Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [131]
"What's the religion like?" Benoway asked.
"Primarily it's a monument to man's perversity. There is no place on earth where living is so easy as on these islands. They are rich, laden with food, and before the white man came, inordinately healthy. No one had to work, for the world was full of fruit and vegetables, and in the woods there was enough wild boar for everyone. You would have to call it a paradise, even though most of you may never want to see it again.
"But there was one flaw. Amid all this luxury there was no reason for living. That may sound like a silly statement, but it is literally true. There was no reason for living. Men fought bravely, but they didn't collect heads to prove it. They ate one another, but when the meal was done, it was done. They traveled nowhere. They built nothing. But most of all they worshipped no gods. There was nothing in life bigger than they were. Like all people, they had some vague idea of life after death, but their conceptions were not what we call codified. All they had were some rough rules of behavior. Don't kill women. Truce in battle. Things like that. But up here," the chaplain said, tapping his temple, "there was a void. There was no reason for doing anything."
"Are you making this up?" Fry asked in a whimsical manner.
"Oh, no!" the chaplain assured him. "All a matter of record. What do you suppose these people living in their earthly paradise did? Believe it or not, they decided to make life more difficult for themselves. They created, at one swoop, something to live for. Now believe me when I tell you that they took one of the commonest things in their acquaintance, one of the dirtiest: a jungle pig. And they made that pig the center of their aspirations. In one shot they built themselves a god. And the important thing about it is this: When the pig was dead and had some eating value, it was no longer of any merit. Then it wasn't a god any more. Only when the pig lived in his filthy misery, and grew tusks back into his own face, and ate your crops, and took your time, and frightened you when he got sick, only then was the pig a god! In other words, the most carefree people on earth consciously made their lives more difficult, more unhappy, and much more complex." The chaplain stopped and stared eastward at Vanicoro. The sacred island was dim and symmetrical in the morning light. Clouds hung over the topmost volcano where the sacred lake was hidden.
"Are you getting seasick?" the chaplain asked.
"I feel pretty good so far," Benoway replied.
"That's quite a story, chaplain," Tony said.
"This interesting part is still to come," the slightly green chaplain said. "I think I'd better stand over here by the rail. Not only did the natives say that their god had spiritual value only so long as he was a burden. They also say that no pig has social value until it is given away to a friend. If you eat your own pig, you are a glutton and a miser. If you give your pig to somebody else to eat, you're a great man."
"Somewhat like the old Christian religions," Tony mused.
"Very similar," the chaplain agreed. "True spirituality has usually seen that man is happier giving than getting."
"What changed that in our civilization?" Fry asked.
"Some sort of compromise with progress. If you give away all the time, you lose the incentive to gain more, and the incentive to gain is the incentive to create. American civilization has grown too far toward the creating and too far away from the giving. It'll adjust later on. It'll have to. Men will go mad from too much getting. They always have in the past."
"On the other hand," Fry argued, "you'll have to admit that the Melanesian ideal of all giving hasn't produced much."
The chaplain nodded and swept his hand about the horizon. "In these islands you have the lowest ebb of civilization in the world. I don't think mankind can sink much lower than these people. Of course, sink is an unfair word. They never reached a point any higher than they are now. Even the Solomon Islanders are ahead of these people."
The crash boat