Ritual by Cirilo F. Bautista is about a man who has demonic power.

In 1971, the

short story won first prize in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for
Literature.


In the mountains, they call it Going Beyond.The way they pronounce the Words endows the
sound with a hushed finality as though the meaning had nothing to do with the syllables,
the lips just a bit parted, afraid to release The Words altogether.The head is bowed during
the utterance, signifying both the solemnity and the apocalyptic nature of the occasion.If
you had been there then you would have see how the men, baskets of cabbages and green
bananas on their backs, would meet on the muddy trail and whisper to each other.You
would have understood from the contour of their lips that The Words were said; and these
having been said, they would pursue their individual ways--one, perhaps, to wend his way
to the Market, the other to wait by the Highway for Tourists to purchase his vegetables at a
pauper's price.Women sitting on the cold bamboo benches before the village store would
suddenly interrupt their conversation by an ominous silence:you knew they were thinking of
The Words; they did not have to say them.In fact saying them would be only anti-climactic,
because deep in their minds lurked images that could not be collapsed into a mere couple of
sounds.A father queried about the whereabouts of his son would whisper The Words, raising
him arms in the direction of the Mountains, and you would be a Fool if you thought he
meant his son had gone away to live in another place.The raising of arms is supplementary
to the meaning of the Words, at times it means more than The Words."He's gone beyond,"
the father would say."No, he's not dead, but he's gone beyond."Beyond is more than the
physical boundaries of the Village, more than the physical boundaries of the Mountains,
more than the Sea and the Sky and the Land put together.Yes.It is not Death.It is not Life.It
is not Life and Death put together.You may give it any name you want, you may declare the
people mad, but in the Mountains, they call it Going Beyond.
"The trouble with you," Roy said, "is that you are a coward."
I looked at him framed by the last glow of sunset that managed to pour through the misted
windowglass.He had just arrived from the City which, from the vantage point of this far-
flung [sic] Village, was on the other side of eternity.His single bag ("I like to travel light")
lay beneath the army cot that stood parallel to the wall; this and the other on e I called
mine touched ends to form an ell, with the two windows dotting their extremities.It was a
small room, though it was room enough for me.Even in the rare event when I had an
overnight visitor there was still sufficient space to spare.
"The trouble with you is that you are a coward," he said again turning to me after quaffing
the last drops of his drink."Imagine coming here, living here with God knows what kind of
people.This is not the place for you."
He walked to the table in the middle of the room to refill his glass; the moment he was
embraced by the light, the single light that dangled from a single cord from the ceiling, I
saw that the years had not altered him.I do not mean that he had not grown old; I mean
that his soul had not changed:he was still Roy, my big brother, my friend trying to save me
from distress most of which he had only imagined.Or I may be wrong.Perhaps he had
changed, only I was too ensconced in my new world to notice the realities outside it.
"How's Luisa?" I said.I had not moved from sitting on my cot.
"She's going to have a baby.You cannot expect a woman like her to remain alone forever,"
Roy said.
"And the man"
"She can't ask for anyone better."
"I'm glad she's happy."
"It's not a question of happiness," he said moving back to the window."A lot of
people die not knowing they are happy.It's a question of knowing someone is there for you
to turn to when you get sick of being with yourself or punching the same infernal machine
day in and day out."
"I did my best," I said, but my mind was groping for some more definite words.
"You did what you thought you had to do.As to whether that was the right thing to
do"
He respected my feeling.That one thing kept our friendship alive; I could not help
thinking, however, that the sentence would have ended with an undertone of reproach.
"You kept away, for sure," he said, "and I must say you did it magnificently."It came
at last.He swept the room with a wide gesture of his arm, a gesture that encompassed also
the whole Village."But I came not to speak about that.I know you don't want to speak about
that.I came"
"Yes, why did you come?"
He was silent for a moment.Then he said, "Come to think of it now, I don't know hwy
I came I wanted to see you.It has been two years after all."
Two years! How could two years have passed?Probably the Mountains had something
to do with it:Time that ordinarily knocked on the doors in the City, that pushed one to work
and back to home again, Time that stole but never gave, was here a non-entity, or, at
most, an ignored presence:the Mountains leveled [sic] it, the winding roads and the cool
trees tempered it, so that when it finally arrived at the doorstep, it was all haggard and
hungry and begging for a lodging.As to what tow years had done to me I did not know;
when you do not bother time it stays away from the fringes of your memory and comes to
you only in the guise of images not brilliant in their broken-ness, which you can easily push
into that cave of darkness called the Mind; the Mind, no more than Time, reposes when the
muscles repose:both speak the same language.
Two years.This morning I received a letter from Dayleg, the import of which struck
me only when I came to the last passage.Dayleg of the dikes and the downy cogon grass,
Dayleg of the dancing uninhibited, Dayleg the devotee turned defiant, Dayleg of the broken
skin and white teeth, had spoken at last.Remember the hunt we had two years ago, he
wrote, how we crossed the line between heaven and hell in pursuit of the white boar?I
remembered.The sacred grove was hardly a forbidding sight:it was like any mountain
hunting ground, though there was a sharp tang in the air while the frail twigs crackled
louder as we stepped in between the willows and the pines.But then perhaps we really were
just half-aware of these, our senses attuned only to the presence of the quarry.
"Father says this place is a thousand years old," Dayleg said."By the way we are
trampling all over it we deserve at least fifty years in Hell."
"You can start your penance now," I said, "Surely the gods will accept contrition by
installment."
"Its down by the stream.Let's encircle it."
The profound significance of the moment sprang before me while I moved as Dayleg
directed.We were on forbidden grounds tracking an equally forbidden animal.The fact that I
was an outsider did not alter nor lighten the gravity of my involvement.Even as we were
encircling the animal a network of guilt was weaving tiny holes of pain in my conscience.By
consenting to the hunt I was sharing in the malevolence of a conspiracy.
When I arrived by the stream Dayleg was already bending over the dead animal.A
single arrowtail protruded form one side of its neck, the arrowhead having shot clean
through the other side.
"It's not white after all."Dayleg was disappointed."They had always told me it was
pure as the clouds."
"What shall we do with it now?" I said, eyeing the animal.It was about three feet
long, its body covered with thick grizzly hair; mud and blood glistened round its throat.Its
tow tusks were ivory in the fading light.In cold repose the boar seemed to cling to its mythic
holiness as long as it could.
"We'll bring it to the village and show the elders the lie they've been handling us all
this time."
By the light of the fire we had built against the cold I could see Dayleg's face as he
spoke.It had turned bronze; his eyes shone as though relishing the wickedness of what he
had planned to do.His dark slender trunk covered with a dirty G-string was damp with
sweat.
But wouldnt that be the height of sacrilege?You asked.You could not hide the shock
(or was it fear) in your face.I could not understand your concern for thewhole thing.All you
had to do was pack up and go.The gods would have a hard time finding you in the city,
crude and walking as they are, if ever they have the mind to meddle in the affairs of a
foreigner.Their sovereignty is confined to the mountains.
The mountains swelled in darkness as we started our descent to the Village.Dayleg,
his sturdy legs punching the sward, the sacred boar stradding his neck, moved easily down
the mountain side while I picked my way, stumbling now and then on the rocks or slipping
down the moist grass.
The cat would eat fyshe but he will not weate his feate.
What?I said. I could barely catch up with his steps.
English proverb, he said.A lot of them in the books.Very good for the mind.
We walked in silence most of the time.In spite of the cold night, perspiration soaked my
clothes. The knapsack grew heavy on my back.I wiped my face with the sleeve of my shirt.A
true son of the mountains, Dayleg never slowed his pace but even whistled once in a
while.Looking at him naked save for a piece of loin-cloth I could hardly believe that he was
one of the most intelligent men I had met. When first I came to the Village, the first person
I saw was a young native squatting by the roadside and cleaning the tip of a ten-foot
spear.The spear was common sight in the place, I had been told earlier, for it was both a
means of tilling the soil and, during a tribal feud, of disemboweling the enemies.Occupied
by what he was doing, he hardly responded when I asked him for directions to the village
school.But the word school made him raise his head.He surveyed me from head to foot
before giving me the directions I wanted.
The school was a four-room structure of wood and galvanized iron located in a small piece
of flat land the people called The Valley. Big pine trees that protected the structure from
both sun and wind gave it a quality of idyllic serenity usually associated with
monasteries.You climbed three steps to find yourself in a kind of balcony that overlooked
the whole schoolground.
Of course one can get terribly lonely here, and one usually does, the Principal,
father Van Noort from Belgium, said.I had knocked on the door of his office at the back of
the school building and was met by an old man with graying hair and a brownish soutane
that used to be white.Like most of the missionaries I knew, he had a fondness for native
cigars.The office was a small room in which were miraculously accommodated a roll-top
table, a rattan chair, a wooden bed with a feather mattress, a table with several dirty pieces
of cutlery, two chairs to the table, bookshelves, books, wastecans, a table lamp, the
sculpted figure of a mountain warrior holding the severed head of his enemy in one hand
and his sword in the other.
Father Van Noort brushed the ashes form his sleeves.As I mentioned in my letter,
youll be in charge of the fifth class.Literature and language.
There was a knock on the door followed by the entrance of a dark-skinned man
carrying several books.His white trousers and white shirt were spotless; the electric bulb
was reflected on his shoes.
Carlos Dayleg, in charge of the fourth class, father van Noort said to me by way of
introducing the newcomer.
I think weve already met, Dayleg said, extending his hand.It was only then that I
realized he was the man I asked directions from a few hours ago.He must have noticed my
surprise.Yes, we met this morning. In this place it is not uncommon for natives to change
to more civilized attires.As for me, I do it only on special occasion.
And school is a special occasion, Father Van Noort said.
And school is a special occasion, Dayleg said, and going to the movies and visiting
the Mayor,
After classes Dayleg invited me for a drink.A few minutes walk from school, down
winding paths that led past the native huts squatting on hard-packed mud, past the curious
structure of a cogon roof placed right on the hard-packed mud, the remains of a bonfire in
the very center of the space which one could enter only by crawling on all fours, past this
nest of love by t4rial, past half-carved coffins drying ion the sun, emerged Daylegs hut.We
climbed a steep ladder to the center of the room.
Make yourself comfortable, Dayleg said.The old man must be in a feast
somewhere.The clang of brass gongs filled the hut, reverberated against the rafters,
seemed to seep down through the bamboo floorings and settled on the ground
below.Dayleg took an earthen jar form a corner. He placed two plastic glasses on the low
table.With a groan he sat down beside me.The heat of the rice wine snaked through my
throat that was the first time I ever drank it, and the taste was both strange and
sweet.Here we ferment rice into wine, Dayleg said.The longer, the better.Of course if you
overdo it you get vinegar.
That night we talked about many things.I learned that Dayleg had finished a course
in pedagogy and philosophy in a university in the City, and that he had come back to his
village to do his part in the education of my people.But the rest of our talk came to me
now in images and impressions that flitted in my brain like cinematic associations, the focus
always changing.A jar of rice wine does so much to blur the memory, though the pictures
are nevertheless recognizable:Dayleg, sixteen years old, sitting before the Council of Elders,
being reprimanded for shouting at the village High Priest; the smell of pig roasting, its
smoke wafted through the pores of houses, everyone poking his head through the window,
straining to smell the meat and to hear the familiar sounds, for this feast was for Lumawig,
He Who Sends Fruition to the Earth, the men and the women woven into a circle, the fire in
the center, swinging to the rhythm of the gongs which constant use turned golden, like the
bright deathmasks of ancient mummery, dancing and chanting, amongst them Dayleg
handsome in his nakedness; the circle widening with the shouts of combat, in the center
Dayleg with a spear in a stance of sciamachy, fearless as a man for whom death had no
meaning, resolved only to redeem the honor of his tribe while the circle metamorphosed
into many pointed lances; Dayleg alone in the spot, a bloody wound in his thigh, the circle
broken; myself with eyes bloodshot pouring wine into my twenty mouths when Dayleg
tipped the jar and the floor bloomed into a hundred wet pieces of clay; a graduation
photograph left to right, third row Manuel Pantig, Jose Arcana, Roberto Galdon, Lauro
Canlas, Antonio Morte, Lorenzo Peron, Carlos Dayleg, Mario Tarsus; a dark face lined with
the furrows of years, saying Hardly were the feet cold that followed your mothers coffin
than you should break her jar.Aie, I tell you, Son, this house will know peace no more!, the
clash of cymbals in a nameless place as warriors without faces whirled up and down in air
till one of them, naked, plunged backward shattering his spine against a giant monolith.
Its not because my people are uneducated that they cling to ancient tradition,
Dayleg said as we walked around the schoolyard during recess the next day, but its a
reason civilized men like you dont and cant fully understand.Ars longa, vita brevis, as
your philosophers say, yet something longer than art governs the very consciousness of
these people.It goes to the very bone of their existence. Lumawig, Creator of Earth,
permeates their lives, my life, and these traditions are but extensions of His Being. When
one turns his back on these he forfeits glory in the afterlife.
Then youve already lost a great part of that glory, I said reminding of the wine
jar.That is pardonable under the circumstances in which I broke it, he said.He shrugged
off the matter.But what must be obvious to you is that I do things to break these
traditions.I believe its about time some of them were challenged.
I could hardly understand him for the contradictions in what he said; perhaps he was
not aware of them, but on my part the more I got to know him the more complex he
became, until an incident that disturbed the elders provided me with the first insight into his
character.
He had gathered thirty of the old villagers, marched them to the schoolhouse where
before the blackboard topped by a picture of a severe unsmiling Rizal he lectured them on
the advantages of forsaking Lumawig and adopting the ways of the Christians.His listeners
sat with the passivity of a people used to the hard exigencies of mountain life, their faces
stolid as the rocks the school was perched on, neither nodding nor shaking their heads, for
they could not follow the ramifications of this strange exotic dialectics, taking the words
more out of respect for this young man who had been to the university than out of interest
for what eh was saying; a few of them appeared confused, who had come only thinking
there would be planning a foot for a forthcoming feast.While he was heading toward the
school.His father strode into the room with his army boots clacking on the loose floor boards
followed by ten of the village elders.Surprise and anger were written on their faces.They
surrounded him with the combined smell of sweat, tobacco, dust and breath the basic
ingredients that had kept these people alive in this remote chunk of earth.
Know what you're doing? his father said in his face. He raised his arm as if to strike
his son, but it fell limply on his side.
The devil has charmed his tongue, one of the elders said.
And his eyes, another said.
I can do what I like, Dayleg said.
To make your mother turn in her grave?
To bring my people light.
It has not fallen upon your shoulders.
Thats what I went to school for.
You are young, a white-haired elder said, obviously the leader.We can still forgive
you.
I dont see anything for you to forgive, there was recussancy in Daylegs words.
Stung by this insolence, the leader turned to his companions.
There is no question but that we should hold a council, he said.The rest of you go
back to your work.With a last glance at Dayleg he led the group out of the room.
The Council, of course, condemned Daylegs action; it ordered him to refrain, under
pain of expulsion from the tribe, from expounding foreign philosophy to the natives.If
Dayleg was hurt by this decision he did not show it.He was one who would not make a
martyr of himself even though martyrdom danced before his very eyes.Consequently, there
was a change in the peoples attitude toward him:they were more careful in mentioning his
name.They did not avoid him outright though they took the precaution of not being seen
talking to him.
When we reached the Village, it was midnight.Arriving at his fathers house, Dayleg
groped in the darkness under it looking for a suitable depository for the boar while I sat on
an old tree stump to catch my breath.The moon had come out form a layer of clouds to
provide the only illumination in the place, the big, pot-bellied moon which on other nights I
might have found romantic but which now enwrapped me with a feeling of dread.
Tomorrow we hold the sacrifice, Dayleg said sitting beside me.We sat in silence.I
listened to the shadows moving across the houses, listened so hard that after they had
vanished with the moon that sailed right through the door of the sky I was afraid, to say the
least, and was now beginning to shiver from the cold and from hunger.When I turned to
Dayleg I saw he was fumbling with something.
You must be hungry.Here, lets start a fire and roast some meat, he said.He had
gone up the house and secured the food without my noticing his leaving my side.The odor
of roasting whetted my appetite.He had also brought a jar wine which, together with the
meat, eased my hunger.But my muscles were still taut in tension; I was fearing some
thought that had not completely taken shape.
Dayleg ate without saying a word.Now and then he would glance under the house as
though in spite of the darkness he could see the boar, as though in spite of the darkness he
could read some cabalistic calendrics on the skull of the boar.Three school terms I had
worked with him but I knew nothing about him, except his preference for canned food, his
indifference to women, his love for the rice terraces.Not that he was reserved or aloof he
was sociable but his sociability revealed merely the outer encumbrances of his
personality, much as the sphinx revealed merely the outer characteristics of its animalism,
but the mystery that shrouded it amidst the burning desert sands few could
untangle.Perhaps the metaphor was far-fetched; perhaps he was enigmatic not because I
could not understand him but because I was analyzing him from an irrelevant angle.Luisa
had told me that I was always inclined to be a poetic.You see things only after your
imagination has colored them.You wont look at them as they are, she said.And Roy
accused me of being a poet as though that was a crime.He pointed out that poets were an
anachronism in an age of practical realists who regarded mankind with precise scientific
minds in search of solutions to its problems.Perhaps I saw Dayleg from a wrong
perspective.My own life with Luisa was an out-of-focus affair.We had known each other for
three years.She was secretary to an oil executive in the City and I was a reporter for an
afternoon paper.Because of the nature of my work I saw very little of her yes, we would
go on dates on Sundays, to the cinema, the beach, but most of the time we did not know
what the other was doing.Not that it was necessary to know that we loved each other;
sometimes, however, one needs some form of assurance that his beloved is still alive or
faithful.I guess I was the possessive type for I insisted that we got married.After all we had
been planning that for the past year, only we were afraid we could not live decently on our
meager income.I asked for a weeks leave form my editor and she did the same form her
chief.We og6t married in a simple rite with only the priest, Roy, and Blanca Luisas best
friend in attendance.After that we had an inexpensive dinner, bad Roy and Blanca good-
bye, and off we were to our honeymoon in the Mountains. It was, I can say, a happy week
we had together.Watching Luisa cook, take care of the house and attend to my needs I
thought I had found the most wonderful woman in the world.It was when we came back to
the City that life did not fulfill what it promised in eh beginning.I had wanted to be the
breadwinner in the house but Luisa did not want to give up her job.I could not accept the
knowledge that she was earning more that I was, that some other men could command and
reprimand her.Roy said this was unfair of me. You are selfish.Soon youll have children and
your wifes earnings will surely help, he said.When I told him I did not intend to have
children he said I was crazy and should not have gotten married in the first place.I admitted
that I had not given that any thought before having children and that my sole aim in
rushing Luisa into marriage was to possess her.I was jealous of any man who as much as
looked at her.Having been poor all my life, I desperately wanted something to call my own,
ye6t I was suddenly afraid to face the responsibilities of a married man.Three months after
our marriage I packed my things and headed for the Mountains after writing Luisa a
note.There I learned later that she had asked for an annulment of our marriage which the
Church granted.On what grounds I did not know, nor care. I was glad to forget my failure as
a husband.
A ripple of noise cut my sleep:the ripple became wider until I found myself sitting
greatly awake, looking around in the room.It was early morning.Dayleg was asleep in a
corner near the post. I could hear excited voices emanating from below the house:they had
discovered the boar.
Soon Dayleg too was disturbed by the noise.He sat upright, listened for a while, then
rushed out of the room.
When I got downstairs a thin blinding light pierced my eyes; momentarily I stood
there till the light flashed out of my sight.Thrice it flew up and down then ended in a silver
strip that was a machete.Dayleg was brandishing it, no, gesticulating with it as he was
confronted by the elders.A crowd had gathered near the house after someone saw the boar
and informed the elders; they came some of them still shake from interrupted sleep,
some uncertain of what the disturbance was all about more than a hundred brown and
shiny skins.Dayleg stood tall and looming over the animals as though trying to protect it
from any sudden snatcher; he held the machete high above his head, its blade pointed
upward and catching slivers of sunbeam.His face was granite, inscrutable.
The curse of gods upon us! an old woman cried.Many a year I have lived here
wishing that at my death I could see the sacred boar running.Now I see it dead.The curse of
gods upon us!She was joined in her wailing by other women who had nurtured the same
hop.The others became more excited:they pushed and jostled each other to get a better
glimpse of the animal and, when the profundity of its violation occurred to them, entered
with the women into a state of general moaning.
The grove has been defiled!
The infidel!
The village shall be without light!
A thousand droughts shall stalk the terraces!
The curse of gods upon us!
Who would believe it our own man
Somebody pushed through the thick circle of bodies and stood facing Dayleg on the
opposite side of the cabbage crate on which the boar spread, its body outlined by a pool of
coagulating blood.It was the leader of the elders.Anger that distorted his face ran through
his gleaming eyes down to his hands clenched at his sides.The crowd held its breath looking
from one man to the other.
In the name of Lumawig, why did you kill the boar? the leader said.
Ti was there for the hunting, Dayleg said.He had put down the machete on the
ground.
For the hunting of the gods, yes, but for us mortals
The gods would no more hunt there than we would hunt in the moon.
Blasphemy! the leader shook his fist at Dayleg.
The grove is not sacred.
Blasphemy!It has always been and will ever be.Lumawig himself consecrated it
when he came down to earth.
That is a lie you and the others help to perpetuate. Look at your boar!What is to
distinguish it from any other boar?Its blood is as filthy.
It is sacred, the leaders anger was mounting.
It is dead, Dayleg said with contempt in his voice.
It is sacred, the crowd, contaminated by the leaders anger, repeated.
It is dead!Dayleg shouted.Dead!He picked up the machete and poked it at the
animals belly to emphasize his words.
The old woman wailed burying her face in her hands.The curse of gods upon us!
Dayleg, the leader shrieked above the womans wailing, I tell you your mother is
turning in her coffin at the shame you have brought us.
I am no more guilty of killing this boar than you are declaring it sacred.
It is sacred! the crowd said.
It is dead, dead!Dayleg said.Only fools would cry over a stinking carcass!
Forthwith he started hacking the boar:the blows thudded on its body as again and
again the gleaming machete fell on it.The crowd watched in horror, some gasping for breath
as if their very bodies were being hit by the weapon. The womens wailing at this flagrant
destruction of the gods minion rose and fell with the rise and fall of Daylegs hand.
The demon has seized him.
Woe to our children and our childrens children.
Dayleg!In the name of Lumawig, stop it.What are you doing?
Im breaking your lie.
And consigning us all to hell?
And freeing you from blindness.
Son, stop it!Daylegs father clasped his hands imploringly.
No.The sharpness in Daylegs voice sent an icy shiver down my back. By all
indications he was mad, for he hacked the boar even as it lay almost an indescribable mass
of flesh and gore.Sweat and the animals blood that had spurted out covered his face and
arms that shone as the sun rose and struck them.As I watched him I discovered the Dayleg
I knew was not even the shadow of this one before me.
Dayleg, stop it1Its not too late.The gods can still forgive.The leader was on the
verge of tears.As against the crate he leant for support, his bony fingers were black at the
joints.
No, Dayleg said.Ill show themHe picked up a piece of the boars flesh, held it
high over his head and shouted, I curse you!
The crowd moved back terrified as the sacred blood dripped from Daylegs fingers
and the sacred flesh quivered in his hand.
Son, stop it!
In the name of Lumawig, abandon this madness!
The wrath of gods upon us!
I curse you, the sounds came from the sepulcher of Daylegs throat, by a crooked
line, a broken line, a right line, a simple lineSon, remember you mother.
by flame, by wind, by mass, by rain, by clay
Lumawig, Ruler of the Sky, the leader said kneeling on the ground and beating his
breast, forgive Your son.He is young.The heat is in his blood.
by a serpent, by a flying thing, by a creeping thing
He has sacrificed many a cow in Your honor; he has danced till his bones ached in
Your feast.
The wrath of gods upon us.
Many of the natives had also knelt; the rest, stunned by the horror, sat simply on
the ground.Dayleg alone stood before the crate, his hand still outstretched holding the
boars flesh, stood handsomely tall mouthing his antique incantation while the sun rose
higher and higher to surround his head with a crown of fierce light.
I curse you by an eye, by a hand, by a afoot, by a cross
Look not upon this day as a breach upon Your will, the leader said crying, but
close Your eyes to the wind.
by a sword, by a scourge, by a flood
The wind brings no message if You wont listen.The sun blinds You not with
horror.Let Your mind forget this day.
Haade, Mikaded, Rakeben
Lumawig, we pray You forgive Your son.Remove not your love from this people.
Rika, Ritalica, Tasarith, Modeca, Rabert!
On the last word Dayleg flung the boars flesh to the ground and overturned the
crate with a kick that spilled the rest of the carcass onto the earth.
The last pictures I bore with me that day as I left the scene of defilement were of
Dayleg overturning the crate, his chest and face and hands stained by the sacred blood,
waving the machete and uttering words I could not catch while the shrieking villagers,
afraid Dayleg would turn his passion at them, ran in terror, of the leader of elders pulling his
white hair, still kneeling in supplication to Lumawig to forgive the man who at that very
moment was desecrating the gods minion:suppliant wetting the ground with his tears, of
the sun in its apex lighting the chunks of boars flesh in harsh legs of luminance, moving
because the universe must complete its course.
Three months later, while I was in the city during the semestral vacation, I ran into
Father Van Noort; he had been on leave from school for a year now on account of his heart.
I invited him to a cup of coffee in a nearby restaurant.Except for a little paleness on his
cheeks he looked healthy; I called his attention to this and he said, I ought to be healthy.I
live in the Orders hospital, you know, and there they treat me like a kid.Diet.Exercise.I like
everything but their denying me my tobacco.Imagine doing that to a man who has all this
time subsisted on the weed!:I reminded him that it was for his own good and he shrugged
his shoulders in mock resignation.When I related what Dayleg had done to the sacred boar
he shook his head; the shadow of sadness passed across his face.
It was bound to happen, he said.Dayleg is what you may call a complex person.I
dont mean that hes schizophrenic or something, but hes not transparent either.Some
people you can read like a book, Dayleg you have to decipher.
He seems simple enough, I said.
Yes, but remember simplicity is not transparency.Beneath Daylegs tribal
accoutrement lies the tension between self and reality, a tension call it paradox if you like
which is common to persons like him.
When will this tension subside?
I dont know.Who knows?Perhaps when he finds peace.I dont know.
I dont really know why de did it, Sir, wrote Mario, my best student. His letter
reached me while I was still on vacation a few days after I met Father Van Noort.I was
there, Sir, and I cannot describe to you my feelings as I watched him destroy our sacred
boar.You may not understand it, Sir, you not being one of us, but from our birth we have
always believed that the grove is only for the gods, that whoever enters it and as much as
touches a blade of grass in it will be denied eternal happiness.I believer this, Sir, that is why
I was horrified by Mr. Daylegs action.He did not only bring shame to our village, as you will
see, Sir, when you come back.Mr. Dayleg has disappeared.It is better that he did not
witness the rites the elders held for his expulsion.Under our laws, Sir, such acts as Mr.
Dayleg committed are grievous, so the actor has to be driven out of the tribe to lessen the
gods wrath on the innocent ones who have, nevertheless, been tainted with the guilt by
their relationship with the sinner.Sir, we have to do a lot of sacrifice to wash this sin.I dont
know how this will be possible.The harvest is not good this year.But the best thing is for the
sinner, in spite of his expulsion, to come back, to show repentance.Only then will the gods
consider our prayers.But we dont know here he is.
Two years.,
I stood up and walked to the window; with my fingers I rubbed off the mist that had
collected on the glass.I peered outside.The world was a blanket of darkness.These two
years I had tried to find peace, to re-order my life toward a more meaningful goal, but
things eluded me.An indefinite fear was gnawing my mind.
Anything around here to eat?Roy shouted from the kitchen.I could hear him
opening and losing drawers.
Theres a can of beans on the upmost shelf and some meat in the bowl on the
table.Theres some rice near the stove, I said.
I smoked as I watched him eat.Outside, somewhere in one of those spare, squat
houses with roofs and walls of cogon, I knew, a group of white-haired men was praying to
the gods.In these two years that Dayleg had been gone they had not stopped their
supplication.The harvest had been regularly poor, a sure sign of the heavenly
displeasure.hes gone beyond, they would say alluding to Dayleg, the gods have turned
their faces away form us.
There had been no rain for the past three months, whereas before it came sooner
than the planting season, soaking the terraces and fattening ht frogs that croaked in the
mountain crags.Now the rice plots lay barren like a thousand mouths without blood, and
plating time was just a week ahead.Only the fog rubbed the soil and tinted it with a whiff of
wetness that was gone as soon as the fog had lifted.
And you have not seen him since?Roy said after I had told him what had
happened.
No, I said.I quenched the light of my cigarette in the metal ashtray.But I have just
received a letter form him.
Does he say where he is now?
No.The letter bears the Citys postmark.
Sounds like a strange fellow to me.
He is.I cant understand him, couldnt understand him myself.I dont think anybody
here understands him.
Maybe hes an exception to the rule.
The rule?
I mean in any society or tribe theres bound to be someone whod violate traditions
and laws.Not that hed do it for the heck of it, but that in him probably a new personality is
emerging.
I though of Father Van Noort.
A synthesis, we may say, of the old tribal character and the modern patterns that
slowly put him in a quandary:he may be alienated entirely from his native roots or he may
bridge the past with the present.
Im thinking Dayleg is an intelligent, I said.
Intelligence has nothing to do with it.Why, may I ask, did he do what you said he
did if he is intelligent?No, its a matter of blood, not of intelligence.
Well, I said, its done.His people are having a hard time appeasing the gods.And
to top it, rain has not yet come.I dont know how this people will survive a year of hunger.
Appeasing the gods by prayers?
Yes.And sacrifices.Tomorrow theyll hold a big one.Killing a cow, you know,
changing, dancing.
Thats one thing Id like to see.
Well be there.
We took another shot of whiskey before going to bed.
Early the next morning, while I was boiling some coffee, there was a knock on the
door.Roy was still curled up in his cot, so I crossed the living room to see who it was.It was
a tall dark man in dirty maong trousers and gray shirt, his hair long almost touching his
shoulders; his beard and moustache covered a large part of his face.
Yes?I said, not knowing what he wanted.
Then he uttered my name.
Its me, Dayleg, he said.
I stood there in disbelief; Dayleg.Dayleg, I said to myself.A thousand thoughts
rushed to my brain like a flood.
Its me, Dayleg, he said again when he noticed my hesitation.
I opened the door wide and he stepped inside.I led him to the kitchen just in time for
me to prevent the coffee from spilling all over the stove.
What happened? Where have you been?I could scarcely conceal my excitement.
He sat down by the table on which, so many times before, we had worked till
midnight making our lessons.He had lost weight his shirt was loose around his shoulders
and his veins stood out of the skin of his arms.
Nothing, he said. I have been living with a friend in the City.
But why didnt you tell me?I could have helped.
Nobody can help me.
Been working?
I could not though I wanted to.
You could have taught.Your record is excellent.
You dont understand, he said and looked at me with his bloodshot eyes.Its not
that.The gods.
What?I almost dropped the cup I was holding.
You received my letter?
I nodded.
Then, he continued, you know what I mean.
Vengeance?
The gods.
You knew about that before, didnt you?Even before we hunted the boar?
Yes.His voice was old, tired, excruciated by a force too strong for me to
unlock.But I didnt believe it then.
But Im not staying, he said softly.
What?Then why did you come?
To tell you good-bye and to get the things Ive left here.
You know what youre doing, of course.
Thats the only thing I can do.Ill go far enough where no one can touch me.
Perhaps, but your people will suffer in the meantime, as theyve been suffering
these past years.
They can blame the gods.
Theyre blaming you, yet they pray for your return.
No, I cant stay.I didnt want anyone to know Im here so I came this early.
Where will you go?
Anywhere.Im alone.He stood up. I must go.
Roy was awakened by our conversation.He came into the kitchen.
Roy this is Dayleg, I said.
They shook hands.Dayleg turned o me.I must go, he said.
I followed him to the door.I said, Anytime you want to come back
Thanks, he said.
The sacrifice tonight
No, I cant.
His figure was swallowed by the early morning before I could say anything more.
The sacrifice began three hours after noon.Five men, their necks and arms coppery with
sweat, dragged a cow down to the village square where a big wooden table had been
set.The elders had formed a circle around this table and were already praying.The sun cast
their shadows in jagged patterns across the wooden planks as their voices interlaced in
supplication, as the cow, being tied now temporarily to an iron stake, gazed at the solemn
gathering; the fire burned fiercer under the big iron vats and small tin pots while the brass
gongs were brought out of the chieftains hut and hung on their wooden pegs near the
avocado trees where the young men would take turns beating them.Small boys arrived from
the forest bearing in the crook of their arms firewood and dead leaves that would lessen the
nights chill.
At sunset, the praying stopped.In single file the elders walked slowly toward the cow; they
surrounded the animal and, as if somebody had given a signal, knelt before it.They uttered
some inaudible incantation, their heads bowed, giving the impression that they were
addressing themselves.Once in a while the leaders voice rose above the murmurs of the
others.He would stand up, stamp his foot several times, then kneel again.Finally, they all
stood up their ancient faces yellowish in the flickering firelight silent.The leader raised
his right hand.Immediately a barrel-chested muscular man appeared from outside the
circle.He looked at the leaders eyes and read the message there, for he nodded, the leader
having said nothing.Quickly he stepped aside to allow the elders to pass and return to the
table to resume their prayer.Not long afterward the deafening cry of the crying cow
drowned out the elders voices:it flew above the clatter of pots and pans and the whispering
of the women as they prepared the boiling water and tended the fire; then, all of a sudden,
it was gone.A group of men had converged around the cow; from where we stood we could
see knives flashing in the moonlight.
What are they doing?Roy said.
Cleaning the animal.The entrails will be buried near the sacred grove before the cow is
roasted, I said.
They had dug a roasting pit, about six feet wide, ten feet long, and three feet deep, where
live coal was dumped.Two big forking branches of mountain pine were hammered into the
ground to serve as a cradle for the pole that impaled the animal to turn on.
A pity to waste such meat, Roy said.
It wontbe wasted.They will eat it after a portion has been properly offered to the gods.This
is actually a feast, you know, with lots of wine going around.
As the animal was being raised above the pit to roast, the dancing began.The clang of brass
gongs preceded a group of men and women whose feet bent the grass to the strange
uneven rhythm, their arms outstretched fluttering in alar animation, who formed two long
lines.The strange uneven rhythm had a logic to it for the dancers never missed a step,
never hesitated; the strange uneven rhythm had a logic to it for the dancers moved as if
synchronized in sure and easy steps even as a couple swung in between the lines to join
them.A native told me once that dancing was not really taught to the children the children
learned by watching and carrying the rhythm in their heads, memorizing it even in sleep,
making it a part of their bones.So when they danced they danced as though mesmerized, as
these dancers now were, eyes glazy in the moving firelight.Dance, brothers and sisters,
they seemed to say; the gods watch, and the gods must be appeased.
We left the dancers and returned to the roasting pit.The cow was now exuding a delicious
smell as its fat trickled down the burning coal, producing tiny hisses as it touched the
embers; the skin was golden brown and, as the animal was turned by two equally smoke-
burnt men while others watched and waited, full of brightness.
As the night deepened, more fires were built; but the elders continued praying, the tone of
their thaumaturgic throats never wavering nor slowing, while Roy and I sat on a boulder
behind them to rest awhile.There was little for us to do.We were strangers:our lives were
not entangled in these ritualistic complexities.Our world was on the other side of the
Mountains.Yet I felt I was part of all these for I had stepped into the sacred grove and had
stalked its sacred occupant.The reality of my guilt had laid a heavy hand on my heart, and
even now as I heard the primitive music I could not help imagining that it was exorcising
the demon in me.
MY thoughts were interrupted by the noise of a commotion emanating from a section of the
square.The elders abruptly stopped praying and turned their heads to the direction of the
dancers.The natives shouted as they pressed forward nearer the avocado trees.I looked at
Toy.Then [sic] we ran.The sounds of gongs grew louder and louder than the pounding of my
heart against its ribcage as we approached the thick circle of people straining their necks to
see the object of the perturbation.We elbowed our way through to the center of the
crowd.For a while I rubbed my smoke-filled eyes for I thought I was dreaming, but there,
caught in the glare of the bright firelight, was a lone man dancing, the ends of his G-string
flapping as he moved unerringly to the strange uneven rhythm of the goings while shifting
shadows drew myriad patterns on his golden chest, his arms elegant in their winging, his
feet affirming his thanage of the earth, his long hair and loose beard wavelike in the wind
while the people whispered, Hes back, Dayleg, Dayleg, and the elders caressed the sky
with their eyes and gazed at him reduced to a thin pathetic remnant of a man by the mills
of the gods, him the hunter, expressing the threads of mountain history that held his
muscles and bones in the frenzy of autochthonous grace now unleashed purely, and that
contorted his face into a mask of grave pain until tears came to wash his beard and glimmer
in the light, and, as his feet stamped the ground in syllables of penance, they commenced
carving that portion o fate cow for the gods he had returned but the gods had a long
memory they carved the meat while in the circle, wrapped in a spell, he kept on dancing,
figure of a man fallen and rising again, with his feet and arms and soul declaring his
inviolable kinship with all that made him what he was and what he would be, there in the
circle, oh how he danced.
The next morning I packed my bags and told Roy I was going back to the City with
him.There were many things I had to do.We could still catch the six oclock bus.