Best Fantasy Stories

Chapter 16 THE KOSEKIN

Chapter 16

THE KOSEKINThese 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. Another feeling, equally strong and perhaps connected

with this, is their love of death and dislike of life. This is

visible in many ways, and affects all their character. It leads to

a passionate self-denial, an incessant effort to benefit others at

their own expense. Each one hates life and longs for death. He,

therefore, hates riches, and all things that are associated with

life.

Among the Kosekin everyone makes perpetual efforts to serve

others, which, however, are perpetually baffled by the

unselfishness of these others. People thus spend years in trying to

overreach one another, so as to make others richer than themselves.

In a race each one tries to keep behind; but as this leads to

confusion, there is then a universal effort for each one to be

first, so as to put his neighbor in the honorable position of the

rear. It is the same way in a hunt. Each one presses forward, so as

to honor his companion by leaving him behind. Instead of injuring,

everyone tries to benefit his neighbor. When one has been benefited

by another, he is filled with a passion which may be called Kosekin

revenge—namely, a sleepless and vehement desire to bestow some

adequate and corresponding benefit on the other. Feuds are thus

kept up among families and wars among nations. For no one is

willing to accept from another any kindness, any gift, or any

honor, and all are continually on the watch to prevent themselves

from being overreached in this way. Those who are less watchful

than others are overwhelmed with gifts by designing men, who wish

to attain to the pauper class. The position of Almah and myself

illustrates this. Our ignorance of the blessings and honors of

poverty led us to receive whatever was offered us. Taking advantage

of our innocence and ignorance, the whole city thereupon proceeded

to bestow their property upon us, and all became paupers through

our fortunate arrival.

No one ever injures another unless by accident, and when this

occurs it affords the highest joy to the injured party. He has now

a claim on the injurer; he gets him into his power, is able to

confer benefits on him and force upon him all that he wishes. The

unhappy injurer, thus punished by the reception of wealth, finds

himself helpless; and where the injury is great, the injured man

may bestow upon the other all his wealth and attain to the envied

condition of a pauper.

Among the Kosekin the sick are objects of the highest regard.

All classes vie with one another in their attentions. The rich send

their luxuries; the paupers, however, not having anything to give,

go themselves 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 out incessantly, and most carefully tended. When they die

there is great rejoicing, since death is a blessing; but the nurses

labor hard to preserve them in life, so as to prolong the enjoyment

of the high privilege of nursing. Of all sick the incurable are

most honored, since they require nursing always. Children also are

highly honored and esteemed, and the aged too, since both classes

require the care of others and must be the recipients of favors

which all are anxious to bestow. Those who suffer from contagious

diseases are more sought after than any other class, for in waiting

on these there is the chance of gaining the blessing of death;

indeed, in these cases much trouble is usually experienced from the

rush of those who insist on offering their services.

For it must never be forgotten that the Kosekin love death as we

love life; and this accounts for all those ceremonies which to me

were so abhorrent, especially the scenes of the Mista Kosek. To

them a dead human body is no more than the dead body of a bird:

there is no awe felt, 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 the fear of death. This desire for death is,

then, a master-passion, and is the key to all their words and acts.

They rejoice over the death of friends, since those friends have

gained the greatest of blessings; they rejoice also at the birth of

children, since those who are born will 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 the love is, the more eager is the desire to have

the loved one married to someone else. Lovers have died

broken-hearted from being compelled to marry one another. Poets

here among the Kosekin celebrate unhappy love which has met with

this end. These poets also celebrate defeats instead of victories,

since it is considered glorious for one nation to sacrifice itself

to another; but to this there are important limitations, as we

shall see. Poets also celebrate street-sweepers, scavengers,

lamp-lighters, laborers, and above all, paupers, and pass by as

unworthy of notice the authors, Meleks, and Kohens of the land.

The paupers here form the most honorable class. Next to these

are the laborers. These have strikes as with us; but it is always

for harder work, longer hours, or smaller pay. The contest between

capital and labor rages, but the conditions are reversed; for the

grumbling capitalist complains that the laborer will not take as

much pay as he ought to while the laborer thinks the capitalist too

persistent in his efforts 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 greatly envied by the others, and have many advantages. The

cares and burdens of wealth, as well as wealth itself, are here

considered a curse, and from all these the paupers are exempt.

There is a perpetual effort on the part of the wealthy to induce

the paupers to accept gifts, just as among us the poor try to rob

the rich. Among the wealthy there is a great and incessant murmur

at the obstinacy of the paupers. Secret movements are sometimes set

on foot which aim at a redistribution of property and a levelling

of all classes, so as to reduce the haughty paupers to the same

condition as the mass of the nation. More than once there has been

a violent attempt at a revolution, so as to force wealth on the

paupers; but as a general thing these movements have been put down

and their leaders severely punished. The paupers have shown no

mercy in their hour of triumph; they have not conceded one jot to

the public demand, and the unhappy conspirators have been condemned

to increased wealth and luxury, while the leaders have been made

Meleks and Kohens. Thus there are among the Kosekin the unfortunate

many who are cursed with wealth, and the fortunate few who are

blessed with poverty. These walk while the others ride, and from

their squalid huts look proudly and contemptuously upon the palaces

of their unfortunate fellow-countrymen.

The love of death leads to perpetual efforts on the part of each

to lay down his life for another. This is a grave difficulty in

hunts and battles. Confined prisoners dare not fly, for in such an

event the guards kill themselves. This leads to fresh rigors in the

captivity of the prisoners in case of their recapture, for they are

overwhelmed with fresh luxuries and increased splendors. Finally,

if a prisoner persist and is recaptured, he is solemnly put to

death, not, as with us, by way of severity, but as the last and

greatest honor. Here extremes meet; and death, whether for honor or

dishonor, is all the same—death—and is reserved for desperate

cases. But among the Kosekin this lofty destiny is somewhat

embittered by the agonizing thought on the part of the prisoner,

who thus gains it, that his wretched 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

could possibly be committed which could be regarded and punished as

crimes. These, however, I soon found out. Instead of robbers, the

Kosekin punished the secret bestowers of their wealth on others.

This is regarded as a very grave offence. Analogous to our crime of

piracy is the forcible arrest of ships at sea and the transfer to

them of valuables. Sometimes the Kosekin pirates give themselves up

as slaves. k********g, assault, highway robbery, and crimes of

violence have their 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, which act would lay the other under

obligations to receive punishment from the state in the shape of

gifts and honors, or at least subject him to unpleasant inquiries.

Murder has its counterpart among the Kosekin in cases where one man

meets another, forces money on him, and kills himself. Forgery

occurs where one uses another's name so as to confer money on

him.

There are many other crimes, all of which are severely punished.

The worse the offence is, the better is the offender treated. Among

the Kosekin capital punishment is imprisonment amid the greatest

splendor, where the prisoner is treated like a king, and has many

palaces and great retinues; for that which we consider the highest

they regard as the lowest, and with them the chief post of honor is

what we would call the lowest menial office. Of course, among such

a people, any suffering from want is unknown, except when it is

voluntary. The pauper 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 deprive themselves of these, and have been known to die

of starvation; but this is regarded as dishonorable, as taking an

undue advantage of a great position, and where it can be proved,

the children and relatives of the offender are severely punished

according to the Kosekin fashion.

State politics here move, like individual affairs, upon the

great principle of contempt for earthly things. The state is

willing to destroy itself for the good of other states; but as

other states are in the same position, nothing can result. In times

of war the object of each army is to honor the other and benefit it

by giving it the glory of defeat. The contest is thus most fierce.

The Kosekin, through their passionate love of death, are terrible

in battle; and when they are also animated by the desire to confer

glory on their enemies by defeating them, they generally succeed in

their aim. This makes them almost always victorious, and when they

are not so not a soul returns alive. Their state of mind is

peculiar. If they are defeated they rejoice, since defeat is their

chief glory; but if they are victorious they rejoice still more in

the benevolent thought that they have conferred upon the enemy the

joy, the glory, and the honor of defeat.

Here all shrink from governing others. The highest wish of each

is to serve. The Meleks and Kohens, whom I at first considered the

highest, are really the lowest orders; next to these come the

authors, then the merchants, 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 their armies. The privates here are highest in

rank, and the officers come next in different graduations. These

officers, however, have the command and the charge of affairs as

with us; yet this is consistent with their position, for here to

obey is considered nobler than to command. In the fleet the rowers

are the highest class; next come the fighting-men; and lowest of

all are the officers. War arises from motives as peculiar as those

which give rise to private feuds; as, for instance, where one

nation tries to force a province upon another; where they try to

make each other greater; where they try to benefit unduly each

other's commerce; where one may have a smaller fleet or army than

has been agreed on, or where an ambassador has been presented with

gifts, or received too great honor or attention.

In such a country as this, where riches are disliked and

despised, I could not imagine how people could be induced to engage

in trade. This, however, was soon explained. The laborers and

artisans have to perform their daily work, so as to enable the

community to live and move and have its being. Their impelling

motive is the high one of benefiting others most directly. They

refuse anything but the very smallest pay, and insist on giving for

this the utmost possible labor. Tradesmen also have to supply the

community with articles of all sorts; merchants have to sail their

ships to the same end—all being animated by the desire of effecting

the good of others. Each one tries not to make money, but to lose

it; but as the competition is sharp and universal, this is

difficult, and the larger portion are unsuccessful. The purchasers

are eager to pay as much as possible, and the merchants and traders

grow rich in spite of their utmost endeavors. The wealthy classes

go into business so as to lose money, but in this they seldom

succeed. It has been calculated that only two per cent in every

community succeed in reaching the pauper class. The tendency is for

all the labors of the working-class to be ultimately turned upon

the unfortunate wealthy class. The workmen being the creators of

wealth, and refusing to take adequate pay, cause a final

accumulation of the wealth 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 no escape except by death. The farmers

till the ground, the fishermen fish, the laborers toil, and the

wealth thus created is pushed from these incessantly till it all

falls upon the lowest class—namely, the rich, including Athons,

Meleks, and Kohens. It is a burden that is often too heavy to be

borne; but there is no help for it, and the better-minded seek to

cultivate resignation.

Women and men are in every respect absolutely equal, holding

precisely the same offices and doing the same work. In general,

however, it is observed that women are a little less fond of death

than men, and a little less unwilling to receive gifts. For this

reason they are very numerous among the wealthy class, and abound

in the offices of administration. Women serve in the army and navy

as well as men, and from their lack of ambition or energetic

perseverance they are usually relegated to the lower ranks, such as

officers and generals. To my mind it seemed as though the women

were in all the offices of honor and dignity, but in reality it was

the very opposite. The same is true in the family. The husbands

insist on giving everything to the wives and doing everything for

them. The wives are therefore universally the rulers of the

household while the husbands have an apparently subordinate, but,

to the Kosekin, a more honorable position.

As to the religion of the Kosekin, I could make nothing of it.

They believe that after death they go to what they call the world

of darkness. The death they long for leads to the darkness that

they love; and the death and the darkness are eternal. Still, they

persist in saying that the death and the darkness together form a

state of bliss. They are eloquent about the happiness that awaits

them there in the sunless land—the world of darkness; but for my

own part, it always seemed to me a state of nothingness.