Part 89 (1/2)

[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 circ.u.mstance 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 courts.h.i.+p, 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sage 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 ent.i.tled _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 s.e.xual 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 pa.s.sion for another he would brand his arm, to symbolize his ardor.

(Waitz-Gerland, VI., 125.)

[192] See _Schopenhauer's Gesprache_ (Grisebach), 1898, p. 40, and the essay on love, in Lichtenberg's _Ausgewahlte Schriften_ (Reclam).

Lichtenberg seems, indeed, to have doubted whether anything else than sensual love actually exists.

[193] It is said that, under favorable circ.u.mstances, 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 s.p.a.ce compel me here, as in other cases, to condense the stories; but I conscientiously and purposely retain all the sentimental pa.s.sages 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 t.i.tle _The Myth of Hiawatha and Other Oral Legends_.

[197] I have taken the liberty of giving to most of the stories cited more attractive t.i.tles than Schoolcraft gave them. He himself changed some of the t.i.tles 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 fur 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. fur 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 cla.s.sic 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.”