Fascinating but flawed portrait of a master ebbs and flows
The Mad Monk, it is alleged, was first poisoned with a massive dose of cyanide, shot in the back four times, then bludgeoned, and his still-living body wrapped in a carpet and thrust under the ice of a frozen river. All this because his assassins feared their victim had superhuman powers.
In Captain Cook’s case, his killers, a band of ferocious Hawaiian warriors, believed their victim was a god reincarnate. So they battered the explorer with heavy clubs, stabbed him repeatedly with spears, and held him underwater to drown. Afterwards they cut up his corpse and distributed the body parts among their villages. Either they wanted to parcel out his magical spirit, his mana, or make sure that when he came back among them he would not be entirely whole.
