Chapter 38

"is practically unknown in Abyssinia," "If jealousy is manifested occasionally by women we must not deceive ourselves regarding the nature of this feeling; when an Abyssinienne envies the love another inspires she is jealous only of the comfort which that love may insure for the other" (II., Chap. V.).

ABYSSINIAN BEAUTY AND FLIRTATION

Abyssinian women are not deficient in a certain sensual kind of beauty. Their fine figures, large black eyes, and white teeth have been admired by many travellers. But Parkyns (II., 5) avers that "though flowers of beauty nowhere bloom with more luxuriance than in Aethiopia, yet, alas! there shines on them no mental sun." They make use of their eyes to great advantage--but not to express soul-love. What flirtation in this part of the world consists in, may be inferred from Donaldson Smith's amusing account (245, 270) of a young Boran girl who asked permission to accompany his caravan, offering to cook, bring wood, etc. She was provided with a piece of white sheeting for a dress, but when tired from marching, being unused to so much clothing, she threw the whole thing aside and walked about naked. Her name was Ola. Some time afterward one of the native guides began to make love to Ola:

"I oversaw the two flirting and was highly amused at the manner in which they went about it. It consisted almost entirely in tickling and pinching, each sally being accompanied by roars of laughter. They never kissed, as such a thing is unknown in Africa."

GALLA COARSENESS

South of Abyssinia there are three peoples--the Galla, Somali, and Harari--among some of whom, if we may believe Dr. Paulitschke, the germs of true love are to be found. Let us briefly examine them in turn, with Paulitschke's arguments. Hartmann (401) assigns to the Gallas a high rank among African races, and Paulitschke (_B.z.E_., 51-56) describes them as more intelligent than the Somali, but also more licentious. Boys marry at sixteen to eighteen, girls at twelve to sixteen. The women are compelled to do most of the hard work; wives are often badly treated, and when their husbands get tired of them they send them away. Good friends lend each other their wives, and they also lend them to guests. If a man kills his wife no one minds it. Few Schoa girls are virgins when they marry (_Eth. N. Afr.,_ 195), and the married women are easily led from the path of virtue by small presents. In other parts girls take a pride in preserving their purity, but atone for it by a dissolute life after marriage. Brides are subjected to an obscene examination, and if not found pure are supposed to be legally disqualified from marriage. To avoid the disgrace, the parents bribe the bridegroom to keep the secret, and to assert the bride's innocence. A curious detail of Galla courtship consists in the precautions the parents of rich youths have to take to protect them from designing poor girls and their mothers. Often, when the parents of a rich youth are averse to the match, the coy bride goes to their hut, jumps over the surrounding hedge, and remains there enduring the family's abuse until they finally accept her. To prevent such an invasion--a sort of inverted capture, in which the woman is the aggressor--the parents of rich sons build very high hedges round their houses to keep out girls! Not infrequently, boys and girls are married when only six or eight years old, and forthwith live together as husband and wife.

SOMALI LOVE-AFFAIRS

It is among the neighbors of these Gallas that Paulitschke (30) fancied he discovered the existence of refined love:

"Adult youths and maidens have occasion, especially while tending the cattle, to form attachments. These are of an idealized nature, because the young folks are brought up in a remarkably chaste and serious manner. The father is proud of his blooming daughter and guards her like a treasure.... In my opinion, marriages among the Western Somals are mostly based on cordial mutual affection. A young man renders homage to his beloved in song. 'Thou art beautiful,' he sings, 'thy limbs are plump, if thou wouldst drink camel's milk thou wert more beautiful still.' The girl, on her part, gives expression to her longing for the absent lover in this melancholy song: 'The camel needs good grazing, and dislikes to leave it. My beloved has left the country. On account of the children of Sahál (the lover's family), my heart is always so heavy. Others throw themselves into the ocean, but I perish from grief. Could I but find the beloved.'"

What evidence of "idealized" love is there in these poems? The girl expresses longing for an absent man, and longing, as we have seen, characterizes all kinds of love from the highest to the lowest. It is one of the selfish ingredients of love, and is therefore evidence of self-love, not of other-love. As for the lover's poem, what is it but the grossest sensualism, the usual African apotheosis of fat? Imagine an American lover saying to a girl, "You are beautiful for you are plump, but you would be more beautiful still if you ate more pork and beans"--would she regard this as evidence of refined love, or would she turn her back and never speak to him again? Anthropologists are sometimes strangely naïve. We have just seen what kind of "attachments" are formed by African youths and girls while tending cattle; Burton adds to the evidence _(F.F_., 120) by telling us that among the Somali "the bride, as usual in the East, is rarely consulted, but frequent _tête-à-têtes_ at the well and in the bush when tending cattle effectually obviate this inconvenience." "At the wells," says Donaldson Smith (15), "you will see both sexes bathing together, with little regard for decency." They are indeed lower than brutes in their impulses, for the only way parents can save their infant girls from being maltreated is by the practice of infibulation, to which, as Paulitschke himself tells us, the girls are subjected at the early age of four, or even three; yet, even this, he likewise informs us, is not always effectual.

As for the father's great pride in his daughter, and his guarding her like a treasure, that is, by the concurrent testimony of the authorities, not a token of affection or a regard for virtue, but a purely commercial matter. Paulitschke himself says (30) that while the mother is devoted to her child, "the father pays no attention to it." On the following page he adds:

"The more well-to-do the father is, and the more beautiful his daughter, the longer he seeks to keep her under the paternal roof, for the purpose of securing a bigger price for her through the competition of suitors."

Of the Western Somali tribes at Zayla, Captain J.S. King says[148] that when a man has fixed his choice on a girl he pays her father $100 to $800. After that

"the proposer is entitled (on payment of $5 each time) to private interviews with his fiancée to enable him by a closer inspection to judge better of her personal charms. But it frequently happens that the young man squanders all his money on these 'interviews' before paying the _dafa_ agreed upon. The girl then (at her parents' instigation) breaks off the match, and her father, when expostulated with, replies that he will not force his daughter's inclinations. Hence arise innumerable breach-of-promise-of-marriage suits, in which the man is invariably the plaintiff. I have known instances of a girl being betrothed to three or four different men in about a year's time, their father receiving a certain amount of _dafa_ from each suitor."[149]

Donaldson Smith remarks (12) that Somali women "are regarded merely as goods and chattels. In a conversation with one of my boys he told me that he only owned five camels, but that he had a sister from whom he expected to get much money when he sold her in marriage." The gross commercialism of Somali love-affairs is further illustrated by the Ogaden custom (Paulitschke, _E.N.A._, 199) of pouring strong perfumes over the bride in order to stimulate the ardor of the suitor and make him willing to pay more for her--a trick which is often successful. How, under such circumstances, Somal marriages can be "mostly based on cordial mutual affection" is a mystery for Dr. Paulitschke to explain. Burton proved himself a keener observer and psychologist when he wrote (_F.F._, 122), "The Somal knows none of the exaggerated and chivalrons ideas by which passion becomes refined affection among the Arab Bedouins and the sons of civilization." I may add what this writer says regarding Somal poetry:

"The subjects are frequently pastoral; the lover, for instance, invites his mistress to walk with him toward the well in Lahelo, the Arcadia of the land; he compares her legs to the tall, straight Libi tree, and imprecates the direst curses on her head if she refuses to drink with him the milk of his favorite camel."

ARABIC INFLUENCES

The Harari, neighbors of the Somals, are another people among whom Paulitschke fancied that he discovered signs of idealized love (_B.E.A.S._, 70). Their youthful attachments, he says, are intense and noble, and in proof of this he translates two of their poems on the beauty of a bride.

I. "I tell thee this only: thy face is like silk, Aisa; I say it again, I tell thee nothing but that. Thou art slender as a lance-shaft; thy father and thy mother are Arabs; they all are Arabs; I tell thee this only."

II. "Thy form is like a burning lamp, Aisa; I love thee. When thou art at the side of Abrahim, thou burnest him with the light of thy beauty. To-morrow I shall see thee again."

In a third (freely translated and printed in the appendix of the same volume) occur these lines:

"The honey is already taken out and I come with it. The milk is already drawn and I bring it. And now thou art the pure honey, and now thou art the fresh milk. The gathered honey is very sweet, and therefore it was drunk to thy health. Thine eyes are black, dyed with Kahul. The fresh milk is very sweet and therefore it was drunk to thy health. I have seen Sina--oh, how sweet was Sina.... Thine eyes are like the full moon, and thy body is fragrant as the fragrance of rose-water. And she lives in the garden of her father and the garments on her body become fragrant as basil.... And thou art like a king's garden in which all perfumes are united."

It is easy to note Arabic influences in these poems. The Harari are largely Arabic; their very language is being absorbed in the Arabic; yet I cannot find in these poems the least evidence of amorous idealism or "noble" sentiment. To have a lover compare a girl's face to silk, her form to a lance-shaft or a burning lamp, her eyes to the full moon, may be an imaginative sort of sensualism, but it is purely sensual nevertheless. If an American lover told a girl, "I bought some delicious candy and ate it, thinking of you; I ordered a glass of sweet soda-water and drank it to your health"--would she regard that as evidence of "noble" love, or of any kind of love at all, except a kind of cupboard love?

No, not even here, where Arabian influences prevail, do we come across the germs of true love. It is the same all over Africa. Nowhere do we find indications that men admire other things in women except, at most, voluptuous eyes and plump figures; nowhere do the men perform unselfish acts of gallantry and self-sacrifice; nowhere exhibit sympathy with their females, who, far from being goddesses, are not even companions, but simply drudges and slaves to lust. A whole volume would be required to demonstrate that this holds true of all parts of Africa; but the present chapter is already too long and I must close with a brief reference to the Berbers of Algeria (Kabyles) to show that at the northern extremity of Africa, as at the southern, the eastern, the western, love spells lust. Here, too, man is lower than animals. Camille Sabatier, who was a justice of the peace at Tizi-Ouzan, speaks[150] of "_la brutalité du male qui, souvent même chez les Kabyles, n'attend pas la nubilité pour déflorer la jeune enfant._" The girls, he adds,

"detest their husbands with all their heart. Love is almost always unknown to them--I mean by love that ensemble of refined sentiments, which, among civilized peoples, ennoble the sexual appetite."

TOUAREG CHIVALRY

A guileless reader of Chavanne's book on the Sahara is apt to get the impression that there is, after all, an oasis in the desert of African lovelessness and contempt for women. Touareg women, we are told therein (208-10), are allowed to dispose of their hands and to eat with the men, certain dishes being reserved for them, others (including tea and coffee) for the men. In the evening the women assemble and improvise songs while the men sit around in their best attire. The women write mottoes on the men's shields, and the men carve their chosen one's name in the rocks and sing her praises. The situation has been compared to mediaeval chivalry. But when we examine it more critically than the biassed Chavanne did, we find, using his own data, more of Africa than appeared to be there at first sight. The woman, we are informed, owes the husband obedience, and he can divorce her at pleasure. When a woman talks to a man she veils her face "as a sign of respect." And when the men travel, they are accompanied by those of their female slaves who are young and pretty. Their morals are farther characterized by the fact that descent is in the female line, which is usually due to uncertain paternity. The women are ugly and masculine, and Chavanne does not mention a single fact or act which proves that they experience supersensual, altruistic love.

So far as the position of Touareg women is superior to that of other Africans, it is due to the fact that slaves are kept to do the hard work and to certain European and Christian influences and the institution of theoretical monogamy. Possibly the germs of a better sort of love may exist among them, as they may among the Bedouins; they must make a beginning somewhere.

AN AFRICAN LOVE-LETTER

T.J. Hutchinson declares that the gentle god of love is unknown in the majority of African kingdoms: "It in fact seems to be crawling into life only in one or two places where our language is the established one." He prints a quaint love-letter addressed by a Liberian native to his colored sweetheart. The substance of the letter, it is true, is purely egotistic; it might be summed up in the words, "Oh, how I wish you were here to make me happy." Yet it opens up vistas of future possibilities. I cite it verbatim:

"My Dear Miss,--I take my pen in hand to Embrac you of my health, I was very sick this morning but know I am better but I hope it may find you in a state of Enjoying good health and so is your Relation. Oh my dear Miss what would I give if I could see thy lovely Face this precious minnit O miss you had promis me to tell me something, and I like you to let you know I am very anxious to know what it is give my Respect to the young mens But to the young ladys especially O I am long to see you O miss if I don't see you shortly surely I must die I shut my mouth to hold my breath Miss don't you cry O my little pretty turtle dove I wont you to write to me, shall I go Bound or shall I go free or shall I love a pretty girl a she don't love me give my Respect all enquiring Friend Truly Your respectfully,

"J----H----

"Nothing more to say O miss."

ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIAN LOVE

The founders of the Australian race, Curr believes, were Africans, and may have arrived in one canoe. The distance from Africa to Australia is, however, great, and there are innumerable details of structure, color, custom, myth, implements, language, etc., which have led the latest authorities to conclude that the Australian race was formed gradually by a mixture of Papuans, Malayans, and Dravidians of Central India.[151] Topinard has given reasons for believing that there are two distinct races in Australia. However that may be, there are certainly great differences in the customs of the natives. As regards the relations of the sexes, luckily, these differences are not so great as in some other respects, wherefore it is possible to give a tolerably accurate bird's-eye view of the Australians as a whole from this point of view.

PERSONAL CHARMS OF AUSTRALIANS

Once in awhile, in the narrative of those who have travelled or sojourned among Australians, one comes across a reference to the symmetrical form, soft skin, red lips, and white teeth of a young Australian girl. Mitchell in his wanderings saw several girls with beautiful features and figures. Of one of these, who seemed to be the most influential person in camp, he says (I., 266):

"She was now all animation, and her finely shaped mouth, beautiful teeth, and well-formed person appeared to great advantage as she hung over us both, addressing me vehemently,"

etc. Of two other girls the same writer says (II., 93):

"The youngest was the handsomest female I had ever seen amongst the natives. She was so far from black that the red color was very apparent in her cheeks. She sat before me in a corner of the group, nearly in the attitude of Mr. Bailey's fine statue of Eve at the fountain, and apparently equally unconscious that she was naked. As I looked upon her for a moment, while deeply regretting the fate of her mother, the chief, who stood by, and whose hand had been more than once laid upon my cap, as if to feel whether it were proof against the blow of a waddy, begged me to accept of her in exchange for a tomahawk!"

Eyre, another famous early traveller, writes on this topic (II., 207-208):

"Occasionally, though rarely, I have met with females in the bloom of youth, whose well-proportioned limbs and symmetry of figure might have formed a model for the sculptor's chisel. In personal appearance the females are, except in early youth, very far inferior to the men. When young, however, they are not uninteresting. The jet black eyes, shaded by their long dark lashes, and the delicate and scarcely formed features of incipient womanhood give a soft and pleasing expression to a countenance that might often be called good-looking--occasionally pretty."

"Occasionally, though rarely," and then only for a few years, is an Australian woman attractive from _our_ point of view. As a rule she is very much the reverse--dirty, thin-limbed, course-featured, ungainly in every way;[152] and Eyre tells us why this is so. The extremities of the women, he says, are more attenuated than those of the men; probably because "like most other savages, the Australian looks upon his wife as a slave," makes her undergo great privations and do all the hard work, such as bringing in wood and water, tending the children, carrying all the movable property while on the march, _often even her husband's weapons_:

"In wet weather she attends to all the outside work, whilst her lord and master is snugly seated at the fire. If there is a scarcity of food, she has to endure the pangs of hunger, often, perhaps, in addition to ill-treatment and abuse. No wonder, then, that the females, and especially the younger ones (for it is then they are exposed to the greatest hardships), are not so fully or so roundly developed in person as the men."

The rule that races admire those personal characteristics which climate and circumstances have impressed on them is not borne out among Australians. An arid soil and a desiccating climate make them thin as a race, but they do not admire thinness. "Long-legged," "thin-legged," are favorite terms of abuse among them, and Grey once heard a native sing scornfully

Oh, what a leg,

* * * * *

You kangaroo-footed churl!

Nor is it beauty, in our sense of the word, that attracts them, but fat, as in Africa and the Orient. I have previously quoted Brough Smyth's assertion that an Australian woman, however old and ugly, is in constant danger of being stolen if she is fat. That women have the same standard of "taste," appears from the statement of H.E.A. Meyer (189), that the principal reason why the men anoint themselves with grease and ochre is that it makes them look fat and "gives them an air of importance in the eyes of the women, for they admire a fat man however ugly." But whereas these men admire a fat woman for sensual reasons, the women's preference is based on utilitarian motives. Low as their reasoning powers are, they are shrewd enough to reflect that a man who is in good condition proves thereby that he is "somebody"--that he can hunt and will be able to bring home some meat for his wife too. This interpretation is borne out by what was said on a previous page (278) about one of the reasons why corpulence is valued in Fiji, and also by an amusing incident related by the eminent Australian explorer George Grey (II., 93). He had reproached his native guide with not knowing anything, when the guide replied:

"I know nothing! I know how to keep myself fat; the young women look at me and say, 'Imbat is very handsome, he is fat'--they will look at you and say, 'He not good--long legs--what do you know? Where is your fat? What for do you know so much, if you can't keep fat?"

CRUEL TREATMENT OF WOMEN

Eyre was no doubt right in his suggestion that the inferiority of Australian women to the men in personal appearance was due to the privations and hardships to which the women were subjected. Much as the men admire fat in a woman, they are either too ignorant, or too selfish otherwise, to allow them to grow fat in idleness. Women in Australia never exist for their own sake but solely for the convenience of the men. "The man," says the Rev. H.E.A. Meyer (11), "regarding them more as slaves than in any other light, employs them in every possible way to his own advantage." "The wives were the absolute property of the husband," says the Rev. G. Taplin (XVII. to XXXVII.),

"and were given away, exchanged, or lent, as their owners saw fit." "The poor creatures ... are always seen to a disadvantage, being ... the slaves of their husbands and of the tribes." "The women in all cases came badly off when they depended upon what the men of the tribes chose to give them."

"The woman is an absolute slave. She is treated with the greatest cruelty and indignity, has to do all laborious work, and to carry all the burthens. For the slightest offence or dereliction of duty, she is beaten with a waddy or a yam-stick, and not unfrequently speared. The records of the Supreme Court in Adelaide furnish numberless instances of blacks being tried for murdering their lubras. The woman's life is of no account if her husband chooses to destroy it, and no one ever attempts to protect or take her part under any circumstances. In times of scarcity of food, she is the last to be fed and the last considered in any way. That many of them die in consequence cannot be a matter of wonder.... The condition of the women has no influence over their treatment, and a pregnant female is dealt with and is expected to do as much as if she were in perfect health.... The condition of the native women is wretched and miserable in the extreme; in fact, in no savage nation of which there is any record can it be any worse."

And again (p. 72):