Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 69

Such utter lack of delicacy prepares us for the statement that the Eskimos are equally coa.r.s.e in other respects, notably in their treatment of women and their s.e.xual feelings. It would be a stigma upon an Eskimo's character, says Cranz (I., 154), "if he so much as drew a seal out of the water." Having performed the pleasantly exciting part of killing it, he leaves all the drudgery and hard work of hauling, butchering, cooking, tanning, shoe-making, etc., to the women. They build the houses, too, while the men look on with the greatest insensibility, not stirring a finger to a.s.sist them in carrying the heavy stones. Girls are often "engaged" as soon as born, nor are those who grow up free allowed to marry according to their own preference. "When friendly exhortations are unavailing she is compelled by force, and even blows, to receive her husband." (Cranz, I., 146.) They consider children troublesome, and the race is dying out. Women are not allowed to eat of the first seal of the season. The sick are left to take care of themselves. (Hall, II., 322, I., 103.) In years of scarcity widows "are rejected from the community, and hover about the encampments like starving wolves ... until hunger and cold terminate their wretched existence." (M'Lean, II., 143.) Men and women alike are without any sense of modesty; in their warm hovels both s.e.xes divest themselves of nearly all their clothing. Nor, although they fight and punish jealousy, have they any regard for chast.i.ty _per se_. Lending a wife or daughter to a guest is a recognized duty of hospitality. Young couples live together on trial.

When the husband is away hunting or fishing the wife has her intrigues, and often adultery is committed _sans gene_ on either side.

Unnatural vices are indulged in without secrecy, and altogether the picture is one of utter depravity and coa.r.s.eness.[257]

Under such circ.u.mstances we hardly needed the specific a.s.surance of Rink, who collected and published a volume of _Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo_, and who says that "never is much room given in this poetry to the almost universal feeling of love." He refers, of course, to any kind of love, and he puts it very mildly. Not only is there no trace of altruistic affection in any of these tales and traditions, but the few erotic stories recorded (_e.g._, pp. 236-37) are too coa.r.s.e to be cited or summarized here. Hall, too, concluded that "love--if it come at all--comes after marriage." He also informs us (II., 313) that there "generally exists between husband and wife a steady but not very demonstrative affection;" but here he evidently wrongs the Eskimos; for, as he himself remarks (126), they

"always summarily punish their wives for any real or imaginary offence. They seize the first thing at hand--a stone, knife, hatchet, or spear--and throw it at the offending woman, just as they would at their dogs."

What could be more "demonstrative" than such "steady affection?"

INDIA--WILD TRIBES AND TEMPLE GIRLS

India, it has been aptly said, "forms a great museum of races in which we can study man from his lowest to his highest stages of culture." It is this multiplicity of races and their lack of patriotic co-operation that explains the conquest of the hundreds of millions of India by the tens of millions of England. Obviously it would be impossible to make any general a.s.sertion regarding love that would apply equally to the 10,000,000 educated Brahmans, who consider themselves little inferior to G.o.ds, the 9,000,000 outcasts who are esteemed and treated infinitely worse than animals, and the 17,000,000 of the aboriginal tribes who are comparable in position and culture to our American Indians. Nevertheless, we can get an approximately correct composite portrait of love in India by making two groups and studying first, the aboriginal tribes, and then the more or less civilized Hindoos (using this word in the most comprehensive sense), with their peculiar customs, laws, poetic literature, and bayaderes, or temple girls.

In Bengal and a.s.sam alone, which form but a small corner of this vast country, the aborigines are divided into nearly sixty distinct races, differing from each other in various ways, as American tribes do. They have not been described by as many and as careful observers as our American Indians have, but the writings of Lewin, Galton, Rowney, Man, Shortt, Watson and Kaye, and others supply sufficient data to enable us to understand the nature of their amorous feelings.

"WHOLE TRACTS OF FEELING UNKNOWN TO THEM"

Lewin gives us the interesting information (345-47) that with the Chittagong hill-tribes

"women enjoy perfect freedom of action; they go unveiled, they would seem to have equal rights of heritage with men, while their power of selecting their own husband is to the full as free as that of our own English maidens."

Moreover, "in these hills the crime of infidelity among wives is almost unknown; so also harlots and courtesans are held in abhorrence amongst them."

On reading these lines our hopes are raised that at last we may have come upon a soil favorable to the growth of true love. But Lewin's further remarks dispel that illusion:

"In marriage, with us, a perfect world springs up at the word, of tenderness, of fellowship, trust, and self-devotion. With them it is a mere animal and convenient connection for procreating their species and getting their dinner cooked. They have no idea of tenderness, nor of the chivalrous devotion that prompted the old Galilean fisherman when he said 'Give ye honor unto the woman as to the weaker vessel,' ...

The best of them will refuse to carry a burden if there be a wife, mother, or sister near at hand to perform the task." "_There are whole tracts of mind, and thought, and feeling, which are unknown to them_."

PRACTICAL PROMISCUITY

One of the most important details of my theory is that while there can be no romantic love without opportunity for genuine courtship and free choice, nevertheless the existence of such opportunity and choice does not guarantee the presence of love unless the other conditions for its growth--general refinement and altruistic impulses--coexist with them.

Among the Chittagong hill-tribes these conditions--const.i.tuting "whole tracts of mind, and thought, and feeling"--do not coexist with the liberty of choice, hence it is useless to look for love in our sense of the word. Moreover, when we further read in Lewin that the reason why there are no harlots is that they "are rendered unnecessary by the freedom of intercourse indulged in and allowed to both s.e.xes before marriage," we see that what at first seemed a virtue is really a mark of lower degradation. Some of the oldest legislators, like Zoroaster and Solon, already recognized the truth that it was far better to sacrifice a few women to the demon of immorality than to expose them all to contamination. The wild tribes of India in general have not yet arrived at that point of view. In their indifference to chast.i.ty they rank with the lowest savages, and usually there is a great deal of promiscuous indulgence before a mate is chosen for a union of endurance. Among the Oraons, as Dalton tells us (248), "liaisons between boys and girls of the same village seldom end in marriage;"

and he gives strange details regarding the conduct of the young people which may not be cited here, and in which the natives see "no impropriety." Regarding the Butias Rowney says (142):

"The marriage tie is so loose that chast.i.ty is quite unknown amongst them. The husbands are indifferent to the honor of their wives, and the wives do not care to preserve that which has no value attached to it. ...

The intercourse of the s.e.xes is, in fact, promiscuous."

Of the Lepchas Rowney says (139) that "chast.i.ty in adult girls previous to marriage is neither to be met with nor cared for." Of the Mishmees he says (163): "Wives are not expected to be chaste, and are not thought worse off when otherwise," and of the Kookies (186): "All the women of a village, married or unmarried, are available to the chief at his will, and no stigma attaches to those who are favored by him." In some tribes wives are freely exchanged. Dalton says of the Butan (98) that "the intercourse between the s.e.xes is practically promiscuous." Rhyongtha girls indulge in promiscuous intercourse with several lovers before marriage. (Lewin, 121.) With the Kurmuba, "no such ceremony as marriage exists." They "live together like the brute creation." (W.R. King, 44.)

My theory that in practice, at any rate, if not in form, promiscuity was the original state of affairs among savages, in India as elsewhere, is supported by the foregoing facts, and also by what various writers have told us regarding the licentious festivals indulged in by these wild tribes of India. "It would appear," says Dalton (300),

"that most of the hill-tribes found it necessary to promote marriage by stimulating intercourse between the s.e.xes at particular seasons of the year.... At one of the Kandh festivals held in November all the lads and la.s.ses a.s.semble for a spree, and a bachelor has then the privilege of making off with any unmarried girl whom he can induce to go with him, subject to a subsequent arrangement with the parents of the maiden."

Dalton gives a vivid description of these festivals as practised by the Hos in January, when the granaries are full of wheat and the natives "full of deviltry:"

"They have a strange notion that at this period men and women are so overcharged with vicious propensities, that it is absolutely necessary for the safety of the person to let off steam by allowing, for a time, full vent to the pa.s.sions. The festival therefore becomes a saturnale, during which servants forget their duties to their masters, children their reverence for parents, even their respect for women, and women all notions of modesty, delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging bacchantes....

"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 courtship 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: