The Great Taboo

"But you hinted at some hope, some chance of escape," Felix cried at last, looking up from the ground and mastering his emotion. "What now is that hope? Conceal nothing from me."

"Monsieur," the Frenchman answered, shrugging his shoulders with an expression of utter impotence, "I have as good reasons for wishing to find out all that as even you can have. _Your_ secret is _my_ secret; but with all my pains and astuteness I have been unable to discover it. The natives are reticent, very reticent indeed, about all these matters. They fear taboo; and they fear Tu-Kila-Kila. The women, to be sure, in a moment of expansion, might possibly tell one; but, then, the women, unfortunately, are not admitted to the mysteries. They know no more of all these things than we do. The most I have been able to gather for certain is this -- that on the discovery of the secret depend Tu-Kila-Kila's life and power. Every Boupari man knows this Great Taboo; it is communicated to him in the assembly of adults when he gets tattooed and reaches manhood.