| text: |
Shankok has been happy with his wife for the last 8 years 'since his own first daughter came'. He still thinks with delight of Sikai but though they sometimes meet and talk in mixed company, they never meet alone. 'It would give me a bad name'. Spoke with great affection of Christoph. 'He was always giving them money - money and cigarettes'. The Konyaks still talk of him as 'The Sahib who gave them so much money'. When the war broke out, Shankok was very worried. He could not think of Christoph fighting with the English. He could not bear to think of him being killed. He told me about the dramatic interview with Limaia. (Chinkak came in one evening and cadged a drink.) About the skulls, Shankok said 'I was overjoyed to get mine. I sacrificed a pig and a cow'. I said 'But the skulls were stale ones. No Ao would have looked at them'. 'What could we do?' Shankok said 'We had no skulls for so long. Stale or fresh it was all one. They were what we needed'. (Konyaks a stronger feeling re the necessity of skulls for the crops. Chingai also said this.) Shankok is very proud of all the photos Christoph gave him. He was amazed when I told him how a miniature camera worked and showed him some contact prints from a Leica roll. He looks back on his days in the granaries with great relish. ' But wasn't it rather chilly?' I said. (The granaries have only a narrow verandah and they are quite open to the night air.) 'It was a little cold' he said, 'but when you are with a girl you don't stay cold long'. Chinkak and the hare lip - Chinkak's wife tried to extort some money out of Christoph - but Christoph had already paid enough and refused, to Shankok's great delight. 'When he went away he gave everyone two rupees. He even gave even me two rupees though I would never take money from him. But as he was going, I took and kept it.' |
