The priest anointed himself with scented cocoanut oil, and became absorbed in thought. The assemblage waited in breathless silence. We watched him with a fearful interest, for our fate hung upon the end of this strange scene.
In a few minutes a perceptible tremor agitated the old man’s frame. His limbs twitched, and faint, rapid distortions passed over his face, like shadows chasing each other on the water. These gradually increased till a violent muscular action set in; foam appeared upon his lips, and he gasped and sobbed in strong convulsions. He shouted, gnashed his teeth, clenched his hands, swayed himself backwards and forward. He shook from head to foot; his veins swelled till they seemed just about to burst, and his muscles tightened till they threatened to snap. He seemed to be lashed and torn by hurricanes of racking torture.
“Now he is possessed by his god,” it was whispered round, and every ear was strained to catch the first words of the supernatural deliverance.
The excitement was intensified by the priest jerking forth at intervals sundry exclamations about his god, or himself, or both of them together, thus:—“I! I! I! It is I! The god! The god! It is we! We two!” Then, still writhing, trembling, groaning, looking like a mad paralytic kneeling on ground shaken by an earthquake, the people, unable to remain quiet any longer, shouted deliriously, “That is it! See! see! Wonderful! True! There they are! Both of them!”
The climax had now been reached. The priest, with rolling eyes and frenzied voice, screamed, “It is I! It is I! Listen to Dengeh! Trust not the white men. They grow slowly like the nut, and abide—the Fijians like the plantain, and wither in a few days. Hear not the words of the religion they bring. It is the lie of a far away path.”
The divination was clearly against us. We gathered from the satisfied grunts and expressive gestures of our neighbours that we should shortly be clubbed and consigned to the oven.
Meanwhile the priest was gradually recovering from his paroxysm. He looked round with a vacant stare, as though waking from a trance, and as the god uttered the words, “I depart,” violently flung himself down on the ground. He remained quivering for some time, but shortly sat up, took a draught of water, and was himself again.
The chief had been a deeply-interested spectator of the scene, but it seemed to us that he was more moved by the attitude of the people than by the vaticinations of the priest, in whose inspiration it is doubtful if he believed. After some minutes of reflection he remarked, “The god has spoken, but the fate of the white men is not decreed. The priest shall visit the cave of the great Dengeh and show us an omen before the club falls.”
That evening costly offerings of food, clubs, spears, native cloth, &c., were prepared and presented at the mouth of a cave in a neighbouring hill, the road to which was known only to the priest. These valuable articles were afterwards appropriated by the servant of Dengeh. Before the offerings could be presented and the ear of the oracle gained, the priests on these occasions must draw slowly near the holy places in a manner that is most painfully reverential. This they do kneeling, not crawling on all fours, as serfs do when approaching their chiefs—in this country, a process far too easy and pleasant—but “walking” on their knees only, without letting their hands share the burden, and without steadying help from the toes, which dare not touch the ground, however gently, at the peril of their owner. If, unhappily, they flagged in this weary and painful progression, and but once allowed their feet to touch the sacred soil, the god would turn those feet white; while if they ventured to rest or move forward at a quicker pace, by putting their hands on the ground, the incensed Dengeh would cause the land to be stricken with famine.
When the god was consulted as to a declaration of war, the priest bent his ear over the cave and listened attentively for the reply. If there came up from the divine hiding-place a noise like the clash of arms in battle, the priest was bound to declare that war must be the order of the day; but if no sound broke the silence of the god’s retreat he had as plainly to say that for the present at least the tribes might continue in the prosperity and gladness of unbroken peace. If blood were found on the path the following morning it was a sure indication that the god was favourable to war, or demanded human sacrifices. If the priest was desired to pray for rain, and to ask if the time was near when it would be poured down on their thirsty and parched-up lands, bending his ear again towards the Oracle he listens. Should the answer be given in sounds like the gurgling of water streams, he has simply to say, “The drought is at an end my friends, and the land is saved.” The priest was generally an elderly and experienced man, with his “weather eye,” always open, and perhaps also with a somewhat rheumatic body. If the experienced eye could detect in the change of wind or the state of the atmosphere that the rain was not far off, or if the sensitive nerves from sundry twitchings and pains proclaimed it near, it is not difficult to imagine how easily the prophetic ear of the owner of such nerves and eye could hear the gurgling of water streams, and, if need were, even the thunder of mighty falls.