The Improved Order of Red Men
The Chief of
Records of the New Jersey Pohatcong Tribe
To an outsider
this looks like another hysterical American ritual (was it in Neil Gaiman’s American
Gods?) nevertheless, at its height membership was about half a million
rebels (against Britain’s overseas rule) and I guess it was intended as a
progressive tribute to native Americans.
Despite what I
said about spacefarers, one can imagine an America that is able to reclaim its
rustic heritage as well as harbouring colonies in space. In fact, the combination
of the two is a common enough sci-fi trope, as in Starstruck. The sense
is that it strikes a chord with the psyche; while space settings are
high-powered micro-grav illusions, the Galactic Girl Guides perform homely
feats with hen-houses and corn-dollies.
Archaic rituals
that hearken towards dreams of yore; American or African? Towards the finale of
Flamingo Feather (Van der Post, prev) our heroes approach the gathered
throng of ‘Takwena at a sacred plateau where stands the Keeper of the People’s
Memory, the Umbombulimo.
As I watched
him standing there with extraordinary satyr’s dignity, a strange crepuscular
compromise of man and beast, and the light of an uncompromising spring morning
upon him, I became aware of the extraordinary silence his words and appearance
had imposed upon the gathering and I feared greatly the power of the people’s
associations from childhood with him and his craft, and its effect on the
aboriginal element quicksilver element in the massed African tribal mood. (page 273)
The young and
the ancient come together in this figure out of time. Our heroes have to
challenge his fairy tale authority over the interpretation of a Great Dream
that will set South Africa aflame with rebellion.
As Van der Post
emphasizes several times, the Umbombulimo mujst serve the Dream – the truth of
the vision – and not the other way round. In the end, the Umbombulimo is found
to have betrayed the Dream and he, together with his allies, must follow custom
and walk over the edge.
The others
followed obediently with bowed heads, all except the Umbombulimo who first laid
down his forked stick, took off his trappings one by one until all his
discarded finery lay like dead animal shapes upon the ground. Then naked as he
had entered the world he proceeded behind the others to walk out of it. (page 279)
Fantastical
rituals of a lost age; however as Van der Post says at the end of the book, the
vision is ever greater than the self and it is not happiness or unhappiness we
need, but meaning.
To Americans
that might sound odd, but the American dream has always had a dark side to it.
In the age of modernity, happiness is almost impossible to define, and the
intangible myths of cowboy and Indian much simpler.
The dream – both
African and American – is physical; the actions of people to achieve a goal
together. Any dream can be a rebellion and can involve bloodshed; for every
goal there is conflict. That’s the danger and the reason for the interpreters
of dreams to hold sway in African tradition.
In Van der
Post’s book the Umbombulimo – the sorcerer – is found to have sold a false
dream. If we – in modernity – are living a false dream then it is much more
than simply a case of happiness or unhappiness.
As I tend to
say, everything is electrochemical impulses, so it would be false happiness! No,
what is more relevant is the meaning we can adduce, and meaning often
implicates a mythical substratum.
BWS, The Ram and the Peacock
BWS in The
Studio (as I may have mentioned) says the wizard is a fallen hero and the
barbarian an intruder. For the sake of argument, the wizard could represent
modern science symbolised by the prism – Newtonian optics – and the sundial –
spacetime (Relativity). I know that isn’t what he intended; it’s a way of
testing the “truths” of science in a mythical setting.
I did a bit of
reading on the “Opticks” in wikipaedia, and the main thing I got was that light
by its nature is geometrical, splitting always at the same angles (diffraction,
rainbow), irrespective of any medium. What that says is that any investigation
of light (optics) goes into a perspective world, since that’s what geometry is.
Newton essentially replaced rational deduction with controlled experiment (observation)
and this has been so up to our own day.
Controlled
experiments are supposedly “factual”, but in Newton’s case they take place in a
perspective reality. Since so much of science is Newtonian, that applies to so
much of what we are told. The perspective reality is essentially solar (light)
and not physical. In BWS’s print the physical reality is the ornamental garden
with wind-chimes in the trees, peacock and the signs of the cultivated country
gentleman.
The sundial you
could say IS physical, since it indicates the sun’s passage through the sky
(Earth’s rotation). If that is so, then you could also say Einstein’s
Relativity exists inside the prism (lens) of Newtonian optics.
In other words,
these sorcerers are not in the physical reality of the garden (above), only in
perspective reality. So, how does that account for “proofs” of spacetime, such
as the recent algorithmic image of a supermassive black hole (Hyborian
Bridge 56)?
As I mentioned
there, it’s a perspective image through a great telescope (lens). The “proof”
we have is in perspective reality. Now, I’m not saying perspective doesn’t
exist; it does is a prism or lens (“Pets”). But the other reality is Earth’s
rotation which involves relative proportions of sun and moon (prev).
The
proportionate reality is the invisible or absolute one; the sun is only order.
This goes back to “White Rabbit” and Alice Through the Looking Glass (Hyborian Bridge 48) where everything relates to the speed of
light. Relativity is like a reflection in glass where all the images move
through electromagnetism, or the vanishing point of technique.
Einstein I quoted awhile back 'Since the mathematicians have invaded the
theory of relativity I do not understand it myself any more.'
Exactly, because a perspective reality is a mathematical, not a physical
reality. It’s implicitly confusing. We are in the sorcerer created land of
infinite mirrors (Hyborian Bridge 20)
This is why we appear to live in a Looking Glass world rather than a
physical one of rustic pursuits, country gentlemen, refined gardens, prairie
riders and other things on the hoof.
