the forest that's nothing--especially at this
season...."
Pierre nodded agreement.
The three of them were finishing their lunch on the balcony of the
priest's house. Once more clouds had invaded the sky, and across the
courtyard of the Mission their shadows lay and sped swiftly between two
shafts of sunlight.
The young girl lifted her relaxed face to the priest with a brave
attempt at smiling.
"I suppose I am absurd, but Michael means so much in my life.... I have
no one but him...."
"I understand," said the missionary with tenderness, "but do not
torture yourself unnecessarily. He will be here in a fortnight at most,
telling us why he was late.... Besides...."
He broke off, for the serving boy who had placed a basket of fruit on
the table asked:
"Will the Father take his coffee here?"
Father Ravennes consulted his guests with a look.
"No," said he, "we will take it in 'the Cave!'"
Wanda, who was picking out a fruit, made a sudden movement. The purple
and yellow pyramid of mangoes and lichis rolled scattered about the
table. Absent-mindedly she queried:
"The Cave?"
The boy had silently disappeared.
"The room reserved for my prehistoric collection," explained the
priest, stretching out his legs, and with a laugh he continued:
"It is true ... though of course you could not know it! I am absorbed
in everything prehistoric, and I realize that this prepossession has
become a regular passion with me!"
And with a sort of ingenuous doubt he enquired: "You don't see anything
sinful in that, do you?"
Lursac smiled.
"No," said he, "and I absolve you in advance! Although this scientific
pre-occupation seems to me neither very Christian nor warranted by the
doctrines of the Church, and that...."
The missionary protested strongly:
"You are wrong," said he, "there is nothing to prevent priests from
making a study of this sort.... I was already taken up with it while I
was at the Seminary of Foreign Missions at Paris, and my masters never
told me...."
"However," said Wanda in her turn, "doesn't the Old Testament tell us
that man was created by God not more than six thousand years ago?"
Pierre remarked:
"Well, well, Mademoiselle, I would not have believed you so versed in
theological matters."
Then turning towards the missionary:
"Well, what have you to say to that?"
Father Ravennes shrugged his shoulders.
"Simply this," said he, "that Mademoiselle is making a very common
mistake. You can open the Sacred Book and you will find in Genesis no
precise date at which primitive man must have been born. It is the
chronologists who, since the fifteenth century, have endeavored to
force biblical facts into their system of chronology. The best proof of
that is that the Church has never consented to making it an article of
faith that the creation of man took place six thousand years ago."
Lursac, who had just finished peeling a mango, went on teasing him:
"But I don't think, however, that many priests occupy themselves with
such problems as this."
The missionary disputed the statement:
"Yes indeed!... Abbés Bourgeois and Delaunay, Monseigneur Meignan
himself--just to quote those who are in some sort my predecessors--have
all written important works on this very question. Of the present day I
can cite you Abbés Breuil and Bremond...."
He got up, and walking in front of them he guided them towards "the
Cave." It was a long room, of which the entire furnishings consisted of
a narrow bench which ran round the walls and was divided by partitions,
and a long table on trestles littered with stones, arms and other
strange and primitive instruments. A large bay with the usual screen
of plaited bamboo lighted the room, cutting a great rectangle in the
mud wall through which the sun poured in. On the other walls, from the
bench up to the ceiling, hung all sorts of prehistoric remains, forming
an extraordinary mixture. Crowded against each other, each one provided
with its label or its inscription, they enriched the gray background
with outlandish patterns. Rough, heavy knives, axes and scrapers of
flint hung close together beside bone daggers and bodkins worn smooth
by the lapse of centuries. Further along, gruesome fragments of human
skeletons colored like old ivory were mixed with pieces of animal bones
on a large panel, flanked by rags of clothing and strips of hide. In an
angle near the bay two yellow and angular skulls lay on a shelf. Their
empty jaws with the mouths hanging open and their hollow eye-sockets
formed great holes filled with shadows.
The room thus decorated gave the strange and complex effect of a museum
of bric-a-brac and a tomb combined.
Wanda and Pierre had sat themselves down on the bench.
Standing before the table Father Revennes gazed affectionately at his
collection.
"My harvest, gathered in the three years that I have been here," he
said with naïve pride.
Lursac showed his surprise.
"Three years? I didn't know that Laos was so rich in prehistoric
remains!"
The missionary had taken one of the skulls between his sunburnt hands
and while he spoke he handled it gently with motions that were almost
caressing. He did not seem to have heard Lursac's remark. With his eyes
full of admiration he repeated:
"My most beautiful specimen.... A quarternary human skull! A real
wonder, for it is unique.... Do you realize it?... Unique! And I defy
anyone in Europe to show me one as truly characteristic and in such
perfect condition. Their 'Cro-Magnon'? Pooh! Trash compared to this
one...."
He gave a smile of triumph at once naïve and solemn.
"And when I think," said he with enthusiasm, "that in this bony cup,
over forty thousand years ago, there used to be a brain that created
thoughts, desires, and feelings, which were doubtless exactly the same
as our thoughts, desires and feelings...."
He stopped, regarding with a sort of affection the skull which he had
put on the table before him. Then touching his own forehead with his
fingers he murmured:
"The same forehead, and--who knows--perhaps the same soul, which time
has simply kept apart from this one without separating them."
The voice of Wanda broke in.
"O Father! can we have the same soul as a superior ape?"
Father Ravennes jumped round.
"Primitive man, an ape!" said he, "where have you read that heresy? In
Lamarck, in Carl Vogt, or in Huxley? But it is an outrageous theory,
long ago given up."
He went on, his voice trembling with excitement:
"It is enough to have eyes and to look at them; a child couldn't be
deceived. How could such a gross error have originated? Everything
proves that the human type is independent of the animal.... Look!" he
said, as he took from the shelf the second skull and placed it on the
table beside the first, and emphasising his words with his finger, he
continued:
"They pretend to base their opinion on anatomical comparison. The
ignoramuses! Look! Here is a man's skull from the earliest of primitive
ages, and here is a baboon's, the simian species which is nearest to
the human type. See here and here: the chin, the teeth, the general
appearance, the structural lines of these two skulls proclaim their
distinct origin and prove that the ape belongs to a totally different
species from man."
Relieved by his own violence he shrugged his shoulders with scorn.
Lursac and Wanda had risen and were standing one on each side of the
missionary. In silence they regarded the hollow bony forms standing on
the table before them, which, dull and dirty, grinned back at them with
toothless mouths and missing noses and their whole surfaces spotted as
with leprosy.
"What does it matter?" said Wanda. "What surprises me as it does Lursac
is this extraordinary abundance of fossils in the neighborhood."
Father Ravennes turned to them.
"You are right; and my astonishment was even greater than yours. I
didn't expect such rich discoveries! Just remember that usually it
needs ten, a dozen, perhaps fifteen years of exploration and of digging
to discover and bring to light a few anthropological specimens, less
rare and, above all, in a much worse state of preservation than most
of these you see here. But what is really extraordinary about it is
the way in which I found them. It would be natural enough to find here
in the depths of the Lao-ese forest some remains of quaternary man.
General opinion agrees, as a matter of fact, that our first ancestors
were born and lived in central and southern Asia before spreading
themselves over different parts of the globe.... Yes, here! somewhere
around us, must have been the cradle of the human race...."
"You said," interrupted Pierre, "that you found these things in some
extraordinary way.... How was that?"
The missionary smiled mysteriously.
"Listen," said he. "When I first arrived here I built myself a hut,
and every morning, after I had said mass, I started out on horseback.
I just followed my nose, attempting to spread the Word of God. One day
I lost myself in the forest on the border of the Moï country, opposite
your fort."
Lursac cried:
"Ah! in the Dead Zone?..."
"Yes," said the missionary. "Yes, that is where I have made all
my finds; and on each occasion the axes, the tools, the arms, the
skeletons or the clothes were in a heap, piled round a black stone
curiously shaped, erected like a fetich before a _nihuer_.[8] Therefore
it is absolutely certain that it was the natives who must have brought
them there. But where did they find them and why do they attach to
them this sacred character which seems to be denoted by their presence
before the altar of incantations?"
[Footnote 8: Altar for performing incantations.]
Lursac thoughtfully listened to him. With his thoughts dwelling on
these savage hosts in the midst of which the fort and the Mission stood
up like two lost islands he called to mind the counsels of prudence
which the missionary had given them the evening of their arrival. And
suddenly there flashed across him the mysterious fate of Longères and
Dorcel. With some abruptness he asked:
"Don't you think that this may be one of the elements of this unknown
religion whose presence we feel all about us?"
Father Ravennes lighted his pipe. Through the open window, beyond the
bamboos and the trees which surrounded the Mission, the russet-colored
plain was visible, with the widening line of the canal marked by its
border of mangroves, and further away the bulk of the Pou-Kas, holding
up against the luminous sky the dark wildness of its vast flanks.
The missionary, after a long silence, looked at the young man.
"It is a question," said he, "about which I have often thought. It
seems probable, as a matter of fact, that these prehistoric remains do
serve some function in the mysterious religion which holds in its grip
this entire region from the mountain to the plain! Perhaps, indeed, it
is even the very essence of it."
"Perhaps?" enquired Wanda. "Have you never then tried to find out? That
surprises me! It seems that I...."
"Find out! ..." said the missionary with a gesture of weariness, "find
out! Everything that surrounds us here, as I have already told you, is
vague and incomprehensible. We are struggling in a mass of tricks, of
lies and hypocrisies from a race that hates us and of which we know
practically nothing. Find out! I have tried, certainly!... I began by
questioning those who came to me. But directly one touches the subject
one finds oneself at a stone wall. Then if one goes on to speak of this
sorceress, this Jieng, whose power, although it is hidden, is none the
less actual and far-reaching, they tremble and become terrified. Then
if one presses them yet further, they say it is a legend and that there
is no such person as Jieng and never was."
He turned towards the young people.
"However," said he, "you know that I came on them last night with her
in the forest. But she holds them by some sort of magical charm and
religious fear.... Never having been able to get anything out of my
converts, I made up my mind to look for myself. I paid them back trick
for trick, patience for patience. I became desperate, driven by a
curiosity which has gradually turned into a strange mixture of fear and
obsession...."
He broke off to replace the two skulls on the shelf.
"And this is what I finally discovered," he went on. "It's little
enough and it's so vague in meaning that I have almost hesitated
to speak to you about it. It was about three years ago--I had just
arrived, and Post 32 had just been destroyed for the second time--I
was returning from a circuit that I had made towards the mountain and
night had overtaken me on my journey--a summer night, warm, milky and
starlit. I was riding slowly, letting my horse take his own time. When
I got to the bank of the canal I stopped, looking for the ford by which
to cross it. Before me, stretching to the horizon, the plain lay lit
by the moon with that light at once intense and subdued which one sees
only in the night of the far east. Suddenly my attention was drawn to
something unusual: across the sandy hills streamed processions of black
spots, tiny and almost invisible. From the distance it looked like an
army of ants on the march. I made out four, then six, then eight--eight
columns, which, crossing the plain, were advancing directly towards me.
They seemed to come from the extreme edge of the landscape, beyond the
deserted plain in the middle of which the Mission stands. Intrigued,
I turned back into the shade of the forest, hid myself and continued
watching. The eight columns kept on moving. They joined into one the
other side of the canal, crossed it by the ford, mounted the bank
on this side and, passing in front of me, commenced to ascend the
mountain. I followed them carefully, and I noticed with astonishment
that this strange procession was composed exclusively of women. Walking
on the edges of it, a couple of dozen men at most, with lances in their
hands and crossbows on their shoulders, accompanied them. At the head
of the line went a group of sorceresses, dancing and gesticulating,
yelling incomprehensible and strident invocations, and lifting towards
the pallid moon animal-like faces, seamed with scars. When they reached
the threshold of the Sacred Forest they came to a stop. The women lined
up in a vast semicircle and I recognized among them girls of every
age, of every sort and of every race: Reungaos, Halong, Jelung, Benoun
of the great tribe of Banhars; Keumrang, Duan, Hêre, of the powerful
clan of the Sedangs; Djiru, Heun, Oy, Sapuan, who all belong to the
Bolovens.... Every tribe and every dialect of the Moï country was
represented there. A gathering extraordinary and incredible to anyone
who knows the love for their own village and the jealous passion of
separatism with which each of these clans is animated!... And seeing
all these various and dissimilar faces turned towards the sorceresses
with the same expression of submission and anxiety upon them, I first
realized the danger, yes the danger, of an unsuspected religion, and
it was there in that clearing on the border of the Sacred Forest that
suddenly I got some idea of the terrible power wielded by Jieng.
"She had at that moment risen up, lame, her face scarred with wounds,
and with a single gesture she made them all bend, men and women, in one
simultaneous terrified movement of obeisance. Then with a sharp command
she sent the men off. 'No males can enter the Dead Country. Your women
will be returned to you on the seventh night of the fourth moon from
now. Go!' And they went, their heads hanging, without a word; while on
their side the great column of women, re-formed under the directions of
the sorceresses, resumed its march and continued the ascent toward the
Pou-Kas, slowly entering the great forest and disappearing among its
shadows...."
He ceased, took several strides about the room, then still holding in
his eye the vision of the scene which he had just recalled he said:
"That is what I saw.... I know no more!"
Wanda gave a short sigh and asked:
"But where did they go? And what was the meeting for?"
The missionary made a vague gesture.
"I do not know," he said.
Then hesitating and picking his words:
"I imagine,--please notice that I assert nothing because I know
nothing exactly,--I imagine that in the depths of the Pou-Kas there
must be a sanctuary,--a temple perhaps--or it may be only a place of
pilgrimage, to which only women have the right of approach.... Remember
that sentence of Jieng's, 'Males may not enter the Dead Country.'" He
repeated thoughtfully:
"A religion of mystery, peculiar to the women and the secret of which
no man can penetrate, no man, not even those of their own blood!..."
Still seated on the bench, her chin in her hand, Wanda watched him.
With a light burning in her eyes she asked:
"And this temple ... where is it?"
The missionary shrugged his shoulders. He swept his hand across the
window and his gesture seeming to include the whole confused mass of
mountains which stood along the horizon:
"Without any doubt, there!" he said.
Wanda rose. Her lingering glance for a long time searched the blue
slopes of the Pou-Kas, the sharp crest of which, barred with forest and
clothed with jungle, dominated the entire range.
She stood, thoughtful, for a moment, then repeated:
"There!..." And smiled strangely.