Chapter 76

[132] To demonstrate the recklessness (to use a mild word) of Darwin and Westermarck in this matter I will quote the exact words of Burchell in the passage referred to (II., 58-59): "These men generally take a second wife as soon as the first becomes somewhat advanced in years." "Most commonly" the girls are betrothed when about seven years old, and in two or three years the girl is given to the man. "These bargains are made with her parents only, and _without ever consulting the wishes (even if she had any) of the daughter_. When it happens, which is not often the case, that a girl has grown up to womanhood without having been betrothed, her lover must gain her approbation _as well as that of her parents_."

[133] Darwin was evidently puzzled by the queer nature of Reade's evidence in other matters (_D.M._, Chap. XIX.); yet he naïvely relies on him as an authority. Reade told him that the ideas of negroes on beauty are "on the whole, the same as ours." Yet in several other pages of Darwin we see it noted that according to Reade, the negroes have a horror of a white skin and admire a skin in proportion to its blackness; that "they look on blue eyes with aversion, and they think our noses too long and our lips too thin." "He does not think it probable," Darwin adds, "that negroes would ever prefer the most beautiful European woman, on the mere ground of physical admiration, to a good-looking negress." How extraordinarily like our taste! If a man had talked to Darwin about corals or angleworms as foolishly and inconsistently as Reade did about negroes, he would have ignored him. But in matters relating to beauty or love all rubbish is accepted, and every globe-trotter and amateur explorer who wields a pen is treated as an authority.

[134] See McLennan's _Studies in Ancient History_, first and second series; Spencer's _Principles of Sociology_, I., Part 3, Chap. 4; Westermarck, Chap. XIV., etc.

[135] Westermarck, 364-66, where many other striking cases of racial prejudice are given.

[136] For instance omal-win-yuk-un-der, illpoogee, loityo, kernoo, ipamoo, badjeerie, mungaroo, yowerda, yowada, yoorda, yooada, yongar, yunkera, wore, yowardoo, marloo, yowdar, koolbirra, madooroo, oggra, arinva, oogara, augara, uggerra, bulka, yshuckuru, koongaroo, chookeroo, thaldara, kulla, etc.

[137] See also Merensky's _Süd Afrika_, 68.

[138] As Fritsch says (306) "Kolben found them most excellent specimens of mankind and invested them with the most manifold virtues" (see also 312 and 328). A person thus biased is under suspicion when he praises, but not when he exposes shady sides. My page references are to the French edition of Kolben. The italics are mine.

[139] Gathered from Hahn's _Tsuni_ and Krönlein's _Wortschatz der Namaqua Hottentotten._

[140] The details given by the Rev. J. MacDonald (_Journal Anthrop. Soc._, XX., 1890, 116-18) cannot possibly be cited here. Our argument is quite strong enough without them. Westermarck devotes ten pages to an attempt to prove that immorality is not characteristic of uncivilized races in general. He leads off with that preposterous statement of Barrow that "a Kaffir woman is chaste and extremely modest;" and most of his other instances are based on equally flimsy evidence. I shall recur to the subject repeatedly. It is hardly necessary to call the reader's attention to the unconscious humor of the assertion of Westermarck's friend Cousins that "between their various feasts the Kaffirs have to live in strict continence"--which is a good deal like saying of a toper that "between drinks he is strictly sober."

[141] It may seem inconsistent to condemn Barrow on one page as unreliable and then quote him approvingly on another. But in the first case his assertion was utterly opposed to the unanimous testimony of those who knew the Kaffirs best, while in this instance his remarks are in perfect accordance with what we would expect under the circumstances and with the testimony of the standard authorities.

[142] Vid. Mantegazza, _Geschlechtsverhältnisse des Menschen_, 213.

[143] From an article in the _Humanitarian_, March, 1897, it appears that this "leap-year" custom still prevails among Zulus; but the dawn of civilization has introduced a modification to the effect that when the girl is refused, a present is usually given her "to ease her feelings." At least that is the way Miss Colenso puts it. Wood (80) relates a story of a Kaffir girl who persistently wooed a young chief who did not want her; she had to be removed by force and even beaten, but kept returning until, to save further bother, the chief bought her.

[144] Ignorant sentimentalists who have often argued that the absence of illegitimate offspring argues moral purity will do well to ponder what Thomson says on page 580, and compare with it the remarks of the Rev. J. Macdonald, who lived twelve years among the tribes between Cape Colony and Natal, regarding their use of herbs. (_Journal Anthrop. Soc._, XIX., 264.) See also Johnston (413).

[145] To what almost incredible lengths sentimental defenders of savages will go, may be seen in an editorial article with which the London _Daily News_ of August 4, 1887, honored my first book. I was informed therein that "savages are not strangers to love in the most delicate and noble form of the passion.... The wrong conclusion must not be drawn from Monteiro's remark, 'I have never seen a negro put his arm around a negro's waist.' It is the uneducated classes who may be seen to exhibit in the parks those harmless endearments which negroes have too much good taste to practise before the public." To one who knows the African savage as he is, such an assertion is worth a whole volume of _Punch_.

[146] Westermarck (358), as usual, accepts Johnston's statement about poetic love on the Congo as gospel truth, without examining it critically.

[147] Bleek credits these tales to Schön's _Grammar of the Hausa Language_, Schlenker's _Collection of Temne Traditions_, and Kölle's _African Native Literature_, where the original Bornu text may be found.

[148] _Folk Lore Journal_, London, 1888, 119-22.

[149] Compare this with what I said on page 340 about the behavior of girls in the New Britain Group.

[150] _Revue d'Anthropologie,_ 1883.

[151] See an elaborate discussion of this question by the Rev. John Mathew in the _Journal of the Royal Society of N.S. Wales,_ Vol. XXIII., 335-449.

[152] See, _e.g._, the hideous pictures of Australian women enclosed in G.W. Earl's _The Papuans_. Spencer and Gillen's admirable volume also contains pictures of "young women" who look twice their age. After the age of twenty, the authors write, the face becomes wrinkled, the breasts pendulous, the whole body shrivelled. At fifty they reach "a stage of ugliness which baffled description" (40,40).

[153] _Royal Geogr. Soc of Australasia_, 1887, Vol. V., 29.

[154] _Trans. Ethn. Soc., New Ser_., III., 248, 288; cited by Spencer, _D.S._, 26.

[155] He adds in a foot-note (320) "Foeminae sese per totam paene vitam prostituunt. Apud plurimas tribus juventutem utriusque sexus sine discrimine concumbere in usu est. Si juvenis forte indigenorum coetum quendam in castris manentem adveniat ubi quaevis sit puella innupta, mos est nocte veniente et cubantibus omnibus, illam ex loco exsurgere et juvenem accedentem cum illo per noctem manere unde in sedem propriam ante diem redit. Cui femina est, eam amicis libenter praebet."

[156] F. Müller (212-13) gives the details of West Australian corrobborees which are too obscene to be cited here. See also the testimony in Hellwald (134-35) based on the observations of Oldfield, Koler, M'Combie, etc., and a number of other authorities cited by Waitz-Gerland, VI., 754-55. Curr says (I., 128) that at the corrobborees men of different tribes lend their wives to each other.

[157] _Journal Anthrop. Inst_., XXIV., 169. See also Waitz, VI., 774; Macgillivray, II., 8; Hasskarl, 82. They have a peculiar rattle with mystic sculpturing, and Eyre says that its sound libertatem coeundi juventuti esse tum concessam omnibus indicat. Maclennan (287) cites G.S. Lang, who cites the fact that the old men get most of the young women. Connubium profecto valde est liberum. Conjuges, puellae, _puellulae_ cum adolescentibus venantur. Pretium corporis poene nullius est. Vendunt se vel columbae vel canis vel piscis pretio. Inter Anglos et aborigines nihil distat.

[158] _Journal Anthrop. Inst._, XX., 53.

[159] _Revue d'Anthropologie_. 1882, p. 376.

[160] A.W. Howitt, _Jour. Anthr. Hist._ XX., 60-61. Fison and Howitt, 289; _Smithsonian Reports_, 1883, p. 67. Details are given which cannot be reproduced here. Boys participate in these orgies.

[161] The details given by Roth are too disgusting for reproduction here. They vie with the loathsome practices of the Kaffirs and the most debauched Roman emperors, while some of them are so vile that it seems as if they could have been suggested only by the diseased brain of an erotomaniac. The most degraded white criminal that ever took up his abode among savages would turn away from them with horror and nausea, yet we are asked to believe that the savages learned all their vices from the whites!

[162] _Mittheil des Ver. für Erdkunde zu Halle_, 1883, 54.

[163] Westermarck overlooks these vital facts when he calmly assumes (64, 65) that the guarding of girls, or punishment of intruders, argues a regard for chastity. His entire ignoring of the superabundant and unimpeachable testimony proving the contrary is extraordinary, to put it mildly. Dawson's assertion (33) that "illegitimacy is rare" and the mother severely punished, which Westermarck cites (65), is as foolish as most of the gossip printed by that utterly untrustworthy writer. As the details given in these pages regarding licentiousness before marriage and wife-lending after it show, there is no possible way of proving illegitimacy unless the child has a white father. In that case it is killed; but that is nothing remarkable, as the Australians kill most of their children anyway. That a regard for chastity or fidelity has nothing to do with these actions is proved by the fact cited from Curr (I., 110) by Westermarck himself (on another page--131--of course!) that "husbands display much less jealousy of white men than of those of their own color," and that they will more commonly prostitute their wives to strangers visiting the tribe than to their own people. I have no doubt that the simple reason of this is that the whites are better able to pay, in rum and trinkets.

[164] _South Australia_, Adelaide, 1804, p. 403. The part author, part editor of this valuable book is not to be confounded with J.S. Wood, the compiler of the _Natural History of Man_.

[165] See also the account he gives (I., 180) of the report as to aboriginal morals made in the early days of Victoria by a commission of fourteen settlers, missionaries, and protectors of the aborigines. The explorer Sturt (I., 316) even found that the natives became indignant if the whites rejected their addresses.

[166] See also a very important paper on this subject by Howitt in the _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, Vol. XX., 1890, demonstrating that "in Australia at the present day group marriage does exist in a well-marked form, which is evidently only the modified survival of a still more complete social communism" (104). Regarding the manner in which group marriage gradually passed into individual proprietorship, a suggestive hint may be found in this sentence from Brough Smyth (II., 316): When women are carried off from another tribe, "they are common property till they are gradually annexed by the best warriors of the tribe."

[167] In my mind the strongest argument against Westermarck's views as regards promiscuity is that all his tributary theories, so to speak, which I have had occasion to examine in this volume have proved so utterly inconsistent with facts. The question of promiscuity itself I cannot examine in detail here, as it hardly comes within the scope of this book. In view of the confusion Westermarck has already created in recent scientific literature by his specious pleading, I need not apologize for the frequency of my polemics against him. His imposing erudition and his cleverness in juggling with facts by ignoring those that do not please him (as _e.g._, in case of the morality of the Kaffirs and Australians, and the "liberty of choice" of their women) make him a serious obstacle to the investigation of the truth regarding man's sexual history, wherefore it is necessary to expose his errors promptly and thoroughly.

[168] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst_., 1890, 53.

[169] Would our friend Stephens be fearless enough to claim that this custom also was taught the natives by the degraded whites? Apart from the diabolical cruelty to a woman of which no white man except a maniac would ever be individually guilty--whereas this is a tribal custom--note the unutterable masculine selfishness of this "jealousy," which, while indifferent to chastity and fidelity, _per se_, punishes by proxy, leaving the real culprit untouched and happy at having not only had his intrigue but a chance to get rid of an undesired wife!

[170] _Jour. Anthr. Inst._, XII., 282.

[171] Grey might have made a valuable contribution to the comparative psychology of passion by noting down the chant of the rivals in their own words. Instead of that, for literary effect, he cast them into European metre and rhyme, with various expressions, like "bless" and "caress," which of course are utterly beyond an Australian's mental horizon. This absurd procedure, which has made so many documents of travellers valueless for scientific purposes, is like filling an ethnological museum with pictures of Australians, Africans, etc., all clothed in swallow-tail coats and silk hats. _Cf_. Grosse (_B.A_., 236), and Semon (224). Real Australian "poems" are like the following:

"The peas the white man eats-- I wish I had some, I wish I had some."

Or this:

"The kangaroo ran very fast But I ran faster; The kangaroo was fat; I ate him."

[172] _Roy. Geogr. Soc. of Australasia_, Vol. V., 29.

[173] The reason why Westermarck is so eager to prove liberty of choice on the part of Australian women is because he has set himself the hopeless task of proving that the lower we go the more liberty woman has, and that "under more primitive conditions she was even more free in that respect than she is now amongst most of the lower races." "As man in the earliest times," he asserts (222), "had no reason ... to retain his full-grown daughter, she might go away and marry at her pleasure." Quite the contrary; an Australian, than whom we know no more "primitive" man, had every reason for not allowing her to go away and marry whom she pleased. He looked on his daughter, as we have seen, chiefly as a desirable piece of property to exchange for some other man's daughter or sister.

[174] As distinguished from the more common sham elopement, at which the parents are consulted as usual. In the Kunandaburi tribe, for instance, as Howitt himself tells us (_Jour. Anthr. Inst_., XX., 60-61) the suitor asks permission of the girl's parents to take her away. "She resists all she can, biting and screaming, while the other women look on laughing." The whole thing is obviously a custom ordered by the parents, and tells us nothing regarding the presence or absence of choice. See the remarks on sham capture in my chapter on Coyness (125).

[175] The reader will note that here are some additional objects usually supposed to be "ornamental," but which, as in all the cases examined in the chapter on Personal Beauty, are seen on close examination to serve other than esthetic purposes. These _are_ intended to _charm_ the women, not, however, as things of beauty, but by their magic qualities and by attracting their attention.

[176] With his usual conscientious regard for facts Westermarck declares (70) that in a savage condition of life "every full-grown man marries as soon as possible."

[177] We are occasionally warned not to underrate the intelligence of the aboriginal Australian. As a matter of fact, there is more danger of its being overrated. Thus it was long believed that what was known as the "terrible rite" (_finditur usque ad urethram membrum virile_)--see Curr I., 52, 72--was practised as a check to population; but surgeon-general Roth (179) has exploded this idea, and made it seem probable that this rite is merely a senseless counterpart of certain useless mutilations inflicted on females.

[178] _Trans. Eth. Soc_., New Ser., III, 248.

[179] Gerland (VI., 756) makes the same mistake here as Westermarck. He also refers to Petermann's _Mittheilungen_ for another case of "romantic love." On consulting that periodical (1856, 451) I find that the proof of such love lay in the circumstance that in the quarrels so common in Australian camps, wives would not hesitate to join in and help their husbands!

[180] Surgeon-General Roth of Queensland does not indulge in any illusions regarding love in Australia. He uses quotation marks when he speaks of a man being in "love" (180), and in another place he speaks of the native woman "whose love, such as it is." etc. He evidently realizes that Australian lovers are only "lewd fellows of the baser sort."

[181] _Journal of the Anthrop. Inst_., 1889.

[182] Macgillivray says (II., 8) that the females of the Torres Islands are in most cases betrothed in infancy. "When the man thinks proper he takes his wife to live with him without any further ceremony, but before this she has probably had promiscuous intercourse with the young men, such, if conducted with a moderate degree of secrecy, not being considered as an offence.... Occasionally there are instances of strong mutual attachment and courtship, when, if the damsel is not betrothed, a small present made to the father is sufficient to procure his consent; at the Prince of Wales Islands a knife or a glass is considered as a sufficient price for the hand of a 'fair lady,' and are the articles mostly used for that purpose." I cite this passage chiefly because it is another one of those to which Gerland refers as evidence of genuine romantic love!

[183] I am indebted for many of the following facts to H. Ling Roth's splendid compilation and monograph entitled _The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_. London, 1896.

[184] The Ida'an are the aboriginal population; in dress, habitations, manners, and customs they are essentially the same as the Dyaks in general.

[185] The above details are culled from Williams, pp. 145, 144, 38, 345, 148, 152, 43, 114, 179, 180, 344. The editor declares, in a foot-note (182), that he has repressed or softened some of the more horrible details in Williams's account.

[186] See Westermarck, 67, and footnotes on that page.

[187] If sentimentalists were gifted with a sense of humor it would have occurred to them how ludicrous and illogical it is to suppose that savages and barbarians, the world over, should in each instance have been converted by a few whites from angels to monsters of depravity with such amazing suddenness. We know, on the contrary, that in no respect are these races so stubbornly tenacious of old customs as in their sexual relations.

[188] See Mariner (Martin) Introduction and Chap. XVI.

[189] _Jour. Anthr. Inst_., 1889, p. 104.

[190] Supposed to mean a beautiful flower that grows on the tops of the mountains, where sea and land breezes meet.

[191] According to Erskine (50) when a Samoan felt a violent passion for another he would brand his arm, to symbolize his ardor. (Waitz-Gerland, VI., 125.)

[192] See _Schopenhauer's Gespräche_ (Grisebach), 1898, p. 40, and the essay on love, in Lichtenberg's _Ausgewählte Schriften_ (Reclam). Lichtenberg seems, indeed, to have doubted whether anything else than sensual love actually exists.

[193] It is said that, under favorable circumstances, a distance of 3,000 miles might thus be covered in a month.

[194] There is much reason to suspect, too, that Grey expurgated and whitewashed these tales. See, on this subject, the remarks to be made in the next chapter regarding the Indian love-stories of Schoolcraft, bearing in mind that Polynesians are, if possible, even more licentious and foul-mouthed than Indians.

[195] Considerations of space compel me here, as in other cases, to condense the stories; but I conscientiously and purposely retain all the sentimental passages and expressions.

[196] _Algic Researches_, 1839, I., 43. From this work the first five of the above stories are taken, the others being from the same author's _Oneota_ (54-57; 15-16). The stories in _Algic Researches_ were reprinted in 1856 under the title _The Myth of Hiawatha and Other Oral Legends_.

[197] I have taken the liberty of giving to most of the stories cited more attractive titles than Schoolcraft gave them. He himself changed some of the titles in his later edition.

[198] In another of these tales (_A.R._, II., 165-80) Schoolcraft refers to a girl who went astray in the woods "while admiring the scenery."

[199] Schoolcraft's volumes include, however, a number of reliable and valuable articles on various Indian tribes by other writers. These are often referred to in anthropological treatises, including the present volume.

[200] In the _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1891, especially pages 546, 554, 555, 556, 557, 558, 559, 567-69, 640, 643; in the vol. for 1892, pages 36, 42, 44, 324, 330, 340, 386, 392, 434, 447; and in the vol. for 1894, 283, 303, 304. It is impossible even to hint here at the details of these stories. Some are licentious, others merely filthy. Powers, in his great work on the California Indians (348), refers to "the unspeakable obscenity of their legends."

[201] Ehrenreich says (_Zeitschr. für Ethnol._, 1887, 31) that among the Botocudos cohabitatio coram familia et vicinibus exagitur; and of the Machacares Indians Feldner tells us (II., 143, 148) that even the children behave lewdly in presence of everybody. Parentes rident, appellunt eos canes, et usque ad silvam agunt. Some extremely important and instructive revelations are made in von den Steinen's classic work on Brazil (195-99), but they cannot be cited here. The author concludes that "a feeling of modesty is decidedly absent among the unclothed Indians."

[202] Published in the _Papers of the American Archaeological Institute_, III.

[203] _Works_, in Hakluyt Soc. Publ., London, 1847, II., 192.

[204] What Parkman says regarding the cruelty of the Indians perhaps applies also to their sexual morality, though to a less extent. In speaking of the early missionary intercourse with the Indians he remarks (_Jes in Can._, 319):

"In the wars of the next century we do not often find these examples of diabolic atrocity with which the earlier annals were crowded. The savage burned his enemies alive still, it is true, but he rarely ate them; neither did he torment them with the same deliberation and persistency. He was a savage still, but not so often a devil. The improvement was not great, but it was distinct; and it seems to have taken place wherever Indian tribes were in close relations with any respectable community of white men."

[205] Herrera relates (III., 340) that Nicaraguan fathers used to send out their daughters to roam the country and earn a marriage portion in a shameful way.

[206] See also the remarks of Dr. W.J. Hoffmann regarding the dances of the Coyotero Apaches. _U.S. Geol. and Geogr. Survey_, Colorado, 1876, 464.