As we in the audience sat in our leather chairs, wreathed in cigar smoke, one eminent scientist pointed out that we were being overlooked by the disapproving portrait of Sir Isaac Newton. And well he might have disapproved, for Sir Frank Dyson told us, in his opening speech, that there seemed, at last, to be a unique opportunity to verify a certain prediction made by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
The prediction of the theory is that a ray of light from a distant star would be deflected when it was close to the gravitational field of the sun. Final proof from physical experiments is needed to test and clinch the theory beyond doubt.
Sir Arthur Eddington is to be excused from joining his fellow Quakers peeling potatoes in camps in northern England on the following condition. Should the Great War be finished by May, 1919, he must undertake to organise an expedition for the purposes of verifying Einstein’s prediction.
The tall figure of Eddington himself then rose to address the excited audience.
‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. Let me proceed directly with the matter in hand.
‘The bending of light affects stars near the sun and accordingly the only chance of making the observation is during a total eclipse of the sun, when the moon cuts off the dazzling light. Even then, there is a great deal of light from the sun’s corona which stretches far above the disc. It is thus necessary to have rather bright stars near the sun, which will not be lost in the glare of the corona. Further, the displacement of these stars can only be measured relatively to other stars, preferably more distant from the sun and less displaced. We need, therefore, a reasonable number of outer bright stars to serve as reference points.
‘Any astronomer today, consulting the stars, would announce the most favourable day for weighing light as May 29th, 1919. The reason is that the sun in its annual journey around the ecliptic goes through fields of stars of varying richness, but on May 29th, it is in the midst of a quite exceptional patch of bright stars – part of the Hyades – by far the best starlit field encountered.
‘Now if this problem had been put forward at some other period of history, it might have been necessary to wait some thousands of years for a total eclipse of the sun to happen on that lucky date. But by strange good fortune, such an eclipse is forecast to take place on May 29th, 1919.
‘This eclipse will not be visible in Europe. The total eclipse will only be visible over a narrow band of the earth’s surface some hundred miles wide, a tiny proportion of the earth’s surface area. The track of the eclipse will fall across the southern Guiana highlands and the north-east of Brazil as well as the island of Principe off the African coast.
‘We hope to send expeditions to Brazil and Africa to photograph the eclipse and thus to obtain the final verification of Einstein’s theory.’
McKinnon gave a whoop and put down the paper. He went over to a drawer where he kept a calendar. The trouble was he had no idea what the date was. Blast it, he thought, Father Napier has already left to convert the Wai-Wai. Father Napier was the only person who would have any notion of the precise date. McKinnon knew it was 1919. And he knew it was May, but no more.
It was an opportunity that no amateur photographer could miss. Even if the total eclipse was not entirely visible from Waronawa – to be a hundred per cent sure of seeing it he should be a little further south – he would be able to take some fine photographs of a partial eclipse.
He sent one of the children to find Maba and Zuna. They came and stood on the stairs while he told them excitedly about the expected solar eclipse.
‘You must alert me at the first sight of it so that I can take photographs.’
Maba fell stonily silent at the news. Her spirits sank. An eclipse too, she remembered, was a brother and sister coming together and eloping. It seemed there was no way to avoid what was happening.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked McKinnon, surprised by the silence of the two sisters.
Zuna explained.
‘We wouldn’t too much like an eclipse,’ she said, as if McKinnon could arrange to have it cancelled. ‘An eclipse is a disgrace. It brings chaos. Monsters come out of the bush and attack people. The big anacondas that float in the rivers, when an eclipse comes, they lift their great heads up to the sky. Even the dead rise up to see what is happening. And everything can change into something else. Animals into people. People into animals. The dead and the living all mix up.’
Maba had hurried back downstairs.
McKinnon went back eagerly to sit down and read more about the preparations being made for the expeditions.
The scientists would be laden with clocks, coelostats and the object glasses of astrographic telescopes. The carpenter employed by the Observatory had not yet been released from military service and so a civil engineer at the Royal Naval College had undertaken the construction of frame huts covered with canvas that were easily put together. A joiner had been loaned as well to deal with the woodwork of the instruments. The small mirrors had been silvered at the Observatory, but it was necessary to send the large ones away to be silvered. Photographic plates would be suitably packed in hermetically sealed tin boxes. All the instruments were to be packed in cases inside hampers.
It dawned on McKinnon that he did not know whether or not the Great War was over. If the war was still going on and the expeditions could not take place, he might be the only person to photograph the eclipse. Then he realised that his equipment was not good enough to take pictures that would prove Einstein’s theory. However, he cheered himself with the thought that there was no harm in trying. He hurried downstairs to make sure that he had enough supplies of film and developing fluid.
The eclipse. A loss. A forsaking.
Maba developed a blinding headache. She poked a piece of razor grass into her nose to make it bleed, but the pain in both sides of her head persisted until she went to sleep alone in her hammock. Zuna slept in the hammock next to her. McKinnon slept in the bed, also alone. The night was too hot and sticky to tolerate anyone’s embrace.
And so it came about that, at the same time, although for very different reasons, one constellation, the Hyades, also known as part of Tamukang, came under the simultaneous gaze of a group of European scientists and a few Amerindians in the south savannahs and the southern bush of Guiana.
Which came first, the equation or the story?
The story, of course.
The Dirty Face of the Moon
Father Napier was in high spirits as he packed up to leave St Ignatius and set off on his mission to convert the Wai-Wai. Although he was several months later than he had intended, at last he was ready. Happily, his chafed neck, caused by the rubbing of his priest’s collar, had been cured just in time by a woman who gave him a concoction of aloes to rub on it.
He planned to cross Wapisiana country, go through Taruma territory, although there were few Taruma left now, and from there strike into the deep forest of the far south, if necessary into Brazil, to bring news of Christ to the Wai-Wai. He hoped to be back by the end of May.
On the journey, he was taking with him Titus, a lugubrious Macusi with a dry sense of humour, and Titus’s two young sons, both of whom had the brown, slanting eyes of young agouti. He was also bringing three rather silent Taruma Indian brothers to translate the Wai-Wai language for him and a cheerfully energetic Wapisiana man called Siriko who wanted to make the journey to acquire some of the famed Wai-Wai graters.
The party set off. From Aishalton, they walked quickly through the last part of the savannahs. The two youngsters went running on ahead, always able to find the trail even though they had never been there before. When the trail forked, they would split up and each would take one of the forks until one or the other was certain he had hit the right track and would then call out to his brother.
The two boys walked in single file, chattering, always able to distinguish horse tracks from cattle or deer tracks and to tell how old the tracks were. The older boy was telling the younger one why the sun is supposed to be so pale at tha
t time of year.
‘He goes a long way away on a trading journey to a place where some rivers meet. He’s looking to buy milk and salt. He gets drunk and weak and he’s vomiting and spitting.’ The boy, who was leading the way, jumped and staggered around imitating the drunken sun and the younger one grinned. ‘Then he’s captured and put in an upturned pot. His sons, Macunaima and Chico, are searching everywhere for him when Chico sees the light just glinting out from under the rim of the pot. He takes a gun and shatters the pot – “pow” – to set his father free. The sun goes up to the sky again but he’s still pale and it takes a while for him to get his strength back.’
As they plunged into the gloom of the forest, Father Napier noticed that the Taruma men seemed to cheer up. It turned out that they did not entirely trust the Wapisiana through whose territory they were travelling.
Now the men went ahead of the boys and told them to stop chattering. Every stream had dried up and the only way to find water was to dig in a dried bed. That night, the Taruma men, annoyed at being unable to find water for cooking, travelled on ahead while the rest of the party set up camp. Father Napier could not imagine how the Tarumas found their way through such dense forest in the dark.
The next morning, the rest of the party made their way out of the forest into a small area of savannah. The sight of the sky after walking in the gloom sent the boys sky-larking around. The breeze blew fresh and sweet. One of the boys found a shiny black scorpion, six inches long, and killed it with a rock.
The Tarumas were already squatting on the ground, eating. They called everyone over to share the food. Next to them on the ground was a crocodile with a huge, square piece cut out of its underbelly. Father Napier said grace and then chewed on the meat which tasted like fish but had the texture of leather.
After they had eaten, Father Napier insisted that they say thank you to God. He explained as best as he could in his halting Macusi what was required. Titus, the Macusi, looked confused and spoke in Wapisiana to Siriko who in turn spoke to the Tarumas. Only then did Father Napier remember being advised that none of the languages had a word for thank you. In the end, when they had all finished eating, Titus, trying to oblige, held the palm of his hand to the sky and said bluntly: ‘That’s enough, god.’
They moved on. The Kudiuwini River had dried up further down and so they had to make their way overland through another stretch of forest to the Kassikaitiu River. When they camped at night, the Indians lay in their hammocks and tried to learn each other’s languages. Father Napier listened, astounded by their talent for mimicry and ventriloquism. Each man took it in turns to imitate a wild animal or bird and then name it in his own language.
Father Napier frowned as he lay in his hammock. He had been preoccupied with the difficulty of teaching the gospel in these languages. The Portuguese Jesuits in Brazil had warned him of the problem.
‘These people think entirely in the concrete. You will have difficulty preaching the Christian gospel in languages that have no word for sin, virtue, mercy, kindness, truth, joy, please, thank you or sorry. The Wapisiana do not even have a word for friend.’
Father Napier had tried to learn a little Wapisiana from Danny when he was first at Waronawa, some years earlier.
‘What is the word for sorry in Wapisiana?’ he had asked.
Danny had looked blank. The priest put it another way.
‘What would you say to me if you accidentally trod on my foot?’
‘I would say what a stupid place to leave a foot,’ replied Danny.
They reached the Kassikaitiu and to Father Napier’s relief, Titus found an old corial which meant they could paddle downriver to the Taruma village of Barakako.
Just before they reached the village, Siriko the Wapisiana gave a shout for the boat to be brought into land. He had spotted some tracks. They got out and groped their way up the low bank. At the top of the bank stood two rackety sheds with a few old dried palm leaves covering the roofs.
‘You know Danny McKinnon from Waronawa?’ asked Siriko after inspecting the ground close to the sheds.
‘I most certainly do,’ replied the priest. ‘I know the whole family well.’
‘He was staying here with his sister until a few days ago.’ Siriko pointed out their prints.
‘What are they doing all the way down here?’ asked Father Napier. He had skirted round Waronawa on his way south and knew nothing of their disappearance.
Siriko shrugged.
‘They are living close,’ he said, betraying nothing from his expression.
‘Oh you mean they are somewhere nearby?’ Father Napier’s blue eyes sparkled with pleasure. The McKinnons would be good company if they were travelling in his direction.
‘No. They are living close,’ Siriko repeated, leaving Father Napier puzzled as to exactly what he meant. There was a double row of shelves in one of the sheds. ‘They waited here until the shelves were filled with baskets of farine before they continued their journey. They are some way ahead of us.’
Father Napier hoped that he would catch up with them.
Next to the sheds were the charred remains of another Indian house. The occupants had clearly set fire to it and left.
They paddled the short distance to the village of Barakako. The village was out of their way but it was the only place where they could stock up with supplies. Father Napier used the time they were obliged to wait for supplies of cassava and farine to hold mass and instruction in the shed by the waterside.
It was eight days before they approached the first Wai-Wai village along a tributary of the Essequibo. Kabaikidiu, their final goal, was still some distance away across several mountains, some of which would take three hours to climb and another three to descend on the other side.
The fine weather had broken. A mist of rain drifted across the waters as they paddled along against the current. The trees nearly met overhead, forming a lofty fretwork of grey sky. On either side, dense banks of foliage, dripping with water, sloped down to the river. Giant green water lilies, their ridged sides turned up like pastry flans, nearly sank under the weight of the water. Father Napier felt chilled and damp. The seats in the boat were wet and uncomfortable. He suffered cramp in his buttocks. Something flapped over the surface of the river. The priest could not even recognise what species of creature it was. It could have been some sort of duck, a bird, a frog or a huge butterfly.
Then Father Napier caught his first glimpse of some Wai-Wai people in a canoe. The canoe shot out unexpectedly from the concealed entrance of a stream. Standing at the bow of the canoe was a boy whose appearance made Father Napier draw his breath in admiration.
The boy’s hair was long, flowing and jet black. To the priest’s eye he seemed so handsome that he thought immediately that the boy should be a model for a portrait of Christ. That night he wrote in his diary: ‘I have never seen a boy or girl so exquisitely beautiful.’
The canoe hovered near them for a few moments while the occupants of the two boats studied each other, then the Wai-Wai turned and disappeared back into the sidewaters. Most of them had been wearing ornate feather ornaments.
‘Like apparitions from a story-book,’ Father Napier wrote in his diary.
It rained heavily. The bush was sodden and dripping when they eventually reached the part of the forest where Kabaikidiu was situated. They had walked through the trees for several hours. As they approached the village, the rain cleared and the bell-bird began to announce sunshine with its twanging, metallic call like a zither. From deeper inside the forest, Father Napier heard what sounded to him like a piccolo. Through his interpreter, he asked the children who had run to meet him whether someone was playing the flute.
‘Kuparuko.’ That, they told him, was a bird. But then they explained that Wai-Wai men do also play the flute when they are entering or leaving the village.
It was humid and sticky after the rain. As usual when it rained, the hem of Father Napier’s soutane was soaked and heavy as they entered the
clearing where the village was built.
The villagers were awaiting his arrival. All the men of the village wore their hair long, loose if they were young, plaited if they were older. The plaits ended in a foot-long tube decked with feathers. Some wore small bunches of blue and yellow macaw feathers and humming-bird feathers as ear-rings. Some wore scarlet macaw feathers stuck through their top lip. Others had stiff, long, black powis feathers dangling from armlets. A few had the white down of the harpy eagle stuck in their hair over their foreheads.
Nobody took much notice of the visitors, except the children. The Taruma immediately engaged in a long conversation with the touchau of the village, outlining every detail of what had happened on the journey.
That afternoon, Father Napier wasted no time before starting to indoctrinate the children by his usual method. He gathered them together and taught them an ‘action’ song. Soon all the children were joining in with him clapping and shouting ‘Bang-bang’ as he showed them what to do. Then he sat them in a circle and taught them the tune of ‘How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds’ amidst much laughing and giggling.
At nightfall, Father Napier found himself preparing to sling his hammock in the enormous cone-shaped building about eighty foot high and eighty foot across, which housed some forty men and women. As he prepared to sleep, he was almost overwhelmed by the dank, pungent smell of damp thatch mixed with the reek of woodsmoke. The proximity of so many people made him feel uncomfortable.
People’s hammocks were slung close to the wall and near to each other. Eight or ten fires blazed on the floor, lighting up the underbellies of the hammocks and throwing moving shadows on the walls.
The hunting dogs, for which the Wai-Wai were renowned, slept on shelves built into the circular walls. Every now and then, someone who was responsible for a dog’s training would run with the animal into the forest for it to do its toilet. One of the Wai-Wai was explaining to Titus, through the Taruma interpreter, the precise circumstances of every single animal his dog had ever tracked down.
The Ventriloquist's Tale Page 16