Part 69 (2/2)
”The Ho population of the village forming the environs of Chaibasa are at other seasons quiet and reserved in manner, and in their demeanor toward women gentle and decorous; even in the flirtations I have spoken of they never transcend the bounds of decency. The girls, though full of spirits and somewhat saucy, have innate notions of propriety that make them modest in demeanor, though devoid of all prudery.... Since their adoption of clothing they are careful to drape themselves decently as well as gracefully, but they throw all this aside during the Magh feast. Their natures appear to undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile their parents in gross language, and parents their children; men and women become almost like animals in the indulgence of their amorous propensities. They enact all that was ever portrayed by prurient artists in a baccha.n.a.lian festival or pandean orgy; and as the light of the sun they adore and the presence of numerous spectators seem to be no restraint on their indulgence, it cannot be expected that chast.i.ty is preserved when the shades of night fall on such a scene of licentiousness and debauchery.”
”MARVELLOUSLY PRETTY AND ROMANTIC”
Nor are these festivals of rare occurrence. They last three or four days and are held at the different villages at different dates, so the inhabitants of each may take part in ”a long succession of these orgies.” When Dalton declares (206) regarding these coa.r.s.e and dissolute Hos, who thus spend a part of each year in ”a long succession of orgies,” in which their own wives and daughters partic.i.p.ate, that they are nevertheless capable of the higher emotions--though he admits they have no words for them--he merely proves that long intercourse with such savages blunted his own sensibilities, or what is more probable--that he himself never understood the real nature of the higher emotions--those ”tracts of feeling” which Lewin found missing among the hill-tribes. We are confirmed in this suspicion by noticing Dalton's ecstatic delight over the immoral courts.h.i.+p customs of the Bhuiyas, which he found ”marvellously pretty and romantic” and describes as follows:
”In each village there is, as with the Oraons, an open s.p.a.ce for a dancing ground, called by the Bhuiyas the Darbar; and near it the bachelors' hall.... here the young men must all sleep at night, and here the drums are kept. Some villages have a 'Dhangarin ba.s.sa,' or house for maidens, which, strange to say, they are allowed to occupy without anyone to look after them.
They appear to have very great liberty, and slips of morality, as long as they are confined to the tribe, are not much heeded. Whenever the young men of the village go to the Darbar and beat the drums the young girls join them there, and they spend their evenings dancing and enjoying themselves without any interference on the part of the elders.
”The more exciting and exhilarating occasions are when the young men of one village proceed to visit the maidens of another village, or when the maidens return the call. The young men provide themselves with presents for the girls, generally consisting of combs for the hair and sweets, and going straight to the Darbar of the village they visit, they proclaim their arrival loudly by beating their drums and tambourines.
The girls of that village immediately join them. Their male relations and neighbors must keep entirely out of view, leaving the field clear for the guests. The offerings of the visitors are now gallantly presented and graciously accepted and the girls at once set to work to prepare a dinner for their beaux, and after the meal they dance and sing and flirt all night together, and the morning dawns on more than one pair of pledged lovers. Then the girls, if the young men have conducted themselves to their satisfaction, make ready the morning meal for themselves and their guests; after which the latter rise to depart, and still dancing and playing on the drums, move out of the village followed by the girls, who escort them to the boundary. This is generally a rock-broken stream with wooded banks; here they halt, the girls on one side, the lads on the other, and to the accompaniment of the babbling brook sing to each other in true bucolic style. The song on these occasions is to a certain extent improvised, and is a pleasant mixture of raillery and love-making....
”The song ended, the girls go down on their knees, and bowing to the ground respectfully salute the young men, who gravely and formally return the compliment, and they part.
”The visit is soon returned by the girls. They are received by the young men in their Darbar and entertained, and the girls of the receiving village must not be seen....
”They have certainly more wit, more romance, and more poetry in their composition than is usually found among the country folk in India.”
LIBERTY OF CHOICE
All this may indeed be ”marvellously pretty and romantic,” but I fail to see the least indication of the ”higher emotions.” Nor can I find them in some further interesting remarks regarding the Hos made by the same author (192-93). Thirty years ago, he says, a girl of the better cla.s.s cost forty or fifty head of cattle. Result--a decrease in the number of marriages and an increase of immoral intimacies. Sometimes a girl runs away with her lover, but the objection to this is that elopements are not considered respectable.
”It is certainly not from any yearning for celibacy that the marriage of Singbhum maidens is so long postponed. The girls will tell you frankly that they do all they can to please the young men, and I have often heard them pathetically bewailing their want of success. They make themselves as attractive as they can, flirt in the most demonstrative manner, and are not too coy to receive in public attentions from those they admire. They may be often seen in well-a.s.sorted pairs returning from market with arms interlaced, and looking at each other as lovingly as if they were so many groups of Cupids and Psyches, but with all this the 'men will not propose.' Tell a maiden you think her nice-looking, she is sure to reply 'Oh, yes! I am, but what is the use of it, the young men of my acquaintance don't see it.'”
Here we note a frankly commercial view of marriage, without any reference to ”higher emotions.” In this tribe, too, the girls are not allowed the liberty of choice. Indeed, when we examine this point we find that Westermarck is wrong, as usual, in a.s.signing such a privilege to the girls of most of these tribes. He himself is obliged to admit (224) that
”in many of the uncivilized tribes of India parents are in the habit of betrothing their sons.... The paternal authority approaches the _patria potestas_ of the ancient Aryan nations.”
The Kisans, Mundas, Santals, Marias, Mishmis, Bhils, and Yoonthalin Karens are tribes among whom fathers thus reserve the right of selecting wives for their sons; and it is obvious that in all such cases daughters have still less choice than sons. Colonel Macpherson throws light on this point when he says of the Kandhs:
”The parents obtain the wives of their sons during their boyhood, as very valuable _domestic servants,_ and _their selections are avowedly made with a view to utility in this character.”_[258]
Rowney reports (103) that the Khond boys are married at the age of ten and twelve to girls of fifteen to sixteen; and among the Reddies it is even customary to marry boys of five or six years to women of sixteen to twenty. The ”wife,” however, lives with an uncle or relation, who begets children for the boy-husband. When the boy grows up his ”wife”
is perhaps too old for him, so he in turn takes possession of some other boy's ”wife”.[259] The young folks are obviously in the habit of obeying implicitly, for as Dalton says (132) of the Kisans, ”There is no instance on record of a youth or maiden objecting to the arrangement made for them.” With the Savaras, Boad Kandhs, Hos, and Kaupuis, the prevalence of elopements shows that the girls are not allowed their own choice. Lepcha marriages are often made on credit, and are breakable if the payment bargained for is not made to the parent within the specified time. (Rowney, 139.)[260]
SCALPS AND FIELD-MICE
While among the Nagas, as already stated, the women must do all the hard work, they have one privilege: tribal custom allows them to refuse a suitor until he has put in their hands a human skull or scalp; and the gentle maidens make rigorous use of this privilege--so much so that in consequence of the difficulty of securing these ”gory tokens of love” marriages are contracted late in life. The head need not be that of an enemy: ”A skull may be acquired by the blackest treachery, but so long as the victim was not a member of the clan,”
says Dalton (39), ”it is accepted as a chivalrous offering of a true knight to his lady,” Dalton gives another and less grewsome instance of ”chivalry” occurring among the Oraons (253).
”A young man shows his inclination for a girl thus: He sticks flowers in the ma.s.s of her back-hair, and if she subsequently return the compliment, it is concluded that she desires a continuance of his attention. The next step may be an offering to his lady-love of some nicely grilled field-mice, which the Oraons declare to be the most delicate of food. Tender looks and squeezes whilst both are engaged in the dance are not much thought of. They are regarded merely as the result of emotions naturally arising from pleasant contiguity and exciting strains; but when it comes to flowers and field-mice, matters look serious.”
A TOPSY-TURVY CUSTOM
Coyness as well as primitive gallantry has its amusing phases among these wild tribes. The following description seems so much like an extravaganza that the reader may suspect it to be an abstract of a story by Frank Stockton or a libretto by Gilbert; but it is a serious page from Dalton's _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_ (63-64). It relates to the Garos, who are thus described:
<script>