"Mr. Hamadryad"

Synopsis

A coconut trader narrates three encounters with Mr. Hamadryad, a peculiar long-nosed gentleman, over a span of years. Each meeting takes place in a remote club—The Third Cataract Club in Dongola, Sudan; the Sun-Deck Club in Oklahoma City; and Drill's Marine Bar on Easter Island. At each location, Hamadryad orders an elaborate local drink, pays with increasingly worthless currency, and dines on the stomach of a suckling animal distended with its first milk.

Hamadryad expounds a private cosmology: the world has been governed by the Monkey-Cat alternation, a cycle in which two pre-Adamic races—the Monkeys (baboons, drills, mandrills) and the Cats (panthers, leopards, caracals)—alternate as masters and slaves across vast aeons. The dominant race is visible and "present"; the slave race is invisible, condemned to the terrible spiritual labor of moving mountains and raising megalithic idols to their masters. This is the Faith-that-Moves-Mountains—not metaphor but literal, soul-wrenching telekinesis performed as ransom.

At each encounter, the sinister Mr. Caracal—a suave, silky man with steep ears—appears, growing bolder, and Hamadryad shrills "This is rebellion!" But Caracal cannot yet act; the time has not come.

Easter Island, the remnant of a once-vast floating paradise, drifts toward coordinates 29°S, 111°W—the Shadow of God's Thumb, a blind spot where God cannot see. When the island enters this shadow, the turnover occurs. The Monkey era ends; the Cat era begins.

In the climactic scene, the narrator feels himself splitting. Something departs from his left shoulder to become an invisible slave. Something else—cool, clean, cruel—takes possession of his body. Hamadryad shrivels into invisibility, stepping out of his boots to reveal baboon feet. Caracal achieves presence. The narrator realizes he has become a Cat, "divinely mad, but cool and cruel," ready to organize the world—including "the last of the monkey-business," the coconut trade—into the World-Wide New Era Great Cat Coconut Cartel.

The story ends with the chilling words: "Holy cats, we have organized it all!"

The Three Encounters

The story's architecture is built on ritual repetition. Three meetings in three clubs across three continents follow an identical pattern, with systematic variations that trace the approach of doom. The degradation of payment—from gold to paper to clay—mirrors the waning of Hamadryad's power and the approach of enslavement.

Comparative Table

The Drinks

Each drink is described as "a specialty of [the club] and is found almost nowhere else in the world." All contain an egg "smashed in shell and afloat in the liquid." The drink names form a progression: Stony Giant (the megalithic, the stones to be moved), Ring-tailed Rouser (frontier energy, animal vitality), Final Catastrophe (Greek katastrophé, "overturning"—the eschatological completion).

The Payments

The degradation from gold to paper to clay symbolizes the approach of slavery. The pard d'or ("leopard gold") ironically bears the Cat's name; the Jackson is described as "green-skin" coin, punning on both paper money and animal hide; the nui d'argile ("great clay") is nearly worthless—"One always enters a great turnover broke and in debt."

The Lunches

Always "the stomach of suckling [animal] distended with its first milk"—primal innocence, first nourishment. The animals progress: lamb (biblical sacrifice), calf (golden calf? fatted calf?), pig (unclean in Jewish law, perhaps signaling the final corruption). These meals may represent a sacramental dimension or, more darkly, the consumption of innocence.

Cosmology

The Monkey-Cat Alternation

Lafferty grafts his mythology onto the Chinese Yin-Yang, asking "Is the Yin-Yang alternation the same as the Monkey-Cat alternation?" Two pre-Adamic races are "chained together" in punishment: during each aeon, one is master (visible, present, dominant) while the other is slave (invisible, absent, laboring). The dominant race forces its slaves to raise great idols of themselves through the terrible spiritual labor of mountain-moving.

"We were doomed to be the slaves of slaves. For this, two races—ourselves and another—were chained together. I do not know whether I can explain this relationship to you, the closeness that accompanies an utter alienation, the apposition and the opposition." — Hamadryad

The story takes place at the moment of turnover. The Monkey era (which Hamadryad calls "the glorious age of the Monkey") ends; the Cat era (the "tyrannical and meticulous age of the Cat") begins. The astrologers who speak of Pisces and Aquarius are dismissed as "bubble-headed fools" who "know neither the constellations in heaven nor the constellations on earth."

Pre-Adamic Covenants

Hamadryad describes multiple falls before Adam's:

"There were quite a number of races who had covenants, before Abraham, before Adam. These covenants were towering things, and their breakings were of immeasurable depth. There was violence and earthquake and earth-shattering in those abysmal falls. After such horrors, God repented himself and made each succeeding test more gentle." — Hamadryad

The Monkey-Cat races experienced their own catastrophic fall, one far worse than humanity's: "Your own encounter, well, it would have been a pretty small thing to those who have known real encounters. And your fall, it was hardly what we would call a fall, without laughing."

The Floating Pavilion

The Monkeys were expelled from paradise not on foot but on a floating island—"a Pavilion... an aromatic, many-colored mountain-island that was fruitful beyond description." This exile-float was once "larger than the world," a panangelicum that became a pandemonium. Pieces broke off over time: Madagascar was the largest fragment; Easter Island is what remains. All islands and continents are "pieces broken off and drifting away from the paradise."

The Shadow of God's Thumb

At coordinates 29°S, 111°W lies a blind spot where God cannot see. Easter Island drifts toward this point at accelerating speed—once "half a foot a year," now "more than three hundred feet a year." When the island enters the shadow, the turnover occurs "out of the sight of God."

"That's the only point on the globe that God cannot see... Ah, it is in the shadow of His own thumb. He'll not be able to help us when things reach that point. No one will be able to help us." — Hamadryad

The blind spot contains frozen or motionless waves whose patterns form "the shadows of the whorls and loops of God's own thumbprint." This provides "positive identification"—if ever a false God should come, the difference would be known. The thumbprint is a signature, a seal of authenticity.

The Faith-that-Moves-Mountains

The megalithic structures of the world—Baalbek, Easter Island, Peru, Egypt—were not built by human devices. The stones are too heavy; modern cranes cannot lift them. Instead, they were raised through the Faith-that-Moves-Mountains, which Lafferty presents as literal psychokinesis performed through soul-wrenching spiritual agony. This is the labor of the enslaved race, their "ransom."

The young puma who moved Black Mesa nine inches in three days represents this power at its purest: "By soul-wrenching sacrifice, by towering mentality, by garish ghastliness, by rampant animality that young puma moved that mountain... His was Faith, pure and undefiled."

Visibility and Presence

The dominant race possesses "presence"—they are complete beings, visible, substantial. The enslaved race lacks presence: they are incomplete, invisible, seen only in their labor. Hamadryad's slave in the corridor is heard but not seen; after the turnover, Hamadryad himself becomes "no more than a long-nosed shadow."

"To be invisible is to be in total darkness both objectively and subjectively. In our new, sad state, we will be seen only in our work, in the hewing and transporting and setting, in the homage and ransom." — Hamadryad

Shoulder Angels

Humans have their own paired beings: "shoulder angels" visible to all other races but not to humans themselves. These may be "twins somehow deformed" or "afterbirths somewhat mutated," sometimes appearing as "small, fleshy extensions growing out of the human shoulders." The narrator experiences his own splitting at the climax—something goes out from his shoulder to "whimper invisible" while something else takes possession with "great strength and poise."

The Master Diagram

The following diagram represents the story's cosmological structure using its own central image: the Shadow of God's Thumb. The whorls of the divine thumbprint contain the nested systems of the narrative—the turnover at center, the Monkey-Cat alternation, the fragments of the Pavilion, the spiritual hierarchy, and Easter Island drifting inexorably toward the blind spot where the narrator's transformation occurs.

The whorls of the divine thumbprint contain the nested cosmology: pre-Adamic covenants, the Pavilion's fragmentation, the Monkey-Cat alternation, the spiritual hierarchy, the implicit stones, and the narrator's transformation—all converging on the blind spot where the Great Turnover occurs.

Characters

The Invisible Slave

Throughout the story, there are footfalls in the corridor: "the powerfully heavy, silky quiet and blurred double steps of a barefoot being." This is Hamadryad's slave—a panther or leopard, invisible because it belongs to the subjugated Cat race. It walks on four padded feet ("double steps"), smells of animal musk, and once rushes at the narrator with a "chilling animal chortle." It is present at all three encounters but never seen. Hamadryad calls it "not my friend... my slave" and orders it to remain outside.

At the turnover, this slave presumably achieves visibility and presence as Caracal and Chui do.

Glossary

The following entries cover terminology, allusions, and invented elements in the story. Terms marked with an asterisk (*) are Lafferty's inventions.

Thematic Analysis

The Megalithic Mystery

Lafferty takes the real mystery of megalithic construction—how did ancient peoples move stones weighing hundreds or thousands of tons?—and provides a supernatural answer. The Faith-that-Moves-Mountains is not metaphor but mechanism. The enslaved race, whether Cat or Monkey depending on the era, performs the labor through psychokinetic agony.

This explanation serves multiple purposes. It acknowledges the genuine engineering puzzle (modern cranes struggle with 300-ton loads; Baalbek's trilithon stones weigh 800+ tons). It connects ancient monuments to spiritual hierarchy (all megalithic structures are "worship buildings"—"is it not odd that there are no secular structures among them?"). And it establishes the terrible stakes of the turnover: whoever becomes slave must suffer this labor for an aeon.

Hamadryad's desperate practice—moving sesame grains by will while he eats—is pitiable precisely because he knows what lies ahead. "Oh, I'll never be able to do it... How then will I be able to move things a billion billion times heavier?"

The Transformation

The story's climax presents transformation as bifurcation. The narrator doesn't simply become a Cat; rather, his Monkey-aspect departs while his Cat-aspect takes full possession. This suggests everyone contains both natures, with one dominant depending on the era.

The transformation's phenomenology is precisely rendered: a "disturbed and bottomless feeling," a "sundering identity crisis," the sensation of being "two of me—one standing just a little apart from the other." The shoulder becomes significant—the narrator feels "a sword going out" of it, and his departing self goes to "whimper invisible at my shoulder." This connects to Hamadryad's discussion of "shoulder angels."

Post-transformation, the narrator's voice shifts dramatically. The curious, slightly bewildered coconut trader becomes a cold ideologue: "Now I am clear and clean, and cool and cruel... I am divinely mad." The repetition of "cool" and "cruel" (echoing the story's opening) shows the Cat-nature fully realized.

The Problem of Evil

Why does God allow the turnover? The blind spot—"the only point on the globe that God cannot see"—is explicitly located. God's thumb casts the shadow; He cannot help when events reach that point. This is not deism (God withdrawn) but a peculiar limitation: God is present everywhere except where His own hand obscures His vision.

This may be Lafferty's meditation on the classic theodicy problem. Evil occurs in God's blind spot—not because God wills it or permits it, but because some transformations happen where He literally cannot intervene. The turnover is not divine punishment but cosmic mechanics.

Pre-Adamic Falls

Hamadryad's cosmology posits multiple races with covenants before Abraham, before Adam. Each fall was worse than humanity's: "Your own encounter, well, it would have been a pretty small thing... And your fall, it was hardly what we would call a fall, without laughing." God "repented himself and made each succeeding test more gentle."

This inverts the usual hierarchy. Humans, far from being the cosmic protagonists, are latecomers whose fall was mild. The Monkey-Cat races endured something far worse, and their punishment—eternal alternation as masters and slaves—exceeds anything in human scripture.

Visibility and Ontology

"Presence is an attribute of a complete being. Many have not been complete." The enslaved race loses presence—becomes invisible, incomplete, seen only in their labor. This is ontological degradation, not mere invisibility. "To be invisible is to be in total darkness both objectively and subjectively."

The story suggests that what we take for granted—being present, being seen, being complete—is contingent. It can be lost. The invisible slaves in the corridor are not hiding; they have been diminished below the threshold of perceptibility.

The Coconut Complex

The narrator's trade in coconuts becomes a final bitter joke. Coconuts are "monkey-nuts"—the fruit associated with the Monkey era. The coconut trade represented "the last refuge of free enterprise in the world." When the narrator transforms, he organizes this last holdout into a cartel.

The phrase "coconut complex" suggests Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, as if free-market economics itself was simian—"scatterbrained, petty, inefficient and human." The Cat era will be "fastidiously ordered"—cartels, organization, control. The "meticulous age of the Cat" is totalitarianism with feline characteristics.

The Unreliable Narrator

By story's end, the narrator has become something other than what he was. His triumphant declarations—"Have you noticed how much calmer the world is now?"—should chill rather than comfort. He calls himself "divinely mad" without irony. The story we've been reading was told by someone who no longer exists in his original form.

This raises questions about everything preceding. Was the narrator always part Cat, drawn to Hamadryad by some preternatural affinity? Was his coconut trade—traveling to remote clubs in Sudan, Oklahoma, Easter Island—preparation for this moment? The story rewards rereading with these questions in mind.

Literary & Scholarly Sources

Biblical Allusions

• Matthew 17:20 — "faith as a grain of mustard seed... ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove." The Faith-that-Moves-Mountains literalized.
• Mark 16:18 — "They shall take up serpents." Snake-handling as spiritual practice.
• Luke 22:44 — Jesus sweating blood at Gethsemane. Source of "the red dew of Olivet."
• Acts 2:4 — Speaking in tongues. Hamadryad distinguishes true "speaking clearly" from gibberish.
• Genesis 3 — The expulsion from Eden. Hamadryad notes humans "had to walk out," while his race "floated out."

Literary References

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) — "The water, like a witch's oils, / Burnt green, and blue and white." Hamadryad suggests Coleridge was "one of us."
• John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667) — Pandemonium as the capital of Hell. The Pavilion's transition from panangelicum to pandemonium.
• Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776) — Implicit reference in "the coconut complex" and free enterprise as "the last refuge."

Philosophical & Scientific Sources

• Mencius (371–289 BCE) — Chinese Confucian philosopher. Cited on the force strong enough to move mountains.
• Paracelsus (1493–1541) — Swiss alchemist. Cited on force strong enough to rupture Earth.
• Avicenna / Ibn Sina (980–1037) — Persian polymath. Cited on islands moving "a qadam" per year.
• Yin-Yang — Chinese dualism. Lafferty parallels this with his Monkey-Cat alternation.

Linguistic Sources

• Swahili — chui (leopard), ukali (sharpness/severity), kifo (death)
• Turkish — karakulak (black ear, source of "caracal")
• Arabic — qadam (foot, unit of measurement)
• Greek — hamadryad, criosphinx, pandemonium, katastrophé
• French — pard d'or, nui d'argile
• Sanskrit — Jagannātha (Juggernaut)
• Hebrew — Yochanah (Jane)

Real-World Locations

• Dongola, Sudan — City near the Third Cataract of the Nile
• Oklahoma City — "That dusty, trail-crossing town"
• Rapa Nui / Easter Island — Pacific island famous for moai statues
• Black Mesa, Oklahoma — Highest point in Oklahoma (4,973 ft)
• Baalbek, Lebanon — Site of massive Roman-era stones
• Baidoa, Somalia — Real town; the Man-Drill Sphinx is invented
• Madagascar — Island off Africa; etymology is NOT "Cats and Monkeys"