The Smuggler Chief: A Novel

by Gustave Aimard

At the end of the temple is a space closed by heavy curtains, to which the public are refused admission. These curtains conceal the entrance of a flight of steps leading to vast vaults that run underneath the temple, and to which the priests alone have the right to descend. The ground is covered with leaves and flowers, which are daily renewed.

On the south side of the square stands the Ulmen Faré, or Palace of the Chief. It is merely a succession of reception rooms, in which everybody has a right to appear, and of immense courtyards which serve for the martial exercises of the nation. A separate building, to which visitors are not admitted, is occupied by the chief's family, and the building serves as an arsenal and contains all the weapons of the nations, from Indian bows and arrows, sagaies, lances and shields, up to European sabres, swords, and muskets, which the Indians, after fearing them so greatly, have now learned to employ as well as ourselves, if not better.

On the same square is the famous Jouimion Faré, or Palace of the Vestals, where the Virgins of the Sun live and die. No man, the high priest excepted, is allowed to enter the interior of this building, which is reserved for the maidens devoted to the sun: a terrible death would immediately punish the daring man who attempted to transgress this law.

The life of the Indian virgins has many points of resemblance with that of the nuns who people European convents. They are immured, take an oath of perpetual chastity, and pledge themselves never to speak to a man, unless he be their father or brother, and in that case, are only allowed to converse with him through a paling in the presence of a third person, and must carefully hide their faces.

When they appear in public and are present at the religious festivals in the temple, they are veiled from head to foot. A vestal convicted of having allowed a man to see her face is condemned to death. In the interior of their abode, they occupy themselves with feminine tasks, and fervently perform the rites of their religion. The vows are voluntary: a maiden cannot be admitted among the Virgins of the Sun until the high priest has acquired the certainty that no one has forced her to take this determination, and that she is really following her vocation.

Lastly, the fourth palace, situate on the east side of the square, is the most splendid and at the same time most gloomy of all. It is the Houdaskon Faré, or Palace of the Genii, and serves as the residence of the Sayotkatta and piaies. It is impossible to express the mysterious, sad, and cold air of this residence, whose windows are covered with a trelliswork of osiers, so closely interwoven that it almost entirely obstructs the light of day.

A gloomy silence perpetually prevails in this enclosure, but at times, in the middle of the night, sleeping Indians are aroused in terror by strange clamours, which seem to issue from the interior of the Houdaskon Faré. What is the life of the men who inhabit it?—in what do they pass their time? No one knows. Woe to the imprudent man who, desirous of information on this point, might try to detect secrets of which he ought to be ignorant.

If the vow of chastity is imposed on the vestals it does not exist for the piaies; still few of these marry, and all abstain from any ostensible connexion with the other sex. The novitiate of the priests lasts ten years, and it is only at the expiration of that period, and after undergoing numberless trials, that the novices assume the title of piaies. Till then they can recall their determination, and embrace another profession; but such cases are extremely rare. It is true that, if they took advantage of the permission, they would be infallibly assassinated by the priests, through a fear of a part of their secrets being revealed to laymen. However, they are greatly respected by the Indians, by whom they continue to make themselves loved; and we may say that next to the Ulmen, the Sayotkatta is the most powerful man in the tribe.

Among peoples where religion is so formidable a lever, it is remarkable that the spiritual and temporal powers never clash; each knows how far his attributes extend, and follows the line traced for him without trying to encroach on the rights of the other. Thanks to this intelligent diplomacy, priests and chiefs work amicably together, and double each other's strength.

Now that we have made our readers acquainted with Garakouaïti, let us end this chapter by saying that Tcharanguii, according to his desires, found in the Sayotkatta Schymi-Tou a complacent ally, who promised him on his head to watch with scrupulous attention over the prisoners whom he undertook to hold in trust.