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.The village gods, it seemed, were simply there, and that was that.They played no part, and were not invited into the ordinary affairs of the village.Nor did the villagers presume to concern themselves with the affairs of their gods.Casca sat down on a great carved head.No, he thought, this doesn't look like the place for the Messiah to make his next call.The temple became the main topic of the meetings in the chief's house.From here and there around the room came scraps of information, practical and impractical suggestions, jokes, banter, and idle, irrelevant gossip.One man said that his share of the roof thatch would be cut and delivered into the village before the moon was full.But various others—there seemed to be many—said they could not deliver the thatch until the moon had waned, some said to half.Various other men gave varying times for delivery of the poles for the framework for the walls and roof.Semele listened with equal respect and attention to every speaker, and asked his usual slow, casual, but pointed questions.Lanata, the new farmer chief, was sitting next to Semele, and he gave a little speech that brought laughter from all around the room.It seemed the farmers who would be late with their share of the thatch were those who, during the planting season, had preferred to spend their time fishing, as a school of large grouper had appeared just outside the reef.Lanata wagged his finger at these farmers, holding them up to ridicule before the rest of the village as a bad example and a warning of how neglect of duty by a few could inconvenience or harm the whole village.The offenders laughed as readily as any as their dereliction was paraded, but Casca got the impression that it might be some years before they again let the early part of a planting season slip by.Dukuni, the fisherman chief, suggested that if they really enjoyed fishing so much, they should join the fishermen when there were no fat, lazy, easy-to-catch grouper.Every tiny fish had to be worked for, and any sort of came only after long hours of tedious waiting and repeated disappointments.The demolition of the old temple now became a matter of paramount importance, for reasons Casca didn't know.A huge hole was now excavated all around the central pole, and as the hole deepened, all the huskiest men—including Semele and Mbolo— would jump down into it and try to free the pole from the remaining earth.Casca joined in the competition.At first the efforts were playful, merely ceremonial, the dislodging of the great buried length being nearly impossible.But as the diggers exposed each new carved head, the efforts became more serious, and eventually Casca discerned that they were getting to the point where it might be possible for a man to heft free the post's length of something like sixty feet.There was à frightful stench in the bottom of the hole, which grew stronger as more and more of the pole was exposed.Casca's inquiry about it was met with a blank stare and the simple reply: "Te kanaka —the man."So, a dead man was buried with the pole.Well, that didn't surprise Casca too much.But he wondered if the building of the new temple would wait upon the death of somebody in the village.Presumably it would be an honor to be so buried, and such an honor might be reserved for someone of importance.Mbolo, for example, was certainly honored, but he was clearly in the best of health and spirits as Casca watched, him heaving mightily at the pole from the bottom of the hole.Casca was pretty sure that he himself was the strongest man in the village, as he normally was wherever he went.It also seemed to him that luck would play a considerable part, since once there was little enough of the pole still buried to make its removal possible, each successive try would be of assistance to the next in freeing up the earth's hold on the pole.He wanted to win, as he would have wished to win any such test of strength, but he had a deeper reason.In his determination to avoid the job of chief, Casca had now adopted a pushy, ambitious sort of demeanor, seeking preferment and self-promotion wherever it was offered, making it evident, he thought, that he was of that unreliable type, the kind easily corrupted by a small taste of power.He hoped to win this contest of strength and then strut and swagger about the village so insufferably that the villagers would not only not consider him for Semele's job, but would be pleased to assist him when he announced his intention to depart the island.Luck was on his side [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]