After an hour or so of this monotonous dirge and occasional tapping of the drum, which is evidently meant to quicken the decision of the god, the man who has been as silent and as motionless as a statue begins to slightly sway from side to side. The taps on the drum now become more rapid and more vigorous, and ere long the wretched man becomes convulsed and falls on the ground as though he were in a fit.
The scene is ended, and the god, it is believed, has entered and taken possession of the man, and now whenever he speaks officially he does so as its inspired oracle, and his utterances are accepted as though they had been spoken by the idol itself.
One would naturally imagine that candidates for this exalted position would come from among men of culture and refinement, and that the highest in the land would eagerly desire a position where they would be so thoroughly in communication with the supernatural and be recognized by their countrymen as worthy of the highest places in the religion of the masses. But this is not the case. No scholar would ever dream of demeaning himself and of rendering himself contemptible in the eyes of the literary classes by consenting to become an interpreter of the gods. No respectable citizen would agree either for himself or for any member of his family to degrade himself by accepting such a position.
The men that actually are employed are opium-smokers who have lost their property in their indulgence of the popular vice, and as a last resort have come to the point of bearing the stigma and the disgrace connected with the office in order to get the gains that come to them when they are doing duty in the temple. If by some accident they should not have acquired the habit of opium-smoking, then it may be taken for granted that they are persons of no moral standing in the community—gamblers, loafers, or hangers-on to the outskirts of society, and such like.
Such are the men that assume the sacred office of being so inspired by the gods that they shall be qualified to carry messages from the invisible world to those who are in sorrow and distress, and who can find comfort only in the thought that the unseen powers are working on their behalf. That their new position does not affect in the slightest degree their moral character is seen by the lives they lead after they have undergone the process of being specially inspired by the idols to qualify for the delicate office of interpreting their very thoughts to their worshippers.
They are lazy and idle and profligate. Their leisure time, which is extensive, is spent in gambling and in occupations entirely unsuited to their sacred character. They have been known to make excursions during the darkness of the night when honest men are in their beds and dig up people’s potatoes, or, if no obstacles occur, to despoil a farmer’s henroost of all the birds in it. There certainly is a Nemesis that attends the irregular lives of these regular clergy of the idols, for they have not only an evil reputation, but according to popular report death invades their families until one after another is taken away and the home becomes extinct. That this happens often enough to warrant the tradition is quite evident to those who have studied the question. It is also a remarkable fact, that whilst these men who are the ministers of the idols are looked down upon with contempt, the gods who select and employ them are never censured by the public or considered to be involved in the evils of their servants.
It is a strange system that allows men of a low and depraved character to be the chief actors in the spiritual movements of a nation, but it is on a par with the fact that in the worship of the idols, goodness or reformation in heart or life is never required from a single worshipper. The bad man brings his offering without any promise that there will be a change in his life, and it is apparently accepted just as freely as that of another whose reputation stands high amongst all classes of the community. This latter fact is a sufficient explanation of how it is possible for such men as now act as interpreters of the gods to be tolerated in the service of the temples at all.
A TYPICAL VILLAGE.