Primitive Love and Love-Stories

by Henry Theophilus Finck

  FOOTNOTES:

  [1] Albrecht Weber and other German scholars, while practicallyagreeing with Hegel regarding the Greeks and Romans, claim, that theamorous poetry of the ancient Hindoo has the sentimental qualities ofmodern European verse.

  [2] In the New York _Nation_ of September 22, and the _Evening Post_of September 24, 1887. My reasons for not agreeing with these twodistinguished professors will be dwelt on repeatedly in the followingpages. If they are right, then literature is not, as it is universallyheld to be, a mirror of life.

  [3] No important truth is ever born full fledged. The Darwinian theorywas conceived simultaneously by Wallace and Darwin, and both wereanticipated by other writers. Nay, a German professor has written atreatise on the "Greek Predecessors of Darwin."

  [4] _Studien ueber die Libido Sexualis_, I., Pt. I., 28.

  [5] In the last chapter of _Lotos-Time in Japan_.

  [6] An amusing instance of this trait may be found in Johnston'saccount of his ascent of the Kilima-Njaro (271-276).

  [7] Roth's sumptuous volume, _British North Borneo_, gives a life-likepicture of the Dyaks from every point of view, with numerousillustrations.

  [8] See the chapter on Nudity and Bathing in my _Lotos-Time in Japan_.

  [9] Bancroft, II., 75; Wallace, 357; Westermarck, 195; Humboldt, III.,230.

  [10] See especially the ninth chapter of Westermarck's _History ofHuman Marriage_, 186-201.

  [11] Westermarck (74) devotes half a page in fine type to anenumeration of the peoples among whom many such customs prevailed, andhis list is far from being complete.

  [12] See Westermarck, Chap. XX., for a list of monogamous peoples.

  [13] The vexed question of promiscuity hinges on this distinction. Asa matter of _form_ promiscuity may not have been the earliest phase ofhuman marriage, but as a matter of _fact_ it was. Westermarck'singeniously and elaborately built up argument against the theory ofpromiscuity is a leaning tower which crashes to the ground whenweighted by this one consideration. See the chapter on Australia.

  [14] For a partial list of peoples who practised trial marriage andfrequent divorce see Westermarck, 518-521, and C. Fischer, Ueber dieProbennaechte der deutschen Bauernmaedchen_. Leipzig, 1780.

  [15] For the distinction between sentiment and sentimentality see thechapter on Sensuality, Sentimentality, and Sentiment.

  [16] Johnston states (in Schoolcraft, IV., 224) that the wild Indiansof California had their rutting season as regularly as have the deerand other animals. See also Powers (206) and Westermarck (28). In theAndaman Islands a man and woman remained together only till theirchild was weaned, when they separated to seek new mates (_Trans.Ethnol. Soc_., V., 45).

  [17] The other cases of "jealousy" cited by Westermarck (117-122) areall negatived by the same property argument; to which he indeedalludes, but the full significance of which he failed to grasp. It isa pity that language should be so crude as to use the same wordjealousy to denote three such entirely different things as rage at arival, revenge for stolen property, and anguish at the knowledge orsuspicion of violated chastity and outraged conjugal affection.Anthropologists have studied only the lower phases of jealousy, justas they have failed to distinguish clearly between lust and love.

  [18] All these facts, it is hardly necessary to add, serve as furtherillustrations to the chapter How Sentiments Change and Grow.

  [19] For "love" read covet. We shall see in the chapter on Australiathat love is a feeling altogether beyond the mental horizon of thenatives.

  [20] Rohde, 35, 28, 147. See his list of corroborative cases in thelong footnote, pp. 147-148.

  [21] Compare this with what Rohde says (42) about the Homeric heroesand their complete absorption in warlike doings.

  [22] _Grundlage der Moral_, Sec. 14.

  [23] _Wagner and his Works_, II., 163.

  [24] In Burton the translator has changed the sex of the beloved. Thisproceeding, a very common one, has done much to confuse the publicregarding the modernity of Greek love. It is not Greek love of women,but romantic friendship for boys, that resembles modern love forwomen.

  [25] A multitude of others may be found in an interesting article on"Sexual Taboo" by Crawley in the _Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute_, xxvi.

  [26] New York _Evening Post_, January 21, 1899.

  [27] Fitzroy, II., 183; _Trans. Ethn. Soc_., New Series, III., 248-88.

  [28] That moral infirmities, too, were capable of winning the respectof savages, may be seen in Carver's _Travels in North America_ (245).

  [29] Garcia _Origin de los Indios de el Nuevo Mondo_; McLennan; Ingham(Westermarck, 113) concerning the Bakongo; Giraud-Teulon, 208, 209,concerning Nubians and other Ethiopians.

  [30] See Letourneau, 332-400; Westermarck, 39-41, 96-113; Grosse,11-12,50-63, 75-78, 101-163, 107, 180.

  [31] Charlevoix, V. 397-424; Letourneau, 351. See also Mackenzie, _V.fr. M._, 84, 87; Smith, _Arauc._, 238; _Bur. Ethnol._, 1887, 468-70.

  [32] How capable of honoring women the Babylonians were may beinferred from the testimony of Herodotus (I., ch. 199) that everywoman had to sacrifice her chastity to strangers in the temple ofMylitta.

  [33] It gives me great pleasure to correct my error in this place. Nota few critics of my first book censured me for underrating Romanadvances in the refinements of love. As a matter of fact I overratedthem.

  [34] _Life Among the Modocs_ (228). It must be borne in mind thatJoaquin Miller here describes his own ideas of chivalry. He did not,as a matter of course, find anything resembling them among the Modocs.If he had, he would have said so, for he was their friend, and marriedthe girl referred to. But while the Indians themselves never entertainany chivalrous regard for women, they are acute enough to see that thewhites do, and to profit thereby. One morning when I was writing somepages of this book under a tree at Lake Tahoe, California, an Indiancame to me and told me a pitiful tale about his "sick squaw" in one ofthe neighboring camps. I gave him fifty cents "for the squaw," butascertained later that after leaving me he had gone straight to thebar-room at the end of the pier and filled himself up with whiskey,though he had specially and repeatedly assured me he was "damned goodIndian," and never drank.

  [35] _Magazin von Reisebeschreibungen_, I., 283.

  [36] The Rev. Isaac Malek Yonan tells us, in his book on _PersianWomen_ (138), that most Armenian women "are very low in the moralscale." It is obvious that only one of the wanton class could be inquestion in Trumbull's story, for the respectable women are, as Yonansays, not even permitted to talk loudly or freely in the presence ofmen. This clergyman is a native Persian, and the account he gives ofhis countrywomen, unbiassed and sorrowful, shows that the chances forromantic love are no better in modern Persia than they were in theolden times. The women get no education, hence they grow up "reallystupid and childlike." He refers to "the low estimation in which womenare held," and says that the likes and dislikes of girls about to bemarried are not consulted. Girls are seldom betrothed later than theseventh to the tenth year, often, indeed, immediately after birth oreven before. The wife cannot sit at the same table with her husband,but must wait on him "like an accomplished slave." After he has eatenshe washes his hands, lights his pipe, then retires to a respectfuldistance, her face turned toward the mud wall, and finishes what isleft. If she is ill or in trouble, she does not mention it to him,"for she could only be sure of harsh, rough words instead of lovingsympathy." Their degraded Oriental customs have led the Persians tothe conclusion that "love has nothing to do with the matrimonialconnection," the main purpose of marriage being "the convenience andpleasure of a degenerate people" (34-114). So far this Persianclergyman. His conclusions are borne out by the observations of thekeen-eyed Isabella Bird Bishop, who relates in her book on Persia howshe was constantly besieged by the women for potions to bring back the"love" of their husbands, or to "make the favorite hateful to him."She was asked if European husbands "divorce their wives when they areforty?" A Persian who spoke French assured her that marriage in hiscountry
was like buying "a pig in a poke," and that "a woman's life inPersia is a very sad thing."

  [37] _Magazin fuer d. Lit. des In-und Auslandes_, June 30, 1888.

  [38] The philosophy of widow-burning will be explained under the headof Conjugal Love.

  [39] Willoughby, in his article on Washington Indians, recognizes thepredominance of the "animal instinct" in the parental fondness ofsavages, and so does Hutchinson (I., 119); but both erroneously usethe word "affection," though Hutchinson reveals his own misuse of itwhen he writes that "the savage knows little of the higher affectionsubsequently developed, which has a worthier purpose than merely todisport itself in the mirth of childhood and at all hazards to avoidthe annoyance of seeing its tears." He comprehends that the savage"gratifies _himself_" by humoring the whims "of his children." Dr.Abel, on the other hand, who has written an interesting pamphlet onthe words used in Latin, Hebrew, English, and Russian to designate thedifferent kinds and degrees of what is vaguely called love, whileotherwise making clear the differences between liking, attachment,fondness, and affection, does not sufficiently emphasize the mostimportant distinction between them--the selfishness of the first threeand the unselfish nature of affection.

  [40] Stanford-Wallace, _Australasia_, 89.

  [41] See also the reference to the "peculiar delicacy" of hisrelations to Lili, in Eckermann, III., March 5, 1830.

  [42] Renan, in one of his short stories, describes a girl, EmmaKosilis, whose love, at sixteen, is as innocent as it is unconscious,and who is unable to distinguish it from piety. Regarding theunconscious purity of woman's love see Moll, 3, and Paget, _ClinicalLectures_, which discuss the loss in women of instinctive sexualknowledge. _Cf_. Ribot, 251, and Moreau, _Psychologie Morbide_,264-278. Ribot is sceptical, because the ultimate goal is thepossession of the beloved. But that has nothing to do with thequestion, for what he refers to is unconscious and instinctive. Herewe are considering love as a conscious feeling and ideal, and as suchit is as spotless and sinless as the most confirmed ascetic could wishit.

  [43] The case is described in the _Medical Times_, April 18, 1885.

  [44] _Trans. Asiatic Soc. of Japan_, 1885, p. 181.

  [45] In the _Journal des Goncourts_ (V., 214-215) a young Japanese,with characteristic topsy-turviness, comments on the "coarseness" ofEuropean ideas of love, which he could understand only in his owncoarse way. "Vous dites a une femme, je vous aime! Eh bien! Chez nous,c'est comme si on disait Madame, je vais coucher avec vous. Tont ceque nous osons dire a la dame que nous aimons, c'est que nous envionspres d'elle la place des canards mandarins. C'est messieurs, notreoiseau d'amour."

  [46] In his _Tropical Nature, Contributions to the Theory of NaturalSelection_, and _Darwinism_. In _R.L.P.B._, 42-50, where I gave asummary of this question, I suggested that the "typical colors" (thenumerous cases where both sexes are brilliantly colored) for whichWallace could "assign no function or use," owe their existence to theneed of a means of recognition by the sexes; thus indicating how thelove-affairs of animals may modify their appearance in a way quitedifferent from that suggested by Darwin, and dispensing with hispostulates of unproved female choice and problematic variations inesthetic taste.

  [47] Angas, II., 65.

  [48] Tylor, _Anthr._, 237.

  [49] Musters, 171; cf. Thomson, _Through Masai Land_, 89, where weread that woman's coating of lampblack and castor-oil--her onlydress--serves to prevent excessive perspiration in the day-time andward off chills at night.

  [50] C. Bock, 273.

  [51] O. Baumann, _Mitth. Anthr. Ges._, Wien, 1887, 161.

  [52] Nicaragua, II., 345.

  [53] Sturt, II., 103.

  [54] Tylor, 237.

  [55] _Jesuit Relations_, I., 279.

  [56] Prince Wied, 149.

  [57] Belden, 145.

  [58] Mallery, 1888-89, 631-33.

  [59] Mallery, 1882-83, 183.

  [60] Bourke, 497.

  [61] Dobrizhoffer, II., 390.

  [62] Mariner, Chapter X.

  [63] Ellis, P.R., I., 243.

  [64] J. Campbell, _Wild Tribes of Khondistan_.

  [65] Mackenzie, _Day Dawn_, 67.

  [66] Bastian, _Af.R_., 76.

  [67] Burton, _Abcok_. I., 106.

  [68] Spencer, _D. Soc._, 27.

  [69] J. Franklin, _P.S._, 132.

  [70] Dobrizhoffer, II., 17.

  [71] Murdoch, 140.

  [72] Crantz, I., 216.

  [73] Mallery, 1888-89, 621.

  [74] Lynd, II., 68.

  [75] Bonwick, 27.

  [76] Wilkes, III., 355.

  [77] Westermarck opines (170) that "such tales are not of muchimportance, as any usage practised from time immemorial may easily heascribed to the command of a god." On the contrary, such legends areof very great importance, since they show how utterly foreign to thethought of these races was the purpose of "decorating" themselves inthese various ways "in order to make themselves attractive to theopposite sex."

  [78] Dorsey, 486.

  [79] Fison and Howitt, 253; Frazer, 28.

  [80] Mallery, 1888-89, 395, 412, 417.

  [81] Wilhelmi, in Woods.

  [82] Angas, I., 86.

  [83] Mitchell, I., 171.

  [84] Spencer, _D.S._, 21, 22; 18, 19.

  [85] Schweinfurth, _H.A_., I., 154.

  [86] Ellis, _Haw_., 146.

  [87] Man, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst_., XII.

  [88] Powers, 166.

  [89] Dall, 95.

  [90] Boas, cited by Mallery, 534.

  [91] Mallery, 1888-89, 197, 623-629.

  [92] See also the remarks in Prazer's _Totemism_, 26.

  [93] _Explor. and Surv. Mississippi River to Pacific Ocean_. SenateReports, Washington, 1856, III., 33.

  [94] See the pages (386-91) on the "Fashion Fetish" in my _RomanticLove and Personal Beauty_.

  [95] _Jour. Roy. As. Soc_., 1860, 13.

  [96] Feathers also serve various other useful purposes to Australians.An apron of emu feathers distinguishes females who are not yetmatrons. (Smyth, I., xl.) Howitt says that in Central Australiamessengers sent to avenge a death are painted yellow and wear featherson their head and in the girdle at the spine. (Mallery, 1888-89, 483.)

  [97] Related by Dieffenbach. Heriot even declares of the northernIndians (352) that "they assert that they find no odor agreeable butthat of food."

  [98] For other references to ancient nations, see Joest in _Zeitschr.fuer Ethnologie._ 1888, 415.

  [99] See, for instance, Spix and Martius, 384.

  [100] See _e.g_. Eyre, II. 333-335; Brough Smith, L, XLI, 68, 295,II., 313; Ridley, _Kamilaroi_, 140; _Journ. Roy. Soc. N.S.W_., 1882,201; and the old authorities cited by Waitz-Gerland, VI., 740; cfFrazer, 29. If Westermarck had been more anxious to ascertain thetruth than to prove a theory, would he have found it necessary toignore all this evidence, neglecting to refer even to Chatfield inspeaking of Curr?

  [101] H. Ward, 136.

  [102] Roth, II, 83.

  [103] Martius, I., 321.

  [104] Boas, _Bur. Ethnol._, 1884-88, 561.

  [105] Mann, _Journ. Anthr. Soc._, XII, 333.

  [106] Galton, 148.

  [107] Dalton, 251.

  [108] Waitz-Gerland, VI., 30.

  [109] Mallery, 1888-89, 414.

  [110] To take three cases in place of many Carl Bock relates (67) thatamong some Borneans tattooing is one of the privileges of matrimonyand is _not allowed to unmarried girls_. D'Urville describes thetattooing of the wife of chief Tuao, who seemed to glory in the "_newhonor_ his wife was securing by these decorations." (Robley, 41.)Among the Papuans of New Guinea tattooing the chest of females denotesthat they _are married_. (Mallery, 411.)

  [111] It is significant that Westermarck (179) though he refers topage 90 of Turner, ignores the passage I have just cited, though itoccurs on the same page.

  [112] Australia is by no means the only country where the women areless decorated than the men. Various explanations have been offered,but none of them covers a
ll the facts. The real reason becomes obviousif my view is accepted that the alleged ornaments of savages are notesthetic, but practical or utilitarian. The women are usually allowedto share such things as badges of mourning, amulets, and variousdevices that attract attention to wealth or rank; but the religiousrites, and the manifold decorations associated with military life--thechief occupation of these peoples--they are not allowed to share, andthese, with the tribal marks, furnish, as we have seen, the occasionfor the most diverse and persistent "decorative" practices.

  [113] The advocates of the sexual selection theory might have avoidedmany grotesque blunders had they possessed a sense of humor tocounterbalance and control their erudition. The violent opposition ofMadagascar women to King Radama's order that the men should have theirhair cut, to which Westermarck refers (174-75), surely finds in theproverbial stupid conservatism of barbarous customs a simpler and morerational explanation than in his assumption that this riot illustrated"the important part played by the hair of the head as a stimulant ofsexual passion" (to these coarse, masculine women, who had to bespeared before they could be quieted). An argument which attributes tounwashed, vermin-covered savages a fanatic zeal for what they consideras beautiful, such as no civilized devotee of beauty would ever dreamof, involves its own _reductio ad absurdum_ by proving too much.Westermarck also cites (177) from a book on Brazil the story that if ayoung maiden of the Tapoyers "be marriageable, and yet not courted byany, the mother paints her with some red color about the eyes," and inaccordance with his theory we are soberly expected to accept this redpaint about the eyes as an effective "stimulant of sexual passion," incase of a girl whose appearance otherwise did not tempt men to courther! The obvious object of the paint was to indicate that the girl wasin the market. In other words, it was part of that language of signswhich had such a remarkable development among some of the uncivilizedraces (see Mallery's admirable treatises on Indian Pictographs, takingup hundreds of pages in two volumes of the Bureau of Ethnology atWashington). Belden relates (145) of the Plains Indians that a warriorwho is courting a squaw usually paints his eyes yellow or blue, andthe squaw paints hers red. He even knew squaws, go through the painfuloperation of reddening the eyeballs, which he interprets as resultingfrom a desire to fascinate the men; but it is much more likely that ithad some special significance in the language of courtship, probablyas a mark of courage in enduring pain, than that the inflamed eyeitself was considered beautiful. Belden himself further points outthat "a red stripe drawn horizontally from one eye to the other, meansthat the young warrior has seen a squaw he could love if she wouldreciprocate his attachment," and on p. 144 he explains that "when awarrior smears his face with lampblack and then draws zigzags with hisnails, it is a sign that he desires to be left alone, or is trapping,or melancholy, or in love." I had intended to give a special paragraphto Decorations as Parts of the Language of Signs, but desisted onreflecting that most of the foregoing facts relating to war, mourning,tribal, etc., decorations, really came under that head.

  [114] _Trans. Eth. Soc.,_ London, N.S., VII., 238; _Journ. AsiaticSoc. Bengal,_ XXXV., Pt. II., 25. Spencer, _D.S._

  [115] In Fiji fatness is also "a mark of high rank, for these peoplecan only imagine one reason for any person being thin and spare,namely, not having enough to eat." (W.J. Smythe, 166.)

  [116] Yet Westermarck has the audacity to remark (259), that naturaldeformity and the unsymmetrical shape of the body are "regarded byevery race as unfavorable to personal appearance"!

  [117] It is not strange that the human race should have had to wait solong for a complete analysis of love. It is not so very long ago sinceNewton showed that what was supposed to be a simple white light wasreally compounded of all the colors of the rainbow; or that Helmholtzanalyzed sounds into their partial tones of different pitch, which arecombined in what seems to be a simple tone of this or that pitch.Similarly, I have shown that the pleasures of the table, whicheverybody supposes to be simple, gustatory sensations (matters oftaste), are in reality compound odors. See my article on "TheGastronomic Value of Odors," in the _Contemporary Review_, 1881.

  [118] II., 271-74. See also _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, 1887, 31;Hellwald, 144.

  [119] Which even in tropical countries seldom comes before theeleventh or twelfth year. See the statistics in Ploss-Bartels, I.,269-70.

  [120] _Alone among the Hairy Ainu_, 140-41.

  [121] _Culturgeschichte des Orients_, II, 109.

  [122] _Journal des Goncourt_, Tome V. 328-29.

  [123] _Trans. Ethn. Soc. N.S._, II, 292.

  [124] Ross Cox, cited by Yarrow in his valuable article on MortuaryCustoms of North American Indians, I, _Report Bur. Ethnol.,_ 1879-80.See also Ploss-Bartels, II., 507-13; Westermarck, 126-28; Letourneau,Chap. XV., where many other cases are cited.

  [125] _Trans. Ninth Internal. Congr. of Orientalists_, London, 1893,p. 781.

  [126] Details and authorities in Ploss-Bartels, II., 514-17;Westermarck, 125-26; Letourneau, Chap. XV.

  [127] For many other cases see references in footnotes 3 and 4,Westermarck, 378.

  [128] The poets and a certain class of novelists also like to dwell onthe love-matches among peasants as compared with commercial citymarriages. As a matter of fact, in no class do sordid pecuniarymatters play so great a role as among peasants. (_Cf._ Grosse._F.d.F._, 16.)

  [129] _Princ. of Soc._, American Edition, pp. 756, 772, 784, 787.

  [130] The proofs of man's universal contempt for woman are to be foundin the chapter on "Adoration," and everywhere in this book. Manyadditional illustrations are contained in several articles by Crawleyin the _Jour. Anthrop. Inst_., Vol. XXIV.

  [131] _Cf_. Ploss-Bartels, I., 471-87, where this topic of infantmarriage is treated with truly German thoroughness and erudition.

  [132] To demonstrate the recklessness (to use a mild word) of Darwinand Westermarck in this matter I will quote the exact words ofBurchell in the passage referred to (II., 58-59): "These men generallytake a second wife as soon as the first becomes somewhat advanced inyears." "Most commonly" the girls are betrothed when about seven yearsold, and in two or three years the girl is given to the man. "Thesebargains are made with her parents only, and _without ever consultingthe 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 womanhoodwithout having been betrothed, her lover must gain her approbation _aswell as that of her parents_."

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

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

  [135] Westermarck, 364-66, where many other striking cases of racialprejudice 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 _Sued Afrika_, 68.

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

  [139] Gathered from Hahn's _Tsuni_ and Kroenlein's _Wortschatz derNamaqua Hottentotten._

  [140] The details given by the Rev. J. MacDonald (_Journal Anthrop.Soc._, XX., 1890, 116-18) cannot possibly be cited here. Our argumentis quite strong enough without them. Westermarck devotes ten pages toan attempt to prove that immorality is not characteristic ofuncivilized races in general. He leads off with that preposterousstatement of Barrow that "a Kaffir woman is chaste and extremelymodest;" and most of his other instances are based on equally flimsyevidence. I shall recur to the subject repeatedly. It is hardlynecessary to call the reader's attention to the unconscious humor ofthe assertion of Westermarck's friend Cousins that "between theirvarious feasts the Kaffirs have to live in strict continence"--whichis a good deal like saying of a toper that "between drinks he isstrictly sober."

  [141] It may seem inconsistent to condemn Barrow on one page asunreliable and then quote him approvingly on another. But in the firstcase his assertion was utterly opposed to the unanimous testimony ofthose who knew the Kaffirs best, while in this instance his remarksare in perfect accordance with what we would expect under thecircumstances and with the testimony of the standard authorities.

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

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

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

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

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

  [147] Bleek credits these tales to Schoen's _Grammar of the HausaLanguage_, Schlenker's _Collection of Temne Traditions_, and Koelle's_African Native Literature_, where the original Bornu text may befound.

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

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

  [150] _Revue d'Anthropologie,_ 1883.

  [151] See an elaborate discussion of this question by the Rev. JohnMathew 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 enclosedin G.W. Earl's _The Papuans_. Spencer and Gillen's admirable volumealso 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 paenevitam prostituunt. Apud plurimas tribus juventutem utriusque sexussine discrimine concumbere in usu est. Si juvenis forte indigenorumcoetum quendam in castris manentem adveniat ubi quaevis sit puellainnupta, mos est nocte veniente et cubantibus omnibus, illam ex locoexsurgere et juvenem accedentem cum illo per noctem manere unde insedem propriam ante diem redit. Cui femina est, eam amicis libenterpraebet."

  [156] F. Mueller (212-13) gives the details of West Australiancorrobborees which are too obscene to be cited here. See also thetestimony in Hellwald (134-35) based on the observations of Oldfield,Koler, M'Combie, etc., and a number of other authorities cited byWaitz-Gerland, VI., 754-55. Curr says (I., 128) that at thecorrobborees 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 withmystic sculpturing, and Eyre says that its sound libertatem coeundijuventuti esse tum concessam omnibus indicat. Maclennan (287) citesG.S. Lang, who cites the fact that the old men get most of the youngwomen. Connubium profecto valde est liberum. Conjuges, puellae,_puellulae_ cum adolescentibus venantur. Pretium corporis poenenullius 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 whichcannot be reproduced here. Boys participate in these orgies.

  [161] The details given by Roth are too disgusting for reproductionhere. They vie with the loathsome practices of the Kaffirs and themost debauched Roman emperors, while some of them are so vile that itseems as if they could have been suggested only by the diseased brainof an erotomaniac. The most degraded white criminal that ever took uphis abode among savages would turn away from them with horror andnausea, yet we are asked to believe that the savages learned all theirvices from the whites!

  [162] _Mittheil des Ver. fuer 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 superabundantand unimpeachable testimony proving the contrary is extraordinary, toput it mildly. Dawson's assertion (33) that "illegitimacy is rare" andthe mother severely punished, which Westermarck cites (65), is asfoolish as most of the gossip printed by that utterly untrustworthywriter. As the details given in these pages regarding licentiousnessbefore marriage and wife-lending after it show, there is no possibleway of proving illegitimacy unless the child has a white father. Inthat case it is killed; but that is nothing remarkable, as theAustralians kill most of their children anyway. That a regard forchastity or fidelity has nothing to do with these actions is proved bythe fact cited from Curr (I., 110) by Westermarck himself (on anotherpage--131--of course!) that "husbands display much less jealousy ofwhite men than of those of their own color," and that they will morecommonly prostitute their wives to strangers visiting the tribe thanto their own people. I have no doubt that the simple reason of this isthat the whites are better able to pay, in rum and trinkets.

  [164] _South Australia_, Adelaide, 1804, p. 403. The part author, parteditor 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 toaboriginal morals made in the early days of Victoria by a commissionof fourteen settlers, missionaries, and protectors of the aborigines.The explorer Sturt (I., 316) even found that the n
atives becameindignant 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 marriagedoes exist in a well-marked form, which is evidently only the modifiedsurvival of a still more complete social communism" (104). Regardingthe manner in which group marriage gradually passed into individualproprietorship, a suggestive hint may be found in this sentence fromBrough Smyth (II., 316): When women are carried off from anothertribe, "they are common property till they are gradually annexed bythe best warriors of the tribe."

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

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

  [169] Would our friend Stephens be fearless enough to claim that thiscustom also was taught the natives by the degraded whites? Apart fromthe diabolical cruelty to a woman of which no white man except amaniac would ever be individually guilty--whereas this is a tribalcustom--note the unutterable masculine selfishness of this "jealousy,"which, while indifferent to chastity and fidelity, _per se_, punishesby proxy, leaving the real culprit untouched and happy at having notonly 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 comparativepsychology of passion by noting down the chant of the rivals in theirown words. Instead of that, for literary effect, he cast them intoEuropean metre and rhyme, with various expressions, like "bless" and"caress," which of course are utterly beyond an Australian's mentalhorizon. This absurd procedure, which has made so many documents oftravellers valueless for scientific purposes, is like filling anethnological museum with pictures of Australians, Africans, etc., allclothed 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 ofchoice on the part of Australian women is because he has set himselfthe hopeless task of proving that the lower we go the more libertywoman has, and that "under more primitive conditions she was even morefree 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 herpleasure." Quite the contrary; an Australian, than whom we know nomore "primitive" man, had every reason for not allowing her to go awayand marry whom she pleased. He looked on his daughter, as we haveseen, chiefly as a desirable piece of property to exchange for someother man's daughter or sister.

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

  [175] The reader will note that here are some additional objectsusually supposed to be "ornamental," but which, as in all the casesexamined in the chapter on Personal Beauty, are seen on closeexamination to serve other than esthetic purposes. These _are_intended to _charm_ the women, not, however, as things of beauty, butby their magic qualities and by attracting their attention.

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

  [177] We are occasionally warned not to underrate the intelligence ofthe aboriginal Australian. As a matter of fact, there is more dangerof its being overrated. Thus it was long believed that what was knownas the "terrible rite" (_finditur usque ad urethram membrumvirile_)--see Curr I., 52, 72--was practised as a check to population;but surgeon-general Roth (179) has exploded this idea, and made itseem probable that this rite is merely a senseless counterpart ofcertain 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 thatthe proof of such love lay in the circumstance that in the quarrels socommon in Australian camps, wives would not hesitate to join in andhelp their husbands!

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

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

  [182] Macgillivray says (II., 8) that the females of the TorresIslands are in most cases betrothed in infancy. "When the man thinksproper he takes his wife to live with him without any furtherceremony, but before this she has probably had promiscuous intercoursewith the young men, such, if conducted with a moderate degree ofsecrecy, not being considered as an offence.... Occasionally there areinstances of strong mutual attachment and courtship, when, if thedamsel is not betrothed, a small present made to the father issufficient to procure his consent; at the Prince of Wales Islands aknife 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." Icite this passage chiefly because it is another one of those to whichGerland refers as evidence of genuine romantic love!

  [183] I am indebted for many of the following facts to H. Ling Roth'ssplendid compilation and monograph entitled _The Natives of Sarawakand 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 ingeneral.

  [185] The above details are culled from Williams, pp. 145, 144, 38,345, 148, 152, 43, 114, 179, 180, 344. The editor declares, in afoot-note (182), that he has repressed or softened some of the morehorrible 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 wouldhave occurred to them how ludicrous and illogical it is to supposethat savages and barbarians, the world over, should in each instancehave been converted by a few whites from angels to monsters ofdepravity with such amazing suddenness. We know, on the contrary, thatin no respect are these races so stubbornly tenacious of old customsas 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 ofthe mountains, where sea and land breezes meet.

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

  [192] See _Schopenhauer's Gespraeche_ (Grisebach), 1898, p. 40, and theessay on love, in Lichtenberg's _Ausgewaehlte Schriften_ (Reclam).Lichtenberg seems, indeed, to have doubted whether anything else thansensual love actually exists.

  [193] It is said that, under favorable circumstances, a distance of3,000 miles might thus be covered in a month.

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

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

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

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

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

  [199] Schoolcraft's volumes include, however, a number of reliable andvaluable articles on various Indian tribes by other writers. These areoften referred to in anthropological treatises, including the presentvolume.

  [200] In the _Zeitschrift fuer 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 thedetails 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. fuer Ethnol._, 1887, 31) that amongthe Botocudos cohabitatio coram familia et vicinibus exagitur; and ofthe Machacares Indians Feldner tells us (II., 143, 148) that even thechildren behave lewdly in presence of everybody. Parentes rident,appellunt eos canes, et usque ad silvam agunt. Some extremelyimportant and instructive revelations are made in von den Steinen'sclassic work on Brazil (195-99), but they cannot be cited here. Theauthor concludes that "a feeling of modesty is decidedly absent amongthe unclothed Indians."

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

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

  [204] What Parkman says regarding the cruelty of the Indians perhapsapplies also to their sexual morality, though to a less extent. Inspeaking of the early missionary intercourse with the Indians heremarks (_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 sendout their daughters to roam the country and earn a marriage portion ina shameful way.

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

  [207] Pizarro says (_Relacion_, 266) that "the virgins of the sunfeigned to preserve virginity and to be chaste. In this they lied, asthey cohabited with the servants and guards of the Sun, who werenumerous." Regarding Peruvians in general Pizarro (1570) and Cieza(_Travels_, 1532-40) agree that parents did not care about the conductof their daughters, and Cieza speaks of the promiscuity at festivals.Brinton (_M.N.W._, 149) is obliged to admit that "there is a decidedindecency in the remains of ancient American art, especially in Peru,and great lubricity in many ceremonies."

  [208] _Indian Rights Assoc._, Philadelphia, 1885.

  [209] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1892, 427.

  [210] _Indian Com. Rep_., 1854, p. 179.

  [211] Bristol in _Ind. Aff. Rep. Spec. Com_., 1867, p. 357.

  [212] _Rep. Com. Ind. Aff_., 1892, p. 607.

  [213] Even the wives of chiefs were treated no better than slaves.Catlin himself tells us of the six wives of a Mandan chief who were"not allowed to speak, though they were in readiness to obey hisorders." (_Smithson. Rep._. 1885, Pt. II., 458.)

  [214] Such cruel treatment of women argues a total lack of sympathy inIndians, and without sympathy there can be no love. The systematicmanner in which sympathy is crushed among Indians I have described ina previous chapter. Here let me add a few remarks by TheodoreRoosevelt (I., 86) which coincide with what John Hance, the famousArizona guide, told me:

  "Anyone who has ever been in an encampment of wild Indians and has had the misfortune to witness the delight the children take in torturing little animals will admit that the Indian's love of cruelty for cruelty's sake cannot possibly be exaggerated. The young are so trained that when old they shall find their keenest pleasure in inflicting pain in its most appalling form. Among the most brutal white borderers a man would be instantly lynched if he practiced on any creature the fiendish torture which in the Indian camp either attracts no notice at all, or else excites merely laughter."

  (See also Roosevelt's remarks--87, 831, 335 on Helen Hunt Jackson's_Century of Dishonor_.) The Indian was much wronged by unprincipledagents and others, but the border ruffians served him only as heserved others of his race, the weaker being always driven out. Nor wasthere any real sympathy within the tribes themselves. "These people,"wrote the old Jesuit missionary Le Jeune (VI., 245), "are very littlemoved by compassion. They give a sick person food and drink, but showotherwise no concern for him; to coax him with love and tenderness isa language which they do not understand. When he refuses food theykill him, partly to relieve him from suffering, partly to relievethemselves of the trouble of taking him with them when they go to someother place."

  [215] _Smithsonian Rep._, 1885, Pt. II., 108.

  [216] The humor of Catlin's assertions becomes more obvious still whenwe read how readily Indians dissolve their marriages, through love ofchange, caprice, etc. See cases in Westermarck, 518.

  [217] Cited by Schoolcraft, _Oneota_, 57.

  [218] _Transactions of the American Philosophical Society._Philadelphia, 1819.

  [219] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 251.

  [220] Brinton's _Library of Aborig. Amer. Lit._, II, 65.

  [221] The only way the women could secure any consideration was byoverawing the men. Thus Southey says (III., 411) regarding theAbipones that the old women "were obdurate in retaining superstitionsthat rendered them objects of fear, and therefore of respect." Smithin his book on the Araucanians of Chili, notes (238), that besides theusual medicine men there was an occasional woman "who had acquired themost unbounded influence by shrewdness, joined to a hideous personalappearance and a certain mystery with which she was invested."

  [222] As when he says, "The Atkha Aleuts occasionally betrothed theirchildren to each other, but the marriage was held to be binding onlyafter the birth of a child." What evidence of choice is there here?

  [223] _U.S. Geogr. and Geol. Survey of Colorado,_ etc., 1876, p. 465.

  [224] Miss Alice Fletcher gives in the _Journal of the American FolkLore Society_ (1889, 219-26) an amusing instance of how far apresent-day Omaha girl may go in resenting a man's unwelcome advances.A fai
nt-hearted lover had sent a friend as go-between to ask for thegirl's favor. As he finished his speech the girl looked at him withflashing eyes and said: "I'll have nothing to do with your friend oryou either." The young man hesitated a moment, as if about to repeathis request, when a dangerous wave of her water-bucket made him leapto one side to escape a deluge.

  [225] _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie,_ 1891, p. 545.

  [226] How California marriages were made in the good old times we maysee from the account in Hakluyt's _Collection of Early Voyages_, 1810,III., 513:

  "If any man had a daughter to marry he went where the people kept, and said, I have a daughter to marry, is there any man here that would have her? And if there were any that would have her, he answered that he would have her, and so the marriage was made."

  [227] _Smithsonian Rep._, 1885, Pt. II., p. 71.

  [228] Schoolcraft, IV., 224; Powers, 221; Waitz, IV., 132; Azara(_Voyages_), II., 94; von Martius, I.,412, 509.

  [229] A table relating to sixty-five North American Indian girls givenin Ploss, I., 476, shows that all but eight of them had their firstchild before the end of the fifteenth year; the largest number(eighteen), having it in the fourteenth.

  [230] See John Fiske's _Discovery of America_, I., 21, and E.J.Payne's _History of the New World_.

  [231] Giacomo Bove, _Patagonia. Cf._ Ploss, I., 476; _Globus_, 1883,158. Hyades's _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, VII., 377.

  [232] Equally inconclusive is Westermarck's reference (216) to whatAzara says regarding the Guanas. Azara expressly informs us that, assummed up by Darwin (_D.M._, Chap. XIX.) among the Guanas "the menrarely marry till twenty years old or more, as before that age theycannot conquer their rivals." Where girls are literally wrestled for,they have, of course, no choice.

  [233] Keating says (II., 153) that among the Chippewas "where theantipathy is great, one or the other elopes from the lodge."

  [234] _Memoirs of the International Congress of Anthropologists_,1894, 153-57.

  [235] Laurence Oliphant realized the absurdity of attributing suchtales to Indians, assigning to them feelings and motives like our own.He kindly supplies some further details, insisting that the girl wastold to "return and all would be forgiven;" that the "fast young Siouxhunter" whom Winona wanted to marry ("her heart could never beanother's"), had "no means of his own." He is believed to have been"utterly disconsolate at the time," and "subsequently to have marriedan heiress." See the amusing satire in his _Minnesota_, 287-89.

  [236] S.R. Riggs in _U.S. Geogr. and Geol. Soc._, IX., 206.

  [237] _Trans. Amer. Ethnol. Soc._, Vol. III, Pt. I.

  [238] _Denkschriften der Kaiserl. Akad. d. Wissensch. in Wien_, Bd.XXXIX., S. 214.

  [239] _Report of Bureau of Ethnol., Wash._, 1892.

  [240] Ibid., 1896, Pt. 1, p. 154.

  [241] _American Anthropologist_, IV., 276.

  [242] The Chippewas have bridal canoes which they fill with stores tolast a betrothed pair for a month's excursion, this being the onlymarriage ceremony. (Kane, 20.)

  [243] Army bugle calls, telling the soldiers what to do, are "leadingmotives." See my article on "The Utility of Music," _Forum_, May,1898; or Wallaschek's _Primitive Music_.

  [244] _A Study of Omaha Indian Music_ (14, 15, 44, 52). Cambridge,1893; _Journal Amer. Folklore_, 1889 (219-26); _Memoirs Intern. Congr.Anthrop.,_ 1894 (153-57).

  [245] Dr. Brinton published in 1886 an interesting pamphlet entitled_The Conception of Love in Some American Languages_, which wasafterward reprinted in his _Essays of an Americanist_. It forms thephilological basis for his assertion, already quoted, that thelanguages of the Algonquins of North America, the Nahuas of Mexico,the Mayas of Yucatan, the Quichas of Peru, and the Tupis and Guaranisof Brazil "supply us with evidence that the sentiment of love wasawake among them." I have read this learned paper half a dozen times,and have come to the conclusion that it proves exactly the contrary.

  I. In the Algonkin, as I gather from the professor's explanations,there is one form of the word "love" from which are derived theexpressions "to tie," "to fasten," "and also some of the coarsestwords to express the sexual relation." For the feebler "sentiment" ofmerely liking a person there is a word meaning "he or it _seems goodto me_." Expressions relating to the highest form of love, "that whichembraces all men and all beings" are derived from a root indicative of"_what gives joy_." The italics are mine. I can find here noindication of altruistic sentiment, but quite the reverse.

  II. It was among the Mexicans that Dr. Brinton found the "delicate"poems. Yet he informs us that they had "only one word...to expressevery variety of love, human and divine, carnal and chaste, betweenmen and between the sexes." This being the case, how are we ever toknow which kind of love a Mexican poem refers to? Dr. Brinton himselffeels that one must not credit the Aztecs "with finer feelings thanthey deserve;" and with reference to a certain mythic conception headds, "I gravely doubt that they felt the shafts of the tenderpassion, with any such susceptibility as to employ this metaphor."Moreover, as he informs us, the Mexican root of the word is notderived from the primary meaning of the root, but from a secondary andlater signification. "This hints ominously," he says,

  "at the probability that the ancient tongue had for a long time no word at all to express this, the highest and noblest emotion of the human heart, and that consequently this emotion itself had not risen to consciousness in the national mind."

  In its later development the capacity of the language for emotionalexpression was greatly enlarged. Was this before the Europeanmissionaries appeared on the scene? Missionaries, it is important toremember, had a good deal to do with the development of the language,as well as the birth of the nobler conceptions and emotions among thelower races. Many fatal blunders in comparative psychology andsociology can be traced to the ignoring of this fact.

  III. Dr. Otto Stoll, in his work _Zur Ethnographie der Rep.Guatemala,_ declares that the Cakchiquel Indians of that country "arestrangers to the mere conception of that kind of love which isexpressed by the Latin verb _amare_." _Logoh_, the Guatemalan word forlove, also means "to buy," and according to Stoll the only other wordin the pure original tongue for the passion of love is _ah_, to want,to desire. Dr. Brinton finds it used also in the sense of "to like,""to love" [in what way?]. But the best he can do is to "think that 'tobuy' and 'to love' may be construed as developments of the same ideaof _prizing highly_" which tells us nothing regarding altruism. Allthat we know about the customs of Guatemalans points to the conclusionthat Dr. Stoll was right in declaring that they had no notion of truelove.

  IV. Of the Peruvian expressions relating to love in the comprehensivesense of the word, Dr. Brinton specifies five. Of one of them,_munay_, there were, according to Dr. Anchorena, nearly six hundredcombinations. It meant originally "merely a sense of want, anappetite, and the accompanying desire to satisfy it." In songscomposed in the nineteenth century _cenyay_, which originally meantpity, is preferred to _munay_ as the most appropriate term for thelove between the sexes. The blind, unreasoning, absorbing passion isexpressed by _huaylluni_, which is nearly always confined to sexuallove, and "conveys the idea of the sentiment showing itself in actionby those sweet signs and marks of devotion which are so highly prizedby the loving heart." The verb _lluyllny_ (literally to be soft ortender, as fruit) means to

  "love with tenderness, to have as a darling, to caress lovingly. It has less of sexuality in it than the word last mentioned, and is applied by girls to each other and as a term of family fondness."

  There was also a term, _mayhuay_, referring to words of tenderness oracts of endearment which may be merely simulated signs of emotion. Icannot find in any of these definitions evidence of altruisticaffection, unless it be in the "marks of devotion," which expression,however, I suspect, is Philadelphian rather than Peruvian.

  V. The Tupi-Guarani have one word only to express all the varieties oflove known to them--_aihu_. Dr. Brinton thinks he "cannot be far
wrong" in deriving this from _ai_, self, or the same, and _hu_ to findor be present; and from this he infers that "to love," in Guarani,means "to find oneself in another," or "to discover in another alikeness to oneself." I submit that this is altogether too airy afabric of fanciful conjecture to allow the inference that thesentiment of love was known to these Brazilian Indians, whose moralsand customs were, moreover, as we have seen, fatal obstacles to thegrowth of refined sexual feeling. Both the Tupis and Guaranis werecannibals, and they had no regard for chastity. One of their"sentimental" customs was for a captor to make his prisoner, before hewas eaten, cohabit with his (the captor's) sister or daughter, theoffspring of this union being allowed to grow up and then was devouredtoo, the first mouthful being given to the mother. (Southey, I., 218.)I mention this because Dr. Brinton says that the evidence that thesentiment of love was awake among these tribes "is corroborated by theincidents we learn of their domestic life."

  [246] _U.S. Geogr. and Geol Survey Rocky Mt. Region_, Pt. I., 181-89.

  [247] It is of the Modocs of this region that Joaquin Miller wrotethat "Indians have their loves, and as they have but little else,these fill up most of their lives." The above poems indicate thequality of this Indian love. In Joaquin Miller's narrative of hisexperience with the Modocs, the account of his own marriage is ofspecial interest. At a Modoc marriage a feast is given by the girl'sfather, "to which all are invited, but the bride and bridegroom do notpartake of food. ... Late in the fall, the old chief made the marriagefeast, and at that feast neither I nor his daughter took meat, or anypart." It is a pity that the rest of this writer's story is, by hisown confession, part romance, part reality. A lifelike description ofhis Modoc experience would have done more to ensure immortality forhis book than any amount of romancing.

  [248] _Journal of Amer. Folklore_, 1888, 220-26.

  [249] _Internat. Archiv. fur Ethnogr., Supplement zu Bd._ IX. 1896,pp. 1-6.

  [250] These lines by their fervid eroticism quite suggest theexistence of a masculine Indian Sappho. See the comments on Sappho inthe chapter on Greek love.

  [251] Such a procedure does well enough if the object is to amuse idlereaders; and when a writer confesses, as Cornelius Mathews did in the_Indian Fairy Book_, that he bestowed on the stories "such changes assimilar legends most in vogue in other countries have received toadapt them to the comprehension and sympathy of general readers," noharm is done. But for scientific purposes it is necessary to sift downall alleged Indian stories and poems to the solid bed-rock of facts.It is significant that in the stories collected by men of science andrecorded literally in anthropological journals all romantic andsentimental features are conspicuously absent, being often replaced bythe Indian's abounding obscenity. Rand's _Legends of the Micmacs_ andGrinnell's _Blackfoot Lodge Tales_ are on the whole free from theerrors of Schoolcraft and his followers. It ought to be obvious toevery collector of aboriginal folk-lore that Indian tales, like theIndians themselves, are infinitely more interesting in war paint andbuffalo robes than in "boiled shirts" and "store-clothes."

  [252] _U.S. Geogr. and Geol. Survey of Rocky Mt. Region_, IX., 90.

  [253] Related in G. White's _Historical Collection of Georgia_, 571.

  [254] See Brinton's _The American Race_, 59-67, for an excellentsummary of our present knowledge of the Eskimos (on the favorableside).

  [255] _Journal Ethnol. Soc_., I., 299.

  [256] Cranz, I., 155, 134; Hall, II., 87, I., 187; Hearne, 161.

  [257] Hall, _Narrat. of Second Arctic Exp._, 102; Cranz, I, 207-12(German ed.); Letourneau, _E.d.M._, 72.

  [258] Among the Nagas, we read in Dalton (43), "maidens are prized fortheir physical strength more than for their beauty and family;" andthe reason is not far to seek. "The women have to work incessantly,while the men bask in the sun."

  [259] Shortt in _Trans. Ethnol. Soc_., _N.S._, VII., 464.

  [260] For our purposes it is needless to continue this list; but I mayadd that of the very few tribes Westermarck ventured to claimspecifically for his side, three at any rate--the Miris, Todas, andKols (Mundas) do not belong there. The state of mind prevalent amongthe Miris is indicated by Dalton's observation (33) that "two brotherswill unite and from the proceeds of their joint labor buy a wifebetween them." In regard to the Todas, Westermarck apparently forgotwhat he himself had written about them on a previous page (53), afterShortt:

  "When a man marries a girl, she becomes the wife of his brothers as they successively reach manhood, and they become the husbands of all her sisters, when they are old enough to marry."

  To speak of "liberty of choice" in such cases, or of the marriagebeing only "ostensibly" arranged by the parents, is nonsense. As forthe Kols, what Dalton says about the Mundas (194) not only indicatesthat parental interference is more than "ostensible," but makes clearthat what these girls enjoy is not free choice but what iseuphemistically called "free love," before marriage:

  "Among Mundas having any pretensions to respectability the young people are not allowed to arrange these affairs [matrimonial] for themselves. Their parents settle it all for them, French fashion, and after the liberty they have enjoyed, and the liaisons they are sure to have made, this interference on the part of the old folk must be very aggravating to the young ones."

  If the dissolute or imbecile advocates of "free love" had their way,we should sink to the level of these wild tribes of India; but thereis no danger of our losing again the large "tracts of mind, andthought, and feeling" we have acquired since our ancestors, who camefrom India, were in such a degraded state as these neighbors oftheirs.

  [261] Statistics have shown that twenty-eight per cent of the femaleswere married before their fourth year. The ancient _Sutras_ ordainedthe age of six to seven the best for girls to marry, and declared thata father who waits till his daughter is twelve years old must go tohell. The evils are aggravated by the fact noted by Dr. Ryder (whogives many pathetic details) that a Hindoo girl of ten often appearslike an European child of six, owing to the weak physique inheritedfrom these girl mothers. Yet Mrs. Mansell relates:

  "Many pitiable child-wives have said to me, 'Oh, Doctor mem Sahib, I implore you, do give me medicine that I may become a mother.' I have looked at their innocent faces and tender bodies, and asked, 'Why?' The reply has invariably been, 'My husband will discard me if I do not bear a child.'"

  [262] _Journal of Nat. Indian Assoc._, 1881, 543-49.

  [263] The roots of this superstition, which has created suchunspeakable misery in India, go back to the oldest times of whichthere are records. The Vedas say, "Endless are the worlds for thosemen who have sons; but there is no place for those who have no maleoffspring."

  [264] Dr. S. Armstrong-Hopkins writes in her recent volume _Within thePurdah_ (51-52): "A few years ago the English Government passed a lawto the effect that no bride should go to the house of hermother-in-law before she arrived at the age of twelve years. I amwitness, however, as is every practising physician in India, that thislaw is utterly ignored.... Often and often have I treated little womenpatients of five, six, seven, eight, nine years, who were at that timeliving with their husbands."

  [265] If Darwin had dwelt on such facts in his _Descent of Man_, andcontrasted man's vileness with the devotion, sympathy, andself-sacrifice shown by birds and other animals, he would have arousedless indignation among his ignorant contemporaries. In these respectsit was the animals who had cause to resent his theory.

  [266] Dr. Ryder says in her pathetic book, _Little Wives of India_: "Aman may be a vile and loathsome creature; he may be blind, a lunatic,an idiot, a leper, or diseased in any form; he may be fifty, sixty, orseventy years old, and may be married to a child of five or ten, whopositively loathes his presence; but if he claims her she must go.There is no other form of slavery equal to it on the face of theearth."

  [267] The London _Times_ of November 11, 1889, had the following inits column about India:

  "Two shock
ing cases of wife killing lately came before the courts, in both cases the result of child marriage. In one a child aged ten was strangled by her husband. In the second case a child of tender years was ripped open with a wooden peg. Brutal sexual exasperation was the sole apparent reason in both instances. Compared with the terrible evils of child marriage, widow cremation is of infinitely inferior magnitude."

  [268] Manu's remark that "where women are honored there the gods arepleased" is one of those expressions of unconscious humor whichnaturally escaped him, but should not have escaped Europeansociologists. What he understands by "honoring women" may be gatheredfrom many maxims in his volume like the following (the referencesbeing to the pages of Burnell and Hopkins's version):

  "This is the nature of women, to seduce men here" (40);

  "One should not be seated in a secluded place with a mother, sister, or daughter; the powerful host of the senses compels even a wise man" (41).

  "No act is to be done according to (her) own will by a young girl, a young woman, or even by an old woman, though in (their own) houses."

  "In her childhood (a girl) should be under the will of her father; in (her) youth, of (her) husband; her husband being dead, of her sons; a woman should never enjoy her own will" (130).

  "Though of bad conduct or debauched, or even devoid of good qualities, a husband must always be worshipped like a god by a good wife."

  "For women there is no separate sacrifice, nor vow, nor even fast; if a woman obeys her husband, by that she is exalted in heaven" (131).

  "Day and night should women be kept by the male members of the family in a state of dependence" (245)....

  "Women being weak creatures, and having no share in the _mantras_, are falsehood itself" (247).

  Quite in the spirit of these ordinances of the great Manu are thedirections for wives given in the _Padma Purana_, one of the books ofhighest authority, whose rules are, as Dubois informs us (316), keptup in full vigor to this day. A wife, we read therein, must regard herhusband as a god, though he be a very devil. She must laugh if helaughs, eat after him, abstain from food which _he_ dislikes, burnherself after his death. If he has another wife she must notinterfere, must always keep her eyes on her master, ready to receivehis commands; she must never be gloomy or discontented in hispresence; and though he abuse or even beat her she must return onlymeek and soothing words.

  [269] In Calcutta nearly one-half the females--42,824 out of98,627--were widows. In India in general one-fifth of the women (or,excluding the Mohammedans, one-third) are widows.

  [270] _Journal of the National Indian Assoc._, 1881, 624-30.

  [271] Ploss-Bartels, I., 385-87; Lamairesse, 18, 95, XX., etc.

  [272] Here again we must guard against the naive error of benevolentobservers of confounding chastity with an assumption of modestbehavior. In describing the streets of Delhi Ida Pfeiffer says(_L.V.R.W._, 148):

  "The prettiest girlish faces peep modestly out of these curtained bailis, and did one not know that in India an unveiled face is never an innocent one, the fact certainly could not be divined from their looks or behavior." It happens to be the fashion even for bayaderes to preserve an appearance of great propriety in public.

  [273] Pp. 143 and 160 of Kellner's edition of this drama (Reclam). Theextent to which indifference to chastity is sometimes carried in Indiamay be inferred from the facts that in the famous city of Vasali"marriage was forbidden, and high rank attached to the lady who heldoffice as the chief of courtesans;" and that the same conditionprevails in British India to this day in a town in North Canara(Balfour, _Cyclop. of India_, II., 873).

  [274] Hala's date is somewhat uncertain, but he flourished between thethird and fourth centuries A.D. Professor Weber's translation of hisseven hundred poems, with the professor's comments, takes up no fewerthan 1,023 pages of the _Abhandlungen fuer die Kunde des Morgenlandes_,Vols. V. and VII. I have selected all those which throw light on theHindoo conception of love, and translated them carefully from Weber'sversion. Hala's anthology served as prototype, about the twelfthcentury, to a similar collection of arya verses, the erotic Saptacatiof Govardhana, also seven hundred in number, but written in Sanskrit.Of these I have not been able to find a version in a language that Ican read, but the other collection is copious and varied enough tocover all the phases of Hindoo love. The verses were intended, asalready indicated, to be sung, for the Hindoos, too, knew the power ofmusic as a pastime and a feeder of the emotions. "If music be the foodof love, play on," says the English Shakespere, and the "HindooShakespere" wrote more than a thousand years before him:

  "Oh, how beautifully our master Rebhila has sung! Yes, indeed, the zither is a pearl, only it does not come from the depths of the sea. How its tones accord with the heart that longs for love, how it helps to while away time at a rendezvous, how it assuages the grief of separation, and augments the delights of the lovers!" (_Vasantasena_, Act III., 2.)

  [275] The disadvantage of arguing against the believers in primitive,Oriental, and ancient amorous sentiment is that some of the strongestevidence against them cannot be cited in a book intended for generalreading. Professor Weber declares in his introduction to Hala'santhology that these poems take us through all phases of sentimentallove (_innigen Liebeslebens_) to the most licentious situations. He ismistaken, as I have shown, in regard to the sentiment, but there canbe no doubt about the licentiousness. Numbers 5, 23, 62, 63, 65, 71,72, 107, 115, 139, 161, 200, 223, 237, 241, 242, 300, 305, 336, 338,356, 364, 369, 455, 483, 491, 628, 637, depict or suggest improperscenes, while 61, 213, 215, 242, 278, 327, 476, 690 are franklyobscene. Lower and higher things are mixed in these poems with anaivete that shows the absence of any idea of refinement.

  [276] I have here followed Kellner, though Boehtlingk's version ismore literal and Oriental: "Mir aber brennt Liebe, O Grausamer, Tagund Nacht gewaltig die Glieder, deren Wuensche auf dich gerichtetsind."

  [277] _Anas Casarea_, a species of duck which, in Hindoo poetry, isallowed to be with his mate only in the daytime and must leave her atnight, in consequence of a curse; thereupon begin mutual lamentations.

  [278] For a Hindoo, unless he has a son to make offerings after hisdeath, is doomed to live over again his earthly life with all itssorrows. A daughter will do, provided she has a son to attend to therites.

  [279] The sequel of the story, relating to the misfortunes of Nala andDamayanti after marriage, will be referred to presently. The famoustale herewith briefly summarized occurs in the _Mahabharata_, thegreat epic or mythological cyclopaedia of India, which embraces220,000 metric lines, and antedates in the main the Christian era. Thestory of Savitri also occurs in the _Mahabharata_; and these twoepisodes have been pronounced by specialists the gems not only of thatgreat epic, but of all Hindoo literature. I have translated from theedition of H.C. Kellner, which is based on the latest and most carefulrevisions of the Sanscrit text. I have also followed Kellner's editionof Kalidasa's _Sakuntala_ and Otto Fritze's equally critical versionsof the same poet's _Urvasi_ and _Malavika and Agnimitra_. Some of theearlier translators, notably Rueckert, permitted themselves unwarrantedpoetic licenses, modernizing and sentimentalizing the text, somewhatas Professor Ebers did the thoughts and feelings of the ancientEgyptians. I will add that while I have been obliged to greatlycondense the stories of the above dramas, I have taken great care toretain all the speeches and details that throw light on the Hindooconception of love, reserving a few, however, for comment in thefollowing paragraphs.

  [280] Our poets speak of fright making the hair stand on end--but onlyon the head. Can the alleged Hindoo phenomenon be identical with whatwe call goose flesh--French frisson? That would make it none the lessartificial as a symptom of love. Hertel says, in his edition of the_Hitopadesa_ (26):

  "With the Hindoos it is a consequence of great excitement, joy as well as fea
r, that the little hairs on the body stand erect. The expression has become conventional."

  [281] _Hitopadesa_ (25). This gratification the Hindoos regard as oneof the four great objects of life, the other three being liberty(emancipation of the soul), wealth, and the performance of religiousduties.

  [282] Robert Brown has remarked that "moral and intellectual qualitiesseem to be entirely omitted from the seven points which, according toManu, make a good wife." And Ward says (10) that no attention is paidto a bride's mind or temper, the only points being the bride's person,her family, and the prospect of male offspring.

  [283] This is the list, as given by the eminent Sanscrit scholar,Professor Albrecht Weber in the _Abhandlungen fuer die Kunde desAbendlandes_, Vol. V., 135. Burton, in his original edition of the_Arabian Nights_ (III., 36), gives the stages thus: love of the eyes;attraction of the manos or mind; birth of desire; loss of sleep; lossof flesh; indifference to objects of sense; loss of shame; distractionof thought; loss of consciousness; death. _Cf_. Lamairesse, p. 179.

  [284] Preferably in Boehtlingk's literal version, which I havefollowed whenever Kellner idealizes. In this case Kellner speaks ofcovering "den Umfang des Bruestepaars," while Boethlingk has "dasstarke Bruestepaar," which especially arouse the king's "love."

  [285] It would hardly be surprising if Kalidasa had had someconception of true love sentiment, for not only did he possess adelicate poetic fancy, but he lived at a time when tidings of thechivalrous treatment and adoration of women might have come to himfrom Arabia or from Europe. The tradition that he flourished as earlyas the first century of our era was demolished by Professor Weber(_Ind. Lit. Ges._, 217). Professor Max Mueller (91) found no reason toplace him earlier than our sixth century; and more recent evidenceindicates that he lived as late as the eleventh. Yet he had noconception of supersensual love; marriage was to him, as to allHindoos, a union of bodies, not of souls. He had not learned from theArabs (like the Persian poet Saadi, of the thirteenth century, whom Ireferred to on p. 199) that the only test of true love isself-sacrifice. It is true that Bhavabhuti, the Hindoo poet, who isbelieved to have lived at the end of our seventh century, makes one ofthe lovers in _Malati and Madhava_ slay a tiger and save his beloved'slife; but that is also a case of self-defence. The other lover--the"hero" of the drama--faints when he sees his friend in danger!Generally speaking, there is a peculiar effeminacy, a lack of truemanliness, about Hindoo lovers They are always moping, whining,fainting; the kings--the typical lovers--habitually neglect theaffairs of state to lead a life of voluptuous indulgence. Hindoosculpture emphasizes the same trait: "Even in the conception of malefigures," says Luebke (109), "there is a touch of this womanlysoftness;" there is "a lack of an energetic life, of a firm contextureof bone and muscle." It is not of such enervated stuff that truelovers are made.

  [286] An explanation of this discrepancy may be found in A.K. Fiske'ssuggestion (191) that there is a double source for this story. Thereader will please bear in mind that all my quotations are from therevised version of the Bible. I do not believe in retaining inaccuratetranslations simply because they were made long ago.

  [287] McClintock and Strong's _Encyclop. of Biblical Literature_ says:"It must be borne in mind that Jacob himself had now reached themature age of seventy-seven years, as appears from a comparison ofJoseph's age... with Jacob's." That Rachel was not much over fifteenmay be assumed because among Oriental nomadic races shepherd girls arevery seldom unmarried after that age, or even an earlier age, forobvious reasons.

  [288] Gen. 19: 1-9; 19: 30-38; 34: 1-31; 38: 8-25; 39: 6-20; Judges19: 22-30; II. Sam. 3: 6-9; 11: 2-27; 13: 1-22; 16: 22; etc.

  [289] For whom the Hebrew poet has a special word _(dodi)_ differentfrom that used when Solomon is referred to.

  [290] See Renan, Preface, p. iv. It is of all Biblical books, the one"pour lequel les scribes qui ont decide du sort des ecrits hebreux ontle plus elargi leurs regles d'admission."

  [291] McClintock and Strong.

  [292] In the seventh chapter there are lines where, as Renan pointsout (50), the speaker, in describing the girl, "vante ses charmes lesplus intimes," and where the translator was "oblige a desattenuations."

  [293] Renan says justly that it is the most obscure of all Hebrewpoems. According to the old Hebrew exegesis, every passage in theBible has seventy different meanings, all of them equally true; but ofthis Song a great many more than seventy interpretations have beengiven: the titles of treatises on the Canticles fill four columns offine print in McClintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia. Griffis declaresthat it is, "probably, the most perfect poem in any language," but inmy opinion it is far inferior to other books in the Bible. Theadjective perfect is not applicable to a poem so obscure that morethan half its meaning has to be read between the lines, while itsplan, if plan it has, is so mixed up and hindmost foremost that Isometimes feel tempted to accept the view of Herder and others thatthe _Song of Songs_ is not one drama, but a collection of unconnectedpoems.

  [294] Mr. Griffis' lucid, ingenious, and admirably written monographentitled, _The Lily among Thorns_, is unfortunately marred in manyparts by the author's attitude, which is not that of a critic or ajudge, but of a lawyer who has a case to prove, that black and grayare really snow white. His sense of humor ought to have prevented himfrom picturing an Eastern shepherd complimenting a girl of his classon her "instinctive refinement". He carries this idealizing process sofar that he arbitrarily divides the line "I am black but comely,"attributing the first three words to the Shulamite, the other two to achorus of her rivals in Solomon's harem! The latter supposition isinconceivable; and why should not the Shulamite call herself comely? Ionce looked admiringly at a Gypsy girl in Spain, who promptly openedher lips, and said, with an arch smile, "soy muy bonita"--"I am verypretty!"--which seemed the natural, naive attitude of an Orientalgirl. To argue away such a trifling spot on maiden modesty as theShulamite's calling herself comely, while seeing no breach of delicacyin her inviting her lover to come into the garden and eat his preciousfruits, though admitting (214) that "the maiden yields thus her heartand her all to her lover," is surely straining at a gnat andswallowing a camel.

  [295] Which, however, evidently was not saying much, as he immediatelyadded that he was ready to give her up provided they gave him anothergirl, lest he be the only one of the Greeks without a "prize ofhonor." Strong individual preference, as we shall see also in the caseof Achilles, was not a trait of "heroic" Greek love.

  [296] I have already commented (115) on Nausicaea's lack of femininedelicacy and coyness; yet Gladstone says (132) "it may almost bequestioned whether anywhere in literature there is to be found aconception of the maiden so perfect as Nausicaea in grace, tenderness,and delicacy"!

  [297] How Gladstone reconciled his conscience with these lines when hewrote (112) that "on one important and characteristic subject, theexposure of the person to view, the men of that time had a peculiarand fastidious delicacy," I cannot conceive.

  [298] It will always remain one of the strangest riddles of thenineteenth century why the statesman who so often expressed hisrighteous indignation over the "Bulgarian atrocities" of his timeshould not only have pardoned, but with insidious and glaringsophistry apologized for the similar atrocities of the heroes whomHomer fancies he is complimenting when he calls them professional"spoilers of towns." I wish every reader of this volume who has anydoubts regarding the correctness of my views would first readGladstone's shorter work on Homer (a charmingly written book, with allits faults), and then the epics themselves, which are now accessibleto all in the admirable prose versions of the _Iliad_ by Andrew Lang,Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers, and of the _Odyssey_ by Professor GeorgeH. Palmer of Harvard--versions which are far more poetic than anytranslations in verse ever made and which make of these epics two ofthe most entertaining novels ever written. It is from these versionsthat I have cited, except in a few cases where I preferred a moreliteral rendering of certain words.

  [299] In all the extracts here made I fo
llow the close literal proseversion made by H.T. Wharton, in his admirable book on Sappho, by farthe best in the English language.

  [300] P.B. Jevons refers to some of these as "mephitic exhalationsfrom the bogs of perverted imaginings!" Welcker's defence of Sappho isa masterpiece of naivete written in ignorance of mental pathology.

  [301] The most elaborate discussion of this subject is to be found inMoll's _Untersuchungen_, 314-440, where also copious bibliographicreferences are given. The most striking impression left by the readingof this book is that the differentiation of the sexes is by no meansas complete yet as it ought to be. All the more need is there ofromantic love, whose function it is to assist and accelerate thisdifferentiation.

  [302] As long ago as 1836-38 a Swiss author, Heinrich Hoessli, wrote aremarkable book with the title _The Unreliability of External Signs asIndications of Sex in Body and Mind_. I may add here that if it wereknown how many of the "shrieking sisterhood" who are clamoring formasculine "rights" for women, are among the unfortunates who were bornwith male brains in female bodies, the movement would collapse as ifstruck by a ton of dynamite. These amazons often wonder why the greatmass of women are so hard to stir up in this matter. The reason isthat the great mass of women--heaven be thanked!--have feminine mindsas well as feminine bodies.

  [303] Probably no passage in any drama has ever been more widelydiscussed than the nine lines I have just summarized. As long ago asthe sixteenth century the astronomer Petrus Codicillus pronounced themspurious. Goethe once remarked to Eckermann; (III., March 28, 1827)that he considered them a blemish in the tragedy and would give a gooddeal if some philologist would prove that Sophocles had not writtenthem. A number of eminent philologists--Jacob, Lehrs, Hauck, Dindorf,Wecklein, Jebb, Christ, and others--have actually bracketed them asnot genuine; but if they are interpolations, they must have been addedwithin a century after the play was written, for Aristotle refers tothem (_Rhet. III_., 16,9) in these words: "And should any circumstancebe incredible, you must subjoin the reason; as Sophocles does. Hefurnishes an example in the _Antigone_, that she mourned more for herbrother than for a husband and children; for these, if lost, mightagain be hers.

  "'But father now and mother both being lost, A brother's name can ne'er be hailed again.'"

  It is noticeable that Aristotle should pronounce Antigone's preferencestrange or incredible from a Greek point of view; that point of viewbeing, as we have seen, that a woman's first duties are toward herhusband, for whom she should ever sacrifice herself. It has beenplausibly suggested that Sophocles borrowed the idea of those ninelines from his friend Herodotus, who (III., 118) relates the story ofDarius permitting the wife of Intophernes to save one of her relativesfrom death and who chooses her brother, for reasons like thoseadvanced by Antigone. It has been shown (_Zeitschrift f. d.Oesterreich Gymn_., 1898; see also _Frankfurter Zeitung_, July 22, 24,27, 1899; _Hermes_, XXVIII.) that this idea occurs in old tales andpoems of India, Persia, China, as well as among the Slavs,Scandinavians, etc. If Sophocles did introduce this notion into histragedy (and there is no reason for doubting it except the unwarrantedassumption that he was too great a genius to make such a blunder), hedid it in a bungling way, for inasmuch as Antigone's brother is deadshe cannot benefit her family by favoring him at the expense of herbetrothed; and moreover, her act of sacrificing herself in order tosecure the rest of a dear one's soul--which alone might have partlyexcused her heartless and unromantic ignoring and desertion of herlover--is bereft of all its nobility by her equally heartlessdeclaration that she would not have thus given her life for a husbandor a child. These Greek poets knew so little of true femininity thatthey could not draw a female character without spoiling it.

  [304] The unduly extolled [Greek: Epos] chorus in the _Antigone_expresses nothing more than the universal power of love in the Greekconception of the term.

  [305] In Mueller's book on the Doric race we read (310) that the loveof the Corinthian Philolaus and Diocles "lasted until death," and eventheir graves were turned toward one another, in token of theiraffection. Lovers in Athens carved the beloved's names on walls, andinnumerable poems were addressed by the leading bards to theirfavorites.

  [306] Compare Ramdohr, III., 191 and 124.

  [307] I have before me a dictonary which defines Platonic love as itis now universally, and incorrectly, understood, as "a pure spiritualaffection subsisting between the sexes, unmixed with carnal desires, aspecies of love for which Plato was a warm advocate." In realityPlatonic (i.e. Socratic) love has nothing whatever to do with women,but is a fantastic and probably hypocritical idealization of a speciesof infatuation which in our day is treated neither in poems nor indialogues, nor discussed in text-books of psychology or physiology,but relegated to treatises on mental diseases and abnormalities. Infact, the whole philosophy of Greek love may be summed up in theassertion that "Platonic love," as understood by us, was by Plato andthe Greeks in general considered an impossibility.

  [308] In the _Deipnosophists_ of Athenaeus (III., Bk. XII.) we findsome other information of anthropological significance: "Hermippusstated in his book about lawgivers that at Lacedaemon all the damselsused to be shut up in a dark room, while a number of unmarried youngmen were shut up with them; and whichever girl each of the young mencaught hold of he led away as his wife, without a dowry." "ButClearches the Solensian, in his treatise on Proverbs, says: 'InLacedaemon the women, on a certain festival, drag the unmarried men toan altar and then buffet them; in order that, for the purpose ofavoiding the insults of such treatment, they may become moreaffectionate and in due season may turn their thoughts to marriage.But at Athens Cecrops was the first person who married a man to onewoman only, when before his time connections had taken place at randomand men had their wives in common.'"

  [309] My critics might have convicted me of a genuine blunder inasmuchas in my first book (78) I assumed that Plato "foresaw the importanceof pre-matrimonial acquaintance as the basis of a rational and happymarriage choice." This was an unwarranted concession, because all thatPlato recommended was that "the youths and maidens shall dancetogether, seeing and being seen naked," after the Spartan manner. Thismight lead to a rational choice of sound bodies, but romantic loveimplies an acquaintance of minds, and is altogether a more complicatedprocess than the dog and cattle breeder's procedure commended by Platoand Lycurgus. I may add that in view of Lycurgus's systematicencouragement of promiscuity, the boast of the Spartan Geradas(recorded by Plutarch) that there were no cases of adultery in Sparta,must be accepted either as broad sarcasm, or in the manner ofLimburg-Brouwer, who declares (IV., 165) that the boast is "likesaying that in a band of brigands there is not a single thief." Evenfrom the cattle-breeding point of view Lycurgus proved a failure, foraccording to Aristotle (_Pol._ II., 9) the Spartans grew too lazy tobring up children, and rewards had to be offered for large families.

  [310] See the evidence cited in Becker (III., 315) regardingAristotle's views as to the inferiority of women. After comparing itwith the remarks of other writers Becker sums up the matter by sayingthat "the virtue of which a woman was in those days considered capabledid not differ very much from that of a faithful slave."

  [311] In the _Odyssey_ (XV., 418) Homer speaks of "a Phoenician woman,handsome and tall." He makes Odysseus compare Nausicaea to Diana "inbeauty, height, and bearing," and in another place he declares that,like Diana among her nymphs, she o'ertops her companions by head andbrow (VI., 152, 102). However, this manner of measuring beauty with ayard-stick; indicates _some_ progress over the savage and Orientalcustom of making rotundity the criterion of beauty.

  [312] Compare Menander, _Frag. Incert._, 154: [Greek: gunaich hodidaskon gpammat ou kalos poiei].

  [313] A homely but striking illustration may here be added. In Africathe negroes are proud of their complexion and look with aversion on awhite skin. In the United States, knowing that a black skin is lookeddown on as a symbol of slavery or inferiority, they are ashamed of it.The wife of an eminent Southern judge informed m
e that Georgia negroesbelieve that in heaven they will be white; and I have heard of onenegro woman who declared that if she could become white by beingflayed she would gladly submit to the torture. Thus have _ideas_regarding the complexion changed the _emotion_ of pride to the emotionof shame.

  [314] Professor Rohde appears to follow the old metaphysical maxim "Iffacts do not agree with my theory, so much the worse for the facts."He piles up pages of evidence which show conclusively that theseGreeks knew nothing of the higher traits and symptoms of love, andthen he adds: "but they _must_ have known them all the same." To giveone instance of his contradictory procedure. On page 70 he admitsthat, as women were situated, the tender and passionate courtship ofthe youths as described in poems and romances of the period "couldhardly have been copied from life," because the Greek custom ofallowing the fathers to dispose of their daughters without consultingtheir wishes was incompatible with the poetry of such courting. "It isvery significant," he adds, "that among the numerous references to theways of obtaining brides made by poets and moral philosophers,including those of the Hellenistic [Alexandrian] period, and collectedby Stobaeus in chapters 70, 71, and 72 of his _Florilegium_, love isnever mentioned among the motives of marriage choice." In the nextsentence he declares nevertheless that "no one would be so foolish asto deny the existence of pure, strong love in the Greek life of thisperiod;" and ten lines farther on he backs down again, admitting thatthough there may be indications of supersensual, sentimental love inthe literature of this period these traits _had not yet taken hold ofthe life of these men_, though there were _longings_ for them. And atthe end of the paragraph he emphasizes his back-down by declaring that"the very essence of sentimental poetry is the _longing for what doesnot exist_." (_Ist doch das rechte Element gerade der sentimentalenPoesie die Sehnsucht nach dem nicht Vorhandenen_.) What makes thisadmission the more significant is that Professor Rohde, in speaking of"sentimental" elements, does not even use that word as the adjectiveof sentiment but of sentimentality. He defines this _Sentimentalitaet_to which he refers as a "_ Sehnen, Sinnen und Hoffen_," a"_Selbstgenuss der Leidenschaft_"--a "longing, dreaming, and hoping,"a "revelling in (literally, self-enjoying of) passion." In otherwords, an enjoyment of emotion for emotion's sake, a gloating overone's selfish joys and sorrows. Now in this respect I actually gobeyond Rohde as a champion of Greek love! Such _Sentimentalitaet_existed, I am convinced, in Alexandrian life as well as in Alexandrianliterature; but of the existence of true supersensual altruistic_sentiment_ I can find no evidence. The trouble with Rohde, as with somany who have written on this subject, is that he has no clear idea ofthe distinction between sensual love, which is selfish(_Selbstgenuss_) and romantic love, which is altruistic; hence heflounders in hopeless contradictions.

  [315] See Anthon, 258, and the authors there referred to.

  [316] See Theocritus, Idyll XVII. Regarding the silly and degradingadulation which the Alexandrian court-poets were called upon to bestowon the kings and queens, and its demoralizing effect on literature,see also Christ's _Griechische Litteraturgeschichte_, 493-494 and 507.

  [317] I have given Professor Rohde's testimony on this point not onlybecause he is a famous specialist in the literature of this period,but because his peculiar bias makes his negative attitude in regard tothe question of Alexandrian gallantry the more convincing. A reader ofhis book would naturally expect him to take the opposite view, sincehe himself fancied he had discovered traces of gallantry in an authorwho preceded the Alexandrians. The _Andromeda_ of Euripides, hedeclares (23), "became in his hands one of the most brilliant examplesof chivalrous love." This, however, is a pure assumption on his part,not warranted by the few fragments of this play that have beenpreserved. Benecke has devoted a special "Excursus" to this play(203-205), in which he justly remarks that readers of Greek literature"need hardly be reminded of how utterly foreign to the Greek ofEuripides's day is the conception of the '_galante Ritter_' settingout in search of ladies that want rescuing." He might have brought outthe humor of the matter by quoting the characteristically Greekversion of the Perseus story given by Apollodorus, who relates dryly(II., chap. 4) that Cepheus, in obedience to an oracle, bound hisdaughter to a rock to be devoured by a sea monster. "Perseus saw her,fell in love with her, and promised Cepheus to slaughter the monster_if he would promise to give him the rescued daughter to marry_. Thecontract was made and Perseus undertook the adventure, killed themonster and rescued Andromeda." Nothing could more strikingly revealthe difference between Hellenic and modern ideas regarding lovers thanthe fact that to the Greek mind there was nothing disgraceful in thisselfish, ungallant bargain made by Perseus as a condition of hisrescuing the poor girl from a horrible death. A mediaeval knight, or amodern gentleman, not to speak of a modern lover, would have saved herat the risk of his own life, reward or no reward. The difference isfurther emphasized by the attitude of the girl, who exclaims to herdeliverer, "Take me, O stranger, for thine handmaiden, or wife, orslave." Professor Murray, who cites this line in his _History of GreekLiterature_, remarks with comic naivete: "The love-note in this pureand happy sense Euripides had never struck before." But what is thereso remarkably "pure and happy" in a girl's offering herself as a slaveto a man who has saved her life? Were not Greek women always expectedto assume that attitude of inferiority, submission, andself-sacrifice? Was not _Alcestis_ written to enforce that principleof conduct? And does not that very exclamation of Andromeda show howutterly antipodal the situation and the whole drama of Euripides wereto modern ideas of chivalrous love?

  Having just mentioned Benecke, I may as well add here that his owntheory regarding the first appearance of the romantic elements inGreek love-poetry rests on an equally flimsy basis. He held thatAntimachus, who flourished before Euripides and Plato had passed away,was the first poet who applied to women the idea of a pure, chivalrouslove, which up to his time had been attributed only to the romanticfriendships with boys. The "romantic idea," according to Benecke, is"the idea that a woman is a worthy object for a man's love and thatsuch love may well be the chief, if not the only, aim of a man'slife." But that Antimachus knew anything of such love is a purefigment of Benecke's imagination. The works of Antimachus are lost,and all that we know about them or him is that he lamented the loss ofhis wife--a feeling very much older than the poet of Colophon--andconsoled himself by writing an elegy named [Greek: Ludae], in which hebrought together from mythical and traditional sources a number of sadtales. Conjugal grief does not take us very far toward so complicatedan altruistic state of mind as I have shown romantic love to be.

  [318] Theocritus makes this point clear in line 5 of Idyl 12:

  [Greek: hosson parthenikae propherei trigamoio gunaikos].

  [319] See Helbig, 246, and Rohde, 36, for details. Helbig remarks thatthe Alexandrians, following the procedure of Euripides, chose bypreference incestuous passions, "and it appears that such passionswere not rare in actual life too in those times."

  [320] He refers as instances to Plaut., _Asin._, III., 3, particularlyv. 608 ff. and 615; adding that "a very sentimental character isCharinus in the _Mercator_;" and he also points to Ter., _Eun._, 193ff.

  [321] What makes this evidence the more conclusive is that Rohde's useof the word "sentimental" refers, according to his own definition, toegoistic sentimentality, not to altruistic sentiment. Ofsentimentality--altiloquent, fabricated feeling and cajolery--there isenough in Greek and Latin literature, doubtless as a reflection oflife. But when, in the third act of the _Asinaria_, the lover says tohis girl, "If I were to hear that you were in want of life, at oncewould I present you my own life and from my own would add to yours,"we promptly ask, "_Would he have done it_?" And the answer, from allwe know of these men and their attitude toward women, would have beenthe same as that of the maiden to the enamoured Daphnis, in thetwenty-seventh Idyl of Theocritus: "_Now_ you promise me everything,but afterward you will not give me a pinch of salt." As for the purityof the characters in the play, its quality may be inferred from thefact t
hat the girl is not only a hetaira, but the daughter of aprocuress. From the point of view of purity the _Captivi_ isparticularly instructive. Riley calls it "the most pure and innocentof all the plays of Plautus;" and when we examine why this is so wefind that it is because there is no woman in it! In the epiloguePlautus himself--who made his living by translating Athenian comediesinto Latin--makes the significant confession that there were but fewGreek plays from which he might have copied so chaste a plot, in which"there is no wenching, no intriguing, no exposure of a child" to befound by a procuress and brought up as a hetaira--which are the staplefeatures of these later Greek plays.

  [322] Those who cannot read Greek will derive much pleasure from theadmirable prose version of Andrew Lang, which in charm of stylesometimes excels the original, while it veils those features that toomuch offend modern taste.

  [323] Couat, 142. There are reasons to believe that the epistlesreferred to are not by Ovid. Aristaenetus lived about the fifthcentury. It is odd that the poem of Callimachus should have been lostafter surviving eight centuries.

  [324] See also Helbig's Chap. XXII. on the increasing lubricity ofGreek art.

  [325] Space permitting, it would be interesting to examine these poetsin detail, as well as the other Romans--Virgil, Horace, Lucretius,etc., who came less under Greek influence. But in truth suchexamination would be superfluous. Any one may pursue the investigationby himself, and if he will bear in mind and apply as tests, the lastseven of my ingredients of love--the altruistic-supersensual group--hecannot fail to become convinced that there are no instances of what Ihave described as romantic love in Latin literature any more than inGreek. And since it is the province of poets to idealize, we may feeldoubly sure that the emotions which they did not even imagine cannothave existed in the actual life of their more prosaic contemporaries.It would, indeed, be strange if a people so much more coarse-fibredand practical, and so much less emotional and esthetic, than theGreeks, should have excelled them in the capacity for what is one ofthe most esthetic and the most imaginative of all sentiments.

  Before leaving the poets, I may add that the Greek _Anthology_, thebasis of which was laid by Meleager, a contemporary of the Roman poetsjust referred to, contains a collection of short poems by many Greekwriters, in which, of course, some of my critics have discoveredromantic love. One of them wrote that "the poems of Meleager alone inthe Greek _Anthology_ would suffice to refute the notion that Greeceignored romantic passion." If this critic will take the trouble toread these poems of Meleager in the original he will find that adisgustingly large number relate to [Greek: paiderastia], which inNo. III. is expressly declared to be superior to the love for women;that most of the others relate to hetairai; and that not one ofthem--or one in the whole _Anthology_--comes up to my standard ofromantic love.

  [326] The best-known ancient story of "love-suicide" is that ofPyramus and Thisbe. Pyramus, having reason to think that Thisbe, withwhom he had arranged a secret interview at the tomb of Ninus, has beendevoured by a lion, stabs himself in despair, and Thisbe, on findinghis body, plunges on to the same sword, still warm with his blood.This tale, which is probably of Babylonian origin, is related by Ovid(_Metamorph._, IV., 55-166), and was much admired and imitated in theMiddle Ages. Comment on it would be superfluous after what I havewritten on pages 605-610.

  [327] See Rohde, 130; Christ, 349.

  [328] No more like stories of romantic love than these are the five"love-stories" written in the second century after Christ by Plutarch.This is the more remarkable as Plutarch was one of the few ancientwriters to whom at any rate the _idea_ occurred that women _might be_able to feel and inspire a love rising above the senses. Thissuggestion is what distinguishes his _Dialogue on Love_ most favorablyfrom Plato's _Symposium_, which it otherwise, however, resemblesstrikingly in the peculiar notions regarding the relation of thesexes; showing how tenacious the unnatural Greek ideas were in Greeklife. Plutarch's various writings show that though he had advancednotions compared with other Greeks, he was nearly as far fromappreciating true femininity, chivalry, and romantic love as Lucian,who also wrote a dialogue on love in the old-fashioned manner.

  [329] Hirschig's _Scriptores Erotici_ begins with Parthenius andincludes Achilles Tatius, Longus, Xenophon, Heliodorus, Chariton, etc.The right-hand column gives a literal translation into Latin.

  [330] _Der Griechische Roman_, 432-67. An excrescence of this theoryis the foolish story that "Bishop" Heliodorus, being called upon by aprovincial synod either to destroy his erotic books or to abdicate hisposition, preferred the latter alternative. The date of the realHeliodorus is perhaps the end of the third or the first half of thefourth century after Christ.

  [331] He refers in a footnote to such scenes as are painted in I., 32,4; II., 9, 11; III., 14, 24, 3; IV., 6, 3--scones and hypocriticallynaive experiments which he justly considers much more offensive thanthe notorious scene between Daphnis and Lykainion (III., 18).

  [332] Rohde (516) tries to excuse Goethe for his ridiculous praise ofthis romance (Eckermann, II., 305, 318-321, 322) because he knew thestory only in the French version of Amyot-Courier. But I find thatthis version retains most of the coarseness of the original, and I seeno reason for seeking any other explanation of Goethe's attitude thanhis own indelicacy and obtuseness which, as I noted on page 208, madehim go into ecstacies of admiration over a servant whom lust promptedto attempt rape and commit murder. As for Professor Murray, hisremarks are explicable only on the assumption that he has never readthis story in the original. This is not a violent assumption. Someyears ago a prominent professor of literature, ancient and modern, ina leading American university, hearing me say one day that _Daphnisand Chloe_ was one of the most immoral stories ever written, asked ina tone of surprise: "Have you read it in the original?" Evidently _he_never had! It is needless to add that translations never exceed theoriginals in impropriety and usually improve on them. The Rev. RowlandSmith, who prepared the English version for Bohn's Library, foundhimself obliged repeatedly to resort to Latin.

  Apart from his coarseness, there is nothing in Longus's conception oflove that goes beyond the ideas of the Alexandrians. Of the symptomsof true love--mental or sentimental, esthetic and sympathetic,altruistic and supersensual, he knows no more than Sappho did athousand years before him. Indeed, in making lovers become indolent,cry out as if they had been beaten, and jump into rivers as if theywere afire, he is even cruder and more absurd than Sappho was in herpainting of sensual passion. His whole idea of love is summed up inwhat the old shepherd Philetas says to Daphnis and Chloe (II., 7):[Greek: _Egvov d' ego kai tauron erasthenta kai hos oistro plaegeisemukato, kai tragon philaesanta aiga kai aekolouthei pantachou. Autosmen gar aemaen neos kai aerasthen Amarullidos_].

  [333] See Rehde, 345; on Musaeus, 472, 133.

  [334] Lucii Apulei _Metamorphoseon_, Libri XI., Ed. van der Vliet(_Teubner_), IV., 89-135.

  [335] See the remarks on _Tristan and Isolde_ in my _Wagner and hisWorks_, II., 138.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY AND INDEX OF AUTHORS