Читать книгу Lolóma, or two years in cannibal-land. A story of old Fiji онлайн

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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.