“I
should have been a pair of ragged claws, Scuttling across the floors
of silent seas.”
“The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 1915 T.S. Elliot
I
want to tell you an odd story that might make you believe in
Christmas again. Or not. It's human characters include a virgin queen, a dope
addicted Emperor, a crusty sea captain clawing his way to the top,
some cannibalisticely inclined pirates, a pair of Scottish kings and
a serially espoused alchemist. Its non-human benchmarks run from a
bowl of boiling urine to a great pile of bird poop and culminate in a
crimson decapedal arthropod, all bringing new meaning to the phrase,
“Merry Christmas”.
“The
crab instructs its young: "Walk straight ahead -- like me."
“
Indian
proverb
It
all begins in 1591 when English Queen Elizabeth I (above) dispatched three
ships on a three year voyage to seek the wealth of the Spice Islands,
beyond India. That gamble paid such huge profits that three years
later, when the second expedition sank, the investors wasted no time
dispatching a third. And three years later, when it came back with
several Queens' ransoms in its holds, "The Virgin Queen" Elizabeth granted a charter to
the investors, known as the Governor and the Company of Merchants of
London,. And thus was born the English East India Company.
“You
cannot teach a crab to walk straight.”
Aristophanes
But
there was already a Dutch East India Company, and a Portuguese one as
well, and they did not want to share their profits. The competition
got so cut throat, and profits so tight that in 1609 King James I of
England (aka James VI of Scotland) threatened to revoke the company
charter if it didn't show a profit for three years running. So in September
of 1612, when the rap-scallion Captain Thomas Best led the tenth
trading squadron into the north western Indian port of Surat, and
found 16 Portuguese ships waiting for him, he had claws for concern.
“Have
you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of
the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man
operates.”
H.
L. Mencken
Captain
Best made a quick deal with the local Mughal Governor, Sardar Khan,
to open a trading post, probably because Khan was putting down a
local rebellion and needed the bribes Best was offering. But any deal had to be approved by Kahn's boss, the Emperor Jahangir (above),
a Sunni Muslim who was best known for four things: his opium
addiction, his alcohol addiction, his sex addiction, and the Jesuit
Catholic priests who resided in his court. Captain Best worried that
Jahangir would favor the Portuguese Catholics over the Protestant
English, so he sidled his ships 12 miles south to the little port of
Suvali, to await the Emperor's decision. Then, on 28 October 1612, four Portuguese galleons appeared, trapping Best against the
shore.
“If
you didn't catch anything when fishing, then a crab is a fish.”
Russian
proverb
After
thinking things over for 24 hours, Best decided to start shooting. He
broke out of the trap, sailing rings around the clumsy Portuguese
ships and leading three of them to run aground. Captain Best's
boldness impressed Jahangir, and actually he didn't like the
Portuguese Jesuits very much, as they were so militantly anti-Muslim,
and his promised share of the new English business profits also helped him decide. So in
January of 1613 the Emperor granted the English a trading post, or a
factory, in Surat. The shell was cracked, and the omnivorous English
came scurrying in, snapping up everything they could.
“Let
the crab take counsel with its leg.”
Samoan
proverb
Over
the next thirty years, Great Britain mussel-ed first the Portuguese
and then the Dutch out of India. And in December of 1643, the 800
ton East India ship “Royal Mary”, under Captain William Mynors,
was exploring the edges of their new shell, 220 miles due south of
the western tip of Java and ten degrees south of equator, when a
lookout spotted green earth on the southern horizon. Mynors did not
attempt to land, but he noted the island's position on his charts and
he named the mysterious 9 mile long landmass with a mountain on each
end, after the date of its discovery. Over time, and by general
agreement, the division between the English sphere of influence in
India and Burma, and the remaining Dutch influence in Malaysia, ran
right down the middle of Christmas Island.
“Until
a crab finds itself in a very hot pot of soup, it will never
understand that water can be both cold and hot.”
African
proverb
Then,
in 1669, and 12,500 miles away, in the German port of Hamburg, a
merchant named Hennig Brand was slaving over a hot bowl of urine.
Brand had already gone through the dowries of two wives, and his
financial failure bore all the marks of an amateur alchemist – he
was almost blind from reading ancient books on sorcery by candle
light, almost broke from buying ancient books on sorcery, and his
hands were scared with acid and alkali burns. Brand was intent on
finding the miraculous Sorcerers Stone, which would turn base metals
into gold and make him rich, and the unpleasant recipe he was trying
to tweak called for boiling urine for 16 hours.
“A
crab does not give birth to a bird.”
African
Proverb
Brand's
second wife, Margaretha, must have been shell shocked. The stench
from her husband's
experiments
was discouraging to visitors, the heating bill to keep the urine
boiling was literally burning a hole in their savings, and they were
reduced to eating see food. The minuscule amount of urine syrup
Hennig Brand produced did not turn anything into gold. Dried to a
powder, it did however faintly glow. And that, what ever “that”
was, was enough to get a couple of sympathetic scientists to buy the
formula, giving Hennig enough to redeem his wedding ring from the
prawn broker.
“A
lame crab walks straight.”
Afghan
proverb
In
1737 another broke scientist sold the recipe for urine syrup to the
French Academy of Sciences, and the world finally learned what Hennig
Brand had actually synthesized. He had called it “phosphoros” - Greek for
the bringer of light. It took another forty years before a Swedish
scientists discovered that Brand had actually been throwing away most
of the phosphorus he had produced, and that the element phosphorus
made plants really, really happy - it was a revolutionary
fertilizer, or would be if anybody could find a large enough toilet
to harvest enough urine residue.
“The
crab that walks too far, falls into the pot.”
Haitian
Proverb
Proof
of just such a gigantic toilet arrived via the Royal Mail in
Edinburgh, Scotland in 1885. It was a package containing a single
fist sized tan colored rock which the sender had picked up on
Christmas Island, twenty years earlier, but could not identify it. He was
now seeking the help of a Scotsman, raised and educated in Canada –
Geologist Doctor John Murray. To his shock, Dr. Murray found the
nondescript rock was almost pure phosphate
of lime – solidified weathered bird poop. Dr. Murray quickly did
some research and discovered that no one had ever actually claimed
to own Christmas Island. Even though he had never set eyes upon the island,
Murray immediately urged the British government to seize it. And in June of
1888, the H.M.S. Imperieuse raised the Union Jack over this ancient
avian toilet, claiming Christmas for Queen Victoria.
“That
means that the crab can eat his victim's brain, absorbing his mind
intact...Once they were men; now they are land crabs.'”
Attack
of the Crab Monsters” 1957 – Roger Corman
Dr.
Murray also filed a personal mining claim, which caught the attention
of another avaricious Scotsman, this one with his own kingdom 350
miles south-southwest of Christmas Island - George
Clunies-Ross - the recognized King of the Cocos, or Coconut,
Islands. Assuming the Scottish geologist must be looking for
gold, Clunies-Ross sent out claim jumpers. They found no gold, but an
estimated 200 million tons of
phosphate. There was so much molting rock at both ends of Christmas Island that the two greedy Scotsmen agreed to share. And in 1891 Dr.
Murray and Clunies-Ross were granted a joint license to mine
phosphate as “The Christmas
Island Phosphate Company”. The first shipment was sold to
Japan in 1901.
“We
will rest in the caves and plan our assault upon the world of men!”
“Attack
of the Crab Monsters” 1957 – Roger Corman
After
one visit to the toilet source of his new wealth, the newest member
of the upper crustaceans, Doctor Sir
John Murray, contented himself endorsing royalty checks and
accepting honors, while George Clunies-Ross ran the open pit mines on Christmas. In response to George's kelp wanted ads, he hired 200 Chinese
coolies, five Shikh policemen to watch over them, and eight European
bosses to boss them around. The workers were encouraged to bring
their wives, but their rent for company housing was deducted from
their paychecks, which could otherwise only be used in the company
store. The Kings and Queens of Christmas even insisted on approving
the name of every child born on their property. Any employee who quit
was permanently expelled from Christmas And they may have been the
lucky ones. In the first four years of mining 550 workers died of
beri-beri.
“Well,
Herman told his folks about the girl that he found, They said,
'Herman there must be other girls around. 'Cause crabs walk sideways,
lobsters walk straight, and we won't let you take her for your
mate.'”
The
Smothers Brothers
And
at last we arrive at that other, previously unappreciated, natural
resource in Christmas's open forests between the highland toliets - something between 44 to 106 million red
Gecarcoidea natilis (the red land crab of Christmas). Miners could easily capture the 4 ½ inch wide Decapoda
(10 legged) creatures, and one crab easily provided a meal for two
men. And the chickens and pigs abandoned on Christmas Island, which every
where else in the world had decimated native species, merely fed the
opportunistic omnivorous, carnivorous arthropodal occupants of
Christmas Island. Which is how the crabs here have survived. For ten months each year these mini-monsters remained
hidden in their burrows and caves inland, eating wayward pigs and chickens. But every October, as the full
moon approaches, and with males leading the way, the Christmas crabs
march in mass cross-country to the sea.
“She
said, 'Let me talk to your mom and dad, I'll show them crabs really
aren't that bad.' But they turned her away 'What will the neighbors
say.' And they laughed at the funny walk she had.”
The
Smothers Brothers
For
ten thousand years the Christmas crabs had only to contend with each
other, and the 40 other species of crabs on Christmas. With the
invasion of humans to mine the phosphate there were now roads and
railroads, dogs, horses, cars and cattle and bored children with sticks.
But in an echo of other tales, the greatest threat to the Christmas
crabs remains their fellow Christmas crabs. And still, with clinking
and clapping claws, the Christmas crabs march to the coast to mate,
brood their eggs, and then spew the offspring in their hundreds of
thousands from their abdomens, into the surf. So numerous each year
are these tiny plantonic future crabs that they have fed generations
of 20 ton whale sharks which appear off Christmas Island to scoop up the
bounty with yawning mouths, without endangering tomorrow's crab
domination.
“Then
one day on the sandbar what did Herman see, But his little ol' Sally
walking straight as can be. He said, "Sweetheart now they'll
take you in the family!" She said, "Don't you sweetheart
me! Hic!"
The
Smothers Brothers
In
1955, the United Nations paid off the last King of the Cocos and
Christmas, John Cecil Clunies -Ross, paying him $6 ¼ million to go
away. He promptly sank the windfall in a shipping company which
promptly sank, leaving John an empty shell
of himself,. Today Australia owns Christmas, and the workers
own the Phosphate mines. The democracy down under now uses
Christmas as an out of sight out of mind refugee center, storing
those boat humans who didn't drown while seeking freedom from
poverty, political and religious oppression, under secure lock and
key, until they can be returned to their oppression.
“Christmas
for crabs; their island blooms with a rare largesse of flesh mashed
to pulp on rocks —
They too migrate, ten million scuttles, on
their yearly prickly walk from forest to sea. But roads are cleared
for them, cars parked, as the needful eggs pull them down —a
crimson shawl over grinning cliffs. We make space for the moon-mad
crabs...”
P. S. Cottier
P. S. Cottier
The heartless annual death toll is enough to make you lose faith in Santa Claws, and to see precious
little difference between the opportunistic omnivorous, carnivorous cannibalistic humans on Christmas Island and the Christmas
in the island crabs.
“The
right eye looks south. Apricot moonscape, centuries upon centuries of
fish and crustaceans digested from sea to sky to soil. The left eye
looks north. In and out of view, the swell permitting, Charging from
Flying Fish Cove to the other side of Murray Hill, the refugee
bus squelches the carapace of a red crab on its way to breed. Both
eye stalks face west, seeing without seeing...at the edge of hearing,
wave upon wave of scarlet crabs scuttling like lunatics across the
forest, the spectacular migration of a hundred-million-strong
battalion scratching its way toward the camp, a red carpet
unstoppably rolling, two hundred million pincers now hacking at the
razor wire, klikk, klakk, klikk, klakk, klikk”
Antoine
Cassar
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