CHAPTER XX.
There had up to this time been many sects in the religion of the Ammi. They all agreed simply in recognizing Shoozoo as its founder, and his fight with the Alligator as the great transaction on which it rested. There was early, however, a schism in the main body. One class had drifted away from the worship of Shoozoo to the worship of his Alligator, and in time they claimed that the Alligator was the god, instead of Shoozoo. This came from their habit of using the alligator, or figures representing it, as symbols of the Shoozoo religion, whereby the symbol became in time more important than the thing symbolized. There were, accordingly, in the Shoozoo religion, the pure Shoozoo party and the Alligator party, and for nearly a generation a fierce controversy raged between the two, resulting often in bloodshed.
The Alligator party, however, triumphed in the end, and many of the pure Shoozooists were exiled, and have since lived among the Lali and other apes, where theyhave continued to worship Shoozoo without any mixture of the Alligator, and have converted back some of the Apes to their faith.
In time, however, the Alligator party came to be divided among themselves, as the outgrowth of the same spirit. They accustomed themselves to use, as the symbol of the Alligator, a dragon-fly (for the alligator vanquished by Shoozoo was admitted to be a flying alligator which somewhat resembled a dragon-fly), and by many the dragon-fly came at length to be taken for the Alligator and to be worshipped as such. A fight accordingly arose between the pure Alligator party and the dragon-fly party that waxed more bitter than the original fight between the Alligator party and the Shoozoo party. The dragon-fly party were in the end victorious, and the Alligator party were slain or banished as heretics, just as the pure Shoozoo party had been.
There was soon after this a like division among the successful Dragon-fly party, and from a like cause. The people, finding it difficult to draw a dragon-fly, represented it by a cross, or two lines drawn transversely, the longer one representing the body of the fly, and the shorter one its wings. This symbol, which was soon seen on all the utensils of the Ammi, and frequently carved on trees and rocks, especially during the controversy with the Alligator party, came at length to be taken for the dragon-fly, and worshipped in its stead. This abuse was deplored by some of the Ammi, who tried to recall the people to the worship of the dragon-fly itself, and not its symbol. Others, however, had becomeattached to the cross, and soon there was a violent controversy between the dragon-fly party and the cross party, and the dragon-fly party fought the cross party more than they had both together fought the Alligator party. The cross party were successful, however, and the dragon-fly party were compelled to keep quiet; for by this time they had learned the first rudiments of religious tolerance, and stopped killing and banishing the dissenters, provided only that they would not preach their doctrines in public, or attempt to disturb the established faith.
Soon, however, the cross party was rent with dissensions, one class insisting on worshiping the long beam of the cross, and the other the short beam; and there was soon the long-beam cross party and the short-beam cross party in the church, and the long-beam party fought the short-beam party more than the whole cross party had before fought the dragon-fly party. The short-beam party insisted at last on making the short beam as long as the long beam, forming something like a Greek Cross, which finally came to be their symbol, while the long-beam party came in time to omit the short beam altogether and use only a one-beam cross; and they took as their symbol a straight line.
The short-beam cross party, however, were successful, and they greatly persecuted the long-beam party, though with less severity than their predecessors had done, because the spirit of religious liberty was always in the ascendant.
The short-beam cross party, however, soon broke up into other sects owing to disputes about the nature andform of the short-beam cross, which gave the long-beam cross party (which had at length become the one-beam cross party) an opportunity to urge its claims, and there was a reaction among the short-beam cross party in favor of the long-beam cross party, which gained many converts, and at one time threatened the disruption of the short-beam cross party; and it would doubtless have accomplished this but for a great reformation which now swept over the religious world of the Ammi.
This was a movement in favor of restoring the primitive religion of Shoozoo, or the worship of the Alligator. It was led by one Lookoo, who was afterwards known as the Great Reformer. With a fiery zeal and vigorous eloquence he called the attention of the Ammi to the fact they had got away entirely from their original faith, which was in the Alligator, and, instead, were worshipping short crosses and long crosses.
“Neither short crosses nor long crosses,” said he, “are anything, but only alligators. Not even a dragon-fly will avail you, but only the original Alligator of Shoozoo, who occupies the Swamp and flies through the air. He gives us warmth in the sun, and comes to the earth in lightning to punish his enemies. He is the Lord of the Ammi, and will put to flight the Lali and all monkeys beyond the Swamp. He led our fathers out from the Apes, gave us Cocoanut Hill, taught us to make darts and wedges, and led us to build houses. Our gathered fruits are due to his guidance, and by his jaws the reptiles of the great forest are kept in fear. Return, then, to your allegiance to the great Alligator, the companion of Shoozoo and equal deity with him.”
Lookoo gained many adherents, not only because it was evident to all the Ammi that they had departed from their god for his successive symbols, but because the priests of the short-beam cross religion had established the custom of drinking all the milk in the Cocoanut, which they had taught the rest of the Ammi that it was sacrilege for anybody to drink but the priests. The reformation, accordingly, gained headway out of a desire on the part of the common people to get some of this milk, as well as out of a change in theological convictions. There was a general demand for reform, and some of the worst, as well as some of the best men, were active in the movement. The priests made the principal opposition to it, although a few of them, in the hope of preferment, or because they had a grievance against the other priests, joined the new movement and became its leaders.
The reformation was generally successful. Some, however, refused to be led away by it, but became more devoted than ever to the short-beam cross worship, and cultivated such a devotion for the short-beam cross as had never been known. They were commonly known as the clerical or priestly party, and constituted the conservatives until the time of the great earthquake just mentioned. They insisted on retaining all that their ancestors had handed down to them, the very fact that it had come from antiquity being evidence of its truth; while the Reformers claimed the right of going back to original sources and re-establishing themselves on the truth of the great Alligator.
The tendency to skepticism and the introduction of new gods, deplored by Lookoo, as well as the explanation of the Alligator and other theological truths as phenomena of nature—fire, earthquake, wind, etc.—has generally been found among the Reformers, who early tried to explain all religion away, or else resolve it into natural causes and effects.