Part 88 (1/2)

[137] See also Merensky's _Sud 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 Kronlein'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 a.s.sertion 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 a.s.sertion 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 circ.u.mstances and with the testimony of the standard authorities.

[142] Vid. Mantegazza, _Geschlechtsverhaltnisse 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 n.o.ble form of the pa.s.sion.... 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 cla.s.ses 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 a.s.sertion 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 Schon's _Grammar of the Hausa Language_, Schlenker's _Collection of Temne Traditions_, and Kolle'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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 prost.i.tuunt. Apud plurimas tribus juventutem utriusque s.e.xus sine discrimine conc.u.mbere 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 c.u.m illo per noctem manere unde in sedem propriam ante diem redit. Cui femina est, eam amicis libenter praebet.”

[156] F. Muller (212-13) gives the details of West Australian corrobborees which are too obscene to be cited here. See also the testimony in h.e.l.lwald (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; Ha.s.skarl, 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_ c.u.m 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.