The Alienist - Caleb Carr [153]
“Generally,” Wissler answered. “Despite what you may have read, the Sioux don’t show a marked propensity for torture. There are some mutilation rituals, certainly, that involve the living—a man who can prove that his wife has been unfaithful, for example, can cut her nose off to mark her as an adulteress—but such behavior is very strictly regulated. No, most of the terrible things you’ll come across happen to enemies of the tribe who are already dead.”
“And why to them?”
Wissler relit his pipe, being careful to keep the match away from the eagle’s feathers. “The Sioux have a very complex set of myths concerning death and the spirit world. We’re still collecting data and examples and trying to comprehend the entire fabric of their beliefs. But basically, each man’s nagi, or spirit, is gravely affected not only by the way in which the man dies, but by what happens to his body immediately after death. You see, the nagi, before embarking on its long journey to the spirit land, lingers near the body, for a time—preparing for the trip, as it were. The nagi is allowed to take whatever useful implements the man possessed in life, in order to help him on the journey, and to enrich his afterlife. But the nagi also assumes whatever form the body was in at the time of death. Now, if a warrior killed an enemy he admired, he wouldn’t necessarily mutilate his body, because, according to another part of the myth, that dead enemy must serve the warrior in the spirit land—and who wants a mutilated servant? But if the warrior truly hated his enemy, and didn’t want him to enjoy all the pleasures of the spirit land, then he might do some of the things you’re talking about. Castration, for instance—because male spirits can copulate with female spirits in the Sioux vision of the afterlife without the female spirits becoming pregnant. Cutting off the dead man’s genitals, obviously, means he won’t be able to take advantage of that very appealing aspect of the spirit land. There are also games and contests of strength—a nagi without a hand, or without a vital organ, can’t expect to do well in them. We’ve seen many examples of mutilations like that on battlefields.”
“And what about the eyes?” I asked. “The same thinking, in that area?”
“The eyes are somewhat different. You see, the nagi’s journey to the spirit world involves a very perilous test: he must cross a great mythical river on a very narrow log. If the nagi is afraid of this test, or fails it, he must return to our world and wander forever as a lost and forlorn ghost. Of course, a spirit who can’t see stands no chance of making the great trip, and his fate is preordained. The Sioux don’t take this lightly. There are few things they fear more than being lost in this world in the afterlife.”
Kreizler was recording all this in his little notebook, and began to nod as he got this last concept down. “And the differences between the Sioux mutilations and what we’ve described?”
“Well…” Wissler smoked and puzzled. “There are some larger issues, as well as some details, that set the examples you’re giving me apart from Sioux customs. Most importantly, there’s the injury to the buttocks, and the claim to cannibalism. The Sioux, like most Indian tribes, are horrified by cannibalism—it’s one of the things they disdain most about whites.”
“Whites?” I said. “But we’re not—well, let’s be fair, we’re not cannibals.”
“Not usually,” Wissler answered. “But there have been a few notable exceptions that the Indians know about. Remember the Donner party of settlers, in 1847? They got trapped for months without food in a snowbound mountain pass—and some of them ate each other. Made for good stories among the western tribes.”
“But”—I felt the need to protest further—“well, hang it, you can’t base your judgment of an entire culture on what a few people do.”
“Of course you can, Moore,” Kreizler said. “Remember the principle we’ve established for our killer: because of his past experience, his early encounters with a relatively small number of people, he has grown to view the entire world