Also, he sent his word forth to all the tribe that Jerry was taboo.

No man, woman, or child was to throw spear or stone at him, strike him with club or tomahawk, or hurt him in any way.
* * * * * Thenceforth, and until Jerry himself violated one of the greatest of taboos, he had a happy time in Agno's gloomy grass house.

For Bashti, unlike most chiefs, ruled his devil devil doctors with an iron hand.
Other chiefs, even Nau-hau of Langa-Langa, were ruled by their devil devil doctors.

For that matter, the population of Somo believed that Bashti was so ruled.

But the Somo folk did not know what went on behind the scenes, when Bashti, a sheer infidel, talked alone now with one doctor and now with another.
In these private talks he demonstrated that he knew their game as well as they did, and that he was no slave to the dark superstitions and gross impostures with which they kept the people in submission.