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"The principle of this conservation of energy was, we said, applied all round the sphere of important procedure in early society. Thus the Redskin medicine-man prepares for his professional visits by continence, just as the warrior similarly prepares for war."--Studies of Savages and Sex (1929) by Ernest Crawley "Woman, says Tertullian, is the gate of Hell. Inter faeces et urinam nascimur " is Augustine's famous epigram."--Studies of Savages and Sex (1929) by Ernest Crawley

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Studies of Savages and Sex (1929) is a book by Ernest Crawley, notable, among other things, for its attention to kissing.

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EDITOR'S PREFACE

The success of my revised edition of Mr Crawley's The Mystic Rose has encouraged me to bring together in the present volume some of his papers, previously unpublished in book-form, on subjects akin to those of his great work. Mr Crawley's treatment of these problems of sexual anthropology, especially on the psychological side, was, in the years in which he was most actively at work, too uncompromisingly original to meet with general acceptation, even in academic circles. But now his standpoint, which can perhaps be best described as being that of a profound psycho- logical analysis on the basis of biological common-sense, is beginning to be appreciated. And the following papers will be found, I think, to contain all those qualities which so sharply differentiate Mr Crawley's work from that of most other students in the same fields. These qualities are admirably summed up by Dr Havelock Ellis in a letter which he sent me in reply to a set of the proofs of this book, and from which he very kindly allows me to quote : " Crawley seems to have possessed a marvellous insight into some of the most obscure recesses of the primitive soul. It was a scientific insight, and he was duly equipped with a scholarly knowledge of the facts ; yet there was

V

STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

something about it of the swift vision of the poet, indicated perhaps by the title of his most famous book, The Mystic Rose. These qualities — the sure instinct, the light touch, the varied learning — appear happily in this collection of his shorter essays and studies, dealing mainly, though not exclusively, with various aspects of marriage and the love-life, at their origin and in their development. They are the qualities which have made Crawley one of the most attractive figures among the pioneers of our modern investigation into sex."

I have allowed myself somewhat greater liberties in editing these studies than in the case of The Mystic Rose. That is, I have silently made a good many verbal alterations, omitted and added a few passages, and generally made slight adaptations to fit the papers for book-form. Needless to say, opinions and theories have nowhere been tampered with. The references to authorities have been verified and reduced to order, and I am also responsible for the Index.

I have to thank the family of the late Dr James Hastings and Messrs T. & T. Clark for permission to reprint some of Mr Crawley's articles in The Encyclo- paedia of Religion and Ethics.

Th. B.

Budapest, Berlin

CONTENTS

Editor's Preface

PAGE V

CHAP.

I. Chastity and Sexual Morality

1. Introductory .....

2. The sexual impulse of the savage

3. Sexual periodicity ....

4. The natural sexual life and its control

5. Chastity between puberty and marriage

6. The preference for virginity

7. Wifely chastity ....

8. Continence as instinctive chastity

9. Chastity as holiness ....

10. Chastity to-day ....

11. Biological and psychological conclusions

II. Sketch of the Forms of Love : with special reference to America .

i. Sexual love

1. Development of conjugal love

2. Development of sexual love

3. Social habits

{a) Restrictions on love {b) The law of parity {c) Seasonal love

4. Homosexual love .

ii. Non-sexual love

1. Parental love

2. Filial love

3. Fraternal and social love

iii. Love-Gods ....

iv. A note on love among the American Indians b vii

I 2

9 II

19 26

32

36 46

66 68

77 78 84

86 89 89 90

91 92

93 93 94 94 95 97

viii STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

CHAP. PAGE

III. A Note on Obscenity and the Orgy . . . loi

1. Obscenity ....... loi

2. The Orgy 105

IV. The Nature and History of the Kiss . . '113

1. General description . . . . • 113

2. Forms of the kiss . . . . . .114

3. Social history . . . . . . .119

4. Social and religious usages , . . .121

5. The kiss of peace ...... 127

6. Death by kissing . . . . . .130

7. Kissing sacred objects . . . . .130

8. Metaphor and myth . . . . • ^34

V. Birthdays and the Day of Birth . . . '137

1. The day of birth . . . . . .138

2. The birthday anniversary .... 141

VI. Fceticide 151

VII. Life and Death : with special reference to America 161

1. The nature of life ...... 162

2. The life of nature ...... 168

3. Regard for life . . . . . . 170

4. The life deposit . . . . . • 171

5. Life magic ....... 174

6. Renewal of life . . . . . .176

7. The nature of death ..... 178

8. Mythological and ethical applications . . .180

9. A note on life and death among the American

Indians ....... 182

VIII. The Practice and Psychology of Anointing : with

special reference to the Hindus . . .187

1. Introductory: Hygiene and Esthetics . .187

2. The magical religious sphere . . . .190

3. The anointing of the dead . . . .196

4. Ceremonial anointing and the removal of taboo . 197

1

CONTENTS ix

CHAP. PAGE

5. Consecration . 201

(a) Birth 201

(b) Puberty 202

(c) Marriage 202

(d) Before worship . . . * . 203

(e) The consecration of priests . . , 204 (/) The anointing of kings .... 205

6. The anointing of sacrifice and offering . , 206

7. Hindu anointing and consecration . . .212

IX. The Oath, the Curse and the Blessing , . , 219 i. The curse and the blessing , . . . . .219

1. Introductory ....... 219

2. General character ...... 222

3. Special applications ...... 241

4. Conditional cursing and blessing . . . 249

5. The blessing and the curse as invocations . . 256

6. Connexion with morality . . . . .258 ii. The oath ......... 259

1. Early forms ....... 262

2. The embodied oath ...... 265

3. Psychology of the oath ..... 270

4. The oath and the god . . . . .271

5. Various rituals . . . . . . . 274

6. Penalty of false oath ..... 276

7. Applications of the oath ..... 278

8. Prohibition of the oath 281

Index 283

STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

I. CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY

I. INTRODUCTORY

It is only within recent years — practically the last half-century — that scientific attention has been brought to bear upon the subject of the nature and evolution of the sexual impulse in man. McLennan's study of Primitive Marriage (1865) marked an epoch in an- thropological research, and the step then taken was the first indirect move towards a psychology of sex. Darwin's studv of sexual selection directed attention to the biological aspects of the subject. Many con- verging lines of anthropological study have since made contribution ; in particular, the close inquiry into the origin and evolution of the institution of marriage. Direct attacks upon the problem soon began. Psy- chologists and clinical students have made careful investigations into the phenomena of normal and abnormal sexual life among the civilized populations of the present day. Investigations have also been carried on among some of the uncivilized races still available for study. The result, considering the natural difficulties of the subject and the short space of time since investigation began, is remarkable. Though we are still far from definite knowledge on many points of importance, and though practical application of what is known is as yet impossible, we

have reached a fairly clear understanding of some main I

STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

aspects, and are able to formulate some probable principles.

The close connexion of the subject of sex with religion, both in social evolution and in individual psychology, renders the study of chastity an extremely important chapter in the past and future sociology of the race. Such an investigation brings us dov^n to the biological foundations of individual and social life and morality. Roughly speaking, the sexual im- pulse is a psychical overgrowth from the nutritive, corresponding to it as physiological reproduction corresponds to physiological nutrition. Chastity, both as practice and as principle, is a biological and psychological moment, in phylogeny and ontogeny, of profound significance. In order to appreciate that significance in connexion with the evolution of religion, it is necessary (i) to investigate the vari- ous causes and conditions — biological, economic, and psychological — which have produced, generally, what is known as sexual morality, and, in particular, have elevated the regulation or control of the more or less reflex action of the reproductive centres into a relig- ious virtue, a social ideal, and an individual duty ; and (2) to trace the distribution of the habit of chastity, and the historical curve of its development, of course without prejudice to the question whether this or that opinion which has been held is physiologically sound.

2. THE SEXUAL IMPULSE OF THE SAVAGE

The roots of civilized popular opinion, of theolog- ical, ethical, and ecclesiastical enactment, upon the questions of sexual life and habit are deep in primitive soil. But the popular and theological ideas which

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 3

spring from this have been moulded by external con- ditions, continually, but slowly, changing with the evolution of society. At the same time there has been a decided evolution of the sexual impulse itself.

We merely note, without discussing, the connexion between the religious and the sexual impulse. This does not appear till puberty. Both impulses may be regarded as psychic " irradiations," which in adoles- cence tend to merge into one another, and to be confused. But there seems to be no reason for re- garding the religious impulse of adolescence as a specialisation of the sexual.^ We know little about the religious impulse of primitive man ; probably it was as slightly developed as the other.

That the sexual impulse is relatively weak among savages, as compared with civilized peoples, is proved by the difficulty often shown in attaining sexual ex- citement — a difficulty which frequently has to be overcome by the indirect erethism of saturnalian proceedings ; it is proved also by the savage's relative lack of jealousy, which is correlated with the excessive system of checks upon intercourse, which generally prevails ; and, lastly, by the undeveloped condition of the organs themselves.^

Havelock Ellis, who has brought out the point, notes that " among the higher races in India the sexual instinct is very developed, and sexual inter- course has been cultivated as an art, perhaps more elaborately than anywhere else. Here, however, we are far removed from primitive conditions and among

^ E. D. Starbuck, The Psychology of Religion (London, 1899), pp. 401 et seq. ; Ch. Vallon and A. Marie, " Des Psychoses Religieuses i evolution progressive et h. syst6matisation dite primitive," Archives de Neurologic (Paris, 1897), 2 ser. iii. 184- 185.

2 PIoss-Bartels-Reitzenstein, Das Weib (Berlin, 1927), i. 306 et seq.

STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

a people closely allied to the Europeans. Farther to the east, as among the Cambodians, strict chastity seems to prevail, and if we cross the Himalayas to the north we find ourselves among wild people to whom sexual licence is unknown." ^

Even the Negress is by no means very amorous. " She is rather cold, and indifferent to the refinements of love," [states Havelock Ellis on the authority of a French army surgeon familiar with the black races in various French colonies] The notion that the negro race is peculiarly prone to sexual indulgence seems to be due partly to the expansive temperament of the race, and the sexual character of many of their festivals — a fact which indicates rather the contrary, and demonstrates the need of artificial excitement. Of the Malaysian races careful investigation has shown that the sexual impulse is " only developed to a slight extent ; they are not sensual. . . .The women also are not ardent." ^ Sexual desire is said to be very moder- ate among the Andamanese. A high authority states that the North American race " is less salacious than either the negro or white race." " Several of the virtues, and among them chastity, were more faithfully practised by the Indian race before the invasion from the East than these same virtues are practised by the white race of the present day." ^ L. H. Morgan, a high authority, had previously come to the same conclusion.

1 Havelock Ellis, Analysis of the Sexual Impulse : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, ili. (Philadelphia, 1908), pp. 219-220. ^ Ibid., p. 218.

• H. V. Stevens, " Mittheilungen aus dem Frauenleben der ^rang Belendas,

der Orang Djakun und der 6rang Laut," Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie (Berlin, 1896), xxviii. 180-18 1.

• A. B. Holder, " Gynecic Notes taken among the Amei^can Indians," The

American Journal of Obstetrics (New^ York, 1892), xxvi. 53.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 5

Such facts point to a relatively low development of nervous energy in the sexual centres — a condition correlated with the hardships of existence and the difficulty of obtaining food of good quality and reg- ularly supplied. It may be conjectured that the establishment of cereal agriculture marked an upward step. In the struggle for existence a strong and well- developed sexual instinct has obviously an important survival value, and the higher races are undoubtedly to be credited with its possession.

The history of chastity is concerned with the various changes that occur between these two stages : of savage life where the sexual impulse is but slightly developed, and of high culture where it is relatively strong. The savage may be said to possess a " natural chastity," but this is not to be denied to the normal civilized man. In both cases there is the same phys- iological law of rhythm. The facts of this rhythm are paralleled with those of nutrition ; satisfaction is followed by a reaction during which the impulse and its organs, as it were, enjoy rest and recuperation ; gradually the secretions are built up again, until at the top of the curve detumescence follows like an explosion of gathered forces. Moll and Havelock Ellis have worked out the mechanism of the sexual impulse into a process of tumescence and detumescence. Natural chastity is the psychical concomitant of the detumescent period ; its first moment is the strong reaction which follows the explosion. This is the basis of proverbs such as omne animal post coitum triste, and should be the starting-point of all investigations into the psychology of sexual asceticism. In its vari- ous shades of meaning the virtue of chastity, whether it be that of the faithful wife, or the virginity of the

6 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

immature or of the unmarried, or the temporary continence of warrior or medicine-man, or the more permanent attempts (sometimes becoming perversions) of priestly subjects — in all these applications its origin is the same, though cloaked and shrouded by varying conditions of life and culture, and by the shadows of superstition and mythological ethics.

Thus, when applied to the normal uncontaminated savage, such statements as that this tribe is licentious, and that is chaste, are meaningless unless we know the details, and, in particular, the external conditions. The old traveller's tales of savage lust and licentiousness are as far from the truth as philosophical encomiums of savage morality and paradisaical innocence. Other things being equal, the savage regards the satisfaction of the sexual instinct exactly as he regards the satis- faction of hunger and thirst.^ The only control, apart from artificial laws and customs, is physiological, and this he unconsciously obeys. Consequently, there is nothing " vicious " about his sexual habits. If he has no ideal of chastity, neither has he any per- version to unchastity. The terms have as yet no application in his life.

[Yet, up to the later years of the nineteenth century, the belief in the unbridled licentiousness of savages was universal, and has remained widely spread even to more recent days. It is not difficult to account for this belief, baseless even though it is. Dr. Have- lock Ellis has done so in the following passage] : " In the first place, the doctrine of evolution inevitably created a prejudice in favour of such a view. It was assumed that modesty, chastity, and restraint were the

^ [This is brought out with particular clearness by] J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (The Hague, 1886), passhn.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 7

finest and ultimate flowers of moral development ; therefore at the beginnings of civilization we must needs expect to find the opposite of these things. Apart, however, from any mere prejudice of this kind, a superficial observation of the actual facts necessarily- led to much misunderstanding. Just as the nakedness of many savage peoples led to the belief that they were lacking in modesty ... so the absence of our European rules of sexual behaviour among savages led to the conclusion that they were abandoned to debauchery. The widespread custom of lending the wife under certain circumstances was especially regarded as indi- cating gross licentiousness. Moreover, even when inter- course was found to be free before marriage, scarcely any investigator sought to ascertain what amount of sexual intercourse this freedom involved. . . . Again, it often happened that no clear distinction was made between peoples contaminated by association with civilization, and peoples not so contaminated. For instance, when prostitution is attributed to a savage people we must almost invariably suppose either that a mistake has been made or that the people in question have been degraded by intercourse with white peoples, for among unspoilt savages no custom that can properly be called prostitution prevails. . . .

" It has been seriously maintained that the chastity of savages, so far as it exists at all, is due to European civilization . . . but there is ample evidence from various parts of the world to show that this is by no means the rule. And, indeed, it may be said — with no dis- regard of the energy and sincerity of missionary efforts — that it could not be so. A new system of beliefs and practices, however excellent it may be in itself, can never possess the same stringent and unquestionable

8 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

force as the system in which an individual and his ancestors have always lived, and which they have never doubted the validity of. . . . Yet this dangerously un- settling process has been applied by missionaries on a wholesale scale to races which in some respect[s] are often little more than children. When, therefore, we are considering the chastity of savages we must not take into account those peoples which have been brought into close contact with Europeans."^

Dr. Westermarck has collected evidence (on which Ellis founds the above summary) ^ to show that " the wantonness of savages " is often due to contact with Europeans ; [and he quotes examples of this from most parts of the world]. He also concludes that " irregular connexions between the sexes have on the whole exhibited a tendency to increase along with the pro- gress of civilization." ^ The analogy of domestic animals bears this out, [for, as Dr. Ellis points out, in animals living under " civilized " conditions] " the sexual system and the sexual needs are more developed than in the wild species most closely related to them." * [Adlerz has argued that this is due to the relative absence of competition between animals living in a state of domestication. Hence those organs directly implicated in self-preservation which, in the animals' natural state, absorb the greater part of the nutriment, no longer do so, and enable other organs, such as the

^ Havelock Ellis, Analysis of the Sexual Impulse : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, iii. (Philadelphia, 1908), pp. 207-209.

^ [It would be more accurate to say that Dr. Ellis's summary is based on evidence adduced by Crawley's The Mystic Rose and by Dr. Westermarck.]

^ E. A. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage^ (London, 1901), p. 69. [This passage is omitted in the 5th edition (1921), but the sense of it is preserved ; cp. i. 159 et seq.]

• Havelock Ellis, op. cit., p. 220.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 9

reproductive glands, to avail themselves of more food.] ^ Heape similarly considers that " the stimulated power of reproduction evidenced hy certain rodents [rats and mice] is . . . due to the advantages derived from their intimate relations with the luxuries of civilization." ^ And he concludes that it " would seem highly probable . . . that the reproductive power of man has increased with civilization, precisely as it may be increased in the lower animals by domestication ; that the effect of a regular supply of good food, together with all the other stimulating factors available and exercised in modern civilized communities, has resulted in such great activity of the generative organs, and so great an in- crease in the supply of the reproductive elements, that conception in the healthy human female may be said to be possible almost at any time during the reproductive period." ^

3. SEXUAL PERIODICITY

Sexual periodicity forms a natural foundation for the development, by emphasis, of the resting period into an absolute abstinence and of the functional into an orgiastic explosion. This emphasized rhythm is analogous to the phenomena of rut. " We have reason to believe," says Westermarck, " that the pairing of our earliest human or half-human ancestors . . . was restricted to a certain season of the year."* [And among the lowest races of the present time, the

^ G. Adlerz, " Periodische Massenvermehrung als Evolutlonsfaktor," Biolo- gisches Centralblatt (Leipzig, 1902), xxii. 108 et seq.

2 W. Heape, " The Sexual Season of Mammals and the Relation of the ' Pro- cestium ' to Menstruation," Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science (London, 1901), n.s., xliv. 31.

^ Ibid., p. 39.

• E. A. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage ^ (London, 1921), i. 81.

10 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

wild Indians of California, to take but a single example] " have their rutting seasons as regularly as have the deer, the elk, the antelope, or any other animals." ^ Dr. Westermarck concludes that the increase of the sexual instinct at the end of the spring, or rather at the beginning of the summer, was not due either to abun- dance or lack of food, or to an increase of the sun's heat, and must therefore be regarded as a survival factor, the result of natural selection.^

Saturnalia and orgiastic festivals, which form so conspicuous a feature of savage life, are not to be con- sidered survivals of a primitive pairing season. Sur- vivals of this kind must involve physiological necessity. They coincide with periods of plenty, and are, in their lowest terms, expressions of the natural impulse to- wards merry-making and nervous ebullition generally. In the circumstances the " primitive burst " is in- evitably an occasion for a general explosion of the sexual feelings. Thus we have a cultural as well as a physiological rhythm of periodicity. The difficulty experienced by the savage in attaining tumescence, except under specially stimulating circumstances, is overcome by these so-called orgies, which also fre- quently have the secondary (and, often, the primary) intention of magical processes for the promotion of the fertility of the crops. The Marquesans are in- stanced by Foley to show the difficulty of erethism except at special seasons ^ — a case which is typical of the savage generally. The manifestations of the im-

^ A. Johnston, " The California Indians," in H. R. Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Information (Philadelphia, i860), iv. 224. 2 E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., i. 97.

^ Foley, " Quelques details et reflexions sur le costume et les mceurs de la co- quette n6o-caledonienne," Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris (Paris, 1879), 3 ser, ii. 678.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY ii

pulse, when they do appear, are excessive, just as the irradiation during the rest of the function is de- ficient. [As Dr. Ellis observes, to quote again his admirable and intuitive summary of these facts] : " It is largel)^ the occurrence of these violent occasional outbursts of the sexual instinct — during which the organic impulse to tumescence becomes so powerful that external stimuli are no longer necessary — that has led to the belief in the peculiar strength of the impulse in savages." ^

Man's later development owes as much to these bursts " as to the periods of natural chastity ; the one process was exercise of the function, with all its psychical ramifications, the other was control. The service rendered by artificial chastity to civilization is to strengthen the function by self-control ; this is the biological view of the matter, the premise being that high development of such a function is of the greatest survival value.

4. THE NATURAL SEXUAL LIFE AND ITS CONTROL

The way in which custom, variously originating, comes across the natural sexual life, may be illustrated by sketching the latter where it still occurs. This, with not more than two exceptions, which themselves are not absolute, is found only among the unmarried. It is not universal even in this secluded sphere — a fact which shows that marriage-law soon extends its range to the ante-nuptial period.

In British Central Africa, " before a girl is become a woman (that is to say, before she is able to conceive) it is a matter of absolute indifference what she does,

^ Havelock Ellis, Analysis of the Sexual Impulse : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, iii. (Philadelphia, 1908), p. 213.

■

12 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

and scarcely any girl remains a virgin after about five years of age." ^ Among the Congo tribes sexual indulgence in children is not checked.^ No disgrace is attached by Kafirs to intercourse by the unmarried.^ In the Marshall Islands intercourse is free until mar- riage.* Maori girls as a general rule had great licence in the way of lovers. I don't think the young woman knew when she zoas a virgin, for she had love-affairs with the boys from her cradle. . . . When she married it became very different, she was then tapu to her husband." ^ Boys and girls among the Cheremiss have complete freedom of intercourse.^ In Indonesia this freedom is very marked, and begins at the earliest age possible before puberty."^ Among the Nagas chastity begins with marriage." Other cases are the Philippines ^ and the Hovas The Yakuts see nothing wrong in such licence, provided that no one suffers material loss by it.^^

^ Sir H. H. Johnston, British Central Africa (London, 1897), p. 405.

2 E. Torday and T. A. Joyce, " Notes on the Ethnography of the Ba-Huana," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1906), xxxvi. 285 et seq.

^ J. Maclean, A Compendium of Kafir Lazvs and Customs (Mount Coke, 1858), p. 63.

• J. Kohler, " Rechte der deutschen Schutzgebiete. III. Das Recht der

MarshaUinsulaner," Zeitschrift fiir vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1900), xiv. 416 et seq.

^ E. Tregear, " The Maoris of New Zealand," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1890), xix. loi et seq.

^ L. N. Smimov, Les Populations Finnoises des bassins de la Volga et de la Kama (Paris, 1898), p. 337.

' J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (The Hague, 1886), pp. 41, 67, 370, and passim.

^ D. Prain, " The Angami Nagas," Revue Coloniale Internationale (Amsterdam, 1887), ii. 492.

^ A. de Morga, The Philippine Islands, Moluccas., Siam, Cambodia, Japan, and China, at the close of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1868), p. 303.

^° J. Sibree, " Relationships and the Names used for them among the Peoples of Madagascar," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1880), ix. 43.

^1 Sieroshevski and W. G. Sumner, " The Yakuts," ibid. (London, 1901), xxxi.

96.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 13

This, of course, is the point of origin for customs of repression leading to chastity ; three types of this are more or less universal, namely, the prohibition of loss of virginity in purchasable daughters, the pro- hibition of infringement of the husband's proprietary rights in a v^ife and the belief in the " injury," more or less mysterious, in its origin and content, resulting from intercourse between members of the same family- circle — mother and son, brother and sister. Before passing to the habits of chastity imposed in these and related circumstances, it is worth remark that among people like the Indonesians, where free intercourse is allowed to children before conception is possible, masturbation, so prevalent in moralized civilizations, is conspicuous by its absence.

Chastity after puberty but before marriage is, on the whole, more prevalent in the lower races than in modern civilization, for reasons which we shall shortly discuss. But chastity (if the term be appli- cable to immaturity) before puberty, and therefore before conception is possible, seems to be practically unknown among savage and barbarian peoples, except where infant betrothal and marriage have been in- troduced. Intercourse at this age, possible as it is, and biologically natural, is apparently regarded as innocent " play " of the sexual instinct.

Thus, among the Valave of Madagascar, children have intercourse at a very early age, and their parents encourage this and take a pleasure in watching them.^ Such precocious connexion has been noted among the Indonesians, the Maoris, and the Bahuana of the

• J. Sibree, op. cit., p. 39 ; Ploss-Bartels-Reltzenstein, Das Weib (Berlin, 1927),

ii- 24.

14 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Congo.^ On Talmit, one of the Marshall Islands, the practice begins " with the first stirrings of nature before menstruation." ^ Similar accounts are given of the Masai ^ and Nandi,* and of British Central Africa generally. Much the same is the case with the Basutos and Baronga, the Bambala, the tribes of the Lower Congo, and the Mande of Bonduku.^

Sexual control, exerted by the society, commences with the establishment of puberty. Here a difficulty presents itself : why was such a control ever instituted ? It could not have originated from any notion of the harmfulness of exercising the sexual function when near or at its complete development, for experience of this kind is inconceivable in a primitive state of society, and superstitions on the subject are necessarily results, not originally causes, of such control. It might be supposed that, the possibility of conception now being introduced, it was necessary to make rules for adolescents, so as to prevent promiscuous births. But there is strong evidence to the effect that, when such rules were instituted, the knowledge that sexual intercourse is necessary for conception had not been attained. The Central Australians, who have such rules, do not connect the phenomena of intercourse and pregnancy. Nor can we eliminate from their

1 E. Torday and T. A. Joyce, " Notes on the Ethnography of the Ba-Huana," yournal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1906), xxxvi. 285 et seq.

^ J. Kohler, " Rechte der deutschen Schutzgebiete. III. Das Recht der Mar- shallinsulaner," Zeitschrift fiir Vergleichende Rechtszvissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1900), xiv. 417.

^ S. Bagge, " The Circumcision Ceremony among the Naivasha Masai," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1904), xxxiv. 169; Sir H. H. Johnston, The Uganda Protectorate (London, 1902), ii. 824 ; A. C. HoUis, The Masai (Oxford, 1905), p. xvi.

• A. C. Hollis, The Nandi (Oxford, 1909), pp. 16, 58.

^ E. S. Hartland, Primitive Paternity (London, 1909), ii. 267 et seq.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 15

original institution the sexual point of view. To some extent they are concerned with the " making " of young men and their admission to the ranks of the adult, but sexual maturity is the mark and sign of the elevation. Another aspect of these initiatory rites is education, including education in sexual matters. The fact that this is more complete and efficient in savage than in civilized societies does not necessarily involve the assumption that education was the prim- ary object, any more than it involves degeneracy in the educational ideals of to-day. Yet we cannot doubt that the instinct, strongly developed in the savage parent, for the nurture of the young, which is the natural complement of the long childhood of the human individual, was soon extended even to this kind of instruction.

The possibility remains that the control over the sexual life of the pubescent youth of the community originated directly from the adult men, who wished to safeguard their own privileges as " husbands." A considerable portion of the moral law has had a similar origin in adult privilege, and not a few of the moral emotions and habits, such as unselfishness, have been learnt in the same way. The balance of evidence is against the view that the original or primitive marital state was promiscuity. The suggestion we have made coincides with such evidence. It also involves the assumption — a priori probable — that, at the remote period of the institution of this control, sexual capacity was coincident with the establishment of puberty. Biologically this was to be expected. Accordingly we must conclude that sexual intercourse before puberty was originally a physical impossibility. Precocious intercourse must then be ascribed to a development

r6 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

of the reproductive function due to improved con- ditions of life. In this connexion it is a significant fact that the Australian evidence as to premature coition is very doubtful, and applies only to the South- ern tribes, which have been longest in contact with Europeans. Of its occurrence in the more isolated tribes there is no mention. Lastly, there is reason to suppose that the Australians represent a lower culture than the peoples, cited above, among whom it is pre- valent.

[" Among the uncivilised races of men marriage not only exists but is much more frequent than among ourselves. As a general rule, nearly every man en- deavours to marry when he has reached the age of puberty. . . ." ^ This statement of Dr. Westermarck may be received as embodying a general rule, with the proviso that the older males regulate the " endeav- our."] ^ Normally it is difficult for a young male to get married at once, and when he does succeed his first bride is rarely a young female. The old men exercise a monopoly in the matter of youthful brides. That puberty is originally regarded as the commence- ment of sexual capacity, as such, and at first without any idea of its being the commencement in the female of the child-bearing state, is shown by cases where the later development of precocious capacity is either ignored or forbidden. Observation would soon prove

^ E. A. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage^ (London, 1921), i. 337.

2 [In its original form this passage comprised the additional proviso that " this

• striving ' is usually confined to the male sex." Dr. Westermarck's rule, as quoted

by Mr. Crawley, from the third edition of The History of Human Marriage (London, 1901), p. 134, then read, ". . . nearly every individual strives to get married as soon as he, or she, reaches the age of puberty." In the fifth edition. Dr. Westermarck has accepted and incorporated Mr. Crawley's proviso, as may be seen from the revised quotation.]

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 17

that child-bearing could not occur before maturity. Thus we find rules established to reinforce the original coincidences of puberty and capacity.

[On the island of Yap, one of the] Pelew Islands, sexual intercourse seems to be forbidden to girls until after the first menstruation.^ A similar rule is found in Cambodia.^ The Australian evidence seems to show [as we have already noted, that, in general] pre- pubertal intercourse did not exist.^ The ceremonial perforation of the hymen common among the Central tribes is clearly a preparation for the sexual functions. Circumcision no doubt has a similar origin. Where the numerical proportions of the sexes are balanced, as among the Central Australians, such preparation of the female is coincident with allotment as a wife. It is thus both a puberty and a marriage ceremony. The general facts of puberty-customs show an artificial emphasizing of the sexual rhythm of rest and ex- plosion. The Australian or South African boy during his initiation is, it goes without saying, chaste both by compulsion and by choice. So is it with girls. But the educative factor comes in at the end of the initiation, to coincide with the natural result of the period of rest of function. Immediately after cir- cumcision a Ceramese boy must have intercourse with a girl.* In certain Central African tribes both boys and girls after initiation must as soon as possible have intercourse, the belief being that, if they do not, they

^ A. Senfft, " Die Rechtssitten der Jap-Eingeborenen," Globus (Braunschweig, 1907), xci. 141.

^ E. Aymonier, " Note sur les coutumes et croyances superstitieuses des Cam- bodgiens " Cochinchine Frangaise (Saigon, 1883), vi. 193.

^ A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London, 1904), pp. 260-261.

• J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (The

Hague, 1886), p. 139. 2

1 8 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

will die.^ Narrinyeri boys after the preliminary rites had complete licence.^ After the seclusion of a Kafir girl at puberty she is allowed to cohabit with anyone during the festivities which follow ; ^ Kafir boys after being circumcised may have connexion with any unmarried females they can persuade.* Similar prac- tices are found on the Senegal ^ and Congo. ^ As for theoretical education [in addition to the numerous cases where puberty is accompanied by direct instruc- tion in sexual knowledge and in the duties of married life, we may cite the more symbolical teaching given in Halmahera. Here, the] boys are brought into a large shed in which are two tables, one for the men and one for the women, who must be separated while eating. An old man now rubs a piece of wood, which makes water red, into a vessel of water, imitating by his movements the act of coitus. This pantomime is gone through for each boy, whose name is called out by the officiator. The red water represents the blood which results from the perforation of the hymen. Then the faces and bodies of the boys are smeared with the red water, after which they go into the woods, and are supposed to promote their health by taking the sun. In Ceram theory and practice are combined

^ D. Macdonald, Africana (London, 1882), i. 126.

^ A. W. Howitt and L. Fison, " From Mother- right to Father-right," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1883), xii. 37.

3 J. Macdonald, " Manners, Customs, Superstitions, and Religions of South African Tribes," ibid. (London, 1890), xx. 117-118.

^J. Maclean, A Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs (Mount Coke, 1858), pp. 98, lOI.

^ W. W. Reade, Savage Africa (London, 1863), p. 451.

^ J. Macdonald, " East Central African Customs," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1893), xxii. 100.

' J. G. F. Riedel, " Galela und Tobeloresen," Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie (Berlin, 1885), xvii. 81-82.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 19

thus : the old woman who instructs the girls takes a leaf which she solemnly perforates with her finger, by way of representing the perforation of the hymen. After the ceremony, the girl has full liberty of inter- course with men ; in some villages the old men take the privilege to themselves.^ It is important to ob- serve that such intercourse is, as among Africans and Australians, a duty, rather than a privilege, of the newly-initiated.

5. CHASTITY BETWEEN PUBERTY AND MARRIAGE

We now pass to a consideration of the prevalence and origin of post-pubertal and pre-nuptial chastity. Numerical and economic conditions necessarily render this interval between puberty and marriage the rule rather than the exception. Even where such con- ditions need not be regarded as imperative, the monop- olizing instincts of the older men impose difficulties on immediate marriage. This may be regarded as the ultimate social or artificial reason both for the postponement of marriage and for the concomitant imposition of chastity during the interval.

In this connexion the theory of J. J. Atkinson may be cited. He suggests that the first step towards the regulation of the intercourse of the sexes, and there- fore of marriage, was due to the jealousy of the old male, who was the autocrat of the small family group in some anthropoid genus. In order to secure his rights over all the females of the group, including his daughters, he expelled his sons when they arrived at puberty. Hence the law against incest between

^ J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tiisschen Selebes en Papua (The Hague, 1886), p. 138.

20 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

brothers and sisters, mothers and sons. The suggestion has the advantage of tracing to one common origin the inception of the family of marriage-legislation, and of sexual morality generally. The prohibition of such unions, though a limitation of sexual freedom, hardly, however, comes under the category of chastity. Yet the origin of the law against incest is in some way, or at some stage, closely connected, as will be seen later, with general limitations of sexual freedom. One difficulty about this connexion, as also about Atkin- son's hypothesis, is this — If the " primal law " forbid- ding intercourse between brothers and sisters was inspired by proprietary or sexual jealousy on the part of the pater familias^ why is it that in savage races, as we know them, adultery with a wife or allotted woman, when condemned, is condemned as an offence against property rather than as against morality or religion, while incest excites religious honour as a presumptuous infraction of a supernatural moral fiat ? This, for instance, is the case in Fiji, where the distinction is well marked. The mere fact of the greater antiquity of this prohibition cannot be brought forward in ex- planation, as it implies an equal antiquity of a jealous protection of the original wife or wives. If we sup- posed that the Patriarch was in the habit of casting off an old wife as soon as he had an adult daughter, the supposition goes too far ; this kind of luxurious uxorial habit is not safely to be ascribed to savages, much less to a semi-human species. Nor, though there are some indications of a prolonged survival of the habit of father-daughter incest, can we ascribe the religious intensity of the law against brother- sister incest entirely to such ferocity of the instinct for a youthful bride, not to mention any instinct for

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 21

filial intercourse, without further evidence of their existence, prevalence, and strength.^

Atkinson's hypothesis, however, hardly overstates the control which may be exercised in early com- munities by the old over the young. The superim- posing of various emotional reactions from such con- trol will concern us later. Here we may illustrate the way in which pre-nuptial chastity shows itself as a social fact, or rather desideratum.

The sexual morality of youth among the Tas- manians was of a high standard. " The young men and lads moved early from the camp in the morning so as not to interfere with female movements in rising. Unmarried men never wandered in the bush with women ; if meeting a party of the other sex, native politeness required that they turned and went another way." 2 In Australia we find that among the Lower Darling natives, " laws were strict, especially those regarding young men and young women. It was almost death to a young lad or man who had sexual intercourse till married." ^ The laws of New South Wales were also strict : " no conversation is allowed between the single men and the girls or the married women. . . . Infractions of these and other laws were visited either by punishment by any aggrieved member of the tribe, or by the delinquent having to purge himself of his crime by standing up protected simply by his shield or a waddy, while five or six warriors threw from a comparatively short distance several

^ [Atkinson's views are set out in his part of A. Lang and J. J. Atkinson, Social Origins. Primal Law (London, 1903).]

^ J. Bonwick, Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians (London, 1870), pp. 11,

59-

^ Holdcn, Folklore of the South Australian Aborigines^ p. 19.

22 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

spears at him." ^ In Western Victoria " illegitimacy- is rare, and is looked upon with such abhorrence that the mother is always severely beaten by her relatives, and sometimes put to death and burned. . . . The father of the child is also punished with the greatest severity, and occasionally killed." ^ In the Central tribes no man may go near the erlukwirra (women's camp) ; and no woman may approach the ungunja (men's camp).^

In Nias both seducer and seduced were put to death.* Among certain of the Sea Dayaks an un- married girl with child was " offensive to the superior powers." The guilty lovers were fined.^ Pre-nuptial intercourse was forbidden by the Hill Dayaks.^ In some parts of the Philippines chastity was honoured, " not only among the women but also among the young girls, and is protected by very severe laws." ^ New Guinea girls are chaste.^ In Melanesia " there was by no means that insensibility in regard to female virtue with which the natives are so commonly charged." ^ In Fiji boys w^ere not allowed to ap- proach women until they were eighteen years of age.^^

1 R. Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria (London, 1878), ii. 318.

2 J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines (Melbourne, 1881), pp. 28, 33.

3 Sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 178, 467.

• G. A. Wilken, " Plechtigheden en Gebruiken bij Verlovingen en Huwelijken

bij de Volken van den Indischen Archipel," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volken- kunde ('s Gravenhage, 1889), xxxviii. 444.

• S. St. John, Life in the Forests of the Far East (London, 1862), i. 63.

^ H. Low, Sarawak (London, 1848), pp. 247, 300.

' O. von Kotzebue, A Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea and Beering^s Straits (London, 1821), iii. 66 ; F. Blumentritt, Versuch einer Ethnographic der Phililppinen (Gothe, 1882), p. 27.

^G. W. Earl, Papuans (London, 1853), p. 81 ; Otto Finsch, New-Guinea und seine Bewohner (Bremen, 1865), pp. 77, 82.

• R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 235.

1® J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific (London, 1853), p. 255.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 23

In Samoa chiefs' daughters at least prided themselves on their chastity, while intercourse with men of their own people was forbidden to ordinary girls The women of the Loyalty Island Uea were " strictly chaste before marriage, and faithful wives afterwards." ^ Among the Leh-tas of Burma the unmarried of each sex sleep in separate dormitories, and, " when they may have occasion to pass each other, avert their gaze, so that they may not see each other's faces.^ In Cambodia girls are carefully secluded ; the strin- gency of custom prevents the intercourse of the young. Accordingly the role of village Don Juan is scarcely possible." ^ The humble Veddas of Ceylon ^ and the Andaman Islanders ^ valued chastity in the unmarried woman. The Bodos and Dhimals of India valued chastity in married and unmarried men and women alike.' Both Circassians ^ and South Slavonians sold or punished severely erring daughters. Among the latter the girl's father had the right of slaying the seducer.^ The seducer among the Tungus was forced to purchase the girl or to submit to corporal chastise- ment.^^ The Turks of Central Asia have been said

1 G. Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia (London, 1861), p. 184.

2 J. E. Erskine, op. cit., p. 341.

^ A_ Fytche, Burma Past and Present (London, 1878), i. 343. E. Aymonier, " Note sur les coutumcs et croyances superstitieuses des Cam- bodgiens," Cochinchine Francaise (Saigon, 1883), vi. 191, 198.

6 [H. Nevill], " Vaeddas of Ceylon," The Taprobanian (Bombay, 1887), i. 178.

^ E. H. Man, ** The Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1883), xii. 344.

' B. H. Hodgson, Miscellaneous Essays relating to Indian Subjects (London, 1880), i. 123.

^ G. Klemm, Allgemeine Culturgeschichte des Menscheit (Leipzig, 1843-1852), iv. 26.

^ F. S. Krauss, Sitte und Brauch der Sildslaven (Vienna, 1885), pp. 197 et seq% 1" J. G. Georgi, Russia (London, 1780-1783), iii. 84.

24 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

to be ignorant of fallen virtue in their unmarried girls. ^ The Thlinkets make the seducer pay the girl's parents a heavy compensation.^ Among the Aleuts " un- married females who gave birth to illegitimate children were to be killed for shame, and hidden." ^ Egede reported : " During fifteen years that I lived in Green- land I did not hear of more than two or three young women who were gotten with child unmarried ; be- cause it is reckoned the greatest of infamies." ^ The women of the Mandans, Nez Perces, and Apaches are said to have been remarkably chaste, and seduction was regarded with reprobation.^ Similar accounts have been received of the Paraguay,^ Patagonian,'^ British Columbia, Vancouver,^ and Queen Charlotte Indians.^

West African tribes punish seduction.^^ Among the Kafirs the father of a girl seduced may demand payment if she becomes pregnant seduction alone

^ H. Vambery, Das Tiirkenvolk (Leipzig, 1885), p. 240.

2 Ivan Petroff, Report on the Population^ hidustries, and Resources of Alaska : [Report on the Tenth Census of the United States, VIII. ii. (Washington, 1884)], p. 177. ^ Ibid., p. 155.

• H. Egede, A Description of Greenland (London, 18 18), p. 141.

5 G. Catlin, Letters and Notes on the manners, customs, and condition of the North American Indians^ (London, 1842), i. 121 ; H. R. Schoolcraft, Historical and Sta- tistical Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadelphia, 1851-1860), v. 654; H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), i. 514; S. Hearne, A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean (Dublin, 1796), p. 311.

^ M. Dobrizhoffer, An Account of the Abipones (London, 1822), ii. 153.

' G. O. Musters, At Home with the Patagonians (London, 1873), p. 197.

® J. K. Lord, The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and British Columbia (London, 1866), ii. 233.

• A. Woldt, Capitain Jacobsen's Reise an der NordwestkUste Amerikas, 1881-1883

(Leipzig, 1884), p. 28.

10 W. Reade, Savage Africa (London, 1863), p. 261 5 F. E. Forbes, Dahomey and the Dahomans (London, 1851), i. 26.

John Maclean, A Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs (Mount Coke, 1858),

p. 64.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 25

involves a heavy fine among the Gaikas.^ Chastity of girls and to some extent of boys was highly regarded by the Basutos ^ and the Bakwains.^ The Baziba are reported to punish pre-nuptial amours, if a child is born, by flinging the man and the woman into Lake Victoria.* The Bakoki banished the erring woman from home, and fined her seducer.^ The Beni-Amer and Marea put him to death, together with the woman and her child. ^ The Beni-Mzab impose upon the man banishment and a fine. The punishment for seduction among the Takue is the same as for murder.^ Mother and child are put to death by the Kabyles.^

The large majority of savage and barbarous peoples show particular care in separating the unmarried in the matter of sleeping-quarters. A constant source of this precaution is the horror of brother-sister incest. Many peoples have developed a system of dormitories for the unmarried men ; some few employ them for the unmarried women also.^^

Ignoring those peoples who allow pre-pubertal intercourse, and eliminating those with whom pre- nuptial intercourse is a preliminary to marriage, the seducer marrying the girl if she prove with child, and

^ John Maclean, A Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs (Mount Coke, 1858), p. 112.

2 E. Casalis, Les Bassoutos (Paris, 1859), p. 267.

^ D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (London, 1857)^ P- 513-

^ J. F. Cunningham, Uganda and its People (London, 1905), p. 290. ^ Ibid., p. 102.

• W. Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien^ (Basel, 1883), p. 322.

'J. Chavanne, Die Sahara (Wien, etc., 1879), p. 315. ^ W. Munzinger, op. cit., p. 208.

' A. Hanoteau and H. Letourneux, La Kabylie et les coutumes Kabyles (Paris, 1872-1873), ii. 148, 187.

See Ernest Crawley, The Mystic Rose ^, ed. Theodore Besterman (London, 1927), i. 265.

26 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

those who allow, in the latter connexion, a more or less free trial of mates, the balance is in favour of the conclusion that the majority of savage and barbarous peoples emphasize pre-nuptial chastity as an ideal, and attempt, with more or less success, to impose it in practice. The first efficient cause seems to be the monopolizing and jealous attitude of the older men. Secondary reasons seem to be the economic disturbance produced by child-birth, when no bread-winner for the new family has been formally appointed. To allow preliminary intercourse, with the proviso that marriage shall follow if a child is born, was a dangerous concession. Later, when fathers and brothers found that daughters and sisters possessed exchange-value, seduction was still more emphasized as a tort against property, on the assumption, chiefly, that virginity in a bride, no less than absence of encumbrances in the form of children, was an important asset. Pre- nuptial chastity in women thus comes to coincide for its principle with the " chastity " or fidelity of the wife.

6. THE PREFERENCE FOR VIRGINITY

Before discussing this latter form of chastity, we may sketch the influence of the preference for virginity. Chastity se^ as a jewel of price, " is not understood. An unmarried girl is expected to be chaste because virginity possesses a marketable value, and were she to be unchaste her parents would receive little and perhaps no head-money for her." ^ This account is typical of such cases. Dr. Westermarck traces such

^ Sir A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (London, 1887), p. 286.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 27

proprietary emotion further back to a psychical, or rather biological, origin. " If marriage, as I am in- clined to suppose," he writes, " is based on an instinct derived from some ape-like progenitor, it would from the beginning be regarded as the natural form of sexual intercourse in the human race, whilst other more transitory connexions would appear abnormal and consequently be disapproved of. I am not certain whether some feeling of this sort, however vague, is not still very general in the race. But it has been more or less or almost totally suppressed by social conditions which make it in most cases impossible for men to marry at the first outbreak of the sexual passion. We have thus to seek for some other ex- planation of the severe censure passed on pre-nuptial connexions." [And this other explanation Dr. Wester- marck finds in] " the preference which a man gives to a virgin bride," [this preference being, as he shows], " a fact of very common occurrence." ^

The proprietary emotion which insists on chastity in a daughter or sister is thus a reaction to the bio- logical preference of the bridegroom for virginity. Such preference is proved for the Ahts,^ Chippewas,^ Thlinkets, Chicchimecs,* Nicaraguans,^ and Aztecs,^

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Idea ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 434-435-

G. M. Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life (London, 1868), p. 95.

' W. H. Keating, Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Pete/s River (Philadelphia, 1824), ii. 167-170.

• Ivan Petroff, Report on the Population^ Industries, and Resources of Alaska :

[Report on the Tenth Census of the United States, VIII. ii. (Washington, 1884), p. 177.

^ E. G. Squier, " Observations on the Archaeology and Ethnology of Nicaragua," Transactions of the American Ethnological Society (New York, 1853), iii. 127.

' H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), i. 632 ; J. de Acosta, The Natural and^Moral History of the Indies (London, 1880), ii. 370.

28 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Samoa,^ parts of New Guinea and Indonesia,^ the Rendile of East Africa,^ West Africa,* Ondongas,^ Herero,^ Bayaka,'^ Beni - Amer,^ Samoyeds,^ Chu- washes/^ ChuHms,^^ Circassia,^^ Hebrews,^^ and, not to mention higher cultures, Persia^* and China,^^ [together with many other peoples and parts of the world].

This preference, according to Westermarck, " partly springs from a feeling akin to jealousy towards women who have had previous connexions with other men, partly from the warm response a man expects from a woman whose appetite he is the first to gratify, and largely from an instinctive appreciation of female

• G. Turner, Samoa (London, 1884), p. 95.

2 G. A. Wilken, *' Plechtigheden en Gebruiken blj Verlovingen en Huwelijken bij de Volken van den Indischen Archipel," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volken- kunde ('s Gravenhage, 1889), xxxviii. 446-447 ; G. L. Bink, " Reponses faites au Questionnaire de sociologie et d'ethnographie de la Societe, par M. G.-L. Bink, qui, de 1871 k 1883, a sejourn6 h la Nouvelle-Guinee, specialement au golfe de Geelwink (cote de Doreh et ile de Rhoon)," Bulletins de la Societe d* Anthropologie de Paris (Paris, 1888), 4 ser. xi. 397.

3 W. A. Chanler, Through Jungle and Desert (London and New York, 1896),

P-3I7-

• W. W. Reade, Savage Africa (London, 1863), p. 45.

^ S. R. Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdltnisse von eingeborenen V olkern im Ajrika und Ozeanien (Berlin, 1903), pp. 330 et seq.

^ J. Kohler, " Rechte der deutschen Schutzgebiete. I. Das Recht der Herero," Zeitschrift filr vergleichende Rechtszvissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1900), xiv. 304, 309.

' E. Torday and T. A. Joyce, " Notes on the Ethnography of the Ba-Yaka," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1906), xxxvi. 45, 51.

^ W. Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien^ (Basel, 1883), pp. 319 et seq.

^ B. Kahle, " Van de la Martiniere's Reise nach dem Norden," Zeitschrift des Vercins fiir Volkskunde (Berlin, 1901), xi. 442.

H. Vambery, Das TUrkenvolk (Leipzig, 1885), p. 461.

11 J. G. Georgi, Russia (London, 1780-1783), iii. 232.

^2 G. KJemm, Allgemeine Culturgeschichte des Mcnscheit (Leipzig, 1843-1852), iv. 26.

Deuteronomy, ch. xxii.

J. E. Polak, Persien (Leipzig, 1865), i. 213. ^^J. H. Gray, China (London, 1878), i. 209.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 29

coyness. Each sex is attracted hy the distinctive characteristics of the opposite sex, and coyness is a female quahty. In mankind, as among other mam- mals, the female requires to be courted, often endeav- ouring for a long time to escape from the male. Not only in civilized countries may courtship mean a prolonged making of love to the v^oman. Mariner's words v^ith reference to the women of Tonga hold true of a great many, if not all savage and barbarous races of men. ' It must not be supposed,' he says, ' that these women are always easily won ; the greatest attentions and most fervent solicitations are sometimes requisite, even though there be no other lover in the way.' The marriage ceremonies of many peoples bear testimony to the same fact . . . where marriage is the customary form of sexual intercourse, pre- nuptial incontinence in a woman, as suggesting lack of coyness and modesty, is therefore apt to disgrace her. At the same time it is a disgrace to, and con- sequently an offence against, her family, especially where the ties of kinship are strong." ^

[Thus the attaching of a market-value to a woman has tended to raise the standard of female chastity.] But, as showing how natural modesty may produce natural chastity, the Veddas may be cited. Among these low savages, girls are not purchased, yet they are protected " with the keenest sense of honour." ^ Here we may infer the presence of what may be called natural female chastity, coinciding with parental recognition of a right to immunity. We thus reach back to the ultimate biological fact, which holds good

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 435-436.

2[H. Nevill], Vaeddasof Ceylon," The Taprobanian (Bombay, 1887), i. 178.

30 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

throughout the animal, and perhaps the whole organic, world, that the female period of sexual rest requires far more stimulus for its passage into tumescence than does the male. Hence the production, hy means of sexual selection, of the stimulating colours and sounds possessed by the male, and exercised for the purpose of rousing and exciting the female. This difference is recognized in a crude unconscious way by the more or less universal imposition of greater penalties for unchastity upon the female. " One law for men and another for women " is a position based on bio- logical laws, though it has resulted in cruelty towards the female sex. [As Westermarck points out, the seduction of a woman does harm to her as well as to her family and to the social unit of which she is a part ; but this notion of personal harm does not seem to occur to the savage.^ And consideration for the off- spring seems to be even further removed from the mentality of the uncivilized ; such consideration does not appear until a late stage of culture, as when St. Thomas Aquinas] held fornication to be a mortal sin because it " tends to the hurt of the life of the child who is to be born of such intercourse," or because it is contrary to the good of the offspring." ^

[The progressive idealization of virginity may be observed] in the stories of supernatural birth, which have been shown to be of world-wide distribution. In these stories the virginity of the mother is often emphasized. When brought into connexion with the regulation of female chastity proceeding from masculine monopoly and jealousy, and later from commercial interest, this idealization of virginity

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 437.

^ St. I'homas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Secunda Sccundae, Q. CLIV.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 31

became an important lever. Thus, the biological passivity of woman, in itself a natural chastity, the evolutionary purpose of which was to ensure the acceptance of a forceful and healthy male on the one hand,^ and the complete production of tumescence in the female, a long-circuiting process due to the more complex sexual mechanism of that sex, on the other, was emphasized from several associated points of view. Lastly, as culture becomes more refined, the complex of ideas centring in female chastity is increased by the close association, original but enhanced by improved conditions, " between the sexual impulse and a senti- ment of affection which lasts long after the grati- fication of the bodily desire. We find the germ of this feeling in the abhorrence with which prostitution is regarded by savage tribes who have no objection to ordinary sexual intercourse previous to marriage, and in the distinction which among ourselves is drawn between the prostitute and the woman who yields to temptation because she loves. To indulge in mere sexual pleasure, unaccompanied by higher feelings, appears brutal and disgusting in the case of a man, and still more so in the case of a woman." ^ The problem thus presented to early races by economic conditions and by emotional prejudice, later races have been content to solve by prostitution. This is as far as solution has gone at the present day, unless we add the relative condonation of incontinence in unmarried men, and the complementary severity of condemnation of incontinence in unmarried women

^ Cp. Havelock Ellis, Analysis of the Sexual Impulse : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, iii. (Philadelphia, 1908), p. 27.

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 439-440.

32 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

(a mere continuation of unnecessary injustice), and the indirect encouragement of masturbation and similar habits.

Lastly, in this connexion, with regard to precocious sexuality, a certain ideal seems to be unconsciously aimed at. This is the prolongation of the period of growth, the extension of the youth of the race. It has analogical confirmation in the generalization that the larger the youth of the species the higher is its organization. A statistical examination of the relation between enforced retardation of the sexual life and general growth is desirable. In this connexion there is a significant difference between the lower and the higher races : though up to puberty the savage child is as intelligent as the European, subsequently he " runs to seed," or rather " to sex." ^ The difference may be concerned with the higher opportunities ' enjoyed by the European youth for developing the associational centres of the brain at a critical period.

7. WIFELY CHASTITY

Chastity in the wife is merely fidelity to the husband. Though there is no reason for supposing any absence of the strong feeling of connubial or sexual jealousy in the earliest men, such as would give countenance to an age of promiscuity in human marital history, yet, as Hartland has shown, the rise of father-right and the supersession of mother-right are to be traced to the operation, not of a recognition of paternity, but of the proprietary instinct or jealous sense of owner- ship in the husband — a sense often not easily separable from mere sexual jealousy, the early prevalence of which has been pointed out by Westermarck.

1 Dudley Kidd, Savage Childhood (London, 1906), p. ix.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 33

Examination of the lower races shows an interesting gradation in the strength of the social indignation vented upon sexual " irregularity." It is strongest against incest between brother and sister — a real " horror," which is extended by association to tribal brothers and sisters, often unrelated. It is still strong, but has lost its supernatural content, against pre- nuptial intercourse without the consent of father or brother, where it is a legal-moral emotion ; it is least strong against adultery, and perhaps, though often ferocious in its expression (a re-inforcement of the law of battle), may be regarded as purely legal or proprietary. This gradation has maintained itself to some extent in civilization, in spite of attempts on the part of religions like Christianity to assign the strongest religious condemnation to adultery, and in spite of the gradual loss of any special emotion against incest, the loss of emotion being in proportion as the offence, though not altogether unknown, becomes less heard of. The practices, so common in early races, of lending the wife to a guest as a mark of hospitality, and of exchanging wives as a mark of confidence, neighbourliness, and social solidarity, are not survivals. They are simply expressions of the feeling of ownership. They serve to show how it is that religious indignation is rarely found against adultery, any more than against theft in general.

Jealousy, as conducing to wifely chastity, is a constant factor. Originally sexual, it is overlaid in early culture by the sense of ownership, and in the higher by the sense of honour. [Extensive surveys have been made to show the wide distribution of the operation of such jealousy.] The laws against adultery and every analogical consideration continue to render

3

34 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

such lists incomplete, and to assure us that such jeal- ousy is universal in man, and has, with rare exceptions, [which are possibly doubtful], always been so.

Fused with the sense of ownership — " the sense of ownership has been the seed-plot of jealousy — jealousy has been attested of another long series of peoples. Laws against adultery are similarly found all over the world ; there are, as in the other aspects of the subject, curious exceptions. Conjugal fidelity frequently depends on the wife's or the husband's will.^ If the husband allows her to cohabit with another man, her " chastity " is intact.

On the other hand, fidelity in the husband is far less generally found or insisted upon. There are, again, interesting exceptions. Christianity pressed the view that no distinction should be made between wife and husband. Yet in actual European practice the old prejudice, that adultery on the part of the husband is more venial than on the part of the wife, still subsists. The reasons for this one-sided view of marital chastity are simple. " Adultery is regarded as an illegitimate appropriation of the exclusive claims which the husband has acquired by the purchase of his wife, as an offence against property." ^ Manu puts it that " seed must not be sown by any man on that which belongs to another." *

Further, the prevalence of the rule of chastity in widows shows how strong is the sense of ownership in the husband. Apart from general rules of chastity

1 E. S. Hartland, Primitive Paternity (London, 1909-1910), ii. 102.

2 E. A. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage^ (London, 1921), i. 225 et seq. ; E. S. Hartland, op. cit., ii. 206-207.

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 449.

• The Laws of Manu, ix. 42.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 35

among mourners, the rule as affecting widows is ob- viously derived from the jealousy of proprietorship. In several races the widow has to die with her lord ; more frequently she is forbidden to marry again, or until after a certain interval. Widows remained single in Peru,^ and among the old Aryans.^ The " bare mention of a second marriage for a widow woman would be considered the greatest insult ; " and, if she married again, " she would be hunted out of society, and no decent person would venture at any time to have the slightest intercourse with her." ^ [As among the Greeks * and Romans,^ and the Southern Slavs to-day,^ so among other archaic and uncivilized people the remarriage of a widow was considered an insult to her dead husband.] Chikasa widows were forbid- den to be unchaste for three years, on pain of incur- ring the penalties of adultery ; ^ Creek widows were similarly placed for four years. ^ " As a faithful min- ister does not serve two lords, neither may a faithful woman marry a second husband," is the Chinese dic- tum.^ The early Christians regarded second marriages by either sex as a " kind of fornication " or a " specious

• Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Tncas, ed.

Sir C. R. Markham (London, 1869-1871), i. 305.

2 E. Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples (London, 1890),

P- 39^-

^ J. A. Dubois, Description of the Character, Manners, and Customs of the People of India (London, 18 17), p. 132.

• Pausanias, Descriptio Graecia, 111. xxi. 7.

^ A. Rossbach, Untersuchungen Uber die romische Ehe (Stuttgart, 1853), p. 262.

^ F. S. Krauss, Sitte und Branch der SUdslaven (Wien, 1885), p. 578.

'James Adair, The History of the American Indians (London, 1775), p. 186.

^ IL R. Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadelphia, 1851- 1860), V. 269.

• J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China (Leyden, 1892, etc.), ii. 745.

36 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

adultery."^ Savages, lastly, hold that the soul of the wronged husband can return and punish the un- faithful wife.

A last mode of wifely chastity is that presented by one of the earliest of legal fictions — child-marriage. It is an obvious method of obtaining a safe option, and is practised fairly generally, if we include infant-be- trothal, over the world.

8. CONTINENCE AS INSTINCTIVE CHASTITY

Hitherto we have observed two main sources of the practice and theory of chastity, the first being the physiological process following upon detumescence and preceding tumescence, the second being proprietary sexual jealousy. It is clear that in the first we have the possibilities of a natural chastity, in the second the possibilities of an artificial, conventional chastity. In the first, again, is to be found the primary and per- manent source of chastity ; whether the second is to be styled in any sense primary is mainly a verbal question. There is no doubt that traditional sexual morality has a twofold foundation : proprietary jealousy, and a complex of emotions developing from the varied physiological and psychological processes which make up natural chastity. Our sexual morality," says Ellis, is thus, in reality, a bastard born of the union of property-morality with primitive ascetic morality. . . ." [And, he adds, it is necessary to insist on the economic element in our sexual morality, for " that is the element which has given it a kind of stability. . . ."] ^

^ Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Lon- don, 1 854-1855), ii. 187 ; W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne (London, 1890), ii. 326.

2 Havelock Ellis, Sex in Relation to Society : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vi. (Philadelphia, 19 10), 375.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 37

The effects of jealousy, thus crystallizing into marriage- law and a tradition of conventional chastity, the com- plement of that law, supply a notable example of sexual selection. Further consideration of psycho- physical origins must be postponed until we have dis- cussed the magical and religious uses and theories of chastity.

In the majority of these, throughout the lower culture, the end is secondary, derived, or diverted. Chastity is employed not as a natural self-control and regulation of the sexual impulse, but for a variety of ulterior objects. In the higher culture there also appears the idea of chastity as a good in itself. The theory of these secondary uses is multifarious ; the same result is sometimes due to one, sometimes to another, given reason. These reasons, mythical as they are, sometimes get to the psychological root of the matter, but, as a rule, have only a fanciful connexion with the end proposed. Yet to a remarkable degree, at least in primitive sociology, these uses, whatever their popular explanations, harmonize with biological facts, and the value of the explanations consists in having assisted (secondarily, as expressive of practices otherwise originating) the plastic nervous organism of man towards self-control, intelligent living, and general individual and social efficiency. When either practice or explanation is carried on into unsuitable conditions, or is pressed too far by priestly exploitation or social inertia, the conventional chastity involved disintegrates. This process becomes continuous, leading, after many experiments, slowly but surely, to a scientific develop- ment of that primal natural chastity with which man's sexual history began.

The social psychology of uncivilized peoples re- gards continence, temporary chastity ad hoc^ as a sort

38 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

of universal condition and infallible nostrum for all important undertakings and critical junctures.

In Noessa Laut it is believed that invulnerability in wa.1 results from sexual abstinence.^ The Kei Islanders practise continence before v^ar, and those who remain at home have to remain continent during its progress.^ The Malays follow the same rule ; it is believed that the bullets of those who break it lose their power Similarly they have a seven-days' taboo of continence during the fishing season.^ In Sarawak it is held that incontinence on the part of wives, while the men are collecting camphor, causes the camphor to be spoilt.^ The Halmaharese practise continence during war, believing that connexion with women is enervating.^ Continence is imposed on those at home also by the Motumotu of New Guinea, during war, hunting, fishing, or travelling.' The Dakota who wishes to succeed in any enterprise purifies himself by fasting, bathing, and continence. He also tries to induce a vision. The process is particularly stringent when the enterprise is war. A young man's weapons may on no account be touched by a woman. ^ The

^ Von Schmid [or Schmidt], " Aanteekeningen van de eilanden Saparoe, Haroe- koe, Noessa Laut, en van een gedeelte van de zuid-kust van Ceram, in vroegeren en lateren tijd," Tijdschrift van Neerlands Indie (Batavia, 1843), V. ii. 507.

2 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 223.

^ W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), p. 524.

• Ibid.^ p. 315.

^ C. Hose, in Sir J. G- Frazer, The Golden Bough ^ (London, 1911-1915), i. 124. ^ J. G. F. Riedel, " Galela und Tobeloresen," Zeitschrift fUr Ethnologic (Berlin, 1885), xvii. 69.

' James Chalmers, " Taoripi," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1898), xxvii, 327.

8 J. O. Dorsey, " A Study of Siouan Cults," Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth- nology (Washington, 1894 for 1889-1890), xi. 436, 444 ; James Adair, The History of the American Indians (London, 1775), p. 161.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 39

Seminoles held that " to sleep with women enervates and renders them unfit for warriors ; men therefore but seldom have their wives in the apartments where they lodge." ^ The Fijians practised a sort of Theban comradeship-in-arms, and abstinence from women was a rule of warriors.^ Celibacy for warriors was instituted by Tchaka among the Zulus, upon an already existing custom of continence.^ The Maoris were " tabued an inch thick " during war ; continence was a part of the deposit.* Similarly the warriors of Israel were " con- secrated," and therefore chaste.^ The practice was used by the Arabs, and was not obsolete in the second century of Islam. ^ The manslayer is generally isolated by taboo. After taking a head, the Dayak may have no intercourse with women. Among the Pelewans,^ the Marquesans,^ and the Natchez,^^ the warrior who has slain a foe must not approach his wife for three days, ten days, and six months. After the ceremonial eating

1 H. R. Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History ^ Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadelphia, 1851- 1860), V. 271.

^ T. Williams and J. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians (London, 1870), i. 45. ^ J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country (London, 1857), p. 47.

• E. Tregear, "The Maoris of New Zealand," Journal of the Anthropological

Institute (London, 1890), xix. no ; [E. F. Maning], New Zealand (London, 1863), pp. 96, 114.

^ I Samuel, xxi. 5 ; 2 Samuel, xi. 8 et seq. ; W. R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites^ (London, 1894), pp. 454-455. ^ Ibid., loc. cit.

' S. W. Tromp, " Uit de Salasila van Koetei," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederslandsch Indie ('s Gravenhage, 1888), xxxvii. 74.

^J. S. Kubary, Die socialen Einrichtungen der Palauer (Berlin, 1885), p.

131.

' G. H. von Langsdorff, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise um die Welt in den Jahretij 1803 bis l8oy (Frankfurt-a.-M. 1812), i. 114.

P. F. de Charlevoix, Histoire et description generale de la Nouvelle France (Paris, 1744), vi. 186.

40 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

of human flesh, this rule is observed for a year by the Kwakiutl of British Columbia.^

Cases have already been noted of the curious, but logical, notion, that the continence of friends and relatives has merit and efflciency. Thus the Chitome of the Congo makes his judicial circuit. During this all married people are obliged to be continent. The penalty for transgression is death. " The belief is that by such continence they preserve the life of their com- mon father." ^ The v^omen of Babar abstain from eating and intercourse v^hile the men are at war.^ Malagasy women must be chaste, or their men will be wounded.* Both the wife and sister of the Aleut are required to be chaste during the absence of the man.^ In East Africa it is believed that the unfaithfulness of the wife, while the man is hunting elephants, gives the quarry power over him.^

Equally instructive as to the incidence of secondary reasons is the case of the Australian and Hebrew warrior whose continence was connected with fear " lest the enemy should obtain the refuse of their persons, and thus be enabled to work their destruction by magic." ^ A variety of origin must be admitted for the conti- nence of mourning. In ancient India, ^ China,^ North

^ F, Boas, " The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians," Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute . . . l8g^ (Washington, 1897),

P- 537-

2 J. B. Labat, Relation historique de V£thiopie Occidentale (Paris, 1732), i. 254 ; W. W. Reade, Savage Africa (London, 1863), p. 362.

2 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 341.

• E. de Flacourt, Histoire de la grande isle Madagascar (Paris, 1661), p. 97.

^ Ivan PetroflF, Report on the Population, Industries, and Resources of Alaska : Report on the Tenth Census of the United States, VIII. ii. [Washington, 1884], p. 155.

• Paul Reichard, Deutsch-Ostafrika (Leipzig, 1892), p. 427.

' Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough ^ (London, 1911-1915), iii. 157-158.

® H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Berlin, 1894), pp. 578, 590.

8 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China (Leyden, 1892, etc.), ii. 609.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 41

America,^ and Indonesia,^ the rule applies to relatives, widow or widower, and to those who have handled the corpse. In such examples the biological analogy be- tween nutrition and reproduction is reasserted, and we constantly find a close connexion in both theory and practice between abstinence from intercourse and abstinence from food. " Fasting," said St. Chrysos- tom, is the beginning of chastity." ^ " Through love of eating," said Tertullian, " love of impurity finds passage." ^

The physiological purpose of temporary control here suggested, namely, the production of functional vigour, is well illustrated by numerous practices in reference to the growth of vegetation, where the principle of sympathetic influence is, of course, in- volved. Yet the virtues of self-control in the subject himself are at times equally involved. For instance, in Yucatan the manufacturers of the new idols had to fast and preserve their continence during the pro- cess.^ During the planting of cotton the Mayas ab- stained from salt, pepper, and stimulants, and did not sleep with their wives ; and in all their agriculture the principle was followed, in order that the night before sowing or planting they might " indulge their

^ James Adair, The History of the American Indians (London, 1775), p. 186; C. Hill Tout, " Report on the Stlatlumh of British Columbia," Journal of the An- thropological Institute (London, 1905), xxxv. 139; James Teit, "The Thompson Indians of British Columbia," Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition (New York, 1898-1900), i. 331.

^J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 94.

^ [St. John Chrysostom, Homilia in Epistolam II. ad Thessalonicenses, i. (towards the beginning of the moral).]

• [Tertullian, De jejunio, i.]

^ H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), ii. 690.

42 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

passions " to the fullest extent. Officials were ap- pointed to perform the sexual process at the moment when the seeds were placed in the ground.^ Sir James Frazer gives many examples of this sympathetic coitus and this sympathetic chastity.^ In Melanesia and New Guinea, [to give a few examples, men keep apart from their wives], while the yams are being trained, or to produce a good crop of bananas.^ In the Motu tribe a chief man becomes helaga^ and lives apart from his wife, eating only certain kinds of food.* Also in New Guinea and in the Torres Straits, chastity is observed while the turtles are coupling ; in the latter case it is believed that if unmarried persons are incontinent no turtle will be caught, as on the approach of a canoe the male turtle will separate from the female and the pair will dive in different directions.^ Similarly illicit love is commonly supposed to spoil the fertility of nature.

[Sir James Frazer explains the rule of continence, which is still imposed on strict Catholics during Lent, on the principles of sympathetic magic] To his ac- count may be added the suggestion that such beliefs are the outcome of biological processes, and that, like them, they have a rhythmical opposition. The sug- gestion is borne out by the remarkable phenomena of saturnalian proceedings, so frequently an accompani- ment of first-fruit or New Year celebrations. In these a period of continence precedes a culminating period

^ H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), ii. 719-720, iii. 507.

2 Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1911-1915).

^ James Chalmers, Pioneering in New Guinea (London, 1887), p. 181.

• J. Chalmers, loc. cit.

^ A. C. Haddon, *' The Ethnography of the Western Tribes of Torres Straits," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1890), xlx. 367, 397.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 43

of indulgence and debauchery. The swing of impulse is here, so to say, a social concentration of the rhythm of natural chastity, which keeps the balance between control and expenditure, between retraction and detumescence.

The principle of this conservation of energy was, we said, applied all round the sphere of important procedure in early society. Thus the Redskin medicine-man prepares for his professional visits by continence, just as the warrior similarly prepares for war. A variety of ends naturally induces a variety of reasons alleged, and in many cases it would be idle to question the reason given, or to trace it to any one source. For, as mythological science develops, any practice may be based on reasons which may be merely associational. Here convention has its opportunity. Thus, chastity seems in many cases to be practised for fear of infecting the partner with some particular virus. For example, those who have touched a corpse may have no inter- course with others.^ In other cases it implies the principle that suffering or self-mortification is grati- fying to supernatural beings. It may appease their anger, or excite their compassion.^ When this point is reached, the way is clear for a complete theory of the absolute merit of chastity in and for itself. This theory has, however, as foundation, the very opposite notion to that of mortification, namely, the notion of the impurity or sinfulness of the sexual act. The origin of this notion will be considered later. Mean-

^ James Adair, The History of the American Indians (London, 177^), p. 125. 2 E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 306.

^ Ibid., ii. 357-358 ; S. W. Tromp, " Uit de Salasila van Koetei," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie ('s Gravenhage, 1888), xxxvii. 32.

44 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

while we may observe that even in low cultures chastity per se at times is honoured. Thus, the people of Gilgit celebrate the ceremony of Seelo-ai Thali, the seat of chastity," in which extraordinary honours are paid to old women who have been chaste all their lives. It does not appear whether this chastity is material or virginal. As at Dunmow, candidates are examined. The woman is placed on a stone, and an official addresses the judge on the case. The judge is a white she-goat. This gives the verdict ; if it touches the seat of the candidate, she is declared to have been perpetually chaste. If the goat bleats and walks away, the candidate is rejected.^ The Tahitians again, held that, if a man refrained from all connexion with women for some months before his death, he would pass immediately into bliss without any purification.^ The difficulty of finding a reason for certain mis- cellaneous applications of chastity is not lessened by appealing to the " danger " with which the savage invests the sexual act, or to the magical " powers of it. We require to know why it is " magical," and hozu the magic works. The difficulty, again, of investigating this question is increased by the vagueness of savage ideas on the subject. Yet, however vague they may be, they must have an origin which comes under the law of probability, and they must be ultimately based on physiological phenomena. For the root of all human ideas, false or true, on the subject of sex, is, like that of the sexual impulse itself, the reproductive process.

The Masai, when making poison, isolates himself very strictly ; in particular, he must sleep alone. " The

^ G. Muhammad, in J.R.A.S. Be., I. vii. 102 [sic].

^ James Cook, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (London, 1784), il. 164.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 45

motive," as Sir James Frazer points out, "which in- duces the Masai poison-maker to keep aloof from his fellows is not any regard for them ; far from it, what he fears is not that the poison would hurt them, but that they would hurt the poison." This is the " avowed belief of the Masai." They also enjoin strict continence on the persons who brew honey-wine. " A man and a woman are chosen to brew the honey- wine, and it is considered essential that both of them should be chaste for two days before they begin to brew and for the whole of the six days that the brewing lasts. A hut is set apart for them, and they occupy it till the wine is ready for drinking ; but they are strictly forbidden to sleep together. . . . The Masai think that, if the couple were to break the rule of continence while the wine is brewing, not only would the wine be undrinkable, but the bees which made the honey would fly away." The writer adds : " The savage attributes to the relations of the sexes with each other a certain mysterious influence, a magical virtue, which the civilized man has long ceased to associate with such processes, and which he finds it hard even in imagin- ation to comprehend." We must, he insists, allow for " the element of superstition," in, for instance, marriage-customs. Some of such superstitions, " in- comprehensible though they may be to us, probably lie at the root of many customs which we still strictly observe without being able to assign any valid reason for doing so." ^

The case here discussed is typical. The mythology of social habit and religion is full of such notions, but the precise clue to the notion is generally lacking. The

Sir J. G. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy (London, 1910), ii. 411.

46 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Masai can say what would happen in the event of unchastity, but cannot inform us, for he does not himself know, how or why. Yet, though such myth- ology is interesting, it is not the most important part of sociology, nor does it give us the actual or biological reasons for a practice. It only gives us the savage's vague mental reaction to a process which was instituted without his volition, and still more without his con- sciousness. It is legitimate to use the term " instinct " of the habits which result from the correlation of structure and function, and we may therefore with more advantage speak of an instinct for chastity in such cases as the above, as we undoubtedly must in cases of natural chastity generally, where there is no ulterior end. The savage is not chaste, even for a special purpose, because the act of sex is " mysterious " or " magical " : he is chaste by an unreasoned instinct, which he explains as best he may, or not at all. That ignorance is the heart of the " mystery." It is only by taking into account this vagueness of mental realiza- tion that we can explain the saltation from animal- man, homo alalus^ to superstitious man ; nor can we otherwise explain the attitude of Vhomme moyen sensuel in civilization to questions like that of chastity. For his attitude is as unreasonable as that of the Masai, the only " mystery " about the object of his attention is his ignorance. The term " mystery," if applied at all, should be reserved for the unknowableness of ultimate facts.

9. CHASTITY AS HOLINESS

Still less can we take the step from any primitive conception of " magical virtue " or " supernatural danger " to the Mazdaean or Christian theory of the

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 47

" sinfulness " of the sexual act, as a motive for chastity. Such a step is an illegitimate process. Still less again can we pass therefrom to the conception that such acts are " impure," as distinguished from the so-called " uncleanness " of the taboo state.

The whole question involves the scientific aspect of chastity, no less than its religious application. The latter now falls to be considered before further dis- cussion is held. In primitive society, chastity forms part of the rules of isolation known as taboo ; it is thus enjoined on solemn occasions and at critical junctures. Among the Dayaks " personal taboo " is fasting and chastity. By this they think they disarm the evil spirits, who compassionate the humility and self- denial exhibited by the deprivation.^ Whatever the origin of such practices, the transition from them to chastity as a condition of ritual and worship is obvious and direct. In Central America, candidates for the order of Tecuhtli observed, during initiation, both fasting and continence.^ It may be taken as a universal rule that chastity is enforced upon adolescents dur- ing " initiations " at puberty.^ That this control is generally followed by intercourse shows not only that sexual education is one main purpose of these cere- monies, but that the rhythm of natural chastity — con- trol as preparatory for exercise of function — is the deep-seated biological origin of pubertal ritual.* The young Brahman, when he became in the ordinary

^ S. W. Tromp, " Uit de Salasila van Koetei," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie ('s Gravenhage, 1888), xxxvii. 32.

2 H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), ii. 197.

3 Ernest Crawley, T^e Mystic Rose ^, ed. by Theodore Besterman (London, 1927), ii. I et seq.

^ Ibid.f ii. 18 et seq.

48 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

course of his education a student of the Veda, took a vow of chastity.^

Passing to relations with the supernatural world, we find continence to be a part of the ceremonial purity necessary for such spiritual intercourse. A typ- ical case is supplied by Mazd^ism. The great business of life, according to Zarathushtra, is to avoid " im- purity," by which is implied a physical state, the prin- ciple being that everything which goes out of the body is defiling.^ In Islam strict continence is required on the pilgrimage to Mecca.^ Similarly it was required of the Hebrew congregation during the theophany at Sinai,^ and before entering the Temple.^ Ancient India, ^ Egypt, ^ and Greece ^ enforced the rule that the worshipper must abstain from women during and before worship. In Christianity, continence was required as a preparation for both Baptism and the Eucharist.^ It was further enjoined " that no married persons should participate in any of the great festivals of the Church if the night before they had lain together ; and in the " Vision " of Alberic, dating from the twelfth century, a special place of torture, consisting of a lake of mingled lead, pitch, and resin, is represented as existing in hell for the punishment of married people

^ [Apastamba, I. i. ii. 26.]

2 James Darmesteter, Introduction to The Zend-Avesta : The Sacred Books of the East jv. (Oxford, 1895), pp. \xxn et seq.

^ W. R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites ^ (London, 1928), pp. 454, 481 ; Qur'an, ii. 193.

^ Exodus, xix. 15 ; W. R. Smith, op. cit., p. 455.

^ Leviticus, xv. 31-33.

^ H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Berlin, 1894), p. 411. ' Herodotus, Historia, ii. 64.

^ W. Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumskunde ^ (Halle, 1846), ii. 560. ^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 417.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 49

who have had intercourse on Sundays, church festivals, or fast-days. They abstained from the marriage-bed at other times also, when they were disposed more freely to give themselves to prayer. Newly-married couples were admonished to practise continence during the wedding day and the night following, out of rev- erence for the Sacrament ; and in some instances their abstinence lasted even for two or three days.^

In support of the view that holiness is a delicate quality which is easily destroyed if anything polluting is brought into contact with the holy object or person," Dr. Westermarck brings forward some important data from the life of the modern Moors. They believe that " if anybody who is sexually unclean enters a granary, the grain will lose its baraka, or holi- ness." But the holiness reacts " quite mechanically against pollution, to the destruction or discomfort of the polluted individual. All Moors are convinced that any one who in a state of sexual uncleanness would dare to visit a saint's tomb would be struck by the saint, but the Arabs of Dukkala, in Southern Morocco, also believe that if an unclean person rides a horse some accident will happen to him on account of the baraka with which the horse is endowed." Again, " an act generally regarded as sacred would, if per- formed by an unclean individual, lack that magic efficacy which would otherwise be ascribed to it. . . . The Moors say that a scribe is afraid of evil spirits only when he is sexually unclean, because then his reciting of passages of the Koran — the most powerful weapon against such spirits — would be of no avail." ^

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 417,

^ Ibid. J op. cit., ii. 417-418.

4

50 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Similarly lamblichus states that the gods do not hear him who invokes them if he is impure from venereal connexions." ^ Tertullian recommends tem- porary abstinence as a means of adding efficacy to prayer.^ Illicit love is frequently supposed to injure the growth of crops ; sexual relations were supposed by the Efatese to be " defiling," and to destroy the " sacredness " of " sacred men." ^ The Chibchas, and other peoples, held that the most acceptable sacrifice was a virgin who had had no intercourse with men.* Throughout folklore runs the idea that second-sight, and the vision of the supernatural, are especially, if not solely, the privilege of the virgin. Here may be noted also the practice of continence, analogous to and contemporary with that of fasting, as a means of in- ducing spiritual hallucination. Westermarck favours the explanation that pollution destroys holiness, but religious chastity is already more than half artificial ; and, though we may trace it now to one, now to another, original source, and though in some cases its alleged reason is different from that given in others, we must regard it as a complex and self-subsisting institution, supported by inertia and by its general harmony with the social psychology of its environment. We cer- tainly cannot pin it down to one definite pattern of origination.

The analogy between " initiation " of youth at puberty and " initiation " of priests is little more than verbal. Though religious prostitution has often been an institution, and priestesses, for instance, have prac-

^ lamblichus, De Mysterits, Iv. li.

^ Tertullian, De exhortatione castitatis, x.

2 Duff Macdonald, Oceania (Melbourne and London, 1889), p. 181.

• T. Waitz, Anthropologic der Naturvblker (Leipzig, 1859-1872), iv. 363.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 51

tised physical chastity for the purpose of intercourse with the god, or abstention from secular in favour of priestly unions, and though, again, the feeling of con- trol and power produced by continence plays its part in the production of spiritual insight, as in adolescence it is connected with ideal aspirations no less than with physical vigour, — ^we cannot assign generally the same reasons for chastity as a natural concomitant of puberty and for chastity as an artificial rule of the priesthood.

The ancient medicine-man more or less invariably submits to continence as a condition of his novitiate. The Marquesan candidate for the priesthood had to be chaste for some years beforehand.^ The skaga of the Haidas recognizes his vocation by a tendency to dream and to see visions. He undergoes a severe training ; eats little food, but many herbs, especially moneses ; and refrains from sexual intercourse. At the end his mind is more or less deranged, but his social influence is secured.^ Among the Tshi-peoples, can- didates, whether men or women, are trained for two or three years ; " during this period of retirement and study, the novices must keep their bodies pure, and refrain from all commerce with the other sex." ^

Curiously enough, we often find, as if to confuse entirely all attempts at single-key explanations, cases where marital chastity only is required. The candidate for the shaman's ofliice among the Huichols is required to have been previously faithful to his wife for five years.* The high priest of the Hebrews was required

^ Mathias G***, lies Marquises (1843), p. 62.

2 George M. Dawson, Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands^ l8y8 : Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress for l8y8-yg (Montreal, 1880), p. 122 B.

^ Sir A. B. Ellis, The Tshi- speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (Lon- don, 1887), p. 120.

• C. Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico (London, 1903), ii. 236.

52 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

to be chaste." He married, but was forbidden to marry a harlot, a profane woman, a divorced wife, and even a widow. " Unchastity " in his daughter was punished by burning, for she had " profaned " her father.^ The " dairy priest " of the Todas lives a celibate life,^ while among the neighbouring Kotas he is married, but at the great festival of Kamataraya he may have no intercourse for fear of pollution.^ The priests of ancient Mexico, during the whole of their service, were maritally chaste ; they even affected so much modesty and reserve that, when they met a woman, they fixed their eyes on the ground that they might not see her. Any incontinence amongst the priests was severely punished. The priest who, at Teo- huacan, was convicted of having violated his chastity, was delivered up by the priests to the people, who at night killed him by the bastinado.* Burning or stoning was the penalty for incontinence by the unmarried priests of Nicaragua.^ The same rule and penalty were observed in the cases of Zapotec priests and the Mexican nuns. The Yucatecs had virgins dedicated to the service of fire ; those who violated their vow of chastity were shot to death with arrows. The priests of Tilantongo had their food prepared by women devoted to chastity. The pontiff of Yopaa, who was almost a rival of the Zapotec king, had to be " a shining light of chastity " to the priests under him. Yet on one or two days in the year he became ceremonially drunk

^ Leviticus, xxi. 7, 14, 9.

2 W. H. R. Rivers, The 'Todas (London, 1906), pp. 80, 99.

2 Edgar Thurston, " Anthropology of the Todas and Kotas of the Nilgiri Hills," Bulletin [of the] Madras Government Museum (Madras, 1896), vol. i., No. 4, p. 193.

• F. S. Clavigero, The History of Mexico (London, 1781), i. 274.

^ H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1 875- 1 876), iii. 496, 499.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 53

and cohabited with the most beautiful of the virgins of the temple.^ In ancient Anatolia the married priests during their " course " separated from their wives.^

We have already overstepped the artificial line between temporary continence and perpetual ab- stinence in those dedicated to supernatural relations. That natural chastity (namely, the regulation of the sexual life by bringing both continence and expression under the will and by emphasizing the former in pro- portion to the explosive nature of the latter) should be elevated into an art, however crudely and irrationally, is not surprising when once the differentiation of social functions has begun. Nor, again, can we wonder that it was most widely undertaken by, and has lasted longest among, the class which first showed a sensitive reaction to psycho-physical states — the professors of magic and religion. When once started as a habit in such a class, a variety of influences inevitably tended to convert such chastity into asexuality, and normal continence into abnormal abstinence. As Rohleder points out, strict abstinence is a physiological impos- sibility, and therefore has never existed except in the worst cases of anaesthesia, since it must involve ab- stinence, not merely from sexual intercourse, but from auto-erotic manifestations, from masturbation, from homo-sexual acts, from all sexually perverse practices. It must further involve a permanent abstention from indulgence in erotic imaginations and voluptuous reverie." ^

^ H. H. Bancroft, op. cit., ii. 204-205, iii. 435, 473, ii. 143.

2 Sir W. M. Ramsay, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford, 1895, 1897),

i. 136-137? 150-151-

' Havelock Ellis, Sex in Relation to Society : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vi. (Philadelphia, 1910), pp. 196-197, citing Rohleder, " Die Abstinentia Sexualis," Zeitschrift fiir Sexualzvissettschaft (November, 1908).

54 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

This very fact has, in a sense, made the attempt more enticing, and has produced phenomena which, as is clear from the history of chastity and cehbacy in Chris- tianity, constitute at once the tragedy and the romance of the " spiritual " life. Ignorance of sexual physi- ology, and in particular of the slow and wide process of irradiation involved by tumescence, has also con- tributed in every age to conceal the hopelessness of the attempt to set up an asexual life. But, as was noted, the step towards making continence ad hoc a perpetual abstinence, an asexual institution, was in- evitable. A host of sentiments combined to render abstinence, or celibacy, or other varieties of the in- stitution, as meritorious in their sphere as female chastity was in a sphere so widely different in character and in origin. When chastity thus becomes a virtue, it has lost its meaning ; it is no longer an extension, but a perversion of itself. In the one case, of women, it is not chastity, but either pre-nuptial virginity or marital fidelity that is honoured under the term ; in the other case, of religious persons, it is, in the married, a combination of attempted anaesthesia and of marital fidelity ; in the celibate, an attempted anaesthesia and abstinence, marked either by lapses or by perversions — in particular, erotic imaginings diverted to super- natural relations.

Dr. Westermarck has reviewed the occurrence of priestly continence as an institution and a professional virtue. To sketch the history of priestly celibacy, or the phenomena of the sexual life of monks and nuns, is impossible here. Some comparative examples and a brief discussion of the Christian institution may suffice for the illustration of the idea of chastity.

Professional abstinence has never been more fer-

t

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 55

ociously exploited than in the ancient civilizations of Central America. Some cases have already been adduced. The temple-women of Mexico were pun- ished for unchastity with death.^ The high priest of Ichcatlan, if he broke his vow, was cut in pieces, and the limbs handed to his successor as a visible example.^ In Bogota ^ and Guatemala * the priests were celibate. The Virgins of the Sun in Peru were devoted to life- long chastity " and seclusion. Lay women also at times took a vow of " chastity " ; they were held in great veneration for their chastity and purity, and, as a mark of worship and respect, they were called Ocllo, which was a name held sacred in their " idolatry." Failure to preserve the vow involved the punishment of being burned at the stake or cast into the lake of lions." ^ The Sun-god was regarded as the husband of the virgins in his service. They were of necessity daughters of the Inca ; for, " though they imagined that the Sun had children, they considered that they ought not to be bastards, with mixed divine and human blood. So the virgins were of necessity legitimate and of the blood royal, which was the same as being of the family of the Sun." Thus did the Peruvians solve the problem of incarnation by birth. The violator of a Virgin of the Sun was executed in the same way as a violator of an Inca's daughter.^ Permanent continence

^ F. S. Clavlgero, The History of Mexico (London, 1787), i. 275-276 ; H. H. Ban- croft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875- 1876), iii. 435.

^ F. S. Clavigero, op. cit., i. 274.

^ R. M. Dorman, The Origin of Primitive Superstitions (Philadelphia, 188 1), p. 384.

• H. H. Bancroft, op. cit.., iii. 489.

^ Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas (London, 1869-1871), i. 291, 305. ^ Ibid.., i. 292, 300.

56 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

was necessary for the ThHnket shaman, if he was to maintain his efficiency. In Paraguay and Patagonia we hear respectively of celibate wizards and virgin witches.^ The guardian of the sacred pipe of the Blackfeet has to be chaste and to fast periodically

Virgin priestesses were in high honour among the Guanches of the Canary Islands, and the ancient Persians, Greeks, and Romans. The first named, the Magades, or Harimagades, were under the direction of the high priest ; others whose chief duty was the baptism of new-born children, were allowed to resign their office, and marry The virgin priestesses of Persia were devoted to the service of the Sun.* Scat- tered over Greece were shrines ministered at by virgins, such as that to Hera at Aegium ; the priestesses who chanted the oracles at Delphi and Argos were virgins ; many priests were eunuchs ; the hierophant and other ministers of Demeter were celibates, and bathed in hemlock-juice to mortify desire.^

Numa was said to have instituted the order of Vestal Virgins. They remained unmarried for thirty years. To be buried alive was the penalty for breaking the vow of chastity. Few retired after the thirty years. ^ The Vestal Virgins were distinguished by

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 406.

2 William W. Warren, " History of the Ojibways, based upon Traditions and Oral Statements," Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society (St. Paul, 1885), V. 68.

^ J. B. M. G. Bory de Saint-Vincent, Essais sur les Isles Fortunecs et V antique Atlantide (Paris, an XI. [1803]), pp. 96-97.

• E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 407.

^ Josef Miiller, Das sexuelle Leben der alten Kulturvolker (Leipzig, 1867), p. 44 et seq. ; W. Wachsmuth, Hellenische Altertkumskunde ^ (Halle, 1846), ii. 560; VausTLxn^xs^ Descriptio Graecia, IL xxiv. i ; Strabo, Geographica, xiv. 1-23 ; TertuUian, De exhortatione castitatis, xiii.

^ Plutarch, Numa, x. 7 et seq. ; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitaium Roman- arumj ii. 64-67.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 57

extraordinary influence and personal dignity ; they supply the classical example of womanly merit when separated artificially from her biological function. " They were treated with marks of respect usually accorded to royalty ; thus on the streets they were preceded by a lictor, and the highest magistrates made way for them ; they sometimes enjoyed the exceptional privilege of riding in a carriage ; at public games a place of honour was assigned to them ; and after death they, like the Imperators, were allowed to be buried within the city walls ' because they were above the laws.' Again, they enjoyed the royal privilege of mercy ; for, if they met a criminal on the way to execution, his life was spared." ^ Yet, after Sir James Frazer's investigation, it seems that their virginity is of accidental origin. The chief's daughter among the Damaras who keeps up the holy fire " is a savage parallel ; that she remained unmarried is not stated. " The Perpetual fire " in an early village would be most likely to be maintained in the chief's house, and the persons who would most naturally look after it w^ould be the chief's wife or daughters." ^ Lafitau speaks of " vestal virgins " among the Iraquois.^ In ancient Ireland ^ and Lithuania ^ there seem to have been holy fires tended by virgins. In Yucatan virgin priestesses tended the fire in the temple.^

^ Sir J. G. Frazer, " The Prytaneum, the Temple of Vesta, the Vestals, Perpetual Fires," The Journal of Philology (London and Cambridge, 1885), xiv. 155. 2 Ibid., p. 162.

' J. F. Lafitau, Moeurs des sauvages amcriquains comparees aux mceurs des premiers temps (Paris, 1724), i. 173.

• William Camden, Britannia (Londini, 1594), p- 747.

^ A. Bastian, Der Mensch in der Geschichte (Leipzig, i860), iii. 215.

® H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), iii. 473.

S8 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

No race has shown such sexual sensibility and know- ledge of the science and art of love as the Hindus. Though we hear little or nothing of female virginity, marital chastity on the part of wives has been enjoined and honoured from immemorial times ; while both natural chastity and sacerdotal, whether marital or celibate, has been continuously upheld and honoured. Social and individual differentiation explains the fact that Hindu religion has no inconsistency between practice and precept, with regard either to the status of women or to the vocation of male celibacy. The commencement of this, as we have seen, may be in the ancient rule of continence during the Brahman's study of the Veda, and its original explanation is more clear than usual, and doubtless to be found in an extension of natural chastity to appropriate individuals.^ Thus Manu says, let not a Brahman who desires manly strength behold his wife setting off her eyes with collyrium, or anointing herself with oil, or when she is in deshabille or bringing forth a child." ^ And again, " let him not see a woman naked." ^ In the Bower MS. we read that, " counselling with reference to acquisition of health and strength, the blessed Atreya said : ' Caution in diet is threefold, but abstinence from sexual intercourse is of fourfold value.' " * The Sannyasi had and has a rule never to look at a woman.^

Monastic celibacy developed in Buddhism. The mother of Buddha was extremely " pure " ; she had no other son ; her conception was supernatural.^ Sen-

^ For chastity among the earliest Brahmans, see H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Berlin, 1894), pp. 271, 411 et seq., 417, 429 et seq.j 468, 588.

2 The Laws of Manu, iv. 44.

3 Ibid., iv. 53.

• A. F. R. Hoernle, The Bower Manuscript (Calcutta, 1893- 1897), ii. 142.

• J. A. Dubois, Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies (Oxford, 1897), p. 533.

8 T. W. Rhys Davids, Buddhism (London, 1881), p. 148.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 59

suality is inconsistent with wisdom and holiness ; " a wise man should avoid married life, as if it were a burning pit of live coals." And again, " From con- tact comes sensation, from thirst clinging ; by ceasing from that the soul is delivered from all sinful existence." " Buddha's Church," one authority has it, " is a church of monks and nuns. ' Very straitened,' it is said, ' is life in the home, a state of impurity ; freedom is in leaving the home.' " There is an eightfold abstinence for the laity, including avoidance of " unchastity." ^ The monk is forbidden carnal intercourse. " The monk who lowers himself to touch a woman's person with corrupt thoughts, while he clasps her hand or clasps her hair or touches one part or another of her body, the Order inflicts on him degradation." ^ The present ordination vow is to abstain from all sexual intercourse, as long as life shall last.^ The Jains enforce the rule to abstain from all sexual relations " either with gods, or men, or animals ; not to discuss topics relating to women ; not to contemplate the forms of women." * There is, however, a compro- mise in the form of an oath of conjugal fidelity instead of an oath of abstinence.^ Some Lamas may marry, but these are less holy than the celibates. Ti- betan nuns are in all cases continent.^ In Chinese Buddhism and Taoism the celibacy of priests is observed."^ The Chinese are peculiarly free from

• Sir M. Mornier- Williams, Buddhism (London, 1889), p. 88 ; H. Oldenberg,

Buddha (London, 1882), pp. 381 et seq,

• Ibid., op. cit., pp. 373-374-

' H. Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism (Strassburg, 1896), p. 79.

• E. W. Hopkins, The Religions of India (London, 1896), p. 294.

• J. G. Buhler, On the Indian Sect of the Jainas (London, 1903).

^ Andrew Wilson, The Abode of Snow (Edinburgh and London, 1876), p. 213. ' E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ' (London, 1912-1917), ii. 409.

6o STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

conventional restraints upon the sexual life, yet they honour chastity in both sexes.^ Lust is condemned ; [in the words of a proverb], " Of the myriad vices, lust is the worst." ^

In a race of a very different character, the West Africans, proverbially sensual, the virgin priestess is peculiarly influential, and the celibate priest is not unknown. In Lower Guinea we are told of a priest- king who was not even allowed to touch a woman.^ Among the Tshi- and Ewe-peoples there are priestesses who are forbidden to marry. Of the former it is observed that a priestess belongs to the god she serves, and therefore cannot become the property of a man, as would be the case if she married one." ^ The latter are regarded as the wives of the god, but their chief function is religious prostitution. The best-looking girls are selected ; they remain novices for three years, " learning the chants and dances peculiar to the v/orship of the gods, and prostituting themselves to the priests and the inmates of the male seminaries ; and at the termination of their novitiate they become public prostitutes." ^

When we come to civilization, we generally find, at least among the Christian peoples of the West, an ambiguous attitude towards chastity. This is chiefly the result of the loss of two primitive complementary habits — a loss which is due to the increase of intelli-

1 S. Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom (New York, 1883), ii. 193.

2 Arthur H. Smith, The Proverbs and Common Sayings of the Chinese (Shanghai, 1888), p. 256.

^ A. Bastian, Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Kiiste (Jena, 1874-1875), i. 287-288.

^ Sir A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (Lon- don, 1887), p. 121.

^ Id., The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1890), p. 140 et seq.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 6i

gence on the one hand, and the diffusion of the ele- ments of society on the other. These habits are, first, the unconscious exercise of control for definite ends. This is very pronounced among savages, and " the special virtues of savagery — hardness, endurance, and bravery — are intimately connected with the culti- vation of chastity and asceticism. It is true that savages seldom have any ideal of chastity in the degraded modern sense, as a state of permanent abstinence from sexual relationships having a merit of its own apart from any use. They esteem chastity for its values, magical, or real, as a method of self-control which contributes towards the attainment of important ends. The ability to bear pain and restraint is nearly always a main element in the initiation of youths at puberty. The custom of refraining from sexual intercourse before expeditions of war and hunting, and other serious concerns involving great muscular and mental strain, whatever the motives assigned, is a sagacious method of economizing energy. The extremely widespread habit of avoiding intercourse during pregnancy and suckling, again, is an admirable precaution in sexual hygiene which it is extremely difficult to obtain the observance of in civilization. Savages, also, are per- fectly well aw^are, how valuable sexual continence is, in combination with fasting and solitude, to acquire the aptitude for abnormal spiritual powers." ^

Such loss, whether temporary or permanent, [of the exercise of control for definite ends], seems to be an inevitable concomitant of the passage from a more to a less natural " mode of existence. The comple- mentary loss is that of the taboos and magical formis

^ Havelock Ellis, Sex in Relation to Society : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vL (Philadelphia, 1910), p. 145.

62 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

which served as a theoretical ground for natural chas- tity. Ellis quotes the remarks of an old Maori who states that the decline of his race was entirely due to the loss of the ancient religious faith in the taboo.^

Sexual taboos undoubtedly were the expression of an instinctive biological sense of the sacredness of the sexual impulse. This sense is inevitably lost in the commencement of civiHzation, and the problem, now just beginning to be realized, is how to reinstate it. Scientific enlightenment is the new ground for this sense ; the difficulty, however, is to overcome social inertia. In Christendom, two thousand years have passed in an ambiguous, unreasoned, and in the worst sense superstitious, attitude towards the sexual life. Westermarck finds that " irregular connexions between the sexes have on the whole exhibited a tendency to increase along with the progress of civilization ; " and Gibbon had already noted that, " although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity." This long process of " marking time " seems, however, to be sociologically normal. In such periods of transition, the form of society is first settled, on lines coincident with industrial and economic necessity, then the re- ligious question comes to be considered, last of all the problem of sex. Men are in no hurry to solve the question which more than any other involves the future prosperity of the race. In the meantime the practical question of sexual life is a hand-to-mouth affair, when it is not given over to false ideals or de- graded values. Westermarck and Havelock Ellis have

Havelock Ellis, op. cit., p. 147 n. [quoting " an Auckland newspaper."]

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 63

discussed this transition period in the history of chastity which commenced with Christianity, and is now showing signs of completion. The latter remarks that " the main difference in the social function of chastity as we pass from savagery to higher stages of culture seems to be that it ceases to exist as a general hygienic measure or a general ceremonial observance, and, for the most part, becomes confined to special philosophic or religious sects which cultivate it to an extreme degree in a more or less professional way. This state of things is well illustrated by the Roman Empire during the early centuries of the Christian era. Christianity itself was at first one of these sects enamoured of the ideal of chastity ; but by its superior vitality it replaced all the others and finally imposed its ideals, though by no means its primitive practices, on European society generally."^

Christianity was, on the one hand, part of the Hebrew tradition, in which there was a frank recognition of sexual impulses, and a reverence for them, com- bined with ideas of ceremonial pollution as the result of intercourse — or typically savage attitude. But it rejected this, though accepting the Old Testament, its embodiment. Instead it chose an attitude like that of the Essenes or the Essene attitude itself. On the other hand, it was instinct with a fierce reaction against pagan indulgence. By a very curious irony, its decision to war against sexuality involved it in a perpetual relation with sex ; Christianity was, as Ellis puts it, obsessed by the idea of sex. This attitude cannot altogether be separated from pruriency, but at its highest moments it was much more than that, and, as Ellis was the first to point out, it forms an entirely

1 Havelock Ellis, op. cit., pp. 150-151.

/

64 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

new element of progress in the evolution of sexual ideas.

[Without entering into the details of the sexual practices condemned by early Christianity, we may note, as typical of the whole attitude, the doctrine of the Essenes, who] rejected " pleasure as an evil, but esteem continence and the conquest over our pas- sions to be virtue. They neglect wedlock." ^ St. Paul said : He that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well ; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better." And again : " It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her husband." As for the unmarried and widows, It is better to marry than to burn." ^ Woman, says Tertullian, is the gate of Hell. Inter faeces et urinam nascimur " is Augustine's famous epigram. He had, it is true, no ascetic contempt for sex, and indeed asserts that in Paradise, if sin had not entered, " Sexual conjugation would have been under the control of the will without any sexual desire. There would not have been any words which could be called obscene, but all that might be said of these members, would have been as pure as what is said of the other parts of the body." ^ Yet he held very strongly the theory of original sin. It is the fact that sin is hereditary, and that sin has its special symbol in the organs of generation, that makes sex a shameful thing. It is sin that brings them into connexion with lust. The argument seems to be circu- lar but Augustine's influence carried his opinion. With more fanaticism, St. Bernard speaks of man as " noth-

^ Josephus, De Bella Judaico, II. viii. 2.

2 I Corinthians, vii. 1-2, 9, 38 5 cp. Revelation, xiv. 4, Matthew, xix. 12. ^ St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, xiv. 23.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 65

ing else than fetid sperm, a sack of dung, the food of worms. . . . You have never seen a viler dunghill." [...]

Whatever the influence of the Christian tradition or the Christian environment, the fact remains that not only chastity, but virginity, became the radiant ideal. Jesus, John the Baptist, St. Paul, and others, were virgins. Virginity worked miracles ; by it Miriam crossed the sea, and Thecle was spared from the lions. It is a spring flower, exhaling immortality from its petals.^ Cyprian speaks of those women whose husband is Christ.^ The Virgin Mary similarly had dedicated herself as a virgin to God.* Virgins were known to have committed suicide to prevent the loss of their virginity. Such an act admitted some to canonization. Jerome argued in favour of such suicide.^ Augustine concludes that these suicides are worthy of compassion, but declares that there was no necessity for the act, since " chastity is a virtue of the mind which is not lost by the body being in captivity to the will of another." ^ As for married life, the procreation of children is the only reason for the sexual act ; no desire further than what is thereto necessary is allowed."^

[Henceforward, after a period in which the joys of chastity were celebrated as yielding erotic pleasures greater than those to be found in actual sexual rela- tions], the ideals of the Church were imposed as com- pulsory celibacy on priests, and " chastity " fell into a barbarous regression, which the Renaissance and

^ St. Bernard, Meditationes, iii.

2 St. Clement, Epistola I. ad Virgines, vi. ; St. Ambrose, Epistolae, Ixiii. 34 ; St. Methodius, Conviv. derem Virginum, vii. I.

^ St. Cyprian, De Habitu Virginum, 4, 22. * Pseudo-Matthew, 8.

^ St. Jerome, Commentarii in Jonam, i. 12.

^ St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, i. 16.

' Athenagoras, Legatio pro Christianis, xxxiii.

5

66 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Reformation only tempered by preserving in law the proprietary rights of married men, and by fostering a conventional residuum of ideas of chastity for the unmarried. " The institution of clerical celibacy," says Westermarck, " lowered the estimation of virtue by promoting vice. During the Middle Ages unchas- tity was regarded as an object of ridicule rather than censure, and in the comic literature of the period the clergy are universally represented as the great corrup- ters of domestic virtue. Whether the tenet of chastity laid down by the code of Chivalry was taken more seriously may be fairly doubted. A knight, it was said, should be abstinent and chaste ; he should love only the virtues, talents, and graces of his lady ; and love was defined as the ' chaste union of two hearts by virtue wrought.' But . . . we have reason to believe that the amours in which he indulged with her were of a far less delicate kind." ^ The lady was, as a rule, required to be a married woman.

Here, in a sense, is an attempt, like some we have noted, to divorce love from the biological accompani- ments of it. Another form, more like the early Chris- tian and the Greek, was that celebrated by Dante and his congeners — life-long devotion without any intimacy. What remained of these developments, up to modern days was male gallantry, and the love interest of the novel and the play.

10. CHASTITY TO-DAY

The attitude of the chief peoples of to-day towards chastity may now be glanced at. It is, and the fact is significant, fairly simple, and extraordinarily identical.

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 432.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 67

In Islam " chastity," that is, abstinence from sexual intercourse, is the essential duty of woman, married or unmarried. Nothing more is required as an explanation than the position of Muhammadan women. " For unmarried men, on the other hand,

• chastity ' is by Muhammadans at most looked upon

as an ideal almost out of reach." ^ Yet there is more incontinence in Christian countries than in Islam, while the Muhammadan attitude is less ambiguous. As always, they assert the sanctity of sex no less than the sanctity of physical cleanliness.

In India, not only is asceticism practised by in- dividuals and groups, but " sexual love has been sanc- tified and divinized to a greater extent than in any other part of the world. ... It seems never to have entered into the heads of the Hindu legislators that anything natural could be offensively obscene, a singu- larity which pervades all their writings, but is no proof of the depravity of their morals. . . . Love in India, both as regards theory and practice, possesses an im- portance which it is impossible for us even to conceive."^ The details of generation have for ages found a place in Hindu religious ritual. Yet, and here again owing to the status of women, sexual impurity is scarcely considered a sin in the men, but in the females nothing is held more execrable or abominable." ^ Very simi- lar is the attitude of China and Japan.

In modern Western civilization there is a great variety of minor differences, but the main facts are the same. Property-morality is employed to sanction

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 428.

2 Havelock Ellis, Sex in Relation to Society : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vi. (Philadelphia, 1910), p. 129 (quoting authorities).

" E. A. Westermarck, op. cit.^ ii. 428 (quoting authorities).

68 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

wifely " chastity." Among the unmarried, male incontinence is winked at by the world, but female incontinence is reprobated. Prostitution flourishes, while it is calculated that at least half of the sexual intercourse that occurs in Western nations is outside the bonds of wedlock. Economic considerations have much to do with this, but the whole problem is an extensive one, and cannot be more than alluded to here. As for the minor differences, the European has added, whether through the influence of the Chris- tian tradition or because of a psychical character, " the vice of hyprocrisy, which apparently was little known in sexual matters by pagan antiquity," ^ and is also little known by the other great races of the present day. The churches do not help to solve the problem by preaching total abstinence and encouraging scientific ignorance ; their attitude is part of the conventional sexual morality of the time. They can aid in the scientific rehabilitation of a natural chastity only by joining hands with science. Western science to-day has begun this work by a thorough study of the sexual impulse, and important pioneering has been effected in the education of the intelligent upon these subjects and in the development of eugenic research.

II. BIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS

Some considerations of biological reasons for the various phenomena of chastity which have been re- viewed may finally be given in connexion with the question how far the psychic nature of the modern type of humanity is likely to be affected by the multiple tradition, or whether this exists merely as an atmo-

• E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 434.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 69

sphere which is inert and unused for life-processes, the latter being only such as are adapted to the present environment.

Chastity, as it is now defined, may be said to exist only among savages in a natural state, who allow pre- nuptial intercourse. Its origin is purely biological. Taboo is merely an emotional and legal irradiation from it. The exercise of control at puberty has been noted. During menstruation, pregnancy, and suckling, the savage also observes continence.^ During the last condition it is possible that the separation is physi- cally beneficial to mother and child ; during the first, union is attended, except towards the end of the period, with discomfort to the woman. During the time of suckling, it is a wise provision to prevent another conception too soon for the health of the child at the mother's breast, and there seems to be a connexion between premature weaning and renewal of intercourse. It is significant that certain peoples recognize this application of continence so clearly that at a suitable date after birth the man and wife are re-married.^ Of equal biological importance is the continence ob- served by primitive peoples immediately prior to marriage and after engagement, and more particularly for some time after marriage itself.

Thus, amongst the Narrinyeri it was " a point of decency for the couple not to sleep close to each other for the first two or three nights ; on the third or fourth night the man and his wife sleep together

^ See Ernest Crawley, The Mystic Rose ^, ed. by Theodore Besterman (London, 1927), i. 75, 239 ; E. A. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage^ (London, 1921), iii. 66 et seq. ; id.^ The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 399, ii. 388, 391.

^ Ernest Crawley, op. cit., ii. 193 et seq.

70 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

under the same rug." ^ In South Celebes all intimacy is forbidden during the wedding-night.^ In Achin they do not come together for seven nights.^ In Endeh * and the Babar Islands ^ the same rule is ob- served. Similarly among the Dayaks,^ Madurese, and Sundanese.^ Among the Wufurs consummation takes place on the fifth day ; on the first night the couple are set back to back ; and this is repeated each night. Each morning when the man departs, it is forbidden them to look at one another, " a sign of her maiden shame." ^ Nutkas^^ and Thlinkets^^ may not con- summate marriage till after ten days and four weeks respectively. In Egypt it is customary for husbands to deny themselves their conjugal rights during the first week after marriage with a virgin bride.^^ The bride and groom among the Aztecs were continent for four days,^^ the Mazatecs for fifteen,^* the Otomis for twenty or thirty .^^

^ E. M. Curr, The Australian Race (Melbourne and London, 1886-1887), ii.

245.

2 B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de Ethnologic van Zuider-Celebes ('s Gravenhage, 1875)5 P- 35-

3 J. A. Kruijt, Atjeh en de Atjehers (Leyden, 1877), p. 193.

• S. Roos, " lets over Endeh," Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volken-

kunde (Batavia and 's Hage, 1877), xxiv- 525.

^ J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('8 Gravenhage, 1886), p. 351.

^ M. T. H. Perelaer, Ethnographische beschrijving der Dajaks (Zalt-Bomnel, 1870), p. 53.

' P. J. Veth, Java (Haarlem, 1886-1907), i. 365.

8 W. L. Ritter, Java (Leyden, 1855), p. 29.

• J. B. von Hasselt, " Die Nveforezen [sic for Noeforezen]," Zeitschrijt fiir Eth- nologic (Berlin, 1876), viii. 181 seq.

10 H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (Nevir York, 1875-1876), i. 198. '^'^ Ibid., i. III.

12 E. W. Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (London, 1871), ii. 273.

"H. H. Bancroft, op. cit., ii. 258. Ibid., ii. 261.

1^ Ibid., ii. 670.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 71

Such customs are undoubtedly to be ultimately explained as Ellis explains them. The long process of irradiation of the complex nervous mechanism, which is necessary for tumescence and for the proper per- formance of the sexual act, needs delay and many pre- liminaries. The sexual act is not one to be executed by muscular force alone. Hence the phenomena of courtship itself. " The need for delay and considerate skill is far greater when, as among ourselves, a woman's marriage is delayed long past the establishment of puberty to a period when it is more difficult to break down the psychic and perhaps even physical barriers of personality." ^ The need is increased also in propor- tion to the higher development of the sexual impulse in civilization. One great component of that impulse is female modesty In seeking for an answer to the question, why has sexual intercourse between un- married people, even if both parties consent, come to be regarded as wrong ? , Westermarck refers to the growth of " affection " and to the instinct for seclusion during the satisfaction of sexual as, in primitive times, of other needs, such as hunger and thirst. Add to these considerations the nervous tone and control produced by a natural chastity, and there are already grounds for a scientific and religious recognition and regulation of a sexual life which is in relation to bio- logical facts.

Two contingent sources of chastity are good ex- amples of inertia, producing the same result from different directions. The former is biologically real,

1 Havelock Ellis, Sex in Relation to Society : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vi. (Philadelphia, 19 lo), p. 547.

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 435.

72 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

the second conventional. Continence originates, in the individual, v^ith the instinct of physical isolation which is emphasized at the commencement of adol- escence. This instinct amounts to a virginal inertia, v^hich forms a barrier difficult to break down. Hence the first loss of chastity is equivalent to a complete psychic change in the organism. This inertia is encouraged for the sake of physical growth. When such psychic diathesis becomes morbid, it coincides with what William James terms an " anti-sexual in- stinct " — the instinct of personal isolation, the actual repulsiveness to us of the idea of intimate contact with most of the persons we meet, especially those of our own sex, and in illustration of which he instances the unpleasant sensation felt on taking a seat still warm from contact with another.^ Adolescent inertia is also linked to the desire for self-control, in which the important factor is the feeling of power and the sense of freedom. In the male the psychic result of the sexual act, a depression proportionate to the explosive force of the detumescent process, constitutes the op- posite pole to this feeling of power. Omne animal post coitum triste proverbializes the phenomenon, and there are clear traces of its action in producing ideals of chastity. Some of these have been cited above. Loss of semen is universally regarded as loss of strength, and the male organs as the seat of strength.^ These ideas again coincide with the popular notion that woman is physically weak, and that therefore inter- course with her produces weakness in the male. But, when these ideas reach as far as this, they are already

^ W. James, Principles of Psychology (London, 1891), ii. 347. 2 See Ernest Crawley, The Mystic Rose 2, ed. by Theodore Besterman (London, 1927), i. 226 et seq.

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 73

becoming conventionalized. Even at an earlier stage they may pass from biological fact to con- ventional theory, for "your boasted purity is only immaturity."

In this connexion is to be noted the sense of mel- ancholy which is normally periodic in adolescence, and seems to arise from vascular congestion. It is encour- aged by abstinence, and forms the foundation of the sense of sin, as is shown by the phenomena of conver- sion. If we add the fact that pain and austerity are a stimulant of energy, we practically complete the list of physiological factors which develop rules of chastity in the individual and in the race. On the other hand, the conventional factor which more than others has had an influence in civilization is not es- sentially physiological. It is rather a detail of de- generation. In their fierce reaction against pagan luxury the early Christians developed a cult of personal uncleanliness. They denounced the bath as the Puritans at a later date denounced the theatre. Paula used to say : " The purity of the body and its garments means the impurity of the soul." ^ " Since the coming of Christianity," Ellis remarks, " the cult of the skin, and even its hygiene, have never again attained the same general and unquestioned exaltation [as it at- tained among the Romans]. The Church killed the bath." 2 [And Frederic Harrison went so far as to say that] " the tone of the Middle Ages in the matter of dirt was a form of mental disease." ^

But in this later and more general extension, very

^ St. Jerome, Epistolae, cviii. 20.

2 Havelock Ellis, Sexual Selection in Man : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, iv. (Philadelphia, 1905), p. 31.

^ Frederic Harrison, The Meaning of History (London, 1906), p. 248.

74 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

similar as it is to the state of things among the masses of Europe to-day, economic considerations overlaid the Christian tradition. The same result was fostered by ideals on the one hand and necessary practice on the other. However that may be, the fact remains that it is only in modern civilization that the juxta- position of the genital and excretory zones has acted as a general influence in favour of chastity. Primitive uncleanness " was a very different thing, though the same term is used. Inertia of this kind is a measure both of scientific ignorance and of physical unrefine- ment, or rather of hygienic degeneration, as obscenity is of the same results psychically.

The question of the origin of the " horror " of sexual facts, in so far as it is a vera causa, which is not certain, and not a conventional artefact, is diflficult. However originating — and it is possible that it may have nothing to do with any primitive mystic awe or sense of supernatural danger, but rather that it is a morbid psychosis analogous to jealousy on the one hand and disgust on the other — it seems to be absent from savage psychology, and in civilization to be a mark of neurosis. As a source of chastity its conven- tional exploitation is confined to priestly pedagogy.

Certain suggestions that have been made explana- tory of this and similar psychic phenomena in chastity call for mention, though, in so far as they have ground in fact, this is but part of the mythology of the subject. For instance, the primitive taboo against menstrual blood cannot legitimately be elevated into a cause either of marriage prohibitions or of continent habits. It may be true that the Zulus believe that " if a man touch a woman at menstruation his bones become soft, and in future he cannot take part in warfare or any

CHASTITY AND SEXUAL MORALITY 75

other manly exercise " ; ^ but, as shown above, the deep-seated reason of such taboo is biological. The suggested instinctive feeling against intercourse be- tween members of the same family or household, which Westermarck held to be a possible cause of the idea that sexual matters are " impure," does not, if it exists, go deeply enough into the psychology of the individual. It is proved that such phenomena are merely negative.^ In the past history of chastity it is evident that, as will always be the case, every factor concerned in the whole system of the sexual impulse has had its place and influence. The two chief factors, proprietary morality and adolescent inertia, have, however, now reached the parting of the ways. That is to say, the former is yielding to the scientific analysis of the sexual life of man, and can no longer be maintained as a ground of natural chastity. In the Middle Ages the knightly husband took with him on his travels the key of his wife's " girdle of chastity " ; in a scientific age " the real problem of chastity lies not in multiplying laws, but largely in women's knowledge of the dangers of sex and the cultivation of their sense of responsi- bility." ^ Mutatis mutandis^ the statement applies to adolescent chastity. This is one of the educational problems of the future, in which science and religion may well co-operate. Economic considerations are the permanent previous condition to be reckoned with : popular sentiment will follow the lead of social refine- ment and scientific conclusion.

ij. Macdonald, "Manners, Customs, Superstitions, and Religions of South African Tribes," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1890), xx. 119.

2 E. A. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage^ (London, 1921), i. 406 et seq.

2 Albert Moll, Die Contrdre Sexualempfindung (Berlin, 1891), p. 592.

11. SKETCH OF THE FORMS OF LOVE

The passion or emotion of love is as difficult to define as love itself, and probably for the same reasons. The following statements by different students are useful. Mantegazza says truly : " Simple and primitive as are all the mighty forces, love yet seems to be composed of the elements of all human passions."^ Spencer, again, sums up whsit Westermarck has well called his " masterly analysis " ^ of love, thus : " Round the physical feeling forming the nucleus of the whole, are gathered the feelings produced by personal beauty, that constituting simple attachment, those of rever- ence, of love, of approbation, of self-esteem, of property, of love of freedom, of sympathy. These, all greatly exalted, and severally tending to reflect their excite- ments on one another, unite to form the mental state we call love." ^

Mantegazza, speaking of it as a " force colossale," and Spencer, in his reference to exaltation, rightly emphasize the most remarkable characteristic of sexual love. This is the temporary raising of the individual to a higher power, the intensifying of all his capacities. A woman of the people said : When I am not in love, I am nothing." Nietzsche has eloquently des- cribed this result : " One seems to oneself transfigured, stronger, richer, more complete ; one is more complete.

^ Paolo Mantegazza, La physiologie du plaisir (Paris, 1886), p. 243. 2 E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 192.

^ H. Spencer, The Principles of Psychology (London, 1890), i. 488.

77

78 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

. . . It is not merely that it changes the feeling of values ; the lover is worth more." ^ For Plato, love v^^as a " divine madness " ; he was thinking of its auto- matism, its sweeping away of reason and even con- sciousness. It was perhaps this aspect that led Schopen- hauer and others to condemn it as an illusion. But " love is only a delusion in so far as the whole of life is a delusion, and if we accept the fact of life, it is unphilosophical to refuse the fact of love." ^ Ellis defines love " in the sexual sense " as " a synthesis of sexual emotion (in the primitive and uncoloured sense) and friendship." ^ It is a minimum definition.

There is no doubt that the various forms of love — sexual, parental, paternal, filial, and social — are kindred emotions. Their relative intensity decreases from the sexual to the social, but, as this decreases, extension in- creases, and more and more persons may be compre- hended. It is unnecessary to do more than mention the sociological truth that in all its forms love plays a part in society only less important than that of the instinct to live. It brings together the primal elements of the family, it keeps the family together, and it unites in a certain fellow-feeling all members of a race or nation.

I. SEXUAL LOVE

Especially in its sexual grade, love has certainly during the progress of civilization become not only more

• F. Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht (Leipzig, 191 1), iii. 235. The neuro-

muscular effects in man are curiously paralleled in animals not only by intensified activity, but by morphological developments ; love " produces new weapons, pig- ments, colours and forms, . . . new rhythms, a new seductive music " (Havelock Ellis, Sex in Relation to Society : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vi. [Philadelphia, 1910], p. 179).

^ Ibid.y op. cit.y p. 139. ^ Ibid., p. 133.

SKETCH OF FORMS OF LOVE

refined and complex but more intense. This is shown by a comparison with modern savages. Not only is the impulse weak, but the physical development is inferior, and consequently the difficulty of obtaining sexual ere- thism is great.^ A social result of this last condition is the orgy, a method of periodic artificial excitement.^ Jealousy is frequently absent, among the Central Aus- tralians to a remarkable degree, according to Spencer and Gillen, who state that " amongst the Australian natives with whom we have come in contact, the feeling of sexual jealousy is not developed to anything like the extent to which it would appear to be in many other savage tribes."^ Jealousy, however, seems to have little or no connexion with sympathetic love, but to be entirely concerned with animal instinct and the sense of property, and many savages show jealousy to as remarkable a degree as the Central Australians show its absence.

The question remains, and it is important for the study of the origin of the family, whether primitive love was merely organic desire. A priori it is con- ceivable that the family could have been established, monogamy made the type of marriage, and more or less permanent unions fixed in social habit, merely by the operation of animal instincts. Similar results of the same causes are sufficient in the case of the animal world to preserve the race and to render it efficient. The accounts available vary from pessimistic denial of anythmg but reproductive impulse to fulsome predication of refined and romantic emotion. The contrast illustrates the difficulty of penetrating to the

^ See above, p. 2 et seq. ^ See below, p. 105 et seq.

' Sir W. Baldwin Spencer and F, J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), PP* 99-^00.

8o STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

psychical processes or even the social feelings of the lower races.

[Nor may conclusions be arrived at facilely from facts that make such conclusions " obvious." A few instances will suffice in illustration of the kind of " facts," taken out of context, that have led to " ob- vious," but mistaken, inferences.] The Australian bride is generally dragged from home to the man to whom she is allotted. But love may come after mar- riage from kind treatment.^ And, as Professor Malin- owski has pointed out, love must be assumed in Aus- tralian marriages by elopement, which was a recognized form of marriage.2 The Papuan language possesses no word for " love " ; ^ nor have the Hos any word for it. But of the latter we are told that " they feel it all the same." *

[Proceeding to evidence bearing on the possible existence of tender sexual feelings among savages, we find that] the Paharias are said to form " romantic attachments.^ An observer remarks, [however, even of so highly developed a race as] the Arabs, that the passion of love is, indeed, much talked of by the in- habitants of towns ; but I doubt whether anything is meant by them more than the grossest animal desire." ^ This statement is probably too sweeping, as also is the statement that the Bible contains no reference to romantic love.' Love-songs are rare among the lower

^ R. Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria (London, 1878), i. p. xxiv. ^ Bronislaw Malinowski, The Family among the Australian Aborigines (London, 1913), p. 83.

^ Charles W. Abel, Savage Life in New Guinea (London, [1901]), p. 42.

• E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (Calcutta, 1872), p. 206.

^ Ibid.^ p. 273.

^ J. L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahdbys (London, 1830), p. 155. ' The statement is that of H. T. Finck, Romantic Love and Personal Beauty (Lon- don, 1887), p. no.

SKETCH OF FORMS OF LOVE 8i

races,^ probably a mere result of the imperfect develop- ment of literature. But Polynesian peoples are adept at love-poetry ,2 which may be regarded as proving some degree of an emotional refinement, or rather irradiation, of the passion of love. At the other extreme, physical contact, it has been remarked that kissing and caressing are rare among savages, except towards young children.^ Yet among the Eskimo " young couples are frequently seen rubbing noses, their favourite mark of affection, with an air of tender- ness." * Suicide, which is fairly frequent among the lower races, is often prompted by unrequited passion.^ But there are many trivial reasons for suicide which indicate merely a rudimentary development of char- acter, and special conditions of social structure must also be considered. It may be regarded as a general rule that love, of any degree or character, is not an essential basis of marriage. Among the majority of early tribes marriage is a matter of arrangement ; spouses are allotted by the relatives, often in infancy, [and even before birth]. In many cases such " be- trothed " couples are prohibited from all association until marriage takes place. That love, however, may be a basis of permanent marriage is another matter. It is probably as essential as the needs of the offspring. Marriage by arrangement and the " marriage of con- venience " were often contracted among the Greeks

^ Havelock Ellis, Analysis of the Sexual Impulse : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, iii. (Philadelphia, 1908), p. 212.

^ G. Turner, Samoa a Hundred Tears ago and long before (London, 1884), p. 98. ' Havelock Ellis, loc cit. (quoting authorities).

• G. F. Lyon, The Private Journal . . . during the Voyage of Discovery under Cap-

tain Parry (London, 1824), P- 353-

• E. A. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage ^ (London, 1921), iii. 102

et seq.

6

82 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

and Romans. They were frequent in medieval Europe, and occur in modern civilization. But it is certain that social developments during the last century have involved a general adoption of the principle that marriage should be based on previous mutual attach- ment.

In the majority of early societies the two sexes are strictly separated, at least after puberty. Such a condition precludes much sympathy between youths and maidens when marriage is to be undertaken. This segregation sometimes extends to married life ; in other words, there is a development of sex-clannishness, due either to natural inclination, or to a certain sub- jection of women. Hence it is not surprising that among peoples like those of Eastern Africa it is regarded as disgraceful in a wife to show affection for her hus- band.^ Among most rude peoples the man treats the woman with more or less roughness. This is to some extent the case in barbarism and among the lower classes of civilized society The ancient Greeks, Chinese, Hindus, and Muslims represent that stage of culture in which woman is a slave, a prisoner, or both. Notions of female inferiority combine with a sense of property and of proprietary jealousy, and polygamy in some cases is a contributory factor.

The conditions indicated above show that love in " primitive " society had little chance of development except in and after marriage. " Love comes after marriage " is a proverb used by Plutarch and by the

^ W. Munzinger, Ostafrikanischc Studien (Schaffhausen, 1864), p. 325.

2 J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines (Melbourne, 188 1), p. 37 ; Bronislaw Malin- owski, The Family among the Australian Aborigines (London, 1913), p. 83 ; E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 657.

SKETCH OF FORMS OF LOVE 83

Eskimo savage ; it is common all over the world. What is termed " romantic " love is rare, even in the highest societies, when the married state has been established for some time. Conjugal love is more affection than passion, and affection depends on intellectual and moral sympathy ; community of interests, habitual association, and mutual care of children contribute to the complete character of the emotion. These factors also are sufficient to produce permanence in marriage and to bind the family together. It is therefore unnecessary to call in the aid of teleology in general, or natural selection in particular, to explain the origin of the family. Nor is it possible to argue that " love has played little or no part in the institution of the family." ^ The cannibal Niam-niam are said by a good observer to show an affection for their wives which is " un- paralleled," 2 and similar statements have been made of many savage peoples.^

It is a justifiable conclusion that conjugal love was real, though elementary. Combined with occasional rough treatment, it was still genuine affection, based on sympathy as well as on the sexual impulse.^ Simi- larly, of primitive love in general it may be concluded that it possessed the same elements, in a less developed state and capacity, as modern love in its best mani- festations. We need not accept either the frequent denials of any form of love or the attribution of

^ As does A. J. Todd, The Primitive Family as an Educational Agency (New York and London, 1913), p. 19.

G. Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa (London, 1873), i. 510.

^ E. A. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage'^ (London, 1921), iii. 1 01 et seq.

^ See F. Bouney, " On some Customs of the Aborigines of the River Darling," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1884), xiii. 130; B. Malinowski, op. cit., p. 83.

84 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

" chivalrous " love to Bushmen and Congo savages.^ Lastly, in estimating the evidence of observers, it must be remembered that their diagnoses of love are not based on one invariable scientific definition of the emotion.

(i) Development of Conjugal Love

The extension of the elementary sexual impulse into conjugal affection v^ith its complex associations should be regarded as, sociologically, the most impor- tant feature in the natural history of love. This emotion seems to have developed sufficiently in primitive society to assist in breaking down collective methods of mating, which apparently (as in Central Australia) were often liable to be induced by the hard conditions of savage life. The hypothesis is frequently put forward that the family and social organization are essentially an- tagonistic. But the pacific way in which they work together in existing races, both civilized and barbarous, and also the fact that crude types of social organization have been broken up by the family, strongly oppose this partial view.

It is right to notice that a time came when scarcity of food was no longer an obstacle to a gregarious life, and the conditions of life thus became favourable to an expansion of the family. But before that there was a different type of gregariousness, which, so far as it went, did possess elements antagonistic to conjugal affection, at least. It is probable that increased security of subsistence assisted the growth of this emotion and strengthened the family bonds. Wester- marck has argued that " where the generative power is

• See on the whole subject E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of

the Moral Ideas^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 532.

SKETCH OF FORMS OF LOVE 85

restricted to a certain season — a peculiarity which primitive man seems to have shared with other mam- mals — it cannot be the sexual instinct that causes the prolonged union of the sexes, nor can I conceive any- other egoistic motive that could account for this habit. Considering that the union lasts till after the birth of the offspring and that it is accompanied with parental care, I conclude that it is for the benefit of the young that male and female continue to live together. The tie which joins them seems therefore, like parental affection, to be an instinct developed through natural selection. The tendency to feel some attachment to a being which has been the cause of pleasure — in this case sexual pleasure — is undoubtedly at the bottom of this instinct. Such a feeling may originally have induced the sexes to remain united and the male to protect the female even after the sexual desire was gratified ; and if procuring great advantage to the species in the struggle for existence, conjugal attach- ment would naturally have developed into a specific characteristic." ^

This is an important statement and calls for con- sideration. In the first place, the assumption that even the earliest paleolithic men were capable only of periodic impulse is insecurely based. That a more or less regular capacity did ultimately develop from a periodic is a different matter. Secondly, even admitting the above- mentioned view, no account is taken of the phenomena of habit. Habit is the essential factor to-day, and must always have been, in the development of conjugal affection from the primary incidence of the sexual emotion. And here habit is reinforced by many

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit.j ii. 191.

86 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

associations, one of which is the care of children. Another, itself a strong emotion, is the proprietary- feeling, strengthened by habit. Even the modest savage woman feels a right of property in " her man," however badly he treats her. Again, the invocation of " natural selection " is, when analysed, merely rhe- torical. Westermarck admits that the sexual impulse is " at the bottom " of conjugal affection and prolonged union, but he here ignores improved environment. Neither of these factors can, except by a metaphor, be identified with the agents or machinery of " natural selection."

The fact is that improvement of conditions and development of nerve and intelligence have been ac- companied by an increase both in emotions and in their control ; the emotion of love in all its grades has been no exception. To apply the doctrine of the survival of the fittest to such a development within the species is a misapplication of Darv/inism, or, rather, an unnecessary extension of the doctrine.

(ii) Development of Sexual Love

In order to estimate aright not only the course of development, but the character, of modern love in its typical form, it is necessary to rate some further ele- ments — in particular, complementary elements — in the love of man and woman. Male love is active and dominant ; female love is passive and subservient. " While in men it is possible to trace a tendency to inflict pain, or the simulacrum of pain, on the women they love, it is still easier to trace in women a delight in experiencing physical pain when inflicted by a lover, and an eagerness to accept subjection to his will.

SKETCH OF FORMS OF LOVE 87

Such a tendency is certainly normal."^ [Hence the many cases in which women are reported as not merely expecting, but as enjoying, their husbands' beatings and general ill-treatment. As Dr. Westermarck ad- mirably summarizes this aspect of married life and courtship]," the male plays the more active, the female the more passive, part. During the season of love the males even of the most timid animal species engage in desperate combats with each other for the possession of the female, and there can be no doubt that our primeval human ancestors had, in the same way, to fight for their wives ; even now this kind of courtship is far from being unknown among savages. Moreover, the male pursues and tries to capture the female, and she, after some resistance, finally surrenders herself to him. The sexual impulse of the male is thus connected with a desire to win the female, and the sexual impulse of the female with a desire to be pursued and won by the male. In the female sex there is consequently an instinctive appreciation of manly strength and courage. . . ^

A connected result of male superiority in strength, activity, and courage is the element of protection in male love, and of trust on the side of the female. The pugnacity observed in the males, both of animals and of wild men, is one aspect of the general increase of capacity effected by passion. The intimate psychology of love reveals not only an impulse for union, but an association in the male psychosis with an impulse for destruction, and even for devouring. Love often uses

1 Havelock Ellis, Analysis of the Sexual Impulse : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, iii. (Philadelphia, 1908), p. 74.

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 657.

88 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

the language of eating. The natural modesty and coyness of the female play an important part both in stimulating the love of the male and in refining it. " Modesty," says Guyan, " has civilized love." ^ Con- nected v^ith these differences is the relative slovi^ness of the grov^th of love in woman ; it proceeds by long circuiting. In men its grov^th is relatively rapid, and its duration generally less. Man's love, again, is, [in Byron's oft-quoted but none the less true lines,

" of man's life a thing apart, ' Tis woman's whole existence."] ^

Biologically, courtship is a stimulus of love, a means of producing tumescence. Owing to the differences of secondary characters noted above, the love of the male is expressed chiefly in acts of courtship, that of the female in receiving them. If the presentation of love in a permanent union is analysed, it will be found that it depends on a more or less continuous process of courtship.

A remarkable development of sexual love was made by the early Christians. This was the practice of close but chaste unions between the virgins and young men, [such as are described and condemned by Chry- sostom. Against those who keep Virgins in their Houses]. The poetic or romantic exploitation of love to which the custom led (as is shown by the literature) was perhaps the only sociological result. It is possible that this became a tradition and thus influenced the medieval valuation and practice of chivalrous love.

^ Cp. Havelock Ellis, The Evolution of Modesty^ : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, i. (Philadelphia, 1910), part i. ; G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allen, "The Psychol- ogy of Tickling, Laughing and the Comic," The American Journal of Psychology (Worcester, Mass., 1897-1898), ix. 30-31.

2 Lord Byron, Don Juan, 1. cxciv.

SKETCH OF FORMS OF LOVE 89

" For a medieval knight the chief object of life was love." It became a formal cult, and theoretically v^as defined as the " chaste union of tv^o hearts by virtue v^rought." ^ Dante's love for Beatrice is the highest type of the practice. Its essential condition was that the passion should be hopeless and should not be con- summated in marriage. But, as with a similar ideal of love in ancient Greece, so in this case, the reality was generally immoral. The lady as a rule was the wife of another, and adultery was frequent.

In European civilization to-day the factor of in- tellectual and moral sympathy in love has become more pronounced with the greater freedom and higher education of women. Sympathy strengthens affection, and affection strengthens sympathy. The element of equal friendship in love has been greatly increased, and thus, curiously, in spite of the levelling which has taken place to some extent in class-distinctions, has made love between members of different social spheres more rare. Meanwhile, the importance in marriage of compatability, physical and psychical, is becoming more and more recognized by the law.

(iii) Social Habits

{a) Restrictions on Love

The majority of primitive peoples impose restric- tions on the physical gratification of love except in the marriage relation. This tendency thus harmonizes with the biological law that mating is the final cause of love. But an errant tendency is inevitable, and many peoples have permitted its gratification, with a proviso. Thus, " the Yakuts see nothing immoral in

1 Charles Mills, The History of Chivalry (London, 1826), i. 214.

90 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

free love, provided only that nobody suffers material loss by it." ^ In many of these cases the temporary possession of a lover is regarded as a test of complete womanhood, and in most of them the practice actually serves as a kind of trial-marriage. The case is very different in civilization.

(h) The Law of Parity.

A social and a biological tendency act as comple- mentary factors, the one discouraging and the other encouraging love between biological similars. The one tendency is expressed in the remarkable rules of exogamy ; ^ the other, which may or may not be con- nected, is the tendency for those persons to be mutually attracted who are of the same grade of pigmentation. It has long been a popular belief that fair persons are attracted by dark, and vice versa ; even that short persons are attracted by tall, and vice versa. Leonardo da \unci, however, affirmed clearly and repeatedly the charm of parity . . . [stating that men] fall in love with those who resemble themselves." ^ Modern investigations have established this conclusion.^ One of these investigations began from the popular notion that married people end by resembling each other." On the other hand, persons are not at all attracted to members of the opposite sex " who are strikingly unlike themselves in pigmentary characters. . . . \\ ith this feeling may perhaps be associated the feeling, certainly

1 Sieroshevski and W. G. Sumner, " The Yakuts," Journal oj the Anthropological Institute (London, 1901), xxxl. 96.

• There is some evidence that love is rare between persons brought up together

from childhood, as Dr. Westermarck argues, passim.

3 Havelock Ellis, Sexual Selection in Man : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, iv. (Philadelphia, 1905), 195.

• Ibid., p. 194 et seq.

SKETCH OF FORMS OF LOVE

very widely felt, that one would not like to marry a person of foreign, even though closely allied, race." ^ But the barriers between even widely different races are occasionally broken by love.

(<:) Seasonal Love

Among primitive peoples there is a constant prac- tice of what may be termed the periodic love-feast. Types of these are to be found among the Central Australians and the Dravidians of India. A prevalent deduction from these periods of licence was that the morals of savages were degraded and licentious. But a closer study of savages makes it certain that their existence is no more a prolonged debauch than it is a prolonged idyll, as it had been thought under the influence of Rousseau. A more recent deduction was that among the earliest men and the lowest modern savages pairing took place only in spring and at harvest.^ The festivals in question would be " survivals " of a primitive pairing-season. Among mammal and other animals (though not among those domesticated), a periodic rut is general, though not universal. A doubtful statement has been made of so relatively high a type of people as the Cambodians that they exhibit a rut twice a year.^ It is a fact that spring and harvest are among savages, barbarians, and modern peasants, regular seasons both for general festivity and for special development of the sexual feelings. The reason may be partly biological, partly climatic, and partly connected with the food-supply. The probable

^ Havelock Ellis, op. cit., p. 198.

2 The hypothesis of Max Kutschen, " Die geschlechtlische Zuchtwahl bei den Menschen in der Urzeit," Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic (Berlin, 1876), viii. 1 52 et seq.

^ A. T. Mondiere, " Cambodgiens," Dictionnaire des sciences anthropologiques (Paris, [1883]), p. 224a.

STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

conclusion is that, the conditions being favourable for any sort of expansion, and perhaps specially so for amorous expression — an increase in the sexual impulse during these periods is established for modern peoples — the opportunity is taken by societies, which express themselves only socially, to stimulate their normally feeble sexuality and to obtain organic relief.^

The principle of dramatization, which is at the root of magical ceremony, may be noted in love-charms, of which all folk-custom, from the Australian to the European, has a store, and in a large class of primitive marriage ceremonies, which generally typify union. The latter are organized love-charms.^

(iv) Homosexual Love

[The subject of sexual inversion is too wide and complex to be closely analysed in the present context, but it would be improper to overlook it altogether in any survey of the forms of love. We may thus merely note that] sexual love between individuals of the same sex is a not infrequent abnormality. It is found in probably every race of mankind, sometimes to a con- siderable extent, as in post-Homeric Greece, where it became, so far as the male sex was concerned, almost a national institution. Cases of congenital inversion are very rare ; habit and environment have been largely overlooked by investigators. The majority of bar- barian and civilized peoples have condemned the habit ; in medieval Europe it seems to have been regarded as connected with witchcraft and heresv.^

^ See below, p. loi et seq.

2 See Ernest Crawley, The Mystic Rose ^, ed. by Theodore Besterman (London, 1927), ii. 29.

3 E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 489.

SKETCH OF FORMS OF LOVE

2. NON-SEXUAL LOVE (i) Parental Love

As in the case of conjugal love, observation of primitive peoples is contradictory ; but it is certain that maternal affection is universal, and paternal affection, though less intense, and often defective, is normal in the human race.

According to Aristotle, parents love their children as being portions of themselves.^ A modern authority regards this love as a modified love of self or property.^ Bain, hov^ever, derived parental love from the " intense pleasure in the embrace of the young." ^ But, as Westermarck notes, " if the satisfaction in animal contact were at the bottom of the maternal feeling, con- jugal affection ought by far to surpass it in intensity ; and yet, among the low^er races at least, the case is exactly the reverse, conjugal affection being vastly inferior in degree to a mother's love of her child." He adds : " It seems much more likely that parents like to touch their children because they love them, than that they love them because they touch them." * Ac- cording to Herbert Spencer, parental love is " essen- tially love of the weak or helpless." ^ Westermarck observes that " when the young are born in a state of utter helplessness somebody must take care of them, or the species cannot survive, or, rather, such a species could never have come into existence. The maternal instinct may thus be assumed to owe its origin to the

1 Aristotle, Ethica, VIII. xii. 2.

^ A. Espinas, Des societes animales^ (Paris, 1879), p. 444.

^ Alexander Bain, The Emotions and the Will^ (London, 1880), p. 140.

• E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 187.

^ H. Spencer, The Principles of Psychology^ (London, 188 1), ii. 623-624.

94 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

survival of the fittest, to the natural selection of useful characteristics."^ But, as stated above, it is unneces- sary to regard these instincts as cases of natural selection.

(ii) Filial Love

[As with parental love. Dr. Westermarck has ad- mirablv analvsed filial love.l Children's love of their parents," he writes, '* is generally much weaker than the parents' love of their children. . . . No individual is born with filial love." But under normal circum- stances the infant from an early age displays some at- tachment to its parents," especially to the mother. It is not affection pure and simple, it is afi'ection mingled with regard for the physical and mental superiority of the parent." - Conversely, parental affection in- cludes a regard for weakness and helplessness. Filial love is proved to be normal in primitive races ; as with other forms of love, it is both less intense and less complex than in civilization.

(iii) Fraternal and Social Love

.All peoples exhibit affection of a paternal nature, binding together, that is, not only the children of the same parents, but relatives less closely allied, and, a step further, members of a social unit. In primitive tribes social organization is the outcome of social needs, and a real social altruism and friendly sympathy are proved. With progress in culture social affection becomes a marked feature of religious and ethical prac- tice and theory. Noteworthy examples are the doc- trine and duty of charity in Christianity idealized by its founder's love for all mankind and by the theory

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 187, 190-191. ' Ibid., ii. 194.

SKETCH OF FORMS OF LOVE

of brotherly love, and the Oriental systems, such as the ahimsa [harmlessness, non-injury] of the Hindus, [the Buddhists and the Jains].

The philosophical literature which exploits the idea of love is enormous. Plato developed the viev7 that love is the creator of beauty, though beauty must have an objective element. Greek, Christian, and medieval thinkers developed the connexion betv^een love and faith, love of good and love of God. The amor intellectualis Dei of Spinoza is paralleled by many Oriental theories of contemplation. Throughout, love in religion stands midv^ay between the philosophical and the human conceptions.

3. LOVE-GODS

Deities embodying the abstract notion of love are hardly developed until the higher stages of barbarism are reached, but some points may be noted in the previous evolution. Animistic thought may produce, by a process of normal hallucination, the belief that evil spirits, at a later stage various neutral or good spirits, behave as lovers of human beings. The peoples of the Dutch East Indies believe that evil spirits take the shape of handsome men and love their women.^ Primitive psychology, by analogical reasoning, explains love as made of fire (the Malay notion),^ or the state of love as one of possession. The latter animistic view is connected with any departure from the normal : the new character of the individual is regarded as due to the entrance of a spirit. The West Africans attribute

J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), pp. 252, 271, 340, 439.

^ Ernest Crawley, The Mystic Rose^, ed. by Theodore Besterman (London, 1927), i. 238.

96 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

love to possession hy the god Legba, or Elegbra. Dreams of love are explained in the same way as in medieval Europe with its ideas of the incubus and succuba} Such a deity might develop, as others to be cited might have or actually have developed, into a deity " of love." But, as usual, a deity has an in- direct connexion only with this or that emotion. Many peoples, like the Finns,^ have regarded love as a form of insanity (a variety of possession). It is doubtful whether the description of this or that deity as a " patron of love " has any more any definite meaning than an indirect connexion, such as is usually the case with " possession." The Finns regarded the god of evil as the patron of love.^ The Yoruba " patroness of love," Odudua, is " worshipped " at erotic feasts.* Her connexion with love is probably indirect only. Such a connexion is frequent in the case of " deities of fertility." The Scandinavian Freyja, goddess of love and fruitfulness, seems to have been synthesized with Frigg, goddess of marriage.^ Among the early Semites the Baal (like any local fetish of a hunting, pastoral, or agricultural tribe) was a source of fertility and a " heaven-god " and his wife, the Baalat, was therefore a goddess of fertility and of heaven. Some process, as yet uncertain, developed from this the figure of Ishtar, Astarte, Asthoreth, worshipped at Erech as the goddess of love, and identified with Nana, the

^ Sir A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of W est Africa (Lon- don, 1890), p. 44 ; id.) The Toruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1894), p. 67.

2 J. M. Crawford, The Kalevala (New York, 1888), p. xxiii.

^ Ibid.) loc. cit.

• Sir A. B. Ellis, The Toruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa

(London, 1894), p. 43.

^ Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (London, 1880-1888), i. 303.

SKETCH OF FORMS OF LOVE 97

Sumerian goddess of the planet Venus. The Heavenly Aphrodite of the Greeks is derived from this figure.^ It is possible that the Hindu god of love and desire, Kama, was developed in connexion v^ith some such festival as the spring Vasanta of " prosperity and love," which is primitive in character, though Kama's figure is a direct personification of an emotion.^ A connexion is often made in early thought between love and the moon — possibly a case of the regular attribution of fertilizing power to the satellite. The serpent is occasionally connected with myths of the origin of love, and demons take the serpent-form in order to prosecute amours, or change from the human to the serpent-form on discovery.^ The arrows of love, in folk-lore and poetry, seem to be due to an obvious analogy from the incidence of the emotion. Meta- phor, throughout the world, speaks of the effect of love as a wound.

(iv) A Note on Love Among the American Indians.

The psychology and social habits of the aboriginal American peoples are, on the whole, in line with those of other races at equivalent stages of development. But they exhibit one or two distinctive features. As an instance of the usual conflicting results of obser- vation, there is Morgan's statement that the " refined passion of love is unknown to the North American," * and that of Catlin, that the North Americans are not

• Pausanias, Description of Greece^ ed. Sir J. G. Frazer (London, 1898), ii. 128

et seq. ; L. W. King, Babylonian Religion and Mythology (London, 1899), p. 24. See Herodotus, Historia, i. 199 ; Jeremiah, vii. 18, xliv. 17 et seq.

2 E. W. Hopkins, The Religions of India (Boston, 1895), pp. 157, 156, 452, 435.

3 Ernest Crawley, The Mystic Rose^, ed. by Theodore Besterman (London, 1927), i. 231-233.

• L. H. Morgan, Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family

(Washington, 1871), p. 207.

7

98 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

" behind us " in conjugal, filial and paternal affection.^ An accidental case of difference, not due to observers, is the remarkable fact that the Nahuas possessed no word for love, w^hile Quichua, the ancient language of Peru, had six hundred combinations of the v^ord meaning " to love." Observation of this fact has led to an interesting analysis by Brinton of the expres- sion of the idea in North American dialects. He dis- tinguishes four methods of linguistic reaction to the emotion of love : (i) inarticulate cries ; (2) assertions of identity and union ; (3) assertions of sympathy and similarity (2 and 3 are clearly not distinct) ; and (4) assertions of a desire. It is noted that the Mayas possessed a radical v^ord for the joy of love, which was purely psychical in significance.^ " Romantic affec- tion " is predicated, as usual, by certain observers.^ It is clear that the Americans compared favourably with other races in the combination of love with female chastity, and in the filial and social forms of altruism. It is, for instance, stated that the Central Americans at the time of the Spanish invasion were remarkable for their brotherly love and charity to the needy. The Naudowessies, Californians, and Eskimo, among others, are mentioned as being exemplary in their re- gard for aged parents ; ^ but their care for children, though marked, is not above the standard of con-

^ G. Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners^ Customs and Condition of the North American Indians^ (London, 1842), i. 121.

^ Daniel G. Brinton, " The Conception of Love' in some American Languages," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia, 1886), xxiii. 546 et seq.

^ George Gibbs, *' Tribes of Western Washington and North-Western Oregon," Contributions to North American Ethnology : U.S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region (Washington, 1877), i- 198.

• E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Developnent of the Moral Ideas ^ (London,

1912-1917), i. 531, 534, 600, 603.

SKETCH OF FORMS OF LOVE

temporary races In short, they exhibit a slightly more highly-developed stage of the social form of affec- tion. It is worth noting that all observers attribute to the Northern Indians a measure of chivalrous feeling.

One abnormality, namely, homosexual love betw^een individuals of the male sex, was curiously prevalent ; it is sufficient to refer to the remarkable list of author- ities adduced by Westermarck.^ It is possible that the military tone of North American life — and the practice was chiefly characteristic of the Northern aborigines — was a predominant factor, as in the cases of the Fijians and ancient Greeks.

The personification of love in the figure of a deity and the worship of erotic forces are perhaps less con- spicuous, as might be expected, than in other societies. The Nahua peoples celebrated, it is said, " a month of love," during which many young girls were sacrificed in honour of the goddesses Xochiquetzal, Xochitecatl, and Tlazolteotl, who were patronesses of sexual love.^ But the Central American deities, with the exception of the leading members of the pantheon, were extremely vague personalities ; it is generally doubtful whether two names refer to one deity or two, and it is still more problematical what forces or properties the divine names represented. But the name Tlazolteotl seems to have a definite connexion with love, though we cannot, with Camargo, regard her absolutely as

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 403 et seq., 531. ^ Ibid., ii. 456 et seq.

^ 11. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), ii. 336-337, quoting J. de Torquemada, Viente y un libros rituales y Monarchia Indiana (Madrid, 1723), ii. 280, 299, and C. E. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations civilisees du Mexique et de VAmerique Centrale (Paris, 1857-1859), iix. 530, ii. 462-463.

100 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

" the Mexican deity of love." Her home," he states, " was in the ninth heaven, in a pleasant garden, v^atered by innumerable fountains, where she passed her time spinning and weaving rich stuffs, in the midst of delights, ministered to by the inferior deities. No man was able to approach her, but she had in her service a crowd of dwarfs, buffoons, and hunchbacks, who diverted her with their songs and dances. ... So beautiful was she painted that no woman in the world could equal her. . . . Whoever had been touched by one of the flowers that grew in the beautiful garden of Xochiquetzal \_sic] should love to the end, should love faithfully." ^ She not only inspired and provoked acts of love, but w^as able to hear confessions and to give absolution.

The last detail has been emphasized by Spence,^ in connexion with the meaning of her name, to reduce the goddess to the status of a Mexican Cloacina. But, in spite of the priestly rhetoric of her description, there is enough in its latter portion to establish her as a deity of love, though probably illicit. Brasseur de Bour- bourg regarded a volcanic symbol and Boturini Bene- duci the high god Tezcatlipoca, as deities of love, without any foundation.^ Equally unfounded, except in the sense of indirect connexion, are the cases of the moon (especially among the most northerly peoples) and of fire.^ The North Americans are, in short, slightly behind their cultural contemporaries in the development of deities of love.

^ D. M. Camargo, in Nouvelles annales des voyages [Paris, 1843], xlix. 132-133, quoted by H. H. Bancroft, op. cit., ili, 377-378.

^ Lewis Spence, Myths of Mexico and Peru (London, 19 13), p. 380. ' H. H. Bancroft, op. cit., iii. 505, 507.

• D. G. Brinton, Myths of the New World (New York, 1868), pp. 132, 146.

III. A NOTE ON OBSCENITY AND THE ORGY

I. OBSCENITY

The definition of obscenity both in language and in law is vague. The New English Dictionary, s.v. " Obscene," says : " ad. L. obscenus, obscanus, adverse, in- auspicious, ill-omened ; transf. abominable, disgusting, filthy, indecent, of doubtful etymology," [and proceeds to definitions along very similar lines]. The precise meaning," says Craies, " is decidedly ambiguous," but the test of immorality ... is whether the exhibition or matter tends to deprave." ^

In Craies's definition not only is it necessary to define deprave," but it is extremely improbable that the original intention of the law was this alone. The law merely codifies social resentment, but why social opinion originally resented " obscenity " is a difficult question of psychology. Meanwhile, with regard to the meaning of the idea and the etymology of the Latin term, it is to be noted that the differentia of obscene things, acts, and words is, negatively, concealment, or, positively, publication. In other words, to take a considerable percentage of obscene matter, this consists of natural acts and terms, and the exploitation of the organs from which they are derived, which, on being made public, offend social opinion. Thus, a plausible derivation of the word connects it with the Latin

• W. F. Craies, "Obscenity," The Encyclopadia Britannica^^, xix. 953.

lOI

102 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

obscurus, " concealed," and terms in various languages co-ordinate this. But the primary meaning of the Latin word seems to have been " inauspicious," " ill-omened," and the Latins resented obscenity just for this reason of ill-omen.^ A parallel to this is the social objection to profane swearing. The most probable derivation, therefore, is that of Littr^ ^ and of Skeat ^ connected with the Latin sccevus^ " left," " left-handed," and " inauspicious," the word obscenus, obsccenus, may pre- suppose obsccevinus, on the strength of the verb ob- sccevare^ found in Plautus.*

The things, acts, or words which when published constitute obscenity cannot produce social resentment on one ground alone. There is, for instance, a ten- dency to explain the modern feeling as a development from a primitive magical use of the sexual and excretory areas. Thus, Ellis suggests that the universal gesture of contempt by exposure was originally magical and intended to drive away evil spirits, the evil eye, and the like.^ But it is difficult to see how a gesture of magical potency should have substituted for this the quality of contempt, based, as it here is, upon excretory re- lations. Again, the idea of obscenity is fully developed among primitive peoples, and they show no trace of the magical meaning, though the suggestion of filthiness is frequent. On the other hand, though the psychology of sex is always complicated by the excretory relations,

^ Havelock Ellis, The Evolution of Modesty ^ : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, i. (Philadelphia, 1910), 67.

^ ^. Littre, Dictionnaire de la langue Jranqaise (Paris, 1873), iii. 780.

^ W. W. Skeatj Etymological Dictionary of the English Language * (Oxford, 1910), s.v.

^ Asinaria, II. i. 18.

^ Havelock Ellis, Erotic Symbolism : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, v. (Phila- delphia, 1912), lOO-IOI.

A NOTE ON OBSCENITY AND ORGY 103

it is impossible to refer obscenity to the latter sphere alone.^ Again, it is doubtful whether even in the Greek and Roman use of the phallus as an airoTpoTraiov^ fascinum, amulet against evil and the evil eye,^ the original potency of the charm vi^as " magical." The erect form of it, as, for instance, in the statues of Priapus which protected gardens, rather suggested contempt based upon sexual power. Vague magical ideas would naturally attach themselves later.

The application of obscenity as a form of abuse, among both primitive and civilized peoples, and certain facts of sexual and excretory mental pathology, throw light upon the whole subject of the psychical bases of the idea of obscenity. The simpler societies, as, for instance, those of the Dutch East Indies, are familiar with the idea and practice of obscenity. They chiefly use it, as do the children of European peasants, by way of opprobrium and insult. Exposure, gestures, and language include both the sexual and excretory spheres. Natural modesty is violated, contempt is expressed, and there is a minor form of curse, consisting in a wish that the victim may break this or that sexual taboo — in other words, commit this or that form of incest or self-abuse.^ The only trace of a superstitious or magical content is in reference to the menses. But the so-called " horror " of this function is probably in origin based upon disgust at excretory phenomena, m^agical ideas following as usual.

• As does E. Fuchs, Das erotische Element in der Karikatur (Munich, 1912),

p. 26.

2 Fascinum means both the evil eye and the charm, in shape of the phallus, worn by children to protect them against it (Sir W. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities^ [London, 1890-1891], i. 827).

^ J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('3 Gravenhage, 1886), p. 43.

104 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

The obsession known as " exhibitionism " illustrates what may be called the tendency to obscenity, which seems to be connected with a self-feeling based upon sex. Similarly, the obsession known as " befouling " is a pathological replica of the normal method of ex- pressing contempt by an obscene act.

Some typical expressions of social practice and theory may here be noted. In common with civilized peoples generally, the natives of North-West Central Queensland employ two vocabularies for the sexual organs, a " decent " and an " indecent." ^ Through human history there has persisted some form of vener- ation for the organs which perpetuate the race. Greek religion has its phallophoria,^ and Indian religion has from the earliest times had its veneration or worship of the linga and yoni. The British raj has made special exceptions for representations in temples and in pro- cessions of idols which to the European might appear obscene. Respect for the genital organs has, to the credit of humanity, prevailed over disgust, and the so- called phallic worship " of early investigators was a fact, though misconstrued.

The employment of sexual functions as a magical method of stimulating the growth of vegetation has been illustrated by Frazer.^ This and the similar practice of exposing the person in agricultural ritual constitute a sort of legalized obscenity. In saturnalian proceedings also obscenity, especially of language, is enjoined. Similarly on other occasions obscene lan- guage is allowed to women if they are interrupted by men in their own rites.*

^ W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the Nortb-West Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 184.

2 L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States (London, 1896- 1909), v. 197. 2 Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough ^ (London, 191 1-1915), ii. 97 et seq.

• Ihid., iii. 1 54.

A NOTE ON OBSCENITY AND ORGY 105

Whether ritual obscenity in agricultural magic is based on the idea of homoeopathy, and is originally sup- posed or intended to stimulate growth, is very doubtful. Many cases seem to have the character of the fascinum, and to be intended to drive away evil influences. There are many others also which are not concerned with agriculture. A priori, it would be expected that ob- scenity legalized in ritual should retain the meaning of obscenity in general, and a comparison of these ritual uses seems to show the same conclusion.

2. THE ORGY

The practice of periodic relaxation of social restraints has been followed by the majority of peoples, and is the unconscious response to a real social need. The study of the orgy^ as a normal phenomenon throws light on the whole mechanism of society. Primitive " bursts " and modern Bank Holiday " mafficking " fulfil an identical purpose, and their conditions are identical, though more stringent in the case of early society. Thus, of the Central Australians we are told that " the life of a native is hedged in with arbitrary rales that must be obeyed, often at the peril of his life. To the casual onlooker the native may appear to live a perfectly free life ; in reality he does nothing of the kind ; indeed, very much the reverse." ^ We may here take exception to the epithet " arbitrary " ; there is little in any social organization to which it can be applied. It cannot,

^ The Greek opyia meant primarily " acts of ritual." Then it was specially applied to " secret " or " mystic " cults, such as the Eleusinian /nvcrT'fjpia and the Dionysian wuocpayia. From the Bacchanalia suppressed by Rome the term derived its modern meaning of " feasting or revelry, especially such as is marked by excessive indulgence or licence " {New English Dictionary, s,v.).

^ Sir Baldwin Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia (Lon- don, 1914), pp. 342-343.

io6 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

for instance, be applied to the orgy itself, so far as this is indulged in by normal members of the society. The orgy is to the routine of ordinary life what the religious feast is to the fast. It supplies a rest and a change, but particularly an emotional and physical expansion and discharge of energy. Excess and dissipation are almost inevitably involved, but they are not in principle es- sential conditions. Nor, again, is the criminality which often appears. The functions in which this neuro- muscular discharge takes place are those belonging to the general muscular system — eating, drinking, and sex. The main psychological element, relief from re- straint, is connected with others — the play-instinct, the pleasure of exhilaration and neuro-muscular ex- citement, and religious enthusiasm in many cases.

The economic conditions of savage life themselves suggest periodic excess. The savage hunter often prac- tically fasts for days together. He is inured to this, and especially capable of gorging himself when he has killed his game. This capacity, indeed, is part of his survival value.^

In origin an unconscious social reaction, the orgy has clearly been thus understood in later ages and so accepted. " Having a function to fulfil in every orderly and laborious civilization built upon natural energies that are bound by more or less inevitable restraints," it has been deliberately employed in great religious ages, the rule of abstinence being " tempered by permission of occasional outbursts." ^ Possibly such regulation of excess and dissipation has assisted the

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 290, with examples.

2 Havelock Ellis, Sex in Relation to Society : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vi. (Philadelphia, 1910), 218.

A NOTE ON OBSCENITY AND ORGY 107

general development of self-control. In some cases the orgy combines all possible forms of expression, in others it is specialized in a particular direction ; thus, the dramatic element was conspicuous in the Feast of Fools, the idea of change and social inversion in the Roman Saturnalia, religious ecstasy in the Dionysiac orgy. The Hindu follow^ers of the Sakta Tantras require at their feasts the " five m's " — fish, flesh, v^ine, corn, and w^omen. But even the Saktists seem to omit dancing and to emphasize drinking ; they " drink, drink and drink until they fall on the ground in utter helplessness." ^ The Jev^s at Purim seem to have in- dulged in most forms of excess.^

Various dates lend themselves to the orgy. Such are the harvest festival and other agricultural occasions of celebration, the passage from the old to the new year, and other seasonal changes. In many such instances, as in the case of feasts of first-fruits, the sudden access of a supply of food and liquor inevitably encourages an outburst.

A few typical examples will illustrate the chief characteristics of the orgy. At the Pondo festival of first-fruits " the young people engage in games and dances, feats of strength and running. After these are over the whole community give themselves over to disorder, debauchery, and riot. In their . . . games they but did honour to the powers of nature, and now, as they eat and drink, the same powers are honoured in another form and by other rites. There is no one in authority to keep order, and every man does what seems good in his own eyes. . . . People are even permitted to abuse the chief to his face, an offence which at any

• Rajendralala Mitra, Indo-Aryans (London and Calcutta, 1881), i. 404-405.

2 Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1911-1915), ix. 363-364.

io8 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

other time would meet with summary vengeance and an unceremonious dispatch to join the ancestors." ^ During the yam-harvest feast in Ashanti the grossest Hberty prevails ; " neither theft, intrigue, nor assault is punishable," and each sex abandons itself to its passions." ^

The New Year feast of the Iroquois formed " a kind of saturnalia. Men and women, variously dis- guised, went from wigwam to wigwam smashing and throwing down whatever they came across. It was a time of general licence ; the people were supposed to be out of their senses, and therefore not to be re- sponsible for what they did." ^

The Hos of North India " have a strange notion that at this period [of harvest festival] men and women are so overcharged with vicious propensities that it is absolutely necessary for the safety of the person to let off steam by allowing for a time full vent to the passions." * This shrewd description illustrates the safety-valve function of the orgy. After eating and beer-drinking, people expand in other ways ; the feast is " a saturnale during which servants forget their duty to their masters, children their reverence for parents, men their respect for women, and women all notions of modesty, delicacy, and gentleness ; they become raging bacchantes. . . . Sons and daughters revile their parents in gross language, and parents their children ; men and women become almost like animals in the indulgence of their amorous propensities." ^

^ J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth (London, 1893), pp. 136-137.

2 sir A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (London, 1887), pp. 229-230 ; T. E. Bowdich, Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee (London, 1873), pp. 226-227.

2 Sir J. G. Frazer, op. cit., ix. 127. * Ibid., ix. 136.

^ E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (Calcutta, 1872), pp. 196-197.

A NOTE ON OBSCENITY AND ORGY 109

Of the Roman Saturnalia Frazer writes : " Feasting and revelry and all the mad pursuit of pleasure are the features that seem to have especially marked this car- nival of antiquity. . . . But no feature of the festival is more remarkable, nothing in it seems to have struck the ancients themselves more than the licence granted to slaves at this time . . . the slave might rail at his master, intoxicate himself like his betters, sit down at table with them. . . . Masters actually changed places with their slaves and waited on them at table." ^

The two days of the Jewish festival of Purim were designated as " days of feasting and gladness, and of sending portions one to another and gifts to the poor." ^ Purim has been described as the Jewish Bacchanalia . . . and everything is lawful which can contribute to the mirth and gaiety of the festival." The Jew must drink " until he cannot distinguish between the words

• Cursed be Haman ' and ' Blessed be Mordecai.' "

During the two days of the feast the Jews, we are told, in the 17th century, " did nothing but feast and drink to repletion, play, dance, sing, and make merry ; in particular they disguised themselves, men and women exchanging clothes." ^

The Christian Church in early Europe seems to have adopted folk festivals of the Saturnalian type, especially on Shrove Tuesday and New Year's day. The dramatic element and freedom of movement were prominent at the former festival : Some go about

^ Sir J. G. Frazer, op. cit., ix. 307. In an English hotel at the present day it is the custom at Christmas for the visitors and servants to change places. The custom seems to have originated spontaneously as an expression of fellow-feeling This is an element of the orgy.

2 Esther, ix. 22.

3 Sir J. G. Frazer, op. cit.j ix. 363.

no STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

naked without shame, some crawl on all fours, some on stilts, some imitate animals." ^

The Feast of Fools, or Kalendae^ was an ecclesi- astical orgy, conspicuous chiefly for inversion of role. " Priests and clerics may be seen wearing masks and monstrous visages at the hours of office. They dance in the choir dressed as women, . . . They sing wanton songs. They eat black puddings at the horn of the altar while the celebrant is saying mass. They play at dice there — they cense with stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes. They run and leap through the church without a blush at their own shame. Finally they drive about the town and its theatres in shabby traps and carts, and rouse the laughter of their fellows and the bystanders in infamous performances with indecent gestures and verses scurrilous and unchaste." ^ The inversion of status is especially marked by such offices as bishop, pope, and king — all examples of the mock authority common in folk-festivals.^ The curi- ous title of this orgy may be due merely to the fact that the clerics played the fool, but ancient Rome had a stultorum feriae on the 17th of February, the title of which is also obscure.^ The Dionysiac orgy was con- spicuous for the prominence of women. Probably men dressed as women. Dancing and excessive physical exertion, drinking, and the eating of raw flesh and drinking of warm blood were features.^ Among the

^ Havelock Ellis, Sex in Relation to Society : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vi. (Philadelphia, 1910), 219.

^ See C. Du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium media et infimcs latinitatis (Niort, 1883-1887), s.v. ; there are several other terms.

3 Sir E. K. Chambers, The Mediceval Stage (Oxford, 1903), i. 294, after a letter of the 15th century.

• Ibid., i. 326 et seq. ^ Ibid., i. 334, 355.

^ L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States (London, 1896- 1909), v. 159-166.

A NOTE ON OBSCENITY AND ORGY in

Central Australians an exchange of wives at the end of the Engwura ceremonies may be regarded as an orgiastic element.^

Farnell regards the production of exhilaration in the Dionysiac orgy by means of dancing and drinking as not only religious exaltation but a means of acquir- ing supernatural energy for the working of vegetation- magic.^ This cannot be the primary object of the orgy. Frazer, in view of its frequent connexion with expul- sion of evils, observes : " When a general riddance of evil and absolution from all sin is in immediate pros- pect, men are encouraged to give the rein to their passions, trusting that the coming ceremony will wipe out the score which they are running up so fast. On the other hand, when the ceremony has just taken place, men's minds are freed from the oppressive sense, under which they generally labour, of an atmosphere sur- charged with devils ; and in the first revulsion of joy they overleap the limits commonly imposed by custom and morality. When the ceremony takes place at harvest time, the elation of feeling which it excites is further stimulated by the state of physical well-being produced by an abundant supply of food." ^ Again, in special reference to the Saturnalia of Italy, he remarks : "What wonder then if the simple husbandman imagined that by cramming his belly, by swilling and guzzling just before he proceeded to sow his fields, he thereby imparted additional vigour to the seed." ^

^ sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), p. 381 ; see Ernest Crawley, The Mystic Rose^, ed. by Theodore Besterman (London, 1927), i. 326 et seq.^ ii. 250 et seq.

2 L. R. Farnell, op. cit., v. 161 et seq.

3 Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1911-1915), xx. 225. ^ Ibid.if ix. 347.

112 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

These suggestions miss the main point of the prob- lem of the orgy, which is quite satisfactorily explained by Ellis. They refer to secondary applications of a natu- ral self-regarding human need. Nietzsche's Dionysiac theory and Aristotle's KaOapais' are both suggestive in the psychology of the orgy.

IV. THE NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE

KISS

Kissing is a universal expression in the social life of the higher civilizations of the feelings of affection, love (sexual, parental, and filial), and veneration. In its general use it is more or less symbolic, but in maternal and in sexual love it has an essential value of its own as a focus of physical emotion, which it not only expresses but stimulates.

I. GENERAL DESCRIPTION

A refinement of general bodily contact, the instinct to which is irreducible, kissing supplies a case, in the higher levels of physiological psychology, of the meet- ing and interaction of the two complementary primal impulses, hunger and love. It is remarkable that, although the act in its civilized form is very rare among the lower and semi-civilized races, it is fully established as instinctive in the higher societies. This is a case of an acquired character or of some corresponding process. Equally remarkable is the fact that a line can be drawn between the higher civilizations ; thus, the kiss seems to have been unknown to ancient Egypt ; in early Greece and Assyria it was firmly established, and probably its development in India was as early as the Aryan age.

Touch is " the mother of the senses," and the kiss may be referred generally to a tactile basis, as a special- ized form of contact. Animal life provides numerous

8 113

114 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

analogies ; the billing of birds, the cataglottism of pigeons and the antennal play of some insects, are typical cases. Among the higher animals, such as the bear and the dog, there is a development which seems to lead up to those forms of the act most prevalent among the lov^er races of man and also characteristic of the peoples of Eastern Asia. Far more similar, however, to the civilized human kiss and the non- olfactory forms of the savage kiss is the habit attested for cats of pressing or squeezing one another's nose.^

2. FORMS OF THE KISS

The lower types of the kiss are incorrectly grouped by travellers under the term " rubbing noses," and various forms are often confused. The olfactory form occasionally includes mutual contact with the nose, as among the Maoris, Society and Sandwich Islanders, the Tongans, the Eskimo, and most of the Malayan peoples. The rubbing of noses, often styled the " Malay kiss," is described by Darwin thus : the giver of the kiss places his nose at right angles on the nose of the other, and then rubs it ; the process occupies no longer than a handshake among Europeans. Cook and others de- scribe the South Sea Islands form as a vigorous mutual rubbing with the end of the nose, omitting the olfactory element.^ Elsewhere, as among the Australians, gen- eral contact of the face occurs, that is, " face-rubbing." ^ In many of the lower races mothers lick their infants. But the typical primitive kiss is contact of nose and

^ H. Gaidoz, quoted by C. Nyrop, The Kiss and its History (London, 1901), p. 180.

2 Sir E. B. Tylor, "Salutations," Encyclopedia Britannica'^'^ (London, 191 1), xxiv. 94 ; H. L. Roth, " On Salutations," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1890), xix. 166; G. Turner, Samoa a Hundred Years ago and long before (London, 1884), p. 179 ; C. Nyrop, op. cit., p. 180.

2 E. M. Curr, The Australian Race (Melbourne and London, 1886-1887), iii. 176.

NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE KISS 115

clieek ; the Khyoungtha, for instance, apply mouth and nose to the cheek, and then inhale.^ Among the Chinese, Yakuts, and various Mongohan peoples, and even the Lapps of Europe, this method is characteristic, and is thus described by d'Enjoy : the nose is pressed on the cheek, a nasal inspiration follows, during which the eyelids are lowered ; lastly, there is a smacking of the lips. The three phases are clearly distinguished.^ It is remarkable that this Eastern Asiatic method, typically primitive, should be retained by Chinese civilization. The Japanese have no word for kiss, and the act is known only between mother and child.

The European kiss consists essentially in the ap- plication of the lips to some part of the face, head or body, or to the lips of the other person. Normally there is no [conscious] olfactory element, and any tactile use of the nose is absolutely unknown. It is thus a distinct species, and to describe it as having been evolved from the savage form is erroneous. As a racial habit, it distinguishes the European peoples and their cultural or racial ancestry, the Teutons, the Graeco- Romans, and the Semites, but it appears to have been unknown to the Celts.

As for its physiological derivation we have excluded certain elements. Nyrop refers it to taste and smell ;^ Tylor describes it as a " salute by tasting," * d'Enjoy as " a bite and a suction." ^ Each of these definitions is untenable. Though popular metaphor inevitably speaks of taste, and even of eating and drinking, there

^ T. H. Lewin, Wild Races of South-Eastern India (London, 1870), p. 118.

2 P. d'Enjoy, " Le baiser en Europe et en Chine," Bulletins de la Societe d' An- thropologic de Paris (Paris, 1897), 4 ser. viii. 181-185.

3 C. Nyrop, op. cit., p. 185.

• Sir E. B. Tylor, op. cit., xxiv. 94.

^ P. d'Enjoy, op. cit., viii. 184.

ii6 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

is nothing gustatory in the kiss.^ Such suction as may- be ascribed to it is merely the mechanical closing of the lips,^ as in speaking and eating. This may be described as a refinement of biting, but it would be misleading. Similarly in abnormal forms some use of the tongue occurs. But no connexion with the bite can be main- tained, except in the sense to be explained below. It is true that playful biting with the teeth is practised by savage mothers, and among various peoples by passionate lovers, but there is no derivative connexion between this and the kiss proper. The suggestion has been made that the kiss is practically a mode of speech. Emphasis is here laid on the weak or loud sound which often accompanies the so-called " sucking movement " of the muscles of the lips ; this inspiratory bilabial sound is compared to the lip-click of many barbarous languages.^ The suggestion does not go far ; the element of truth is the fact that the kiss, like language, is a refinement of the nutritive processes of the mouth.

The kiss is a special case of tactile sensory pleasure. In it the lips, the skin of which is the very sensitive variety between the ordinary cuticle and the mucous membrane, are alone concerned. The movement made is the initial movement of the process of eating.

^ W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (London, 1898), S.V., traces the word to a Teutonic base, connected with the Latin gustus, Gothic kustus = " test " and " kiss " is a doublet of " choice." This is, however, very doubt- fuL The word may be connected with the Latin (loan-word ?) basium, " kiss " (cp. Alois Walde, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch"^ [Heidelberg, 19 10], pp. 84-85), and is frequently compared with the Greek Kweu (for *Kv-ve-cru> cp. aor. €Kv(rcra), " kiss " (so, for instance, P. Persson, Beitrdge zur indogertnanischen Wort- forschung [Upsala, 1912], p. 260 w.^), appearing with a different "root-extensor" in Gothic kukjan, " kiss." Old Irish and Welsh have no Celtic word for " kiss " 5 pdc and p<ig are borrowed forms of the Latin pax.

^ A New English Dictionary (Oxford, 1901), ii. 714, defines kissing thus : " 1 o press or touch with the lips (at the same time compressing and then separating them) ..."

^ C. Nyrop, The Kiss and its History (London, 1901), p. 6.

NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE KISS 117

There is, no doubt, a true psychological nexus between affection and hunger, which is very truly expressed in the mechanism of the kiss. The act is a secondary habit of the lips, just as speech is a secondary habit of the whole oral mechanism. The intimate connexion between the development of language and the masti- catory processes of man has been brought out by E. J. Payne.^ The kiss, therefore, is not to be referred to the bite, or even to gustation, much less to mastication, to suction or to olfactory processes. The primary movement of the lips is simply transferred to a meta- phorical use, so to say, and their sensitiveness is applied to a secondary object, whose stimulus is not hunger, but the analogous emotions of love, affection, and ven- eration.

Lombroso has argued that the kiss of lovers is derived from the maternal kiss.^ It is true that the latter is sometimes found among peoples who do not prac- tise the former. The Japanese, for instance, are ignorant of the kiss, except as applied by a mother to her infant.^ In Africa and other uncivilized regions it is a common observation of travellers that husbands and wives, and lovers, do not kiss. But all mothers seem to caress and fondle their children. Winwood Reade has described the horror shown by a young African girl when he kissed her in the European fashion.* The argument, however, of Lombroso is of the same order as that which derives sexual love from maternal, and in neither case can there be any derivation, pre- cisely because the subject during adolescence comes into

'^History of the New World called America (Oxford, 1892-1899), ii. 144. ^ C. Lombroso, cited by Havelock Ellis, Sexual Selection in Man : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, iv. (Philadelphia, 1905), 218.

3 Lafcadio Hearn, " Out of the East " (London, 1895), p. 103.

• W. W. Reade, Savage Africa (London, 1863), p. 193.

ii8 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

a new physical and psychological environment, which itself is sufficient to explain a new reaction.

Some variations in the kiss proper (which we identify with the European) may be here noted. The kiss of North American Indian women is described as consist- ing in laying the lips softly on the cheek, no sound or motion being made.^ This would not come under the Chinese criticism of the European kiss as being vor- acious.^ When Australian or Negro women are men- tioned as employing the kiss,^ we may assume that it is of the olfactory variety. The former people have one branch, the North Queensland tribes, where the kiss is well developed. It is used between mother and child, and between husband and wife. In contrast with many early languages, the pitta-pitta dialect has a word for kissing.*

As for distinctions in the civilized Western kiss, that of the ancient Roman still applies, though modern languages do not employ three terms for the three forms. In Latin, osculum was the kiss on the face or cheeks, as used between friends ; hasium was the kiss of affection, made with and on the lips ; suavium (or savium) was the kiss between the lips, confined to lovers alone. The modern French retain, and other contin- ental peoples (to some extent the English also) follow them, the distinction between the kiss on the cheek and the kiss on the mouth, the latter being reserved for lovers. Both in social custom and in literature the

^ E. B. Custer, " BooU and Saddles" or Life in Dakota with General Custer (New York, 1885), p. 213.

2 P. d'Enjoy, " Le baiser en Europe et en Chine," Bulletins de la Societe d'An- thropologie de Paris (Paris, 1897), 4 ser. viii. 184.

3 E. M. Curr, The Australian Race (Melbourne and London, 1886-1887), i. 343 ; W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 184.

• W. E. Roth, loc. cit.

NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE KISS 119

erotic symbolism of the lovers' kiss has assumed a re- markable importance among the French, who regard a kiss on the mouth, except in cases of love, as a real social sin.

It is interesting to note how this modern European complex of habits is a combination of the practices of Graeco-Roman, Hebrew, and early Christian civiliza- tions.

3. SOCIAL HISTORY

Though kissing is said to be unknown among the Japanese prior to European influence, among the Indians of Guiana, the ancient Celtic peoples and the ancient Egyptians, each statement is probably too dogmatic. The general conclusion is that the habit in some form or another has been prevalent since primitive times, and has received its chief development in Western culture.

Among the Greeks and Latins parents kissed their children, lovers and married persons kissed one another, and so did friends of the same sex or of different sexes. The kiss was used in various religious and ceremonial acts. Under the early Empire the practice assumed remarkable forms in social intercourse ; it was fashion- able, for instance, to perfume the mouth. Very similar was the Hebrew practice,^ with the exception that kiss- ing between persons of different sex was discounten- anced, though a male cousin might kiss a female cousin. The Rabbis advised that all such kisses should be avoided, as leading to lewdness, and restricted the kiss to greeting, farewell, and respect.^ In Semitic life there was also more use of the ceremonial kiss than among the Greeks and Romans.

^ A. Grieve, " Kiss," The Dictionary of the Bible (Edinburgh, 1900), iii. 5. 2 J. Jacobs, " Kiss and Kissing," The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London, (1925), vii. 516 ; C. Nyrop, The Kiss and its History (London, 1901), p. 90.

120 STUDIES OF SA^'AGES AND SEX

The Earlv Christian habit of promiscuous kissing as a symbol of fellowship was an application of pagan social practice, and there are grounds for supposing that it offended the Hebrew element as it certainly shocked the Jewish Church.^ This is St. Peter's " kiss of charity " ; ^ and St. Paul frequently writes : " Salute one another with an holy kiss." ^ The kiss possessed a sacramental value. " The primitive usage was for the ' holy kiss ' to be given promiscuously, without any restriction as to sexes or ranks, among those who were all one in Christ Jesus." * Later, owing to scandals, or rather to such feelings as TertuUian mentions,^ the practice was limited, and it was ordered that men of the laity should salute men, and women women, separately.^

The classical practice, rendered slightly more free by the early Christian extension, prevailed throughout the Middle Ages, with the curious detail that English women had more liberty than continental ones in kissing male friends. Erasmus, in a famous passage, describes the freedom possessed in this matter by English girls. In Catholic ritual the kiss dwindled to more or less of a survival. In court ceremonial it persisted with other details of etiquette ; and the same was the case with certain ecclesiastical and legal for- malities. Knights after being dubbed, persons elected

1 T. K. Cheyne, " Salutations," Encyclopadia Biblica (London, 1903), iv. column 4254.

' I Peter, v. 14.

^ Romans, xvi. 16 ; i Corinthians, xvi. 20 ; i Thessalonians, v. 26.

• E. \'enables, " Kiss," A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (London, 1880),

ii. 902.

5 Ad uxorem, ii. 4. A pagan husband was reluctant that his Christian wife should greet one of the brethren with a kiss.

^ Apostolic Constitutions, ii. 57, viii. I.

' D. Erasmus, The Epistles (London, 1901), pp. 203-204.

NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE KISS 121

to office, and brides on marriage were kissed.^ After the Renaissance a change appeared in England, and kissing became more and more restricted to parental and sexual relations. Thus, Congreve writes at the end of the seventeenth century : You think you're in the Country, where great lubberly Brothers slabber and kiss one another when they meet, like a Call of Serjeants — 'Tis not the fashion here. . . ." ^ At the same time the practice of kissing between friends of different sex, other than lovers and relatives by birth or marriage, fell out of use. It had done so in France a century earlier, and the restriction was copied by English society.^ Increasing moral refinement, or per- haps the increase of restrictions necessitated by an extension of individualism, may be assigned as a cause.

In modern social life the kiss is confined to lovers, members of the family, and women-friends. Between fathers and sons it does not survive adolescence. In continental countries it still persists, especially in France, between male friends, and this fashion is preserved between sovereigns. The courtly use of kissing a lady's hand as a mark of respect came from the court life of Renaissance times. It is obsolete in com- mon life, but clings to the etiquette of great personages. As already stated, the distinction is carefully preserved among continental people between the kiss of affection and the kiss of affianced love.

4. SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS USAGES

In the etiquette, natural or artificial, of salutation, the kiss is a central point, where the relations involve

^ C. Nyrop, op. cit., pp. 163-164.

2 W. Congreve, The Way of the World (London, 1700), Act III., p. 46. ^ Havelock Ellis, Sexual Selection in Man : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, iv. (Philadelphia, 1905), 7.

122 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

tenderness or veneration, or where these emotions are supposed. Its importance is illustrated by various facts of language. The " embrace " and the " salute " are [in use] synonymous with it. Where the act is obsolete, language preserves its memory. The Span- iard says : " I kiss your hands " ; the Austrian describes an ordinary salutation by the phrase " Kiiss d'Hand."

According to Rabbi Akiba, the Medes kissed the hand only.^ Odysseus, on his return, was kissed by his friends on the head, hands, and shoulders.^ In Greece generally inferiors kissed the hand, breast, or knee of superiors.^ In Persia equals in rank kissed each other on the mouth, and those slightly unequal on the cheek, while one much inferior in rank prostrated him- self.* Esau " fell on the neck " of Jacob and kissed him.^ Among the Hebrews the cheek, forehead, beard, hands and feet were kissed ; some deny the practice of kissing on the lips. The phrase in the Song of Songs ^ does not prove its existence, but there is no a priori reason against it in the case of the lover's kiss.' The customary kiss in modern Palestine is thus de- scribed : Each, in turn, places his head, face down- wards, upon the other's left shoulder, and afterwards kisses him upon the right cheek, and then reverses the action, by placing his head similarly upon the other's right shoulder and kissing him upon the left cheek. . . . When a kindly, but somewhat more formal and respect- ful salutation passes between those of the same rank, they will take hold of each other's beards and kiss them.

^ Talmud : Zera^tm : Berakhoth, Sb. ^ Homer, Odyssey, xxi. 224.

2 Sir E. B. Tylor, " Salutations." Encyclopcedia Britannica (Cambridge, 191 1), xxiv. 95.

• Herodotus, History, i. 134. ^ Genesis, xxxiii. 4 ; cp. xlv. 14.

^ [The Song of Songs, i. 2 : " Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth."] ' T. K. Cheyne, " Salutations," Encyclopcedia Biblica (London, 1903), iv. column 4254, denies the kiss on the mouth in Genesis, xli. 40, Proverbs, xxiv. 26.

NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE KISS 123

Women also greet their husbands, and children their fathers, in like manner. . . . The salutation which passes in polite society between a host and those of his guests who are in a similar station of life, consists in placing the right hand upon the other's left shoulder and kissing his right cheek, and then laying the left hand on his right shoulder and kissing his left cheek. . . . There is another more formal mode of salutation between those of similar station of life when meeting in the ordinary way. In this case they join their right hands, simply placing them one to the other, and then each kisses his own hand and puts it to his lips and forehead, sometimes to his forehead only, or over his heart, and at others over his heart, merely, without kissing it." ^ It has been suggested that, when Absalom to gain popularity kissed the people, he employed the second form.^

Equals saluted one another on the cheek or head ; so Samuel saluted Saul.^ Inferiors kissed the hands of superiors. If, in the betrayal of Jesus, Judas kissed his Master on the face, it was an act of presumption.* The fact that the kiss was passed over without remark seems to show that it was, as it should have been from disciple to master, a kiss on the hand. The Prodigal Son would kiss his father's hands before being embraced and kissed.^ Inferiors also kissed the feet (as the woman " who was a sinner," ^ and would-be borrowers '^), or again, the " hem of the garment." ^ Vassals, in the Assyrian inscriptions, show submission by kissing the monarch's feet. Similar homage may be assigned to

1 James Neil, Kissing: its Curious Bible Mentions (London, 1885), pp. 37-41.

2 2 Samuel, xv. 5 ; J. Neil, op. cit., p. 39. ^ i Samuel, x. i.

• Luke, xxii. 47-48 ; G. M. Mackie, " Kiss," A Dictionary of Christ and the

Gospels (Edinburgh, 1906), i- 935 ; T. K. Cheyne, op. cit., iv. column 4254. 5 Luke, XV. 20. ^ Luke, vii. 45. ' Sirach, xxix. 5.

^ Matthew, ix. 20, xiv. 36.

124 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

the phrase, " Kiss the Son." ^ As an act of piety, the Pharisees practised kissing the feet, as did the pious generally.^ The humiliation of the symboHc act of Christ in kissing the disciples' feet has been preserved till [the present day] by some religious orders, and even by European monarchs. The foot of the pope is kissed in ceremonial audiences. By the year a.d. 847 it was said to be an ancient usage. There are grounds for supposing it to be derived from a usage in the Emperor- worship of Rome.^ Prostration is an instinctive ex- pression of fear, awe, or adoration ; to clasp the knees, as was the custom with Greek suppliants, is equally instinctive. The act of kissing the feet is a refinement of these. The Old Testament phrase " licking the dust," ^ is equally doubtfully referred to the kiss upon the feet. In ancient India it was a familiar salutation of respect.^ The feudalistic aspect of the little court held by the old Roman patronus is illustrated by Martial's epigram, which complains of the burdensome civility of the kisses of clients.^ In the court ceremonial of medieval and modern Europe, the kiss on the cheek obtains, as we have seen, between sovereigns ; subjects kiss the sovereign's hand. In medieval Europe the vassal thus salutes the lord, while it was not unusual to kiss a bishop's hand.' In modern Europe a kiss conveying blessing or reverence is usually on the fore- head. " In Morocco equals salute each other by joining their hands with a quick motion, separating

^ Psalms, ii. 12. ^ Talmud : Ntzikin : Baba Bathra, 16a.

^ Said to have been instituted by Diocletian ; H. Thurston, " Kiss," The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1910), viii. 665.

• Psalms, Ixxii. 9 ; Isaiah, xlix. 23 ; Micah, vii. 17.

^ Gautama, Institutes of the Sacred Law, ii. 32-33. ^ Martial, Epigrams, xii. 59.

'J. Bingham, Origines Ecclesiasticae (London, 1838-1840), i. 128-129.

NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE KISS 125

them immediately, and kissing each his own hand." ^ The Turk kisses his own hand, and then places it on his forehead. The Arab kisses his hand to the storm.^ Such is the gesture of adoration to sun and moon referred to in the Old Testament,^ and also used by the Greeks to the sun.* It was the Greek and Roman method of adoration. In explanation of the gesture, Oriental folklore agrees with the European in identify- ing life or soul with the breath. More exactly, the thrown kiss is a symbolic act, transferring to an object at a distance merely the essence of the kiss.

The kiss in its legal aspect is a natural application of the ideas which produced hand-shaking and similar modes of contact. Medieval knights kissed, as modern boxers shake hands, before the encounter. Reconciled foes kiss as a sign of peace.^ It was specially in con- nexion with marriage that the kiss osclum, oscle^ was prominent. Osclum was a synonym generally for pactum ; osculata 'pax was a peace confirmed by a kiss ; osclare meant dotare ; and osculum interveniens was a term applied to gifts between engaged persons. If one of them died before marriage, the presents were returned should no kiss have been given at the be- trothal.^ It is significant that the kiss w^as symbolical of marriage as initium consumrnationis nuptiarum. In old French and medieval law generally the term oscle was applied to the principle that a married woman kissing or being kissed by another man than her husband was guilty of adultery.

1 E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 151.

2 C. M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta (Cambridge, 1888), ii. 67. ' Job, xxxi. 26-28. ^ Lucian, De Saltatione, xvii.

^ C. Nyrop, The Kiss and its History (London, 1901), pp. 107-108. ^ J. Bingham, Origines Ecclesiasticee (London, 1838-1840), vii. 321-332. ' C. Du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium media et infimce Latinitatis (Niort, 1883- 1887), S.V., " Osculum."

126 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Besides the permanent objects of the kiss, in family and analogous relations, the relations of superior and inferior, lord and vassal, sovereign and subject, there are many others which, with more or less permanence, have claimed the kiss as a religious service. It is very significant of the affectionate element in religion that the kiss should have played so large a part in its ritual. The meeting-point between the social and the religious aspects of the kiss is perhaps to be found in the appli- cation of the salute to saints and religious heroes. Thus Joseph kissed Jacob,^ and his disciples kissed Paul.^ Joseph kissed his dead father,^ and the custom is re- tained in our civilization of imprinting a farewell kiss on dead relatives. To suggest, however, that the act of Joseph proves the worship of Jacob as a divine being is against psychology.* All that can be said is that so fine a human sentiment is on the border-line between social and religious feeling. In medieval Europe there was a similar feeling about the kiss of state. This is shown by the instance of Henry II. and St. Thomas of Canterbury, and of Richard I. and St. Hugh.^ Similarly in social life generally ; it is said that among the Welsh the kiss was used only on special occasions, and a hus- band could put away his wife for kissing another man, however innocently.^ The early Christians exploited the social value of the kiss. Though in strong contrast to the Welsh custom, this is equally sacramental. It has been argued that the ritualistic " kiss of peace " alone obtained among the Christians, and that the

^ Genesis, 1. i. ^ ^gj-g^ xx. 37. ^ Genesis, 1. i.

• J. Jacobs, " Kiss and Kissing," The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London,

1925), vii. 516.

^ H. Thurston, " Kiss," Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1910), viii. 665.

• Havelock Ellis, Sexual Selection in Man : Studies in the Psychology of Sex,

iv. (Philadelphia, 1905), 217.

NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE KISS 127

social salute was not practised. But the evidence is strong enough to prove the latter custom.^ For St. Ambrose this v^as " pietatis et caritatis pignus." ^ The custom involved a peculiar sentiment, if v^e con- sider it in connexion v^ith the Christian ideal and practice of love, in w^hich passion was encouraged, though chastity was enforced.

In the early Church the baptized were kissed by the celebrant after the ceremony.^ Roman Catholic ritual still includes the kiss bestowed on the newly-ordained by the bishop. The bishop on consecration and the king when crowned receive the kiss. The kiss bestowed on penitents after absolution was connected with the kiss received by the Prodigal Son. The prac- tice of giving a farewell kiss to the dead is probably connected with the old Italian rite of receiving the soul of the dying in his last breath. In the sixth century the Council of Auxerre (a.d. 578) prohibited the kissing of the dead.* Penitents were enjoined to kiss sacred objects.^

5. THE KISS OF PEACE

First mentioned in the second century by Justin,^ the kiss of peace was one of the most distinctive elements in the Christian ritual. To Clement of Alexandria it was a " mystery." ' The elprjvTj was a preliminary

^ H. Thurston, loc. cit. ^ St. Ambrose, Hexcemeron, VI. ix. 68.

' Cyprian, Ad Fidum de injantibus baptizandis, iv. Similarly in lower stages of culture, a girl after initiation is kissed by her female kin ; see J. Macdonald, " Manners, Customs, Superstitions, and Religions of South African Tribes," Journal of the An- thropological Institute (London, 1891), xx. 118.

• H. Thurston, op. cit., viii. 665.

^ C. Du Fresne du Cange, op. cit., s.v., " Adoratio horarum." ^ Justin Martyr, Apologiae, 1. 65.

' Among the terms used are ^Ipwri, pax, osculum pacts, osculum sanctum, (plK-qfia ayiov, (piXrifxa ayaTnjs ; the last three, together with aairaaixos, salutatio, show its general identity with the Christian social kiss.

128 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

rite in the primitive mass. Conybeare has suggested that it was derived from an institution of the synagogue.^ Philo speaks of a kiss of harmony " hke that between the elements ; the Word of God brings hostile things together in concord and the kiss of love.^ How- ever that may be, the pax became a feature of both Western and Eastern ritual, more conspicuously in the former. St. Cyril writes : This kiss is the sign that our souls are united, and that we banish all remem- brance of injury." ^ This kiss seems to have been given at the beginning of the offertory, between the washing of hands and the sursum corda. But, later, the kiss was in close connexion with the Communion. It has there- fore been conjectured that th.tfax was given twice. In the modern Roman ritual it is given only at High Mass, and rarely to any of the congregation. The celebrant kisses the corporal, and presents his left cheek to the deacon, with the formula pax tecum^ answered by et cum spiritu tuo. The deacon conveys the kiss to the sub-deacon, and he to the other clergy. In the Greek liturgy the celebrant says, " Peace be to all," and kisses the gifts, while the deacon kisses his own stole.* On Easter Sunday in the same Church the congregation kiss one another.^

The fact that the Christians at the time of the younger Pliny were called upon, when arrested, to " adore " the effigy of the Emperor was sufficient to emphasize the ritual importance of the kiss. Adoratio, that is, the act of carrying to the mouth, the Roman

1 F. C. Conybeare, "New Testament Notes," The Expositor (London, 1894), 4 ser. ix. 461.

2 Philo, Oucestiones in Exodum, ii. 78, 118.

3 St. Cyril, Catecheses, xxiii. 3.

• H. Thurston, " Kiss," Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1910), viil. 665.

^ C. Nyrop, The Kiss and its History (London, 1901), p. 106.

NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE KISS 129

form of homage and worship, consisted in raising the right hand to the Hps, kissing it, and then waving it in the direction of the adored object,^ after which the worshipper turned his body to the right.^ During the ceremony the head was covered, except when Saturn or Hercules was adored. Plutarch suggests fantastic reasons for exceptional uses in which the worshipper turned from right to left.^

But both Greeks and Romans employed the kiss direct in worship. Cicero observes that the lips and beard of the statue of Hercules at Agrigentum were almost worn away by the kisses of the devout.* The kiss indirect, or the kiss at a distance, may be described as a natural extension of the direct, capable of develop- ment by any people independently. But it is a curious fact that it can be traced from Graeco-Roman civiliz- ation to that of modern Europe, where, however, it appears to be instinctive in children. The adoration of the Roman Emperors was influenced by Oriental ceremonial. It consisted in bowing or kneeling, touch- ing the robe, and putting the hand to the lips, or kissing the robe ; a variation was the kissing of the feet or knees.^

The kiss of homage in the Middle Ages was so important a part of the ceremony that osculum became a synonym for homagium.^ The vassal kissed the lord's feet, very occasionally his thigh. Afterwards he offered a present for the privilege, a baise-main, a term which

^ Apuleius, Metamorphoses^ iv. 28.

2 Pliny, Historia Naturalis, xxviii. 25 ; Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (Berlin, 1853), iii. 804, No. 5980.

3 Plutarch, Numa, xiv. * Cicero, In Verrem^ IV. xliii. 94.

^ A. S. Williams, " Adoratlo," A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (London, 1890-1891), i. 28-29.

^ C. Du Fresne du Cange, op. cit., s.v. " Osculum."

9

I30 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

shows the connexion or confusion with the equally prevalent fashion of kissing the hand of the sovereign. It is said that Rolf the Ganger, the first Duke of Nor- mandy, when receiving the province as a fief from Charles the Simple, kissed the monarch's feet by lifting them to his mouth as he stood erect. When homage was paid in the lord's absence, the vassal kissed the door ; this was haiser Vhuis or le verrouil}

6. DEATH BY KISSING

Rabbinical lore includes a unique fancy, explanatory of the death of the righteous. According to this, the death of a favourite of God is the result of a kiss from God. Such a death was the easiest of all, and was reserved for the most pious. Thus died Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Aaron, Moses, and Miriam.^ There is a legend that, as St. Monica lay dying, a child kissed her on the breast, and the saint at once passed away. Italian folklore preserves the Hebrew idea in one of its phrases for death. " Addormentarsi nel bacio del Signore," " To fall asleep in the lord's kiss." The kiss of a ghost (in other folklore) produces death.^

7. KISSING SACRED OBJECTS

[There is much evidence of beliefs connected with the kissing of sacred objects.] Kissing the image of a god was a recognized rite of adoration among both Greeks and Romans. The early Arabs had the same rite ; on leaving and entering the house they kissed the house-gods.* In the Eleusinian Mysteries the sacred

^ C. Nyrop, The Kiss and its History (London, 1901), pp. 122-125. 2 Talmud : Zera'-im : Berakhoth, %a ; Talmud : Baba Bathra, 17a ] J. Jacobs, " Kiss and Kissing," Thejezvish Encyclopedia (New York and London, 1925), vii. 516. ^ C. Nyrop, op. cit., pp. 96, 171.

• J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums (Berlin, 1887), p. 105.

NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE KISS 131

objects were kissed.^ The toe of St. Peter's statue is kissed by Roman Catholics. The Muslims kiss the Ka'ba at Mecca. In the wall there is a black stone believed by Muslims to be one of the stones of paradise. It was once white, but has been blackened by the kisses of sinful but believing lips.^ The Hebrews often lapsed into the idolatrous practice ; Hosea speaks of " kissing calves " ; ^ the image of Baal was kissed.* Together with kneeling, the kiss comprises belief and homage. The Hebrews kissed the floor of the Temple, and to this day it is the practice to kiss the si.nth of the tallith when putting it on, the mezuzah at the door when entering or leaving, and the scroll of the law when about to read or to bless it.^ It is even customary among Jews, though not obligatory, when a Hebrew book is dropped to kiss it. " Kissing the Book " is a case, surviving as a real living ceremony in the highest civilization, of primitive conceptions of the oath. These were expressed in various forms. ^ One method of " charging an oath with supernatural energy is to touch, or to establish some kind of contact with a holy object on the occasion when the oath is taken." ' The view of Dr. Westermarck that mana or baraka is thus imparted to the oath, is further developed when the name of a supernatural being is introduced ; thus the modern English ceremony retains the words, so help me God." A complementary aspect is supplied by forms whose object is to prevent perjury. The

^C. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus (Konigsberg, 1829J, p. 135.

2 E. H. Palmer, " Introduction [to the Qur'an]." Sacred Books of the East (Oxford, 1880), vi. p. xiii.

3 Hosea, xiii. 2. ^ i Kings, xix. i8. ^ J. Jacobs, op. cit., vii. 516.

^ Cp. E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Mora^ Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 118 et seq. ' Ibid., ii. 119.

132 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Angami Nagas, " place the barrel of a gun, or a spear, between their teeth, signifying hy this ceremony that, if they do not act up to their agreement, they are prepared to fall by either of the two weapons." ^ In Tibetan law-courts " the great oath " is taken " by the person placing a holy scripture on his head, and sitting on the reeking hide of an ox and eating a part of the ox's heart." ^ Hindus swear on a copy of the Sanskrit Harivamsa.^

The European ceremony of kissing the book of the New Testament after taking the oath in a law-court connects in its material form rather with the kiss of reverence, as instanced in the kissing of relics and sacred objects generally. But in essence there is still some of the primitive sense of responsibility by contact, rendered stronger by the invocation of the name of the deity. Derived indirectly from the Gr^co-Roman ritual of kissing sacred objects and the Hebrew reverence for the scroll of the law, it was early developed by the Christians into their characteristic ceremony of oath- taking. Chrysostom writes : " But do thou, if nothing else, at least reverence the very book thou boldest out to be sworn by, open the gospel thou takest in thy hand to administer the oath, and, hearing what Christ therein saith of oaths, tremble and desist." * Ingeltrude is represented repeating the words : " These four Evan- gelists of Christ our God which I hold in my own hand and kiss with my own mouth." ^ In the former

^ J. Butler, Travels and Adventures in the Province of Assam (London, 1855), p. 154.

2 L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet (London, 1895), p. 569

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 120.

• St. Chrysostom, Ad populum Antiochenum, xv. 5.

^ C. Du Frcsne du Cange, Glossarium medice et infince latinitatis (Niort, 1883- 1887), s.v. " Juramentum."

•

NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE KISS 133

quotation the act of kissing can only be inferred from the word " reverence." The holding of the book is less definite than the Hebrew rite of placing the hands on the scroll when swearing. Even in the Middle Ages an oath was often taken merely hy laying the hand on the Missal.^ The Lombards swore lesser oaths by consecrated weapons, the greater on the Gospels, but it is not certain whether they kissed the book.^ An oath ratified by contact with a sacred object was a " corporal oath " ; the object was the halidome, the equivalent of the Greek opKo^, oath and object being identified. No doubt contact by means of the lips was at an early date regarded as more efficacious than contact by means of the hand, and thus the more primitive notion was superimposed upon that of ador- ation. In Islam the rite is that usual in adoration and does not include the kiss.^ In modern England a detail to be noted is that the hand holding the book must be ungloved. The book varies according to the creed : a Jew is sworn on the Old Testament and a Roman Catholic on the Douay Testament. The term " book," employed with special reference to the oath upon the New Testament, has been regular in England since the fourteenth century at least.^

Among Anglican clergy, it is customary to kiss the cross of the stole before putting it on. The Cath- olic Church enjoins the duty of kissing relics, the Gospels, the Cross, consecrated candles and palms, the hands of the clergy and the vestmicnts and utensils

• C. Nyrop, The Kiss and its History (London, 1901), p. 119.

2 C. Du Fresne du Cange, loc. cit.

' The right hand is placed on the Koran and the head is brought down, touching the book.

• A New English Dictionary (Oxford, 1888^, s.v. " Book," i. 989, quoting a docu-

ment of 1389 : " Eche of hem had svvoren on jje bock."

134 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

of the liturgy. It was formerly part of the Western use that the celebrant should kiss the host. He now kisses the corporal. The altar is regarded as typical of Christ, and as such is kissed by the celebrant.^ In the Greek Church relics are kissed.

The " kiss of peace " was in medieval times the subject of a curious simplification of ritual, by which it became, as it were, a material object. In the 1 2th or 13th century, for reasons of convenience, the instrumentum pads or osculatorium, was introduced. This was a plaque of metal, ivory, or wood, carved with various designs, and fitted with a handle. It was brought to the altar for the celebrant to kiss, and then to each of the congregation at the rails. This is the pax-board or pax-brede of the museums.

8. METAPHOR AND MYTH

The metaphorical applications of the idea of the kiss are not numerous. In some phrases it expresses a light touch. Generally it implies close contact or absolute reconciliation or acquiescence ; ^ to kiss the dust is to be overthrown ; to kiss the rod is to submit to chastisement ; ^ to kiss the cup is to drink. Philos- tratus inspired Ben Jonson's image of the loved one leaving a kiss in the cup.* A " butterfly kiss " is a light one.

Folklore developed in interesting ways the con- nexion between the emotional gesture and the ideas of magic and charms. Relics were kissed to regain

1 H. Thurston, " Kiss," Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 19 10), viii. 164. ^ Cp. Psalms, Ixxxv. lo.

' Similarly in slang, to kiss the stocks, the chink, the counter ; to kiss the hare's foot = to be late.

^ Derived from the Greek and Roman method of drinking a health.

NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE KISS 135

health. Conversely, the kiss of a sacred person, a specialized form of his touch, cures the leper, as in the case of St. Martin. Some similar association of thought may attach to the nursery practice of " kissing the place to make it well " ; ^ gamesters used to kiss the cards in order to secure luck with them ; an Alpine peasant kisses his hand before receiving a present. Pages in the French Court kissed any article which they were given to carry A famous instance of symbolism is the kiss bestowed by Brutus on his mother-earth — an application of the kiss of greeting. But in German folklore " to kiss the ground " is a synonym for " to die." 2 The privilege in English folk-custom known as " kissing under the mistletoe " is a Christmas festal practice connected by Frazer with the licence of the Saturnalia.^ It may have originated independently as an expression of festivity. Greek, Latin, and Teutonic mythology employed the motif of unbinding a spell by a kiss — le fier haiser of Arthurian romances, which changes a dragon into the maiden who had been en- chanted. The Sleeping Beauty awakened by the kiss of the lover is a widely-distributed motif. An analogy, without actual derivation, is to be found in many primitive cases of cancelling a taboo. Thus in Aus- tralian ceremony bodily contact, analogous to the kiss, in various forms, removes the taboo between two persons, such as the celebrant and the subject of a rite. An analogy may be seen between Teutonic and early Christian ritual in the connexion drawn out by Grimm between minne-drinking and the kiss. He finds this both in sorcery and in sacrificial rites Closely parallel

^ C. Nyrop, The Kiss and its History (London, 1901), pp. 168, 136 et seq.

2 Ibid.^ p. 130.

3 [Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1911-1915), xi. 291 w.'*.]

• J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (London, 1882-1888), p. 1102.

I

136 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

to the magical power of the kiss in breaking taboo and restoring to consciousness is the myth-motive in which a kiss produces both forgetfulness and remembrance. This capacity is evidently based on human experience, and is significant in connexion with the practice of the kiss in religion. It brings to one focus the kiss of love and the kiss of adoration. In the psychology of adoles- cence the kiss produces a forgetfulness of old conditions and awakens the subject to a new life. The kiss appears to have no symbol in art. European children and adolescents express it in writing by a cross, perhaps merely an accidental choice. The Slavic Jews style an insincere kiss as a " kiss with dots."

V. BIRTHDAYS AND THE DAY OF BIRTH

The custom of commemorating the day of birth is connected, in its form, with the reckoning of time, and, in its content, with certain primitive religious principles. It is the most conspicuous example of commemorative ritual. Its essence is the repetition of the event com- memorated. As culture develops, this primary mean- ing is obscured hy various accidents.

In the lower culture, what is reported of the Congo tribes applies generally ; we are told of these that " no record is kept of birth or age." ^ The Hupas of Cali- fornia take no account of the lapse of time, and consider it a ridiculous superfluity to keep a reckoning of age. They guess at a man's years by examination of the teeth. One will say, " I have good teeth yet." The only epochs noted are those of babyhood, boyhood or girlhood, youth, manhood or womanhood, the state of married man or woman, and that of old man or old woman.^ The Omahas have a superstitious ob- jection to counting, and therefore never note a person's age.^

The earliest lunar reckoning produced the seven-

• Herbert Ward, " Ethnographical Notes relating to the Congo Tribes," Journal

of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1895), xxiv. 291.

2 S. Powers, Tribes of California (Washington, 1877), pp. 76-77.

^ Edwin James, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mountains^ performed in the years l8ig and '20, under the Command of S. H. Long (Philadelphia, 1823), i. 214, 235.

137

138 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

day week, the lunar month, and the lunar year, thus providing machinery for the expression of any ideas involving repetition of events. Parallel w^ith these dates, and of earlier origin, are seasonal epochs, marked by changes in vegetation, and also the epochs of human growth, as noted above.

I. THE DAY OF BIRTH

The day of birth itself may first be considered. At an early stage of chronology the influence of ideas of luck is brought to bear upon dates. Every people has its own list of ominous objects and circumstances. In highly developed popular religions the result is a dualism affecting the whole life of man. Of the Cam- bodians we read that the idea of luck dominates their whole existence.^ The religion of the Baganda is described as a religion of luck.^ Among the Tshi people of West Africa each person has his lucky and unlucky days.^ In the week of the Asabas of the Niger the days for marketing, for work, and for rest vary for each individual according to the particular ju-ju decided for him by the medicine-man.*

As the circumstances attending the moment of birth are conspicuous or inauspicious, so are those attending the day. Any object or circumstance dis- tinguishing it may affect the destiny of the child. When days are marked, they acquire permanent or varying characteristics which automatically influence

^ Etienne Aymonier, Le Cambodge (Paris, 1900-1904), i. 53.

2 J, Roscoe, " Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1902), xxxii. 72.

3 Sir A. B. Ellis, The T shi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (Lon- don, 1887), p. 220.

• J. Parkinson, " Note on the Asaba People (Ibos) of the Niger," Journal of the

dnthropological Institute (London, 1906), xxxvi. 317.

BIRTHDAYS AND DAY OF BIRTH 139

the event. The Malagasy, who possess an elaborate doctrine of fatalism (vintana)^ mark a certain number of days in each month as lucky or unlucky. The vava^ or first days, of some months are especially disastrous to children then born, in some cases to the offspring of the people generally, in others to those of the royal family. A child born on an unlucky day, and dying young, is said to have " too strong a vintana?'^ For- merly, children born on unlucky days were put to death by being buried alive. In modern times this infanticide is commuted to an ordeal, offering, or " expiatory bath," the water being buried instead of the child. In one clan of the Sakalavas all children born on a Tuesday were put to death. In the Bora tribe a child was put to death if born on a day which was unlucky to both father and mother ; if the day was unlucky for one parent only, the child's life was spared. In the Tanale tribe one particular month was peculiarly unlucky for birth.i

With the rise of astrology comes the development of the horoscope and similar forms of augury. In origin such practices are a species of sympathetic magic ; the intention is to influence events, or to assist nature, and the method employed is the rehearsal or artificial previous reproduction of the desired result. The Central Americans possessed an elaborate code of " signs of the day," applying to each day of each cycle of twenty days, the cempohualli^ of which the year was a multiple. Horoscopes were prepared from these signs for the day and hour of birth. Every Mexican bore through life, as a species of personal name, the sign

• L. Dahle, " Sikidy and Vintana : Half-hours with Malagasy Diviners," The

Antananarivo Annual (Antananarivo, 1888), vol. iii., No. xii., p. 460 ; James Sibree, Madagascar and its People (London, 1870), pp. 279 et seq.

140 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

of his birthday.^ The Burmese predict a man's char- acter and destiny according to the day of the week on which he is born and the constellation which rules it. The name of the child must begin with one of the letters belonging to the birthday The Asabas of the Niger often name a child after the day of its birth.^ In China the hour and the day of birth are regarded as being very important. A child born between the hours of 9 and 1 1 will have a hard lot at first, but finally great riches.* The Hindus possess an elaborate astrological system of nativities connected with lucky and unlucky days.^ In Madagascar nativities are drawn up from the position not of the stars, but of the moon. This method is earlier ; later cultures prefer the star of nativity. The Tshi peoples name children after the day of the week.^ The Muhammadanized Swahili consider it lucky to be born on Friday, the Muham- madan festival. Children then born are named " son " or " daughter of Friday." In German folklore Sunday is lucky as a birthday, particularly the Sunday of the new moon. This idea is connected with growth.

^ F. Bernardino de Sahagun, Historia general de las cosas de Ntieva Espana (Mexico, 1829-1830), pp. 239 et seq. ; E. J. Payne, History of the New World called America (Oxford, 1892), ii. 325 et seq. ; H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), ii. 271.

2 Shway Yoe [Sir J. G. Scott]^ The Burman (London, 1882), i. 4, 6.

^ J. Parkinson, " Note on the Asaba People (Ibos) of the Niger," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1906), xxxvi. 317.

• N. B. Dennys, The Folk-Lore of China (London, 1876), p. 8.

^ J. A. Dubois, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies^ (Oxford, 1899), ii. 382 et seq. / Sir M. Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism^ (London, 1887), pp. 372 et seq.

^ Sir A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (Lon- don, 1887), p. 220.

' C. Velten, Sitten und Gebrdnche der Suaheli (Gottingen, 1903), p. 13 } James Sibree, Madagascar and its People (London, 1870), pp. 279 et seq.

BIRTHDAYS AND DAY OF BIRTH 141

" Sunday children " are supposed to be able to see spirits, or to see in the dark.^

2. THE BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY

The principle of repeating an event after its occur- rence is an inversion of sympathetic magic. Whereas in the ordinary form of magic the coming event is influenced and ensured by previous rehearsal, in this inverted form it is reproduced in order to repeat the original advantages and to effect their continuance. The idea is naturally suggested by the recurrence of the same external or chronological conditions. These were closely bound up with the original event, and are therefore supposed to influence it. They are further supposed to carry it with them, and therefore require its repetition. The intention varies as the event. In the case of the repetition of birth the intention is a renewal of the life acquired by the original birth. Such ideas are illustrated by the general custom of celebrating the renewal of the year. The ritual is designed, to renew not only the life of nature, but also the life of men, and at the same time to discard the old life, now regarded as decay and death. The seasonal changes of growth, connected early with the phases of the moon and the path of the sun, naturally fostered such ideas. As individualism developed they were applied to the life of each man. But the important point for the earlier periods is that these annual renewals of nature and of life in general practically amounted to universal or social birthdays.

To illustrate the first of these points, we may instance the Hindu festival samvatsarddi, which

^ H. H. Ploss, Das Kind^ (Leipzig, 1911-1912), ii. 88, 89.

142 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

celebrates the beginning of the year. " The chief features of the day are the reading of the new almanac and hearing the forecast of the events of the New Year. New clothes also are worn when procurable, and the food partaken of during the day is, as far as possible, composed of new materials, i.e. new grain, pulses and such like, for this is a feast of ingathering. One dish, which must be partaken of by all who wish for good luck during the year, is a conserve composed of sugar, tamarind, and the flowers of the neem or margosa tree {Melia Azadirachta)^ which is then in full flower. The bitter taste of this is not much relished as a rule ; but it is necessary that at least a small portion of the dish should be eaten. This seems to be analogous to the English idea that it is necessary to eat mince-pie at Christmas or at the New Year." ^

In the next place, such festivals, surviving as they do into the highest stages of evolution, are in the early stages universal birthdays. The Malagasy custom is significant. In the lunar year of Madagascar, time is popularly reckoned by the annual great itastfandroana. Remarkable longevity is denoted by the phrase that a man has seen three fandroanas at the same season of the year. Thus he might see it in spring at the age of 7, again when 40, and again when 73. We are expressly informed that a man's age is reckoned not by his years, but by the fandroana.^

The Japanese supply an instructive case of com- promise between the social and the individual birthday. The first of January, the commencement of the New Year, may be considered the universal birthday, for they do not wait till the actual anniversary of birth

ij. E. Padfield, The Hindu at Home (Madras, 1908), p. 165. ^W. Ellis, History of Madagascar (London, 1838), i. 447-448.

BIRTHDAYS AND DAY OF BIRTH 143

has come round to call a person a year older, but date the addition to his age from the New Year. The 6ist birthday is the only one about which much fuss is made. This is because the old man or woman having lived through one revolution of the sexagenary cycle then begins a second round, which is in itself an extraordin- ary event, for the Japanese reckon youth to last from birth to the age of 32, middle age from 32 to 40, and old age from 40 to 60. A child is born in December, 1901. By January, 1902, they talk of the child as being two years old, because it has lived through a part of two separate years." ^

In the Chinese religion of piety we find a remarkably explicit illustration of the principle of the renewal of life on the anniversary of birth. " The birthday celebration is a peculiar institution," though not at- tended with much eclat till after the age of 15. Each person has an annual festival, and every tenth year after reaching 50 an extraordinary celebration. Especially honoured is the 6 1st birthday. The Emperor on his birthday is supposed to acquire 10,000 " longevities." The courts of justice are closed, and a general amnesty is proclaimed. The ordinary person on his birthday receives " longevity presents," and his friends wish him long life. With the express purpose of prolonging life, a dish of vermicelli in remarkably long strips is eaten. Of particular importance is the " longevity garment." This is a handsome robe, embroidered in gold char- acters with the word " longevity." It serves at death as a man's shroud. It is generally a present from the children, and is given to the parent on his birthday. He wears it then, and on all festive occasions, in order

^ B. H. Chamberlain, Things Japanese^ (London, 1902), p. 62.

144 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

to acquire long life, " it being generally acknowledged among the Chinese that it is extremely useful and necessary on the birthday to absorb a good amount of vital energy in order to remain hale and healthy during the ensuing year." ^

The Koreans celebrate the 6ist birthday in the Chinese fashion. On ordinary birthdays new clothes are worn, and a feast is prepared for friends of the family .2 The Burmese offer on their birthdays, cele- brated weekly, candles representing the animals con- nected with the day of the week. The offering is an act of worship at the pagoda.^

The Central Americans celebrated birthdays with a feast given to the friends of the family. Presents were offered them on their departure.*

Among the Tshi natives of West Africa, a man's birthday is sacred to his kra^ or " indwelling spirit." If a man is rich, he kills a sheep, if poor, a fowl, and prepares a feast. In the morning, when he washes, he provides himself with an egg, and some new fibre of the kind used as a sponge. He then stands before the calabash containing the water, and addresses his kra^ asking for its protection and assistance during the coming year, as he is about to worship it, and keep that day sacred to it. He then breaks the egg into the cala- bash, and washes himself with the fluid ; after this he puts white clay on his face, and puts on a white cloth. Members of the higher classes, kings and chiefs, keep sacred to the kra the day of the week on which they

^ J. Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese (New York, 1867), ii. 217 et seq. ; J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China (Leyden, 1892, etc.), i. 61-62. 2 W. E. Griffis, Corea (London, 1882), p. 295.

2 Shway Yoe [Sir J. G. Scott], The Burman (London, 1882), i. 6.

• H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New

York, 1875-1876), ii. 283.

BIRTHDAYS AND DAY OF BIRTH 145

were born. Thus Kwoffi Kari Kari, having been born on a Friday, made it a law that no blood should be shed on that day.^

The ancient Persians celebrated birthdays.^ In ancient Egypt the birthdays of the kings " were cele- brated with great pomp. They were looked upon as holy ; no business was done upon them, and all classes indulged in the festivities suitable to the occasion. Every Egyptian attached much importance to the day, and even to the hour, of his birth ; and it is probable that, as in Persia, each individual kept his birthday with great rejoicings ; welcoming his friends with all the amusements of society and a more than usual profusion of the delicacies of the table." ^

In modern Persia the birthdays of Muhammad and 'All, as in Islam generally, are duly honoured. For ordinary persons, however, the New Year's Feast is the only real festival.* Among the modern Jews, the 13th birthday of a boy is celebrated as a family feast, this date being his religious majority.^

The preceding accounts introduce some secondary principles. The idea, inseparable from festivals, of holiday or rest, combines with the wish to avoid con- suming energy and vitality, and to assimilate the same by means of food and drink. A further principle is that of a propitious commencement of an epoch as influencing the whole. At a late stage such ideas are obscured, and an ethical principle arises. This is, in

1 Sir A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (Lon- don, 1887), p. 156.

2 Herodotus, History, i. 133, ix. no.

5 Sir J. G. Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1878), iii. 368.

• J. E. Polak, Persien (Leipzig, 1865), i. 338.

^ S. Roubin, "Birthday," The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London, 1925), iii. 221. 10

146 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Western culture, faintly suggested by the phrase, " turning over a new leaf " at the New Year or on the birthday. In Catholicism, it is more marked in com- bination with the birthday of the individual's patron saint. In early Christianity each anniversary was a step towards the new life commencing at death.

The idea of renewal, as we saw, is in the early stages emphasized by the weekly phases of the moon. Thus we get the principle of the octave. One of its earliest applications is the celebration of the seventh day after birth, on which, among various peoples, the name is given or some ritual operation is performed. The principle of the octave is actually applied at times to produce a weekly birthday. This has been instanced in West Africa and Burma. A good many recorded birthdays are probably not annual, but weekly or monthly. The ancient Syrians celebrated a monthly birthday.^

[These considerations lead up to some peculiarities of reckoning or commemoration which have influenced the custom]. The Apache father makes a note of each moon that follows the birth of a child. A large mark is made for the tenth month.^ The Mayas celebrated as the birthdays of their children the first step taken, the first word spoken, and the first thing made.^ The Ovaherero reckon a man's age from the time of his circumcision, not counting the previous period. A man is called after the otyiondo of his circumcision. Those circumcised at the same time are omakura^ " persons

^ 2 Maccabees, vi. 7.

- A. Hrdlicka, " Notes on the San Carlos Apache," American Anthropologist (Lancaster, Pa., 1905), n.s. vii. 490.

' H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), ii. 662.

BIRTHDAYS AND DAY OF BIRTH 147

of the same age." ^ Such methods of reckoning age are convenient for the savage, who has Httle use for any more accurate reckoning. Other such epochs, which at a certain stage are the only birthdays," are weaning, initiation, and marriage. The Baganda reckon a man's age by the reigns of the chiefs. " It was in the reign of so and so that I was born." ^

In the lower culture names are curiously parallel and interchangeable, so to say, with dates. The Cen- tral Australians have each a name denoting age in relation to others, but have no annual reckoning. The Maori had one name given at birth, a second at puberty, a third on his father's death, and others whenever he performed some achievement.^ An Aht will change his name perhaps ten times in ten years, and celebrate the event each time with a feast.* In connexion with change of name there is the idea of renewal.

An early application of the principle of commem- oration is the feast of the dead." All the ideas con- nected with the spirits of the departed find expression here. In early religion these celebrations are as frequent and as important as any annual festival. In Oajaca great ceremonial attended the anniversary of the birth of great lords after their death. The belief was that the soul wandered about for many years before entering bliss, and visited its friends on earth once a year.^ The Hindus observe the new moon of the month, Bhdd- rapada (September-October), in honour of the dead.

t

^ G. Viehe, '* Some Customs of the Ovaherero," Folk-lore Journal (Cape Town, 1879), i. 44.

2 J. Roscoe, " Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda," jfournal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1902), xxxii. 72. 2 R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui^ (London, 1870), p. 156.

• G, M, Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life (London, 1868), p. 264.

^ J. E. Padfield, The Hindu at Home (Madras, 1908), pp. 165, 217, 225.

148 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

On this day the head of a family must perform pre- scribed ceremonies for the preceding three generations. The celebration is for such of the dead as may not have received the usual rites of sepulture. The fact shows, by negation, that the commemoration is the repetition of the event. The annual srdddhas are well known. Their object is to " assist the departed spirit in the various experiences it will have to pass through. At the same time, the one who duly performs these rites and ceremonies thereby lays up merit for himself and his family, which merit will be duly carried to the credit of his account hereafter." One srdddha is to provide the spirit with an intermediate body." Another indicates the union of the dead with his immediate ancestors. The monthly Irdddhas com- mence on the thirtieth day after death. An annual ceremony is performed on the anniversary of the death.^ A slight shifting of the point of view will show the parallelism between such practices as the Hindu and the early Christian principle that the birthday of the martyr was the day on which he died. The deathday of the faithful was regarded as their birth into a new life. The " natale " par excellence was the day of death. It was a nativity to a glorious crown in the kingdom of heaven. Tertullian observes that St. Paul was born again by a new nativity at Rome because he suffered martyrdom there. Such natalia were contrasted with " natural birthdays," as spiritual in opposition to worldly. The birthdays of martyrs, celebrated at the grave or monument, had a profound influence on the development of ecclesiastical institutions. The cele- bration was a service, at which the Communion was received. The ethical principle involved was imitation

^ J. E. Padfield, The Hindu at Home (Madras, 1908), pp. 165, 217, 225.

BIRTHDAYS AND DAY OF BIRTH 149

of the martyr, repetition in others of his life and death. The fasti of martyrs were gradually compiled, and churches were erected over their bones, the bones sometimes being replaced under the altar.^

The festivals of gods are frequently their birthdays. Thus the Hindu festival ^rirdmajayanti celebrates the birthday of Rama, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu. The image of the god is adorned and carried in pro- cession. Pilgrimage is made to the temple. Krsna- . jay anil is the birthday of Krishna, and is one of the most popular of the annual festivals. The Bhdgavata describing the life of the god is read on that day. Vindyakachaturthl is the birthday festival of Ganesa. Every house sets up an image of the god, before which lights are placed. A mantra of consecration, pratistd^ is pronounced, on which the spirit of the god enters the image. In such acts we see a ritual re-creation of the divinity, a repetition of his birth. At this feast artisans worship their tools, and students their books, placing them before the image. Ganesa is the god who is invoked in all undertakings, and who helps man on his way.

In Christianity the birthday of Christ is only less important than the Passion and the Resurrection. Even here the social aspect of religion is prominent, and, by a coincidence, the date finally decided upon is that celebrated in paganism as the annual birthday of the sun, just as the weekly day of the sun, the Christian Sunday, was the weekly birthday of the Solar Deity, and in Hebrew mythology the first day of Creation.

ij. Bingham, Origines Ecclesiasticcg (London, 1838- 1840), vii. 340 et seq., 350 et seq., 422.

VI. FCETICIDE

Destruction of the human embryo has not among any people become a social habit, as general infanticide has done among some modern primitive communities and among the ancient Greeks and Italians. Throughout history its prevalence has been sporadic. One section of a race may practise it, v^hile another, though conter- minous, may forbid it, and yet another may be stated to be ignorant of its possibility.^ Its practice does not involve any high degree of knowledge, for the crudest methods of manipulation, coinciding at times with those accidents which produce natural abortion or miscarriage, are found among the lower races.^ Nor does it, at any stage of culture, necessarily imply a depraved condition of sexual morality. As often as not — for instance, among the ancient Italians in many cases and among many modern savage tribes — the sole reason is poverty. The crime thus is parallel in one aspect with infanticide and prevention of conception. " The same considerations," says Westermarck, " as induce savages to kill their new-born infants also in- duce them to destroy the fetus before it has proceeded into the world from the mother's body." ^

Besides the hardships of wild life and the intense

^ So in the East Indian Archipelago (J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ['s Gravenhage, 1886], pp. 24 [Burn], 302 [Tenimber and Timorlaut]).

^Ibid., p. 353.

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 413.

1 52 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

struggle for existence in modern civilization, there are secondary reasons for the practice. A perverted dia- thesis may induce a mother to forgo the trouble of pregnancy, birth, and rearing. More often it is in order to conceal illicit intercourse. The length of the period of suckling, which may drive the husband to form other ties, is also a contributorv factor. And the same reason applies v^hen the mother has already a child at the breast.^

Whatever be the reasons operating to induce the destruction of a new life, the crime, as already noted, has nowhere and at no time been a social habit. The progressive evolution of culture involves the displace- ment of infanticide proper by foeticide, and in the last half-century foeticide itself has been largely dis- placed by the artificial prevention of conception.

The social attitude towards the crime has followed a similar evolution. Rude indifference to child-murder has given place in advancing culture to abhorrence, while destruction of the unborn child was regarded as venial in comparison. The whole question of ethical valuation was complicated by the speculations of early animistic philosophy, which from the Greek period were applied to the elucidation of biological facts. Both the sentiment and the legislation, ecclesiastical and civil, of Western civilization have been largely influenced bv the incidence of these ideas. A broad line, lastly, can be drawn between barbarian, classical, and Oriental ethics on the one hand, and Christian on the other, with regard to the value attached to the unborn life and the rights of the individual over it.

Among the lower and the higher races alike the moral

• Sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia

(London, 1899), pp. 51, 264. ; idd.^ The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904). p. 608.

FCETICIDE

153

objection to the crime varies directly as the social consciousness of the duty of augmenting the birth-rate. Hence it may be laid down that infanticide and foeti- cide tend to decrease with the passage from a natural to an artificial method of subsistence. Where agri- culture and pastoral cultures are established, the importance of numbers is realized. In a secondary degree the objection varies inversely as the sexual morality, dependent upon the matrimonial system of any given people. Cases of mere luxury, as in pagan Greece and Rome, are of little significance. An ex- ample of the direct variation may be found in the early Hebrews ; and of its modern form in the modern Euro- pean peoples, including the Jews. Examples of the inverse variation may be seen in the Hindus and Mus- lims, where the results of the matrimonial system have overlaid the primary objection to foeticide.

Among semi-civilized peoples it is just possible to connect the existence of the moral objection with upward progress from the natural and precarious mode of subsistence. In Samoa, for instance, artificial abortion was very prevalent. Here there is possibly an indirect influence of sexual morality.^ The Dakotas did not regard it as a crime, though the generality of Indian tribes did so regard it.^ A good example is the case of the Kafirs : " The procuring of abortion, although universally practised by all classes of females in Kafir society, is nevertheless a crime of considerable magnitude in the eye of the law ; and when brought to the knowledge of the chief, a fine of four or five

^ G. Turner, Samoa a Hundred Tears ago and long before (London, 1884), pp. 79,

280.

2 H. R, Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadelphia, 185 1- i86o), iii. 243 ; Ploss-Bartels-Reitzenstein, Das Weib^^ (Berlin, 1927), ii. 502 et seq.

154 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

head of cattle is inflicted. The accomplices are equally guilty with the female herself." ^

As distinguished from infanticide, destruction of the embryo involves no conflict v^ith the instinct of maternal or parental love. " Considering," as Wester- marck observes, " that the same degree of sympathy cannot be felt v^ith regard to a child not yet born as v^ith regard to an infant, it is not surprising to find that foeticide is practised with objection even by some peoples who never commit infanticide." He instances Samoa and the Mitchell Islands.^

Foeticide is not referred to in the Mosaic Law. The omission is one indication, among many, of the intense regard felt by the Jewish people for parenthood and the future of the race. Hinduism and Islam show an inconsistency between theory and practice. " In a country like India . . . where six-sevenths of the widows, whatever their age or condition in life may be, are absolutely debarred from re-marriage, and are compelled to rely upon the uncertain support of their relatives, it is scarcely surprising that great crimes should be frequently practised to conceal the results of im- morality, and that the procuring of criminal abortion should, especially, be an act of almost daily commission, and should have become a trade among certain of the lower midwives." ^

Yet the old laws forbade it and classed it as murder, placing it in the same category as homicide, neglect of the Vedas, incest, and the drinking of spirituous

• J. Maclean, A Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs (Mount Coke, 1858),

p. 62.

2 E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 413-414-

^ Norman Che vers, Report on Medical Jurisprudence in the Bengal Presidency (Calcutta, 1854), p. 712.

FCETICIDE

155

liquor.^ It is one of the three acts which make women outcasts, the others being the murder of a husband or of a Brahman.2 The myth of " the wiping off of sins " in the Atharvaveda denounces the abortionist, the hhrunahan^ whose name and crime end the lists : " be- yond him who has committed an abortion the sin does not pass." ^ Buddhism naturally included it in its denunciation of the destruction of any form or degree of life. The bhikkhu " who intentionally kills a human being, down to procuring an abortion, is no Samana, and no follower of the Sakyaputta." *

In Persia, according to Polak, abortion is regularly practised to prevent illegitimate births ; and legislation ignores the crime.^ In Turkey there is the same in- difference, and the practice is not uncommon. The Avesta theorizes on the date at which the embryo becomes animate, and its condemnation of foeticide is detailed. " ' That man does not follow the way of the law, O Zarathushtra, who commits the Baodhovarsta crime with a damsel and an old woman,' said Zara- thushtra." ^ Describing the crime, the Vendtddd says that if a maid who is with child unlawfully tells her lover, " I have conceived by thee," and he replies, Go then to the old woman and apply to her for one of her drugs, that she may procure the miscarriage," and the old woman brings some hanga or shaeta, that kills in the womb or expels the foetus, and the man says, " Cause thy fruit to perish," " the sin is on the head of all three."^ The penalty was that for wilful murder. When a woman has been pregnant for four months and ten

^ Apastamba, VII. xxii. 8 ; Gautama, xxi. 9.

2 Vasishtha, xxviii. 9 ; see The Laws of Manu, v. 90.

3 Atharvaveda, VI. cxii. 3. * Mahavagga, I. IxxTiii. 4. ^J. E. Polak, Persien (Leipzig, 1865), i. 217.

^Zend-Avesta, Vast xxiv. iv. 29. Vend' dad, xv. 13 et seq.

156 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

days, the child is formed and a soul added to its body?- The uttering of a charm is also frequently a factor, for ideas of magic naturally intrude even in such practices as this. Similarly the Greenlanders supposed that an abortion was transformed into an evil spirit, angiaq, which avenged the crime.^

In his eugenic proposals, Plato recommends that no child be suffered to come to the birth when the parents have passed the age assigned for procreation.^ Aristotle, carrying on the Hellenic traditional objection to the existence of imperfect or deformed children, recommends abortion before the foetus is animate, in cases where the mother has already given birth to the number of children enjoined by the State.^ Under the Roman Empire the practice of foeticide was carried on for reasons of poverty, sensuality, or luxury. Seneca speaks of it as practised by fashionable women in order to preserve their beauty.^ Lecky concludes : " It was probably regarded by the average Romans of the later days of Paganism much as Englishmen in the last cen- tury regarded convivial excesses, as certainly wrong, but so venial as scarcely to deserve censure." ^ An attempt was made by the Antonines to prevent the loss of children consequent upon the practice."^

Greeks and Romans made a beginning of specu- lation as to the biological value of the embryonic life. Distinguishing sharply between foeticide and infanti- cide, they put it that the unborn child was not homo^ not even infans^ but merely a spes animantis. It was

^ Vend'idad^ xv. 36-38.

^ H. J. Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo (Edinburgh and London, 1875), PP- 45? 439-440-

^ V\3.to, Respublica^v. * Aristotle, Politica^ VII. xvi. 1335.

^ Digesta, xxv. 3-4 5 Seneca, Ad Helviam, 16.

^ W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals ^ (London, 1890), ii. 21-22. DigestUf xlvii. 11-14.

FCETICIDE 157

regarded, not incorrectly, as merely a part of the mother, as a fruit is a part of the tree until it falls.^

Christian philosophy, and consequently Christian legislation, applied from the first " the healthy sense of the value and sanctity of infant life which so broadly distinguishes Christian from pagan societies " ^ to this more subtle form of infanticide. " Prevention of birth," asserts Tertullian, " is a precipitation of mur- der ; nor does it matter w^hether one take away a life when formed, or drive it away while forming. He also is a man who is about to be one. Even every fruit already exists in its seed." ^

Empirical knowledge was combined with Aristotle's doctrine to establish a theory of embryonic animation. This, of course, is to be distinguished from " quick- ening," which may commence some hundred days after conception. Aristotle held that the soul of the zygote at conception was the vegetative only, that after a few days it was informed by the animal soul, and later by the rational. His followers distinguished between the male and female embryo in the date of animation. The male was regarded as being animated forty days after conception, the female eighty days. Later the moment of animation was fixed for both sexes at the fortieth day. The Roman jurists adopted the latter view.* The general distinction between the animate and the inanimate foetus was clearly held by Canon and Roman law alike, and lasted to modern times. It was applied in practice by Augustine thus : The body is created before the soul. The embryo before it is endowed with a soul is injormatus^ and its destruction

^ Spangenberg, " Ueber das Verbrechen der Abtreibung der Leibesfrucht," Neues Archiv des Criminalrechts (Halle, 1818), ii. 2Z-23.

2 W. E. H. Lecky, op. cit., ii. 23. ^ Tertullian, Apologia, 9.

• C. Coppens, "Abortion," The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1907);

Spangenberg, op. cit., ii. 37 et seq.

158 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

by human agency is to be punished with a fine. The embryo j or matus is endowed with a soul ; it is an animate being ; its destruction is murder, and is to be punished with death.^

Throughout the Middle Ages women guilty of the crime, which, however, was of rare occurrence, were condemned on the capital charge, as the Sixth Ecu- menical Council had ordained.^ There was to the theory a natural corollary that the embryo formatus required to be baptized if it would be saved. Augus- tine held that the embryo might share in the resur- rection.^ Fulgentius argues : " It is to be believed beyond doubt that not only men who are come to the use of reason, but infants, whether they die in their mother's womb or after they are born, without baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are punished with everlasting punishment in eternal fire, because, though they have no actual sin of their own, yet they carry along with them the condemnation of original sin from their first conception and birth."* Aquinas, however, was of opinion that infants dying before birth might perhaps be saved.^ Meanwhile some Councils made no distinction between the periods of gestation, and condemned all foeticide as murder.^

Interesting variations of opinion are found as to the right of abortion. Plato and Aristotle held that the mother possessed the right. The Stoics held that the foetus w^as merely the fruit of the womb, and that the soul was not acquired until birth. The Roman theory

^ St. Augustine, Qucsstionum in Heptateuchum, II. {Quastiones in Exodum), Ixxx. ; id., Quastiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, xxiii. 2 Spangenberg, op. cit., ii. i6 ; C. Coppens, loc. cit.

^ St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, xxii. 13. * Fulgentius, De Fide, xxvii.

^ Quoted by W. E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe (London, 1865), i. 360 C. Coppens, loc. cit.

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159

and practice were in many points far from clear, but the view prevailed that the father alone had the right to order abortion.^ As early as the fourth century Gregory of Nyassa had evolved a theory anticipatory of neo-vitalism. He held that one and the same principle of life quickened the new organism from the first moment of its individual existence, and that, instead of the organism developing the life, the vital principle built up the organism.^

Modern biology holds that the zygote is a new individual from the moment, not of " conception " in the vague and popular sense, but of penetration of the ovum by the spermatozoon. Modern legislation holds much the same view, but is less severe upon foeticide than upon infanticide. Popular sentiment has always tended to regard the life of the embryo as less sacred than the life of the infant. Modern Papal Bulls condemn criminal abortion as unlawful, and punish it with excommunication.^ Ecclesiastical in- fluence had, until the i8th century, been predominant in exacting extreme penalties against the practice. The humanitarian movement succeeded in abolishing the penalty of death. Apart from the Papal tribunal, modern legislation punishes the crime with imprison- ment. Medical practice " occupies a position midway between that of the classic lawyers and that of the later Christian ecclesiastics. It is on the whole in favour of sacrificing the foetus whenever the interests of the mother demand such a sacrifice. General medical opinion is not, however, prepared at present to go further, and is distinctly disinclined to aid the parents in exerting an unqualified control over the

1 R. Balestrini, Aborto (Turin, 1888), pp. 30-31. ^ Quoted by Coppens, loc. cit.

• H. von Fabrice, Die lehre von der Kindsabtreibung und von Kindsmord (Erlangen,

1 868), pp. 199, 206 et seq. ; Spangenberg, op. cit., ii. 178 et seg.

i6o STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

foetus in the womb, nor is it yet disposed to practise abortion on medical grounds. . . . Society itself must assume the responsibility of protecting the race." ^ In medical circles there has been considerable discus- sion, which Ellis has analysed in a valuable summary ,2 on the ethics of the question. One aspect of this is a return to the Greek view that the right of deciding upon the operation rests with the mother. Thus, though, alike on the side of practice and of theory, a great change has taken place in the attitude towards abortion, it must, however, be clearly recognized that, unlike the control of procreation by methods for preventing conception, facultative abortion has not yet been embodied in our current social morality." ^ The practice is said to be " extremely common " in England, France, Germany, and the United States.* Perhaps this estimate is too high. In France, at least, there is a tendency on the part of the law towards leniency, only professional abortionists, as a rule, being punished. As for the eugenic aspect of the question, it can hardly be separated from the social. " When- ever," says Balestrini, " abortion becomes a social custom, it is the external manifestation of a people's decadence, and far too deeply rooted to be cured by the mere attempt to suppress the external manifes- tation." ^ Ellis well observes that " the necessity for abortion is precisely one of those results of reckless action which civilization tends to diminish." ^ The observation includes the abortion which is necessary for the saving of a mother's life, and the various applica- tions of the practice by the licentious and the depraved.

^ Havelock Ellis, Sex in Relation to Society : Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vi. (Philadelphia, 1910), 605.

2 Ibid., pp. 605-612. ^ Ibid., p. 610. * Ibid.., pp. 602 et seq.

5 R. Balestrini, Aborto (Turin, 1888), p. 191. ^ Havelock Ellis, op. cit., p. 611.

VII. LIFE AND DEATH

In primitive thought, so far as we can analyse it, life and death are not the balanced opposites which civilized contemplation has made them. To early man life is the normal condition, death an abnormal catastrophe, unnatural, miraculous, and terrible. An exception is to be made when a man kills his quarry or his foe ; here the satisfaction of an end achieved inhibits the feelings aroused by the non-violent death of a tribesman. According to Australian philosophy, men would live on indefinitely, except for the result of actual physical violence or of sorcery, a refined form of it.^ This is the usual view of the savage ; though it is hardly a reasoned opinion. The savage, like the majority of civilized men, lives in the present ; this fact involves a certain inertia of thought as to the contrast between life and death, and it is true of both stages of culture that " the fear of death is as nothing." ^ The primitive mind, when it exercised itself on the subject of life, was concerned with the acquisition of physical strength and moral influence rather than with the problem of the nature of vitality ; but the constant rage and terror which characterized its attitude towards death involved a permanent concern with the supposed causes of an event which, though inevitable, remained a mystery and a violation of natural law.

^ W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 161. 2 Ibid.^ loc. cit.

1 62 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

I. THE NATURE OF LIFE

The distinction between life and soul is in some cases confused and in others not drawn. Again, the latter concept includes several ideas. We have, how- ever, to deal with a " life-principle " whenever there is a clear connexion between, a concept and facts of life. For the earliest stage of thought the chief datum is the difference observed between the dead body and the living and moving body. It is inferred that some- thing has departed from the body when dead ; the something is a concrete object or substance, indicated vaguely at first, later with some precision, as a special entity, or identified with one or other part of the living organism.

Certain Australians speak of " something," a yozvee^ not described, which never leaves the body of the living man ; it grows as he grows, and decays as he decays.^ This illustrates well the primary stage. Put in another form, the inference is that the " soul " does not finally leave the body until decomposition is well advanced.^ Such cases indicate that the inference of life from observed movement is not in itself primary. Many peoples regard inanimate objects as " alive," but the meaning of this is clearly shown by the Tongan and West African notion that these objects " die " when they are broken or destroyed.^ The view that so vaguely indicated a content is concrete is supported by the fact that any haphazard identification serves as " life " ; examples will be found below. But the

^ K. Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe (London, 1905), p. 35.

^ Lorimer Fison, " Fijian Burial Customs," Journal of the Anthropological In- stitute (London, 1880-1881), x. 141.

' W. Mariner, An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands^ (London, 1818), ii. 130 ; Mary IL Kingsley, *' The Fetish View of the Human Soul," Folk-Lore (Lon- don, 1897), viii. 145.

LIFE AND DEATH

primal concept is, as the first Australian instance shows, very near to a result in w^hich a man's " life " is himself in replica.

This perhaps is to be regarded as the second stage of analysis. The Hervey Islanders considered that fat men had fat souls, thin men thin souls.^ According to the Karo Batak of Sumatra, a man's tendi disappears at death. It is a " copy " of the owner, his " other self." 2 According to the Karens, that which " per- sonates the varied phenomena of life " is the kelah or la, which " is not the soul," but " is distinct from the body and its absence from the body is death." It is also the individuality of the animated being.^ " It merely gives life," and " cannot be distinguished from the person himself." ^ The Iroquois conceived of " an exceedingly subtle and refined image, . . . possessing the form of the body, with a head, teeth, arms, legs," and so on.^

The next stage is characteristic of Papuan and Malayan belief. " The Dayak idea of life is this, that in mankind there is a living principle called semangat or semungi ; that sickness is caused by the temporary absence and death by the total departure of this prin- ciple from the body." ^ But this " principle " is a replica of the individual, and a miniature replica. This

1 W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (London, 1876), p. 171.

2 J. H. Neumann, " De Begoe in de godsdienstige begrippen der Karo-Bataks in de Doesoen," Mededeelingen van zvege het N ederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap (Rotterdam, 1902), xlvi. 127-128.

3 E. B. Cross, " The Karens," Journal of the American Oriental Society (New York, 1854), iv. 309 et seq.

• Rev. F. Mason, " Religion, Mythology, and Astronomy among the Karens,"

Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Calcutta, 1865), XXXIV. ii. 197.

s J. N. B. Hewitt, " The Iroquoian Concept of the Soul," The Journal of American Folk-Lore (Boston and New York, 1895), viii. 108-109.

5 S. St. John, Life in the Forests of the Far East"^ (London, 1863), i. 177 et seq.

i64 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

is the tanoana, or " little man," of the Torajas of Celebes.^ The semangat of the wild Malayan tribes is a " shape," exactly like the man himself, but no bigger than a grain of maize.^ The semangat of the Malays is a " thumbling," and corresponds exactly in shape, proportion, and complexion to its embodiment or casing {sarong)^ that is, the body. It is the cause of life ; it is itself an individual person, as it were, and is separable from the body in sleep, sickness, and death.^ A similar conception is found in South Africa,* Amer- ica,^ and other localities sporadically, but is general enough to be regarded as typical.

The problem of its origin is not clear. Sir James Frazer thus describes the conception : " As the savage commonly explains the processes of inanimate nature by supposing that they are produced by living beings working in or behind the phenomena, so he explains the phenomena of life itself. If an animal lives and moves, it can only be, he thinks, because there is a little animal inside which moves it : if a man lives and moves, it can only be because he has a little man or animal inside who moves him." ^ The argument agrees with the fact that the miniature replica is usually supposed to be the cause of life, but it is difficult to understand how the idea of an inner being, whether in inanimate things or in living men, could have arisen in the first

1 A. C. Kruijt, Het Animisme in den indischen Archipel ('s Gravenhage, 1906), p. 12.

2 W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula (London, 1906), ii. I, 194.

' W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), pp. 47 et seq.

• J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth (London, 1893), p. 33.

^ J. G. Swan, The Indians of Cape Flattery^ at the Entrance to the Strait of Fuca, Washington Territory : Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge^ voL xvi., No. 220 (Washington, 1870), p. 84.

• Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1911-1915), iii. 26.

LIFE AND DEATH

instance. Only the contrast between the dead and the hving body seems adequate to produce it ; later, the idea could be applied to all natural objects. As for the miniature size of the replica, this is probably a refine- ment of an earlier conception, in which such qualities were distinguished, and it would be naturally deduced from the fact that the man's body is still present, without any reduction ; that which has departed, therefore, must be infinitesimally small. The same re- sult is necessitated by the idea that the life must take its departure by some one of the orifices of the body, and it is possible also that certain characteristics of the memory-image may have exercised an influence.^ In these early stages the life-principle is, though " refined," always material ; the conception of insub- stantiality is quite a late achievement of thought.^ But certain natural confusions occur. Thus, the semangat of the wild Malays differs from the conception held by other races in the same regions, for that which gives life is the jizo a. The Patani Malays also believe in a " life breath," nyazva ; the semangat, in their view, is not the vital principle, but is possessed by every object in the universe.^ In his study of the animism of the Moluccas and neighbouring districts, A. C. Kruijt finds a permanent distinction between the soul of a living man and the soul of a dead man. The former he considers to be impersonal, though in many cases it is certainly itself a person, and always is a min- iature replica of the owner ; it gives him life. Its material is fine, ethereal substance ; it has various seats

1 Ernest Crawley, The Idea of the Soul (London, 1909), pp. 200 et seq.

2 Ibid., op. cit., pp. 57, 209 ; the Kinjin Dayak term is in point : urip-ok = "fine ethereal life" (p. no).

3 W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, op. cit., ii. 194 ; Nelson Annandale, " Notes on the Popular Religion of the Patani Malays," Man (London, 1903), iii. 27, No. 12.

1 66 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

in the body where its action is most conspicuous, such as the pulses. It dies when the man dies. The other soul is a continuation of the individual after-life and does not appear till death. In the latter conception we seem to have a combined result of the memory- image and the hallucinatory ghost.

A later detail, which involves the idea that all things in nature either are animate or possess " souls," is also attached to the theory of the semangat^ though it is chiefly things concerning or interesting man that possess the miniature replica.^

The semangat of the Eastern Semang is red like blood, or is in the blood.^ Life is usually regarded as being closely connected with the blood — a natural inference from observation of wounds or of death from loss of blood. Life and blood are identified.^ A vaguer identification is frequently found with various parts of the living organism. To some, as to the Iroquois, life is the flesh,* a concept which probably originated from experience of nutrition. The heart is a seat of life ; in some cases it, like blood, has a " soul " of its own.^ The Australians regard the kidney-fat as an important seat of life,^ and the caul-fat and omen- tum are so regarded."^

The absence of breath in the case of the dead is a fact naturally assisting a belief that the breath is the

^Ernest Crawley, op. cit., p. 132.

2 W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, op. cit., ii. 194.

^ Genesis, ix. 4; Leviticus, xvii. 1 1-14 ; Ernest Crawley, op. cit., p. 112; Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1911-1915), iii. 240.

^ J. N. B. Hewitt, " The Iroquoian Concept of the Soul," The Journal of American Folk-Lore (Boston and New York, 1895), viii. 107 et seq.

^Ernest Crawley, op. cit., pp. 120, 136.

^ See references in id., The Mystic Rose,^ ed. by Theodore Besterman (London, ' W. R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites^ (London, 1927), p. 379-

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167

life, or that the life is in the breath. In the Mar- quesas it was the custom to hold the nose and lips of dying persons, in order to prevent death.^ In primitive thought there is no explicit inconsistency in the identi- fication of life with various things ; the early books of the Old Testament hold, now the breath,^ now the blood, to be the " life." Primitive biology, in its secondary stages, has a longer list.^

In this is to be included the shadow of a man, which is (like everything connected with personality) " a vital part." * And a man's reflexion is also closely akin to, if not identified with, his life. In Melanesia is a pool " into which if anyone looks he dies ; the malignant spirit takes hold upon his life by means of his reflexion on the water." ^ The lore of shadow, mirror-image, and portrait becomes prominent, how- ever, only in the third stage of culture — that of the higher barbarism. The Chinese place the dying man's picture upon his body, in the hope of saving his life.^ In Siam, when a copy of the face of a person is made and taken away from him, a portion of his life goes with the picture." ' The comparison of the life- essence with fire is the best known of many metaphori- cal analogies, and occupies a prominent place in myth — for instance, the fire of life infused by Prometheus into the clay figures which became men — and in meta- physical theology.

Until modern times, speculation has concerned

^ Sir J. G. Frazer, op. cit., iii. 31. ^ Genesis, ii. 7.

^ Ernest Crawley, The Idea of the Soul, p. 238.

• Sir J. G. Frazer, op. cit., iii. 77 et seq.

^ R. H. Codrington, " Religious Beliefs and Practices in Melanesia," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1881), x. 313. ^Ernest Crawley, op. cit., p. 225.

' E. Young, The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe (London, 1898), p. 140.

1 68 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

itself with the source of life rather than with its origin. In early mythology conceptions like that of the Hervey Islanders, who regard a " point " as the beginning of existence,^ are rare. Rare also are such pseudo-biologi- cal ideas as the Maori concept that the life of a man is contained in the catamenia,^ but the usual conclusion is that the " soul " is the source of life or is itself life.

2. THE LIFE OF NATURE

Life in the vegetable kingdom has probably always been recognized, and primitive thought doubtless distinguished it as being different in character from that of animals. The same may have been the case with its attitude to inanimate things, unless it merely " personalized " them.

The view of Tylor, that in primitive animism there is " a belief in the animation of all nature," and that " man recognizes in every detail of his world the oper- ation of personal life and will," ^ can be applied only to certain developments of the higher barbaric stages. " It is not likely that at one stage man regarded every- thing as alive, and at a later stage gradually discrim- inated between animate and inanimate. The fact is that he began by regarding everything as neutral, merely as given. Yet though he never thought about the matter at all, in his acts ... he distinguished as well as we do between animate and inanimate." * " Whatever power and importance," writes Payne, " he [primitive man] may have ascribed to inanimate

^ Ernest Crawley, The Idea of the Soul, p. 93, quoting W. W. Gill. 2 Ibid., p. 90.

^ Sir E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture^ (London, 1891), i. 285 et seq. ; 424 et seq.

• Ernest Crawley, op. cit., p. 20.

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169

objects, he drew the strongest of lines between such objects and what was endowed with Hfe." ^

An excellent observer remarks of the Kafirs of South Africa, in regard to the question whether they " imagine everything in nature to be alive," that they very rarely think of the matter at all. When questioned on the subject of the animation of stones, they laughed, and said, " It would never enter a Kafir's head to think stones felt in that sort of way." ^

Throughout the fluid and ill-defined psychology of primitive man we may distinguish a tendency to mark off the concept of things as living from the concept of them as ideas, whether in life or after death. The latter aspect is ideational, the former perceptual. An excellent illustration of the distinction is the Indo- nesian view, expounded by Kruijt, that the life-soul of creatures is never confused or compounded with the after-death soul. In later psychologies, on the other hand, Tylor's hypothesis, that eventually the " life " of a thing and its " phantom " are combined, holds good. Language has probably had much to do with the com- bination. The view of Kruijt, however, that the Indonesian " life-soul " is but a part of the world- soul, applies only to the higher developments of animism.^ Here we have a parallel with the pan- theistic theories of the world.

^ E. J. Payne, History of the New World called America (Oxford, 1892- 1899), ii.

265.

^ Dudley Kldd, Savage Childhood (London, 1906), pp. 145-146.

' See Ernest Crawley, The Idea of the Soul, p. 262. In Semitic thought living water is running water, living flesh raw flesh (W. R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites^ [London, 1927], pp. 190, 339). These phrases are probably meta- phorical only.

170 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

3. REGARD FOR LIFE

Another parallel with these is the regard for life generally, a regard which develops with culture but is more pronounced in Oriental than in Western mor- ality. At first this feeling is a vague altruism, but later it is fused with metaphysical estimates of the intrinsic value of life, as such.

In the religions of India the respect for animal life is extreme. " A disciple of Buddha may not knowingly deprive any creature of life, not even a worm or an ant. He may not drink water in which animal life of any kind whatever is contained, and must not even pour it out on grass or clay. . . . The Jain is stricter still in his regard for animal life. He sweeps the ground before him as he goes, lest animate things be destroyed ; he walks veiled, lest he inhale a living organism ; he considers that the evening and nights are not times for eating, since one might then swallow a live thing by mistake ; and he rejects not only meat but even honey, together with various fruits that are supposed to contain worms, not because of his distaste for worms but because of his regard for life." ^

Throughout Japan " the life of animals has always been held more or less sacred." ^ In China it is re- garded as " meritorious to save animals from death — even insects if the number amounts to a hundred, — to relieve a brute that is greatly wearied with work, to purchase and set at liberty animals intended to be slaughtered. On the other hand, to confine birds in a cage, to kill ten insects, to be unsparing of the strength of tired animals, to disturb insects in their holes, to

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 497-499, citing authorities. 2 E. J. Reed, Japan (London, 1880), i. 61.

LIFE AND DEATH

171

destroy the nests of birds, without great reason to kill and dress animals for food, are all errors of various degrees. And ' to be foremost to encourage the slaughter of animals, or to hinder persons from setting them at liberty,' is regarded as an error of the same magnitude as the crime of devising a person's death or of drowning or murdering a child." ^ The Burmese " laugh at the suggestion made by Europeans, that Buddhists abstain from taking life because they believe in the transmigration of souls, having never heard of it before." ^ The same position may be assumed with regard to the Brahman doctrine of ahimsd, which includes the sanctity of all life. On the other hand, " no creed in Christendom teaches kindness to animals as a dogma of religion," Dr. Westermarck declares, and adds in a footnote that the " Manichaeans pro- hibited all killing of animals ; but Manichaeism did not originate on Christian ground."^

4. THE LIFE DEPOSIT

A remarkable belief is that of the " life-index " or " external soul," which is found with some regularity in all the stages of the lower civilizations. An early example is the sex totems of Australia. The Wot- jobaluk tribe of South-Eastern Australia " held that ' the life of Ngunungunilt (the Bat) is the life of a man and the life of Yartatgurk (the Nightjar) is the life of a woman,' and that when either of these creatures is killed the life of some man or of some woman is short- ened. In such a case every man or every woman in

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 499, quoting The Indo-Chinese Gleaner (Mal- acca, 1821), iii. 164, 205-206.

2 H. F. Hall, The Soul of a People (London, 1902), pp. 232-233. ^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 506, 506 n.^.

1/2 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

the camp feared that he or she might be the victim, and from this cause great fights arose in this tribe." ^ In later folklore the idea is crystallized into the talisman, but previously a host of objects is regarded as eligible for the safe-deposit of the individual life. It is notev^orthy that the subject is more frequent in mythology than in practical life. The fact that, ac- cording to the common-sense Yiew, the more " de- posits " of life a man has, the more is he liable to death, may explain this natural difference. A remarkable aspect of the belief is connected with the growth of children and the growth of plants. The inception of this idea can hardly be attributed to any other in- fluence than the observation of the facts of growth. It is therefore probably not originated by the notion of life.

But the sympathetic relation soon develops into a life-interest. " In folk-tales the life of a person is sometimes so bound up with the life of a plant that the withering of the plant will immediately follow or be followed by the death of the person." ^ " Among the M'Bengas in Western Africa, about the Gaboon, when two children are born on the same day, the people plant two trees of the same kind and dance round them. The life of each of the children is believed to be bound up with the life of one of the trees : and if the tree dies or is thrown down, they are sure that the child will soon die. In Sierra Leone also it is customary at the birth of a child to plant a shoot of a malep-tiee, and they think that the tree will grow with the child and be its

^ A. W. Howitt, " Further Notes on the Australian Class Systems," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1889), xviii. 58.

2 Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1911-1915), xi. 102, 105, no, 117-118, 135-136, 159.

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173

god. If a tree which has been thus planted withers away, the people consult a sorcerer on the subject. . . . Some of the Papuans unite the life of a new-born child sympathetically with that of a tree by driving a pebble into the bark of the tree. This is supposed to give them complete mastery over the child's life ; if the tree is cut down, the child will die. ... In Bali a coco-palm is planted at the birth of a child. It is believed to grow up equally with the child, and is called its ' life- plant.' " ^ Similar customs are still frequent in Europe, and " life-trees," as Frazer styles them, have always been a prominent feature of European folklore. " The life of Simeon, prince of Bulgaria, was bound up with a certain column in Constantinople, so that if the capital of the column were removed, Simeon would immediately die. The emperor took the hint and removed the capital, and at the same hour . . . Simeon died of heart-disease in Bulgaria." ^

The conclusion of these ideas supplies a constant motive in fairy-tales and the mythology which is their basis. Thus, " Koshchei the Deathless is killed by a blow from the egg or the stone in which his life or death is secreted ; . . . the magician dies when the stone in which his life or death is contained is put under his pillow ; and the Tartar hero is warned that he may be killed by the golden arrow or golden sword in which his soul has been stored away." ^ A remark- able instance occurs in the myth of the god Balder. His life was bound up in the mistletoe. The apparent inconsistency that he was slain by a blow from the plant is explained by Frazer : " When a person's life is con- ceived as embodied in a particular object, with the

1 Sir J. G. Frazer, op. cit. (London, 1911-1915), xi. 160-164. ^ Ibid., ix. 156-157. ^ Ibid., ix. 279.

174 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

existence of which his own existence is inseparably bound up, and the destruction of which involves his own, the object in question may be regarded and spoken of indifferently as his life or his death. . . . Hence if a man's death is in an object, it is perfectly natural that he should be killed by a blow from it." ^

The idea that the mistletoe itself is the life of the tree on which it grows is of the same order as the Malay ^ and Chinese ^ idea with regard to the knobs and excrescences on tree trunks. Two converse ideas may be noted. A person whose life is magically isolated has one weak spot, for instance, the heel of Achilles. Death, no less than life, may be " deposited," as in the stories where it is kept in a bottle. Connected with all these ideas is the folklore notion of the life-token.

5. LIFE MAGIC

When the conception of life as a magical essence is established, the formula is applied all round the social and religious spheres. The elementary facts of nu- trition thus become the basis of an elaborate vitalistic philosophy. In its more primitive forms this appears as a practical science of life insurance. For thousands of years food occupied the largest space of man's mental scope. This consideration helps to explain the exist- ence of so large a body of superstitions concerning food. And into these enter the magical, and, later, the vita- listic theories. Particular creatures are eaten because of their particular vital force. The slayer eats part of his foe in order to assimilate his life and strength. In order to procure longevity the Zulus ate the flesh

^ Sir J. G. Frazer, op. cit., ix. 279.

2W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), p. 194.

^ Ernest Crawley, The Idea of the Soul, p. 167, summarizing J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China (Leyden, 1892, etc.), passim.

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of long-lived animals.^ Medea injected into the veins of Aeson the infusion of the long-lived deer and crow.^ In the lower culture special virtue is assigned to human flesh.^ Besides the eating of flesh and the drinking of blood, there are various methods of acquiring the " life essence." The Caribs transfer the life of an animal to a hoy by rubbing its juices into his body.* Anointing with amrta oil and with gold-grease are methods of procuring life found in Indian and Chinese folklore respectively.^ The Tibetan Buddhist acquires " life " by drinking the " ambrosia " from the " Vase of Life." 6

Long life is often the subject of charms. The Chinese wear a longevity garment on birthdays. The Hindus ascribe long life to continence.^ Most re- ligions include prayers for long life. After a death, magic is employed to prolong the life of the survivors.^

Magical persons, and later the gods, are regarded as both possessing a richer store of life and as able to impart it to others ; the savage medicine-man is able to infuse life into an inanimate fetish. Breathing upon the object gives it the breath of life (as in Ezekiel's apologue of the dead bones) ; smearing it with blood gives it the life of the blood.^^ According to the

1 H. Callaway, Nursery Tales of the Zulus (London, i868), p. 175.

2 Ovid, Metamorphoses, vii. 271 et seq.

' K. Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe (London, 1905), p. 38.

• Sir J. G. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy (London, 1910), i. 42.

5 A. F. R. Hoernle, The Bower MS. (Calcutta, 1893-1897), ii. 107 ; J. J. M. de Groot, op. cit., iv. 331.

^ L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet (London, 1895), p. 447.

' J. J. M. de Groot, op. cit., i. 60 et seq. ^ A. F. R. Hoernle, op. cit., ii. 142.

^ Rajendralala Mitra, Indo-Aryans (Calcutta, 188 1), ii. 145. ^ 10 Cp. Sir A. B. Ellis, The T shi-speahing Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (London, 1887), PP- 101-102 ; J. G. Miiller, Geschichte der americanischen Ure- ligionen (Basel, 1855), p. 606 ; W. R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites^ (London, 1927), pp. 339, 344.

176 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Tantras, a king msLj slay his enemy by infusing life into his foe's effigy and then destroying it.^ Divine persons naturally tend to become long-lived or im- mortal.

But, though divine persons throughout bear a more or less " charmed life," absolute immortality is a late conception. The gods of the Homeric pantheon maintained their life by eating ambrosia, the " food of deathlessness," and by drinking nectar ; ^ and similar ideas were connected with the Persian haoma and the Indian soma. In Scandinavian myth the apples of Idunn are eaten by the gods in order to perpetuate their life.^ The Egyptian gods were mortal.* The tendency to immortality, however, is carried out in the higher religions, probably in connexion with the natural attribution to the gods of a general power over life and a control of creation. In the end the gods assume in themselves the ultimate hopes and fears of men, and they become " lords and givers of life."

6. RENEWAL OF LIFE

A crude form of the ideas connected with a renewed earthly life after death, or resurrection, may be seen among the Australian aborigines, who speak of the ghost returning at times to the grave and contemplating its mortal remains.^ Similarly, on the West Coast of Africa, " it is the man himself in a shadowy or ghostly form that continues his existence after death." ^ The

^ Rajendralala Mitra, op. cit., ii. 110. ^ JUad, v. 339-340 ; Odyssey, v. 199.

3 J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (London, 1882-1888), pp. 318-319.

• A. Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1897), p. 173;

Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough" (London, 1911-1915), iv. i et seq.

5 A. W. Howitt, " Some Australian Beliefs," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1884), xiii. 188.

6 Ernest Crawley, The Idea of the Soul, pp. 175-176, quoting Sir A. B. Ellis.

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belief in the revivification of a dead person does not appear until the thaumaturgic stages of barbarous re- ligion, when it becomes a favourite miracle, performed hy a v^ord of power or by the life-giving touch or con- tact with the body of the divine person. But the belief in a second life, or, rather, a series of lives, is a remarkable and regular feature of primitive thought. It takes the form of reincarnation ; the dead are born again in their descendants, the idea being a natural inference from the resemblance of children to their parents and grand- parents.^ The Central Australians have developed it into an elaborate theory of heredity, in which the " life " is a germ-plasm.^ Other Australians evolved the notion that white men were black fellows returned to life ; " tumble down black fellow, jump up white fellow " is a familiar phrase. The whiteness of the native corpse after cremation has been suggested as the basis of the notion.^

The idea of reincarnation refers also to living parents. Thus an old black fellow of Australia cries to his son, " There you stand with my body ! " The son is recognized as " the actual reincarnation of the father." * This frequent belief has been suggested as an explan- ation of certain customs of which killing the first-born is a culmination ; the child is supposed to have robbed the father of a portion of his life.^

• J. Parkinson, " Note on the Asaba People (Ibos) of the Niger," Journal of the

Anthropological Institute (London, 1906), xxxvi. 312 seq. ; A. C. Kruijt, Het An- imisme in den indischen Archipel ('s Gravenhage, 1906), p. 175 ; Ernest Crawley, The Idea of the Soul, pp. loi, 110, 161 (South America, Melanesia, Indonesia).

^ Ibid. (London, 1909), p. 88.

^ L. Fison and A. W. Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai (Melbourne, 1880), p. 248 ; A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London, 1904), p. 442.

• A. W. Howitt and L. Fison, " On the Deme and Horde," Journal of the An-

thropological Institute (London, 1885), xiv. 145 ; The Laws of Manu, ix. 8.

° Cp. J. A. MacCuUoch, " First-Born (Introductory and Primitive)," Encyc- lop fdia of Religion and Ethics (19 13), vi. 33 a. 12

178 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

7. THE NATURE OF DEATH

Primitive thought has no definition of the nature of death, but the usual attitude towards it, as may be inferred from mourning customs, is a mystic terror. The catastrophic nature of the event is perhaps the fundamental reason for this attitude, but various emotions and ideas are superimposed. Grief and sympathy occur among the lowest races, and they de- velop with culture. Another emotion is fear of the corpse as a mysterious personality ; a parallel fear is that of the departed " something," ghost or spirit. Like other taboo states and social crises, death has not only its rites de 'passage^ such as mourning, but a mys- terious power of pollution. This is partly connected with a fear which develops into an avoidance of in- fection.^ These ideas reach their climax in the Zoroas- trian conception of the absolute impurity of death, a type of all uncleanness.^ In other of the higher re- ligions, particularly in Christianity, the material notions of the state of death gives way to spiritual. The de- parted soul has less connexion with the body, although even here a physiological fact has kept up the idea of " the odour of sanctity."

Fear of dying has no connexion with the primitive fear of death.^ Suicide for trivial reasons is very com- mon among the lower races. " We are told, it is true," Westermarck observes, " that many savages meet death with much indifference, or regard it as no great evil, but merely as a change to a life very similar to

^ Ernest Crawley, The Mystic Rose^, ed. by Theodore Besterman (London, 1927), i. 127 et seq. ; E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 537.

2 Cp. James Darmesteter, " Introduction [to] the Zend-Avesta," ^ The Sacred Books of the East (Oxford, 1895), iv. p. Ixxv, §§ 6-7.

^ For the contrary view see E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 535-536.

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this. But it is a fact often noticed among ourselves, that a person on the verge of death may resign himself to his fate with the greatest calmness, although he has been afraid to die throughout his life. Moreover, the fear of death may be disguised by thoughtless- ness, checked by excitement, or mitigated by dying in company. There are peoples who are conspicuous for their bravery, and yet have a great dread of death. Nobody is entirely free from this feeling, though it varies greatly in strength among different races and in different individuals. In many savages it is so strongly developed, that they cannot bear to hear death mentioned."^ The last objection, however, may often be due to mystical notions. Christianity esteems death as the passage to a better life, and the higher religions, generally, mitigate the inevitable lot.

Speculation on the origin of death is considerable in early thought, and myths innumerable have been invented to explain it. A common motive of these is a misunderstanding or a trick. At a higher stage death is attributed to the malevolence of demons, often supposed to eat the life of men and so produce death.^ Otherwise, the separation of the life-giving soul from the body as a fact, not as a theory of origin, is usually explained as the result of sorcery, except in cases of obvious violence or accident.^ By various means the human sorcerer, like the supernatural demon, destroys or abstracts the life.

In the higher barbarism death appears as a pun- ishment for breaking taboo or other supernatural

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. ctt., il. 535.

2 J, G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 271.

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., i. 24, 29, ii. 534, 651.

i8o STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

injunctions. The greater religions connect its origin with sin, Christianity with the primal sin of disobedi- ence.^ Throughout, humanity is instinctively agreed that death is unnatural, and the conception of a second life is a protest against it.

8. MYTHOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL APPLICATIONS

Apart from myths in explanation of the origin of death and the less frequent fancies of a mystical or magical life-source, primitive thought makes little use of the concepts of life and death as motives of story. Their deification is rarer still. In some stories one or more remarkable personages are brought into close connexion with the facts of life and death. Thus, the Maoris tell how men would have been deathless if Maui, the culture-hero, had succeeded in passing through the body of Night. In Scandinavian story Lif and Lifthrasir (" life " and " desiring life ") survive the destruction of the world.^ The usual result is that some great deity possesses control over life, as in Hebraism, Christianity, and Islam. There is a ten- dency also to connect vitality with the sun-god ; the Rigveda speaks of the sun in the character of Savitar, the Vivifier.^ In Hindu theology Yama, the first of mortal men, became " King of the Dead." * In Christian theology a contrast is drawn between the old Adam, by whom death entered the world, and the new, who re-introduced " life " on a higher plane. A less refined moral is drawn in the Babylonian epic ;

^ Genesis, ii., iii. ; cp. The Laws of Manu, v. 4.

2 P. D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Religion of the Teutons (Boston, 1902), p. 352.

3 Sir M. Monier-Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India (London, 1883), p. 17 5 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897), p. 34.

• E. W. Hopkins, The Religions of India (London, 1896), p. 128.

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the conclusion is that Gilgamesh must die and cannot escape the universal lot. " Let him hope for and, if possible, provide for proper burial. . . . He will then, at least, not suffer the pangs of hunger in the v^orld of spirits." ^

The Scandinavian figures, Lif and Lifthrasir, are among the rare cases where life is personified. Death is more frequently deified. Old Slavic myth seems to have had a goddess Smrt,^ and the Baganda are said to have a god of death, Walumbe.^ The Etruscan figure of Charun may be similar to the last, the con- ception being derived from human executioners, and the god being a slayer rather than a god of death. The Thanatos of Greek poetry, the brother of Sleep, is hardly a religious personification. The Sheol of the Old Testament and the Hel of the Eddas are originally places which receive the dead. As a rule, the figure later described as Death is either a messenger of the gods or a god whose office is indirectly connected with the death of men. So Yama has his messengers, and the Tatars believe in an " angel " of death. The latter is the type of Christian ideas. The Greeks had both Charon and Hermes Psychopompos, but in modern Greek folklore Charon has become a figure of terror. Death himself.* Death with his scythe seems to be a transference from a personification of Time.

A certain control over life is assumed in primitive ritual drama, as in the pretended death and revivi- fication of youths at initiation, and of candidates for the

^ M. Jastrow, Religions of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898), p. 512. ^ J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (London, 1882-1888), p. 1560. 'J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), p. 315.

• J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge,

1 9 10), pp. 98 et seq.

1 82 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

priesthood.^ Ideas of a magical vitality grew up out of sacred meals ; at the same time there appears the connexion of sin and death, and the consequent as- piration towards a purging of sin accompanied by a renewal of life. Out of these elements arises the ethical view of the renewal, but still undivorced from a mystical idea of a spiritual prolongation of existence. " Sal- vation " in the life after death was promised by the Greek mysteries.^ In its lowest terms the salvation resulting from belief in Christ was eternal life. Faith and morality meet when eternal life is the reward for a good life on earth. Life is identified with goodness.

The fear of retribution in a future existence has been impressed by several of the great religions, notably by Christianity. But there is no justification for con- necting the origins of religion with either this fear (long posterior to the inception of religious ideas, and a late and special ethical development) or with the worship of death or the dead. The dead are more or less feared in early thought ; the infection of death is carefully avoided ; the ghosts of the dead are intensely dreaded, and therefore carefully propitiated. Many ghosts, it is true, have been developed into gods, but there are many keys which fit the doors of religion.

9. A NOTE ON LIFE AND DEATH AMONG THE

AMERICAN INDIANS

The beliefs of the aborigines of America agree in the main with those of other peoples at the same stages

1 sir W. B. Spencer and F, J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 523-524 ; J. Maclean, A Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs (Mount Coke, 1858), p. 79. '

2 Pindar, fragment 102 ; Cicero, De legibus^ ii. 14.

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of development ; but there are a few interesting features of an individual character.

With regard to ideas of the life which informs the organism, the Eskimos identify it or its action with the " life-warmth." ^ So the Navahos regarded the warmth of the body as the living soul ; the " shade" or " double," a distinct concept, was supposed to wander away when a man was sick or dying.^ The Sauk identified the soul with vitality," and supposed it to exist after death.^ The Toltec explained that it was " something within them which made them live . . . which caused death when it quitted them." * Identifying breath or air with the vital principle, the Acagchemems are represented as crediting the atmos- phere with a mortiferous quality.^ In many Am- erican languages the Great Spirit and the Great Wind are one and the same both in word and signification." ^

The Aztec word ehecatl, for instance, means " wind, air, life, soul, shadow." A phrase attributed to an Indian orator is : " The fire in your huts and the life in your bodies are one and the same thing." Spirits and human magicians, such as the shamans, devour men's souls ; the result is death.' Death is " in- fectious " ; a dead man's belongings decay quickly.

^ E. W. Nelson, " The Eskimo about Bering Strait," Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1899), xviii. 422.

2 A. G. Morice, '* The Western Denes — their Manners and Customs," Pro- ceedings of the Canadian Institute (Toronto, 1890 for 1888-1889), 3 ser. vii. 158-159.

^ W. H. Keating, Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River (Philadelphia, 1824), i. 229, 232, ii. 154.

• E. J. Pavne, History of the New World called America (Oxford, 1892-1899),

i. 468, quoting Oviedo.

5 H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), iii. 525.

^ Ibid.., iii. 1 17.

' J. Jette, " On the Medicine-Men of the Ten'a," Journal of the Royal Anthro- pological Institute (London, 1907), xxxvii. 161, 176.

1 84 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Such is the ancient opinion among the Irish also, who hold that a dead man's clothes wear out more quickly than those of a living man.^ The belief in the rein- carnation of the dead in children is widely spread and firmly held. The Haida refine upon it by saying that after five such reincarnations the individual " soul " is annihilated.^

A special feature of American religious theory, on which practically the whole ritual of the central nations was founded, was developed from the usual primitive idea that divine persons are subject to senility, death, and decay. Alone among the Mexican gods Tezcat- lipoca " is credited with perpetual juvenility." ^ The principle was developed that the gods, in particular the sun, would die if deprived of food. Hence the perpetual round of human sacrifices offered on Maya and Nahua altars. This daily feast of flowers," as it was euphemistically termed, kept the gods alive. A serious result was the equally perpetual carrying on of warfare for the sole purpose of obtaining captives to serve as victims. The heart, as the symbol of life, was the choicest portion.*

It is natural that an old chronicler should say : " The Maya have an immoderate fear of death, and they seem to have given it a figure peculiarly repul- sive." ^ " In the Dresden and other codices god A

^ F. Boas, " The Doctrine of Souls and of Disease among the Chinook Indians," The Journal of American Folk-Lore (Boston and New York, 1893), vi. 40 ; J. N. B. Hewitt, "The Iroquoian Concept of the Soul," ibid. (1895), viii. 110.

2 G. M. Dawson, " On the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands," Geological Survey of Canada : Report of Progress for 1878-79 (Montreal, 1880), Part B, pp. 121-122.

^ E. J. Payne, op. cit., i. 429.

• Ibid., i. 523 ; cp. L. Spence, The Myths of Mexico and Peru (London, 191 3),

pp. 74, 98.

^ E. J. Payne, op. cit., i. 172, 97.

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is represented as a figure with exposed vertebrae and skull-like countenance, with the marks of corruption on his body, and displaying every sign of mortality. On his head he wears a snail-symbol, the Aztec sign of birth, perhaps to typify the connexion between birth and death. He also wears a pair of cross-bones. The hieroglyph which accompanies his figure represents a corpse's head with closed eyes, a skull, and a sacrificial knife. His symbol is that for the calendar day, Cimi, which means death. He presides over the West, the home of the dead, the region towards which they invariably depart with the setting sun. That he is a death-god there can be no doubt, but of his name we are ignorant. He is probably identical with the Aztec god of death and hell, Mictlan, and is perhaps one of those lords of Death and Hell who invite the heroes to the celebrated game of ball in the Kiche Popol Vuh, and hold them prisoners in their gloomy realm." ^

Like Hel and Hades, Mictlan seems to have de- veloped from a place into a person. He is a " grisly monster with capacious mouth," like the medieval European identification of the whale and hell. Med- ieval Europe evolved also, but by poetical rather than religious imagination, a figure akin to that of the American god A. For similar reasons the Sinaloa are said to have devoted most of their worship to Coco- huame, who is Death.^

Another detail of the human sacrifice is this : " The idea that the god thus slain in the person of his repre- sentative comes to life again immediately, was graphi- cally represented in the Mexican ritual by skinning the

• E. J. Payne, op. cit., i. 172-173. 2 jj^ ^ Bancroft, op. cit., in. 180.

1 86 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

slain man-god and clothing in his skin a living man, who thus became the new representative of the godhead." ^ This principle, probable enough, is, however, a second- ary development ; the revivification of the god was the primary meaning of the sacrifice.

In Mexican theology the supreme deity Tloque- Nahuaque (of Molina) is he upon whom depends the existence of all things." As is the case elsewhere, the sun is connected with vitality, " animating and keeping alive all creatures." An interesting point is the con- nexion of Mexican food-goddesses with the idea of life and its bestowal.^

The aboriginal creation of a Great Spirit has been discredited. Equally unreliable are such forms as the Master of Life (of Lafitau), and Master of Breath, though such phrases may have been applied sporadi- cally by the Northern Indians to some " great medi- cme.

A feature of the eschatology ^ is the other-world paradise for the brave, comparable only with the belief of Islam, although European chivalry shares the aversion from dying in bed. The " happy hunting-grounds," which have become a proverb, are typified in the Comanche belief — here is " the orthodox American paradise, in its full glory. In the direction of the setting sun lie the happy prairies, where the buffalo lead the hunter in the glorious chase, and where the horse of the pale-face aids those who have excelled in scalping and horse-stealing, to attain supreme felicity." ^

^ Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1900), iii. 136. 2 H. H. Bancroft, op. cit., iii. 195, 423 ; J. Dunn, History of the Oregon Territory (London, 1844), p. 284.

• • • • *

^ On the ideas of a future life see H. H. Bancroft, op. ctt., m. 530 etjeq. ^ Ibid., iii. 528.

VIII. THE PRACTICE AND PSYCHOLOGY

OF ANOINTING

I. INTRODUCTORY: HYGIENE AND ESTHETICS

Unction,^ anointing with oil, is a minor act of ritual, which possesses, however, considerable significance for the history of sacramental religion. Its forms corre- spond generally to the practical purposes for which, in early culture, animal and vegetable fats and oils were so largely employed, while in both principle and practice it has connexions with painting and dress, decoration and disguise, nutrition and medicine, lus- tration and the various uses of water and blood.

The application of unguents to the skin and the hair has obtained, as a daily cosmetic practice, from the Tasmanians to the ancient Greeks and Romans. The material varies, in both secular and sacred uses, from crude animal fat to elaborate and costly perfumed vegetable oils. Among the lower races, animal fats are employed, frequently in combination with ochre, occasionally with such substances as charcoal, soot, and ashes. Higher stages of culture prefer vegetable oils, with gums, balsams, vegetable pastes and powders, such as turmeric, sandal and mustard, sawdust and flour, or the sap and pollen of plants, some of which

^ The etymological identifications, still to be met with in dictionaries, of English salve, etc., and Latin salvus, etc., and of Latin unguo, etc., and Greek ayos, etc., are unfounded. F. W. Culmann in his Das Salben im Morgen- und Abendlunde (Leipzig, 1876), has discussed the etymology of " anointing " in Indo-European and Semitic languages.

187

1 88 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

are occasionally used without oil. Perfumes were usually prepared in the form of ointments. Lastly, the term " unguent " is in most languages made to include, by analogy, such substances as blood, saliva, honey, mud, pitch, and tar.^

Anointing usually follows washing or bathing, and completes the toilet of the skin. The action of oil is to produce a sensation of comfort and well-being. Some peoples regard it as conducive to suppleness of the muscles and joints. The Australian aborigines relieve the languor consequent on a long and tiresome journey by rubbing the limbs with grease.^ Oil closes the pores of the skin, and partially represses perspira- tion ; hence the use of unguents by the Greeks and Romans before exercise, and after the bath which followed. Similarly, the Hindu anoints himself before bathing. In extremes of heat and cold these properties have an increased value, and anointing is almost a necessary of life in very hot and very cold climates. Being a bad conductor, oil protects the skin against the sun, and also prevents the escape of body heat. It is a useful emollient for burnt or chapped skin, and a valuable food for the nerves.

The cosmetic use soon acquired esthetic associations. The gloss produced by oil has itself an esthetic value, which is heightened by the addition of coloured sub- stances. Of the majority of early peoples it may be said that grease and ochre constitute their wardrobe. The use of unguents as the vehicles of perfumes become a luxury among the Persians, Hindus, Greeks, and Romans, while among early peoples generally it is

^ For anointing with blood see H. C. Trumbull, The Blood Covenant (Philadelphia, 1893), s.v.

^ W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), pp. 114, 162.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING 189

a common practice on both ordinary and ceremonial occasions, the object being to render the person at- tractive. Thus the natives of West Africa grease the body, and powder it over with scented and coloured flour.^ On the Slave Coast, " magical " unguents, sup- plied by the priests, are employed for such purposes as the borrowing of money and the obtaining of a woman's favour.^ Swahili women use fragrant un- guents in order to render themselves attractive.^ Similarly, Homer describes how Hera, when desirous to obtain a favour from Zeus, cleansed her skin with ambrosia and anointed herself with fragrant oil.^ In the islands of Torres Straits, the boys, at the close of initiation, are rubbed with a pungent scented substance, which has the property of exciting the female sex.^ The Ewe-speaking peoples of West Africa scent the bride with civet, and make her skin red with the bark of the to-tvQQ.^

Anointing thus stands for physical refreshment, well-being, and personal attractiveness. It is, there- fore, naturally regarded as being essential on festal occasions. The Australian native, we are told, is fond of rubbing himself with grease and ochre, especially at times when ceremonies are being performed. Among the ancient Egyptians,^ Greeks, and Romans, unguents,

^ F. Ratzel, The History of Mankind (London, 1896-1898), ii. 397, iii. 108. 2 Sir A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1890), p. 94.

2 C. Velten, Sitte und Gebrdnche der Suaheli (Gottingen, 1903), p. 212.

• Homer, Iliad, xiv. 170 et seq.

^ A. C. Haddon, " The Ethnography of the Western Tribes of Torres Straits," yournal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1890,) xix. 412. ^ Sir A. B. Ellis, op. cit., p. 156.

' Sir W. B. spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), p. 38.

• Sir J. G. Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians

(London, 1878), i. 425.

190 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

as representing the completion of festal attire, were offered to guests.^ In the Homeric age, bathing and anointing formed an indispensable part of welcome.^ The use of anointing as a mark of honour naturally ensues. Thus, when a Ceramese warrior has taken his first head, he is anointed with fragrant oil by the young women of his village.^

Parallel to the cosmetic use of fats and oils is their application to food-stuffs as a " dressing " ; to tools, utensils, weapons, furniture, and buildings, as a lubri- cant, preservative, or polish, and to perishable sub- stances as a preservative.^

2. THE MAGICAL-RELIGIOUS SPHERE

In the magical-religious sphere a further principle makes its appearance. In addition to their cosmetic, sanative, decorative, and other merits, unguents now develop a more potent, though not a specifically distinct, virtue. The principle may be put thus : according to primitive psychology, organic matter and, to some ex- tent, inorganic also, is instinct with a Divine force or vital essence. The chief centres of this are sacred persons, objects, and places ; later, the gods and their temples, their representatives and apparatus, play this part. This essence, with its gifts of life or strength, and magical or supernatural power, is transmissible by various methods, primarily contact. Inasmuch as

^ W. R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites^ (London, 1^27), p. 233. 2 Homer, Odyssey, iii. 466, viii. 454.

^ J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 118.

• Sir E. F. Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana (London, 1883), p. 314;

K. L. Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe (London, 1905), p. 123 ; W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 102.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING 191

its most obvious and convenient source is the flesh and blood of men and animals, the most direct method of assimilation is provided hy eating and drinking ; but an equally certain method is external application — a method which, in the form of anointing, is peculiarly adapted to the case of fats and oils. Unction is thus based upon the same sacramental principle as the prac- tice of eating the flesh and blood of sacred persons and animals. The Divine life is transmitted, and com- munion with the sacred source is attained, by anointing the worshipper with the sacred essence. Fat is the most primitive unguent, and is regarded in early thought as a very important seat of life. Ideas of sacredness are perhaps implicit even in its ordinary use, inasmuch as it is animal-substance.^ Where the idea of the sacred- ness of animal life has been developed to an extreme, as amongst the Hindus, animal fat is tabooed.

To take illustrations : the Arabs of East Africa anoint themselves with lions' fat, in order to acquire courage.^ The Andamanese pour melted pigs' fat over children to render them strong.^ The Namaquas wear amulets of fat.^ The Damaras collect the fat of certain animals, which they believe to possess great virtue. It is kept in special receptacles ; " a small portion dis- solved in water is given to persons who return home safely after a lengthened absence. . . . The chief makes use of it as an unguent for his body." ^ The fat of the human body possesses a proportionately higher sanctity and potency. It is especially the fat

^ Ernest Crawley, The Mystic Rose ^ (London, 1927), passim ; id., The Tree of Life (London, 1905), pp. no, 223 ; W. R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites^ (London, 1927), p. 383.

^ J. Becker, La Vie en Afrique (Paris and Brussels, 1887), ii. 366.

^ E. H. Man, The Andaman Islands (London, 1884), p. 66.

• C. J. Andersson, Lake Ngami (London, 1856), p. 330.

• Ibid.^ p. 233.

192 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

of the omentum that is regarded as possessing this vital force.^

The Australian savage will kill a man merely to obtain his kidney-fat with which to anoint himself. It is believed that the virtues of the dead man are transfused into the person by anointing. It is a regular practice throughout Australia to use for this purpose the fat of slain enemies. These natives also employ it to make their weapons strong ; sick persons are rubbed with it in order to obtain health and strength.^ In India a prevalent superstition relates to the super- natural virtues of momidi^ an unguent prepared from the fat of boys murdered for the purpose.^ Grease made from the fat of a corpse is a potent charm among the Aleuts.* A piece of human kidney-fat, worn round the neck, was believed by the Tasmanians to render a man proof against magic influence.^ The virtues of human fat as a curative and magical ointment are well known throughout the world. By its use love may be charmed, warriors rendered invulnerable, and witches enabled to fly through the air.^ Transformation into animals, as related in folklore, is effected by magical ointments, originally the fat of the animal in question.

There are two further considerations to be taken into account in treating of the origin of unction.

1 W. R. Smith, op. cit., p. 383.

2 R, B. Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria (London, 1878), i. 102, li. 289, 313 ; " On the Habits, etc., of the Aborigines in district of Powell's Creek, Northern Ter- ritory of South Australia," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1895), xxiv. 178 ; C. Lumholtz, Among Cannibals (London, 1889), p. 272 ; J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines (Melbourne, 1881), p. 68.

3 W. Crooke, The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), ii. 176.

" H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), iii. 145.

^ J. Bonwick, Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians (London, 1870), p. 179. Apuleius, Metamorphoses^ III, ii. i ; Lucian, Lucius^ 12.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING

Sacred fat, in the first place, may be regarded as too holy, and therefore too dangerous, to be eaten. Ex- ternal application is a safer method of assimilating its virtues. In the second place, neither fat nor oil is, properly, an article of food in and by itself,^ but rather a medium or vehicle. Even in its cosmetic uses, oil is frequently a vehicle only, and v^hen used alone would be regarded as the medium of a hidden virtue. In its sacred applications, therefore, v^e may take it that the oil of anointing is the vehicle of a sacred or Divine life or vital-essence, which is either inherent in the material or induced thereinto. When the primitive conception of the virtues of human and animal fat decays, the Divine essence is, as it were, put in commission, and may be transmitted to any unguent by various methods of consecration. Apart from the sacredness which it carries, a holy unguent is distinguished from other vehicles chiefly by its original cosmetic, decorative, sanative, and other properties.

The sacramental principle is thus the controlling factor in the theory of anointing ; but it is always possible to trace the connexion between the essence and the accidents of holy oil, between the magical force or supernatural grace and those material properties which, to quote a Catholic theologian, " well represent the effects of this Sacrament ; oleum enim sanat, lenity recreate penetrat ac lucet^ ^ Ceremonial unction in all religions satisfies the condition laid down by Catholic theology for the Catholic rite of unction ; the differentia of the Sacrament consists in the fact that " the sign of the sacred thing, the visible form of invisible grace " (Augustine), should be " such as to represent it and bring it about."

1 W. R. Smith, op. cit., pp. 232, 386.

2 Petrus Deus, Theologia moralis et dogmatica (Dublin, 1832), vii. 3. »

13

194 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

The methods of transmitting the sacred essence to the unguent are material contact, magical and religious formulas, intention, blessing, and prayer. The results of unction develop from the decorative and sanative through the magical stage to a supernatural conse- cration, which imparts spiritual refreshment and strength — in Christian doctrine, grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

In the very v^idely spread use of fats and oils for the treatment of the sick, physical, magical, and re- ligious, ideas shade off into one another imperceptibly. Some typical examples v^ill illustrate the range and the v^orking of these ideas. Thus the Australians use various fats to assist the healing of wounds and sores ; but to cure a sick man it is necessary to " sing " the grease with which his body is rubbed.^ The shamans of Asiatic Russia charm the blubber, reindeer-fat, or bear's-grease with which the body of a patient is anointed.2 So, more definitely, the Melanesian medi- cine-man imparts mana, magical or spiritual force, to the unguent.^ On the other hand, the most powerful unguent in the Chinese pharmacopoeia owes its virtues to gold-leaf. Gold is considered to be the most perfect form of matter, and this unguent transmits life to the human body.* The unguent employed by the priests of ancient Mexico, when sacrificing on the mountains or in caves, contained narcotics and poisons. It was

• K. L. Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe (London, 1905), p. 38 5 Sir W. B. Spencer

and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 250, 464 ; W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), pp. 157, 162.

2 v. M. Mikhailovskii, " Shamanism in Siberia and European Russia," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1895), xxiv. 98.

^ R. H. Codrington, The Mclanesians (Oxford, 1891), pp. 198-199.

• J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China (Leyden, 1892, etc.), iv. 331-

332-

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING

supposed to remove the sense of fear, and certainly soothed pain. It was used in the treatment of the sick, and was known as " the divine physic." ^ The holy oil of Ceram Laut may be manufactured only by a boy and a girl who are virgins. A priest superintends and repeats formulas over the oil.^ The Amboynese offer oil to the gods. What is left over is returned, and now possesses Divine virtues. It is used to anoint sick and sound alike, and is believed to confer all manner of blessings.^

To return to magical ideas, variations of method are seen in the practice of anointing the weapon which dealt the wound ; * in the East Indian custom, whereby fruits and stones are smeared with oil, and prayer is made that the bullets may rebound from the warriors as rain rebounds from what is covered with oil ; ^ and in the Australian superstitions connected with bone- painting. Here it is possible for the user of the magical weapon to release his victim from the wasting sickness he has brought upon him, if he rubs the apparatus on his own body with grease, in some cases giving what is left of the unguent to the sick man.^ On the principle of sympathy, a mother will grease her own body daily while her son is recovering from circumcision.

• J. de Acosta, The Natural and Moral History of the Indies (London, 1880), ii.

365-367-

2 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 179.

^ F. Valentijn, Oud en nieuw Oost-Indien (Dordrecht and Amsterdam, 1724- 1726), iii. 10.

• Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough ^ (London, 1911-1915), i. 202 et seq.

^ C. M. Pleyte, " Ethnographische Beschrijving der Kei-Eilanden," Tijdschrift van het Koninklijk Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap (Leyden, 1893), 2 ser. X. 805.

^ K. L. Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe (London, 1905), p. 32.

' Sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), p. 466 ; idd.^ The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), p. 250.

196 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

3. THE ANOINTING OF THE DEAD

The anointing of the dead is based on the principle that, as the Chinese say, the dead man may depart clean and in a neat attire from this world of cares." ^ Africa,^ North America,^ and the Fiji and Tonga Islands^ supply typical examples of the custom. The corpse is washed, oiled, and dressed in fine clothes. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans thus prepared their dead for the last rites. The Egyptians also oiled the head of the mummy ; ^ the Romans poured perfumed oils over the ashes and the tomb. At the annual commemoration of those who fell at Plataea, the Archon washed the grave-stones with water and anointed them with oil. The Greeks placed in the tomb vessels (Xt/kvOol) containing unguents for the use of the dead.^ The Kingsmill Islanders, like many other peoples, preserved the skulls of dead relatives. These were oiled and garlanded ; food was offered to them as if they were alive. ^ The pious affection shown in such customs is elsewhere very commonly developed into practices which aim at a closer union with the departed. Thus, in Australia, we find a prevalent custom among mourners of anointing themselves with oil made from the decomposing fat of the corpse.^ This

^ J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China (Leyden, 1892, etc.), i. 6, 20. 2 F, Ratzel, The History of Mankind (London, 1896-1898), i. 328. ^ T. Williams and J. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians (London, 1858), i. 188.

• J. Adair, The History of the American Indians (London, 1775), p. 181.

^ Sir J. G. Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1878), iii. 363.

^ Servius, on Virgil, Aeneid, v. 219, ix. 483 ; Lucian, De Luctu, 1 1 ; G. F. Schoe- mann, Griechische Alterthiimer (Berlin, 1855-1859), ii. 595, 600.

' C. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition during the Tears 1838-1842 (Philadelphia and London, 1845), P- 55^-

8 Sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), p. 530; L. Fison and A. W. Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai (Melbourne and Sidney, 18S0), p. 243.

' PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING 197

practice has typical examples in the Dutch East Indies,^ Africa, and North America. The Creek Indians anoint themselves with oil mingled with the ashes of the dead.^ A curious custom obtains in the Aru Islands of the Dutch East Indies. As soon as a man is dead, his widow runs round to the houses of all his friends and smears the doors with oil.^

The Catholic rite of Extreme Unction doubtless derives from the general principle of anointing the sick ; but, apart from such customs, there would seem to be no definite case elsewhere of the practice of unction immediately before death.

4. CEREMONIAL ANOINTING AND THE REMOVAL OF

TABOO

It will be convenient at this point to draw out the connexion between ceremonial anointing and the prin- ciples of taboo. In the first place, grease, oil, and fat are convenient vehicles for the application of ashes, charcoal, and other marks of mourning, and of the red paint that denotes such persons as the shedder of blood and the menstruous woman. These states, being taboo, possess one form of sanctity ; but it is a general rule that anointing proper, together with decent apparel, should be discarded during their continuance. Similarly, anointing, with other aids to well-being, is renounced by the ascetic. Differences of cosmetic custom produce exceptions to the rule ; thus, among the ancient inhabitants of Central America

J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 308.

2 H. C. Yarrow, " A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Cus- toms of the North American Indians," Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1881 for 1879-1880), i. 145, 155.

^ J. G, F. Riedel, op. cit., p. 268.

198 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

it was the custom to smear the body with grease as a mark of fasting and penance. During the penitential season which preceded the New Year festival, every man was thus anointed daily ; the festal use of paint was resumed as soon as the feast commenced.^ In the second place, we have to recognize the cleansing powers of unction. Anointing is positive, lustration negative ; but this original distinction is not kept intact, for consecrated water not only cleanses, but imparts the Divine life of which it is the vehicle ; ^ and consecrated oil, conversely, both imparts virtue and cleanses, by the action of the Divine life which it carries within it. Early peoples, it must be remembered, employ fat and oil-refuse as a detergent. Anointing thus not only produces the sanctity of consecration, but also removes the sanctity of taboo. In the latter case, its result is re-admission to the normal life (which itself possesses a measure of sanctity),^ and to that extent it brings about a re-consecration of impaired sanctity. The following cases show how unction and lustration tend to assimilate. The ghi of the Hindus is held to purify by virtue of its sacred essence, while the sprinkling with sacred water which constitutes the abhiseka, or anointing of a king, possesses not only the name but the function of ordin- ary anointing. The Yoruba " water of purification " is really an unguent, prepared from shea-butter and edible snails.* The " neutralizing rice-flour " of the Malays has both positive and negative virtues.^ Lastly,

• H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New

York, 1875-1876), ii. 690, 696.

2 W. R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites^ (London, 1927), p. 190. ^ Ibid.., p. 426.

• Sir A. B. Ellis, The T oruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa

(London, 1894), p. 141.

^ W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), pp. 77, 376, 385.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING

in the very widely spread ritual of blood, the material is either sprinkled like water, poured like oil, or smeared like ointment, while the results of the ceremony are both to cleanse and to confer a blessing.

The examples which follow illustrate the use of anointing to remove taboo, and comprise various principles of ceremonial unction. In the Ongtong- Java Islands all strangers are met by the priests im- mediately on landing. Sand and water are sprinkled about, and the visitors themselves are sprinkled with water, anointed with oil, and girt with pandanus-leaves.^ Galla warriors on returning home are " washed " by the women with fat and butter, and their faces are painted red and white.^ Before starting on a journey the Wanjamwesi smears his face with a sort of porridge, and the ceremony is repeated on his return.^ The Australian who has smitten his enemy with sickness by the use of the bone " may release him from the curse by rinsing the magical weapon in water or by rubbing it with fat. Similarly, as noticed above, the operator may produce this result by greasing his own body.* The customs connected with war and slaughter supply remarkable cases of this form of unction. In Ceram Laut, when war is decided upon, the chief anoints the feet of the aggrieved person with oil. It is a kind of consecration. The man then raises the war- cry and rouses the people.^ The Illapurinja, " female

^ R. Parkinson, " Zur Ethnographic der Ongtong Java- und Tasman-Inseln," Internationales Archiv Jiir Ethnographie (Leyden, 1897), x. 112.

2 P. Paulitschke, Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas : Die Geistige Cultur der Domakil, Galla und SomM (Berlin, 1896), p. 258.

^ F. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika (Berlin, 1894), p. 89.

• W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the N or th-W est- Central Queensland

Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 157.

^ J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selehes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 158.

200 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

avenger," among the Central Australians, is rubbed with grease and decorated. On her return, her husband removes the decorations and rubs her afresh with grease.^ The Fijians observed an elaborate ritual for the son of a chief after slaying his first man. He was anointed from head to foot with red turmeric and oil. For three days he lived in seclusion with several other youths, anointed and dressed like himself. They were forbidden to lie down, or sleep, or change their clothes, or enter a house where there was a woman.^ In these cases many principles of early thought may be dis- cerned. It is sufficient to note that war is a holy state, and that it must be inaugurated and concluded with ceremonial observance.

The removal of taboo coincides with the renewal of normal life and normal sanctity, and anointing is employed here no less regularly than for the inaugura- tion of a highly sacred state. Thus mourners are anointed, as in Africa ^ and North America,* when their period of sorrow is ended. Throughout Africa it is the custom to anoint the mother with fat and oil shortly after child-birth. The practice is common throughout the world, after sickness generally, with women after the monthly period, and with children after the cere- monial observances at puberty.^ The practice in the

1 Sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 466-468.

2 T. Williams and J. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians (London, 1858), i. 56.

^ J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country (London, 1857), p. 241.

• H. C. Yarrow, " A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Cus-

toms of the North American Indians," Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1881 for 1879-1880), i. 146.

^ J. Maclean, A Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs (Mount Coke, 1858), pp. 94, 99; D. Macdonald, Africana (London, 1882), i. 129; R. E. Dennett, Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort [French Congo) (London, 1898), p. 137.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING 201

last instance often takes a peculiar form. In Australia,^ for instance, and the Andamans,^ a boy is made free of a forbidden food by the process of having fat rubbed over his face and body.

5. CONSECRATION

Passing now to cases of consecration proper, we find anointing used to inaugurate periodic sacredness, as in rites corresponding to baptism and confirmation, in marriage and in worship. The customs last noted tend to merge into these.

{a) Birth

It is a custom of wide extension that the new-born child should be rubbed with oil.^ This practice soon becomes ceremonial, and suggests baptismal analogies. The Ovaherero ceremony of naming the child combines so many principles that it may stand for a typical summary. The rite takes place in the house of the sacred fire, and is performed by the chief man of the village. He first takes a mouthful of water, and spurts this over the bodies of mother and child. Then he addresses the ancestors thus : " To you a child is born in your village ; may the village never come to an end." He then ladles some fat out of a vessel, spits upon it, and

^ Sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, op. cit., p. 386 ; A. W. Howitt, " Some Aus- tralian Ceremonies of Initiation," yournal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1884), xiii. 455 ; id.y " The Jeraeil, or Initiation Ceremonies of the Kurnai Tribe," ibid. (1885), xiv. 316.

2 E. H. Man, " The Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1883), xii. 134.

' W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the NoJth-West-Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 183 ; F. Ratzel, The History of Mankind (London, 1896-1898), ii. 286; F. Caron, "Account of Japan," in J. Pinkerton, A General Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1808- 18 14), vii. 635 ; Sir A. B. Ellis, The Toruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1894), p. 141.

»

202 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

rubs it over his hands. He next rubs more fat in his hands, spurting water upon it. Then he anoints the woman. In doing this he crosses his arms, so as to touch with his right hand her right side, and with his left hand her left side. The process is repeated with the child. Finall}^ he gives it a name, while touching its forehead with his own.^

{b) Puberty

The anointing of boys and girls as a preliminary to the ceremonies observed at puberty is of wide extension ; it is most prominent in Australia and Africa. In Central Australia the candidate is rubbed with grease at various times during the protracted ceremonial.^ At the circumcision festival of the Masai the boys were allowed to gorge themselves with beef.^ They rubbed the fat over their bodies, much as a Dayak rubs himself with the blood of a pig, or as a carniverous animal rolls in the flesh of his prey.

(r) Marriage

In the ceremonial of marriage we find typical examples of anointing. The Central Australian, for a few days after receiving his wife, rubs her daily with grease and ochre.* A few days before marriage the Angola bride is anointed with oil from head to foot, and until she is handed over to her husband she is treated

^ E. Dannert, " Customs of the Ovaherero at the Birth of a Child," Folk-Lore Journal (Cape Town, 1880), ii. 67.

2 Sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. GlUen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), pp. 93, 135 ; idd... The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), p. 242 ; R. H. Mathews, " The Bora, or Initiation Ceremonies of the Kamil- aroi Tribe," Journal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1895), xxiv. 418.

^ C. J. Andersson, Lake Ngami (London, 1856), p. 465.

• Sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia

(London, 1904), pp. 135, 606.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING 203

like a queen.^ The custom is frequent in Africa, and occurs in Fiji.^ The Malays anoint both bride and bridegroom.^ In what amounts to a ceremony of re-marriage, performed after the birth of the first child, the Basuto pair are anointed by a medicine-man with a mixture of roots and fat.* In Australia we find the custom of anointing pregnant women.

{d) Before Worship

As a preliminary to worship, anointing is frequently incumbent on the people, more frequently on the priest. In ancient Greece, those who consulted the oracle of Trophonius were washed and anointed with oil.^ When a native of the Slave Coast worships the guardian spirit who resides in his head, he rubs his head with oil ; the priests anoint themselves before entering the house of the god.^ The priests of Mexico and Central America were anointed from head to foot with a sacred unguent, which was also applied to the images of the gods. Returning to Greece, we learn that in the feast of Dionysus the men who carried the sacred bull to the temple were anointed and garlanded.^ An interesting side-light on the theory of anointing reaches

1 G. Tarus, Visit to the Portuguese Possessions in South-Western Africa (London, [1845]).

2 T. Williams and J. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians (London, 1858), i. 169. ^ W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), p. 385.

• H. Gtiitzner, " IJber die Gebrauche der Basutho," Verhandelungen der Ber-

liner Gesellschaft fUr Anthropologie, Ethnologic und Urgeschichte (Berlin, 1877), p. 78. ^ Pausanias, VIII. xix. 2, IX. xxxix. 7.

^ Sir A. B. Ellis, The Toruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1894), p. 126 ; cp. id., The Ezce-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1890), p. 76.

'J. de Acosta, The Natural and Moral History of the Indies (London, 1880), ii. 364 5 H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), ii. 323, iii. 341.

^ Lactantius, Divinarum Institutionum, I. xxi. 45.

204 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

us from Fiji^ and the Dutch East Indies.^ At shaman- istic ceremonies the person into whom the god is to enter is anointed with fragrant oil, by way of rendering him attractive to the deity.

{e) The Consecration of Priests

For the special consecration of priests anointing is a not uncommon piece of ritual, obtaining in various parts of the world. The Slave Coast of Africa provides a typical case. The candidate's body is smeared with a decoction of herbs. Then the priests who officiate annoint his head with a mystical unguent," and ask the god to accept him. If he is accepted, the deity is supposed to enter into him. A new cloth is put upon the ordained novice, and a new name conferred.^ Among the Buriats a shaman is consecrated by being anointed with the blood of a kid.* In North America, among the Chikasaws, the candidate fasted for some time, and was consecrated by a bath and unction with bear's grease. The Toltecs and Totonacs of Central America consecrated their pontiffs with an unguent made of an india-rubber oil and children's blood. For the anointing of their spiritual king, the Aztecs em- ployed the unguent used at the enthronement of their temporal monarch.^ The priests of ancient Egypt were consecrated with holy oil poured upon the head.^

^ T. Williams and J. Calvert, op. cit., i. 224.

2 G. A. Wilken, Het animisme bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel (Leiden, 1884-1885), pp. 479-480.

2 Sir A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1890), pp. 143-144.

• V. M. Mikhallovskii, " Shamanism in Siberia and European Russia," Journal

of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1895), xxiv. 89.

^ II. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), II. 214, III. 433, ii. 201.

^ Sir J. G. Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1878), iii. 360.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING

(/) The Anointing of Kings

The anointing of kings, with which Semitic and Christian custom has familiarized the world, is a spec- tacular rite of rare occurrence outside the sphere of Hebrew tradition. It is found, however, in a more or less perfect form among the ancient Egyptians, the Aztecs, and the Hindus ancient and modern. The Pharaoh was anointed after investiture with the sacred robes. The monuments give representations of the ceremony, and in the Tell-el-Amarna letters the king of Cyprus sends to the king of Egypt a flask of good oil to pour on your head, now that you have ascended the throne of your kingdom." ^ The Aztec ceremony of royal unction preceded coronation. The king-elect went in procession to the temple of Huitzilopochtli. After paying homage to the god, he was anointed throughout his whole body by the high priest, and sprinkled with holy water. He was then clothed in ceremonial robes, and about his neck was hung a gourd containing powerful remedies against sorcery, disease, and treason. The unguent used was the blackfoil with which the priests anointed their own bodies and the images of the gods. Its name is variously given, ulli, or ole^ and its chief constituent was india-rubber juice. The Quiches and Cakchiquels bathed the king at his coronation, and anointed his body with perfumes. Candidates for the order of Tecuhtli, the Garter of the Aztecs, were anointed with the same sacerdotal unguent.^

The anointing of kings and priests, combines several

• Sir J. G. Wilkinson, loc. cit. ; Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie, Syria and Egypt from the

Tell-el-Amarna Letters (London, 1898), p. 45 ; H. Winckler, The Tell-el-Amarna Letters (Berlin and London, 1896), p. 87.

2 H. H. Bancroft, op. cit., ii. 144-145, 641, 196, iii. 385.

I

2o6 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

principles, and is not to be explained on one separate line of development. It is, in the first place, a part of the festal dress essential on such occasions.^ Secondly, we have the various ideas connected v^ith consecration, — the transmission of sanctity, power, and new life,^ on the one hand ; and, on the other, the " hedging " of a dedicated person with sacredness, for his protection and the performance of his office.

6. THE ANOINTING OF SACRIFICE AND OFFERING

The anointing of sacrifice and offering, the altar and the temple, and the sacred apparatus generally, supplies many details of ritual which fall into line with the main principles of religious unction, while giving prominence to such as are more closely connected with worship. The human sacrifices of the ancient Albanians of the Caucasus,^ of the Aztecs,* and of the people of Timor, were anointed before being slain. The last case has to do with coronation. The princes of Kupang in Timor kept sacred crocodiles, and be- lieved themselves to be descended from this animal. On the day of coronation, a young girl was richly dressed, decorated with flowers, and anointed with fragrant oil, to be offered as a sacrifice to the sacred monsters.^ In the remarkable human sacrifice of the Khonds, the Meriah was anointed with oil, ghi^ and turmeric, and adorned with flowers. He received " a species of reverence which it is not easy to distinguish

^ W. R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites ^ (London, 1927), pp. 233,

453-

2 Ibid., pp. 383-384. ^ Strabo, II. iv. 7.

^ H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America (New York, 1875-1876), iii. 333.

^ P. J. Veth, Het eiland Timor , p. 21.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING 207

from adoration." Every one who could touched the oil on the victim's body and rubbed it on his own head. The oil was regarded as possessing the same virtue as his flesh and blood conferred on the fields.^

The custom of " dressing " offerings with oil was regular in the worship of the ancient Greeks.^ When the natives of West Africa sacrifice an animal, they sprinkle it wdth palm-oil by way of attracting the spirits.^ At the festival of the New Fruits among the Creek Indians, the priest took some of each sort and smeared them with oil before offering them to the spirit of fire.* The people of Gilgit drench with wine, oil, and blood the branch of the sacred cedar used in their agricultural ceremonies.^ Similarly, the Malays, in their ceremony of bringing home the Soul of the Rice,^ and the Javanese, in the Marriage of the Rice Bride,^ anoint the rice with oil.

The natives of Celebes on great occasions anoint the flag and other emblems of state. ^ The Santals anoint their cattle when celebrating the harvest- home.^ The Shans of Indo-China^^ and the natives

1 S. C. Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India (London, 1865), p. 118; J. Campbell, A Personal Narrative of Thirteen Tears^ Service amongst the Wild Tribes of Khondistan (London, 1864), pp. 54-55, 112.

2 G. F. Schomann, Griechische Alterthiimer (Berlin, 1855-1859), ii. 236; Pau- sanias, viii. 42.

' Sir A. B. Ellis, The Toruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1894), p. 155.

• J. Adair, The History of the American Indians (London, 1775), p. 96.

^ J. Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosb (Calcutta, 1880), p. 106. ^ W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), p. 235. ' P. J. Veth, Java (Haarlem, 1886-1907), i. 524.

^ G. K. Niemann, " De Boegineezen en Makassaran," Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie ('s Gravenhage, 1889), 4 ser. iv. 270.

^ W. Crooke, The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), ii. 308.

t

E. Aymonier, " Les Tchames et leur religions," Revue de Vhistoire des religions (Paris, 1 891), xxiv. 272.

2o8 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

of Celebes ^ purify with water and anoint with oil the plough used in their ceremonial ploughing of the rice- fields.

When we pass to cases more definitely representative of worship, we find a development of two ideas : first, that the sacred life immanent in the sacred symbol or image needs periodical renewing ; and, secondly, that the spirit connected therewith requires conciliation ; anointing the sacred object renews its vigour and also brings the worshipper into union with the deity. When the Wawamba of Central Africa ^ or the Aus- tralian of Queensland ^ anoints his sacred stone with fat when asking it for rain, we may infer that the sacred object is supposed to be revived and rendered gracious by the cosmetic virtues of unction. Similarly the Central Australians rub their churinga with fat and ochre whenever they examine them. The churinga is supposed to have human feelings, and the process of anointing is said to " soften " it.^ Here the use of grease for utensils combines with cosmetic anointing. In many cases it is natural to find these ideas merging in the notion of feeding the divine object ; but it would be incorrect to derive the anointing of sacred stones from the practice of feeding the god. The custom of smearing blood upon sacred symbols and images is of wide extension, but it is not a survival from any practice of pouring the blood into the mouth of an image. The practical primitive mind does not confuse anointing

^ B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de Ethnologie van Zuider-Celebes ('s Gravenhage, i875)» P- 93-

2 F. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika (Berlin, 1894), p. 654.

^ W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 158.

• Sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia

(London, 1904), pp. 255, 265, 270 ; cp. idd., The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), p. 161. y

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING

with nutrition, though well aware that the two are allied. As illustrating the extension of the custom, a few examples are here brought forward. The Greeks and Romans washed, anointed, and garlanded their sacred stones. The o/x^aAos* of Delphi was periodically- anointed and wrapped in wool.^ The Malagasy anoint sacred stones with fat or oil or the blood of victims.^ The Wakamba neat-herd anoints a rock with oil and offers fruits, in order to get his cattle through a difficult pass.^ This combination of nutrition and unction is found among the Kei islanders ; every family here possesses a sacred black stone, and to obtain success in war or trade a man anoints this with oil and offers fruits to it.^ In Celebes, sacred images, apparatus, and buildings are smeared with oil by worshippers.^ The ancient Egyptians anointed the statues of the gods, applying the unguent with the little finger of the left hand.^ The Arval Brothers anointed the image of their goddess, Dea Dia, on festival days. At the ceremony of mourning for the dead god, the stone image of Attis was anointed. This was probably the unction of the dead. When the image was brought out from the tomb on the day of Resurrection, the priest anointed the throats of the worshippers. The religion of ancient Greece provides a curious instance

^ G. F. Schomann, Griechiscbe Alterthiimer (Berlin, 1855-1859), ii. 236 ; Lucian, Alexander^ 30 ; Apuleius, Florida., i. i ; Minucius Felix, Octavius, 3 ; Pausanias, x. 24; Sir J. G. Frazer, Pausanias's Description of Greece (London, 1898), v. 354-355.

2 J. Sibree, Madagascar and its People (London, 1870), p. 305.

' J. M. Hildebrandt, " Ethnographische Notizen iiber Wakamba und ihre Nach- baren," Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie (Berlin, 1878), x. 384.

• J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua

('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 223.

^ B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de Ethnologie van Zuider-Celebes ('s Gravenhage,

1875), P- 94-

• Sir J. G. Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1878), iii. 361.

14

2IO STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

of the meeting of the practical and the religious spheres. The old temple-statues of the gods, made of wood, were rubbed with oil to preserve them from decay, while to preserve the magnificent creations of gold and ivory, such as the image of Zeus at Olympia, oil was run in pipes throughout the statue.^

The principle of communion with the deity by means of anointing the sacred symbol or the worshipper himself is more apparent in the elementary stages of worship. The Assiniboins, we are told, venerate the bear, and try to keep on good terms with him. They pray to him when they wish to be successful in a bear- hunt, and so to secure a good supply of bear's flesh to eat and of the bear's grease with which they are always anointed.^ The natives of Central Australia, at the Intichiuma ceremony for maintaining the supply of kangaroos, eat a little of the flesh of this animal and anoint their bodies with the fat. In order to obtain success in hunting emus, they rub themselves with stones supposed to be parts of that animal. Simi- larly, before eating snakes they rub their arms with snake fat.^ At a higher stage of development we find the West African negro anointing that part of his own body where his guardian spirit resides.*

The oil of anointing, as w^e have seen, transmits the sacredness latent within it in either of two directions — to the worshipper or to the god. If we look at the controlling source of its virtue, the potentially sacred

^ Corpus Jnscriptionum Laitnarum, vi. 9797 ; Firmicus, De Errore, 23 5 Pausanias, V. II, and Sir J. G. Frazer's commentary ad loc.

2 P. J. de Smet, Western Missions and Missionaries (New York, 1863), p. 139.

3 Sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), p. 206 ; cp. idd., The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), pp. 182, 255.

4 Sir A. B. Ellis, The Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1894), pp. 126-127.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING 211

substance of the human body, and compare the earliest forms of consecration, we see that the theory of anoint- ing leads us back to pre-theistic and even pre-fetishistic times. The elementary stages of dedication illustrate the less common direction of anointing, in which the worshipper or the priest confers sanctity instead of receiving it. The dedication, more or less informal, of sacred buildings and apparatus by anointing, obtained in Egypt, Greece, and Italy ; it is remarkably promi- nent in India, ancient and modern, but does not appear to have been general elsewhere. It is, of course, connected with the use of oil for tools, utensils, and furniture, but also has associations with fetishistic methods of making gods.^ The ritual of renewing the sacred vigour of a sacred symbol has already been re- ferred to ; here we note the original induction. Thus every man on the Gold Coast makes for himself a suhman^ or tutelary deity. When he has made it, he anoints it with butter.^ Among the Bataks the guru inducts a spirit into the fetish with various ceremonies, chief among which is the application of a vegetable unguent.^ But the Central Australian, rubbing a newly-made churinga with fat, is an unconscious ex- ponent of the embryonic stage of consecration by unction.

In its latest developments anointing passes into a theological metaphor of quasi-doctnudX import. Spirit- ual unction carries with it from the sacramental to the ethical-religious plane the various gifts of conse-

• Ernest Crawley, The Tree of Life (London, 1905), p. 232.

2 Sir A, B. Ellis, The Tsbi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (Lon- don, 1887), pp. lOO-IOI.

• B. Hagen, " Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Battareligion," Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Batavia and 's Hage, 1883), xxviii. 525 ; B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de Ethnologie van Zuider-Celebes ('s Gravenhage, 1875), p. 94.

212 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

cration, leaving in its course such traces of mysticism as " the White Ointment from the Tree of Life," found in the baptismal formula of the Ophites, and Justin's adaptation of Plato's fancy, to the effect that the Creator impressed the Soul of the Universe upon it as an unction in the form of a ^}

To sum up the history of anointing in its connexion with religion, v^e see that of all sacramental media the sacred unguent is the most spiritual, and that from beginning to end holy unction is the least material of all purely physical modes of assimilating the Divine. Its characteristic is soul.

7. HINDU ANOINTING AND CONSECRATION

As we have observed more than once, the Hindu use of anointing is the most comprehensive known to us. Unguents have been in regular use from the earliest times for every form of cosmetic, luxurious, medicinal, and ceremonial unction. Cosmetic and medicinal oils and pastes are found in greater number and variety in India than in any other country, though animal fats are there, of course, prohibited. Scented and coloured preparations are frequent ; for ceremonial purposes sandal-paste or oil, oil and turmeric, and ght are chiefly used. Sandal-oil is popular on account of its fra- grance ; ght and turmeric are extensively employed in medicine and cookery ; turmeric and mustard-oil pos- sess invigorating properties. Oil is applied to the head and body before and frequently after the bath. The practice is said to invigorate the system, and it is noted in the ancient literature that diseases do not approach the man who takes physical exercise and anoints his limbs with oil. Infants are well rubbed

• Justin, Apologia, i. 60 ; Plato, Timceus, 36.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING 213

with mustard-oil, and are then exposed to the sun ; it is asserted, on scientific authority, that the practice is a preventive of consumption. The hair is always well pomaded, coconut-oil being chiefly used. Sandal- or rose-water is offered to guests ; and this custom {mdlaya-chandana) is the ancient arghya. During mourning and sickness anointing is discontinued, also on fast-days, on visits to sacred places, by Brahmans in the stage of life as student or ascetic, and by women during menstruation. At the conclusion of her period a woman is rubbed with saffron-oil ; and anointing, more or less ceremonial, marks recovery from sickness and the end of mourning.^

Magical unguents, to which potency was given by mantras^ were and still are used to inspire love, and to prevent or cure evil and disease. A still prevalent superstition is that of momiai^ the essential element of which is an unguent, as we have already noted, prepared from the fat of a boy murdered for the purpose. This is believed to heal wounds and to render the body invulnerable. The amrta oil made men strong and women lovely ; it ensued offspring, averted misfortune, promoted prosperity, and guaranteed long life. Its manufacture was preceded by purificatory rites. The Brahman, when about to anoint himself, should think of the Chiranjlvins (" the long-lived "), seven half- divine persons.

^ U. C. Dutt, The Materia Medica of the Hindus (Calcutta, 1900), pp. 13 et seq., 225 ; J. E. Padfield, The Hindu at Home (Madras, 1896), p. 90 ; A. F. R. Hoernle, The Bower MS. (Calcutta, 1893-1912), passim; W. Ward, A View of the History^ Literature, and Religion of the Hindoos (London, 1817-1820), i. 92, 275, iii. 345; Bhagvat Sinh Jee, Aryan Medical Science, pp. 45, 62 ; Lai Behari Day, Govinda Sdm- anta (London, 1874), p. 57 ; J. A. Dubois, Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies ^ (Oxford, 1899), pp. 188, 713 ; The Laws of Manu, ii. 177 ; Sir M. Monier- Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism*' (London, 1891), pp. 153, 307; Rajendralala Mitra, Indo-Aryans (London and Calcutta, 1881), i. 434, 439, ii. 17 et seq. ; S. C. Bose, The Hindoos as they are (London and Calcutta, 188 1), pp. 17, 23.

214 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

At the hair-parting ceremony (stmantonnayana), performed during pregnancy, the woman is bathed and fragrant oil is poured on her head. Immediately after birth the child is rubbed with warm mustard-oil. The tonsure (chdula) takes place at the age of three ; the child is anointed with oil and washed. Girls, on arriving at puberty, are decorated and anointed with oil, or oil and turmeric (haridra). Brahman boys, on investiture with the thread, are similarly anointed with oil and haridra} The ceremony of gdtra-haridrd is performed during the preliminary marriage-rites and on the wedding-day. Bride and bridegroom are anointed with oil and turmeric. The " sandal-wood stone," which they have to touch with their feet, is rubbed with oil. The bride's brother smears the hands of the bride with ghi, and sprinkles parched rice upon them. At a Tdnddi wedding the mothers of the contracting parties anoint them with oil, turmeric, and sandal-paste. They then bathe and put on new clothes.^ Among the Kaunadiyans the village barber sprinkles ghi over the heads of the bridal pair, who afterwards take an oil bath.^ For the sindurddn^ sandal-paste, blood, or vermilion are chiefly used. Oil or paste is a common medium for sacred marks.

After death, the body is washed and anointed with sandal-paste, oil, and turmeric or ghl. In some cases the chief mourner touches each aperture of the body

^ H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Feda (Berlin, 1894), pp. 499, 513 ; A. F. R. Hoernle, op. cit., ii. 104 et seq. ; J. A. Dubois, op. cit., pp. 23, 86, 160, 273 ; Sir M. Monier- Williams, op. cit., p. 357 ; W. Ward, op. cit., i. 74 ; S, C. Bose, op. cit., p. 86 ; in general, A. Hillebrandt, RitualUtteratur. Vedische Opfer und Zauber (Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, III. Band, 2 Heft [Strassburg,

^^7]\ PP- 43, 49> 62, 67.

2 Edgar Thurston, " Some Marriage Customs in Southern India," Bulletin \of the] Madras Government Museum (Madras, 1903), iv. 156.

' Ibid., iv. 152.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING 215

with his lips, repeats a mantra, and pours ghi on each. The forehead of a dying man is, if possible, smeared with the sacred mud of the Ganges. At the burial of the urn the chief mourner anoints himself with ghi. At the ordination of a Buddhist priest, his hair is touched with oil before being cut.^

The important ceremony of abhiseka, the royal baptism or consecration, is in principle a form of unction ; the holy water, with its numerous ingredients, consecrates rather by infusion of divine force than by lustration. This rite was celebrated towards the close of the protracted ceremonies of the rdjasuya. The proper time for its celebration was the new moon after the full moon of Phalguna, that is, about the end of March. Eighteen ingredients were necessary, the chief being the water of the sacred river Sarasvatl. The others included ghi, milk, cow-dung, honey, sugar, sandal-water, perfumes, earths, turmeric, and rice- meal. The adhvaryu mixed them from the eighteen pitchers in a bucket of udumbara wood, repeating a mantra at every stage ; for instance, " O honeyed water, whom the Devas collected, thou mighty one, thou begotten of kings, thou enlivener ; with thee Mitra and Varuna were consecrated, and India was freed from his enemies ; I take thee." Or, " O water, thou art naturally a giver of kingdoms, grant a kingdom to my Yajamana " (naming the king). Or, " O honeyed and divine ones, mix with each other for the strength and vigour of our Yajamana." The king, after a preliminary sprinkling, put on a bathing-dress, the inner garment of which was steeped in ghi, and took

1 Lai Behari Day, op. cit., pp. 126-127 ; J. A, Dubois, op. cit., pp. 50-51, 188, 227, 336, 492 ; S. Mateer, Native Life in Travancore (London, 1883), p. 88 ; S. C. Bose, op. cit., pp. 50-51, 250 ; W. Ward, op. cit., i. 168-169, 176, iii. 354 ; Sir M. Monier- Williams, op. cit., pp. 298, 363 ; Rajendralala Mitra, op. cit., ii. 144.

2i6 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

his seat on a stool covered with a tiger-skin, facing the east, and, as the pouring commenced, raised his arms. On his head was a rose-head of gold, through which the sacred liquid was to spread in a shower. The contents of the one bucket were transferred to four ; these the adhvaryu^ the Brahman priest, a ksatriya, and a vaisya poured in turn over the head of the king from their respective positions. Mantras were recited, such as, " O Yajamana, I bathe thee with the glory of the moon ; may you be king of kings among kings. ... O ye well worshipped Devas, may you free him from all his enemies, and enable him to discharge the highest duties of the Ksatriya. ..." At the close the Brahman said, " Know ye that he has this day become your king ; of us Brahmanas Soma is the king."^ Noteworthy details are the prayers to the " divine Quickeners," the belief that the gods consecrated the king, and that through the rite he was filled with divine force. The essence of water is vigour ; this and the vitalizing essence of all the ingredients of the sacred liquid enter into him. One mantra states that he is sprinkled with priestly dignity.^ The hair of the king was not to be cut until a year had elapsed. Three forms of abhiseka are mentioned : abhiseka for kings, pur- ndbhi^eka for superior kings, and mahdbhiseka for emperors. According to the Varaha Purana, a man may perform the ceremony on himself in a simplified form : " He who pours sesamum-seed and water on his head from a right-handed sankha destroys all the sins of his life."

1 Rajendralala Mitra, Indo-Aryans (London and Calcutta, 1881), ii. 3, 37 et seq., 46 et seg.

^ H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Berlin, 1894), pp. 428, 472 ; ^atapatha Brahmana, V. iii. iii. ; A. Weber, Dber die konigszveihe, den Rajasuya (Berlin, 1893), PP- 4. 33-34, 42-45) 110-117.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ANOINTING 217

A modified form of abhiseka is still employed at the coronation of Rajahs. In Assam, for instance, the water for the ceremony is taken from nine holy places, and is mingled with the juices of plants. A similar account is given of coronation in Mysore. In Raj- putana the ceremony is unction rather than baptism. A mixture of sandal-paste and attar of roses is the unguent employed, and a little of this is placed on the forehead with the middle finger of the right hand. The royal jewels are then tied on.^

As in Vedic times, the Brahman washes and anoints himself with oil or ghl before performing religious duties. The institutor of a ceremony also anoints himself. On the first day of the festival Sankrdnti it is the custom for every one to take a bath, in which rubbing the body with oil forms a conspicuous feature. In the mirudhapa'subandha rite the tree from which the sacrificial post was to be cut was anointed, and the victim, after being rubbed with oil and turmeric and washed, was anointed with ghi just before the sacrifice. In the Yagna sacrifice the ram is rubbed with oil, bathed, covered with aksatas and garlanded.^ At the Durgdfiijd festival a plantain tree is bathed and anointed with several kinds of scented oils.

The consecration of buildings by means of unction is a well-developed feature of Hindu ritual. There is a ceremony analogous to the laying of foundation- stones, in which a piece of wood Qariku) is decorated and anointed, being thereby animated with the spirit

^ Rajendralala Mitra, op. cit., ii. 46 et seq., i. 286 ; B. Hamilton, in W. Martin, Eastern India (1838), iii. 611 ; L. Bowring, Eastern Experiences (London, 1871), p. 393 ; Edward Balfour, Encyclopedia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia (Madras, 1857), s.v. "Anointing."

^ H. Oldenberg, op. cit., p. 398 ; Rajendralala Mitra, op. cit., i. 369-370 ; J. A. Dubois, Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies^ (Oxford, 1899), p. 518.

21 8 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

of the god Vastupurusha, who becomes the tutelary- deity of the house. Again, when the principal entrance is put up, the woodwork is anointed with sandal-oil and worshipped. The same ceremony is performed over the ridge-plate and the well, and for the house generally, when first entered.

The images of the gods in the temples are bathed, anointed, and dressed by the priests daily. Unguents for this purpose {vilepana) are one of the " essential offerings " presented by worshippers. Sacred stones are also anointed and decorated ; and the worshippers of ^iva anoint the linga}

The principle of consecration is well brought out in the Hindu ritual of anointing, while the allied prin- ciples of decoration and purification are fully recog- nized.

^ S. C. Bose, The Hindoos as they are (London and Calcutta, 1881), pp. 101-102; Sir M, Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism^ (London, 1891), pp. 197, 221, 420, 443 ; B. H. Hodgson, Essays on the Languages^ Literature^ and Religion of Nepal and Tibet (London, 1874), p. 140; J. Wilson, "Account of the Waralfs and Katodfs, — two of the Forest Tribes of the Northern Konkan," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (London, 1843), vii. 20 ; E. Moor, " Account of an hereditary living Deity, to whom devotion is paid by the Bramins of Poona and its neighbourhood," Asiatick Researches (Calcutta, 1801), vii. 394 ; J. A. Dubois, op. cit., p. 589 ; Mahdn- irvuna Tantra, v. 91.

IX. THE OATH, THE CURSE AND THE

BLESSING

I. The Curse and the Blessing

I. INTRODUCTORY

Cursing and blessing are perfect opposites, and are

therefore appropriately taken together for analysis and

description. The preponderance of evil-wishing over

good-wishing is obvious, but deserves consideration.

Like the preponderance of evil spirits over good spirits

in early religions, it points to absence of harmony or

failure of adaptation in the relations of man to Nature

and of man to man. But this very defect may be a

condition of progress, a mark of the struggle.

The habit, in its twofold or polar aspect, is universal

both in ordinary social life and in religion, organized

and unorganized. It transcends all distinctions of

race, and is, in fact, a permanent outcome of the

working together of language and thought ; for by this

double mechanism are expressed wish and will, desire

and determination, in that which is, as it were, midway

between psychosis and action. This does not imply

that verbal utterance is a stage preceding action ; we

describe it as intermediate, just because cursing and

blessing in their earlier forms have the appearance of

being based on an unconscious theory that the word is

nearer the end than is the wish, and that the act alone

reaches, or rather is, the end. It follows that, in the

219

220 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

fluid state of categorical thought which we assume for early culture it would be both easy and natural to assimilate the spoken wish to the realized fact, by any appropriate means. Such artificial actualizing of the blessing or the curse is typical of all except the higher stages of the evolution. It will be illustrated later on. In passing, we may note that to describe such assimilation as a " material " or " concrete " tendency, or to describe the primitive mind as being essentially " materialistic," is to draw a false distinction. In view of the very rudimentary analysis of natural laws and of mental categories arrived at by early man, it is better to describe his mental operations by some such term as holopsychosis^ or whole- thinking," just as his language has been described as holophrastic} All the components are there, but they have not yet been resolved. The examples cited below will illustrate this also, besides serving to indicate that some of the earliest cases of human " expression " are actually less material and less concrete than the latest.

The curse and the blessing are an excellent example of a product of the two powers — thought and word (or logos) — and of the inhibition of such a product from becoming fact. The reasons for the inhibition need no description ; they are, however, the defining conditions of the curse or blessing as such, though these conditions are always, as it were, about to be trans- cended. This result is most conspicuous at the highest point of the curve traced by the general habit, and corresponding to a stage when words, as such, possess more moment than they do either before or after. As distinguished from desire on the one hand and from

• [As by Daniel Wilson, Prehistoric Man (Cambridge, 1862), i. 12 ; third edition

(London, 1876), i. 13.]

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 221

actualization (in artificial embodiment) on the other, the curse or the blessing is the spoken word. We may well suppose that the ascription to words of such super- verbal potency as a typical curse involves coincides with a period of mental evolution, and of linguistic evolution, when man became at last completely conscious of the " power of speech," of the faculty which he had so laboriously acquired. Then the word was res, not nomen. The arrival at such a point of realization amounts to a crystallizing out of at least one important category from the primal fluid of nervous life. It will be noticed that, if terms like " concrete " and " material " are employed, we must admit that the half-civilized and highly organized Moor is more " primitive " than the lowest savage.

It also seems to us an unnecessary and illegitimate proceeding to draw a sharp division between the magical and the religious blessing or curse, or to assign priority to the former type. A savage Australian may curse his fellow mentally or verbally, in a form as far removed from magic as profane swearing among civilized men is from religion. Or, again, if he has a god, he may invoke him to execute his spoken wish. On the other hand, we find the higher religions frequently adopting a magical form ; and we can sometimes trace the re- ligious form passing into the magical. The distinction, in fact, between magic and religion, as the form of man's relation to his environment, seems to be a matter of temperament rather than of time. Two types cer- tainly exist for cursing and blessing, and they will be fully discussed below ; here it is premised that we have no right to assume the priority of the magical type, or even its exclusion, simultaneously, of the religious. There are, moreover, many neutral cases.

222 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

2. GENERAL CHARACTER

A curse or blessing is a wish, expressed in words, that evil or good may befall a certain person. The wish may be expressed by a god or spirit, in which case it is a Jiat, and is wish, will, and fact in one. It may be expressed for the speaker's own good or ill. It may be, again, a mere wish or will ; or an appeal to another (usually a supernatural) person to execute it ; or ac- companied by, or embodied in, a material object. This may be an image of the result desired ; a vehicle of transmission ; an object representing the curse or the blessing ; or a physical action by the speaker to or towards the intended person.

For the uttered wish without condition, reference, or assimilative action, we may compare the case vividly described by Turner. The Samoan has a system of organized cursing, but at times he resorts to the natural method, and curses on his own responsibility. Dis- covering a theft from his garden, he shouts in a loud voice, " May fire blast the eyes of the person who has stolen my bananas ! " The cry " rang throughout the adjacent plantations, and made the thief tremble. They dreaded such uttered imprecations." ^ In Luang- Sermata, usual curses are : " Evil shall devour you ! lightning shall strike you ! " and so on.^ Such is the type of the simple curse or blessing found in all races, and surviving belief in magic and in supernatural sanctions among the unthinking members of the highest civilization.

When accompanied by a material vehicle or em- bodiment or action, assimilative or assisting or symbolic,

1 G, Turner, Samoa a Hundred Years ago and long before (London, 1884), p. 184.

2 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 317.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 223

the adhesions of the wish become innumerable, for it links itself to the phenomena of every form of taboo, magic, and symbolism. At the back of all these there is the primary connexion with neuro-muscular dis- charge. Here the wish may be simultaneous with, or subsequent to, the impulsive action, just as will may be not prior to, but accompanying or following, an action of which it is the cerebral echo.

In Melanesia the act of blessing involves the bes- towal of mana by physical contact. A man will give a boy a start in the world by placing his hand on the boy's head, thus imparting to him a portion of his own mysterious power.^ In the Solomon Islands, inland people are supposed to have more mana than coast people. When they go down to the coast, they considerately avoid spreading out their fingers, for to point the fingers at a man is to shoot him with a " charm." ^ Blessing among the Masai consists of spitting upon the recipient.^ Far more common is the use of this vehicle for the curse, or as a symbol of contempt or insult.* So the Masai spat while cursing. " If a man while cursing spits in his enemy's eyes, blind- ness is supposed to follow." ^ The Sakai are believed to be able to do injury by " sendings " and " pointings." ^ Among the Fiort of West Africa, a sale of property becomes complete when the seller has " blessed " the article sold. He raises his hands to his arm-pits, and throws them out towards the buyer. Then he breathes

^ R. H. Codrington,. " Religious Beliefs and Practices in Melanesia," yournal of the Anthropological Institute (London, 1881), x. 285. 2 Ibid., X. 303.

^ J. Thomson, Through Masai Land (London, 1887), pp. 16^ et seq.

• J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit., pp. 259, 295, 406.

^ S. L. and H. Hinde, The Last of the Masai (London, 1901), p. 48.

• W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula (London,

1906), ii. 199.

224 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

or blows over the article. This ceremony is called ku vana mula^ " giving the breath," and is equivalent, says Dennett, to a " God bless thee." ^ It seems rather to be a personal imposition of the speaker's good-will upon both buyer and thing bought, without any supernatural reference. There is here as yet no sym- bolism : the intention is immediate. Examples of symbolism might be multiplied indefinitely. The shaking off of the dust of the feet is a familiar case. In Morocco a suppliant at the siyid of a saint will call down misfortune upon an enemy by sweeping the floor with his cloak, praying that the enemy may be swept likewise.^ It is hardly necessary to point out that mere impulsive action, deliberate magic, and sym- bolism shade into each other continually.

Among the Hebrews a blessing was imparted by the imposition of hands.^ In blessing a multitude, the hands were uplifted.* Refinements are inevitable : thus, in the Greek Church the gesture of benediction is made with the right hand, the thumb touching the tip of the ring-finger, the other fingers being erected. In the Latin use, the thumb, fore, and middle fingers are erected, the others being doubled on the palm of the hand. In the Rabbinical blessing, the priest places the fingers of both hands in pairs — the forefinger with the middle, the ring with the little finger, the tips of the thumbs, and the tips of the forefingers, respectively, touching one another : thus the ten fingers are in six divisions.

Other components of the wish, as it becomes a rite,

1 R. E. Dennett, At the Back of the Black Man's Mind (London, 1906), p. 48.

2 E. A. Westermarck, " L-^Ar^ or the Transference of Conditional Curses in Morocco," Anthropological Essays presented to Edward Burnett Tylor (Oxford, 1907),

P- 371-

^ Genesis, xlviii. 17 : Matthew, xix. 13. * Leviticus, ix. 22 ; Luke, xxiv. 50.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 225

may also undergo differentiation. Thus the Talmud holds that the mere power of the spoken word is effi- cacious.^ The priest pronounces the blessing in a loud voice. So, in Islam, an important detail is the audibleness of the benediction. The Talmud also speaks of cursing by an angry look. This needs to be fixed. Such a curse has been described as a mental curse." 2 The Tasts have a remarkable dualistic personification — " the cursing thought " of the Law of Mazda ; the strong cursing thought of the wise man, opposing foes in the shape of a boar, or sharp-toothed he-boar, a sharp-jawed boar, that kills at one stroke, pursuing, wrathful, with a dripping face, strong and swift to run, and rushing all around." On the other hand is the personification of the " pious and good Blessing." This Blessing {dfriti) is twofold — by thought and by words. It is notable that the blessing by words is the more powerful ; but the curse (upamand) by thought is more powerful than that by words.^

The indeterminate character of primitive thought makes interchange easy between thought, idea, word, and act, and also between mechanical, psychical, and verbal force. Thus a curse or blessing may be regarded now as a spirit, now as a thing, now as a word, but in each case it is regarded as travelling along a material or psychical conductor, or as embodied in a material object, its energy then being potential, ready to become kinetic when discharged. It is important to note that these early views are held in comparatively late culture, especially in religion and these show every sign of being living beliefs, not survivals.

^ Talmud : Zera'tm : Berakhoth^ 19a, ^6a.

2 C. Levias, " Cursing," The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London, 1925), iv. 390.

^Zend-Avesta : Strozahj i. 30 ; Tast X. xxxi. 127. 15

226 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

When we remember the emphasis laid in all but the latest culture on words and names we can appreciate the confusion, or rather the shifting, between the material and the verbal notion of a curse or blessing. Thus, in whatever form it is expressed, the curse or blessing, like all expressions of an idea enforced by strong emotion, has a dynamical certainty. Irish folk- lore has it that a curse once uttered must alight on something ; it will float in the air seven years, and may descend any moment on the party it was aimed at ; if his guardian angel but forsake him, it takes forth- with the shape of some misfortune, sickness, or temp- tation, and strikes his devoted head.^

" Curses " in old Teutonic proverbs " operate quickly " ; they are " not to be turned aside." ^ What Grimm describes as the " savage heartiness " of the curses which he records is the emotional force which has so much to do with making an impression, whether in the direction of " suggestion " to the victim or, generally, of the ascription of " power " to the word or act. Emotional force as a factor in the making both of magic and of religion deserves recognition. It is well illustrated by blessings and cursings in their growth ; when their forms are fixed, naturally the form is everything, and a curse uttered casually and without heat may still be efficacious. To the priestly blessing in the synagogue magical powers were ascribed, and the Old Testament states that the word once pronounced is irrevocable.^ The Talmud warns against looking at the priest while he is pronouncing the blessing, for

^ W. G. W. Martin, Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland (London, 1902), 57-58.

2 J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (London, 1880-1888), iv. 1690. 2 Genesis, xxvii. 35.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 227

" the glory of God is on him." It is a natural process of suggestion working through strength of emotion, fear of ill-will and enmity, and reinforced by a complex of associated ideas relating to the essence of words and the energy of souls, that gives to the curse or blessing its independent " power." As it is put by Wester- marck, this " purely magic power, independent of any superhuman will ... is rooted in the close association between the wish, more particularly the spoken wish, and the idea of its fulfilment. The wish is looked upon in the light of energy which may be transferred — by material contact, or by the eye, or by means of speech — to the person concerned, and then becomes a fact. This process, however, is not taken quite as a matter of course ; there is always some mystery about it." ^

Just as sin is " looked upon as a substance charged with injurious energy," so the curse is a " baneful substance," ^ like the materiallv conceived badi of the Malays, and the Uhas of the Moors. Good and evil in all but the higher stages of thought are constantly " embodied," either by analogy, personification, or the much more normal and prevalent mode of mere mental objectification. To illustrate this last we may com- pare the precisely identical method, used in science, of conceiving of a force as a graphic straight line.

This conception is characteristic of the curse and blessing in their social and religious history. Arabs when being cursed will lie on the ground that the curse may fly over them.^ Among the Nandi, " if a son refuses to obey his father in any serious matter, the father solemnly strikes the son with his fur mantle —

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 563. ^Ibid., i. 55, 57.

' I. Goldziher, Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philologie (Leiden, 1896), i. 29.

228 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

this is equivalent to a most serious curse, and is supposed to be fatal to the son unless he obtains forgiveness, which he can only do by sacrificing a goat before his father." ^ Berbers strip before taking an oath, to prevent it from clinging to their clothes.^ Plato speaks of being " tainted by a curse." ^ Arabs fear the " magical nature " of an oath.* The " water of jeal- ousy " was believed by the Hebrews, as causing a curse, to go into the bowels, to make the belly to swell, and the thigh to rot.^ The Kachinzes " bless " their huts by sprinkling them with milk.^ The Nubians, before eating the tongue of an animal, cut off the tip, believing that here is the seat of all curses and evil wishes." ' Among the islanders of Leti, Moa and Lakor, a man who has quarrelled with a woman is afraid to go to war lest her curses may bring death.^

Hence the recipient of a curse is anxious to neu- tralize or divert it. In the last case cited the man is at pains to secure forgiveness by making presents to the woman. In Melanesia the curse is an engine of au- thority. A chief will curse a man by way of a legal " injunction " ; the matter is put right by the method of toto^ the offering of a gift. On receiving this, the chief sacrifices to the spirit, lio^a^ on whose power his curse rested.^ In Samoa there is the same system, particularly for the enforcement of the rights of pro-

^ Sir H. H. Johnston, The Uganda Protectorate (London, 1902), ii. 879. 2 E. A. Westermarck, op. cit.y i. 59. ^ Plato, Lazvs, ix. 881.

• J. L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wdhdbys (London, 1830), p. 73.

^ Numbers, v. 11 et seq.

6 J. G. Georgi, Russia (London, 1780-178 3), iii. 275. ' G. Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa (London, 1873), ii. 326-327. 8 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 387.

» R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 216.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 229

perty. In case of theft, the injured party gives the priest a fee of mats. The priest curses the thief ; the latter, to avoid the otherwise inevitable result of sickness or death, deposits at the door of the priest an equivalent for the stolen property. Then the priest prays over " the death bov^l " that the curse may be " reversed." ^ The Maoris employed an elaborate ritual for cursing and its reversal. The latter v^as whakahokitu ; the tohunga employed to counteract the curse chanted a karakia containing such v^ords as these :

" Great curse, long curse, Great curse, binding curse. Come hither, sacred spell ! Cause the curser to lie low In gloomy night ! " ^

The Todas have a curious ceremony for antici- pating mischief to the sacred cattle. The point of the rite is that the assistant in the dairy, the kaltmokh, is cursed and then the curse is at once removed. The dairy-priest, the palol, pours milk and clarified butter into the outstretched hands of the kaltmokh, who rubs it over his head and whole body. The palol chants a curse : " Die may he ; tiger catch him ; snake bite him ; steep hill fall down on him ; river fall on him ; wild boar bite him ! " etc. Rivers infers " that the kalt- mokh is being made responsible for any offence which may have been committed against the dairies. . . . The kaltmokh having been cursed, and so made re- sponsible, the curse is then removed in order to avoid the evil consequences which would befall the boy if this were not done." ^ Toda sorcerers impose diseases by

• G. Turner, Samoa a Hundred Years ago and long before (London, 1884), p. 30.

^E. Shortland, Maori Religion and Mythology (London and Auckland, 1852),

P- 35-

3 W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas (London, 1906), pp. 138 seq.

230 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

cursing-spells, and remove them with some such for- mula as, " May this be well ; disease leave ! " ^ Thus a blessing may neutralize a curse. Micah's mother cursed her son for his theft ; when he confessed she rendered his curse ineffective by a blessing.^

Blessings and curses are capable both of descent and of ascent genealogically. Thus, we find it stated in the Apocrypha that the " scourge shall not depart from his house " ; ^ and in the Old Testament a " just man that walketh in his integrity, blessed are his children after him." * The Basutos appear to have the belief in the descent of the curse ; Casalis compares it with the case of Noah and Ham.^ The Greek conception of the Erinyes laid stress on this ; a curse might work down to the grandchildren, and even utterly extirpate a race.^ Among the Maoris, " to bid you go and cook your father would be a great curse, but to tell a person to go and cook his great-grandfather would be far worse, because it included every individual who has sprung from him." ^

The energy of a curse may spread. As Irish folklore puts it, it " must alight on something." ^ Plato speaks of it as tainting everything with which it comes into contact.^ The Bedouin will not take an oath within or near the camp, because the magical nature of the oath might prove pernicious to the general body of Arabs, were it to take place in their vicinity.^ ^ The

^ W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas (London, 1906), p. 260. ^ Judges, xvii. 2. ^ Sirach, xxiii. 11.

• Proverbs, xx. 7. ^ E. Casalis, The Basutos (London, 1861), p. 305.

^ iiEschylus, Eumenides, 934 et seq. ; Herodotus, vi. 86 (the case of Glaucus and his family).

' R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui ^ (London, 1870), p. 94.

^ W. G. W. Martin, Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland (London, 1902), ii. 57. ^ Plato, Laws^ ix. 881. J. L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and IVdhdbys (London, 1830), p. 73.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 231

Moors hold that it is " bad even to be present when an oath is taken. ^

A remarkable detail is very commonly found, namely, that a curse may return to the man who uttered it. " Curses, like chickens, come home to roost ; " they turn home as birds to their nest." ^ The Karens have a story to the following effect : " There was a man who had ten children, and he cursed one of his brethren, who had done him no injury ; but the curse returned to the man who sent it, and all his ten children died." ^ Here there is a moral valuation, but the earlier non- moral conception of the intrinsic energy of the curse constitutes the point of the story. With it may be compared the Roman notion that certain imprecations were so awful that even the utterer suffered as well as his victim.^

As with the force of taboo and similar conceptions, physical contact is the most efficacious means of " trans- mission." If we regard the curse or blessing as being the mental idea of a desired material result, then, like all ideas in an impulsive brain, it produces motor energy in the form both of words and of action. Thus, besides the uttered form, we have, by association, paths of realization by means of sympathetic or symbolic action. Examples have been cited of such " assisting " of the wish, by gestures, direct or indirect. We have also, by association, the more highly differentiated method of sympathetic or symbolic creation. A material model or symbol of the result is desiderated as a pre-embodi-

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 59.

2 J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (London, 1880-1888), iv. 1690.

^ F. Mason, *' On Dwellings, Works of Art, Laws, etc., of the Karens," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Calcutta, 1868), XXXVII. ii. 137.

^Plutarch, Vita Crassi, 16.

232 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

ment of it ; later this becomes a cause and a guarantee of the result. The simplest form of this method is the use of the " wax image." In this, model and symbol shade into one another. The image represents the recipient, and the utterer of the wish either utters it over the image, or works upon the image the material result wished for.

So far, we have cases in which the curse or blessing preserves its mental or verbal character, " mental " being taken to include artistic materialization, as in sympathetic magic. For the curse or blessing, as such, is distinguished from physical injury or physical benefit precisely because it stays short of physical action by the subject upon the object. But the two were bound to be combined ; the mixed type of curse and blessing is as common as the pure, and in certain stages of culture is considered to be the more efficacious. The bestowal of a blessing is more efficacious when the man who confers it touches the man who receives it. When dealing with " vehicles " and " media " of curses and blessings, we are not entitled to suppose that even in their highest development the mind is conscious of a process of " conduction." To us it appears obvious that, when a suppliant holds one end of a string to the other end of which is attached his protector, each should regard the string as a bridge or a wire for trans- mission. But it would be more logical to credit them with a correct, than an incorrect, application of a physical law, and to argue that they consider will to be conducted by any part of the ether rather than by the wire. It seems more consistent with the evidence to regard these " conductors " as being merely the nearest thing to physical contact. The sense of touch is bound up with all direct physical action upon an object, well-

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 233

doing and ill-doing, and colours all ideas of it. Similarly, when we read of curses acting at a distance — in the case of the Australian sorcerer at a hundred miles — we are not entitled to credit the belief with a reasoned or even unconscious substratum of a quasi-scientific theory of the velocity and displacement of an imprecatory particle. It is quite possible that in the case of " conductors " of various magical " forces," such as food and drink, we have to deal as much with the associational idea of pro- perty as with that of kinship, or of contagion. With this proviso, such metaphors may be employed. Wester- marck writes : " The efficacy of a wish or a curse depends not only upon the potency which it possesses from the beginning, owing to certain qualities in the person from whom it originates, but also on the vehicle by which it is conducted — just as the strength of an electric shock depends both on the original intensity of the current and on the condition of the conductor. As particularly efficient conductors are regarded blood, bodily contact, food, and drink." ^

As early types of the ideas referred to above, which are connected with that of the fulfilment of a wish, we may cite the following. A Maori would say to a stone : " If this were your [his enemy's] brain, how very sweet would be my eating of it." Or he might call any object by the name of his enemy, and then proceed to strike or insult it. This process was a " curse," tapa tapa, or tuku tuku.^ Here is the material for the development of the image-method and the symbol-method. In the Toda curse the recipient apparently has it rubbed into his body with milk and butter. It is quite legitimate to regard this as a case

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., i. 586.

2 R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui ^ (London, 1870), p. 94.

234 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

where the sound and the breath " touch " the food, and hence the recipient. The Moor transmits his " conditional curse " to the man appealed to for pro- tection by grasping him with his hands, or by touching him with his turban or a fold of his dress, even by grasping his child or his horse. " In short, he estab- lishes some kind of contact with the other person." ^ Psychologically it is a case of prolepsis rather than the conduction of a curse whose fulfilment is only con- tingent. Similarly the Moorish suppliant may slay an animal at the door of the man. If the latter steps over the blood, or merely sees it, he incurs a conditional curse. Such a curse may be involved in the food eaten at a meal to seal a compact. The phrase runs that the food will repay " him who breaks it. The eaten food " embodies a conditional curse." ^ Conversely, for, as Westermark puts it, " the magic wire may conduct imprecations in either direction," if a Moor gives food or drink to another, it is considered dangerous, not only for the recipient to receive it without saying ' In the name of God,' but also for the giver to give it without uttering the same formula by way of pre- caution." ^ In the case of a stranger receiving milk, it is held that, should he misbehave, " the drink would cause his knees to swell." *

On similar principles a curse may be applied to something that has belonged to the recipient, or to something that may come in his way. The aborigines of Victoria " believe that if an enemy gets possession of anything that has belonged to them, even such things

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas - (London, 1912-1917), i. 586.

2 Ibid.^ i. 587. ^ Ibid./i. 590.

• Ibid., i. 590.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 235

as bones of animals which they have eaten, broken weapons, feathers, portions of dress, pieces of skin, or refuse of any kind, he can employ it as a charm to produce illness in the person to whom it belonged. They are, therefore, very careful to burn up all rubbish or uncleanness before leaving a camping-place. Should anything belonging to an unfriendly tribe be found at any time, it is given to the chief, who preserves it as a means of injuring the enemy. This wuulon is lent to any one of the tribe who wishes to vent his spite against anyone belonging to the unfriendly tribe. When used as a charm, the wuulon is rubbed over with emu fat, mixed with red clay, and tied to the point of a spear- thrower, which is stuck upright in the ground before the camp-fire. The company sit round watching it, but at such a distance that their shadows cannot fall on it. They keep chanting imprecations on the enemy till the spear-thrower turns round and falls in his direction.^ This example contains in solution a good many of the principles connected with cursing.

There is also the buried curse. In Tenimber one can make a man ill by burying in his path such objects as sharp stones or thorns, uttering a curse during the burial. These articles are extracted later from the victim's body by the surgeon.^ In the neighbouring islands of Leti, Moa and Lakor, the buried articles are pieces of sirih from the victim's own box, or a scrap of his hair. The cursing accompanies the burial, but there is no need to place the " embodied curse " in the man's path. Burial is enough, for here the object buried is a part of the man.^

^ J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines (Melbourne, 1881), p. 54. 2 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (*s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 304. 2 Ibid.^ p. 377.

236 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Thus we come back to the symbolised result. Again, in connexion with taboo upon property, Cod- rington observes that in Melanesia a tamhu approaches to a curse, when it is a prohibition resting on the in- vocation of an unseen power," that, namely, of the tindalo} In Ceram a trespasser incurs the sickness wished or determined by the owner who embodied it in a taboo-mark.^ In Samoa the " silent hiero- glyphic taboo," or tafui, contains a curse ; thus, the white shark taboo, a coco-palm leaf cut to represent a shark, contains the wish, " May the thief be eaten by a white shark ! " ^

Even before the ethical stage of the curse and bles- sing is reached, their force varies, chiefly according to the character of the wisher. There is, of course, to begin with, the mere " power of the w^ord " or of the wish ; and the curse of anyone, however ignorant " he may be, is not to be disregarded.* But, as a rule, superiority of personal power or position increases the power of the blessing or the curse. Among the Ton- gans the curses of a superior possessed great efficacy ; " if the party who curses is considerably lower in rank than the party cursed," the curse had no effect.^ " Without any dispute the less is blessed of the better." ^ The principle of the whakahokitu ceremony of the Maoris is that a curse will yield to the mana of a man who can summon a more powerful atua than that of the original curser.'^

^ R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 216. 2 J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit., p. 140.

^ G. Turner, Samoa a Hundred Tears ago and long before (London, 1884), p. 185. ^ Megilla, 1 5a.

^ W. Mariner, An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands (London, 18 17), ii. 238.

^ Hebrews, vii. 7.

' E. Shortland, Maori Religion and Mythology (London, 1882), p. 75.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 237

The importance and influence of parents, especially of the father, have an enormous effect. The Nandi regard a father's curse as being most serious." ^ Among the Mpongwe " there is nothing which a young person so much deprecates as the curse of an aged person, and especially that of a revered father." ^ The Moorish proverb has it that if the saints curse you the parents will cure you, but if the parents curse you the saints will not cure you." ^ The Hebrew belief in the inevitable efhcacy of a father's blessing or curse was remarkable. The blessing was regarded as an invaluable heritage. In deed and word honour thy father, that a blessing may come upon thee from him. For the blessing of the father establisheth the houses of children ; but the curse of the mother rooteth out the foundations." ^ From this passage it has been suggested that " the reward w^hich in the Fifth Com- mandment is held out to respectful children was originally a result of parental blessings." ^ The Scots proverb is similar : —

" A faither's blessin' bigs the toun ; A mither's curse can ding it doun."' ^

In Greece such beliefs were no less strong. Plato puts it that the curses of parents are, as they ought to be, mighty against their children, as no others are." And he instances the cursing of their sons by Oedipus, Amyntor, and Theseus. The man who assaulted his parent was polluted by a curse. According to the

^ Sir H. H. Johnston, The Uganda Protectorate (London, 1902), ii. 879.

- J. L. Wilson, Western Africa (London, 1856). p. 393. «  ^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 622.

• Sirach, iii. 8-g. ^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., i. 622.

® J. Grimm. Teutonic Mythology (London, 1880-1888), iv. 1690. 'Plato, Lawsy ix. 881.

238 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Koreans, " curses and disgrace in this life and the hottest hell in the world hereafter are the penalties of the disobedient or neglectful child." ^ The last two cases show the automatic production of a curse by the sin itself — a notion distinctly tending towards the ethical development of these relations. The Barea and and Kunama believe that the blessing of the old people is necessary for the success of any undertaking, and that their curse is inevitably efficacious.^ Even elder brothers and sisters among the Greeks had the prepon- derance in this respect over the younger ; " the Erinyes always follow the elder-born." ^

The curse or blessing of the dying is particularly strong.^ The Ovaherero chief, when about to die, " gives them his benediction," a wish for " an abun- dance of the good things of this world." ^ Similarly among the Hebrews ^ and the Arabs. Among the Bogos the blessing of a father or a master is essential before taking up an employment or relinquishing it, engaging in a business, or contracting a marriage.^ The Moors say that the " curse of a husband is as potent as that of a father." ^ Westermarck points out that " where the father was invested with sacerdotal functions — as was the case among the ancient nations of culture — his blessings and curses would for that reason also be efficacious in an exceptional degree."

^ W. E. Griffis, Corea (London, 1882), p. 236.

2 W. Munzinger, Ostajrikanische Studien (Schaffhausen, 1864), p. 475. ^Horner, Iliad, xv. 204. *J. Grimm, op. cit., iv. 1690.

^ C. J. Andersson, Lake N garni (London, 1856), p. 228.

^ T. K. Cheyne, " Blessings and Cursings," Encyclopeedia Biblica (London, 1899-1903), i. coL 592.

'J. Wellhausen, Reste des arabischen Heidentums ^ (Berlin, 1897), pp. 139, 191.

^ W. Munzinger, Ueber die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos (Winterthur, 1859), p. 90.

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., i. 626. Ibid., 627.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING. 239

Obviously the wishes of one who is professionally in touch with the magical or the supernatural are more efficacious than those of ordinary men. " The ana- thema of a priest," say the Maoris, is a " thunderbolt that an enemy cannot escape." ^ A Brahman " may punish his foes by his own power alone," viz. by his words.2 A Rajput raja, being cursed by Brahmans, w^as " under a ban of excommunication " even among his friends.^ There is a story that the curse of a Brahman girl brought a series of disasters on a raja and his kindred.'* According to the Talmud, the curse of a scholar never fails.^ The Gallas dread the dying curse of a priest or wizard,^ In Muhammadan coun- tries the curses of saints or sharifs are particularly feared.

The belief in the power of curses and blessings has a striking and widely extended application in the re- lations of the well-to-do with the poor and needy, and of the host with the guest. In the former case the idea that the blessing of those who have nothing else to give, or the curse of those who have no other remedy, is therefore efficacious, may have some connexion with the belief and practice. In the latter case may perhaps be seen a naturally regardful attitude towards the unknown and therefore mysterious. " He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack ; but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse." ^ " Turn not away thine

^ J. S. Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders (London, 1840), i. 248-249.

2 The Laws of Manu, x'l. 32-33.

^ N. Chevers, A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for India (Calcutta, 1870), p. 659.

• W. Crooke, The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India (Westminster,

1896), i. 393.

5 Talmud : Makkoth, iia.

® Sir W. C. Harris, The Highlands of Aethiopia (London, 1844), iii. 50.

' E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., i. 563. * Proverbs, xxviii. 27.

240 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

eyes from one that asketh of thee, and give rare oc- casion to a man to curse thee ; for if he curse thee in the bitterness of his soul, he that made him will hear his supplication." ^ The Greek beggar had his Erinyes.^ The Damaras " would not think of eating in the pre- sence of any of their tribe without sharing their meal with all-comers, for fear of being visited by a curse from their Omu-kuru (or deity) and becoming impov- erished." ^ In Morocco, itinerant scribes go from house to house, " receiving presents and invoking blessings " upon the donors. For the latter it is a " profitable bargain, since they would be tenfold repaid for their gifts through the blessings of the scribes." A Moor, starting on a journey, gives a coin to a beggar at the gate " so as to receive his blessings." ^ The Nayadis of Malabar invoke, in their prayers, blessings upon the higher castes who give them alms.^ Among the Ova- herero " no curse is regarded as heavier than that which one who has been inhospitably treated would hurl at those who have driven him from the hearth." ^ An offended guest " might burn the house with the flames of his anger." ' Guests and suppliants had their Erinyes.^ To the case of hospitality Westermarck applies the principle of the " conditional curse," ^ which will be discussed below.

^ Sirach, iv. 5-6. ^ Homer, Odyssey, xvii. 475.

^ J. Chapman, Travels in the Interior of South Africa (London, 1868), i. 341. ^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 562.

^ S. Appadorai Iyer, Nayadis of Malabar," Bulletin [0/ the] Madras Government Museum (Madras, 1901), iv. 72.

^ F. Ratzel, The History of Mankind (London, 1896- 1898), ii. 480. Apastamba, II. iii. 3. ^ Plato, Epp. viii. 357.

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., i. 586, ii. 584-585 ; id., " L-ar, or the Transference of Conditional Curses in Morocco," Anthropological Essays presented to Edward Burnett Tylor (Oxford, 1907), pp. 361 et seq.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 241

Parallel with the case of the poor and needy is that of the servant and the wife. In West Africa " the authority which a master exercises over a slave is very much modified by his constitutional dread of witch- craft." ^ " Slander not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee." ^ " Thou shalt not command [thy man-servant or thy maid-servant] with bitterness of spirit ; lest they groan against thee, and wrath be upon thee from God." ^ In Morocco it is considered even a greater calamity to be cursed by a Shereefa, or female descendant of the Prophet, than to be cursed by a Shereef.* " The houses," says Manu, " on which female relations, not being duly honoured, pronounce a curse, perish completely, as if destroyed by magic." ^

3. SPECIAL APPLICATIONS

The circumstances in which blessings or curses are uttered, and the persons upon whom they are directed, are obviously both numerous and varied. A few special cases may be cited, which have a bearing upon the nature of the uttered wish. Children, in particular, are the recipients of the blessings of parents.^ The blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh by Jacob became among the Jews the regular formula by which parents blessed their children. Among the Malagasy, at a circumcision, the guests present honey and water to the children, and pronounce blessings upon them, such as " May they prosper ! " ^ Among the Maoris, when a child was a

^ J. L. Wilson, Western Africa (London, 1856), pp. 271, 279. 'Proverbs, xxx. 10. ^Apostolic Constitutions^ vil. 13.

• E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London,

1912-1917), i. 668.

^ The Laws of Manu, iii. 58.

^ Genesis, ix. 26, xxiv. 60, xxvii. 7-38.

' W. Ellis, History of Madagascar (London, 1838), p. 183.

16

242 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

month old, the ceremony of tua was celebrated, in which the tohunga pronounced a karakia of blessing : —

" Breathe quick thy lung, A healthy lung, Breathe strong thy lung, A lirm lung, A brave lung . . ." ^

Jewish teachers to-day bless their pupils. In Fiji all prayer was concluded with malignant requests against the enemy : " Let us live, and let our enemies perish ! " ^

The curse is particularly the weapon of the wronged and oppressed against their more powerful enemies, and of zealots against their bigoted opponents. In the Bible it is especially forbidden to curse God, parents, authorities, and the helpless deaf.^ To bless God is to praise Him. Yet Orientals have a tendency to curse God, even on the slightest provocation in daily life. Blessing the king is implied or explicit in ceremonies of coronation, and on solemn occasions. The gods of Egypt bestowed a blessing on the Pharaoh, when they presented him with the symbol of life.* The abhiseka of the raja included a blessing, embodied in the con- secrated water.^ The ceremonies of anointing, as we have seen in our study of this subject, often involve a blessing. A Jewish author records a Roman custom of gagging prisoners, when condemned to death, to prevent them from cursing the king.^

The connexion of food with the practice is remark-

^ E. Shortland, Maori Religion and Mythology (London, 1882), p. 40. 2 L. Fison, in R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 147. ' Exodus, xxii. 28, xxi. 17; Leviticus, xx. 9, xix. 14, xxiv. 15; Ecclesiastes, x. 20.

• Sir J. G. Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians

(London, 1878), i. 276.

^ See above, pp. 215-217.

^ C. Levias, " Cursing," The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London, 1925), iv. 390.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 243

able. The blessing of food came in later Judaism to be a giving of thanks, and the idea was that food received gratefully acts as a blessing.^ The bismillah of Islam has a similar principle behind its use in this connexion. At an earlier stage, no doubt, the blessing, if used, was either positive or negative, removing injurious pro- perties, but in either case simply magical.^ In the Banks Islands an " invocation of the dead," the tataro, is celebrated. Food is thrown for the souls of the dead with such words as these : " They who have charmed your food, have clubbed you . . . drag them away to hell, let them be dead." In connexion with this is a practice of cursing a man's " eating " ; if an accident befalls the recipient of such a curse, the utterer says : " jVIy curse in eating has worked upon him, he is dead." ^ Among the Maoris, what was almost a sense of modesty and a principle of honour grew up about the ideas of food and its preparation. A typical formula for the counter-curse is : —

" Let the head of the curser Be baked in the oven, Served up for food for me, Dead, and gone to Night !

To curse, kanga^ was in effect to apply to another man any w^ord which had reference to food." It is re- corded that a young man, seeing a chief in a copious perspiration, remarked that " the vapour rose from his head like steam from an oven," and that this remark caused a tribal war.^ The regular term for food, kai^

^ W. F. Adeney, " Blessing," A Dictionary of the Bible (Edinburgh, 1900- 1904), L 307.

• Ernest Crawley, The Mystic Rose 2, ed. by Theodore Besterman (London, 1927),

i. 182 et seq.

' R. H. Codrington, op. cit., p. 147. * E. Shortland, op. cit., p. 33.

^ R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui - (London, 1870), p. 94.

244 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

was discontinued at Rotorua, because it happened to be the name of a chief. To use the term kai would in that case have been equivalent to a serious curse against the chief.^

Down to a late period in the history of Christianity, marriage was a personal " arrangement " ; the Church only stepped in to pronounce its blessing upon the union. The Hebrews had a benediction both for betrothal and for marriage.^ The old Roman marriage by confarreatio included a benedictio^ formulas for which are extant. When St. Ambrose says that " marriage is sanctified by the benediction," he refers to one case only of a general practice, lasting through the Middle Ages, of concluding all private arrangements with a blessing. Thus all sales of goods and property were blessed.

The application of the curse as a protection of property and as a method of punishing theft has been incidentally noted. The early Arabs cursed the thief in order to recover the stolen goods.^ The method is conspicuous in Samoa. Taboo is a " prohibition with a curse expressed or implied." ^ The embodiment of the wish in leaf or wooden images is termed in Polynesia rahui or raui^ but we cannot always infer even the implied wish in prohibitory taboo.^ Allied principles inevitably shade into each other. The ancient Baby- lonian landmarks appear to have been inscribed with curses, such as : " Upon this man may the great gods Anu, Bel, Ea, and Nusku look wrathfully, uproot his

^ R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui^ (London, 1870), p. 95-

2 J. Selden, Uxor Ebraica (1726), i. 12 ; Tobit^ vil. 13-14.

'J. Wellhausen, Reste des arabischen Heidentums^ (Berlin, 1897), p. 192.

• R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 215.

^ T. White, " The Rahui," Journal of the Polynesian Society (Wellington, 1892),

i. 275

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 245

foundation, and destroy his offspring." ^ The same practice was followed by the Greeks.^ Deuteronomy refers to the Semitic practice : " Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark." ^ Taken over by Christianity, the practice survived, for example, in the English custom of beating the bounds," in which the priest invoked curses on him who transgressed, and blessings on him who regarded the landmarks.*

Some details may be put together which illustrate adhesions and developments. In Melanesia cursing by way of asseveration is common : a man will deny an accusation " by " his forbidden food, or " by " a tindalo.^ The self-invoked curse, which we shall discuss below, passes in civilization into a conditional blessing, as in the English oath, " So help me, God." In prac- tical ethics " profane swearing " is originally sinful, because of the irresponsible and unofficial use of the Divine name ; later its sinfulness is limited to the spirit of resentment with which it is charged. In Melanesia, the practice of vivnag^ or " sending off," is instructive for comparison with that found in civilization. A man will say, with a gesture towards a tree, vawo aru ! — which is equivalent to telling his enemy to be hanged thereon.^

The limits of the blessing are well preserved in the Catholic distinctions between "panis benedictus and

1 H. C. Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant (Edinburgh, 1896), pp. 166 et seq., quoting Hllprecht.

2 Plato, Lazvs, viii. 843 ; C. F. Hermann, Disputatio de terminis eorumque religione apud Grcecos (Gottingae, 1846), p. 11.

^ Deuteronomy, xxvii. 17.

• D. Dibbs, *' Beating the Bounds," Chambers's Edinburgh Journal (London and

Edinburgh, 1854), xx. 49 et seq.

^ R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 217. 6 Ibid.

246 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

fanis consecratus^ and between henedictio vocativa and benedictio constitutiva. The earlier principle, as we have seen, was to connect blessing and consecration, cursing and execration. It is in accordance with the extension of this principle that the curse is embodied in the accursed thing," and that the transgressor of the prohibition himself becomes the " accursed thing " or the curse. This was the case with Achan, and with enemies " devoted " to destruction.^ On the same principle a blessed man is a " blessing." ^

In the Old Testament accursed " in the Revised Version, herem, should be " devoted " as in the Author- ized Version — devoted to God, not accursed from God.^ Similarly with the Greek translation avaOefxa. Such a thing is withdrawn from common use, either as " vowed " to God, or as put under a ban, in which case it has a species of " holiness." * As a rule, a thing devoted to destruction is under a curse. In Canon Law the development of anathema into excommuni- cation is complete.

Here we arrive at the cursings and blessings of the community. In early culture a headman or body of " old men " may represent the community in this function. The State officials of Athens prayed for the health and safety of the people. Greek State liturgies included a " commination service," in which curses were invoked upon offenders.^ Medieval and modern Christianity combine a service of commination with the Lenten penance. This has historical connexion with the early Hebrew rite, celebrated on Ebal and

^ Joshua, vi. 18 •, Deuteronomy, vil. 26. ^ Genesis, xii. 2.

'J. Denny, " Curse," A Dictionary of the Bible (Edinburgh, 1900-1904), i. 534.

• Cp. Leviticus, xxvii. 28-29 Acts, xxiii. 12. For the transition between the

earlier and the later idea of excommunication, see Ezra, x. 8.

^ See L. R. Farnell, The Evolution of Religion (London, 1903), pp. 196, 200.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 247

Gerizim. Six tribes stood on Mount Ebal to curse those who disobeyed the Law, and six stood on Mount Gerizim to pronounce the corresponding blessings upon those who kept it. The priests and Levites stood in the valley between, and on turning their faces to Gerizim pronounced a blessing, and on turning to Ebal pro- nounced a curse.^ The Talmudic idea that a curse has especial efficacy when pronounced three hours after sunrise is noteworthy in connexion with such formu- lated conditions as " in the sight of God and of this congregation." ^

Throughout their history, private cursing and ■blessing preponderate over public and unofficial over official. As the moralized stage in religion supersedes the magical, the " mere power of the word " is confined to private practice, and perhaps becomes more sinister with secrecy. The enormous collections of private dirae and imprecationes which have survived from Greek and Roman times, chieflv in the form of leaden tablets or symbolic nails, inscribed with curses consigning an enemy to the infernal powers, testify to the hold retained by the primitive theory of the curse, just as the pre- valence of profane swearing in modern civilization shows the convenience of the mere form, emptied of all con- tent except vague resentment, for the satisfaction of a particular emotion. The hold exerted by the simple mystery of magic upon the popular imagination is echoed in literature, and the motive of the efficacious curse is still employed in narrative fiction.

Nothing perhaps more strikingly illustrates the

^ Deuteronomy, xi. 29, xxvii. 13 ; Joshua, viii. 33 ; 5o|a, 35a, 3612 ; I. Broyde, " Gerizim, Mount, in Rabbinical Literature," The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London, 1925), v. 631.

^ C. Levias, " Cursing," ibid.^ iv. 390.

248 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

extent of Divine resentment than the cursing of the ground for the sins of the man,^ or the extent of human resentment than the action of a curse beyond the grave. The Maoris took precautions to prevent enemies getting possession of their dead relatives' bones, lest they should " dreadfully desecrate and ill-use them, v^ith many bitter jeers and curses." ^ The Banks Islanders w^atch the grave lest some man v^ronged by [the dead man] should come at night and beat with a stone upon the grave, cursing him." Also, " wh.en a great man died, his friends v^ould not make it known, lest those whom he had oppressed should come and spit at him after his death, or govgov him, stand bickering at him with crooked fingers and drawing in the lips, by way of curse." ^ The Greek Erinyes complete in the world beyond the grave the punishment which they began on earth.^ The Arabs of Southern Morocco " main- tain that there are three classes of persons who are in- fallibly doomed to hell, namely, those who have been cursed by their parents, those who have been guilty of unlawful homicide, and those who have burned corn. They say that every grain curses him who burns it." ^ The connexion between curses and the belief in pun- ishments after death has been drawn out by Wester- mark.^

In what may be called the lighter side of cursing, there is a curious set of customs connected with ideas of luck, and perhaps based on the notion that material

^ Genesis, iii. 17-18.

2 W. Colenso, On the Maori Races of New Zealand [1865], p. 28. ' R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 269.

• ^schylus, Eumenides, passim.

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 716 n.

« Ibid., Chapters L-LI.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING

injury may be discounted or diverted by a verbal or make-belief injury ; in other cases, on a notion that the spirits may be stimulated by scolding and abuse ; in others, again, it is perhaps evil and destructive spirits that are being driven away. Thus the Greek farmer, when sowing cummin, would curse and swear all the time, else the crops would not prosper.^ Esthonian fishermen believe that good luck will attend their fishing if beforehand they are cursed. A fisherman will accordingly play some practical joke on a friend in order to receive his resentment in words. The more he storms and curses, the better the other is pleased ; every curse brings at least three fish into his net.^ To obviate punishment for ritual sin, or to procure abso- lution, a Behari man will throw stones into a neigh- bour's house. The result is the reception of abuse, or even of personal violence.^

4. CONDITIONAL CURSING AND BLESSING

What Westermarck terms the " conditional curse," which he was the first student to remark, is an impor- tant development of the principle of cursing and blessing, and has had considerable influence in the making of morality, especially in the sphere of good faith, honesty, and truthfulness. Put in its lowest terms, the energy of a conditional curse is the supernatural energy of an ordinary curse or of its embodiment, in a latent state. This is discharged by the act, if or when it takes place, against which the curse is directed. The principle

1 Theophrastus, De historia et causis plantarum, viii. 3.

2 J. W. Boeder and F. R. Kreutzwald, Der Ehsten abergldubische Gebrduche, Weisen und Gewohnheiten (St. Petersburg, 1854), pp. go-91.

• Sarat Chandra Mitra, " On the Har Panaurl, or the Behari Women's Ceremony

for Producing Rain," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (London, 1897), p. 482.

250 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

applies also to blessings, but this application is less frequent.^

" The term Z-'ir," Westermarck writes, " is applied by the Moors to a compulsory relation of a peculiar kind in which one person stands to another. The common expression, Ana f^dr alldh u ^drak, ' I am in God's 'dr and your 'ir,' implies that a man is bound to help me, or, generally, to grant my request, whatever it may be, as also that if he does not do so his own welfare is at stake. The phrase ' In God's ^dr^ only serves to give solemnity to the appeal : ' I am under the pro- tection of God, and for his sake you are obliged to help me.' But the word l-'dr is also used to denote the act by which a person places himself in the said relation- ship to another. Hdd l-'dr 'dlik, ' This is 'dr on you,' is the phrase in common use when an act of this kind is performed. If the person so appealed to is unwilling to grant the request, he answers, Hdd l-dr yihrui, fik, ' May this 'dr recoil upon you.' The constraining character of l-'dr is due to the fact that it implies the transference of a conditional curse : If you do not do what I wish you to do, then may you die, or may your children die, or may some other evil happen to you. That l-'dr implicitly contains a conditional curse is expressly stated by the people themselves, although in some cases this notion may be somewhat vague, or possibly have almost faded away." ^

The various acts which establish l-'dr all serve as " outward conductors of conditional curses." 'Ar

1 E. A. Westermarck, " L-^ar, or the Transference of Conditional Curses in Mor- occo," Anthropological Essays presented to Edward Burnett Tyler (Oxford, 1907), passim ; id., " The Influence of Magic on Social Relationships," Sociological Papers (London, 1905), passim ; id., The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 586 et seq,, ii. 584 et seq., and passim.

2E. A. Westermarck, " L-'Jr," p. 361.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 251

may be made by taking the son and giving him to the father, " This is ^dr for you." Another method is to present food. If the man accepts, he is bound to do what is asked of him. Refugees enter a tent or merely grasp the tent-pole, saying, " I am in God's ^dr and your 'if." ^ An injured husband may put 'dr upon the governor, to get redress, by going to him with a piece of his tent-cloth over his head ; or he may have seven tufts of hair on his head, and appeal to another tribe. " The conditional curse is obviously supposed to be seated in " the tent-cloth or tufts of hair, and " from there to be transferred to the person " invoked. ^Ar may be made by piling stones. Two men making an appointment, and one failing to appear, the other makes a cairn at the spot, and takes the breaker of faith to it. The latter is then obliged to " give him a nice enter- tainment." Similarly, with ordinary curses the cairn may be used. If a muleteer buys a new mule, his comrades ask him to treat them. If he refuses, they make a cairn, asking God to send misfortune on the mule. By way of revenge upon a niggardly man, scribes make a cairn, and each takes a stone therefrom, and, as he throws it away, says, " As we dispersed this heap of stones, so may God disperse for him that which makes him happy." The sacrifice of an animal on the threshold is the most powerful method of making 'dr. To see the blood is sufficient. Over such an animal the bismilldh^ " In the name of God," is not pronounced ; and it cannot be eaten by the sacrificer or person in- voked, but only by the poor.^ The practice is resorted to " for a variety of purposes : to obtain pardon from the government ; or to induce the relatives of a person

1 E. A. Westermarck, " L-'^r," p. 362.

2 Ibid., pp. 363 et seq.

252 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

who has been killed to abstain from taking revenge ; or to secure assistance against an enemy or mediation in the case of trouble." It " plays a very important part in the social life of the people." ^

It is also employed to put pressure upon jinn and dead saints — usually to restrain the former, and compel the assistance of the latter. Making cairns, or tying rags, near a siyid is 'dr upon the saint. The rag is knotted, and the man says : " I promised thee an offering, and I will not release thee until thou attendest to my business." ^ Here we approach the conditional " blessing." Again, a man, invoking revenge, strews burnt corn on the floor of the siyid^ saying, " I threw, O Saint, So-and-so as I threw this corn." " This is ^dr on the saint," as Westermarck points out, " but at the same time it is an act of symbolic magic." ^

Forms of ordeal, and the whole theory of the oath, as well as its practice up to the latest stages of civili- zation, depend on the principle of the conditional curse, often embodied in symbolic action. The curse as an engine of law is well exemplified in Samoa. A theft has taken place ; the injured party pays the priest " to curse the thief and make him sick. If the thief falls ill, he restores the stolen property, and the " priest " prays for a reversal of the curse. Again : suspected parties are summoned by the chief. Grass is laid on the sacred stone, the village-god, and each person places his hand thereon, saying : " I lay hand on the stone. If I stole the thing, may I speedily die ! " The use of grass is said to refer to the implied curse : " May grass grow over my house and family ! " So, in ordinary disputes, a man will say : " Touch your

^ E. A. Westermarck, " L-'Ar" p. 366. 2 m^^^ p. ^gg.

3 Ibid.., p. 371.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 253

eyes if what you say is true." ^ In the same way, European boys " touch wood " as a guarantee of truth.

An oath may be regarded as " essentially a con- ditional self-imprecation, a curse by which a person calls down upon himself some evil in the event of what he says not being true." ^ All the resources of sym- bolic magic are drawn upon in the multitudinous examples of this principle, which we study in more detail below. In Tenimber the swearer prays for his own death if what he says is false, and then drinks his own blood, in which a sword has been dipped.^ The Malay drinks water in which daggers, spears, or bullets have been dipped, saying, " If I turn traitor, may I be eaten up by this dagger or spear." * The Sumatran oath is still more explicit : *^ If what I now declare is truly and really so, may I be freed and cleared from my oath ; if what I declare is wittingly false, may my oath be the cause of my destruction ! " ^ The Greek opKos' was, at an early period, the object sworn " by." The Ostyaks swear on the nose of a bear, which animal is held to have supernatural power. ^ Hindus swear on the Sanskrit Harivamsa, or on water of the Ganges, or touch the legs of a Brahman ; Muhammadans, on the Koran ; Christians, on the Bible.

The accused person in Calabar drinks a ju-ju drink

^ G. Turner, Samoa a Hundred Tears ago and long before (London, 1884), pp. 30,

184.

2 E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 118.

^ J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 284.

• W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), p. 525.

^ W. Marsden, The History of Sumatra (London, 181 1), p. 238.

• M. A. Castren, Nordiska resor och forskningar (Helsingfors, 18 52- 18 58), i. 3075 309? iv. 123-124.

' E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 120 (quoting authorities).

1

254 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

called mhiam, and repeats these words : " If I have been guilty of this crime . . . then Mbiam, Thou deal with me ! " Eating the fetish " and drinking the water of cursing " are prominent forms of the ordeal in Africa and elsewhere. The Hindu safatha denotes both oath and ordeal. The medieval " trial by com- bat " was preceded by an oath, and thus defeat was tantamount to perjury The formula of the ordeal of the Eucharist ran : " Et si aliter est quam dixi et juravi, tunc hoc Domini nostri Jesu Christi corpus non pert- ranseat gutur meum, sed haereat in faucibus meis, strangulet me, suffocet me ac interficiat me statim in momento." ^

In the contract and covenant a mutual conditional curse is largely used. Thus the 'dhed of the Moors is the mutual form of 'dr. Chiefs exchange cloaks or turbans ; and " it is believed that, if any of them should break the covenant, he would be punished with some grave misfortune." * Reconciliation is effected, among the same people, by joining right hands ; the holy man who superintends wraps the hands in his cloak, saying : " This is 'dhed between you." ^ A common meal also ratifies a covenant. If one party breaks faith, it is said : " God and the food will repay him." ^ In the pela rite of Ceram, celebrated to settle a quarrel or to make peace, both parties attend a feast, and eat food into which drops of their blood are let fall and swords dipped. This they alternately eat.^ Reconciliation of

^ M. H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (London, 1897), p. 465. ^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., i. 505, ii. 689 (with authorities). ^ F. Dahn, Bausteine (Berlin, 1880), ii. 16.

• E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 623.

5 Ibid., ii. 623. « Id., " L-'Ar," p. 373.

'J. G. F. Riedcl, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), pp. 128-129.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 255

two men in the islands of Leti, Moa, and Lakor, one man having cursed the other, is effected by the men eating together.^ To ratify a bond of paternity in Madagascar between two parties, a fowl has its head cut off, and is left bleeding during the rite. The parties pronounce a long mutual imprecation over the blood : " O this miserable fowl weltering in its blood ! Thy liver do we eat. . . . Should either of us retract from the terms of this oath, let him instantly become blind, let this covenant prove a curse to him." ^

The mutual conditional curse, it must be noticed, allows the curse proper to be more or less lost in the material symbolism of union. Since, moreover, all these analogous principles pass into one another so inevitably and gradually, we do not seem entitled to press the principle of the curse too far. In recon- ciliatory ceremonies, for instance, it is possible that the idea of union is sufficient ; the idea of the curse may adhere to it, but not essentially.

The oath carries with it the punishment for per- jury. According to Roman legal theory, the sanctio of a statute is the penalty attached for breaking it. But in ancient States all laws were accompanied by a curse upon the transgressor.^ True to its mission of serving where other methods fail, the curse receded as police efficiency increased. In the earliest culture, however, as that of the Australians, the personal efforts of the rulers work together with the impersonal energy of the supernatural engines they employ.

^ J. G. F. Riedel, De sliiik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 342. See, on the whole subject, Ernest Crawley, The Mystic Rose^, ed. by Theodore Besterman (London, 1927), Chapters V, XI.

2 W. Ellis, History of Madagascar (London, 1838), i. 187 et seq.

^ E. Schrader, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek (Berlin, 1889, etc.\ ii., iii.

2S6 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

5. THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE AS INVOCATIONS

The distinction between the " magical " and the " religious " curse or blessing is not to be over-em- phasized. The two forms merge into one another, and either is as " magical " or " religious " as the other, while neither is the more efficacious. A god draws together in his own person the various threads of super- natural force. Among these are cursings and blessings. Their inherent mystery of power still depends on the will of the utterer. His invocation of the god to execute for him his heart's expressed desire is rather a long circuiting than a guarantee of the result. The independent force of the wish, in fact, tends to remain even when the wish is merged in prayer. The personal quality of the utterer is still the characteristic of his wish. Psychologically, it is difficult to limit a desire by making it an invocation ; to divide the attention between the object of the desire and the expression of the desire on the one hand, and an intervening divinity on the other, is a matter of training. Thus it is rarely the case that, when a man says, " God bless you ! " he is conscious of the reference to God any more than when he says " Bless you ! "

Further, there is the tendency for the principle of the curse, if not of the blessing, to become itself per- sonified. This result is found as far back as the stage of culture represented by the Maoris. The " cursing thought " is personified in the Avesta ; so is the " pious and good blessing." The Greeks personified the curse as Erinyes. Behind this there may be the notion " of a persecuting ghost, whose anger or curses in later times were personified as an independent spirit." ^

1 E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 379.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 257

Allegorical figures of curses were included hy painters in pictures of the wicked in Hell.^ Subsequently the Erinyes became the ministers of Zeus.^ The steps hy which a curse or blessing becomes an appeal to a god, a prayer that he will injure or benefit the person intended, are not indistinct. The Melanesian curses in the name of a lio'a, a powerful spirit. His connexion with the lio^a gives or adds efficacy to his curse.^ The efficacy of the mere word naturally is increased, not by the will of the spirit invoked, but by the use of his power. The Talmud and the Old Testament supply examples of " the ancient idea that the name of the Lord might be used with advantage in any curse." ^ Among the Hebrews the " Name " had peculiar im- portance.

In the next place, the appeal may take the form of a conditional blessing upon the god. In the Yajur Veda we read the formula, addressed to Surya : " Smite such a one, and I will give you an offering." ^ This method is clearly more efficacious. Fagona in the Banks Islands is the most serious of curses. It consists in procuring the intervention of a supernatural power.® The story of Balaam includes a belief that the Divine power can be moved to effect the injury desired. A further step is taken when the moving is in the form of compulsion. As curses may develop into prayers, so prayers may develop into spells or curses. Brahma is the energy of the gods, but it is also the prayer, and

^ Demosthenes, Aristogiton, i. 52.

2 E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., i. 379 (with authorities).

3 R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 51.

• E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., i. 564 (with authorities).

^ Taittirtya Satnhita, vi. 4 et seq. ^ R. H. Codrington, op. cit., p. 217. ' Numbers, xxii-xxiv.

17

258 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

"governs tliem."^ ' Kpa is both "prayer" and " curse " ; so is the Manx word gwee? Prayer is often possessed of magical power, just as a Toda spell is in the form of a prayer.^ Even in Greek religion the deity is constrained to effect a curse or a blessing ; * even the personified curse, the Erinyes, works by a spell- song which binds the victim.^ Thus the phrases, " by," " for the sake of," and the like, are but vague expressions of the actual relation between the invoker and the invoked. In the Banks Islands, cursing by way of asseveration is described in English terms as swearing " by " a forbidden food, or " by " some power- ful tindalo.^ The Toda falol prays with a gurgling utterance in the throat : " May it be well ! " or " May it be blessed . . . with the buffaloes and calves ; may there be no disease ; . . . may clouds rise, may grass flourish, may water spring . . . for the sake of " cer- tain " objects of reverence." This term, idith^ is used in special connexion with the name of a god, and in- volves the idea of supplication ; it is also employed in sorcery.'^ A modern Christian prayer for a blessing " for Christ's sake " is thus widely different, in the condition appended, from the Toda or Melanesian type. Magic, so to say, has given place to emotion, though itself originating in emotion, of another kind.

6. CONNEXION WITH MORALITY

Law gradually takes over the function of the curse, as a form of retribution ; while prayer may still retain

1 Rig-Veda, VI. li. 8.

• Sir John Rhys, Celtic Folklore (Oxford, 1901), i. 349.

' W. H, R. Rivers, The Todas (London, 1906), pp. 450, 453.

• L. R. Farnell, The Evolution of Religion (London, 1905), p. 196.

^ ^schylus, Eumenides, 332.

• R. H. Codrington, op. cit., p. 217.

' W. H. R. Rivers, op. cit.^ pp. 214-215, 230.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 259

its use in cases where human intervention fails, or even as a spiritual replica of human intervention. The moralizing of the curse and the blessing within these limits follows the course of ethical evolution. In the Old Testament the undeserved curse has no effect, or may be turned by God into a blessing.^ The justice of the wish is left to the decision of God, while it follows that an unjust curse or blessing is a sin against the All- Just. The Greeks modified their theory of the he- reditary transmission of a curse by arguing that each generation commits new sins.^ At one end of the process we have an invocation to the gods, as in the Surpu of the Chaldaeans, asking for relief from the effects of a curse, not for forgiveness ; ^ or " the thief invokes God while he breaks into the house," the bandit the Virgin.* At the other, the god rewards or punishes independently of human invocation, and with absolute justice. According to Aquinas, a maledictio is effi- cacious only when made by God.^ In the mouth of man, however uttered or however deserved, it is j^er se inefficacious. But, when this stage is reached, cursing or blessing has become a contradiction in terms.

2. The Oath

The interrelation of the principles underlying the oath and those underlying the curse and the blessing are obvious enough ; they form part, indeed, of one

^ Proverbs, xxii. 23, xxvi. 2 ; Deuteronomy, xxiii. 5 ; Apostolic Constitutions, iv. 6; T. K. Cheyne, " Blessings and Cursings," Encyclopcedia Biblica (London, 1899-

1903)? i- 592-

2 L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States (Oxford, 1896- 1909), i. 77.

' H. Zimmern, Beitrdge zur Kenntnis der babylonischen Religion (Leipzig, 1896),

PP- 3, 7> 23.

• E. A. Westermarck, op. cit.^ ii. 733.

• St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, II. ii. 26.

26o STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

and the same discussion. The oath, however, has assumed a considerable intrinsic importance, so that we have so far only glanced at it, postponing a detailed examination until the outlines of the history of the curse and the blessing should have become manifest. And it is to this detailed examination that we have now to proceed.

The oath^ has taken on its special importance because it connects with the vow, the ordeal, the cove- nant, and the wager, as well as with the curse and the blessing. Its definition must distinguish it from those, but we must recognize the fact that their primary constituent is the oath ; they are special applications of it. A vow is not actually such, unless there is a personal condition realizable upon fulfilment ; an ordeal " involves an imprecation with reference to the guilt or innocence of a suspected person, and its proper object is to give reality to this imprecation, for the purpose of establishing the validity or invalidity of the suspicion." ^ So in the Middle Ages an oath was an indispensable preliminary to every combat, and the defeat was thus not merely the loss of the suit, but also a conviction of perjury, to be punished as such." ^ But the oath of the ordeal was tested immediately. A covenant — the blood-covenant, for instance — has no force except from the fact that it is accompanied by curses or self-imprecations, and it is mutual. With regard to the distinction between the oath and the covenant, it is clear that the latter is a mutual oath, or, as it were, a mutual conditional curse. A good in-

1 Old English ^dh (the derivation is doubtful), " swear " = " answer " ; jurare = " bind " ; so lipKos.

2 E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), i. 505.

^ Ibid..^ i. 505.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 261

stance of this, as we have already noted at length, is to be found in the distinction between the Moroccan l-^dr^ the individual oath, and l-'dhed, the mutual, each party transferring conditional curses to the other.^ A wager, as in the old Roman method of action at law, is also a mutual process, and involves the oath in the form of a promise to pay. The ethical significance of the oath, is, throughout, personal responsibility. As such, it is eminently fitted for legal use, and has always figured conspicuously in the legal process of all races ; it is still, in the highest civilizations, a formal guarantee of truthfulness, both in courts of law and in ordinary social intercourse, and still retains some of its primitive supernatural force and dignity, which seem to have been based originally upon the magical power of the spoken word, and later upon the appeal to a supernatural being.

The New English Dictionary defines " oath " as a " solemn and formal appeal to God (or to a deity or something held in reverence or regard), in witness of the truth of a statement, or the binding character of a promise or undertaking." This definition is defective, because many primitive oaths have no appeal to any- thing " held in reverence or regard," but are absolutely direct ; there is only the personal will or wish. Tylor defined an oath as an " asseveration or promise made under non-human penalty or sanction." ^ But oaths can be taken under human sanctions and upon living persons, just as a life may be insured.

Westermarck developed the conception of oath by emphasizing, not its indirect reference, but its essential character. " An oath," he says, " is essen- tially a conditional self-imprecation, a curse by which

^ See above pp. 249 et seq.

2 Sir E. B. Tylor, " Oath," Encyclopedia Britannica xix. 939^.

262 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

a person calls down upon himself some evil in the event of what he says not being true. The efficacy of the oath is originally entirely magical, it is due to the magic power inherent in the cursing words." ^ But the essence of " cursing and swearing " was in existence before human speech was at all well developed, and the efficacy of the spoken word was no doubt preceded by the efficacy of emotion, of the inarticulate will or wish. To complete the definition proposed by Westermarck, it is necessary to note that where a magical process is involved the imprecation is frequently not formally expressed ; but a magical process may imply an imprecation, or itself be actually the impre- cation, translated from words into matter.^ When oath gives place to solemn affirmation, the guarantee of good faith and of truth-speaking is now in the moral sphere of personality ; there is no more magic or re- ligion. The process has this in common with the pre-animistic, that its essence is conditional — the emotion being that of self-respect and personal respon- sibility. And this has always been the " nature of an oath."

I. EARLY FORMS

The oath in the form of a pure self-imprecation without a medium (or object sworn upon, or, rather, with which contact is established) or reference to a helper, witness, or punisher (king, spirit, or god), is naturally rarely found, but a 'priori it should precede the materialistic magical oath or the spiritualistic. A man may say or wish, May I be hurt, or die, if what I say is untrue ! " and such a process may clearly be antecedent to elaborate use of objects and spirits.

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. Ii8.

2 Ibid., il. 690.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 263

Even in advanced culture, v^hen religious sanctions are real and, later, customary, this mode is natural and frequent, both in serious (though not public) swearing and in profane oaths like Damn me ! " where there is no real reference to a divine power. In cases like that of the Sumatran oath, and a story by Eusebius, we do not know the form of the oaths, but they may have been merely spoken wishes without references. Mars- den writes that the Sumatran swears thus : " If what I now declare is truly and really so, may I be freed and cleared from my oath ; if what I assert is wittingly false, may my oath be the cause of my destruction." ^ The " oath " here may be the object sworn by or merely the spoken word, which in primitive thought early acquired an almost material substance, and was fully material when written.

Eusebius records that three men accused Bishop Narcissus and confirmed the charge by solemn oaths, the first that he might perish by fire, the second, by pestilence, the third, that he might lose his sight. These self-imprecations were fulfilled.^ " The Dhar- kar and Majhwar in Mirzapur, believe that a person who forswears himself will lose his property and his children ; but as we do not know the contents of the oath, it is possible that the destruction of the latter is not ascribed to mere contagion, but is expressly im- precated on them by the swearer."^

The oath is in the first place a curse, and the " magic power inherent in the cursing words " * is its essence.

^ W. Marsden, The History of Sumatra^ (London, i8li), p. 238. 2 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, vi. 9.

' E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas * (London, 1912-1917), i. 60, citing W. Crooke, The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Pro- vinces and Oudh (Calcutta, 1896), ii. 287, iii. 444.

• E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 118.

264 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

The words may come to be regarded as a form of mana^ magical power, semi-material and semi-spiritual. Thus, as we have seen, in old Teutonic folklore, the curse settles and takes flight, like a bird.^ And the Irish believed that a curse once uttered " must alight on something." ^ " To take an oath of any sort is always a matter of great concern among the Bedouins. It seems as if they attached to an oath consequences of a supernatural kind." ^ And, further, they held that an oath must be taken at a distance from the encamp- ment because of its possibly pernicious effect on the Arabs in general.* " The curse," says Westermarck, " is looked upon as a baneful substance, as a miasma which injures or destroys anybody to whom it cleaves." Therefore Arabs " when being cursed, sometimes lay themselves down on the ground so that the curse, instead of hitting them, may fly over their bodies." ^

The punishing power of a word is particularly conspicuous in the case of an oath, and its contagious character resembles that which is attributed to tabooed persons and things, and it acts mechanically. Berbers undress when about to take an oath, and Westermarck concludes that the real reason is a " vague idea that the absence of all clothes will prevent the oath from cling- ing to themselves. They say that it is bad not only to swear, but even to be present when an oath is taken by somebody else." ^

Passing from the oath " on " the swearer's self, we come to what are apparently cases of substitution. An intermediate stage is swearing on this or that part of

• J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (London, 1882-1888), iv. 1690.

2 Ibid., iii. 1227.

2 J. L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and W ahdbys (London, 1830), p. 13. ^ Ibid.^ p. 165. ^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., i. 57. ^ Ibid., i. 59.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 265

the swearer's person. In Samoa a man says, Touch your eyes if what you say is true." ^ This is putting a conditional curse on his eyes. So the Romans swore by eyes and head.^ When a man swears to his truth- fulness or innocence " on " another person, the oath may be a conditional curse on that person, as a sub- stitute for the swearer, or as if the swearer had insured that person's life, especially if held in reverence. Thus, it is common for a man to swear on his children or parents. The Tungus swears, " May I lose my children and my cattle ! " ^ The same oath is found in Mirzapur, and is common in the North- West Provinces of India. Men swear on the heads of their children, or hold a child in their arms. May my children die if I lie ! " says the Kol.* In Ashanti a criminal may swear on the king's life, and is then pardoned, or harm would result to the king.^ The Hottentots hold that the highest oath a man can take is by his eldest sister." ^

2. THE EMBODIED OATH

The largest class of oaths in the early and middle cultures, continuing also into the higher, is that in which the swearer swears " by " or " on " some object, powerful, dangerous, or sacred, or some person or animal with like qualities. This form of oath involves some questions of theory which will be discussed after some typical examples have been submitted.

^ G. Turner, Samoa a Hundred Tears ago and long before (London, 1884), p. 184. ^ L. Schmitz, in " Jusjurandum," A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities ^ (London, 1890-1891), i. 1051.

^ J. G. Georgi, Russia (London, 1780-1783), iii. 86.

• W. Crooke, The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh

(Calcutta, 1896), ii. 287, iii. 313, 444, etc.

^ Sir A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of W est Africa (Lon- don, 1890), p. 224.

^ T. Hahn, Tsuni-Goam (London, 1881), p. 21.

266 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

In North-West India a cock is killed and, as the blood is poured on the ground, the oath is taken " over it." ^ The Khond swears on a tiger-skin, praying for death from a tiger if he lies, upon a lizard-skin " whose scaliness they pray may be their lot if forsworn," or upon an ant-hill " that they may be reduced to pow- der." 2 The Naga of Assam stands within a circle of rope, praying that he may rot as a rope rots, or he holds a gun-barrel, a spear, or a tiger's tooth, saying, " If I do not faithfully perform my promise, may I fall by this ! " ^ The Ostyak imitates the act of eating and calls on a bear to devour him.^ The Iowa have a mysterious iron or stone, wrapped in seven skins, by which they make men swear to speak the truth. The people of Kesam . . . swear by an old sacred knife, the Bataks of South Toba on their village idols. . . ." ^ The Moors lend efficacy to an oath by placing it in contact with, or making it in the presence of, any lifeless object, animal, or person endowed with baraka, or holiness, such as a saint-house, or a mosque, corn or wool, a flock of sheep or a horse, or a shereef." ^ The last is a comprehensive example. The oath upon sacred relics was prevalent in medieval Christendom, and " so little respect was felt for the simple oath that the ad- juncts came to be looked upon as the essential feature, and the imprecation itself to be divested of binding force without them." '

^ W. Crooke, op. cit., iv. 281.

^ S. C. Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India (London, 1865), p. 83.

' J. Butler, " Rough Notes on the Angami Nagas and their Language," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Calcutta, 1875), XLIV. i. 316.

• G. A. Erman, Travels in Siberia (London, 1848), i. 492.

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas * (London, 1912-1917), ii. 119 (citing authorities).

^ Ibid..^ ii. 120.

' H. C. Lea, Superstition and Force* (Philadelphia, 1892), p. 29.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 267

The Latins swore hy Jupiter lapis, holding the sacred stone in the hand.^ The Athenian archons stood on a sacred stone and swore to rule righteously.^ The ancient Danes swore on stones, and the same oath is recorded of the islanders of lona.^ In Samoa the ac- cused lays his hand on the sacred stone of the village, and says, " I lay hand on the stone. If I stole the thing, may I speedily die ! " ^ The Old Prussians placed the right hand on the neck and the left on the holy oak, saying. ^' May Perkun [the thunder-god] destroy me ! " ^ The Lombards swore lesser oaths on conse- crated weapons, greater on the Gospels.^ The chief oath of the Danes was on a sacred ring ; their oath to Alfred was taken on this.'^ The Ksatriya swore by his weapons or his horse. ^ The medieval knight swore super arma.^ Achilles swore by his sceptre.^^ Medieval theory distinguished the written or spoken oath from that which was ratified by contact with or inspection of a sacred object. The latter was a corporal or bodily oath, and the sacred object was a " halidome." A frequent oath among the Bedouins was to take hold with one hand of the wasat, or middle tent-pole, and to swear by the life of this tent, and its owners." The most stringent oath among Hindus is that in which

1 J. E. Tyler, Oaths^ (London, 1835), p. 121.

2 Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1911-1915), i. 160. ^ Ibid., i. 160.

^ G. Turner, Samoa a Hundred Tears ago and long before (London, 1884), pp. 30,

184.

Sir E. B. Tylor, "Oath," Encyclopaedia Britannica'^'^, xix. 940^2. ^ J. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsaltertiimer ^ (Leipzig, 1899), p. 896. ' Sir E. B. Tylor, op. cit., xix. 940^. ^ Narada-smrti, xix. 248.

^ C. Du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium medice et injimce Latinitatis (Niort, 1883- 1887), s.v. " Juramentum," iv. 459.

Homer, Iliad, i. 234. Sir E. B. Tylor, op. cit., xix. 941^.

^2 J. L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wdhdbys (London, 1830), p. 72.

268 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

water of the Ganges is held in the hand.^ Similarly, the Homeric gods swore by the river Styx.^ Other natural forces, such as the sun and moon, are frequently- sworn by, as Westermarck supposes, because of " their superior knowledge as all-seeing.^

Arabs swore by dipping hands in the blood of a camel. The Sansiya swear over the blood of a cock. The Homeric oath, given by Tyndareus for the defence of Helen, was taken standing on a sacrificed steed.* The old Norse ring held during the oath was sprinkled with the blood of a bull.^ Hannibal's famous oath, or vow, against Rome was taken tactis sacris ; and the Homeric Greeks laid the hand on the sacrifice,^ as the medieval European touched the altar or the relics. So Harold is depicted in the Bayeux tapestry. Another method of the Nagas of Assam (involving a mutual oath) is for the two men to hold a dog which is chopped in two ; this is emblematic of the fate which will befall the perjurer. According to one interpretation of a Roman oath, the swearer invoked the heaven god, while a hog was slain with the sacred flint-stone, representing the god's thunderbolt, and he prayed, " So smite the Roman people if they break the oath ! " ^ " The Tungus brandishes a knife before the sun, saying, ' If I lie may the sun plunge sickness into my entrails like this knife.' " « 

It is perhaps in accordance with primitive thought at one stage of its development that the strongest of all oaths is that in which the sacred object, or medium, is

^ Sir W. H. Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official (London, 1844), ii. 116.

- Hesiod, Theogonia, 784-806. ^ E, A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 122.

• Pausanias, III. xx. 9. ^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 621.

Livy, xxi. i ; Iliad, iii. 275, xlx. 175. ' Livy, i. 24 ; Polybius, iii. 25. ^ Sir E. B. Tylor, op. cit., xix. g^^oa.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 269

eaten or drunk. Sir James Frazer regards this process as being the differentia of the " Aino sacrament." ^ The Tenimberese dip a sword in their own blood and drink it, praying for death if they are forsworn.^ So, in Malaysia, water is drunk in which daggers, spears, or bullets have been dipped : " May I be eaten up by this dagger or spear ! " is the formula.^ The Tunguses have another oath, in which the swearer drinks the blood of a dog, the throat of which has been cut and its flesh divided. The swearer says, I speak the truth, and that is as true as it is that I drink this blood. If I lie, let me perish, burn, or be dried up like this dog." * The Chuvashes place bread and salt in the mouth, and pray, " May I be in want of these, if I say not true ! " ^ The " great oath " of the Tibetans includes the eating of a portion of an ox's heart. ^ The Masai drinks blood, saying, If I have done this deed, may God kill me ! " If he is innocent, no harm happens ; if guilty, it is expected that he should die in a fortnight.'^ On the Gold Coast a man taking an oath eats or drinks some- thing which has a connexion with a deity, who is invoked to punish him if he forswears himself.^ Else- where on the Gold Coast an accused man had to drink the " oath-draught " and pray that the fetish may slay him if he be guilty.^ If I have been guilty of this

^ Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1911-1915), viii. 313. J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua ('s Gravenhage, 1886), p. 284.

'W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), p. 525.

• J. G. Georgi, Russia (London, 1780-1783), iii. 86. ^ Ibid., 1. no.

^ L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet (London, 1895), p. 569«. ' A. C. Hollis, The Masai (Oxford, 1905), p. 345 ; M. Merker, Die Masai (Berlin, 1904), p. 211.

^ Sir A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of W est Africa (Lon- don, 1887), p. 196.

^ W. Bosnian, A New Description of the Coast of Guinea ^ (London, 1721), p. 126.

270 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

crime, then, Mbiam ! thou deal with me ! " swears the accused in Calabar, after drinking filth and blood, the juju-drink, mbiam?- So with the majority of ordeals, their essence being an oath, a self-imposed imprecation.^

3. PSYCHOLOGY OF THE OATH

The above-cited examples illustrate the more primitive forms of the oath. It seems probable that eating or drinking the " oath " is the latest of these forms, and that the earliest is the merely verbal self- imprecation. As for the original meaning of the em- ployment of a concrete object, sacred or otherwise, which itself comes to be regarded as the " oath," ^ containing, as it does, the words or the power of the curse, ready to act with mechanical precision if the swearer has lied, the principle is clearly magical, pass- ing into symbolism as the belief in magic decays. But the question remains as to what psychological pro- cess developed the employment of a concrete object. " Sometimes," says Westermarck, the person who takes the oath puts himself in contact with some object which represents the state referred to in the oath, so that the oath may absorb, as it were, its quality and communicate it to the perjurer. ... In other cases the person . . . takes hold of a certain object and calls it to inflict on him some injury if he perjure himself." Again, another " method of charging an oath with super- natural energy is to touch, or to establish some kind of contact with, a holy object on the occasion when the

^M. H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (London, 1897), p. 465.

2 E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 689 et seq.

' The Greek '6pKos also meant the object sworn by ; the word for oath has this meaning in most languages.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 271

oath is taken." ^ Such are some of the methods of increasing the magical power inherent in the cursing words.

At a stage of religious evolution when sacred objects are in being, it is natural that they should be employed to strengthen the oath. Later still, the oath is strength- ened hy contact with a god, or his name is invoked, or a sacrifice is made. But in earlier stages, when the object or medium is not sacred of itself, but indifferent, how came it to be used in a magical way and on magical principles ? A large proportion of primitive oaths consists of cases of imitative magic. The swearer, for instance, may apply a spear to his body, and pray that he may be slain by the spear if he is forsworn. But is such ritual due to a belief in imitative magic ? It seems more probable that an act of pre-imitation (so char- acteristic of early psychology) came to be employed as a mode of realizing the nature of an oath, and that from this was developed the magical force of the embodied words. Pantomime led to imitative magic, not vice versa. In such cases as where a man stands on a stone and the strength of stone adds confirmation to his words,^ there is natural association of ideas, which may lead to a belief in a magical connexion.

4. THE OATH AND THE GOD

When the theistic stage of religion is reached, and the god subsumes in his own person a multitude of holy lines of force, the oath is brought into connexion with the god. But even here the connexion remains magical for a considerable time, before it decays into a symbolic relation or is changed into that between offender and

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 118-119.

• Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1911-1915), i. 160.

272 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

punisher. " The oaths which the Moors swear by Allah are otherwise exactly similar in nature to those in which he is not mentioned at all. But the more the belief in magic was shaken, the more the spoken word was divested of that mysterious power which had been attributed to it by minds too apt to confound words with facts, the more prominent became the religious element in the oath. The fulfilment of the self-imprecation was made dependent upon the free will of the deity appealed to, and was regarded as the punishment for an offence committed by the perjurer against the god him^self ^

When the god is appealed to, the appeal may be for his help or his witness ; or, again, his divine name may be invoked, and in case of perjury the power of the name, thus wrongly used, will punish the forswearer. In many cases there is merely an act of transference ; the swearer, so to say, hands his oath over to the god, who will deal with it according to the innocence or guilt of the swearer. The god Mwetyi, in South Guinea, is " invoked as a witness, and is commissioned with the duty of visiting vengeance upon the party who shall violate the agreement." ^ The Comanche Indian calls upon the great spirit and earth to testify to the truth of his oath.^ The Solomon Islander swears by a tindalo^ " spirit." * The Greek said, " let God know," " let Zeus know " ; the Latin, " I call to witness," among other things, the ashes of his forefathers. The

^ E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 122.

2 J. L. Wilson, Western Africa (New York, 1856), p. 392.

3 H. R. Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History^ Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadelphia, 1851- 1860), i. 132.

• R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 217.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 273

Egyptian called Thoth to witness ; ^ he would also swear by the name of Pharaoh.^ The ordinary " in- vocation " of a deity is a vague appeal,^ but it seems that the phrases corresponding to by," * common in most languages, imply that the god is a helper or a guarantor.

When contact is established between the swearer and objects belonging to a representative of the deity, the principles of magic apply, for the punishment is mechanically administered by means of the sacred object. Traces of the emotion which prompts these ideas may be found even when magic is superseded by symbolism or mere reverence.

Laying the hand on the altar, the sacrifice, or the sacred relics is a regular method where these holy paraphernalia are existent.^ The Iranian swore before a bowl containing incense, brimstone, and one danak of molten gold.^ " To make an oath binding," the Gold Coast people give the swearer something to eat or drink which in some way appertains to a deity, who is then invoked to visit a breach of faith with punish- ment." So in medieval Europe the host was eaten, and the swearer prayed that it might choke him, if he lied.« 

^ C. p. Tide, Comparative History of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian Religions (London, 1882), i. 229.

2 Sir J. G. Frazer, op. cit., i. 419.

^ Latin had " Ita me iuvet ! " as English has " So help me, God ! " [as I speak true].

• Greek /xd, Latin per.

^ Sir E. B. Tylor, " Oath," Encyclopedia Britannica^^,xix. 939-940 ; J. E. Tyler, Oaths^ (London, 1835), P- ^°4' ^ Vendldad, iv. 54-55.

' Sir A, B. Ellis, The T shi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (Lon- don, 1887), p. 196.

® F. Dahn, Bausteine (Berlin, 1879-1880), ii. 16.

18

274 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

When the priesthood is influential, an oath may be made on the priestly person, as by the Hindu touching the legs of a Brahman.^ By far the most usual medium in the higher religions is to touch, hold, or kiss the sacred books of the faith. The Hindu swears on the Sanskrit Harivamsa ; the Muhammadan on the Koran : the Jew on the Hebrew Bible ; the Christian on the " book," that is, the New Testament. The old Lom- bards swore the " greater oath " on the Gospels.- The Sikh swears on the Granth ; the Iranian on the Avesta. In medieval Europe the book was laid on the altar.^ The words of Chrysostom show an early development in the Christian Church, possibly due to the Jewish practice, which itself has been said to be a loan from the Roman. He writes : Do thou, if nothing else, at least reverence the very book thou boldest forth to be sworn by, open the Gospel thou takest in thy hands to ad- minister the oath, and, hearing what Christ therein saith of oaths, tremble and desist." ^ The practice of kissing the book appears quite early in the Middle Ages.

5. VARIOUS RITUALS

The ritual and rules of oath have interesting var- ieties. Greeks and Romans distinguished between the sexes in the oaths proper to each. Both Greeks ^ and Jews ^ lifted up the hand. The French and the Scots

^ Sir W. H. Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official (London, 1844), ii. 116.

2 C. Du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium medice et infinia Latinitatis (Niort, 1883- 1887), s.v. " Juramentum," iv. 459.

^ Sir E. B. Tylor, op. cit., xix. 94 li.

• St. Chrysostom, Ad Populum Antiocheniwi, xv. 5.

^ Homer, lliad^ xix. 175, 254.

^ Genesis, xiv. 22 j Deuteronomy, xxxii. 40.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING. 275

raise the right hand, saying respectively, " Je jure," and " I swear by Almighty God." ^

Among formulas there is as early as Justinian the . lengthy invocation : I swear by God Almighty, and His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and the Most Holy Glorious Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, and by the Four Gospels which I hold in my hand, and by the Holy Archangels, Michael and Gabriel," etc.^ Derived from Latin idiom, the phrase, " So help me, God ! " and its varieties have persisted. " Sic me adjuvet Deus ! " was used in Charlemagne's days ; old French had " Si m'ait Dex " ; German, " So mir Gotte helfe." Hebrew variations w^ere, As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth," " By the life of," " So do God to me and more also ! "

The selection of an object to swear by has given play to the imagination, and in other cases has been deter- mined by special circumstances. Instead of swearing by the genius of the emperor, the early Christians swore by his safety, to avoid idolatry.^ The Brahman swore by truth, or by his own good deeds ; ^ Telemachus by the sorrows of his father.^ In medieval Europe a man swore by his beard or his name, or by the head of God. There was a great oath " per Regiam majestatem." William the Conqueror swore " by the splendour of God," the most magnificent oath in history ; ® also " per creaturos." Rufus swore " per hoc et per hoc " ; Richard I. by God's legs ; John Lackland by God's teeth.'

^ J. E. Tyler, op. cit., p. 97. ^ Sir E. B. Tylor, op. cit., xix. 940-941.

^ TertuUian, Apologia, xxxii.

• The Laws of Manu, viii. 113, 256 5 Narada-smrti, xviii. 239.

^ Homer, Odyssey, xx. 339.

" C. Du Fresne du Cange, op. cit., iv. 462-463.

' Ibid., loc cit. ; Sir E. B. Tylor, op. cit., xix. 941^.

276 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

The profane oath, used to emphasize an asseveration, has many quaint varieties in all languages. The Latin v^as fond of me hercle I ; the Italian is addicted to per Bacco, The Elizabethan English used many curious conversational oaths, mostly modelled on the official formulas, such as " Zounds " (" God's wounds " Odsbodkins " God's body "), " 'Sdeath " (" God's death "). A pious instinct prompted substitution, to avoid using the sacred name, hence " morbleu " mort Dieu "). Similarly Socrates swore " by the dog, " " by

the cabbage," and by the " ; Lampon " by the

goose," as did Socrates also.

6. PENALTY OF FALSE OATH

Whatever the ritual and formula of the oath, or the nature of the object with which the oath is brought into contact, the practical sense is the conditional punishment for perjury. The fear of magic power in the primitive mind has the same value as the fear of God ; behind both is the fear of retribution. It was psychologically inevitable that the oath should come to be based on the moral resentment of a deity. Even in the case of the African swearing by a fetish, or the New Hebridean invoking punishment from the spirits, man's personal responsibility puts itself in the hands of a retributory power. And from the earliest stages the community, in some way or other, has made real the supernatural penalty, either by shamanistic terrorizing or by prosecution for perjury.

If, as Westermarck holds, the god in early thought is, even though appealed to, a mere tool in the hand of the person invoking him," since the efficacy of an oath is magical,^ yet the fear of retribution is still present,

^ E. A. Westermarck, The Origin and, Development of the Moral Ideas ^ (London, 1912-1917), ii. 687.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 277

and in the highest cultures this conception probably overrides the idea of " the moral nature of the Divinity " being depreciated. This view of the god's relation to perjury, as to other crimes, is clearly a late sophistication without any practical social meaning. Grotius was, therefore, mistaken when he wrote that even the man swearing by false gods is bound by his oath " because, though under false notions, he refers to the general idea of godhead, and therefore the true God will interpret it as a wrong to himself if perjury be committed." ^ God and his equivalents are the supreme and super- natural sanction of the judgments of the social organism. It is precisely because of this principle that the gods have come to be regarded as all-good no less than all- powerful. If, for instance, Westermarck notes, a god is " frequently appealed to in oaths, a general hatred of lying and unfaithfulness may become one of his attributes. . . . There is every reason to believe that a god is not, in the first place, appealed to because he is looked upon as a guardian of veracity and good faith, but that he has come to be looked upon as a guardian of these duties because he has been frequently appealed to in connexion with them." ^ In turn the god's perfect veracity and hatred of a lie make the super- natural sanction stronger.

The process by which an oath becomes personified into an oath-deity presents no psychological difficulty, nor that by which a god, like Zeus, subsumes the at- tribute of an avenger of perjury. The Erinyes of the Greeks were personified oaths and curses ; so, too, were the Arai. It is significant, however, that the Horkos hardly became a deity ; the oath-object was too much

^ H. Grotius, De jure belli ac pads, V. xiii. I2» 2 E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 123.

278 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

of a fetish to develop independently into anything higher.

" Owing to its invocation of supernatural sanction, perjury is considered the most heinous of all acts of falsehood." ^ Like all gross crimes, it is supposed to disseminate a contagious miasma.^ The Greeks held that, if not punished in this life, it v^ould be after death.^ Such cases as are extant of its being ignored by custom or law are probably due to some transitional stage in the social regime, when, for instance, custom was giving place to law, or to a certain decadence. Westermarck quotes the Rejangs of Java, some Batak of Sumatra, early Greeks, Hebrews, and Teutons, as having no penalty for perjury.^ There are indications that the early Romans also ignored the crime. But, as Wester- marck adds, if not regarded as a crime, it was regarded as a sin, in which case the shamanistic machine would effectively carry out the required retribution. Kafirs and Malays punish perjury severely. The old Hindus banished or fined the perjurer. The cutting off of the right hand, uplifted during the oath, was the penalty among the ancient Scandinavians and Teutons, and lasted into the Middle Ages, and beyond.^

7. APPLICATIONS OF THE OATH

Among the applications of the oath and the in- stitutions which essentially involve it, the following may be noted briefly, in order to illustrate the general range of the oath. Early kings, especially of the magical type, may have been constrained by some form of

1 E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 123. ^ Vendldad, iv. 54-55.

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities^ (London, 1890-1891), s.v. " Jusjurandum," i. 1045^.

• E. A. Westermarck, op. cit., ii. 123.

^ Ibid.^ citing authorities up to the i6th century.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 279

shamanistic engagement. The kings of Mexico swore to make the sun shine, the rain to fall, and the crops to grow.^ On similar principles gods were believed to swear among Hindus,^ Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. Gods swore in human fashion, lifting up the right hand.^ A Homeric god, forsworn by the Stygian oath, was exiled for nine years.*

The archons, generals, and other officials of Athens swore oaths on taking office. The official oath was more prominent there, it seems, than in Rome. The em- phasis placed upon the oath in medieval Christian theory seems to have developed the coronation-oath, which also brought the monarch, in a sense, into re- sponsible contact with the Church. This oath still survives in constitutional and other monarchical re- gimes. Both Greek and Roman soldiers took an oath. The Roman sacramentum included an execratio, but Tylor traces it to the Roman legal wager, according to which each party to a suit paid money into court, forfeiting his pledge in case of defeat.^ Originally this legal sacramentum may have been accompanied by a self-imprecation. It is supposed that the military sacramentum developed into an oath of fealty to the emperor. In the Athenian avaKpiat^^ preliminary stage of a suit, each party swore. ^ Primitive examples of the oath at law are not wanting. On the Slave Coast of West Africa the god Mawu is appealed to not only by the parties, but by the judge. ^

1 Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough^ (London, 1911-1915), i. 356.

2 Narada-smrti, I. xviii. 243.

3 J. E. Tyler, Oaths^ (London, 1835), p. 98. * Hesiod, Theogonta, 793. ^ Sir E. B. Tylor, "Oath," Encyclopadia Britannica^'^, xix. 939^.

^ L. Schmitz, in A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities^ (London, 1890- 1891), s.v. " Jusjurandum," i. 1049.

'J. Spieth, Die Ewe-Stdmme (Berlin, 1906), p. 415.

28o STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

The majority of ordeals are really concrete oaths taken by the accused party, and the self-imprecation is realized immediately. In modern law the legal oath is taken by witnesses alone, though the juror's oath survives. This is in direct opposition to the medieval principle, which developed considerable abuses in the practice of compurgation. Evidence was not wanted ; only proofs were asked for, and, in default of proof, an oath. This could be multiplied by one or more com- purgatores, practically witnesses to the truth of the party's oath of innocence or right. When unsupported, the party swore sua manu. According to the number of his compurgatores^ he swore by any number of " hands." A bishop of Ely swore centesima manu, and as many as three hundred are recorded. The compurgatores laid their hands on the pyx^ and the accused laid his hand upon theirs.^ One attempted remedy for the abuse was the judicial duel, the wager of battle. The final remedy was found in confining the privilege of oath to the witnesses.

The essence of ordeals is the oath, though the fact is obscured by the unfair incidence of the physical result. Hindu theory recognized the essential con- nexion ; the word sapatha connotes both " oath " and ordeal." Oaths were used for lesser offences, as we have seen, and ordeals for heavy crimes.^ The medieval wager of battle was a mutual ordeal, each party taking an oath.

The covenant and the treaty have been largely based on the mutual oath, until signatures replaced the spoken word. The Greeks and Romans ratified their

^ C. Du Fresne du Cange, op. cit., s.vv. " Sacramentum," " Juramentum " ; J. E. Tyler, op. cit., p. 266.

^ Ndrada-smrti, 1. xviii. et seq.

OATH, CURSE AND BLESSING 281

treaties by oaths, the text of which was inscribed in the official inscriptions.

In primitive ritual the mutual oath was strength- ened by various imitative and magical methods.^ The blood-covenant is regularly accompanied by curses or self-imprecations. Similarly with other forms of com- pact. Tylor notes the differentia, which also applies to the vow, in the following typical cases : grasping hands, putting one hand between the hands of another, are compacts, not oaths. The hand " under the thigh " is a rite of covenant. Mixing blood or drinking one another's blood is not an oath unless there is a mutual self-imprecation, such as dipping weapons in the blood.2

8. PROHIBITION OF THE OATH

Certain sacred persons are prohibited from incurring the dangerous risks of an oath. Such was the Jlamen of Jupiter, and Plutarch suggests that the reason was that otherwise " the peril of perjury would reach in common to the whole commonwealth, if a wicked, godless, and forsworn person should have the charge and superin- tendence of the prayers, vows, and sacrifices made in the behalf of the city." ^ Nor might the Vestal Virgins take an oath.^

The sect of the Essenes were averse from the oath ; they prided themselves on their truthfulness ; they argued that those who could not be believed with- out swearing were self-condemned.^ Christ taught,

^ See Sir J. G. Frazer, op. cit., i. 289 ; Genesis, xv. 9 et seq. ; Jeremiah, xxxiv. 18. ^ Sir E. B. Tylor, op. cit., xix. 940 ; cp. Genesis, xxiv. 2, xlvii. 29 ; Herodotus, Iv. 70.

^ Plutarch, Ouastiones Romana, xliv.

• Aulus Gellius, Nodes Attic^g, X. xv. 31.

^ Josephus, Bellum jfudaicum, II. viii. 6.

282 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

" Swear not at all." ^ His expounders have explained the precept to refer to profane and frivolous oaths alone. But the teaching " Let your yea be yea and your nay nay," is clearly inclusive, and of the same character as the Essene doctrine. The Anabaptists and, later, the Quakers refused oath-taking. The latter have argued that if on any particular occasion a man swear in addition to his yea or no, in order to make it more obligatory or convincing, its force becomes comparatively weak at other times when it receives no such confirmation." But this argument neglects the power (apart from that of superstition or religious feeling) of ceremony, which is practically the imperious gesture of the social body.

^ Matthew, v. 34.

INDEX

Aaron's death, 130

abhiseka, the ceremony of anointing a king,

198, 215-217, 242 Abortion, 1^1 et seq. Abraham's death, 130 Absalom's kiss, 123

Acagchemens, their notion of the atmos- phere, 183 Achan, 246 Achilles's oath, 267

Achinese, forbid intercourse for week after

marriage, 70 ddh, swear, z6on.^

adhvaryu, the, in the abhiseka, 215, 216 Adlerz (G.), on the sexual impulse of domes- tic animals, 8-9 Adoratio, 128-129

Adultery, distinction between incest and, 20 ; religious condemnation of, 33 ; distinction between male and female, 34 ; an offence against property, 34 ; by kissing, 125 Aegium, shrine to Hera at, 56 Aeson and Medea, 175 Africans, duty of intercourse of their newly- initiated, 19; their kiss, 117, 118; their anointing, 196 et seq. ; their ordeals, 254 ; their oath, 276 — , British Central, allow sexual intercourse, to young girls, 1 1-12 ; before puberty,

— , Central, allow sexual intercourse after initiation, 17

— , East, danger of wifely unfaithfulness during elephant hunt, 40 ; do not show affection, 82

— , South, their boys chaste during initia- tion, 17 ; their notion of life and death, 164

— , West, punish seduction, 24 ; their pre- ference for virginity, 28 ; are in- fluenced by virgin priestesses, 60 ; attribute love to possession, 95-96 ; their weekly birthdays, 146; their notion of life and death, 162, 176 ; their anointing, 189, 207, 210; fear witchcraft, 241

dfriti, blessing, 225

Age, not reckoned, and other beliefs con- nected with, 137 ei seq. ayos, \%jn.

Agricultural magic, 41-42, 104

^dhed, the definition of this concept and its

applications, 254, 261 Ahimsd, harmlessness or non-injury, the

doctrine of, 95, 171 Ahts, their preference for virginity, 27 ;

their changes of name, 147 Aino sacrament, the, 269 Akiba (Rabbi), on the kiss of the Medes,

122 aksatas, 217

Albanians, ancient, their human sacrifices, 206

Alberic, the " Vision " of, on the sin of intercourse on Sundays, 48-49

Aleuts, punish illegitimacy, 24; their women chaste during war, 40 ; their anointing, 192

'All, his birthday celebrated, 145

Allah, swearing by, 272

Alpine folklore, the kiss in, 135

Amboynese, their anointing, 195

Ambrose (St.), on the kiss, 127; on mar- riage, 244

America, Central, ancient, fasting at initia- tion, 47 ; professional abstinence, 54- 55 ; their love, 98-100 ; their deities, 99 ; their signs of the day, 139 ; their birthday customs, 144 5 their anoint- ing, 197-198, 203 American Indians, love among the, 97-100 ; their view of foeticide, 153 ; their notion of life and death, 164, 182-186

, North, their sexual morality, 4 ;

their continence of mourning, 41 ; continence of their medicine-men, 43 ; their chivalrous feeling, 99 ; their kiss, 118 5 anoint the dead, 196, 197 ; anoint mourners, 200 atnrta oil, anointing with, 175, 213 Amyn tor's curse, 237 ana far alldh u 'drak, I am in God's 'ar and your 'dr, 250

283

284 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Anabaptists, do not swear, 282 avaKpiCLS, the Athenian, 279 avade/xa-i 246

Anatolians, separation of their priests from their wives, 53

Andamanese, their moderate sexual desire, 4 ; value chastity in their unmarried women, 23 ; their anointing, 201

Angami Nagas, their oath, 132

angiaq^ 156

Angola, the natives of, their anointing, 202

Animals, domestic, the sexual impulse of, 8 ; rutting season of, 10 ; effects of love in, ySw.^^ analogies to the kiss in, 114, respect for the life of, 170-171 ; trans- formation into, 192

Anointing, for procuring life, 175 ; the practice and psychology of, 187-218 ; its nature, 187; in hygiene and es- thetics, 187-190-, in magic and reli- gion, 190-197; in ceremonial and in connexion with taboo, 197-201 ; at consecration in general, 201-206 ; at birth, 201-202 ; at puberty, 202 ; at marriage, 202-203 ; before worship, 203-204 ; at the consecration of priests, 204 ; of kings, 205-206 ; the, of sacrifice and offering, 206-212; of the Hindus, 212-218

Antelopes, rutting season of, 10

Antennal play of insects, the, 114

Anu, the invocation of, 244

Apaches, reprobate seduction, 24 ; their birthday practices, 146

Aphrodite, derived from Ishtar, 97

Apocrypha, the, on cursing, 230

a.TTOTp6'iraiov, the phallus as an, 103

Apples of Idunn, the, 176

'ar, the definition of this concept and its applications, 250 et seq., 261

apa, 258

Arabs, their warriors chaste, 39 ; their notion of holiness, 49 ; the nature of their love, 80 ; their kiss to the storm, 125 ; kissed the house-gods, 130 ; their anointing, 191 ; their blessing, cursing, and swearing, 228, 238, 244, 248, 264

Arais, the, 277

Archon, the oath of the Athenian, 267 arghya, 213

Argos, virgin priestesses at, 56

Aristotle, on parental love, 93 ^ ; his Kcidapa-Ls, 112; on abortion, 156, 158; on the embryo, 157

Arrows and love, 97

Arthurian romances, the kiss in, 135

Arval Brothers, the, 209

Aryans, ancient, forbade widows to re- marry, 35

Asabas, their work determined by ju-ju, 138 ; name their children after day of birth, 140

Asceticism, the process of tumescence and detumescence the basis of, 5 ; its con- nexion with the savage virtues, 61

Ashanti, their oath, 265

Ashtoreth, goddess of love, 96

Asia, Eastern, the kiss in, 114, 115

a.(Tira<Tjj.6s^ I27«.'

Assam, the abhiseka in, 217

Assiniboins, their anointing, 210

Assyrians, the ancient, their kiss, 113, 123

Astarte, goddess of love, 96

Astrology, 139-140

Atharvaveda, its myth of the wiping off of sins, 155

Athens, official prayers in, 246 ; the oath in, 267 ; its avcLKpicris^ 279

Atkinson (J. J.), his " old male " and " pri- mal law " theories, 19-21

Atreya, on the value of sexual abstinence,

Attis, 239 atua^ 236

Augustine (St.), his " inter faeces et urinam nascimur," 64 ; on suicide in defence of virginity, 65 ; on the nature of the embryo and its distinction, 157-158 ; on the Sacrament, 193

Australians, their premature coition, 16, 17 ; boys chaste during initiation, 17 ; duty of intercourse of the newly- initiated, 19 ; fear magic with their personal refuse, 40 ; love after mar- riage, 80 ; marry by elopement, 80 ; their kiss, 114, 118; removal of taboo, 135; their notion of life and death, 161, 162, 163, 176, 177; their sex totems, 171 ; their system of rein- carnation, 177; their anointing, 188 et seq., their curse, 221, 233 ; their rites and their powers, 255

— , Central, do not connect pregnancy with intercourse, 14 ; ceremonial perfora- tion of the hymen, 17; separation of men's and women's camps, 22 ; their weak sexual jealousy, 79 ; mate col- lectively, 84; their love-feasts, 91; their life hedged in, 105; their age names, 147 ; their notion of reincar- nation, 177 ; their anointing, 200, 202, 208, 210, 211

— , South, their premature coition, 16

Austrian greeting, 122

Auxerre, Council of, prohibits the kissing of the dead, 127

Avesta, the, on foeticide, 155 ; swearing on, 274

INDEX

Aztecs, their preference for virginity, 27 ; avoided intercourse for a time after marriage, 70 ; their notion of the soul, 183; their sign of death, 185; their god of death, 185 ; their anointing, 204, 205, 206

Baal, the, source of fertility, 96 ; his image

kissed, 131 Baalat, the goddess, of fertility, 96 Babar Islanders, their vi^omen continent in

war, 40 ; forbid intercourse for a time

after marriage, 70 Babylonian, epic of death, 180-18 1 ; curses,

244-245 Bacchanalia, io5m.^ Badi, 227

Baganda, their religion of luck, 138 ; their reckoning of age, 147 ; their god of death, 181

Bahuana, allov/ sexual intercourse to their

children, 13 Baiser I'huis or le verrouil, 130 Bakoki, punish seduction, 25 Bakwains, highly regard chastity of boys and

girls, 25 Balaam, 257 Balder, 173

Balestrini (R.), on abortion, 160

Bali, the natives of, their life-trees, 173

Bambala, allow sexual intercourse before

puberty, 14 Bananas, sexual separation in order to ob- tain good, 42 banga, 155

Bank Holiday " mafficking," 105

Banks Islanders, their invocation of the

dead, 243 ; their fear of curses, 248 ;

their curses, 257, 258 Baodh5var?ta, 155

Baptism, continence before, 48 ; of the em- bryo, 158 5 anointing at, 201

Baraka, holiness, 49, 131, 266

Barea, on the blessings of old people, 238

Baronga, allow sexual intercourse before puberty, 14

Basium, a kiss, ii6«.^, 118

Basuto, allow sexual intercourse before pu- berty, 14 ; highly regard chastity of boys and girls, 25 ; their anointing, 203 ; their belief regarding the curse,

230 . _ Bataks, their anointing, 211; their oath,

266 ; do not punish perjury, 278

— , Karo, their notion of life and death, 163

Bath, denunciation of the, 73

Bathing, as a means of purification, 38

Bayaka, their preference for virginity, 28

Baziba, punish prc-nuptial amours, 25

285

Bear's-grease, anointing with, 194, 210 Beard, kissing the, 122, 129 Beating the bounds, 245 Beatrice, Dante's love for, 89 Beauty, love the creator of, 95 Bedouin, their oath-taking, 230, 264, 267 Befouling, 104

Behari, their belief regarding cursing, 249 Bel, the invocation of, 244 benedictioj a, at marriage, 244

— constiUitiva, 246

— vocativa, 246

Beneduci (Boturini), on Tezcatlipoca, 100 Beni-Amer, punish seduction, 25 5 their

preference for virginity, 28 Beni-Mzab, punish seduction, 25 Berbers, strip before taking an oath, 228,

264

Bernard (St.), on the foulness of man, 64-65

Bhddrorpada, month of, observed, 147-148

Bhdgavata, the, 149

bbrunahan, abortionist, 155

Bible, the, on love, 80 ; swearing on, 253,

. 274 Billing of birds, the, 114

Biological aspects of, sexual psychology, 1-2, 42-43, 68-75, 88, 90; foeticide, i^i et seq.

Birds, the billing of, 114

Birth, supernatural, in relation to the ideal- ization of virginity, 30 ; the day of, beliefs and practices connected with, 137-141 ; no record kept of, 137 ; im- portance of day and time of, 139-141 ; anointing at, 201-202, 214

Birthdays, beliefs and practices connected with, 137-149 ; anniversary of, 141-149

Bishop, kissing the, 127

bismilldh, 243, 251

Biting and kissing, 116

Blackfeet, the guardian of their sacred pipe chaste, 56

Blessing, the, surveyed, chap. ix.

Blood, supposed to be connected with life, 166

Bodos, value chastity, 23 Bogos, their blessing, 238 Bogota, celibacy of the priests in, 55 Bora, kill those born on an unlucky day, 139 Bower MS., the, on the value of sexual ab- stinence, 58 Brahman, the, his vow of chastity, 48-49, 58 ; in the abhiseka, 216 ; their power of cursing, 239 ; swearing by, 274 ; his oath, 275

Brasseur de Bourbourg, on a deity of love,

1 00

Breast, kissing the, 122

Breath and the life, the, 127, 166-167

286 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Brinton (D. G.), on love in American lan- guages, 98 Brother-sister incest, 20, 25, 33 Brotherly love, the theory of, 94-95 Brutus, his kiss of mother-earth, 135 Buddha, the mother of the, her purity, 58 Buddhism, sexual rules in, 58-59 ; their doctrine of ahiihsd, 95 ; condemns foeticide, 155; its respect for animal life, 170, 171 ; its method of acquiring life, 175; or divination in, 215 Buriats, their anointing, 204 Buried curse, the, 235

Burmese, separate the sexes, 23 ; their as- trology, 140 ; their birthday beliefs, 144; their weekly birthdays, 1465 their respect for animal life, 171

Byron (Lord), on love in men and w^omen, 88

Cakchiqnels, their anointing, 205 Calabar, the natives of, their oath, 254, 269- 270

California, Indians of, their rutting season, 10 ; respect age, 98

Cambodians, their strict chastity, 4 ; for- bid sexual intercourse before first men- struation, 17 ; seclude girls, 23 ; said to exhibit a periodic rut, 91 ; domin- ated by the idea of luck, 138

Camphor, continence while collecting, 38

Canonization for suicide in defence of vir- ginity, 65

Caressing, none among savages, 81

Caribs, their method of transferring life, 175

Carnovago (D. M.), on Tlazolteotl, 99-100

Casalis (E.), on the Basuto belief regarding the curse, 230

Cataglottism of pigeons, the, 114

Catamenia, life in the, 168

Catlin (G.), on love among the American Indians, 97-100

Caul-fat, the seat of life, r66

Celebes, the natives of, their anointing, 207, 208, 209

— , South, the natives of, forbid intimacy

during the wedding night, 70 Celibacy, for warriors, 39 ; of priests, 52

et seq. ; in Christianity, 54 Celts, Ancient, ignorant of the kiss, 119 Cempohualli^ calendarical cycle, 139 Ceramese, allow sexual intercourse after circumcision, 17 ; their sexual initia- tion, 18-19; their anointing, 190, 195, 199 ; their curse, 236 ; their pela rite, 254

Charity, the doctrine of, 94 Charlemagne, the oath of his time, 275 Charles the Simple, 130

Charms, love-, 92 ; death- and life-, 174-175

Charon, the Greek, 181

Charum, the Etruscan, 181

Chastity, 1-75 ; its biological and psycholo- gical bases, 2, 68-75 5 its relation to the strength of the sexual impulse, 2-9 ; to saturnalia, 3, 10-115 as part of the cycle of tumescence and detumescence, 53? 6-43, 7.1-75.; as self-control, 37; temporary, in crises, 37-45 ; in war, 38- 41 ; in sympathetic magic, 41-43 ; as conservation of energy, 43-44 ; and sexual periodicity, 9-1 1 ; and the nat- ural sexual life, 1 1-19 ; before puberty , 1 1-19 ; between puberty and marriage, 19-26 ; its relation to the preference for virginity, 26-32 ; to the proprietary emotion, 27, 33-34 ; in the wife, 32- 36 ; its relation to jealousy, 33-34 ; in the husband, 34 ; in the widow, 34- 36 ; continence as instinctive chastity, 36-46 5 as holiness, 46-66 ; its religious applications, at initiation, 47-48 ; in connexion with worship, 48-50; with the priesthood, 50-66 ; impossibility of permanent, 53-54 ; in Christianity, 54, 62-66, 88 ; in the Middle Ages, 64-66 ; contemporary, 66-68

chdiila^ tonsure, 214

Cheek, kissing the, 122, 123

Cheremiss, sexual freedom of their boys and girls, 12

Chibchas, hold a virgin to be the most ac- ceptable sacrifice, 50 Chlcchimecs, their preference for virginity,

. ^7 .

Chikasa or Chiskasaus, forbade widows to be

unchaste, 35 ; their anointing, 204 Child-marriage, 36

Chinese, their preference for virginity, 28 ; forbid widows to re-marry, 35; their continence of mourning, 40; honour chastity, 59-60 ; their attitude to sex, 67 ; position of their women, 82 ; their kiss, 115, 118; attach importance to time of birth, 140 ; their birthday be- liefs, 143-144, 175 ; their notion of life and death, 167, 174, their respect for animal life, 170-171 ; their anoint- ing of the dead, 196

— Buddhism observes celibacy of priests,

— folklore, anointing in, 175 Chippewas, their preference for virginity,

Chiraiijlvins, the long-lived, 213 Chitomc, of the Congo, the, continence

during his circuit, 40 Chivalry, the alleged code of, 66

INDEX

287

Christ, the virginity of, 64 ; women de- voted to, 65 ; kissed by Judas, 123 5 kisses the disciples' feet, 124

Christianity, condemned, adultery, 33 ; second marriages, 35-36; considered the sexual act sinful, 46-47 ; enjoined continence before Baptism, the Eucha- rist, etc., 48-49 ; chastity and celibacy in, 54 ; its ambiguous attitude towards chastity, 60 et seq. ; cleanliness in, 73 ; chaste unions in, 88 ; its doctrine of charity, 94-95 ; love and faith in, 95 ; orgies in, 109-1 10 ; the kiss in, 119,1 20, 126 et seq.; the oath in, 132-133; anniversaries in, 146, 148, 149 ; foeti- cide, 157-159; absence of kindness to animals in, 171 ; death in, 178, 179, 182; life-god in, 180; anointing in, 193-194, 197, 205 ; blessing, cursing, and swearing in, 224, 244, 245, 246, 253, 258, 274, 279, 281-282

Christmas, relics of the orgy at, io9«.^ ; kissing at, 135

Chrysostom (St.), on fasting and chastity, 41 ; on chaste unions, 88 ; on the oath, 132, 274

churinga, anointing the, 208, 211

Chuvashes or Chuwashes, their preference for virginity, 28 ; their oath, 269

Cicero, on the kissing of the statue of Her- cules, 129

Cimi, death, 185

Circassians, punished erring daughters, 23 ;

their preference for virginity, 28 Circumcision, 17, 146, 195, 202, 241 Cleanliness condemned, 73 Clement of Alexandria, on the kiss of peace,

127

Cocohuame, death, 185

Codrington (R. H.), on the curse of the Melanesians, 236

Columbia, British, natives of, reprobate unchastity, 24

Comanche, their idea of the after-world, 186 ; their oath, 272

Communion and the kiss, 128

Compurgatores^ swearing by, 280

Conditional curse and blessing, the, 234, 249-255

Confarreatio, marriage by, 244

Congo, natives of, sexual indulgence of their children, 12, 13 ; their licence after initiation, 18 ; continence during cir- cuit of the Chitome, 40 ; keep no record of age, 137

— , Lower, natives of, their sexual inter- course before puberty, 14

Congreve (W.), on kissing, 121

Conjugal fidelity and chastity, 34

Conjugal love, 83, 84-86 ; among the

American Indians, 98 Consecration by anointing, 201 et seq. ; of

priests in particular, 204 Continence, as instinctive chastity, 36-46 ;

long life ascribed to, 175 Conybeare (F. C), on the kiss of peace, 128 Cook (James), on the South Sea Islands kiss,

Cotton-planting, abstinence, etc., during,

Courtship, the phenomena of, 87, 88

Coyness as a female characteristic, 29

Craies (W. F.), on the definition of ob- scenity, lOI

Creeks, forbade widows to be unchaste, 35 ; their anointing, 207

Crocodiles, sacred, 206

Crops, illicit love injures, 50

Curse, the, surveyed, chap. ix.

Cyprian (St.), on women devoted to Christ,

Cyril (St.), on the kiss of peace, 128

Dakotas, purify themselves before war, 38

their view of foeticide, 153 Damaras, their *' holy fire," 57 ; their

anointing, 191 ; their cursing, 240 Danes, ancient, their oath, 267 Dante, the ideal love of, 66, 89 Darling, Lower, natives of the, prohibit pre-

nupticl intercourse, 21 Darwin (Charles), his study of sexual selec- tion, I ; on the Malay kiss, 114 Darwinism, misapplication of, 86 Daughter, father-, incest, 20 Dayaks, forbid intercourse after head-taking, 39 ; their " personal taboo," 47 ; forbid intercourse for a time after marriage, 70 ; their notion of life and death, 163 ; their anointing, 202 — , Hill, forbid pre-nuptial intercourse, 22

— , Sea, punish illegitimacy, 22 Dea Dia^ 209

Dead, kissing the, 126, 127 ; anointing the,

196-197 ; the invocation of the, 243 Death, by kissing, 130; beliefs connected

with, 161 et seq. ; its nature, 178-180 ;

among the American Indians, 182-186 Deer, rutting season of, 10 Delphi, virgin priestesses at, 56 Demeter, the ministers of, celibate, 56 Dennett (R. E.), on blessing among the

Fiort, 224

Detumescence, tumescence and, the process of, in relation to chastity, 5, 31, 36-43,

71-75

Deuteronomy, on the curse, 245

288 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Dharkar, their oath, 263

Dhimals, value chasity, 23

Dionysian d}iu.o(pay'ia, I05«.^, 107, 110, in,

203 dirae, 247

Dotare — osdare, 125

Dravidians, their love-feasts, 91

Dreara, a tendency to, a sign of priesthood.

Dreams, of love, 96

Dukkala, the Arabs of, their notion of holi- ness, 49 Dunmow customs, the, 44 Durgdpujd festival, 217

Ea, the invocation of, 244

Easter Sunday, kissing on, 128

Ebal and Gerizim, Mounts, the blessing and

cursing ceremony on, 246-247 Ecumenical Council, the Sixth, condemned

foeticide, 158 Eddas, Hel of the, 181

Efatese, hold illicit love to hinder crops, 50 Egede (H.), on the morality of the Eskimo,

24 , . .

Egyptians, ancient, their continence of wor- ship, 48 ; did not kiss, 1 13, 1 19 ; their birthday beliefs^ 145 ; their gods mor- tal, 176; their anointing, 189, 196, 204, 205 ; their king blessed, 242 ; their oath, 273

— , modern, avoid intercourse for a week after marriage, 70

flprjur], 127, izjnJ

sKucrcra, n6«.^

Elegbra or Legba, the god, possession by, 96

Elephant-hunt, danger of wifely unchastity during, 40

Eleusinian /jLvarripia, lo^n^, 130

Elks, rutting season of, 10

Ellis (Havelock), on the sexual impulse in the higher races of India, 3-4 5 on the sexual coldness of the negress, 4 ; on the process of tumescence and detu- mescence, 5 ; on the belief in the licentiousness of savages, 6-8 ; on the sexual impulse of domestic animals, 8 j on the sexual outbursts of the savage, 1 1 ; on the economic element in sexual morality, 36 ; on racial doctrine, 62 ; on chat'tity in Christianity, 62-63 ; on postponed consummation, 71 5 on cleanliness in Christianity, 73 ; on love, 78 ; on contempt by exposure, 102 ; on the orgy, 112; on foeticide, 160

Elopement, marriage by, 80

Embodied oath, the, 265-270

Embryo, the human killing the, 151-160; biological speculations as to, 156-159

Embryo, formatus and informatus, 157-158

Emperor-worship, 124

Endeh, natives of, forbid intercourse for a

time after marriage, 70 Enghsh, the, their kiss, 118, 120, 121 ; their

practice of foeticide, 160; custom of

beating the bounds, 245 ; their oaths,

276

English folklore, the kiss in, 135 Enjoy (P. d'), on the kiss, 115 Ephraim, the blessing of, 241 Erasmus (D.), on the kiss in England, 120 Erech, worship of Ishtar at, 96 Erinyes, the, 230, 238, 240, 248, 256, 257, 258, 277

Erlukwirra, the Central Australian women's camp, 22

Erotic, the, diverted to the supernatural, 54 ; pleasures of chastity, 65 ; feasts, 96 ; forces worshipped, 99 ; symbolism of the kiss, 119

Esau and Jacob, 122

Eskimo, abhor illegitimacy, 24 ; are affec- tionate, 81 5 use a proverb about love after marriage, 82-83 ; respect age, 98; their kiss, 114; their notion of life, 183

Essenes, their attitude to sexual matters, 63,

64 ; did not swear, 281, 282 Esthonian fishermen, their belief regarding

cursing, 249 Ethics, life and death in, 180-182 Etruscan charm, the, 181 Eucharist, continence before the, 48 Eugenic, research, 68 ; Plato's proposal, 156 Eunuchs as priests, 56 Eusebius, history of self-imprecations, 263 Evil, the god of, the patron of love, 96 ;

amulet, etc., against, 102, 103 — eye, amulet, etc., against, 102, 103 Ewe, forbid priestesses to marry, 60 ; their

anointing, 189 Execratioy the, in the Roman Sacramentum,

.^79

Exhibitionism, 104

Exogamy, the rules of, 90

Ezekiel's apologue of the dead bones, 175

Faith, love and, 95

Fandroana, the feast of, 142

Farnell (L. R.), on the Dionysiac orgy, in

Fascinum, the phallus as a, 103, io3«.*

Fast-days, continence on, 49

Fasting, as a means of purification, 38 ; the beginning of chastity, 41 ; while manu- facturing idols, 41 5 during Lent, 42 ; at initiation, 47 ; by the guardian of the sacred pipe of the blackfeet, 56

Father-daughter incest, 20

INDEX

289

Father-right, the rise of, 32

Feast of Fools, 107, no

Feet, kissing the, 122, 123, 124, 129

Fertility gods, 96

Fiat, the curse or blessing as a, 222

Fijians, distinguish between adultery and incest, 20 ; prohibit intercourse to boys under eighteen, 22 ; practise comradeship-in-arms, 39 ; their homo- sexual love, 99 ; anoint the dead, 196 ; their practice after a first killing, 200 ; their anointing, 203, 204

Filial love, 94 ; among the American In- dians, 98

Finns, regard love as insanity, 96 5 the god of evil their patron of love, 96

Fiort, their blessing, 223-224

Fire, love and, 95, 100

First-fruit Saturnalia, 42, 107-109

Fishing, continence during, 38

Flamen^ of Jupiter, the, forbidden to swear, 281

Flesh, the notion of life as the, 166 Foeticide, 1 51-160 5 its causes, 1 51-152; social attitude to, 152-156, biological and philosophical speculation as to, 156-159; its modern distribution, 159-160

Foley ( — ), on the sexual periodicity of the Marquesans, 10

Food, special preparation of priestly, 52 ; goddesses, 186; cursing by and with, 233-234, 243 ; the blessing of 242-243

Forehead, kissing the, 122, 124

Fraternal love, 94-95

Frazer (Sir J. G.), on sympathetic coitus and chastity, 42 ; on fasting during Lent, 42 ; on Masai poison-making customs, 45 ; on the Vestal Virgins, 57 ; on the magic of sexual functions, 104 ; on the Roman Saturnalia, 109 ; on kissing under the mistletoe, 135; on the savage notion of life and death, 164; on life-trees, 173, 173-174; on the Aino sacrament, 269

French, the, their kiss, 118, 119, 121; their practice of foeticide, 160; their oaths, 274-275, 276

Freyja, goddess of love, (^6

Friday, birth on, 140, 145

Frigg, goddess of marriage, 96

Fulgentius, on the eternal punishment of embryos, 158

Gaikas, punish seduction, 24-25

Galla, their anointing, 199; their fear of

the curse, 239 Gapes'a, the birthday of, 149 Ganges, swearing on water of the, 253, 268

gdtra-haudrdy the ceremony of, 214 Gerizim and Ebal, Mounts, the blessing and

cursing ceremony on, 246-247 German folklore, the kiss in, 135 ; birth on

Sunday in, 140 Germans, their practice of foeticide, 160;

their oath, 275 ght^ anointing with, 198, 206, 212-217 Gibbon (Edward), on civilization and

chastity, 62 Gilgamesh, 181

Gilgit, the people of, their ceremony in honour of chastity, 44 ; their anoint- ing, 207

Gillen (F. J.) and Spencer (Sir W. B.), on

sexual jealousy in Australia, 79 Girdle of chastity, the, 75 Goat, verdict of chastity by a, 44 God, a kiss from, 130; swearing by, 271- 274

Gods of love, 95-97 ; their mortality and

immortality, 176 Gold, 194

Gold Coast, the natives of the, their anoint- ing, 211 ; their oath, 269, 273

gorgov, curse, 248

Granth, swearing on the, 274

Grasco-Roman kiss, the, 115, 119, 129, 132

Greeks, ancient, forbade widows to re- marry, 35; their continence of wor- ship, 48 ; honoured virgin priestesses, 56 ; their ideal love, 66, 89 ; their marriage of convenience, 81 ; position of their women, 82 ; their homosexual love, 92, 99, their doctrine of love and faith, 95 ; their Aphrodite, 97 ; their use of the phallus as an airoTpdiraiov, 103; their phallophoria^ 104; their kiss, 113, 119, 122, 123, 125, 129, 130, 135 ; their foeticide, 151 ; their biolo- gical notions in this respect, 156, 157 ; their death divinities, 18 1 ; their anointing, 187 et seq. ; their blessing, cursing, and swearing, 230, 237, 238, 240, 246, 247, 248, 249, 253, 256, 259, 268, 272, 274, 277, 278, 279, 280 ; had no penalty for perjury, 278

Greenlanders, abhor illegitimacy, 24 ; their view of abortion, 156

Gregory of Nyassa (St.), his anticipatory neo- vitalism , 159

Grimm (J.), on minne-drinking and the kiss, 135 ; on Teutonic curses, 226

Grotius (H.), on the oath, 277

Growth in its relation to the sexual life, 32

Guanches, honoured virgin priestesses, 56

Guatemalans, their priests celibate, 55

Guiana, the natives of, their ignorance of the kiss, 119

19

290 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Guinea, Lower, sexual seclusion of the

priest-king, 60 — , South, the natives of, their oath, 272 gum, 211 Gustus, ii6«.^ Guyan, on love, 88 gzvee, prayer, curse, 258

Had l-dr 'dlik, this is 'dr on you, 250

— ■ — yihruz Jik, may this 'dr recoil upon

you, 250 Hades, 185

Haidas, their medicine - men severely trained, 51 ; believe in reincarnation, 184

Halidome, the, 133, 267

Halmaherese, their sexual initiation, 18 ;

practise continence during war, 38 Ham and Noah, 230 Hands, kissing the, 122 Hannibal's oath, 268 haoma, 176

haridrd, turmeric, 214 — , gdtra-, the ceremony of, 214 Harimagades, the, 56 Hardd's oath, 268

Harivanisa, swearing on the, 132, 253, 274 Harrison (Frederick), on dirt in the Middle Ages, 73

Hartland (E. S.), on the rise of father-right, 32

Harvest orgies, 108 Head, kissing the, 122

Heape (W.), on the power of reproduction of rodents in civilization, 9

Heart, the, the seat of life, 166

Hebrews, their preference for virginity, 28 ; their warriors " consecrated," 39 ; feared magic with their personal re- fuse, 40 ; their religious chastity, 48 5 their priests chaste, 51-52 ; their sexual traditions, 63 ; their Purim orgies, 107, 109; their kiss, 119, 120, 122, 130, 131 ; their oath, 132, 133 ; celebrate the 13th birthday, 145 5 their attitude to foeticide, 153, 154; their life-god, 180 ; their blessing, cursing, and swear- ing, 224, 225, 228, 230, 237, 238, 241, 242, 244, 257, 274, 275, 279; had no penalty for perjury, 278

Hel, 181, 185

Helaga, taboo, 42

Henry H., 126

Hera, shrine to, 56 ; and Zeus, 189 Hercules, adoration of, 129 herem, devoted, 246

Herero, their preference for virginity, 28 Heresy, sexual inversion and, 92

Hermes Psychopompos, 181

Hervey Islanders, their notion of the soul, 163 5 regard a point as the beginning of existence, 168

Hindus, their sexual sensibility, 58, 67 ; position of their women, 82 ; their doctrine of ahimsd. 95, 171 ; their god Kama, 97; their orgies, 107; their oath, 132, 253, 254, 267-268, 274, 279 ; their astrology, 140 ; their festival of satnvatsarddi, 141-142 ; their Bhddror- pada observation, 147-148 ; their sacred birthdays, 149 5 their attitude to foeticide, 153, 154; ascribe long life to continence, 175 ; their death-di- vinity, 180; their anointing, 188 et seq., 212-218

Holiness, chastity as, 46-66 ; its nature, 49

Holophrastic language, 220

Holopsychosis, whole-thinking, 220

Homage, the kiss of, 129-130

Homagium — osculum, 129

Homer, 189

Homosexual love, 92 ; between males in

America, 99 Honey-wine, Masai customs while brewing,

45

Horoscopes, 139 Horse, the holiness of the, 49 Hos, have no word for love, 80 ; their har- vest orgies, 108 Hosea, on kissing calves, 131 Hottentots, their oath, 265 Hovas, their sexual freedom in youth, 12 Hugh (St.), 126

Huichols, their shamans must be maritally

faithful, 51 Huitzilopochtli, the temple of, 205 Human sacrifice, 184, 185-186, 206 Hunting, continence while, 38, 61 Hymen, the, ceremonial perforation of, 17

lamblichus, on sexual impurity, 50 Ichcatlan, high priest of, punished if un- chaste, 55 idith, 258

Idols, fasting while manufacturing, 41 Illapurinja, female avenger, 199-200 Illegitimacy, the punishment of, 21-25 Immorality, 101-105 Immortality, the conception of, 176 imprecationes, 247

Inca, the Peruvian Virgins, daughters of the,

Incest, origin of law against, 20 ; brother- sister, 20, 25, 33 ; father-daughter, 20

Incubus, ideas of the, 96

INDEX

291

India, the higher races of, the sexual im- pulse in, 3-4 ; their continence of mourning, 40 ; their continence of worship, 48 ; their asceticism and sexual ideas, 67 ; worship sexual or- gans, 104; their kiss, 113, 124; their respect for life, 170-171 ; their soma, 176 ; their anointing, 192 et seq., 212-218

— , North-west Provinces, the natives of, their oath, 265, 266

Indian folklore, anointing in, 175

Indies, East, the natives of the, their notion of evil spirits, 95 , their obiscenity, 103; ignorant of foeticide, I5i«. ^; their anointing, 195, 197, 204

Indonesians, their sexual freedom before puberty, 12, 13 ; the consequent ab- sence of masturbation, 13 ; their pre- ference for virginity, 28 ; their con- tinence of mourning, 41 ; their notion of the soul, 169

Infant-betrothal, 36

Infanticide, in connexion with the day of birth, 139; in relation to foeticide, 1^1 et seq.

Ingeltrude's oath, 132

Initiation, pubertal, 17-19 ; fasting at, 47 ;

pubertal and priestly, 50 ; priestly, 51 ;

kissing after, I27«.^; anointing at, 189 Insanity, love as, 96 Insects, the antennal play of, 114 Jnstrumentum pads, 134 Jntichiuma, the, ceremony, 210 Inversion, sexual, 92

Invocations, the blessing and the curse as, 256-258

Invulnerability believed to be produced by continence, 38

lona Islanders, their oath, 267

Iowa, their oath, 266

Iranian oath, the, 273, 274

Irish, ancient, their holy fires, 57 ; their belief about death, 184

— , folklore, curses in, 226, 230

Iroquois, their orgies, 108 ; their notion of the soul, 163, 166

Irradiation, the sexual and religious im- pulse as an, 3

Isaac's death, 130

Ishtar, goddess of love, 96

Islam. See Muslims

Italian folklore, death by kissing in, 130

Jacob, Esau and, 122; kissed by Joseph, 126 ; his death, 130 ; his blessing, 241

Jains, enforce the rule of sexual abstinence, 59 ; their doctrine of ahirksd, 95 ; their respect for animal life, 170

James (William), on an " anti-sexual in- stinct," 72

Japanese, their attitude to sex, 67 ; their kiss, 115, 117, 119; their birthday beliefs, 142-143 ; their respect for animal life, 170

Javanese, their anointing, 207

Jealousy in relation to the preference for virginity, 28 ; as conducive to wifely chastity, 32-34 ; often absent, 79

Jerome (St.), on suicide in defence of vir- ginity, 65^

Jesus, the virginity of, 64 ; women devoted to, 65 ; kissed by Judas, 123 ; kisses the disciples' feet, 124

Jews. See Hebrews

jinn, 252

jiwa, life, 165

John Lackland's oath, 275

John the Baptist, his virginity, 65

Jonson (Ben), his image of the kiss in the cup, 134

Joseph kissed Jacob, 126; his dead father, 126 Ju-ju, 138 Judas's kiss, 123

Jupiter, the Jlamen of, forbidden to swear 281

yupiter lapis, swearing by, 267 jurare, bind, zSon.^

Justin Martyr, on the kiss of peace, 127 ;

his adaptation of a fancy of Plato, 212 Justinian, oath of the time of, 275

Ka'ba, kissing the, 131

Kabyles, punish unchastity, 25

Kachinzes, their blessmg, 228

Kafirs, allow intercourse, to the unmarried, 12 ; to girls during their puberty fes- tivities, 18 ; to boys after circumcision, 18 ; punish seduction, 24; their atti- tude to foeticide, 153-154; their sup- posed animism, 169 ; punished perjury, 278

Kai, food, 243-244 Kalendae, the, 1 10 Kaltmokh, dairy-assistant, 229 Kama, god of love, 97 Kdmatardya, the festival of, 52 kanga, curse, 243 Karakia, 229

Karens, their notion of life and death, 163 ;

their belief regarding the curse, 231 Kari Kari, Kwoffi, 145 Karo Battak, their notion of life and death,

163

KdOapcris, Aristotle's, 112 Kaunadiyans, their marriage ceremony, 214 Kei Islanders, practise continence before war, 38 ; their anointing, 209

292 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

kelah, life, 163

Kesam, the people of, their oath, 266 Khonds, their human sacrifices, 206-207 5

their oath, 266 Khyoungtha, their kiss, 115 Kidney-fat, the seat of life, 166, 192 King, kissing the, 127, 130 ; celebrating his birthday, 145 ; anointing the, 205-206 Kingsmill Islanders, anointed the dead, 196 Kiss, the, rare among savages, 81; its nature, 113-114; its forms, 1 14-1 19 ; its social history, 119-121; its social and re- ligious usages, 121-127 ; of peace, 127- 1305 death by, 130; on sacred objects, 130-134 ; in metaphor and myth, 134- 136

Knees, kissing the, 122, 129 Knights, kissing of, 120 Kol, their oath, 265

Koran, the recitation of, 49 : swearing on, 133,2535.274

Koreans, their birthday beliefs, 144 ; on filial disobedience, 238

Koshchei the Deathless, 173

Kotas, their priests married, 52

Kra, indwelling spirit, 144

Krishna, the birthday of, 149

Krsnajayantty the festival of, 149

Kruijt (A. C), on the Moluccan notion of life and death, 165-166 ; on the In- donesian notion of the soul, 169

Ksatriya, the, in the abhiseka, 2165 his oath, 267

Ku vana mula^ giving the breath, 224 Kukjan, ii6«.^

Kunama, on the blessings of old people, 238 Kiiss d'Hand, 122 Kustus, Ii6«.^

Kwakiutl, forbid sexual intercourse after

eating human flesh, 40 Kwoffi, Kari Kari, 145 KvveWf 1 16«.^

Id, life, 163

Lafitau (J. F.), on the vestal virgins of the Iroquois, 57 ; his " Master of life," 186

Lakor Islanders, 228; their curse, 2355 their forms of reconciliation, 255

Lamas, celibate, more holy than others, 59

Lampon's oath, 276

Language, love and sex, in, 98, 104; and

mastication, 1 17 Lapps, their kiss, 115

Lecky (W. E. H.), on the foeticide of the

Romans, 156 Legba or Elegbra, the god, possession by, 96 Leh-tas, separate the sexes, 23 Lent, fasting during, 42

Leti Islanders, fear curses, 228 ; their curse, 235 ; their form of reconciliation, 254- 255

X^Kvdoi, 196

libas, 227

Lif and Lifthrasir, 180, 181

Life, in primitive thought, 161 ; its nature, 162-168; in mature, 168-169; gard for, 170-171 ; -deposit, 171-174 ; magic, 174-176; renewal of, 176-177; in mythology and ethics, 180-182; among the American Indians, 182-186

Lirtga, worship of, 104, anointing the, 218

lio^a, a spirit, 228, 257

Lions' fat, anointing with, 191

Lips, sensitive nature of, 116

Lithuanians, their holy fires, 57

Litre (E.), his derivation of obscene, 102

Lombards, their oath, 133, 267, 274

Lombroso (C), on the kiss, 117

Longevity, means for procuring, 174-175

Love, its forms, chap. ii. ; its nature and power, 77-78; sexual, 78-100; con- jugal, 83, 84-86 ; restrictions on, 89- 90; parity in, 90-91, seasonal, 91-92 ; -charms, 92 ; homosexual, 92, 99 ; non- sexual, 93-95; parental, 93-94; filial, 94; fraternal and social, 94-95 ; -gods, 95- 97 ; as insanity, 96 ; and the moon, 97 ; among the American Indians, 97-100

Luang-Sermata, the natives of, their curses, 222

Luck, the idea of, 138

Lunar, reckoning of time, 137-138; as- trology, 140

McLennan (J. F.), his Primitive Marriage the first step towards a psychology of sex, I

Madurese, forbid intercourse for a time after

marriage, 70 Magades, the, 56

Magic, sympathetic, 42, 141 ; life, 174-176 ; anointing in, 190 et seq.

mahabhiscka, 216

Majhwar, their oath, 263

Malagasy, their women chaste during war, 40; their vintana, 139; their lunar astrology, 140 ; their feast of /^2«<froaK<z, 142 ; their anointing, 209 ; their bles- sing, 241 ; their bond of paternity, 255

mdlaya-chandana, the custom of, 213

Malays, their weak sexual impulse, 4 ; are continent in wartime, 38 ; connect love with fire, 95; their kiss, 114; their notion of life and death, 163- 164, 165, 166; their anointing, 198, 203, 207 ; their badi, 227 ; their oath, 253 ; punished perjury, 278

INDEX

293

maledictio, when efficacious, 259 Malinowski (Bronislaw), on love in Australia, 80

mana, charging an oath with, 1315 bestowed

by blessing, 223 ; words as, 264 Manasseh, the blessing of, 241 Mandans, reprobate seduction, 24 Mande, allow sexual intercourse before pu- berty, 14

Manichaeans, prohibited the killing of ani- mals, 171 Manslayer, isolated by taboo, 39 Mantegazza (Paolo), on love, 77 mantras, ziT, et seq.

Manu, the laws of, on adultery, 34 ; on the behaviour of a Brahman, 58

Manx, prayer and curse in, 258

Maoris, allow sexual licence to their girls, 12; children, 13; their kiss, 114; their names, 147 ; their notion of life and death, 168, 180; their blessing, cursing, and swearing, 229, 230, 233, 236, 239, 241-242, 243, 248, 256

Marea, punish seduction, 25

Marquesans, their sexual periodicity, 10 ; forbid sexual intercourse after slaying a foe, 39 ; their priestly novices chaste, 51 ; their notion of life and death, 167

Marriage, the study of, i ; among the un- civilized races, 165 chastity between puberty and, 19-26 ; second, of a widow forbidden, 34-36 ; neglected by the Essencs, 64 ; love after, 80, 82 ; arranged by others, 81-82 ; its develop- ment, 83, 84-86 ; trial-, 90 ; goddess of, 96 ; kissing on, 121 ; the kiss sym- bolical of, 125 ; anointing at, 202-203 ; by confarreatto, 244

Marsden (W.), on the Sumatran oath, 263

Marshall Islanders, allow intercourse before marriage, 12 ; menstruation, 14

Martial, on the kisses of clients, 124

Martin (St.), 135

Martyrs, the fasti of, 148-149

Masai, allow sexual intercourse before pu- berty, 14 ; isolate themselves when making poison, 44-45 ; enjoin chastity on those who brew honey-wine, 45 ; their circumcision practices, 202 ; their blessing, 223 ; their oath, 269

Mass, High, the kiss at, 128

Mastication and language, 117

Masturbation absent where pre-pubertal intercourse is allowed, 13 ; a course of,

31-32

Maternal instinct, the, 93-94 Maui, 180

Mawu, the god, 279

Mayas, are continent, etc., during cotton- planting, 41 ; their love, 98 ; their birthdays, 146; their sacrifices, 184; their notion of death, 184-185

Mazatecc, avoided intercourse for a time after marriage, 70

Mazdaean, theory of the sinfulness of sex, 46-47 ; notion of impurity, 48

M'Bengas, their life-trees, 172

mbiam, a ju-ju drink, 254, 270

me hercle, an oath, 276

Mecca, continence on pilgrimage, to, 48

Medea and Aeson, 175

Medes, their kiss, 122

Medicine-men, continent, before profes- sional visits, 43 5 during their novitiate,

Melancholy in adolescence, 73

Melanesians, sensible to female virtue, 22 ; separate sexually during yam-training, 42 ; their notion of life and death, 167 ; their blessing and cursing, 223, 228, 245^ 257, 258

Menstruation, first sexual intercourse, be- fore, 14; forbidden before, 17; for- bidden during, 69 5 fear of contact with, 74 ; anointing discontinued at, 213

Meriah, the, 206

Mexicans, ancient, their priests and nuns chaste, 52 ; punished unchastity in temple-women, 55 ; their supposed goddess of love, 100 ; their personal names, 139-140; their notion of life and death, 184, 185, 186 ; their anoint- ing, 194, 203 ; their oath, 279

mezuzdh, kissing the, 131

Mice, reproductive powers in civilization, 9

Mictlan, god of death, 185

Middle Ages, the, clerical celibacy in, 66 ; dirt in, 73 ; the girdle of chastity of, 75 ; its marriage of convenience, 82 ; sexual inversion in, 92 ; the kiss in, 120, 124, 125, 126, 129, 134; the oath in, 133; foeticide in, 158; blessing, cursing, and swearing in, 244, 260, 267, . .273, 274; perjury in, 278

Militarism responsible for homosexual love,

. 99 . .

Minne-drinking and the kiss, 135

Miriam, her miraculous virginity, 65 ; her

death by kissing, 130 mirudhapaiubandha rite, 217 Mirzapur, the natives of, their oath, 265 Missal, swearing on the, 133 Mistletoe, kissing under the, 135 ; Balder

and the, 173 Mitchell Islanders, practise foeticide but not

infanticide, 157

294 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Moa Islanders, fear curses, 228 ; their curse, 235 ; their form of reconciliation, 255

Modesty, natural, 29 ; has civilized love, 88

Moll (Albert), on the process of tumescence and detumescence, 5

Moluccas, the notion of life and death in the, 165, 166

momidi, anointing with, 192, 213

Moneses, herbs, 51

Mongolians, their kiss, 1 1 5

Monica (St.), her death by kissing, 130

Monks, the sexual life of, 54 ; celibacy of,

58-59

Moon, the, connected with love, 97, 100 ; reckoning of time by, 137-138; nati- vities based on the position of, 140

Moors, their notion of holiness, 49 ; their form of salute, 124-125 ; from certain points of view " primitive," 221 ; their blessing, cursing, and swearing, 224, 227, 231, 234, 237, 238, 240, 241, 249 et seq., 261, 266, 272

Morality in relation to Ijlessing and cursing, 258

Morbleu, an oath, 276

Morgan (L. H.), on the American Indians, their sexual morality, 4 ; their love, 97

Morocco. See Moors

Moses's death, 130

Mother-earth, kissing, 135

Mother-right, the supersession of, 32,

Motumotu, are continent during war, etc., 38 ; taboo the chief man, 42

Mourning, the continence of, 40-41 ; anointing at, 200

Mpongwe, their cursing, 237

Muhammad, his birthday celebrated, 145

Mwetyi, swearing by the god, 272

Muslims, are continent on pilgrimage, 48 ; are chaste, 67 ; position of their women, 82 ; kiss the ka'ba, 131 ; their birthday practices, 145 ; their attitude to foeticide, 153, 154; their life-god, 180 ; their after-life, 186 ; their bles- sing, cursing, and swearing, 225, 239, 243, 253, 274

Mysore, the abhiseka in, 217

Nagas, their sexual freedom before mar- riage, 12 ; their oath, 132, 266, 268

Nahuas, had no word for love, 98 ; cele- brated a month of love, 99 ; their sacrifices, 184

Namaguas, their anointing, 191

Names, and birthdays, 147

Nana, goddess of love, 96-97

Nandi, allow sexual intercourse before pu- berty, 14 ; their curse, 227-228, 237

Narcissus (Bishop), 263

Narrinyeri, licence of their boys after initiation, 18; separate sexually after marriage, 69

Natchez, forbid sexual intercourse after slaying a foe, 39

Nature, the attribution of life to, 168-169

Naudowessies, respect age, 98

Navahos, their notion of life and death, 183

Nayadls, their blessing, 240

Negro, the, sexual coldness of, 4

New Guineas, natives of, chastity of their girls, 22 ; their preference for virginity, 28 ; separate sexually during yam- training, 42 ; chastity during turtle- coupling, 42

New Hebrideans, their oath, 276

New South Wales, natives of, prohibit pre- nuptial intercourse, 21

New Year, saturnalia, 42, 108-110; and birthdays, 142 et seq. ; anointing at, 198

Nez Perces, reprobate seduction, 24 Ngunungunut, the bat, 171 Niam-niam, are affectionate to their wives, . ^3 .

Nias, natives of, punish seduction by death, 22

Nicaraguans, their preference for virginity, 27 ; punished incontinence in priests,

Nietzsche (F.), on the effects of love, 77-78 ;

his Dionysiac theory, 112 Noah and Ham, 230

Noessa Lant, the natives of, their belief regarding sexual abstinence, 38

Noses, rubbing, 81, \ l\ et seq.

Nubians, their belief regarding curses, 228

Numa instituted the Vestal Virgins, 56

Nuns, chastity of, 52, 54

Nupas, do not reckon time, 137

Nusku, the invocation of, 244

Nutkas, forbid intercourse for a time after marriage, 70

Nutrition in its relation to the sexual im- pulse, 2, 5, 41

nyawa^ life-breath, 165

Nyrop (C), on the kiss, 115

Oajaca, birth anniversaries in, 147

Oath, the changing, 131 ; forms of taking,

132-133 ; survey, chap. ix. Obscenity, St. Augustine on, 64 ; survey of,

101-105

Obscurus, connected with obscene, 101-102 Ochre, anointing with, 187 et seq. Ocllo, lay women devoted to chastity, 55 Odsbodkins, an oath, 276 Odudua, the Yoruba patroness of love, 96 Odysseus, kissed, 122

INDEX

295

Ocdipus's curse, 237

Oil, anointing with, 187 et seq.

ole, an unguent, 205

Olfactory kiss, the, 11^ et seq.

Omahas, object to courting, 137

Omakura, persons of the same age, 146-147

Omentum, the, the seat of life, 166, 191-192

Omu-kuru, Damara deity, 240

oix<pa\6s, the, 209

Ondangas, their preference for virginity, 28 Ongton-Java Islanders, their reception of

strangers, 199 Ophites, the, 212 Oracles chanted by virgins, 56 Ordeal, the, 254, 260

Orgy, the, evidence of a weak sexual im- pulse, 3, 10-11 ; at first-fruit cele- brations, 42; seasonal, 91; worship at, 96 ; obscenity at^ 104 ; survey of, 105-1 1 1

opKos, 133, 253, 26o«.i, 270«.3, 277

Osclare= dotare, 125

Osdum, oscle, 125

Osculata pax, 125

Osculatorium, 134

Osculum, 118, 129

— inierveniens, 125

— pacts, I27«.'

— sanctum, xz'jnP Ostyaks, their oath, 253, 266

Otomis, avoid intercourse for a time after

marriage, 70 Otyiondo, 146

Ovaherero, their reckoning of age, 146-147 ; their naming-ceremony, 201-202 ; their blessing and cursing, 238, 240

Pactum, 125

Paharias, form romantic attachments, 80 Pairing-season, a primitive, 91 Palestinian kiss, the, 122-123 palol, dairy-priest, 229, 258 pants benedictus, 245

— cotisecratus, 246

Papuan language, has no word for love, 80 Papuans, their notion of life and death, 163

their life-trees, 173 Paraguayans, reprobate unchastity, 24 ;

their wizards chaste, 56 Parental love, 93-94 ; among the American

Indians, 98 Parity, the law of, in love, 90-91 Passivity, female, its biological significance,

,31 .

Patagonians, reprobate unchastity, 24 ;

their virgin witches, 56 Patani Malays, their notion of life and death,

165

Paul (St.), on marriage, 64 ; his virginity, 65; on the holy kiss, 120 ; kissed by his disciples, 126; his rebirth, 148

Paula, on purity, 73

Pax, 1 16«.^, izjnJ

board or -brede, 134

Payne (E. J.), on language, 117; on ani- mism, 168-169

Peace, the kiss of, 126, 127-130, 134

pela rite of Ceram, the, 254

Pelew Islanders, forbid sexual intercourse before first menstruation, 17

Pelewans, forbid sexual intercourse after slaying a foe, 39

Pepper, abstinence from, during cotton- planting, 41

Per Bacco, an oath, 276

Perjury, 277-278

Perkun, the thunder-god, 267

Persians, ancient, their preference for vir- ginity, 28 ; honoured virgin priest- esses, 56; their kiss, 122; celebrated birthdays, 145; their Naoma, ij6 ; their anointing, 188

— , modern, birthday practices, 145 ; prac- tice abortion, 155

Peruvians, ancient, forbade widows to re- marry, 35 ; their Virgins of the Sun chaste, 55 ; their love, 98

Peter (St.), his kiss of charity, 120; kissing his statue, 131

Phdlguna, the full moon of, 215

Phallophoria, 104

Phallus, used as an amulet, 103

Pharaoh, the, the anointing of, 205 ; the blessing of, 242 ; swearing by, 273

Pharisees, their kiss, 124

(piK7]fxa ayaTTTjS, \Z'jn?

(pL\riiJ.a ayiov, xzjnP

Philippines, natives of the, have sexual free- dom in youth, 12 ; honour chastity, 22

Philo, on the kiss of harmony, 128

Philostratus, 134

Pigeons, cataglottism of, 114

Pigmentation, its part in love, 90

Pigs' fat, anointing with, 191

Pipe, sacred, of the blackfeet, 56

Pitta-pitta dialect has a word for kissing, 118

Plato, on love, 78, 95 5 his eugenic proposal, 156; on the right of foeticide, 158; on the soul of the universe, 212 ; on the curse, 228, 230, 237

Plautus, 102

Play-instinct, the, 106

Plutarch, on love after marriage, 82 ; on certain uses in worship, 129 ; on the prohibition of swearing, 281

P6c, Ii6«.^

296 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

PSg, ii6«.i

Poison, Masai customs on making, 45 Polak (J. E.), on the abortion of the Persians,

155

Polygamy, 82

Polynesians, adept at love-poetry, 81 ; their embodied wish, 244

Pondo, their first-fruits festival, 107-108

Popol Vuh, death in the, 185

Possession, love attributed to, 95-96

pratistdj a mantra of consecration, 149

Prayer, aided by abstinence, 50 ; as a bles- sing or curse by invocation, 256-258

Pregnancy, avoidance of intercourse during, 61, 69 ; anointing at, 203, 214

Priapus, statues of, 103

Priestly, initiation, 50-51; continence, 51 et seq. ; anointing, 204

Prodigal Son's kiss, 123, 127

Proprietary emotion, the, as leading to the preference for virginity, 26-27 5 the husband led to the rise of father- right, 32 ; in parental love, 93

Prostitution, unknown among savages, 7 ; the problem solved by, 31 ; in western civilization, 68

Prussians, Old, their oath, 267

Psychology of sex. See Sexual psychology

Puberty, sex and religion at, 3 ; sexual inter- course before 11-19; marriage at, 16; meaning of ceremonials at, 17 ; licence after, 17-19; chastity between, and marriage, 19-26; sexual separation after, 82 ; anointing at, 202

Purim, orgies at, 107, 109

Puritans, on the bath, 73 purndbhiseka, 216

Quakers, do not swear, 282

Queen Charlotte Indians, reprobate un-

chastity, 24 Queenslanders, their anointing, 208 — , North-west-Central, have two vocabu- laries, 104; their kiss, 118 Quiches, their anointing, 205 Quichua, love in, 98

rahui, the embodied wish, 245

rdjasuya, the ceremonies of the, 215

Rama, the birthday of, 149

Rats, reproductive powers in civilization, 9

raui, the embodied wish, 244

Reade (W. W.), on the kiss in Africa, 117

Reformation, chastity in the, 66

Reincarnation, and the regard for life, 176 ; in primitive thought, 177; the Aus- tralian system, 177; the Haida belief, 184

Reindeer-fat, anointing with, 194

Rejangs, do not punish perjury, 278 Religious applications of, chastity, 46-66 ;

the kiss, 126-128, 130-134; anointing,

190 et seq.

Renaissance, the, chastity at, 65-66 ; kiss- ing at, 121

Rendile, their preference for virginity, 28 Reproductive power under civilized con- ditions, 8-9 Restrictions on love, 89-90 Richard I., 126 ; his oath, 275 Rigveda, the, on the sun, 180 Rodents, reproductive powers in civilization,

9

Rohleder ( ), on the impossibility of strict

continence, 53 Rolf the Ganger, 130

Romans, ancient, forbade widows to re- marry, 35 ; honoured virgin priestesses, 56 ; chastity of, 63 ; their marriage of convenience, 81; their use of the phallus as a fascinum, 103 ; suppressed Bacchanalia, io5«. ^; their Saturnalia, 107, 109; their kiss, 118, 119, 124, 125, 129, 130 ; their emperor- worship, 124 ; their foeticide, 151, 153, 156; their biological speculation in this respect, ^S^j ^57) I58"^59 5 their anointing, 187 et seq. ; blessing, cursing, and swearing, 231, 242, 244, 247, 255, 261 265, 268, 274, 279, 280 ; ignored per- jury, 278

Rotorua, a curse, belief in, 244

Rousseau (J. J.), 91

Rubbing noses, 81, 114 seq.

Rufus's oath, 275

Rut, the phenomena of, 9-1 1, 91

Sacramentum, the Roman, 279 Sacred objects, kissing, 130-134; anointing, 208-210

Sacredness defiled by illicit love, 50 Sacrifice, a virgin the most acceptable, 50 Sakai, their curse by " pointing," 223 Sakalavas, kill those born on Tuesday, 139 Sakta, Tantras, followers of the, 107 Salt, abstinence from, during cotton- planting, 41 Salutatis, izjn. Salvus, iSyn.

Samoans, their girls chaste, 23 ; their pre- ference for virginity, 28 ; practised abortion, 153; but not infanticide, 154; their cursing, 222, 228-229, 244, 252 ; their oath, 265

Samoyeds, their preference for virginity, 28

Samuel salutes Saul, 123

Satkvatsarddi, the festival of, 141-142

sanctio, the, of a statute, 255

t

INDEX

297

Sandwich Islanders, their kiss, 114 sankha, 216

Sannyasi, the, forbidden to look at a woman,

58 . . .

Santals, their anointing, 207

sdpatha, oath and ordeal, 254, 280 Sarawak, the natives of, their continence

while collecting camphor, 38 Sarikrdnti, the festival, 217 sariku, 217

sarong, casing, body, 164

Saturn, adoration of, 129

Saturnalia. See Orgy

Sauk, their notion of life and death, 183

Saul saluted by Samuel, 123

Savitar, the Vivifier, 180

Savium, a kiss, 118

Scacvus, connected with obscene, 102 Scandinavian, love-gods, 96 ; apples of

Idunn, 176; life-mythology, 180;

punished perjury, 278 Schopenhauer (A.), on love, 78 Scots oath, the, 274-275 Scottish folklore, blessing and cursing in,

237

'Sdeath, on oath, 276 Seasonal love, 91-92

Second-sight a privilege of the virgin, 50 Seduction, the punishment of, 21-25 ; its

social and personal significance, 30 Seelo-ai Thali, the seat of chastity, honoured

in Gilgit, 44 Semang, Eastern, their semangat, 166 Semangat, living principle, 163 et seq. Semen, the seat of strength, 72 Seminoles, separate warriors from women,

39

Semites, their fertility gods, 96 ; their kiss, 115, 119; their anointing, 205

semungi, living principle, 163

Seneca, on foeticide, 156

Senegalese, permit licence after initiation, 18

Separation of the sexes, as in camps and sleeping-quarters, 22, 23, 25, 39, 82

Serpent, the, connected with love, 97

Sex totems, 171

Sexual impulse, in man, i 5 a psychical over- growth from the nutritive, 2 ; of the savage, 2-9 ; weak, 3-1 1 ; of domestic animals, 8 5 of civilized man, 9 ; periodicity of, 9-1 1 ; control of, 14- 16, 36-46 J biological sacredness of, 62 ; its forms, chap. ii. ; its develop- ment into conjugal love, 84 ; in the male, 87 ; in the female, 88

— initiation, 17-19

— intercourse, in childhood, 11-19; after

initiation, 17-19 ; sympathetic, 41-42 ; procreation the only reason for, 65

19 *

Sexual jealousy, in relation to the prefer- ence for virginity, 28 ; conducive to wifely chastity, 32-34 ; often absent,

79

— life, natural, 11-19; only found among

unmarried, 11 ; retardation of, 32; regulation of, by chastity, 53

— love, 78-100; its development, 86-89;

restrictions on, 89-90 ; parity in, 90- 91 ; seasonal, 91-92 ; homo-, 92, 99 ; gods of, 95-97 ; among the American Indians, 97-100

— morality, in its relation to chasity, 1-75 ;

fcEticide does not imply a depraved,

— organs, male, the seat of strength, 72 ;

worshipped, 104

— periodicity, 9-1 1

— psychology, McLennan's Primitive Mar-

riage the first step towards a, i ; Darwin's study of sexual selection, i ; its relation to religion, 2, 3, 46-66 ; the causes of the preference for virginity, 26-32 ; coyness, 29 ; female passivity, 31; its relation to magic, 44-46; effects of ignorance of, 54 ; of chastity, in general, 68-75 ; of the various forms of love, chap. ii. ; its connexion of love with fire, 95

Shadow, the, as the life, 167

shaeta, 155

Shans, their anointing, 208 Shed, 181

Shoulders, kissing the, 122 Shrove Tuesday, orgies on, 109 Siamese, their notion of life and death, 167 Sierra Leone, the natives of, their life-trees,

172-173 Sikhs, their oath, 274

simantonnayana, the hair-parting ceremony, 214

Simeon of Bulgaria, 173 Sinaloa, worshipped death, 185 sindurddn, the, 214 sirih, 235

sistth, kissing the, 131 Sister, brother-, incest, 20, 25, 33 Siva, the god, 218 styid, saint-house, 224, 252 Skaga, medicine-man, 51 Skeat (W. W.), his derivation of obscene, 102

Slave Coast, the natives of the, their anoint- ing, 189, 203, 204 ; their recourse to a divine judge, 279

Slavic, Jews, on the kiss, 136 ; myth of death, 181

Slavs, Southern, killed the seducer, 23 ; forbid widows to re-marry, 35

298 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Sleeping-quarters, sexual separation of, 22,

23, 25> 39 Smrt, Slavic goddess, 181

Social love, 94.-95

Society Islanders, their kiss, 1 14

Socrates's oaths, 276

Solar Deity, the birthday of the, 149

Solomon Islanders, their mana^ 223 5 their

oath, 272

soma, 176

Song of Songs, the, kissing in, 122

Soul, return of the, to punish the unfaith- ful wife, 36; in the last breath, 127 ; ideas of the, in relation to life and death, 161 et seq.

South Sea Islands kiss, the, 114

Spanish greeting, 122

Spence (Lewis), on Tlazolteotl, 100

Spencer (Herbert), on love, 77 ; on par- ental love, 93

Spencer (Sir W. Baldwin) and Gillen (F. J.), on sexual jealousy in Australia, 79

Spes animantis, the embryo a, 156

Spinoza's doctrine of love, 95

Spirits, evil, only dangerous to scribes when sexually unclean, 49

irdddha, the, 148

$rTrdmajayanti, the festival of, 149

Stimulants, abstinence from, during cotton- planting, 41

Stoic, the, on foeticide, 158

Storm, kissing the hand to the, 125

stultorutn feriae, the, no

Styx, swearing by the, 268, 279

suavuim, a kiss, 118

succuba, ideas of the, 96

Suckling, avoidance of intercourse during, 61, 69

suhman, tutelary deity, 211

Suicide to prevent loss of virginity, 65 ;

prompted by unrequited passion, 81 ;

among the lower raccb, 178 Sumatras, their oath, 263 Sumerian love-goddess, 97 Sun, the virgins devoted to the service of,

56 ; kiss to, 125 Sun-god, in Peru, 55 ; in India, 180 Sundanese, forbid intercourse for a time

after marriage, 70 Sunday, Easter, kissing on, 128 Sundays, continence on, 49 ; birth on,

lucky, 140 ; the birthday of the Solar

Deity, 149

Supernatural birth in relation to the idealiza- tion of virginity, 30

Supernatural, the, and the erotic, 54

Supernatural vision, the privilege of the virgin, 50

Surpu, Chaldaean invocation, 259

Surya, 257

Swahili, consider it lucky to be born on Friday, 140 ; their women's unguents, 189

Swearing. See Curse, Oath Sympathetic magic, 42, 141 Syrians, their monthly birthdays, 146

Taboo, in its relation to chastity, chap. i. passim ; its removal by anointing, 197- 201 5 as a curse, 236

Tahitians, believe chastity to lead to pos- thumous bliss, 44

Takue, punish seduction, 25

Talisman, the, a life-deposit, 172

tallith, kissing the, 131

Talmit Islanders, allow sexual intercourse before first menstruation, 14

Talmud, on the spoken word, 225 ; on blessing, 226-227 5 cursing, 239,

247» 257 tambu, 236

tanoana, " little man," soul, 163-164 Tantras, on life magic, 176 Taoism, celibacy of priests in, 59 tapa-tapa, a curse, 233 tapui, 236

Tasmanians, their high sexual morality, 21 ;

their anointing, 187, 192 tataro, the, the invocation of the dead, 243 Tatars, their angel of death, 181 Tchaka, celibacy for warriors instituted by,

39 .

Tecuhtli, the order of, 205 Telemachus's oath, 275 Tell-el-Amarna letters, the, 205 tendi, soul, 163

Tenimberese, their curse, 235; their oath, 253, 269

Teohuacan, unchastity of a priest at, 52 Tertullian, on the love of eating, 41 ; on

abstinence as an aid to prayer, 50 ;

on women as the gate of hell, 64 ; on

the kiss, 120 ; on the re-birth of St.

Paul, 148 ; on the prevention of birth,

157

Testament, Douay, swearing on, 133 — , New, swearing on, 132, 133, 274 — , Old, 63, 124, 125, 167, 181, 226, 230, 245, 246, 257, 259 swearing on, 133 Teutonic folklore, curses in, 226, 264 Teutons, their kiss, 115, 135; perjury

amongst the, 278 Tezcatlipoca, not a deity of love, 100 i

perpetually juvenile, 184 Thanatos, 181

Thecle's miracular virginity, 65 Theseus's curse, 237 Thigh, kissing the, 129

INDEX

299

Thlinkets, punish the seducer, 24 ; their preference for virginity, 27 ; their shamans chaste, 55-56; forbid inter- course for a time after marriage, 70

Thomas Aquinas (St.), on fornication, 30 ; on the latter and of a dead embryo, 158; on the maledictio, 259

Thomas of Canterbury (St.), 126

Thoth, swearing by, 273

Tibetan, great oath, the, 132, 269

— Buddhism, method of acquiring life in,

Tilantongo priests, preparation of their food, .52

Timor Islanders, their human sacrifices, 206 tindalo, spirit, 236, 245, 258, 272 Tlazolteotl, goddess of love, 99-100 Tloque-Nahuaque, supreme deity, 186 Todas, their priests celibate, 52 ; their

cursing, 229-230, 233 ; their prayer,

258

tohunga, priest, 229

Toltec, their notion of life and death, 183 ; their anointing, 204

Tongans, their kiss, 114; their notion of life and death, 162; anoint the dead, 196; their cursing, 236

Tongue, used in kissing, 116

Torajas, their notion of life and death, 164

Tornale, their unlucky month, 139

Torres Straits, the natives of, observe chastity during turtle-coupling, 42 ; 196; their anointing, 189

Totems, sex, 171

toiOj the method of, 228

Totonacs, their anointing, 204

Touch and the kiss, 113

Transmigration, and the regard for life, 171 ; in primitive thought, 177; the Australian system, 177; the Haida belief, 184

Travelling, continence while, 38

Trees, life-, 172-174

Trophonius, the oracle of, 203

Tshi, the cause of their preference for vir- ginity, 26 ; the training of their priestly novices, 51 ; their priestesses forbidden to marry, 60; their lucky days, 138 ; naming of their children, 140 ; their birthday beliefs, 144-145

Tuesday, those born on, killed, 139

tuku tuku, a curse, 233

Tumescence, courtship a means of pro- ducing, 88

— and detumescence, the process of, in

relation to chastity, 5, 31, 36-43,

71-75

Tungus, punish the seducer, 23 ; their oath, 265, 268, 269

Turks, their kiss, 125; practise abortion, 155

— of Central Asia, said to be ignorant of fallen virtue in their unmarried girls, 23-24

Turner (G.), on the cursing of the Samoan, 222

Turtles, chastity during coupling of, 42 Tylor (Sir E. B.), on the kiss, 115; on ani- mism, 168, 169; on the Roman sac- ramentum, 279; on the oath, 281 Tyndareus's oath, 268

udambara wood, 215, 216

Uea Islanders, their women chaste, 23

m//z, an unguent, 205

Uncleanliness, the cult of, 73

Unction. See Anointing

Ungunja, the Central Australian men's

camp, 22 United States, foeticide in the, 160 upamana, curse, 225

Vagona, a curse, 257

vaisya, the, in the abhiseka, 216

Valave, allow intercourse to their children,

Vancouver Indians, reprobate unchastity, 24

Vasania, spring festival, 97

Vdstupurusha, the god, 218

Vava, first days, 139

vaivo aru, a curse, 245

Veda, Tajur, quoted, 257

Vedas, chastity when studying the, 48, 58

Veddas, value chastity in the unmarried

women, 23 ; their natural modesty, 29 Fendiddd, on fceticide, 155 Venereal impurity a religious hindrance, 50 Venus, goddess of the planet, 97 Vestal Virgins, the, 56-57; forbidden to

swear, 281 Victorians, their cursing, 234-235 — , Western, are rarely illegitimate, 22 vilepana, 218

Vindyakachaturthi, the festival of, 149 Vintana, the Malagasy doctrine of, 139 Vinci (Leonardo de), on parity in love, 90 Virgin Mary dedicated to God, 65 Virginity, the preference for, 26-32 ; due to the proprietary emotion, 26-27 ; but based on a biological preference, 27-29 ; the idealization of the pre- ference, 30-31 ; second-sight the pri- vilege of, 50 ; the most acceptable sacrifice, 50 ; of priestesses, 52 et seq. ; its miracular powers, 65 Virgins, dedicated, 52 ; the Vestal, 56-57 ; the same forbidden to swear, 281

300 STUDIES OF SAVAGES AND SEX

Virgins of the Sun, in Peru, devoted to

chastity, 55 Vision, means to induce a, 38 ; the privilege

of the virgin, 50 ; a sign of priesthood,

vivnag, sending off [a curse], 245 Vocabularies, decent and indecent, 104

Wakamba, their anointing, 209

Walumbe, god of death, 181

Wanjamwesi, their anointing, 199

War, continence during, 38-39, 61 ; anoint- ing in connexion w^ith, 199-200

zoasat, tent-pole, 267

Wawamba, their anointing, 208

Weapons, a young man's, not allowed to be touched by v^^omen, 38

Welsh, their kiss, 126

Westermarck (Edward), on the alleged wantonness of savages, 8 ; on a pairing season, 9, 10; on marriage among the uncivilized races, 16 ; on the preference for virginity, 27, 28-29 5 ^^ seduction, 30 ; on sexual jealousy, 32 ; on the nature of holiness, 49, 50; on priestly continence, 54 ; on irregular sexual connexions, 62 ; on chastity in Chris- tianity, 62 ; on clerical celibacy, 66 ; on postponed consummation, 71 ; on sexual matters as " impure," 75 ; on Spencer's description of love, 77 ; on conjugal love, 86 ; on the sexual parts of male and female, 87 ; on the mater- nal instinct, 93-94 ; on filial love, 94 ; on homosexual love in America, 99 ; on charging the oath, 131 ; on foeti- cide and infanticide, 151, 154; on kindness to animals in Christianity, 171 ; on the fear of death, 178-179 ; on the curse, 227, 234, 238, 240, 248 et seq., 2645 on the oath, 261-262, 264, 270-271, 276 ; on perjury, 278

zohakahokitu, the reversal of cursing, 229, 236

Widowers, continence of, 41

Widows, the rule of chastity in, 34-36, 41

Wifely chastity, 32-36

William the Conqueror's oath, 275

Witchcraft, sexual inversion and, 92

Witches, virgin, 56

Women, not allowed to touch a young man's

weapons, 38 ; devoted to chastity, 52 ;

the gates of hell, 64 Worship, the continence of, 48 et seq. ;

anointing before, 203 Wotjobaluk, their sex totems, 171-172 Wufurs, forbid intercourse for a time after

marriage, 70 luuulon, the, 235

Xochiquetzal, goddess of love, 99 Xochitecatl, goddess of love, 99

Tagna, sacrifice, the, 217

Tajur Veda, the, quoted, 257

Yakuts, their sexual freedom in youth, 12 ;

do not object to free love, 89-90 ; their

kiss, 115

Yama, king of the dead, 180, 181

Yams, sexual separation during training of,

42 ; harvest feast, 108 Yanadi wedding, the, 214 Yap Islanders, forbid sexual intercourse

before first menstruation, 17 Yartatgurk, the night jar, 171 Tasts, the, on blessing and cursing, 225 yo7ii, worship of, 104 Yopaa, the pontiff of, 52-53 Yoruba, their patroness of love, 96 ; their

anointing, 198 yozvee, " life," 162

Yucatan, the natives of, fasted during the manufacture of idols, 41 ; had a fire tended by virgins, 57

Yucatecs, their priestly virgins, 52

Zapotec priests, punishment of unchastity in the, 52

Zarathushtra, on impurity, 48 ; on abortion, 155; on death as impurity,

....

Zeus and Hera, 189 ; the Ermyes his mmis-

ters, 257 5 swearing by, 272 ; avenger of perjury, 277 Zounds, an oath, 276

Zulus, their warriors celibate, 39 ; their notion about menstruation, 74 ; their means of procuring longevity, 174-175

Zygote, the, 157-159