Mammonart: An essay in economic interpretation — John Shaqi
Mammonart: An essay in economic interpretationSinclair, Upton
History
Mammonart: An essay in economic interpretation
Sinclair, Upton
Arts and society; Economics and literature; Literature -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc.
Ogi found a cave of his own, and escaped the sabre-tooth tiger. And not
all the furies of the Witch Doctor, nor even the Ten Commandments of the
Great Hunter, could take from his mind the memory of those delicious
thrills which had stolen over him when he made the magic aurochs in the
dirt. Being now alone, he had time for magic, and he got red stones and
covered the walls of his cave with pictured beasts of many sorts. And
presently came young men from the tribe, and beholding what he had done,
they took to visiting him in secret to share the forbidden thrills.
(And on Main Street in our Great City, I can take you to a cave with
letters of fire over the top, called an “arcade,” and you may go in, and
find the magic of Ogi hidden in little boxes, into which you drop a
token made of copper, and see what is to be seen. One part of this cave
is labeled, _For Men Only_. I have never been into this part, and
therefore do not know what magic the descendants of Ogi have there
hidden; but it is interesting to know that a nerve channel, once
established in a living organism, can be handed down through generations
to the number of three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three.)
Now in the course of time it happened that there was war in the tribe
between the Old Man and the Next Oldest Man; and also between the Old
Witch Doctor and the Next Doctor. The rebels, having learned about the
magic of Ogi, desired to make use of it. There was a secret meeting, at
which the rebel Witch Doctor declared that he had had an interview with
the Great Hunter on the Holy Mountain, and the Great Hunter Himself had
given Ogi power to make the magic aurochs, and to kill them in magic
hunts. In other words, said the Witch Doctor, Ogi was an Inspired
Artist; and if he and his friends would help the new party into power,
Ogi would become Court Painter, and his scratches would be raised to the
status of Ritual. Needless to say, Ogi was delighted at that, and
likewise his friends, some of whom had learned to make scratches almost
as good as Ogi’s, and who desired now to become Inspired Artists, and to
decorate the cave walls and weapons of the tribe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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