Chapter 45 brody report

My dear friend Paulino Keynes procured for me a set of Laneburn's (London, 1840).We found a manuscript in the first volume, which I am now translating into Spanish.The neat handwriting—calligraphy, an art lost to the spread of the typewriter—suggests that the manuscript is as old as the manuscript.The Lane Codex is notable for its extensive annotations; many texts and interrogation marks have been added to the margins, and sometimes revisions have been made, and the handwriting is identical to that of the manuscript.It can be said that it is not Scheherazade's wonderful stories that interest the readers of the manuscripts, but the customs of Islam.At the end of the manuscript is David Brody’s red curlicue signature. His life is unknown, but he is a Scottish missionary born in Aberdeen. He preached Christianity in central Africa. Because he knew Portuguese, he later went to Brazil. Certain jungle areas.I don't know the year and place of his death.As far as I know, this manuscript has never been published.

The manuscript is written in smooth English, and I have translated it as it is, except for certain passages from the Bible and the strange passage written in Latin by the decent Presbyterian priest about the sexual behavior of Yahoos. abridged.The manuscript is missing the first page. "...the ape-infested regions are inhabited by the Merks, whom I shall call the Yahoos, who remind the reader of their savage nature, and which, owing to the absence of vowels in their tongue, cannot be transliterated with certainty. Including the Nars who inhabit the southern jungles, I estimate the number of this tribe to be no more than seven hundred. This figure is mere guesswork, since the Yahus were not settled except for kings, queens, and wizards, where are the nightly men Just find a random place to spend the night. Malaria and ape-men's regular incursions have decimated their numbers. Few of them have names. When greeting others, they throw mud for attention. I've also seen some yahoos who greet their friends by themselves Lying and rolling on the ground. Their body shape is not much different from the Crow, except that their foreheads are lower, and their skin is slightly bronzed, not so dark. Their food is fruit, plant roots and reptiles; they drink cat milk and bats milk, and fish with bare hands. When they eat they seek shelter, or close their eyes; otherwise they can do anything in front of others, as shameless as the Cynic Philosophers. They tear up the corpses of wizards and kings I blamed this vice; but they pointed their fingers at their mouths and then at their bellies, perhaps to show that dead people are food, perhaps to make me understand that everything we eat turns into human flesh in the end, but This point is perhaps too subtle.

"Their weapons of war were stones (stockpiled in abundance) and witchcraft curses. Always naked, not yet known to cover themselves with clothes or tattoos. "It is worth noting that they have a vast plateau with lush vegetation and clear spring water, but they prefer to squeeze into the swamp around the plateau, as if the scorching sun and muddy water would give them greater pleasure. The slope of the plateau is steep and can be To form a wall against the ape-men. The highland tribes of Scotland used to build their castles on top of hills; I mentioned this to the wizards, and advised them to follow suit, but to no avail. They allowed me to build a hut in the Highlands, however, where it was much cooler at night up.

"The tribe is ruled by a king, but I think the real power is the four wizards who choose the king and the minister. The newborn boys are carefully inspected; if they have some kind of birthmark (they keep it secret from me) , and was revered as the king of the Yahoos. The next step was to maim him, scald his eyes, chop off his hands and feet, and use the world outside the rabbit to transfer his sage. He lived in a cave palace called Kezir, The only ones who can go in are four wizards and two female slaves who wait on the king and smear him with dung. If there is a war, the wizards will get the king out of the cave, show it to the whole tribe, inspire their fighting spirit, and then carry it on their shoulders. As a banner or talisman, head straight for the fiercest battle, in which case the king of stones hurled by the apes bears the brunt and generally dies instantly.

"The queen lived in another cave palace, and she was not allowed to see the king. She condescended to receive me; the queen was young, smiling, and good-looking for her race. She was naked, but wore metal and Bracelets made of ivory, necklaces made of animal teeth. She looked at me, sniffed, touched, and finally surrendered to me in front of all the court ladies. This kind of grace is often bestowed on wizards and intercepting passing caravans , hunter of slaves; I, being a priest, and having my own customs, refused the queen's grace. She pricked me two or three times with a golden needle, which is a sign of royal favor, and many Yahoos People stabbed themselves, pretending to be the queen who stabbed them. The decorations I just mentioned came from other regions; the Yahoo people thought they were natural products, because they couldn't make even the simplest items. In the opinion of that tribe, I My thatched hut was a natural tree, although quite a few people saw me build it and helped me. Among the things I brought with me was a watch, a brass pot hat, a compass, and a Bible; Watching and fondling these things, wondering where I got them. They always hold my hunting knives by the blades, no doubt they think otherwise. I don't know where they've ever seen a chair. How many The house of every room is a maze to them, but they may not get lost like cats, although they can't figure out why. My beard was orange at that time, and they were all amazed, and it took a long time to stroke it.

"They have no sense of pain or joy, only old raw meat and rancid things delight them. They have no imagination and are cruel by nature. "I have already described the queen and the king; now of the wizards. It has been said that there are four wizards; this is the limit at which they can count. They count one, two, three, four, and the thumb stands for infinity. It is said The same is the case with the nomadic tribes near Buenos Aires. Although the maximum number they have is four, the Arabs who trade with them cannot deceive them, because each trades with the goods in small piles and places them on his side. At present, one, two, three, four things are placed in each pile. The transaction process is slow, but there is never a mistake or a scam. The only people in the Yahoo tribe who really interest me are wizards. The common people believe that wizards have magic powers and can Turn people into ants or tortoises at will; one of the Yahoos, noticing my disbelief, took me to an anthill, as if that was proof. The Yahoos have very poor memories, or hardly any; There were many dead and wounded, but it was unclear whether they had seen it with their own eyes, or their ancestors, or dreamed it. Wizards have a memory, but only a limited amount; They have the gift of foresight; they can announce with reasonable certainty what will happen ten or fifteen minutes from now. For example, they will announce: A fly is going to bite me on the back of the neck. Or: Immediately we shall hear the birdsong. I have witnessed this strange gift no less than a hundred times, and it takes me a long time to think. We know that the past, present, and future are stored in the foreknowledge of the eternal God; People can remember the past indefinitely, but they can't foresee the future. Since I can clearly remember the appearance of the galleon from Norway when I was four years old, then someone can foresee what will happen immediately , what is so strange? From a philosophical point of view, memory is as magical as predicting the future. The Hebrews passed through the Red Sea is far away from us, but our memory is still fresh, tomorrow is much closer to us, why not What about foreknowledge? Tribal members are not allowed to look up at the stars. This is the unique right of wizards. Each wizard has an apprentice who teaches secret skills from an early age. After the wizard dies, the apprentice takes over. The number of wizards is always kept at four. Numbers have a magical quality, because it is the limit of what men's minds can reach. They believe in hell and heaven according to their own understanding. Men and leopards; heaven muddy and dark, inhabited by kings, queens, wizards, and happy, cruel, bloodthirsty men. They worshiped a god called the dung, and fashioned the god in the image of the king, perhaps: severed hands Missing feet, crooked and blind, but powerful. Sometimes gods also have the appearance of ants or snakes.

"Based on the above, it should come as no surprise that I failed to convert a single Yahoo person to Christ during my mission at the time. The word Holy Father confuses them because they have no concept of fatherhood. They don't understand nine months What causal connection could an event in the past have with the birth of a child; they could not accept a cause so remote and unbelievable. Besides, all women had copulation, but not all had children. "Their language is quite complex and has no resemblance to any language I know. We can't analyze it with parts of speech because there are no words at all. Each monosyllabic word represents a general concept, and the specific meaning depends on the context or face. Expression can be determined. For example, the word Narz means diffuse or spots; it can refer to starry sky, leopard, flock of birds, smallpox, splashing, splashing action, or rout after defeat. On the contrary, Herle- Word meaning tight or dense; can refer to a tribe, a tree trunk, a rock, a pile of rocks, the motion of a pile of rocks, a meeting of four wizards, a copulation of a man and a woman, or a wood. Pronounce it another way, or pair it with another facial expression , each word can have the opposite meaning. This does not particularly surprise us; in our text, the verb to cleave has two completely different interpretations: to cleave and to cling. Of course, there is no complete sentences, not even dry sentences.

"Similar characters require abstract thinking, which makes me think that the yahoo people, although barbaric, are not uncivilized but degenerate. The inscriptions I found on the top of the plateau confirmed this guess. The letters in the inscriptions and our ancestors Lu The alphabet is similar to Na, which is now unrecognizable by the tribe. They seem to have forgotten the written word and only remember the spoken language. "Yahoo people's entertainment is to fight trained cats and execute criminals. Anyone who molested the queen or ate in front of others is guilty; no witness statement or personal confession is required, and the king makes a guilty verdict. The condemned A man suffers all kinds of tortures first, and I don't want to describe the horror here, and then let everyone throw stones to kill him. The queen has the right to throw the first and the last stone, and the prisoner has already died when the last stone is thrown. The public praises the queen and the beauty of her genitals, cheered her wildly, and threw roses and foul-smelling things at her. The Queen said nothing, but smiled.

"Another custom of the tribe is the way it treats poets. Some members occasionally affix six or seven inexplicable words. He was overjoyed and shouted out these words. Wizards and common people Crouching on the ground, forming a circle, he stood in the center. If the poem does not excite, it is all right; if the poet's words terrify the people, they all stay away silently with holy fear. They think that ghosts have possessed In the poet; no one, not even his mother, would speak to him, dare not look at him. He is no longer a man, but a god, and anyone can kill him. The poet fled to the quicksands of the north if he could hide.

"I have already said how I came to the country of the Yahoo people. Readers may remember that they surrounded me and I fired a gun into the sky. They thought the gunshot was a thunder. I will make mistakes and try not to be around Armed. One morning in spring, just before dawn, the apes attacked us; I took my gun and ran down the hill, killing two of the apes. The rest fled in a hurry. The bullets were too fast to be seen. I For the first time in my life I heard people cheering me. I think that's when the Queen received me. Yahoo people have such a bad memory; I ran away that afternoon. There is nothing to talk about in the jungle. A village inhabited by blacks who could till and pray and talk to me in Portuguese. A priest who spoke a Roman language, Father Fernández, let me live in his hut and tended me until I regained my strength, Back on the arduous journey. At first I felt a little sick when I saw him open his mouth openly and put food in. I covered my eyes with my hands, or looked away; after a few days, I got used to it. I remember We had some pleasant theological discussions. I couldn't bring him back to true Christianity.

"I am currently writing this report from Glasgow. I have only described my life among the Yahoos, not their horrific situation, whose misery has been haunting my mind and my dreams. I Walking down the street it feels like they're still around. I understand that the Yahoos are a savage people, and it's not too much to say they're the savages that ever lived, but it's not fair to ignore certain traits that would save them. They have institutions, There are kings, who use a language based on common concepts, who believe in the divine origin of poetry like the Hebrews and Greeks, who believe that the soul survives the death of the body. They are sure of karma. In short, they represent a culture , just like us, despite our sins, we also represent a culture. I have fought with them, against the ape-men, and have no regrets. It is our duty to save them. I hope that the recommendations that this report ventures to make will be received by the Empire government considerations." The above is translated from The Brody Report