{"id":"01KFNR86ZH7JYXAGQ7WRG7D0MH","cid":"bafkreid7e3ypo6i3c4zjiszvjmd34wxalk2of4jru6vpbnxm3ospbt6ley","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1657,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.896Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 8","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":1606,"text":"passing through me like lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at\r\nall. But, after some difficulty having opened his bag, he commenced\r\nfumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a\r\nseal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in\r\nthe middle of the room, he then took the New Zealand head—a ghastly\r\nthing enough—and crammed it down into the bag. He now took off his\r\nhat—a new beaver hat—when I came nigh singing out with fresh surprise.\r\nThere was no hair on his head—none to speak of at least—nothing but a\r\nsmall scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead. His bald purplish head now\r\nlooked for all the world like a mildewed skull. Had not the stranger\r\nstood between me and the door, I would have bolted out of it quicker\r\nthan ever I bolted a dinner.\r\n\r\nEven as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but\r\nit was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of this\r\nhead-peddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension.\r\nIgnorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and\r\nconfounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of\r\nhim as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at\r\nthe dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game\r\nenough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer\r\nconcerning what seemed inexplicable in him.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last showed\r\nhis chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him were\r\ncheckered with the same squares as his face; his back, too, was all\r\nover the same dark squares; he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years’\r\nWar, and just escaped from it with a sticking-plaster shirt. Still\r\nmore, his very legs were marked, as if a parcel of dark green frogs\r\nwere running up the trunks of young palms. It was now quite plain that\r\nhe must be some abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman\r\nin the South Seas, and so landed in this Christian country. I quaked to\r\nthink of it. A peddler of heads too—perhaps the heads of his own\r\nbrothers. He might take a fancy to mine—heavens! look at that tomahawk!\r\n\r\nBut there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went about\r\nsomething that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me\r\nthat he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego, or wrapall,\r\nor dreadnaught, which he had previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in\r\nthe pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image\r\nwith a hunch on its back, and exactly the colour of a three days’ old\r\nCongo baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought\r\nthat this black manikin was a real baby preserved in some similar\r\nmanner. But seeing that it was not at all limber, and that it glistened\r\na good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing\r\nbut a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage\r\ngoes up to the empty fire-place, and removing the papered fire-board,\r\nsets up this little hunch-backed image, like a tenpin, between the\r\nandirons. The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty,\r\nso that I thought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine\r\nor chapel for his Congo idol.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 8"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR849MRV3B92141XN8VT71","peer_label":"Chapter 3. The Spouter-Inn","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR849MRV3B92141XN8VT71","peer_label":"Chapter 3. The Spouter-Inn","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR86ZCBN321ZB56DPNJPQA","peer_label":"Chunk 9","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR86YQ1GNY8065SHYGJCY5","peer_label":"Chunk 7","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.580Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:14.928Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}