The Death of a Cannibal King

Annamaria on Monday

It's a holiday weekend in the United States: Labor Day.  In honor of the many barbecues being enjoyed by me and my fellow American this holiday Monday, I offer this cautionary tale.

Ichoo, the fiercest cannibal king in the jungle, was feared by all explorers who went to Faway Island.  As luck would have it, the only landing spot they could use to gain access to the remote atoll was in front of Ichoo’s thatched hut.

Many potential explorers unfortunately ended up in the king’s stewpot.  The intrepid anthropologist Dr. Niles Source was determined to be the first of his profession to study and write about the last unexamined culture on Earth.  Source decided he might avoid the fate of his perished forerunners by bringing King Ichoo gifts.  The bribes worked.  Soon, His Majesty had many resplendent robes, beautiful shoes, elaborate headgear, and gorgeous frames containing regal images of himself.  Then the canny Doctor began, as a private joke on the gullible king, to bring Ichoo larger and larger stewing caldrons.  Happily for Source, the king pronounced them too beautiful to use.

Ichoo developed a serious lust for luxury goods.  To store all his swag, he added a second story to his dwelling.   At one of Dr. Source' departures, the greedy king warned the anthropologist that on his next landing he must bring a more impressive offering, something really fit for a king.

Dr. Source came back the next time with an elaborate Victorian chair which he declared to be a throne fit for Ichoo.  The king was delighted. On fine days, he would have his lackeys carry the chair outside so he could sit resplendent in front of his hut.  As Source was leaving two weeks later, the king demanded another, even bigger chair on the explorer’s return.

And so it went, with each visit: a chair of carved mahogany, then one with red velvet upholstery, then another brocaded with the royal arms of England, and on and on.  Soon the ground floor of Ichoo’s hut was filled with some of history’s most elaborate chairs.  Finally, Dr. Source arrived with the pièce de résistance.  The back of the chair was taller than Ichoo, taller even than Niles Source, the seat was upholstered with royal purple silk, and the all of the beautifully carved wood was covered  with 18 carat gold leaf.  It shone in the sun like the throne of an all-powerful god.

Ichoo declared that he would never sit in any other chair.  His fellow tribesmen began lining up, hoping to take away the rest of his now distained collection.  But the king did not want anyone but himself to have such luxurious possessions.  He instructed his lackeys to put the rejected chairs on the second floor of his hut.

That night Ichoo’s hut collapsed from all the weight of his possessions, killing the greedy king.

The moral of the story is….