He Then In Eloquent Tones
Related To Them What He Called The Real Story, To Which I Listened
In Amazed Wonder.
"Many moons ago," he began, "we were dying of hunger!
One day the
Sun, our god, changed into a man, and he walked down that road."
(Here he pointed to the east.) "The chief met him. 'All your people
are dying of hunger,' said god. 'Yes, they are,' the chief replied.
'Will you die instead of all the people?' Nandeyara said. 'Yes, I
will,' the chief answered. He immediately dropped down dead, and god
came to the village where we all are now. 'Your chief is lying dead
up the road,' he said, 'go and bury him, and after three days are
passed visit the grave, when you will find a plant growing out of
his mouth; that will be corn, and it will save you!'" Then, turning
to me, the priest said: "This we did, and behold us alive! That is
the story!" A strange legend, surely, and yet the reader will be
struck with the grains of truth intermingled - life, resulting from
the sacrificial death of another; the substitution of the one for the
many; the life-giving seed germinating after three days' burial,
reminding one of John 12:24: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit." Strange that so many aboriginal people have legends so
near the truth.
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