A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder

by James De Mille

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE KOSEKIN

  These people call themselves the Kosekin. Their chief characteristic,or, at least, their most prominent one, is their love of darkness,which perhaps is due to their habit of dwelling in caves. Anotherfeeling, equally strong and perhaps connected with this, is their loveof death and dislike of life. This is visible in many ways, andaffects all their character. It leads to a passionate self-denial, anincessant effort to benefit others at their own expense. Each onehates life and longs for death. He, therefore, hates riches, and allthings that are associated with life.

  Among the Kosekin everyone makes perpetual efforts to serve others,which, however, are perpetually baffled by the unselfishness of theseothers. People thus spend years in trying to overreach one another, soas to make others richer than themselves. In a race each one tries tokeep behind; but as this leads to confusion, there is then a universaleffort for each one to be first, so as to put his neighbor in thehonorable position of the rear. It is the same way in a hunt. Each onepresses forward, so as to honor his companion by leaving him behind.Instead of injuring, everyone tries to benefit his neighbor. When onehas been benefited by another, he is filled with a passion which maybe called Kosekin revenge--namely, a sleepless and vehement desire tobestow some adequate and corresponding benefit on the other. Feudsare thus kept up among families and wars among nations. For no one iswilling to accept from another any kindness, any gift, or any honor,and all are continually on the watch to prevent themselves from beingoverreached in this way. Those who are less watchful than others areoverwhelmed with gifts by designing men, who wish to attain to thepauper class. The position of Almah and myself illustrates this. Ourignorance of the blessings and honors of poverty led us to receivewhatever was offered us. Taking advantage of our innocence andignorance, the whole city thereupon proceeded to bestow their propertyupon us, and all became paupers through our fortunate arrival.

  No one ever injures another unless by accident, and when this occursit affords the highest joy to the injured party. He has now a claim onthe injurer; he gets him into his power, is able to confer benefits onhim and force upon him all that he wishes. The unhappy injurer, thuspunished by the reception of wealth, finds himself helpless; and wherethe injury is great, the injured man may bestow upon the other all hiswealth and attain to the envied condition of a pauper.

  Among the Kosekin the sick are objects of the highest regard. Allclasses vie with one another in their attentions. The rich send theirluxuries; the paupers, however, not having anything to give, gothemselves and wait on them and nurse them. For this there is no help,and the rich grumble, but can do nothing. The sick are thus sought outincessantly, and most carefully tended. When they die there is greatrejoicing, since death is a blessing; but the nurses labor hard topreserve them in life, so as to prolong the enjoyment of the highprivilege of nursing. Of all sick the incurable are most honored,since they require nursing always. Children also are highly honoredand esteemed, and the aged too, since both classes require the care ofothers and must be the recipients of favors which all are anxious tobestow. Those who suffer from contagious diseases are more soughtafter than any other class, for in waiting on these there is thechance of gaining the blessing of death; indeed, in these cases muchtrouble is usually experienced from the rush of those who insist onoffering their services.

  For it must never be forgotten that the Kosekin love death as we lovelife; and this accounts for all those ceremonies which to me were soabhorrent, especially the scenes of the Mista Kosek. To them a deadhuman body is no more than the dead body of a bird: there is no awefelt, no sense of sanctity, of superstitious horror; and so I learned,with a shudder, that the hate of life is a far worse thing than thefear of death. This desire for death is, then, a master-passion, andis the key to all their words and acts. They rejoice over the death offriends, since those friends have gained the greatest of blessings;they rejoice also at the birth of children, since those who are bornwill one day gain the bliss of death.

  For a couple to fall in love is the signal for mutual self-surrender.Each insists on giving up the loved one; and the more passionate thelove is, the more eager is the desire to have the loved one married tosomeone else. Lovers have died broken-hearted from being compelled tomarry one another. Poets here among the Kosekin celebrate unhappy lovewhich has met with this end. These poets also celebrate defeatsinstead of victories, since it is considered glorious for one nationto sacrifice itself to another; but to this there are importantlimitations, as we shall see. Poets also celebrate street-sweepers,scavengers, lamp-lighters, laborers, and above all, paupers, and passby as unworthy of notice the authors, Meleks, and Kohens of the land.

  The paupers here form the most honorable class. Next to these are thelaborers. These have strikes as with us; but it is always for harderwork, longer hours, or smaller pay. The contest between capital andlabor rages, but the conditions are reversed; for the grumblingcapitalist complains that the laborer will not take as much pay as heought to while the laborer thinks the capitalist too persistent in hisefforts to force money upon him.

  Here among the Kosekin the wealthy class forms the mass of the people,while the aristocratic few consist of the paupers. These are greatlyenvied by the others, and have many advantages. The cares and burdensof wealth, as well as wealth itself, are here considered a curse, andfrom all these the paupers are exempt. There is a perpetual effort onthe part of the wealthy to induce the paupers to accept gifts, justas among us the poor try to rob the rich. Among the wealthy there isa great and incessant murmur at the obstinacy of the paupers. Secretmovements are sometimes set on foot which aim at a redistribution ofproperty and a levelling of all classes, so as to reduce the haughtypaupers to the same condition as the mass of the nation. More thanonce there has been a violent attempt at a revolution, so as to forcewealth on the paupers; but as a general thing these movements havebeen put down and their leaders severely punished. The paupers haveshown no mercy in their hour of triumph; they have not conceded onejot to the public demand, and the unhappy conspirators have beencondemned to increased wealth and luxury, while the leaders havebeen made Meleks and Kohens. Thus there are among the Kosekin theunfortunate many who are cursed with wealth, and the fortunate few whoare blessed with poverty. These walk while the others ride, and fromtheir squalid huts look proudly and contemptuously upon the palaces oftheir unfortunate fellow-countrymen.

  The love of death leads to perpetual efforts on the part of each tolay down his life for another. This is a grave difficulty in hunts andbattles. Confined prisoners dare not fly, for in such an event theguards kill themselves. This leads to fresh rigors in the captivity ofthe prisoners in case of their recapture, for they are overwhelmedwith fresh luxuries and increased splendors. Finally, if a prisonerpersist and is recaptured, he is solemnly put to death, not, as withus, by way of severity, but as the last and greatest honor. Hereextremes meet; and death, whether for honor or dishonor, is all thesame--death--and is reserved for desperate cases. But among theKosekin this lofty destiny is somewhat embittered by the agonizingthought on the part of the prisoner, who thus gains it, that hiswretched family must be doomed, not, as with us, to poverty and want,but, on the contrary, to boundless wealth and splendor.

  Among so strange a people it seemed singular to me what offences couldpossibly be committed which could be regarded and punished as crimes.These, however, I soon found out. Instead of robbers, the Kosekinpunished the secret bestowers of their wealth on others. This isregarded as a very grave offence. Analogous to our crime of piracyis the forcible arrest of ships at sea and the transfer to them ofvaluables. Sometimes the Kosekin pirates give themselves up as slaves.Kidnapping, assault, highway robbery, and crimes of violence havetheir parallel here in cases where a strong man, meeting a weaker,forces himself upon him as his slave or compels him to take his purse.If the weaker refuse, the assailant threatens to kill himself, whichact would lay the other under obligations to receive punishment fromthe state in the shape of gi
fts and honors, or at least subject himto unpleasant inquiries. Murder has its counterpart among the Kosekinin cases where one man meets another, forces money on him, and killshimself. Forgery occurs where one uses another's name so as to confermoney on him.

  There are many other crimes, all of which are severely punished. Theworse the offence is, the better is the offender treated. Among theKosekin capital punishment is imprisonment amid the greatest splendor,where the prisoner is treated like a king, and has many palaces andgreat retinues; for that which we consider the highest they regard asthe lowest, and with them the chief post of honor is what we wouldcall the lowest menial office. Of course, among such a people, anysuffering from want is unknown, except when it is voluntary. Thepauper class, with all their great privileges, have this restriction,that they are forced to receive enough for food and clothing. Some,indeed, manage by living in out-of-the-way places to deprivethemselves of these, and have been known to die of starvation; butthis is regarded as dishonorable, as taking an undue advantage of agreat position, and where it can be proved, the children and relativesof the offender are severely punished according to the Kosekinfashion.

  State politics here move, like individual affairs, upon the greatprinciple of contempt for earthly things. The state is willing todestroy itself for the good of other states; but as other states arein the same position, nothing can result. In times of war the objectof each army is to honor the other and benefit it by giving it theglory of defeat. The contest is thus most fierce. The Kosekin, throughtheir passionate love of death, are terrible in battle; and when theyare also animated by the desire to confer glory on their enemies bydefeating them, they generally succeed in their aim. This makes themalmost always victorious, and when they are not so not a soul returnsalive. Their state of mind is peculiar. If they are defeated theyrejoice, since defeat is their chief glory; but if they are victoriousthey rejoice still more in the benevolent thought that they haveconferred upon the enemy the joy, the glory, and the honor of defeat.

  Here all shrink from governing others. The highest wish of each is toserve. The Meleks and Kohens, whom I at first considered the highest,are really the lowest orders; next to these come the authors, then themerchants, then farmers, then artisans, then laborers, and, finally,the highest rank is reached in the paupers. Happy the aristocratic,the haughty, the envied paupers! The same thing is seen in theirarmies. The privates here are highest in rank, and the officers comenext in different graduations. These officers, however, have thecommand and the charge of affairs as with us; yet this is consistentwith their position, for here to obey is considered nobler than tocommand. In the fleet the rowers are the highest class; next come thefighting-men; and lowest of all are the officers. War arises frommotives as peculiar as those which give rise to private feuds; as, forinstance, where one nation tries to force a province upon another;where they try to make each other greater; where they try to benefitunduly each other's commerce; where one may have a smaller fleet orarmy than has been agreed on, or where an ambassador has beenpresented with gifts, or received too great honor or attention.

  In such a country as this, where riches are disliked and despised, Icould not imagine how people could be induced to engage in trade.This, however, was soon explained. The laborers and artisans have toperform their daily work, so as to enable the community to live andmove and have its being. Their impelling motive is the high one ofbenefiting others most directly. They refuse anything but the verysmallest pay, and insist on giving for this the utmost possible labor.Tradesmen also have to supply the community with articles of allsorts; merchants have to sail their ships to the same end--all beinganimated by the desire of effecting the good of others. Each one triesnot to make money, but to lose it; but as the competition is sharp anduniversal, this is difficult, and the larger portion are unsuccessful.The purchasers are eager to pay as much as possible, and the merchantsand traders grow rich in spite of their utmost endeavors. The wealthyclasses go into business so as to lose money, but in this they seldomsucceed. It has been calculated that only two per cent in everycommunity succeed in reaching the pauper class. The tendency is forall the labors of the working-class to be ultimately turned upon theunfortunate wealthy class. The workmen being the creators of wealth,and refusing to take adequate pay, cause a final accumulation of thewealth of the community in the hands of the mass of the non-producers,who thus are fixed in their unhappy position, and can hope for noescape except by death. The farmers till the ground, the fishermenfish, the laborers toil, and the wealth thus created is pushed fromthese incessantly till it all falls upon the lowest class--namely, therich, including Athons, Meleks, and Kohens. It is a burden that isoften too heavy to be borne; but there is no help for it, and thebetter-minded seek to cultivate resignation.

  Women and men are in every respect absolutely equal, holding preciselythe same offices and doing the same work. In general, however, it isobserved that women are a little less fond of death than men, and alittle less unwilling to receive gifts. For this reason they are verynumerous among the wealthy class, and abound in the offices ofadministration. Women serve in the army and navy as well as men, andfrom their lack of ambition or energetic perseverance they are usuallyrelegated to the lower ranks, such as officers and generals. To mymind it seemed as though the women were in all the offices of honorand dignity, but in reality it was the very opposite. The same is truein the family. The husbands insist on giving everything to the wivesand doing everything for them. The wives are therefore universally therulers of the household while the husbands have an apparentlysubordinate, but, to the Kosekin, a more honorable position.

  As to the religion of the Kosekin, I could make nothing of it. Theybelieve that after death they go to what they call the world ofdarkness. The death they long for leads to the darkness that theylove; and the death and the darkness are eternal. Still, they persistin saying that the death and the darkness together form a state ofbliss. They are eloquent about the happiness that awaits them there inthe sunless land--the world of darkness; but for my own part, italways seemed to me a state of nothingness.