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The destruction of the Tartar idol with tar and gunpowder
George Cruikshank
1831
Wood-engraving
6.7 cm high by 6.7 cm wide
Penultimate illustration for the second half of Daniel Defoe's Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, middle of page 537.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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When the furze we had thrown in had filled the hut with so much smoke that they were almost suffocated, we threw in a small leather bag of another kind, which flamed like a candle, and, following it in, we found there were but four people, who, as we supposed, had been about some of their diabolical sacrifices. They appeared, in short, frightened to death, at least so as to sit trembling and stupid, and not able to speak neither, for the smoke.
In a word, we took them, bound them as we had done the others, and all without any noise. I should have said, we brought them out of the house, or hut, first; for, indeed, we were not able to bear the smoke anymore than they were. When we had done this, we carried them all together to the idol: when we came there we fell to work with him; and first we daubed him all over, and his robes also, with tar, and tallow mixed with brimstone, then we stopped his eyes, and ears, and mouth full of gunpowder; then we wrapped up a great piece of wildfire in his bonnet; and then sticking all the combustibles we had brought with us upon him, we looked about to see if we could find anything else to help to burn him; when my Scotsman remembered that by the hut, where the men were, there lay a heap of dry forage; away he and the other Scotsman ran and fetched their arms full of that. When we had done this, we took all our prisoners, and brought them, having untied their feet and ungagged their mouths, and made them stand up, and set them before their monstrous idol, and then set fire to the whole. [Chapter XV, "Description of an Idol, which they destroy," pp. 536-537]
Crusoe, incensed at the idolatry of the heathen Tartars, determined to destroy the idol ever since he heard that the pagans tortured a young Russian soldier to death who had 'affronted them in their worship" (534). Assisted by two Scots merchants from Moscow, he is determined to destroy the travelling fetish whose worshippers call it "Cham-Chi-Thaungu." Crusoe's Christian zeal, however, may result in a general rebellion of a hundred thousand Tartars against the Christian Russians who have colonized the region.
The centrepiece of the illustration is the massive idol that travels from one Tartar village to another across this wide region administered by the Russians. Its somewhat woebegone-looking caretakers, the bearded Tartar priests (right), regard the Europeans' destruction of their deity without much emotion. Presumably the figure in the centre setting the furze ablaze is Crusoe himself. However, the illustrator seems chiefly interested in the somewhat Polynesian-looking black idol, the object of the "brutish worship," which Crusoe describes with disgust as "a hobgoblin" (532), to which worshippers ("the worst and most ignorant of pagans") make animal sacrifices. Defoe describes the object of pagan veneration succinctly as "an old stump of a tree, an idol made of wood, frightful as the devil" (531). But Cruikshank makes it twice the height of man, and gives a large mouth, horns, and a hat not unlike that worn by the central Tartar (right). In the absence of much description, Cruikshank has had to improvise.
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, with introductory verses by Bernard Barton, and illustrated with numerous engravings from drawings by George Cruikshank expressly designed for this edition. 2 vols. London: Printed at the Shakespeare Press, by W. Nichol, for John Major, Fleet Street, 1831.
De Foe, Daniel. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Written by Himself. Illustrated by Gilbert, Cruikshank, and Brown. London: Darton and Hodge, 1867?].
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. (1831). Illustrated by George Cruikshank. Major's Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1890.
Patten, Robert L. "Phase 2: "'The Finest Things, Next to Rembrandt's,' 1720–1835." Chapter 20, "Thumbnail Designs." George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art, vol. 1: 1792-1835. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers U. P., 1992; London: The Lutterworth Press, 1992. Pp. 325-339.
Last modified 7 March 2018