The Flute of the Gods

by Marah Ellis Ryan

The padre heard without special wonder, he had known many primitive people; but Don Diego was lost in amaze as the details were spelled clearly for his understanding.

“It is worship of Pan driven out of Greek temples to find lodging in this wilderness!” and he crossed himself with persistence and energy, and marvelled at the quiet of Padre Vicente. Or, “it is the ancient devils of Babylon to which these heathen give worship––Saint Dominec hear them! They would instruct their very gods in creation!––Blasphemy most damnable!––Blasphemy against the Ghost!”

Whereupon he went in search of his secretary to make record of the abomination, and found that youth witnessing the pagan baptism by which Ysobel was made a daughter of her husband’s clan––each way he turned he found primitive rites bewildering and endless! All work done was done in prayer to their false gods. From the blessing of the seed corn laid away in the husk, until the time when it was put in the earth,––and the first ear ready for the roasting fire––at each and every stage he was told of special 173 ceremonies required,––and as with the corn, so with the human plant––at each distinctive stage in the growth of a man or woman child, open ceremonial thanks was given to their deities whose names were too depraved for any Christian man to remember.

Where the pious Señor Brancedori had expected a virgin field for a wondrous mission, he found an ancient province with ceremonies complicated as any of ancient Hebrew or Greek tradition. Each little toddler of the clan put forth a baby hand to touch the head of Ysobel in sign of welcome, and one woman came whose brow was marked with piñon gum––and he was told that the sign was that of maternity;––all who were to be mothers must wear a prayer symbol to the Maiden Mother of the god who was born of a dream in the shadow of the piñon tree!

“Do I myself dream while wide awake, or do I hear this thing?” he demanded of José, in sore distress to divide the false from the true, and impress the last on those well satisfied minds. “Is it miracles as well as sorcery their misled magicians make jugglery of? When did this thing happen of which the shameless wenches parade the symbol?”

Yahn asked of an aged Te-hua man the question, and the man squatted in the sun and began ceremoniously:

“Han-na-di Set-en-dah-nh! It was in the ancient day when the people yet abode in the cliff dwellings of the high land. It was the time of the year when the stars danced for the snow, and as the time of the Maid-Mother came close, the sun hid his face a little more each day, and the longest night of all the nights in the year was the time of that birth of the god Po-se-yemo. The sun went away on the south trail and would not look on the earth until the god-child 174 was born, for the Maid-Mother was much troubled, and the sun was sad because of her trouble. That is how it was, and each year the people remember that time, and make ready for the twilight trail if the god in the sun should not come again from the south,––but each time the sun god listens to the prayers and comes back and all are very glad. Han-na-di Set-en-dah-nh!”

Maestro Diego seated himself in a disconsolate mood at this artifice of Satan thus to engraft heathen rubbish on the childish minds of the natives:––for that they did lean on that faith the mark of the piñon symbol was a witness before his eyes! It was a thing to dishearten even a true believer, and he feared much that Padre Vicente passed over many signs of the devil worship each hour––not realizing that it must be dug out, root and branch, ere the planting of the cross would mean aught but the Ways of the Four Winds to these brown builders of stone and mortar, and weavers of many clothes!

Juan Gonzalvo found him there disconsolate.

“Not any wondrous thing of the Blessed Twelve can you recite to the animals and win even a surprise,” he lamented to this pious comrade in the cause.––“To tell them that the eye of their creator watches them from the skies is to bring only a retort that the great god has as many eyes as the stars––and sees through all of them at once! Their deceitful visions are such that even the miracles make naught of wonder in their darkened souls. They are not of doubting minds like to Thomas the tardy!––they accept all the records of the Faith as they would accept a good dinner––and then tell you that the fair victuals in the pot had been cooked by themselves time out of mind in a different, and more seasonable way! Everything 175 but Satan himself do they believe, him they deny previous acquaintance with until told by me of his reality!––but in secret there is not any doubt that they do give him worship since he of course inspires their devilish heresies. Padre Vicente has the work of a saint facing him in this place, since only a miracle can make them Christian men!”