te, with her face in the
dust, and waited there reverently till the audible voice of the god had
once more subsided. For no woman knew how that sound was produced. Only
the grown men, initiated into the mysteries of the shrine when they came
of age at the tattooing ceremony, were aware that the strange, buzzing,
whirring noise was nothing more or less than the cry of the bull-roarer.

A bull-roarer, as many English schoolboys know, is merely a piece of
oblong wood, pointed at either end, and fastened by a leather thong at
one corner. But when whirled round the head by practised priestly hands,
it produces a low rumbling noise like the wheels of a distant carriage,
growing gradually louder and clearer, from moment to moment, till at last
it waxes itself into a frightful din, or bursts into perfect peals of
imitation thunder. Then it decreases again once more, as gradually as it
rose, becoming fainter and ever fainter, like thunder as it recedes, till
the horrible bellowing, as of supernatural bulls, dies away in the end,
by slow degrees, into low and soft and imperceptible murmurs.

But when the savage hears the distant humming of the bull-roarer, at
whatever distance, he knows that the mysteries of his god are in full
swing, and he hurries forward in haste, leaving his work or his pleasure,
and running, naked as he stands, to take his share in the worship, lest
the anger of heaven should burst forth in devouring flames to consume
him. But the women, knowing themselves unworthy to face the dread
presence of the high god in his wrath, rush wildly from the spot, and,
flinging themselves down at full length, with their mouths to the dust,
wait patiently till the voice of their deity is no longer audible.

And as the bull-roarer on Boupari rang out with wild echoes from the
coral caverns in the central grove that evening, Tu-Kila-Kila, their god,
rose slowly from his place, and stood out from his hut, a deity revealed,
before his reverential worshippers.

As he rose, a hushed whisper ran wave-like through the dense throng of
dusky forms that bent low, like corn beneath the wind, before him,
"Tu-Kila-Kila rises! He rises to speak! Hush! for the voice of the mighty
man-god!"

The god, looking around him superciliously with a cynical air of
contempt, stood forward with a firm and elastic step before his silent
worshippers. He was a stalwart savage, in the very prime of life, tall,
lithe, and active. His figure was that of a