The Cannibal Spirit by Harry Whitehead

It’s for you to set examples. You’ve made trouble enough, going among the villages, gathering their pagan falsehoods for that book of yours.”
    He paused then and looked expectant, but Hunt just stared at the ground. The priest waved a hand in the direction of the boats. “You make a mockery of all we do here. Help me, George. In God’s name, set an example, man! Half your blood is white.”
    â€œToday it is brown,” said Hunt, with such a tone that Harry wondered if Crosby knew his peril.
    Crosby grunted in vexation. “Once you helped us,” he said. “You learned to read and write with us! Translated for us at the pulpit. You spoke with faith once.”
    â€œAnd I’ve since seen the price of it.” Hunt looked up now at the priest. “Your sermon’s at an end, Crosby. I’ve my son to bury.”
    Crosby’s mouth thinned. “You risk a lot,” he said. “You risk much in this.”
    â€œThat is a threat?”
    â€œPlease. Save David’s soul, and make a statement to the people here. Embracing the Lord is their only hope of survival, George.”
    Hunt had in one hand the staff with the double-headed serpent. Now he jabbed it up at the ancestral pole above them. “You see this? My son raised it. You know its story?” The old man raised his voice so that all the people could hear. “These are the totems of my grandmother. She was a daughter of the chieftains of the northern tribe. My grandmother died drowned, and my mother it was first raised a pole like to this one in her home village. She gave these totems to me. I gave them to my son. My son was a chieftain of the Kwagiulth. As you all do know.”
    He lowered the staff, and moved forward until his face was inches from Crosby’s. Harry hesitated, thinking he ought to be intervening now, but instead held back. “You have heard, perhaps, what happened to that first pole?” George said, his voice low. “White men stole it. They ripped it from the earth of her village while the people was away at their summer hunting grounds. Took it to Seattle. Thieved it from us! So my son made these totems again and he did raise them up. Now you tell me he’d not want burying in the manner of the people?”
    â€œI know the story, George,” Crosby said. “We all know the story. Men are filled with avarice: white and brown. But it changes nothing. The Indians’ future lies in the arms of Christ. There is no other way.”
    Hunt turned his head away and spat, then wiped his mouth with his forearm. His eyes took on that intensity which Harry had come to recognize and fear. “You’ll not tell me how to bury my son,” he said, his voice low through closed teeth.
    Crosby had known George longer than had he, and would surely see the warning signs. The paralyzed side of the old man’s face began to sag further, his sallow canine becoming exposed as the lower lip fell away. His breath came shorter now, and his right eyelid started to flicker in the manner that foretold the onset of the old man’s dreadful rage.
    But George had no right to be threatening a minister of God this way. Crosby might be foolish in his way, but he represented—didn’t he?— higher truths than beating drums and pagan dancing, and breaking up the bones of corpses.
    â€œMr. Hunt,” Harry said then. “Mayhap the Reverend Crosby ain’t entirely wrong. How about giving David a part of a Christian burial, at least. You’ve had your first ceremonies already. What harm in giving your son both options for his afterlife?”
    George seemed hardly to have heard. He tipped his great head forward toward the priest, the breath coming through his nose, like a snorting ox. Crosby took a small step back. “You risk your son’s soul, Mr. Hunt,” he said, “and the wrath of the authorities as well.” Hunt raised a colossal fist before the