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We then visited a smaller god-house: this the 8th regiment had converted into a theatre. Very little traces of a holy temple were discernible; and the great Fo occupied a corner of the green-room. The scenes were painted in fresco, and the whole affair was very tolerably arranged. Most part of the scenery had been painted by my brother during his stay at this port in the Cambrian.
"'Why do you come to the god-house with baskets, like laborers of the fields? he demanded. "'For the price of our labor, O Cacique, said the Shaman. 'The gods are not so poor that they accept labor for nothing. "'Now, it is come into my heart, said the Cacique sourly, 'that the gods are not always pleased to be served by strangers. There are signs that this is so.
He was on the platform in front of the god-house where the steps go up to the Hill of the Sun, and the elders of the town were behind him. Priests of the Sun stood on the steps and the Corn Women came out from the temple of the Corn. As Waits-by-the-Fire went up with the Seven, the people closed in solidly behind them. The Cacique looked at the carriers on their backs and frowned.
I directed the artificers who were engaged on the works of the Great Throne, and the God-house, which is built of granite and shall last like the firmly fixed pillars of the sky, made by Maātkarā, &c. He made me the director of his palace, knowing that I was experienced in affairs.
"That was a true name for many of us," said the Mound-Builder. "I remember Ongyatasse's shrill eagle cry above the 'G'we! G'we! of the Lenni-Lenape, and the next thing I knew I was struggling in the river, bleeding freely from a knife wound, and somebody was pulling me into a canoe and safety." "And Ongyatasse ?" The children looked at the low mound between the Council Place and the God-House.
That was as we were taught. With us, the hand is not lifted until the head has spoken. But as it turned out, between Tallegewi and Lenape, the fighters had the best of it." He sighed, making the salutation to the dead as he looked off, across the burial-grounds, to the crumbling heap of the god-house. "But I don't understand," said Dorcas; "were Ongyatasse and White Quiver friends or enemies?"
"They built mounds," said the Pelican, "for the Cacique's house and the God-House, and for burial, with graded ways and embankments. The one at Talimeco was as tall as three men on horseback, as the Spaniards discovered later Soto's men, not Ayllon's. They never came within sound of the towns nor in sight of the league-long fields of corn nor the groves of mulberry trees.
The word Joss, which we use for a Chinese idol or god, seems to be derived from the Portugese, Dios, or rather it is the Pidgin English of Dios. A Joss-House then is a Chinese idol or god-house. We are now standing before such a place of worship. This is on the corner of Kearney and Pine Streets, and is built of brick, and as we look up we see that it is three stories high.
Talk went on between her and Waits-by-the-Fire, purring, spitting talk like water stumbling among stones. Not one word did our women understand, but they saw wonder grow among the Corn Women, respect and amazement. "Finally, we were taken into the god-house, where in the half dark, we could make out the Goddess of the Corn, cut in stone, with green stones on her forehead.
But the Cacique had the pearls, and after the fighting began there was no time for the Spaniard to think of getting them back again. So the pearls went back to Talimeco, with axes and Spanish arms, to be laid up in the god-house for a trophy. It was there, ten years later, that Hernando de Soto found them. As for Ayllon, his pride and his heart were broken.
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