Chapter 57

Taji Takes Counsel With Himself

My brief intercourse with our host, had by this time enabled me to
form a pretty good notion of the light, in which I was held by him
and his more intelligent subjects.

His free and easy carriage evinced, that though acknowledging my
assumptions, he was no way overawed by them; treating me as
familiarly, indeed, as if I were a mere mortal, one of the abject
generation of mushrooms.

The scene in the temple, however, had done much toward explaining
this demeanor of his. A demi-god in his own proper person, my claims
to a similar dignity neither struck him with wonder, nor lessened his
good opinion of himself.

As for any thing foreign in my aspect, and my ignorance of Mardian
customs---all this, instead of begetting a doubt unfavorable to my
pretensions, but strengthened the conviction of them as verities.
Thus has it been in similar instances; but to a much greater extent.
The celebrated navigator referred to in a preceding chapter, was
hailed by the Hawaiians as one of their demi-gods, returned to earth,
after a wide tour of the universe. And they worshiped him as such,
though incessantly he was interrogating them, as to who under the sun
his worshipers were; how their ancestors came on the island; and
whether they would have the kindness to provide his followers with
plenty of pork during his stay.

But a word or two concerning the idols in the shrine at Odo. Superadded
to the homage rendered him as a temporal prince, Media was there
worshiped as a spiritual being. In his corporeal absence, his effigy
receiving all oblations intended for him. And in the days of his
boyhood, listening to the old legends of the Mardian mythology,
Media had conceived a strong liking for the fabulous Taji; a deity
whom he had often declared was worthy a niche in any temple extant.
Hence he had honored my image with a place in his own special shrine;
placing it side by side with his worshipful likeness.

I appreciated the compliment. But of the close companionship of the
other image there, I was heartily ashamed. And with reason. The
nuisance in question being the image of a deified maker of plantain-
pudding, lately deceased; who had been famed far and wide as the most
notable fellow of his profession in the whole Archipelago. During his
sublunary career, having been attached to the household of Media, his
grateful master had afterward seen fit to crown his celebrity by this
posthumous distinction: a circumstance sadly subtracting from the
dignity of an apotheosis. Nor must it here be omitted, that in this
part of Mardi culinary artists are accounted worthy of high
consideration. For among these people of Odo, the matter of eating
and drinking is held a