other, body and soul, as it were. That’s why head-hunting is such a wide spread custom among savages all over the world. Yes, I know the question that’s in your mind. Why didn’t the Xinguays take heads? I asked myself the same question, but it’s easy to answer. Their only enemies were the head-hunters whom they believed to be devils. And as devils aren’t supposed to have souls nothing could be gained by taking their heads. And even if by some chance they did have souls, they would be dangerous things to have about. Besides, most of the head-hunters were killed by the Death Drum, so there weren’t any heads to collect.
I COULD tell you a lot about the Xinguays—interesting ethnological stuff—but that must wait. If I can ever get this damnable hammering of the Death Drum out of my ears, and can shake off the horror of it by telling about it, I’ll write a monograph on the Xinguays. And they weren’t a bad lot—not when I came to know them and understand them. But they were an amazing paradoxical people—absolutely primitive in some ways and far advanced in others. Still in the stone age, but with that infernal Death Drum which was ahead of anything our scientists have invented in the way of weapons. And they believed in a human soul and in heaven and hell and a hereafter. Yes, and in a supreme being—a Creator, too? Of course I know the Incas had that same belief; but I’ll swear the Xinguays had never been in touch with the Incans. Fact is, I don’t believe they were Indians—really. I’m positive they were Semitic—descendants of some wanderers from eastern Europe of the Mediterranean who reached South America ages ago and became isolated in the interior. But that’s neither here nor there. I mustn’t bore you with my suppositions and theories.
I don’t know how long I lived with the Xinguays. Time didn’t seem to matter much. And always the one thing uppermost in my mind was to get away—get back to civilization. Queer, isn’t it? All my life, pretty nearly, I’d been getting away from civilization whenever I could—crazy to be in the bush, among uncivilized tribes of men. And then, when I was there in the heart of the Pajonal and among primitive savages, I was mad to get away. I don’t know why, either. I had everything I really wanted—good food, a comfortable house, everyone trying to please me, nothing to worry about—even a dozen wives or more if I had wanted them. Maybe it was that damned Death Drum. I seemed to hear it all the time. I woke up in the night, shaking, clammy with horror from nightmares in which I felt it tearing at my brain, felt it disintegrating my bones. I tried to force myself to throw off my terror of the thing, to forget the unspeakable horrors I had witnessed. I told myself that death was death, no matter how it came to one, that what happened to a human body after life had fled didn’t matter. I argued to myself that it wasn’t any worse than the electric chair, that a high explosive shell could create horrors beyond anything I had seen, and that I had no need to fear the thing.
Effects of the Death Drum on the Mind
BUT it wasn’t any use. I guess the vibrations must have affected my brain when I got a touch of them that first day. But I wasn’t crazy. I was sane enough in every other way—too sane, perhaps. If I had been mad it might have been easier. During the day it wasn’t so bad. I kept my mind busy, you see. I could forget things while studying the language and the customs and beliefs of the tribe. And I taught them a lot of things—showed them how to make pottery, how to set up a loom and weave really good cloth, how to improve their weapons. I even introduced crossbows. If there had been any metallic ores available I would have fixed up a smelter of some sort. But everything was volcanic of course.
I had steel tools—made them out of the machetes and the extra guns and pistols. That was some job, but it helped to kill a lot of time. First I had to make charcoal. Then a forge and bellows. After I had managed to cut a rifle barrel into sections the rest wasn’t so hard. It was just a matter of progression. Stone hammer and machete for cutting the heated steel. A light steel hammer, a heavier one, to forge. Cold chisels next. Then other tools. Each one I finished made the next one easier. I even managed a saw—pretty crude but it would cut timber, and files of sorts. Knives and spear and arrow heads were easy. And the lock-springs of the guns were transformed into fish hooks. Of course, all this settled all doubts as to my status as a god. And I had another purpose in view. I thought that if I rose high enough in the estimation of the people, and if I provided them with superior weapons and utensils, I might eventually induce them to do away with their Death Drum But I came near to getting myself into a nasty mess when I suggested that. I hadn’t realized or understood it before, but it seemed that the infernal contrivance was sacred. It was more than a fetish. The Xinguays actually believed a special god lived'in the thing—a sort of guardian spirit—who came out and destroyed their enemies when they pounded on his home.
I had been so filled with horror of the thing that I hadn’t even mentioned it before—much less investigated it or questioned the Xinguays about it. But this new phase of the matter aroused my interest. For the first time I began to realize matters I had overlooked. Why was it that they possessed only one of the beastly things? Why weren’t there a lot of them? And how had these savages—who were so primitive in all other ways, invented and constructed the device? But they didn’t know the answer any more than I did. The Death-Drum had always been there, they said. They didn’t even have any tradition as to who made it or when it was made. Perhaps that’s why they regarded it as so sacred—as the abode
