Adventure Magazine Cover — page 61: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Web of the Sun IX de IT IS a misfortune, indeed, almost Sita 2 calamity for the province of bio- graphical literature, that Charles Lassiter’s passion for the [Indian girl ‘estranged him from Ezekiel Birdsong. This estrangement unfitted Lassiter for writing a sympathetic, or even a veridical account of that remarkable man. Many other writers have attempted to reconstruct Birdsong’s amazing career in Motobatl. The Motobatl Indians have been interviewed. Birdsong’s letters to his wife have been studied and analyzed. Every genre of journal, from the stridor of the New York yellows to the basso profundo of the English quarterlies, has devoted fascicles to what may be termed the Bird- song myth. But of Birdsong himself, little is known save those harsh and _ unsympathetic glimpses given of him in Lassiter’s narra- tive.* That the very story of his greatness should be confided to so adverse a pen is the final touch of irony in Ezekiel Birdsong’s life. Of the beginnings of Birdsong’s bold undertaking, Lassiter knew, or expressed nothing more than that it disturbed his morning sleep in the paddlewood. He was annoyed by the revivalistic hymns; and during the last days of the pro- moter’s co-tenancy with the revivalist Birdsong’s sunrise prayer-meetings forced Lassiter to abandon late morning hours in his hammock. The promoter formed the unwilling habit of rising betimes. Then he would walk down to the arbol-de-vaca forest where he would meet Tilita. The two would then spend the remainder of the day in agreeable courtship, and in liming birds and starting. them with messages to civilization begging rescue. : One morning curiosity sent Lassiter down to one of\ the meetings to see what Birdsong and his converts were doing. The sunrise services were held under a banyan *Interested readers may consult any digest of current eriodicals, under the caption, ‘‘Birdsong”’ or ‘‘Motobatl.’’ Ro; fuller accounts, see ‘‘Life of Ezekiel Birdsong,’’ by Ralph Fenhope, Weatherall Printing Co., Glasgow; Bishop Langhorne’s “‘Myth or Man,” Starnes & Sykes, Richmond, Va.; ‘The Great End,’’ by Humphrey Daniels, Pelton Pub. Co., Boston; and Philip Werner’s more imaginative and therefore more nearly correct account, ‘‘The Man of Motobatl,’’ The Collingwood Press, N. Y. For complete bibliography, consult card index of Congressional Library. This lists everything except a few pamphlets privately printed in Assamese. 51 not far from the paddlewood. Lassiter joined the little congregation and sat down on one of the rude seats that had been extemporized between the boles. Some dozen Indians were there, and Birdsong stood on a dais with a pulpit beside him. The whole service was as near a repro- duction of the ordinary sunrise meet- ing as Birdsong could contrive. The col- porteur had chosen a ‘“‘topic” and cognate texts. Nunes translated these into Quichau from’ Birdsong’s shocking Spanish. The Indians understood Quichua because this tongue is only a slight variant of the old Incan. After all this twisting through three languages, the new converts would arise and repeat their memory verses. Lassiter, who possessed exceptional ing guistic facility, could follow the textgr through all their metamorphoses, and he heard some extraordinary renderings of King James’ version. | Birdsong himself, standing on: his dais, sweated under this mental struggle. Only his black oily hair remained unrufiled. The left half and top of his hair had an ebony finish; over his right eye and ear, it broke into a gleaming scroll of Jarge polished curls, greatly aided by a cow-lick over the right temple. It was the tonsure of a rustic arbiter elegantorium, and Lassiter was always amazed to see such hair on such an indomitable fellow. Prolonged Ecuadorian sunshine had burned the colporteur quite as dark as Nunes, but it was the reddish brown of an Anglo- Saxon, not the- yellowish brown of a native. During the services, three trans-. verse wrinkles in the thick skin of Bird- song’s forehead filled with sweat. This reflected the foliage of the banyan above and drew three bright green streaks above- and parallel with his eye brows. The colporteur exhorted his hearers to quit their sins and to give their hearts to God. He talked of God’s desires, prefer- ences and predilections with convincing intimacy. He had the power of a prestidi- gitator to visualize the impalpable. His absolute conviction that there was a power above him, looking down on him, with whom he was in immediately personal touch, at last produced an illusion of reality even in Lassiter. The promoter received a very concrete impression that up in the banyan above them sat a very iraseible old gentleman, who watched the worshipers 1DOO C@