For a "worm," a novice, life in the shrine of Ak'un was very hard. Up at dawn, fetch water, cook all morning, do whatever the priests' attendants told you to. Then, after midday, a little to eat and a chance to rest a few minutes before helping the dancers put on their costumes for the evening ceremonies. After the dancing stopped, there was always cleaning up. Then, around midnight, drop to the hard ground in the deep sleep of exhaustion.
But Ak'un was a very big God and Bug-Smasher was deeply called to his service. Bug-Smasher was his "worm" name. It was given to him the first time he was in the shrine when he sat down on a giant rhinoceros bug. It was a careless act and earned him the contempt of all the shrine attendants. The rhinoceros bug's long horn was sacred as a symbol of Ak'un's extravagant-beyond-reason maleness and initiative. Bug-Smasher remembered for a long time the sudden searing pain where he sat, though at the time he hadn't allowed himself to show the slightest wince.
What he remembered much longer was the High Priest. All eyes were on Bug-Smasher. The High Priest turned quietly toward him. His body was surrounded by a deep pulsating glow. It was the Glow of Ak'un. The Glow was a sign that always appeared when a priest's body became Ak'un's body. The High Priest looked at, or beyond, Bug-Smasher and pronounced his name for the first time. "Ak'un sits on Bug-Smasher" was all he said. After that, it was assumed that Bug-Smasher must enter the service of the shrine to pay for his transgression.
After a time, Bug-Smasher realized that he had been in the shrine for five years. In all that time he had never been told any of the secrets of Ak'un, though he had guessed many things from the herbs he had helped gather in the forest, from the ornaments worn by the dancers which had gradually become his task to put on, and from the occasional rebuke he received, justified by some sentence from Ak'un's law. Gradually he had come to yearn for two things, but he had never dared ask for them, and there was no sign they would ever be offered to him. The first was to beat the great drums that made the throbbing ululation that was Ak'un's roar. The second was to dance until his body became Ak'un's, and he would know what the Glow of Ak'un was like from the inside.
One day he was in the shrine putting on the dancers' body paint. This was a demanding craft. Each of the many complex patterns had several different meanings, and the whole painting had to correspond to the character and history of the dancer. If he made a mistake, or forgot some taboo concerning which symbols could be used with which person, the dancer might be insulted and hit Bug-Smasher very hard.
On this day, such was his concentration that he failed to watch his step and he tripped over the edge of the platform where the drums were played. His head crashed against the big drum that always stood there. It fell heavily from the platform. There was a crunch and a wide crack could be seen in the age-blackened wood. Instantly there was silence, filled with menace, in the shrine. Bug-Smasher made no outward movement-that would have been fatal, he sensed. Inside, his heart was pounding. He was very afraid.
The High Priest turned calmly toward him, suddenly glowing with Ak'un. Quietly but so that everybody could hear, he said "Go outside and rest. It is not your fault."
For the next two weeks he lived outside the shrine. He built a crude shelter in the shadow of one of the great trees nearby. Each evening one of the attendants would throw to him, as to a dog, some scraps from the shrine meal. It was not enough and he was constantly hungry. This was the first time for years that he had been outside the shrine for more than a day or two, when he had sometimes been allowed to visit his family in the village.
All during this time, he heard the rhythmic zzok-zzok of adzes cutting wood and the deep drone of solemn singing. He knew that a new drum was being hewn from raw wood, and that the old one was being given rites like those due to a great king who had become an ancestor. He wished he could be helping to make the drum-maybe that way he could pay for the damage he had done.
Finally the adzes and the songs were silent. The body of the new drum was finished. In two days, the hide would be stretched onto it. After that it would be purified in the smoke of special herbs for two days. Then the tight drum head would be christened in blood drawn from the body of the High Priest, after which he would beat it for the first time.
An attendant came for Bug-Smasher, calling him to return to the shrine. "You are to play the little drum of the orchestra for the ceremony of Stretching the Head"was all he said. One of the drum-priests showed him the simple rhythm he had to play, and told him that once he started to play he must not stop until the end of the ceremony.
Bug-Smasher did not realize how hard that would be. He began playing with energy, but even though he was young and strong, his arms soon ached and he poured with sweat from the effort. The other drummers, some of them old men, made much better sound with almost no effort. He was ashamed that he had to stop several times and only pretend to hit the drum for a while.
The Stretching went on all evening, eight or nine hours of playing. Bug-Smasher's hands were blistered and bleeding. His arms trembled violently and would barely obey his will. Finally, the end of the ceremony was announced by a peculiar wailing howl which descended to a mysterious moan. The drum-marshal came and collected all the drums and carried them back to their storehouse. Bug-Smasher was very tired, but he could hardly sleep that night or the next because of the pain in his hands.
The day of the Christening finally dawned. Somebody showed him the new rhythm he was to play. The drum-marshal began distributing the drums, inspecting each one to make sure that the head was tight and the body sound. When he came to the small drum that Bug-Smasher had played two days before he looked frightened, then angry. "There is blood on the head!" he shouted. With Ak'un, blood was a very sacred substance with dangerous powers. Only the big drum was supposed to have blood on it, and only the High Priest could consecrate blood to that purpose. Blood spilled unlawfully was a violation of shrine sanctity and required major ceremonies and sacrifices to expiate its stain.Suddenly
Bug-Smasher understood something. He stood up very straight and said defiantly "It is my blood." Eyes glared at him from every side. Enragedgrunts came up from many throats but strangely he was not afraid. The High Priest stepped out from the crowd. He was glowing more deeply than anyone had ever seen him. "Don't claim what is not yours to claim!" he commanded. He seized Bug-Smasher in the grip of his left hand, an iron vise from decades of beating the drum, and dragged him over to where the virgin Great Drum stood. In his other hand he held a strangely shaped knife which glowed also. He cut a gash in Bug-Smasher's arm and held it over the drum-head letting the blood gush onto it. "Blood belongs to Ak'un," he said. He placed the knife back into a pouch that hung at his waist and smeared the blood over the tight skin with his own hand.
The High Priest intoned "You were called Bug-Smasher. Now you are Drum-Smasher." Then, quietly, "Beat the Drum!" With irresistible ferocity he hurled Drum-Smasher's hand down onto the head of the Great Drum. What came out was more than sound-it was like being hit in the guts by the fist of a heavyweight. All the priests and attendants fell to their knees and let out a gasp that sounded like "Ak'un!"
Drum-Smasher felt the world change. He saw a deep glow envelop the assembled multitude. His own human body was there among them, one of many sweating, fearful bodies. But Drum-Smasher himself-now in the body of Ak'un-knew a different reality, one that was calm, intense, and full of aweful purpose. He began stroking the Drum in a slow throbbing pulse that gradually developed into an insane interlocking rhythm.
Drummers began to pick up their drums and weave a subtle accompaniment. Bodies began to get up and dance in a crescendo of maniacal abandon. The door to Ak'un's world was opened a crack that day and many slipped through, to witness and perform extraordinary things. Drum-Smasher sensed the Ak'un-body of the High Priest beside his own, together with him willing a moment that would be remembered for generations.