XXVI. GREAT BRITAIN.--SYPHILITIC DISEASES
First Recognition in England.--Regulations of Henry VI.--Lazar Houses.--John of Gaddesden.--Queen Elizabeth's Surgeon.--Popular Opinions.--Proclamation of James IV. of Scotland.--Middlesex and London Hospitals.--Army.-Navy.--Merchant Service.--St. Bartholomew's Hospital.--Estimated Extent of Syphilis.
The best English and French writers are of opinion that syphilis, as it exists at present, has, in some shape or another, always existed among mankind, although it was not known to science or history, in a distinct manner, until the middle of the fifteenth century.
The period at which syphilis first made its appearance in England is involved in obscurity, but we know that it began to attract attention early in the fifteenth century. The first official recognition of it found on record is a police regulation of the year 1430, during the reign of Henry VI., excluding venereal patients from the London hospitals, and requiring them to be strictly guarded at night. In the time of Henry VIII. there were six lazar houses in London for the reception of venereal patients, namely, at Knightsbridge, Hammersmith, Highgate, Kingsland, St. George's Gate, and Mile-End. These localities were doubtless fixed upon as being some distance from the city.
That the disease, however, must have been known long before the period above specified is certain, from passages which are to be found in the writings of the previous century. John of Gaddesden, who wrote in 1305, and who was a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, thus speaks of the possibility of contracting the disease from leprous women: "Ille qui concubuit cum muliere cum qua coivit leprosas puncturas intra carnem et corium sentil et aliquando calefactiones in toto corpore."[320] Mr. Wm. Acton, upon whose pages as an English standard writer on this subject we draw largely, is of opinion that leprosy, which was formerly so common in Europe, consisted merely of what we now call secondary syphilis. Some of the Jewish observances were no doubt dictated by a scientific appreciation of the influences which predisposed the body to the effects of syphilitic virus. The practice of circumcision seems instituted with a direct view to the preservation of the chosen people from venereal contagion, to which, in a hot climate, and with the extreme deficiency of means for general cleanliness, they would be liable.
As to the type of the disease in former times, there seems no ground for believing that it was more severe than at present, while its numerical importance must have been much smaller. The following extract is from a treatise by Queen Elizabeth's surgeon:
"If I be not deceived in my opinion, I suppose the disease itself was never more rife in Naples, Italie, France, or Spain, than it is in this day in the realme of England. I may speak boldly because I speak truly; and yet I speake it with grief of minde, that in the Hospital of St. Bartholomew, in London, there hath been cured of this disease by me and three others, within five years, to the number of one thousand and more. I speak nothing of St. Thomas's Hospital, and other houses about the citie, wherein an infinite number are daily cured. It happened very seldom in the Hospital of St. Bartholomew while I staid there, among every twenty diseased that were taken into the said house, which was most commonly on the Monday, ten of them were infected with the lues venerea."[321]
It was supposed, in former ages, that syphilis was transmissible by personal communication, touching the clothes, drinking out of the same vessels, or even breathing the same air with infected persons, and accordingly we find the lower orders of people driven out into the fields to die, and physicians refusing to attend the sick for fear of infection.
Some writers, indeed, doubted this kind of contagious influence, and held that it required intercourse, or at least contact. But nobles, and especially the clergy, preferred to ascribe their maladies to misfortune rather than to licentiousness, and sought to "put down" such innovating doctrines. The consequence was that patients were shunned universally, and left to die or get well without assistance. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that in numerous instances the disease should assume its most inveterate aspect, and hence the notices found among many old writers as to the supposed malignancy and incurability of what they were disposed to consider a newly-imported malady. That the disease, in reality, differed little from that which exists in our day, is proved by the fact that cases of the once formidable Black Lion are occasionally to be met with in the London hospitals.
Cardinal Wolsey, among other charges made against him by his enemies, was accused of whispering to the king, Henry VIII., and thereby casting his poisonous breath upon his royal grace, he (Wolsey) having at the time "the foul contagious disease" upon him. The belief as to contagion by this means is not entirely extinct, but is cherished by the laboring classes of England, many of whom entertain great prejudices on the score of health against drinking from the same vessel out of which an infected person has partaken.
In 1497, James IV. of Scotland, in consequence of the frightful prevalence of venereal disease in his kingdom, issued a proclamation banishing the infected from Edinburgh. His majesty "charges straitly all manner of persons being within the freedom of this burt, quilks are infectit, or has been infectit, uncurit with this said contagious plague, callit the grandgor devoyd, red and pass furt of this town, and compeir upon the sandis of Leith at ten hours before none; and thair sall thai have and find boatis reddie in the havin ordainit to them by the officers of this burt, reddy furneist with victuals, to have them to the Inche (Inchkeith), and thair to remain quhill God provyd for thair health." Those evading this ordinance "salle be byrnt on the cheik with the marking irne, that thai may be kennit in tym to cum."
A remnant of this barbarous system was retained in the regulations of Middlesex Hospital, London, by which an admission fee of forty shillings sterling (ten dollars) was directed to be paid by venereal patients. The reason assigned for it was, that a hospital intended for the virtuous might not be made subsidiary to purposes of vice. The regulation, however, became a nullity, and was repealed, owing principally to the fact that the work-house guardians were in the habit of paying the forty shillings and sending in pauper patients, well knowing that the cost of cure in the work-house would far exceed the admission fees.
In the London Hospital a similar regulation exists even now, but is openly evaded, however, by the house surgeon describing the disease as a cutaneous one.
The extent of this disease in Great Britain is matter of opinion alone. There are no positive data whatever upon which to form any conclusion with respect to the general population, while the hospital lists are very imperfectly kept, and it is only in the army and navy returns that we can find any real assistance.
BRITISH ARMY.
The army reports quoted extend over a period of seven years and a quarter, and enter into the details of the various venereal affections of the soldiers, amounting to the aggregate strength of 44,611 quartered in the United Kingdom. The cases admitted into hospitals were:
Syphilis Primary 1415 " Consecutive 335 Ulcer Penis non Syphiliticum 2144 Bubo Simplex 844 Cachexia Syphilitica 44 Gonorrhoea 2449 Hernia Humoralis 714 Stricture Urethra 100 Phymosis and Paraphymosis 27 ---- Total 8072
Ratio: 181 per 1000 men, or nearly one in five in the whole number.
These returns show that the venereal disease is of much more frequent occurrence in the British than in the Belgian army.
BRITISH NAVY.
The navy reports extend over a period of seven years, and include 21,493 men, employed on home service; that is to say, on the coasts or in the ports of Great Britain. Of this number, 2880 were attacked with venereal disease. Ratio: one in seven.
BRITISH MERCHANT SERVICE.
The returns of the "Dreadnought," hospital ship for seamen of all nations, extend over a period of five years, during which 13,081 patients, laboring under surgical and medical diseases, were admitted. Out of these, 3703 came under treatment for venereal affections, showing a ratio of two in seven.
As a mode of testing these returns, we turn to the analysis of the surgical out-patients of Messrs. Lloyd and Wormald, assistant surgeons of Saint Bartholomew's, the largest of the London hospitals. These out-patients are attended gratuitously by the hospital officers:
+-----------------------------------------------------+ | | Venereal Cases. | | Attended by |---------------------------------------| | | Men. | Women and Children. | Total. | |-------------|--------|---------------------|--------| | Mr. Lloyd | 1009 | 245 | 1254 | | Mr. Wormald | 986 | 273 | 1259 | | |--------|---------------------|--------| | Total | 1995 | 518 | 2513 | +-----------------------------------------------------+
These cases were part of a total of 5327 general patients.
This last item alone would not enable one to form any idea of the number of sufferers from this terrible scourge. There are in London nine great hospitals, besides smaller ones, and dispensaries in every parish, or division of a large parish, and other means of gratuitous medical assistance. Suppose the smaller medical foundations put aside, and their patients thrown into the aggregate of the great hospitals, we should have 22,617 venereal patients. Suppose the private practice of the London army of medical men to yield only half as many more, we have 35,000 venereal patients in London only. Without reckoning the Lock Hospital, parish doctors, barracks, and all the other institutions, one would very readily imagine that London alone furnished 50,000 venereal patients per annum.
Again, on the number of single men and widowers in London above twenty years of age (upward of a quarter of a million), the venereal cases, if in the same proportion as among soldiers and sailors, would in the same period amount to 30,000 and upward.
There is, however, another way of conjecturing the amount of disease introduced into the community by prostitution, which English writers have adopted. The Medico-Chirurgical Review, a periodical of high standing, speaking of the extent of venereal disease and its effects on the population, says:
"There is every reason to believe that, to represent the public prostitutes of England, Wales, and Scotland, fifty thousand is an estimate too low. We presume there will be no objection made to the assumption that, unless each of these fifty thousand prostitutes submitted to at least one act of intercourse during every twenty-four hours, she could not obtain means sufficient to support life. The result of the evidence contained in the first report of the Constabulary force of England was that about two per cent. of the prostitutes of London were suffering under some form of venereal disease. But yet we will descend even lower, and presume that of one hundred healthy prostitutes, if each submits to one indiscriminate sexual act in twenty-four hours, not more than one would become infected with syphilis; an estimate which is, without doubt, far too low, yet, if admitted to be correct, the necessary consequence will be, that of the fifty thousand prostitutes, five hundred are diseased within the aforesaid twenty-four hours.
"If we next admit that a fifth of these five hundred diseased women are admitted to hospitals on the day on which disease appears, it follows there are every day on the streets four hundred diseased women. Let it be supposed that the power of these four hundred to infect be limited to twelve days, and that of every six persons who, at the rate of one each night, have connection with these women, five become infected, it will follow that there will be four thousand men infected every night, and, consequently, one million four hundred and sixty thousand in the year. Farther, as there are every night four hundred women diseased by these men, one hundred and eighty-two thousand five hundred public prostitutes will be syphilized during the year, and hence one million, six hundred, and fifty-two thousand, five hundred cases of syphilis in both sexes occur every twelve months. If, then, the entire population had intercourse with prostitutes in an equal ratio, the gross population of Great Britain, of all ages and sexes, would, during eighteen years, have been affected with primary syphilis. Be it remembered, we do not assert that more than a million and a half of persons are attacked every year, but that that number of cases occur annually in England, Wales, and Scotland, though the same individual may be attacked more than once. Although it is evident that all the estimates used for these calculations are (we know no other word that expresses it) ridiculously low, yet we find that more than a million and a half cases of syphilis occur every year, an amount which is probably not half the actual number. How enormous, then, must be the number of children born with secondary syphilis! how immense the mortality among them! how vast an amount of public and private money expended in the cure of this disease!"
XXVII. MEXICO
Spanish Conquest.--Treatment of Female Prisoners.--Mexican Manners in 1677.--Priesthood.--Modern Society.--Fashionable Life.--Indifference of Husbands to their Wives.--General Immorality.--Offenses.-- Charitable Institutions.--The Cuna, or Foundling Hospital.
The social condition of Mexico is of importance, as it was formerly the chief seat of Spanish domination in America, and its manners and government gave the key to all the other colonies and viceroyalties which owed allegiance to the crown of Spain. Whatever the state of the native population may have been when Spanish leaders and their myrmidons burst upon them, and broke up the kingdom of the Mexican emperors, they rapidly succumbed beneath the lust, avarice, and cruelty which were ever the distinctive features of Spanish warfare and conquest in every clime and against every people. Of the enormities perpetrated by these soldiers, the history of the Mexican conquest gives us innumerable instances; but one solitary example, from Bernal de Diaz, will be enough. He tells us that when they took women prisoners, they made a division of them at night for the sake of greater peace and quietness, and that they branded them with the marks of their owners. They were thus at liberty to choose the handsomest of the Indian women, and reserve them for their own uses. What these uses were can be easily supposed. The fate of less favored female prisoners is left in doubt; they were turned over to their savage allies, to be butchered in cold blood, or otherwise disposed of as most convenient.
From Mexico the flood of Spanish cruelty and immorality spread itself like a stream of lava over the whole of South America. The chivalry of the soldiery soon degenerated, and the self-denial and lofty motives, darkened though they were by bigotry and cruelty in some cases, which had distinguished the priests, were lost. Inglorious ease and luxurious indolence now superseded that love of adventure and unconquerable daring which distinguished Cortez and Pizarro, and their comrades: no trace of the old heroic character remained save the grinding oppression and reckless selfishness which usually accompany ambition.
An illustration of the loose manners which prevailed in Mexico among the clergy is to be found in the voyages of Thomas Page, a Dominican monk, who visited Mexico with some of his order on their road to the western coast of America and to Asia as missionaries.
From this work, published in 1677, we learn that the writer and his companions visited the prior of Vera Cruz on their journey, and, after a sumptuous dinner, adjourned, by invitation, to his cell. They found it richly tapestried and adorned with feathers of the birds of Michoacou; the walls were hung with various pictures of merit; rich rugs of silk covered the tables; porcelain of China filled the cupboards and sideboards, and there were vases and bowls containing preserved fruits and sweetmeats. "My companions," says he, "were scandalized by such an exhibition. The holy friar talked to us of his ancestry, of his good parts, of the influence he had with the Father Provincial, of the love the principal ladies of the place bore him, of his beautiful voice and skill in music. He took his guitar and sang us a sonnet in praise of a certain lady." Afterward, speaking of the Franciscans of Jalapa, Thomas Page says: "Their lives are so free and immodest that it might be suspected with reason that they had renounced only that which they could not obtain." After witnessing a gambling scene in a convent, he concludes that "the cause of so many Friars and Jesuits passing from Spain to regions so distant was libertinage rather than love of preaching the Gospel."
The same writer subsequently passes from portraiture to more general delineation, and thus depicts the body of the clergy: "It seems that all wickedness is allowable, so that the churches and clergy flourish. Nay, while the purse is open to lasciviousness, if it be also open to enrich the temple walls and roof, it is better than any holy water.... In their lifetime the Mexicans strive to excel one another in their gifts to the cloisters of nuns and friars."
"Among the benefactors was one, Alonzo Cuellar, so rich that he was reported to have a closet in his house laid with bars of gold instead of bricks. This man built a nunnery for Franciscan nuns, which cost him thirty thousand ducats, and left to it two thousand dollars yearly. And yet his life was so scandalous that commonly in the night, with two servants, he would go round the city visiting scandalous persons, and at every house letting fall a bead and tying a knot, that when he came home in the morning, he might number, by his beads, the uncivil stations he had visited that night.
"Great alms and liberality toward religious houses are coupled with great and scandalous wickedness. They wallow in the bed of riches and wealth, and make their alms the coverlet to conceal their loose and lascivious lives....
"I will not speak much of the lives of the friars and nuns of this city, but only that they enjoy there more liberty than in Europe, where they have too much, and that surely the scandals committed by them do cry up to heaven for vengeance, judgment, and destruction.
"It is ordinary for the friars to visit their devoted nuns, and to spend whole days with them, hearing their music and feeding on their sweetmeats. For this purpose they have many chambers, which they call loquatories, to talk in, with wooden bars between the nuns and them, and in these chambers are tables for the friars to dine at, and while they dine the nuns recreate them with their voices."
We need no addition to these deep shadows from the dark pencil of so vigorous a limner as worthy Thomas Page, to delineate character nearly two hundred years ago, but we can scarcely believe it equally applicable to the present day. The reign of oppression in Mexico, it is to be hoped, is approaching its end, and recent events have shown that the population is alive to some of those truths which were long ago patent to all the world except those most intimately concerned.
Of modern Mexican society, an accomplished female writer, who had the best opportunities of judging, says:
"It is long before a stranger even suspects the state of morals in this country, for, whatever be the private conduct of individuals, the most perfect decorum prevails in outward behavior. But indolence is the mother of vice. They rarely gossip to strangers about their neighbors' faults. Habit has rendered them tolerably indifferent as to the liaisons subsisting among particular friends, and as long as a woman attends church regularly, is a patroness of charitable institutions, and gives no scandal by her outward behavior, she may do pretty much as she pleases. As for flirtations in public, they are unknown."[322]
The present amiability of the Mexican ladies is admitted on all hands, as is the genial warmth of their manner. Some travelers, indeed, and among them Mr. Waddy Thompson, are of opinion that this is attributed to them as a fault, and that the reproach of unchastity is unjustly urged against them, as there is no city in Europe where there is less immorality. The constant presence of a duenna, and the house-porter, who is an appurtenance of every household of respectability, are excellent checks on immorality. But this would rather argue the necessity of a safeguard not found in the female virtue of Mexico. Besides, these appendages of rank have lost their real meaning, and the duenna may be converted into the convenient cloak or abettor of an intrigue, the more safe as she is the supposed protectress of the husband's honor. A native writer, in summing up the character of his countrymen, says that "they are moderate in eating, but their passion for liquor is carried to the greatest excess. The affection which husbands bear their wives is certainly much less than that borne by wives to their husbands, and it is very common for the men to love their neighbors' wives better than their own."[323] This one-sided censure presupposes, as a necessary consequence, that the neighbors' wives must show some reciprocity.
The general immorality of the lower classes in Mexico would almost exclude the expectation of a system of prostitution, as we usually understand the term. Puebla, a manufacturing town near Mexico, is summarily described as having a most devout female population, and a most abandoned one; but this is matter of conduct rather than of calling. The enumeration of offenses in the justice list of Mexico does not tell of one prostitute, although it contains a large number of persons guilty of "incontinence." The exact meaning of this offense, in its legal and technical sense, is not given us, but we presume it relates to improper and disgusting practices. The charge of "violation of public decency," although it may relate to mutual familiarities, will probably include both indecency and immorality.
The following table gives the number of persons arrested in the city of Mexico in 1851.
+------------------------------------------------------+ | Offenses. | Males. |Females.| Total.| |----------------------------|--------|--------|-------| |Drunkenness | 1256 | 1944 | 3200 | |Affrays and wounds | 728 | 246 | 974 | |Incontinence | 354 | 403 | 757 | |Violations of public decency| 311 | 318 | 629 | |Robbery | 384 | 120 | 504 | |Suspicion of robbery | 180 | 84 | 264 | |Carrying weapons | 209 | 85 | 294 | |Picking pockets | 120 | 25 | 145 | |False pretenses | 39 | 17 | 56 | |Breaking prison | 36 | ... | 36 | |Murder | 15 | 3 | 18 | | |--------|--------|-------| | Total | 3632 | 3245 | 6877 | +------------------------------------------------------+
Among a population of inferior intellect, and with the excess of women always to be found in tropical countries, the character of the priesthood becomes of primary importance. On this particular, some writers are of opinion that what was written in 1677 will apply with almost equal force in the present day; a position certainly open to doubt.[324]
The lower orders of the priests and friars in Mexico are generally uneducated and frequently licentious. The most revolting spectacles of vice and immorality are exhibited by some of them. They are remarkable for the roue appearance they present, but they can not be considered types of the class, for the higher orders and respectable members of the priesthood are exempt from the imputation of such flagrant immorality. Even these are not blameless members of the Church. Many of them have nephews and nieces in their houses, or at least those who call them uncle, but to whom scandal ascribes a closer relationship.
Among the charitable institutions in Mexico, perhaps the most important is the Cuna, or Foundling Hospital. It is supported by private individuals, and the members of the society consist of the first persons in the capital, male and female. The men furnish the money; the women give their time and attention. When a child has been about a month in the hospital, it is sent with an Indian nurse to one of the adjacent villages; but if sick or feeble, it remains in the institution, under the immediate inspection of the society. These nurses are subject to a responsible person, who lives in the village and answers for their good conduct. The child is brought back to the hospital when weaned, and remains in its charge for life. Few, however, are left to grow up in the asylum; they are adopted by respectable persons, who bring them up either as servants or as their own children. In this, as in other institutions of the same character, the mothers of the children often get themselves hired as nurses. There are usually five or six hundred children in this asylum.[325]
XXVIII. CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA
Low moral Condition.--San Salvador.--Guatemala.--Yucatan.--Costa Rica.--Honduras.--The Caribs.--Depravity in Peru and Chili.--"Children of the House."--Intrigue in Lima.--Infanticide.--Laxity of Morals in Brazil and Paraguay.--Foundling Hospital at Rio Janeiro.
The whole peninsula of South America, and the states comprised in Central America, are involved in the same social system with Mexico, derived as they are by common origin from pure or mixed Spanish blood. The same political circumstances and organization have always affected the various territorial divisions, and whether we consider the semi-civilized nations of ancient Peru and its dependencies, or the savage tribes in the valleys of the Amazon and the La Plata, we find them, after the first irruption of Spanish conquerors, victims of indiscriminate oppression, insatiable avarice, and unsparing lust. South America was long considered a mere treasure-field of the Spanish monarchy, to be worked without liability to account by every adventurer who chose to encounter the hardships of foreign travel, or the perils of residence in a tropical climate and amid hostile savages.
The natives far outnumbered their masters, and the same ruthless system of depression was extended to them as to Mexico. The consequence was, that before the lapse of many generations from the Conquest, there were but two classes throughout the vast Spanish territories--masters and slaves. The natural and inevitable result of servile institutions could not long be postponed. The descendants of the conquerors rapidly degenerated, and imbecility and incapacity took the places of heroism and ability. The original hardihood and daring, which had vanquished uncounted enemies, had traversed unknown wilds, had defied every danger, were lost in voluptuousness and self-indulgence. The posterity of those men who had discovered a new world, and swayed the destinies of the old by a nod or the stroke of a pen, were unable to protect themselves against the weak ministers of a worn-out despotism, or against any unscrupulous demagogue who could rally a band of roving Indians around him, and maraud the peaceable and well-disposed. A state of political degradation reigned supreme over the whole of South America, only to be paralleled by the debasement of its social condition.
In Central America, including San Salvador, Guatemala, Yucatan, Costa Rica, and Honduras, the condition of the women is very much the same as in Mexico. The statements of travelers in those little-frequented regions are very vague in reference to the subject of public morality, and give us no reliable or detailed information on the specialities which would be of service in this inquiry. In Yucatan, the ladies are said to be somewhat more domesticated than their Mexican neighbors, and to interest themselves in the management of their households and the education of their children; but still the standard of morality is not very high, if measured by United States habits and ideas.[326] In the neighboring republic of Guatemala, the free manners prevalent in the country districts of the kindred territories are usually met with;[327] but these would rather indicate low ideas of decency than any actual immorality. Difference of climate and of race would make many things tolerable, or even reputable, which our colder skies and more rigid notions would totally exclude from the observances of civilized society.
The Indian populations of South America have become so completely slaves during long years of bondage that they have lost their prominent characteristics,[328] and are but a reflex of their masters in the lowest state of ignorance. The women may be generally described as of very loose morals, yet kind and gentle unless roused by jealousy, in which case they can use the knife as promptly as their male friends. It is said they make very affectionate mothers.
There are a few tribes who have preserved some semblance of nationality. The Caribs of Honduras are a hardy and athletic race. Polygamy is general among them, three or four wives being a not uncommon number. The husband is compelled to have a separate house and plantation for each, and, if he make one a present, he must give the others something of equal value. He must also divide his time among them, giving a week to each in succession. When a Carib takes a wife, he fells a plantation and builds a house; the wife then takes the management, and he becomes a gentleman. The women attend their plantations with great care, and, in the course of twelve or fifteen months, have every description of breadstuff under cultivation. About Christmas they engage several creers, and freight them with produce for Truxillo and Belize, hiring their husbands and others as sailors. It is also the custom, when a woman can not do all the work required on her plantation, for her to engage her husband as a laborer, and pay him two dollars per week. Industry and forethought are peculiar traits of the Carib women, consequently they easily surround themselves with necessaries and comforts.
The data bearing on the proportion of the sexes in the aggregate population, although too imperfect to be worth presenting, yet go to show that, as in Mexico, there is a considerable preponderance of females.[329] The disproportion in births is not so great as in deaths; for, while the number of males and females born is nearly equal, more of the former than the latter die annually. There are more old women than old men, ascribable, no doubt, to the greater sobriety of the women, drunkenness being a vice which, under the tropics, is rapid in its consequences. In Nicaragua the women number two to one of the male population. The Department of Cuscatlan in San Salvador has an excess of 1838 women over men, and of 1709 boys over girls.
Peru and Chili, though neighboring countries, and both in the strip of western coast between the Andes and the sea, present considerable difference of condition. Chili is rapidly rising in political importance by means of the internal energy of the people, and the development of natural resources by native and foreign enterprise and capital.
It has been asserted by resident eye-witnesses that female virtue was at so low an ebb in Chili within a few years, that in most families, even of good standing, there were one or more children who were called "children of the house," and whose parentage was distributed generally among the ladies of the family. Nay, we have heard that the rites of hospitality sometimes included civilities in respect to the females which are usually considered as peculiar to certain Oriental nations. A rapid change for the better is, however, taking place in these usages, and even the sea-port of Valparaiso is described by Wilkes as being greatly improved from the period of his first visit, when few sailors left it without having lost both their money and health among its women.
Peru has made but little advance in its recent political changes. The government is in a state of continual anarchy. A new mine of wealth has been discovered in the guano deposits of the Chincha Islands, which has attracted great numbers of foreign vessels to its shores. But the wealth acquired from this source has done little for the people. Lima, the capital, has long been remarkable for the levity and dissipation of its inhabitants. The very dress of the ladies, which may have been originally intended to insure seclusion and privacy, has become an emblem of intrigue. It consists of a peculiar hood and petticoat, covering the wearer entirely, who, when thus in domino, is styled tapada, and is, by common usage, held to be secure from all impertinent interference or insult. The same term is applied to a shawl worn over the head, so as to cover the mouth and forehead. Under this concealment the wearer is known only to the most intimate friends, and ladies thus attired frequent the theatres. It is favorable to intrigue, and so perfect is the security that any place of amusement may be visited with impunity, and, even if suspected by the husband or relative, she is protected from discovery by the respect attached to the custom.
Dr. Tschudi draws a very cheerless picture of the state and prospects of Peru.[330] Its moral degradation is significantly typified in the decline of its population, which has been continually diminishing since the establishment of its independence. That noble land, which contained an enormous population at the time of the Conquest, numbered in 1836 less than 1,400,000 inhabitants; not so many as were formerly found in the department of Cusco alone. The deaths in Lima vary annually from 2500 to 2800 out of a population of 53,000; in the ten months from January 1st to October 31st, 1841, they were 2244, the births in that period being 1682, of which 860 were illegitimate.
"Not less remarkable than the number of illegitimate children is that of the new-born infants exposed and found dead (495). These afford the most striking proofs of the immorality which prevails in Lima, especially among the colored people. To them belong nearly two thirds of the illegitimate births, and fully four fifths of the children cast out to die. There is reason to suspect, though it can not be positively proved, that no small portion of the latter suffer a violent death by the hands of their mothers. When a dead child is picked up before the church of San Lazaro, or in the street, it is carried, without a word of inquiry, to the Pantheon; frequently it is not even thought worth while to bury it. I have seen the vultures dragging about the sweltering carcasses of infants, and devouring them in populous streets. * * * * On comparing the lists of births and deaths from 1826 to 1842, I satisfied myself that the annual excess of the latter over the former averages 550.
"The women of Lima are far superior to the men, both corporeally and intellectually, though their conduct in many respects is any thing but exemplary. They cling with invincible tenacity to the use of their national walking garb, the saya y manto, in which they take their pleasure in the streets, making keen play with the one eye they leave uncovered, and quite secure in that disguise from detection, even by the most jealous scrutiny. The veil is inviolable; any man who should attempt to pluck off a woman's manto would be very severely handled by the populace. The history of their lives comprises two phases: in the full bloom of their fascinating beauty their time is divided between doing naught and naughty doings; when their charms are on the wane, they take to devotion and scandal. A young lady of Lima rises late, dresses her hair with orange or jasmine flowers, and waits for breakfast, after which she receives or pays visits. During the heat of the day she swings in a hammock or reclines on a sofa, smoking a cigar. After dinner she again pays visits, and finishes the evening either in the theatre, or the Plaza, or on the bridge. Few ladies occupy themselves with needlework or netting, though some of them possess great skill in those arts.
"The pride which the fair Limeñas take in their dainty little feet knows no bounds. Walking, sitting, or standing, swinging in the hammock or lying on the sofa, they are ever watchful to let their tiny feet be seen. Praise of their virtue, their intelligence, or their beauty, sounds not half so sweetly in their ears as encomiums bestowed on their pretty feet. They take the most scrupulous care of them, and avoid every thing that might favor their enlargement. A large foot (pataza Inglesa--an English foot, as they say) is an abomination to them. I once heard a beautiful European lady deservedly extolled by some fair dames of Lima, but they wound up their eulogy with these words: "Pero que pie! valgame Dio, sparece una lancha!" (but what a foot! Good heavens, it is like a great boat!) and yet the foot in question would by no means have been thought large in Europe.
"The Limeñas possess, in an extraordinary degree, talents which unhappily are seldom cultivated as they should be. They have great penetration, sound judgment, and very correct views respecting the most diversified affairs of life. Like the women of Seville, they are remarkable for their quick and pointed repartees, and a Limeña is sure never to come off second best in a war of words. They possess a rare firmness of character, and a courage not generally given to their sex. In these respects they are far superior to the dastardly, vacillating men, and they have played as important a part as the latter (often one much more so) in all the political troubles of their country. Ambitious and aspiring, accustomed to conduct with ease the maziest intrigues with a presence of mind that never fails them at critical moments, passionate and bold, they mingle in the great game of politics with momentous effect, and usually turn it to their own advantage, seldom to that of the state."
Add to this picture that, though delicate, modest women are rare, actual adultery is not often committed by the sex, but that concubinage is more common, or rather, perhaps, more public than in Europe, the father being usually very fond and careful of his natural children, and a fair view is obtained of female character in Lima. The white Creoles are noted for sensuality, and some of the dances in which they indulge are of indescribable obscenity.[331]
The influx of foreign ships and seamen into Callao, the port of Lima, has brought in its train the usual accompaniments, drunkenness and debauchery. A few years ago it was almost in decay and ruin; now it swarms with drinking-shops (pulperias) and prostitutes, and is probably as profligate a place as any in the western hemisphere.
Passing to the Atlantic coast of South America, we find Robertson, the author of "Letters from Paraguay," writing of female Spanish society at the city of Santa Fe:
"I was particularly struck by the extremely free nature (to use the very gentlest expression) of the conversation which was adopted with the ladies, young and old. It was such as to make me, with my unsophisticated English feelings, blush at every turn, although such modesty, whenever it was observed, caused a hearty laugh."
The same author, speaking of female society in Rio, says:
"There is no society at Rio, for I can not call that society from which females are excluded. Generally speaking, the husband of a Brazilian wife is not so much her companion as her keeper. His house is the abode of jealousy and distrust, for he can not always stretch his confidence to the point of imagining fidelity in the wife of his bosom, any more than he can rely on the virtuous forbearance of the friend of his heart. His daughters are brought up in Moorish seclusion, and his wife is delivered over to the keeping of a train of sombre slaves and domestics."
It may be thought that some of these remarks are applicable to periods of time and conditions of society now happily passed away. But the poison of moral depravity, when once taken up, is not to be speedily eliminated from the system of nations more than of individuals. A very recent traveler, Mr. Stewart, testifies to the demoralization of female society in all classes.[332]
With such uniform representations of the general immorality, and of the low estimate in which female virtue is held in South America, it is not to be expected that there are any special details on the subject of our investigation. Prostitution is in some degree attendant upon a state of public feeling in which the purity of wives and daughters is held in respect--not viewed with jealousy, but with reverence. In South America, even in the present time, females mix but little in society. Their education is very limited, terminates early, and they are always under some kind of guardianship or chaperonage in public. This does not elevate the female character. Freedom and self-respect are the best protectives to virtue and honor, and the seclusion of women from general society only serves to invest them with the attraction of mystery to the libertine, while it takes away from themselves the experience and self-reliance in which they find a safeguard.
In South America generally, the character of the priesthood is unfortunately open to reprobation. In Brazil, the priests are reputed to be free livers. Nearly all of them have families, and when seen leaving the dwellings of their wives, or of the females they visit, they speak of them as their nieces or sisters. Some unequivocally admit the relationship existing, and acknowledge their children.[333] The value of the priestly character, in estimating the standard of morality among a population is unquestionably great.
An enlightened native said to Mr. Ewbank, "The priesthood of this country is superlatively corrupt. It is impossible for men to be worse, or to imagine them worse. In the churches they appear respectable and devout, but their secret crimes have made this city a Sodom. There are, of course, honorable exceptions."[334]
Another, a man of unquestionable authority, said, "They are assuredly the most licentious and profligate part of the community. The exceptions are rare. Celibacy being one of their dogmas, you will find nearly the whole with families."
At Rio Janeiro there is a Foundling Hospital, established in 1582, which is a noble institution. The boys are provided for at Botofoga, and are in due time apprenticed to trades. The girls reside in the city establishment, and are taught to read, write, sew, etc. At each anniversary, bachelors in want of wives attend at the festival, and if they see girls to their liking, make themselves known. If a girl accepts such a lover, he makes his application to the managers, who inquire into his character, and, if satisfactory, the marriage takes place, and a small dowry is given from the funds of the society. In the management of the institution or the reception of infants, there is nothing peculiarly worthy notice. But if those who are averse to such institutions contrast the blessed results of saving these helpless infants from misery, and the horror of beholding their dead bodies cast on dunghills, to be devoured as carrion by obscene animals and birds of prey, as has been mentioned in the notice of Lima, they would, on such grounds, even if there were no better to be urged, suspend a hasty judgment on Foundling Hospitals.
XXIX. NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
Decrease of the Indian Race.--Treatment of Females.--Courtship.-- Stealing Wives.--Domestic Life among the Crow Indians.--"Pine Leaf."-- Female Prisoners.--Marriage.--Conjugal Relations.--Infidelity.-- Polygamy.--Divorce.--Female Morality.--Intrigue and Revenge.--Decency of Outward Life.--Effects of Contact with White Men.--Traders.
The aboriginal inhabitants of the vast continent of America have been variously described by different writers, one man lauding them as models of chivalry and virtue, another decrying them as the personification of meanness and vice. Hence it is only at a recent period, comparatively speaking, that any reliable information has been obtainable on the subject. In the limited space that can be given to a consideration of the Indian and his social habits, we shall endeavor to reject both romance and vituperation. We do not believe him so stoically virtuous as the former class of writers depict, nor do we think that all of the race are so deeply sunk in depravity as the latter represent.
In addition to the authorities quoted in the progress of the chapter, we are under obligations to Mr. Horace St. John's article on Prostitution, incorporated by Mr. Mayhew in his tracts on "London Labor and the London Poor."
At the time of the settlement of Jamestown and Plymouth, it was estimated that there were about two millions of Indians scattered over this continent. They were then a brave and hardy people, who lived on the produce of the chase, varying their locations as the facilities for hunting required. When the last census of the United States was taken, their numbers were about four hundred thousand, exclusive of fifteen thousand in Canada and the British possessions. This decrease has been ascribed to the occupation of their hunting-grounds by white men, and the consequent extermination of the game upon which they depended for subsistence; the free use of intoxicating liquors, and the introduction of small-pox and other fatal diseases. These causes will, in all probability, result in the entire extinction of the race. In the small number mentioned are many half-breeds, children of white fathers and Indian mothers.
It might naturally be supposed that in the several tribes composing this people there would exist great diversity of manners, but these are found only in minor particulars. The social institutions of the North American Indians are so generally uniform as to render it possible to sketch the whole at one view.
Their occupations are still confined to the chase and the war-path. To perform a round of daily labor, even though it insured the most ample provision for his wants, would be contrary alike to the inclination and the supposed dignity of the Red Man, who will scarcely deign to follow any pursuit which does not combine enterprise and excitement. Woman, therefore, becomes the drudge and slave; upon her devolves the duty of cultivating the ground, whenever any attempt is made to assist the spontaneous efforts of Nature; she it is who must bear the load of game which her husband has killed; must carry wood and water, build huts, and make canoes. In fishing, and in reaping their scanty harvest, the man will, at times, condescend to assist her, but otherwise all the labor falls to her share. In those tribes visited by traders, her duties are still heavier; she must join in the hunt, and afterward dress and prepare the skins and furs which are to be bartered for whisky and other luxuries. To this degraded condition the women seem perfectly reconciled, and expertness at the assigned employment is a source of pride to them.
The treatment of the female sex is generally admitted to be a standard by which man's moral qualities can be estimated. It may be doubted if this rule would apply to the Indian tribes, for those who treat their females most mildly are by no means the most virtuous, nor is their deference attended by any increase of attachment, the general opinion of a wife's value being the consideration of her capacity to be useful. Where they aid in procuring food or luxuries for the tribe, they are held in more esteem; while in places where the chief burden of providing rests upon the men, they are treated with severity.[335]
Even when oppressed with these laborious occupations, the women have as much native vanity in respect to decoration as the sex in any part of the world; and an accurate observer remarks that, "Judging from the time a squaw often occupies in arranging her hair, or disposing her scanty dress, or painting her round cheeks with glaring circles of vermilion, it is evident that personal ornament occupies as much of her thoughts as among fashionable women in civilized society."[336]
Courtship and marriage are differently arranged among various tribes. The predominant custom is for a man to procure a wife by purchase from her father, thus acquiring a property over which he has absolute control, and which he can barter away or dispose of in any manner he pleases. The example of Powhatan, who was chief ruler over thirty tribes in Virginia at the time of the English colonization, is a case in point. It is said that he always had a multitude of wives about him, and when he wearied of any would distribute them as presents among his principal warriors. In most cases the woman is not consulted at all, the whole transaction being a mercantile one; in others an infant female is betrothed by her father (for a consideration) to some man who requires a wife, either for himself or for his son. The girl remains with her parents until the age of puberty, when the contract is completed, at which time the father often makes a present to the husband equal in value to the price originally paid for his daughter.[337]
Another mode of obtaining a wife is to steal a girl from some neighboring tribe. Captain Clarke, who crossed the Rocky Mountains in the years 1804-1806, as one of the leaders of an expedition ordered by the executive of the United States, records instances of this kind. He says, "One of the Ahnahaways had stolen a Minnetaree girl. The whole nation immediately espoused the quarrel, and one hundred and fifty of the warriors were marching down to avenge the insult. The chief took possession of the girl, and sent her by messengers to the hands of her countrymen in time to avert the threatened calamity."[338] "A young Minnetaree had carried off the daughter of a chief of the Mandans. The father went to the village and found his daughter, whom he brought home, and at the same time took possession of a horse belonging to the offender. This reprisal satisfied his vengeance. The stealing of young women is one of the most common offenses."[339]
A more peaceable kind of preliminary to matrimony is for a man desiring a wife to offer a small present to the woman: if she accepts it and offers him one in return, the match is complete; or he may tell her his wishes without any introductory gift, and, if agreeable, she will reply accordingly. Others will not venture to express their thoughts, but will sit quietly by a girl's side, and, if she does not remove from her seat, her assent is understood to be given.[340] Still another custom is for the lover to enter the woman's tent at night, bearing a lighted torch. If she allows it to burn, it is a sign that his attentions are not desired; but if she extinguishes it, she thus intimates that he is accepted. It will not require much knowledge of human nature to imagine the consequences of these nocturnal visits.
A recently published work, "Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, New York, 1856," professes to give an accurate account of the domestic life of the Crow Indians, among whom he lived for some years, and became a chief of the tribe, who believed that he was one of themselves, and had been stolen from them in infancy. It may be necessary to say that we only quote him on points where corroborative evidence can be obtained from other sources. His character for veracity is questionable, and among the miners of California, where he is known, any extravagant tale is proverbially called "one of Jem Beckwourth's lies." His first experience of matrimony, showing that the woman's consent was not asked, but that the arrangements were made by the parents, is thus stated: "While conversing with my father, he suddenly demanded if I wanted a wife; I assented. 'Very well,' said he, 'you shall have a pretty wife and a good one.' Away he strode to the lodge of one of the greatest braves, and asked one of his daughters of him to bestow upon his son. The consent of the parent was readily given. He had three very pretty daughters, and the ensuing day they were brought to my father's lodge, and I was requested to take my choice. The eldest was named 'Still Water,' and I chose her. The acceptance of my wife was the completion of the ceremony, and I was a married man, as sacredly in their eyes as if the Holy Christian Church had fastened the irrevocable knot upon us."[341]
Cases are also recorded by Indian travelers wherein a custom more assimilating to civilized notions is adopted. A young man will court a girl for a length of time, using all his endeavors to cultivate her affections, and the woman, upon her part, will entertain an equal tenderness for him. Again turning to the pages of Beckwourth, we find an instance of this in the case of a woman who attracted his attention. It must not be considered that he was a victim of the romantic affliction called "first love," for he had some six or eight wives in the tribe at the time. His description is as follows:
"In connection with my Indian experience, I conceive it to be my duty to devote a few lines to one of the bravest women that ever lived, namely, 'Pine Leaf'--in Indian, Barcheeampe. She possessed great intellectual powers; her features were pleasing, and her form symmetrical. She had lost a twin brother in an attack on the village, and was left to avenge his death. She was at that time twelve years of age, and solemnly vowed that she would never marry until she had killed a hundred of the enemy with her own hand. Whenever a war-party started, Pine Leaf was the first to volunteer to accompany them.... She had chosen my party to serve in.... I began to feel more than a common attachment toward her. One day, while riding leisurely along, I asked her to marry me, provided we both returned safe. She laughed and said, 'Well, I will marry you.' 'When we return?' 'No, but when the pine leaves turn yellow.' I reflected that it would soon be winter, and regarded her promise as valid. A few days afterward it occurred to me that pine leaves do not turn yellow, and I saw I had been practiced upon. When I again spoke to her on the subject, I said, 'Pine Leaf, you promised to marry me when the pine leaves turn yellow; it has occurred to me that they never turn yellow. Am I to understand that you never intend to marry me?' 'Yes, I will marry you,' she said, with a coquettish smile. 'But when?' 'When you shall find a redheaded Indian.' I saw I advanced nothing by importuning her, and I let the matter rest."[342]
It would occupy too much space to recite all the details of a long courtship, including scenes in war and chase, at the camp, or on horse-stealing excursions; suffice it to say that the heroine accomplished her vow, and seemed convinced of the sincerity of her lover. She concluded the courtship thus:
"She then approached me, every eye being intently fixed upon her. 'Look at me,' she said. 'I know that your heart is crying for the follies of the people; but let it cry no more. I am yours, after you have so long been seeking me. I believe you love me. Our lodge shall be a happy one, and, when you depart to the happy hunting-ground, I will be already there to welcome you. This day I become your wife.'"[343]
Women will sometimes voluntarily ask men to marry them, promising to be faithful, good-tempered, and obedient. This request is seldom refused, as the marriage tie is easily dissolved if the union proves unpleasant. Tanner, who was taken prisoner by a war-party, and lived among various tribes in the northwest for nearly thirty years, relates a case in point. The woman's endeavors to secure him as her husband commenced with an invitation to smoke with her. He acceded; but either his blood was not so warm as that coursing through Indian veins, or from some other cause, it was long before he consented to the proposed companionship, which a Red Man would have accepted on the spot. The girl resolutely pursued him, and at last, with the consent of her father, took possession of his hut while he was absent. When he returned, "he could not put the young woman to shame" by sending her back to her friends, and so they became man and wife.[344]
Beckwourth also had some experience of this custom. "A little girl, who had often asked me to marry her, came to me one day, and with every importunity insisted on my accepting her as my wife. I said, 'When you are older I will talk to you about it;' but she would not be put off. 'You are a great brave,' she said; 'and, if I am your wife, you will paint my face when you return from the war, and I shall be proud.' The little innocent used such powerful appeals that I told her she might be my wife."[345] He lived with her until he left the Indians, and her son is now (1855) chief of the tribe.
The women taken prisoners in war are frequently married into the tribe that captured them, but never to the captors, who stand in the relation of brothers to them, and by whom they are protected from insult. A warrior who has taken a female prisoner usually makes an exchange with another who has had the same fortune, each being thus accommodated without infringing upon custom. If a man has seized more than he can dispose of in that way, he generally gives them to any man who will accept them.[346] In the same manner, a woman whose husband has been killed in battle will ask a warrior for a male prisoner, who accordingly becomes the successor of one whom he has probably slain. In these cases the man is adopted as one of the tribe, is kindly treated, and entitled to his share of all their advantages.[347]
The marriages are without ceremony of any kind; the parties agree to live with each other as long as they can do so with mutual satisfaction, and the man conducts his bride to his hut at once, or resides with her at her father's cabin. It must not be supposed that the ordinary requirements of a married life are systematically unheeded, for, as a general rule, the squaws are faithful to their husbands, who, upon their part, rigidly exact this fidelity, even if they do not practice it themselves.
The general description of the position of Indian women already given applies equally to their state after marriage. They continue sometimes the abject slaves, otherwise the patient servants of their husbands. While he eats the food she has cooked, and probably caught herself, she must wait in submissive silence. At all times she approaches him with the deference due to a superior being. An Indian will never evince the slightest symptom of tenderness toward his wife; this would be opposed to his idea of manly dignity; but the eagerness with which he will revenge her wrongs proves that his apparent apathy springs only from pride, or a fancied sense of decorum.[348] When Catlin proposed to paint the portrait of the wife of a Sioux chief, his offer was ridiculed, and it was considered marvelous that he should honor a woman in the same manner he had honored the warriors, as the former had never taken any scalps, never done any thing but make fires, dress skins, and other servile employments.
To infer from these facts that there is no conjugal affection among this people would be erroneous. Notwithstanding their assumed indifference, instances are not rare of strong mutual attachment. To an Indian there is nothing inconsistent with affection in his indolently walking through the forest, while his wife follows him bearing the heavy wigwam poles, his ideas never having been led to consider this as other than her natural duty. Many pictures of domestic happiness are exhibited among the Indians, and the Blackfeet, Sanee, and Blood tribes strongly desire that their wives may live long and look young. Heckewelder relates a singular instance of indulgence. In 1762 there was a scarcity of food among many tribes, and during the prevalence of this famine a sick woman wished for a mess of Indian corn. Her husband rode about a hundred miles to obtain it, gave his horse in exchange for a hatful, and returned home on foot with the coveted dainty.[349]
These "lords of creation" attempt to enforce their marital rights with much severity, and, if their suspicions are excited against their wives, become very indignant, and punish them by beating, biting off the nose, dismissing them in disgrace, or even killing them. The wife of a Mandan Indian ran away from him in consequence of a quarrel. By so doing she forfeited her life, which custom would have justified the husband in taking, and he would have murdered her but for the interposition of the travelers, who "gave him a few presents, and persuaded him to take his wife home; they went off together, but by no means in a state of much apparent love." This trouble arose from jealousy.[350] In another case, a Minnetaree had much abused his wife for the same reason, and she sought refuge in the camp. Her husband followed and demanded her, and she "returned with him, as we had no authority to separate those whom even Indian rites had united."[351]
Since an Indian considers his wife as so much property, equally valuable as his horse, and for the same reason--for the labor she can perform--we can easily understand that polygamy is universally allowed, though it is not generally practiced, being confined to great chiefs and medicine-men, as the rank and file are often too poor to buy a second wife. Many follow the custom for the mere purpose of amassing wealth, but others of the stoic warriors delight in the harem from the same sensual motives as a Turk or Hindu. Among the communities that Catlin had an opportunity of visiting, it was no uncommon thing to find from six to fourteen wives in the same lodge. He mentions an instance in which a young chief of the Mandans took four wives in one day, paying a horse or two for each. These brides were from twelve to fourteen years of age. An Indian marriage at this age is far from uncommon, and, indeed, it appears from good testimony that celibacy beyond the age of puberty is very rare. Some of the females are mothers before they are twelve years old. It is not universal for the wives to live all in one hut, some tribes requiring separate lodgings for each. This custom is in force among the Crows, and Beckwourth relates that, on returning from one of his excursions, he made a round of visits to his wives, some of whom he had not seen for months.[352]
It is not uncommon for a man to marry his wife's sister, and, indeed, the whole family of girls, on the supposition that his household will thus be rendered more harmonious.[353] For the same reason, a Cherokee will marry a mother and her daughter at one time, though he will not, upon any account, take a wife from his own kindred. Among the Oregon tribes it is strictly required that each wife should be purchased from a different family.
So well established among Indians is the custom of polygamy, that civilization meets the greatest difficulty in opposing it, and, if ever abolished, it will overthrow their whole social system, and, in changing their national character, tend to their speedy extinction. Sir George Simpson relates an amusing anecdote of an Indian who came into the settled districts of British North America, learned to read and write, and adopted the principle of monogamy. Returning to his tribe, he endeavored to persuade them to the same course. Long and earnest were the debates on the question, and the finale was, instead of converting them, they reconverted him. He took a great number of wives, foreswore books, and never again appeared in the character of a social reformer. Another chief offered to renounce polygamy, he having five wives, and a large fortune in horses and cattle. Falling in love with the daughter of a gentleman in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, he dismissed his harem, and presented himself, with great parade and confidence, to make his matrimonial proposal to the lady's family. To his extreme disgust and mortification, they rejected the honor of his distinguished alliance. He revenged himself by refilling his hut with women as quickly as possible.
If the obligation of marriage is easily contracted, divorce is effected with as little trouble. It is not often that a separation takes place, for it is held dishonorable to forsake a wife for a trifling cause, particularly if she has borne children. When it does occur, the offspring are usually permitted to decide which of the parents they will accompany, although usage gives the mother the right to take charge of them. In some instances the form of divorce is simply for the husband to bid his wife go; in others he will not take the trouble to give her notice of his discontent, but will quietly put his gun on his shoulder and move off himself.[354] There are a few instances of this being done for very slight reasons; but, in addition to the restraint of custom just mentioned, the actual value of the wife is a subject of consideration. Where a separation does take place, the man will often endeavor to renew the connection. A missionary mentions a woman who contracted a new marriage after her husband left her. He returned and claimed her. The dispute was referred to a chief, and he, either wanting a precedent or distrusting his judicial capacity, could think of no better expedient than placing the woman at an equal distance from each claimant, and then ordering the men to run, promising that the one who first reached her should retain possession of the prize.[355] In some tribes divorce renders it impossible for the woman to marry again, but in others she can make a new alliance as soon as free from the old one.
It is difficult to form any opinion as to the morality of females among a people where marriages are contracted and dissolved so easily. We may safely say that they have very little idea of chastity as a positive virtue, notwithstanding their general, although not invariable fidelity when married, which may probably be induced more by fear of consequences than sense of duty. Of prostitution for a price, as known in civilized communities, we find no trace in the Indian nations while in a normal condition; but if we assume Webster's definition, "the act of offering the body to an indiscriminate intercourse with men," it can scarcely be claimed that they are free. The predominant motive seems to be an inordinate sexual appetite, which must be gratified, if not in legitimate marriage, then by illicit intercourse. We are told that in most large assemblies of Indians there are to be seen voluptuous looking females, whose passions urge them to this; and Carver, in his "Travels in North America," says that among the Manedowessis it was a custom, when a young woman could not get a husband, for her to assemble all the leading warriors of the tribe at a feast, and, when their hunger was appeased, to retire behind a screen, and submit to the embraces of each in succession. This gained her great applause, and always insured her a husband. Though the custom is now almost obsolete, the principle still exists, and prostitution is regarded by many as the shortest road to marriage.
The birth of a bastard child entails little shame upon a girl, and that such children are not more frequent is due less to their chastity than to the means they employ to procure abortion. One of the reasons advanced for their early marriages is that the impetuosity of the girls would render it difficult to obtain a virtuous wife if the union was delayed. The confessions upon starting for war, or what is called the "war-path secret," would also favor the opinion that abstract virtue is at a low ebb. At these times every warrior is required to relate to his companions each act of illicit intercourse he has committed since the last excursion, naming his partner, and enumerating the facts attending the frailty. This obligation is enforced by the most rigid oaths known to Indian customs.[356]
This immorality is not confined to the single women, for the squaws are, at times, as ready to take part in an intrigue as any in civilized nations. Beckwourth, whose experience of Indian manners seems to have embraced every conceivable phase of life, relates his adventures in this way:
"A brave named 'Big Rain' was elected chief of the village. He possessed a most beautiful squaw, who was the admiration of the young men, and all were plotting to win her from her lord. I determined to steal her, be the consequences what they might." Having enticed the husband to a smoking-party, he says, "I went to Big Rain's lodge, dressed and painted in the extreme of fashion, and saw the lady reclining upon her couch. She started up, saying, 'Who is here?' 'Hush! it is I.' 'What do you want here?' 'I have come to see you because I love you.' 'Don't you know that I am the chief's wife?' 'Yes, I know it, but he does not love you as I do. I can paint your face and bring you fine horses, but as long as you are the wife of Big Rain he will never paint your face. With you by my side I could bring home many scalps. Then we could often dance, and our hearts would be merry.' * * * * 'Go, now,' she pleaded, 'for if my husband should return I fear he would kill you. Go, for your own sake and for mine.' 'No, I will not go till you give me a pledge that you will be mine.' She hesitated for a moment, and then slipped a ring from her finger and placed it on mine. All I had to do now was to watch for a favorable chance to take her away. * * * * The appointed time had arrived, and on going to the place of assignation, I found the lady true to her word--in fact, she was there first. We joined the party, and were absent about a week. We succeeded in capturing (stealing?) one hundred and seventeen horses, and arrived safe with them in the camp. Meanwhile Big Rain discovered the loss of his wife. When we rode in, he took no part in the rejoicing, but ordered his wife and me to be surrounded, and, with half a dozen of his sisters, all armed with scourges, administered a most unmerciful whipping. I received it with Indian fortitude. If I had resisted, they would have been justified in killing me; also, if they had drawn one drop of blood, I should have been justified in taking their lives."
Without wishing to delay the progress of the narrative, we can not resist the impulse to express admiration of the Indian punishment for a seducer of married women. Could the same unromantic penalty be duly and zealously inflicted for similar transgressions, in places of more pretensions, some of the scandals of civilized life would be curtailed. To resume:
"I sent word to the wife of Big Rain that I should go out again the next night, and should expect her company. She returned a favorable answer, and was faithful to her promise. On my return I received another such flogging as the first. Two nights afterward I started on a third expedition, my new wife accompanying me, and received a third sound thrashing from her husband. Finally, he grew furious; but my soldiers said to him, 'You have whipped him three times, and shall whip him no more; we will buy your claim.' He acceded to the offer, and consented to resign all interest and title in Mrs. Big Rain for the consideration of one war-horse, ten guns, ten chief's coats of scarlet cloth, ten pairs of new leggins, and the same number of moccasins."[357] This was not a bad remuneration for a faithless woman.
In another case an intrigue resulted tragically. One of the wives of a Minnetaree chief eloped with a man who had formerly been her lover. He deserted her in a short time. She returned to her father's hut, whither her husband traced her. He walked deliberately into the hut, smoked quietly for a time, and then took her by the hair, led her to the door, and killed her with a single blow of his tomahawk.[358] The caprice or generosity of the same chief gave a very different conclusion to a similar incident which occurred some time afterward. Another of his wives eloped with a young man who was not able to support her as she wished, and both returned to the village. She presented herself before her husband and asked his pardon. He sent for the man, inquired if they still loved each other, and on their acknowledgment gave up his wife to her lover, made them a present of three horses, and restored them both to his favor.[359]
With the exception of some national customs, the outward life of the Indian is generally decent. A temporary interval of wild license, corresponding to the Saturnalia of the ancients, and called the festival of dreams, is common among the Canadian tribes. This carnival lasts fifteen days, and, laying aside all their usual gravity, they then commit every imaginable extravagance.[360] Our authority does not say whether immorality forms a portion of this relaxation, but from the custom of other bands it is not improbable. Lewis and Clarke mention several instances in which they were present at dancing and similar festivals, and witnessed exhibitions of the most foul and revolting indecency.
Mr. Catlin records his opinion that the Old World has very little of superior morality or virtue to hold as an example to the North American Indians, and we are not inclined to enter into any long comparison of the races. The manners of each have been described; and while it would be unjust to expect the untutored son of the forest to display as much delicacy as his more cultivated fellow-men, it would be equally ungenerous to assert that the white female population, as an aggregate, are governed by the impulses which apparently sway the Indian woman.
But whatever doubts there may exist as to the immorality of the Indian women in their natural state, all are entirely removed as soon as they come in contact with the white race. Those in the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada have rapidly learned the worst of vices. They are drunken, sensual, and depraved. The venereal disease commits frightful ravages among them; in fact, most of their sickness arises from excess of one kind or another. Maclean, in his "Twenty-five years' Service in Hudson's Bay," says that the men employed by the company are reconciled to their hard employment and poor remuneration by the immorality of the women, of whom numbers are prostitutes, selling themselves for the smallest remuneration. On the Northwest Coast chastity is scarcely even a name. The sea tribes are the most licentious, and at some places, where ships touch for supplies, hundreds of women come down to the beach, and by indecent exposures of their persons endeavor to obtain permission to come on board. Sir George Simpson received a visit from a chief who wanted to negotiate the loan of Lady Simpson, and offered his squaw in temporary exchange.
Many of the traders on the Upper Missouri, from motives of policy, connect themselves with women of the tribes. The most beautiful girls aspire to this station, which elevates them above their ordinary servile occupations. These engagements are not marriages in our sense of the word; a price is paid for the girl, and she is transferred at once to the trader's house. With equal facility he can annul the contract, for which her father is not sorry, as he is thus enabled to sell her over again. The tariff of prices will range from two horses to a handful of awls: such is the remuneration for which an Indian chief will prostitute his daughter. It must be added that occasionally the couple live permanently together as man and wife, the possibility of their doing so being always supposed in the first instance.
XXX. BARBAROUS NATIONS.[361]
Africa.--Australasia.--West Indies.--Java.--Sumatra.--Borneo.
The relations of the sexes among uneducated races are modified by every circumstance of their position, but the natural ascendency of the strong over the weak is universally displayed, and wherever woman is allowed a social rank approaching that of man, it will be found that a degree of civilization has been attained. Many branches of the human family have advanced, more or less, beyond the utterly savage state, the love of ornament and the practice of exchange having raised them one step in the scale, while they vary as much in the characteristics of their barbarism as civilized nations do in their refinement. Waiving generalities, a better idea of their respective customs will be obtained by noticing the position of females among the different nations.
AFRICA.
Some of the most wild and savage tribes of the human family are to be found in the immense peninsula of Africa. Observation has proved that a medium state of refinement is accompanied with the least immorality, and that it is among the merest savages and the most highly-polished communities that the greatest profligacy exists. In order to present the subject clearly, we will make a geographical arrangement, and, commencing from the south, pass over the continent, till we reach the valley of the Lower Nile.
The Hottentots are a dissolute, profligate race, and have borne that character from the earliest period. It was remarked by Van Riebeck in 1655, and confirmed by Colonel Napier in 1840, the latter describing them as "proverbially unchaste." Indecency and lewdness are their characteristics; and even now, though accustomed to clothing, it is not uncommon for them to strip themselves, and dance in a lascivious manner at their festivals. The females prostitute themselves readily to strangers, some from inclination, others for money or a gift of finery; but we have no means of estimating the numbers of this disreputable class. A few of superior order are scattered among these degraded creatures, and intelligent and well-conducted women have attracted the notice of travelers.
The pastoral Kaffirs are more moral, though more ferocious than the Hottentots, being more addicted to arms, and less to debauch. They practice polygamy, buying their wives for so many head of cattle. The girls undergo a probation before marriage, during which they are kept in seclusion. As the tribe wander from place to place, they carry their women with them, and upon them all the domestic labor falls, even the chief's wives assisting in grinding corn and similar work. Divorce is easy on very slight grounds. We occasionally hear of women committing fornication, but no professed class of prostitutes has been described. Marriage is not held as a sacred tie, but adultery by a wife is severely punished. Natural affections appear extremely weak among the Kaffirs, and mothers have but little attachment to their children, the sickly and feeble being sometimes abandoned to avoid the trouble of rearing them. Mrs. Ward knew of a woman who buried alive a sickly daughter. The little creature was but imperfectly interred; it burst from the grave and ran home. A second time it was subjected to the same torture, and again escaped. A third attempt was made with a similar result, when its mother received it, and it ultimately recovered. Such instances of inhumanity are not rare. Husbands frequently drag their sick wives into a thicket, and leave them to die. It is important to mention that, where these people have embraced Christianity, their manners have totally changed; polygamy has been renounced, and they manifest an inclination to conform to the morals taught them.
Between the tropics the people are notorious for licentiousness. Morality is a strange idea to them, nor is a man restrained by any social law from intercourse with as many females as he pleases. The result is, that women are regarded strictly as marketable commodities, and the commonest feelings of humanity are unknown. On the Gold Coast husbands openly prostitute their wives for money. In other places an adulterer pays a fine to the husband, and many urge their wives to commit the crime for the sake of the penalty. When Laird visited the Niger in 1832, he found the condition of the females upon its borders most humiliating. Polygamy was universal, and wives were reduced to slavery in their own houses. In short, the race may be described as the most idle, ignorant, and profligate in Africa. The king possessed one hundred and forty wives, one of whom was under thirteen years of age, and all had been purchased for a few muskets or a piece of cloth. Half a dozen of the fattest were known as his favorites, and one of them was said to weigh over three hundred and fifty pounds. The mother of this prince lived in his palace, and amused the court with obscene dances. Adultery by any inmate of the harem was punished with death. When a man died, one at least of his wives was expected to attend him; she was bound and thrown into the river. In another place the woman was buried alive; and in the kingdom of Fundal, when a chief died leaving fifteen wives, the king selected the ugliest to be hanged over the grave, and transferred the remaining fourteen to his own quarters.
The native of Western Africa looks upon his wife as a source of pleasure and gain, reckoning her as property to the amount she can earn. With a strange inconsistency, some of these barbarians profess a sentiment of attachment. The King of Atta told Lander that he loved him as he loved his wife. As he was a polygamist, it is to be assumed the traveler thought it a divided affection. Marriage is held as one of the common occurrences of life. When a man is old enough, he takes a wife, and goes on adding to his property until he probably owns a hundred, if he has means enough to buy them. Even under this system many women can not obtain stated husbands, as some men will not take permanent wives; but it is safe to assert that no single man lives without female intercourse, and no single woman remains chaste. A wife suspected of adultery is forced to drink a poisonous decoction, but she sometimes bribes the priest to render it harmless. Widows who have lived on bad terms with their husbands have to undergo the same ordeal. An illicit connection with the king's wife results in death to both parties, but for the wife of a chief the gift of a slave is an expiation. The price of a handsome wife is from eighteen to thirty-six dollars; a plain-looking one is worth about seven dollars. As a man's inclination varies, he often sells one wife, and buys another with the proceeds of the transaction.
In the kingdom of Dahomey, once the centre of the slave-trade, a most profligate population is found, and the traveler entering its sea-port is immediately struck with the immodesty of the women. Throughout the country the same characteristic is observable; they are profligates from the highest to the lowest. The king is superior in brutality and filthiness (traits which seem hereditary to the throne of Dahomey) to any of his subjects. He has thousands of wives, his chiefs have hundreds, his subjects tens. The royal favorites are too sacred for the gaze of common people, who must turn aside or hide their faces if any of them are passing. Strangers are excluded from the harem, but the privileged nobility attend the king's feasts, at which his wives take a leading part in drinking rum and conducting the debauch. When the king desires to confer honor on any favorite, he chooses a wife for him, and presents her publicly. She hands her husband a cup of rum, which is a sign of union.
The King of Dahomey supports an army of several thousand amazons, who dress in male attire, do not marry, and are supposed not to have intercourse with men. These troops were long considered invincible, but a few years ago they encountered a defeat on one of their marauding expeditions, and a thousand or more were killed on the field.
As the king and his wealthy subjects have so many wives, poor people are obliged to content themselves with the company of prostitutes, who are a licensed and taxed class in Dahomey. There appears to be a band of these in every village, but their profits are often insufficient for support, and they resort to industrial occupation, hiring themselves to carry heavy burdens, etc. One traveler saw two hundred and fifty collected in a troop, and another was assailed by a crowd of women who offered to "be his wives" for a drop of rum. Many of the poorest class stroll about naked, and a gratuity, however small, will purchase their favors.
The dirty, lazy, dull people of the Fantee Coast have the same moral aspect as the subjects of Dahomey. Parents sell their children, husbands sell their wives, women sell themselves, for a trifling sum. One woman was so anxious to make a bargain of this kind that she took possession of a traveler's bed, and force was necessary to expel her. Marriage is a mere purchase, a wife costing about sixteen dollars. Women are unsalable when more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Any man committing adultery is forced to buy his paramour at her cost price.
Along the coast of Benin similar customs prevail. Public dancers act as prostitutes, and offer themselves at a small price. Every woman considers it an honor to be the king's companion, even for one night.
In Ashantee, where also polygamy prevails, adultery is common, especially among the king's wives, who are hewn to pieces if discovered. The people are profligate beyond any thing which can be conceived. A practice of unusual depravity prevails among the Kroomen, a son who inherits his father's property taking his wives also, and thus his own mother becomes his slave.
The Edeeyahs of Fernando Po offer a strong contrast to the above, treating their women with consideration, and assigning them far less than the usual amount of work. Polygamy is allowed. The first wife taken by a man must be betrothed to him at least two years before marriage, and during that time he is in a state of servitude like that of Jacob for Rachel, the girl being kept in seclusion. When she appears as a married woman, all the virgins of the tribe salute and dance round her. This custom is only observed with the first wife, the others being concubines who are governed by her. Adultery is severely punished: for the first offense both parties lose one hand; for the second, the man and his relatives are heavily fined and chastised, the woman loses the other hand, and is driven from the settlement into the woods--an exile more terrible than mutilation.
It would be but a needless repetition to pass in review all the various groups of African states. We have seen that in the west profligacy is a universal feature, and it is scarcely less so in the east. In Zulu, for example, the king has a seraglio of fifteen hundred women. The manners of the communities in the Sahara are imperfectly known, but appear to be above those in other parts of Africa, though many customs prevail which shock our ideas of decency. A chief offered Richardson his two daughters as wives. Immorality is usually a secret crime, and their general customs with regard to sexual intercourse are outwardly decent. Still the condition of the female sex is degraded, for they are regarded as materials of a man's household, and ministers to his sensuality.
Abyssinia presents various characteristics of manners. In Tajura men live with their wives for a short time, and then sell them. Parents are known to hire their daughters out as prostitutes. One chief offered his daughter as a temporary or permanent companion to a traveler, and a woman presented herself as a candidate for a similar appointment, saying, by way of recommendation, that she had already lived with five men. One strong evidence of the immorality of Tajura is the fact that syphilis affects nearly the whole population, man and woman, sultan and beggar, priests and their wives inclusive.
In Shoa the king has one wife and five hundred concubines, the latter scattered in various parts of his dominions. He makes a present to the parents of any girl he may desire, and is usually well paid in return for the honor. The governors of provinces and cities follow his example. There are two kinds of marriage in Shoa: one a mere arrangement to cohabit, the other a holy ceremony. The former is almost invariably used, the man and woman declaring before witnesses that they mean to live together. Divorces are as easily obtained, only mutual consent being necessary. A wife is valued according to the amount of her property, and the owner of a hut, a field, and a bedstead is sure to get a husband. When they quarrel and part, a division of property takes place. Concubines are procured as well from the Christians as from Mohammedans and pagans, but the latter are forced to declare themselves converted, for Shoa is professedly a Christian kingdom. A favorite concubine holds the same position as a married woman, and no distinction is made between legitimate and illegitimate children. The court overflows with licentiousness, numerous adulteries take place, and the example is followed by the people, among whom a chaste married couple is rare. The sacerdotal class of Shoa is notoriously drunken and profligate; in a word, the morals of the country are of the lowest description. In the Mohammedan states of the neighborhood the condition of the female sex is also degraded, and if there is less general prostitution, it is because every woman is the slave of some man's lust, and is closely watched by him.
In the provinces of Kordofan, south of the Nubian mountains, the sentiment of love is not altogether unknown, and men fight duels with whips of hippopotamus hide on account of a disputed mistress. The wife is, however, a virtual slave, and is still more degraded if she prove barren, the husband then solacing himself with a concubine, who is raised to the rank of a wife if she bear a child. The general demeanor of the girls of Kordofan is modest, and their lives are chaste, while the married women are addicted to intrigue, especially if neglected by their husbands. In some parts of the country men consider it an honor for their wives to have intercourse with strangers, and often assist the woman to this end. There is a class of pretty dancers who are usually prostitutes, and are celebrated for their successes in the latter vocation. Marriage is arranged without the woman's consent; the man bargains for her, pays the price, and takes her home. A feast and dance sometimes celebrate the event. When a wife is ill treated she demands a divorce, and returns home, taking her female children with her. Trifles often produce these separations, an insufficient allowance of pomatum to grease her skin being a valid complaint. These remarks apply to the fixed population; the wandering tribes of Kordofan are a moral, modest race, naked, but not indecent.
A chief of the Berbers offered a late traveler his choice of two daughters for a temporary companion, both being already married. Many women there are ready to prostitute themselves for a present. A virgin may be purchased, either as a wife or a concubine, for a horse. A young Berber, who was asked why he did not marry, pointed to a colt and said, "When that is a horse I shall marry."
The condition of women in Khartum, on the upper borders of the Nile, as described in Ferdinand Werne's account of his voyage to discover the sources of the White Stream, is so degraded that it may be said with truth the female monkeys of the neighboring woods occupy a far nobler and more natural position. Farther up the river the morals are purer. The Keks are described as leading a blameless life. Marriageable girls and children are kept in seclusion, and during a considerable part of the year the women live in villages apart from the men, who possess only temporary huts, the substantial habitations of their wives being accessible to them during the rainy season. A man dare not approach the "harem village" at any other time, but some of the women occasionally creep into their husbands' huts. Polygamy is allowed, but is too costly for any but the chiefs.
Among some of the tribes on the banks of the White Nile, women sell their children, if they can do so with profit. The maidens appear naked, but married women wear an apron. All experience shame at appearing unclothed before travelers. Beyond the Mountains of the Moon Werne found a people whom he describes as chaste and decent, where unmarried men and women were kept separate.
Our information is so limited that any inquiry into the morals of Africa must be incomplete, but enough has been stated to give a fair idea of the average morality. Statistics are of course impossible, but from a description in general terms we can not hesitate to form an opinion.
AUSTRALASIA.
In this division of the earth's surface are generally included the great island of Australia, Papua or New Guinea, and some adjacent islands, comprising New Caledonia and Van Diemen's Land. Politically and geographically the islands of New Zealand are also in this division, but there is some question as to the propriety of this distribution for ethnographical purposes. Opinions vary as to the state of the New Zealanders. There is much similarity between them and the inhabitants of some of the Polynesian Islands, while there are equally strong points of resemblance between them and the Australian aborigines. The New Zealander, when discovered by Cook, was far superior to the Australian in intelligence and in the arts of life. He inhabited a decent hut, could build a stockade fort, and lived upon cooked food. The Australian lived in a hollow tree, could put together a temporary hut made of bark and brush, and fed upon grubs, roots, and raw flesh. Among such a race as the Australian blacks it is needless to say that the position occupied by women was of the most degrading and brutal character.
The Australian savage does not even pay his future spouse the compliment of wooing her. Might makes right in their case. The woman is often betrothed by her parent or kinsman, and becomes her husband's property by sale and bargain. If this has not been effected in the usual way, he acquires his marital privileges by an inroad on the grounds of another tribe, and then meeting a woman, he knocks her down with his waddy (a heavy club), and carries her to a place of security, where he makes himself master of her person by force. This, indeed, is so usual a course of procedure, that it has given rise to a belief that the Australian rival bachelors compete for a wife by knocking her on the head, and whoever fells her bears away the belle.
The habits of the native Australians are not so observable now as they were at the commencement of the system of colonization. At first a continual intercourse was kept up between them and the settlers. The reciprocal injuries inflicted upon each other, in which the whites were more to blame than the natives, brought about an exterminating warfare. The black race has gradually wasted away from the settled, or rather partially settled country, while the much-diminished interior tribes have retreated, in South Australia, New South Wales, and Victoria, far into the wilderness, beyond ordinary communication with the white man.
In Van Diemen's Land the natives were almost extirpated by the constant warfare carried on between them and the settlers, convict as well as free, and the government was obliged to take the few survivors under its protection, and to establish a place of refuge for them. They were accordingly collected, and deported to an island in Bass Straits, under the charge of a special commissioner. But, notwithstanding the increased comforts of their condition, and their immunity from the murderous hostility of their white foes, they have languished, and, instead of the population increasing, it has gradually decreased, until, at the present time, it is believed that the numbers are under one hundred. In Central Australia, north of the Murray, the tribes are still comparatively numerous, and in some cases warlike and hostile to settlers.
The married women among the aborigines are called "gins," and the single girls "lubbras." The women follow their lords on their migrations and excursions, carry the loads, and do all the work. They bear patiently and submissively the blows and ill-usage to which they are subject. Polygamy is practiced by the more powerful men of the tribes, who appropriate to themselves such women as they choose, and cast them off at pleasure. Now and then they sell or present a "gin" to a friend in want of such a commodity. There is considerable disproportion between the sexes, attributable partly to continual ill-usage, partly to the habit prevalent among savage nations of destroying female infants.
At one time in the history of these colonies, the outlying stock-men and shepherds occasionally endeavored to solace their loneliness with a "lubbra" whom they had managed to decoy from her lawful owner, but the half-breeds from such unions are very rare. The natives, notwithstanding the low estimate they have of their women, are exceedingly jealous of them as property, and keep them away as much as possible from the stations.
Chastity is at all times of little account among savages, always excepting the old Celts and Teutons, who held continence in high esteem, and whose women were objects of general respect. From the peculiar habits of the Australian aborigines themselves, it can scarcely be said that prostitution exists as an institution. The woman has no choice in the matter. As between the "gins" and "lubbras" and the white settlers, there is scarcely any chance for prostitution. A woman now and then visits the towns or settlements, but always in company with her male friends. When quite young, the girls are not more disagreeable than others of their complexion. When more advanced in years they are absolutely repulsive, and are rendered hideous by scars and other evidences of brutality. At all times both sexes are loathsome in their persons, and are clad in filthy blankets or sheep-skins, unless when they can pick up tattered remnants of European clothing.
Among the New Zealanders the state of the women was a little better than among the Australians. The amelioration was rather in degree than principle. They were subject to the same control by parents and kinsmen. They were disposed of in marriage as matter of right, and were often betrothed from infancy, in which case they were tapu or taboo to other persons than the young chief or warrior who had purchased the reversion. Cruel punishments of the women for infidelity were general, and even for minor offenses they were subject to very severe chastisement. In one case, even recently, a New Zealand woman was suspended by the heels naked, and in that position unmercifully whipped. Her sense of the outrage was so keen that she committed suicide. Licentiousness among the women was probably more rare formerly than now. Adultery was punished in both parties by death, and the family of the male offender were often involved in the punishment. Now, however, the constant visits of whalers and seafaring men, the gradual settlement of whites in the islands, and, above all, the profits and advantages derivable from illicit intercourse, cause the women to be free of their persons. Parents and even husbands are oftentimes the principal gainers by the transaction, and even negotiate the profit to be made. The marriage ceremony, too, was formerly of so easy a character that, whatever the New Zealand woman might have thought of it, no settler, and especially no seaman, would feel himself bound by the tie, and, although associations based on this weak bond were not wrong in the woman, they paved the way for less excusable relations.
The influence of civilized institutions and the presence of a regular clergy and missionaries is effecting some improvement in native morals, and many lawful marriages have taken place between the whites and the native women, the offspring of which--a fine race of half-breeds--may be met with throughout the Australian colonies. The example of the consideration in which the native women thus married are held, and the rights and social position that they acquire, is not without influence on others, and predisposes them to the same course. Among the tribes removed from the coast and withdrawn from civilized control, the ancient customs are still kept up in their integrity, and the chiefs and natives jealously resist all encroachments on their independence. Among those chiefs, even, who have been converted to a nominal Christianity, Rauperaha for instance, heathen institutions of revenge for injury, polygamy, power of life and death over their wives and followers are maintained, and the humanizing lessons of the Gospel have made but little way toward an amendment of their barbarous lives. In New Zealand it is asserted that the venereal disease is very prevalent among the natives, and from their diet and licentious habits is often fatal.
In colonial white society there are no particular incidents to characterize prostitution. At all times during the continuance of transportation, female immorality has been very prevalent. The general law so often observed as attendant upon irregularity of the sexes has been powerfully operative; besides, there have been local influences at work to deteriorate female manners. The large importations of convict women, who were always the most unruly and vicious of the felon population, and who notoriously gave more trouble and vexation to the authorities than any one else, was prejudicial to public virtue. Just, however, as, on account of these faults, women of indifferent character were lightly esteemed, so did the respectable females gain in public opinion, however poor their worldly condition. There was not much regular prostitution, although incontinence prevailed. There was a continual system of marriage going on among the convicts. When a man chose to marry, he brushed himself up, put on a clean shirt, and went to the nearest superintendent, to whom he intimated his desire for matrimony. Permission was always given. The eligibles at the station were forwarded for his inspection, and the selected one rarely refused, inasmuch as her connubial bonds relieved her, during good behavior, from the more galling bondage of the law. Some of these unions turned out more satisfactorily than might have been expected from the character of the parties, especially of the women.
South Australia and the gold colony of Victoria never were penal settlements. The deficiency of respectable young women was very much felt by the colonists, and the home government made many well-intentioned efforts to supply the want. A large number of young women went out from Great Britain, under the charge of matrons and medical officers, and, in the majority of cases, their arrival was hailed with great satisfaction. It was no unusual thing for a young man, a settler far away up the country, to come down to the government depôts at Adelaide or Melbourne on the arrival of a female emigrant ship, and then and there to pick out his partner for life. Of course, the greater number were hired out to service by the colonists, and, in the order of events, passed from service to independence. Parental care and precaution were exercised by the authorities over the young women thus sent abroad. They were not allowed to hire into dram-shops or lodging-houses: the parties who hired them required to be known: they had liberty to remain at the depôt for some months if not suited, and for any length of time in case of sickness on arrival; and afterward, during good conduct, the depôt was an asylum for an indefinite length of time. Notwithstanding all these safeguards, there was a constant supply of prostitution. The good intentions of the emigration commissioners in London were too frequently neutralized by the depraved character of officers of the vessels in which females were sent, or by the interested conduct of the local authorities in England. A good reputation was essential to the intending emigrant, but frequently masters of work-houses and parish officers shipped off unworthy or troublesome characters, who were better got rid of at any price.
During the gold mania, prostitution in Australia was rampant. The enormous gains and flaunting extravagance were a great temptation to young women who could not readily suit themselves with situations, and who disliked the moderate restraints of the depôt. The persuasive arts of the procuress and brothel-keeper were not wanting. It was a singular fact that at one time all the public vehicles were owned by brothel-keepers. The profits of these joint callings were perfectly fabulous. It was an every-day sight to see a party of prostitutes in the most gaudy costumes parading the streets in open carriages. Indeed, it was generally understood to be part of their contract that they should have unlimited clothing, of the most garish colors and style, and expensive material, and also Sunday rides in open carriages. The police authorities did what they could to check this shameful display, but they were powerless before the reckless extravagance of the miners and the influx of women. It is believed that this excess has now toned down, and miners having taken to buying land and to marriage, order is once more resuming sway, and prostitution in the gold colonies, though not at an end, is much shorn of its public show and display.
POLYNESIA.
The principal groups of the Polynesian Islands are the Society, Friendly, Samoan, Sandwich, and Marquesas. These last have been rendered famous of late years by Mr. Hermann Melville's Typee and Omoo.
The South Sea Islands were usually depicted in the most glowing colors by early navigators. The lands were the fairest on earth's surface; the climate was unsurpassed, combining the genial warmth of the tropics with the fresh breezes of ocean; the soil spontaneously bringing forth in luxuriant abundance the loveliest and most valuable vegetable productions; and, finally, the inhabitants were fitted both in person and disposition to tenant such an Eden.
It is easy to comprehend the frame of mind which led to these descriptions. The seaman, after wandering over the pathless ocean, with only the dark waste of waters in view, might well recognize a paradise in the green hills and shady groves of the islands of the Pacific, and angels in their dusky denizens. But these pictures were eminently fallacious: the virtues of savage life disappear on close acquaintanceship. Implacable ferocity among themselves; sanguinary and exterminating warfare; cannibalism; unbounded licentiousness and its concomitants of unnatural lust and lasciviousness; debasing and horrid idolatry; infanticide; the most grinding tyranny of the strong over the weak, and of the man over the woman, who is not permitted to live in the same dwelling, eat the same food, cook at the same fire, or even use the same dish as her lord and master: these enormities are the ordinary conditions of savage life. Some local modifications may be found, but such were the main incidents in Polynesian life and character.
It is true that in the first instance the natives received the whites with all friendship, and evinced toward their visitors much hospitality and gentleness of demeanor. This is to be attributed to the wonder and reverence with which they regarded foreigners, looking on them as superior beings of another sphere, and awestruck at their wonderful powers, at the astonishing engines they wielded and managed, and at their unknown attributes. But familiarity lessened respect; some ill-advised and unjustifiable tyranny brought out the offensive points of savage character, and theft, treachery, and murder were soon practiced as freely against the whites as against each other whenever fear of consequences did not restrain them. The murder of Captain Cook and the attack on La Perouse were remarkable cases on account of the boldness of the savages, and the public loss in the death of the great navigator, but they were not isolated outrages. Many a small and feebly-manned vessel perished among the islands, and, on repeated occasions, when landings were effected, the mariners ran great risks from the uncertain despotism of the natives.
Whatever may have been their other qualities, either among themselves or in their intercourse with foreigners, licentiousness was the universal characteristic of the South Sea Islanders. It was not merely polygamy or excess among a few of the more powerful members of the community, but the ordinary habit among all classes. Chastity, whenever met with, was not a customary part of woman's life, but only an incident dependent on particular circumstances; in fact, an abnormal condition. It was associated with either marriage or betrothal. A peculiar institution of all these islanders was the tapu or taboo, a semi-religious ceremony performable either by priest or chief, whereby places, persons, or property could be rendered unapproachable by other than the lawful owner. The breach of this law has always been the greatest violation of propriety and public feeling of which a native or foreigner could be guilty. When young girls were betrothed at an early age, either to boys of corresponding years or to older persons, such females were tabooed. This insured chastity until they had reached a marriageable age. As this betrothal system was almost exclusively confined to chiefs, it follows that the obligation to chastity was very limited. The farther inference would be, that chastity was associated rather with property in the female than propriety in the woman.
Another institution of the South Sea Islanders was that of the Areoi. These were a body of men and women banded together for certain purposes, which had originally been of a religious character. They had probably been once Obi men, medicine-men, or wizards, as among the negroes and Indians. The custom, so often observable among heathen nations, of incorporating amusements and festivities into religious rites, had been taken up by these Areoi, and in process of time they degenerated into mere mimes or buffoons, and yet preserved to themselves by prescriptive right all the immunities and privileges otherwise accorded to priests. They traveled about from place to place, and sometimes from island to island. Their observances yet retained a trace of their religious origin, inasmuch as they commenced with a sacrifice to the gods, after which they entertained the people with theatrical performances, in which obscene songs and lascivious dances formed the chief features. They gave dialogues and recitations, in which they freely satirized all classes, not excepting the priests. They were every where gladly received, and had a right to free quarters wherever they stopped. It is said the members were usually the handsomest of both sexes, the women being the most profligate among the inhabitants. Tradition maintained that these persons had been originally incorporated by the gods, and that one of their rules was perpetual celibacy, and that they should have no descendants. This, though it might perhaps in the outset have been a prohibition intended for pure purposes, has ended in the perversion of such an intention. In their present condition, whether degenerate or not, the inhibition is not taken to exclude them from sexual intercourse and enjoyment, but from its natural consequences. Their lives were accordingly most abandoned, and abortion and infanticide were invariably practiced. Nor were their enormities confined to their own body: after their representations the wildest excesses were perpetrated in all quarters. Resistance or retaliation was impossible by the sufferer, on account of the fear these wretches excited by the mysterious powers with which they were accredited, and which were, in reality, the secret affiliations of all the bands.[362]
When performing, the Areoi painted their bodies black and their faces scarlet; they wore dresses of bright-colored plants and flowers. They were divided into several classes, named after some particular ornament; and, taking into account the subordinate members of the troops and the attendants who performed the menial offices, they must have been exceedingly numerous. Places were specially built for their reception, and for the greater convenience of their representations.[363]
Candidates for admission into their number were received by secret ceremonies akin to the mysteries of paganism. Solemnities intended to awe the vulgar were performed, and the idea of special reservation of the blessings of a future elysium to these deceivers was promulgated and believed.
The existence of such organized societies could not but be in the highest degree subversive to all order and decency. Accordingly, when the missionaries first arrived, they found the general depravity of morals the greatest difficulty they had to encounter. Obscenity, libidinousness, and incontinence were so ingrafted into the very nature of the people that they seemed almost ineradicable. Accordingly, we find it narrated of an intelligent convert that he expressed his conviction that "the people ought to be induced to discontinue infanticide, human sacrifice, and demon worship, but that preservation of female virtue and Christian marriage would never be obtained."[364]
The Society Islands are said to have been formerly proverbial, even in Polynesia, for the licentiousness which is still remarkably prevalent among them. The missionary regulations have apparently mitigated the evils, and they have succeeded in establishing laws on the subject, which are not, however, binding upon strangers. The foreigners who come to these islands, while denouncing the conduct of the inhabitants, are too often the chief instigators to vice, and, finding themselves checked in their misconduct, they vent their disappointment on the missionaries.
The foreign influences at work in these islands are of a two-fold nature; one striving for the improvement of the natives, and the inculcation of virtuous principles, and the encouragement or enforcement of virtuous practices; the other including all the base and sordid passions and motives of seamen and whalers bent on the reckless enjoyment of the passing hour; of traders and adventurers eager in quest of gain; and among the worst specimens of runaway seamen, and even convicts from the Australian settlements. All these influences combine to check the advancement of the natives.
The beauty of the women in these islands has been much exaggerated. Commodore Wilkes says,[365] "I did not see among them a single woman whom I could call handsome. They have, indeed, a certain sleepiness about the eyes which may be fascinating to some, but I should rather ascribe the celebrity which their charms have acquired among navigators to their cheerfulness and gayety." Others, who visit them with equally cool judgment, tell us that they were disappointed in their appearance, for "there were few who could be called handsome; nevertheless, they had eminent feminine graces, their manners being affable and engaging, their step easy and graceful, their behavior free and unguarded, their temper mild, gentle, and unaffected, slow to take offense, easily pacified, seldom retaining resentment or revenge, whatever the provocation."[366]
There can be no doubt that their demeanor was winning and affable, and their conduct sportive and playful. Their industry was not very great, the few wants of the islanders being amply supplied by nature. The women prepared the poe from the bread-fruit and the ava, and, till Europeans introduced the hog, this was their usual diet, if we except the cannibal feasts of the warriors, in which the women took no part. The female occupations were weaving flowers and grasses into garlands and mats. Their chief amusement was paddling the canoe or sporting in the surf, for all the islanders took to the water, and the women were, perhaps, from the greater buoyancy of their persons, better swimmers than the men. Before the arrival of the missionaries, it was customary for the women to swim out to a ship and swarm on board, where scenes of debauchery and indecency commenced, lasting as long as the vessel lay in the harbor, and the fascination of which worked so powerfully on the excited passions of the seamen that desertions and mutiny were continually occurring.
The earliest intercourse of whites has never yet been beneficial to the untutored savage, and, had these occurrences only taken place on board the ships of foreigners, it might have been laid to the account of foreign corruption. But this was not the case. The gains derivable from the white men's visits might give profligacy a greater zest for both sexes of the natives, for indiscriminate intercourse was a time-worn institution ere yet the European came.
The South Sea Islanders are no exception to the general rule of keeping their women in a subordinate and inferior condition. A chief is sometimes taboo, and his women may not approach him; he may see them when he pleases; at all times the woman is in bondage. Those of the chief live in separate apartments from their master, and are not permitted to associate with him on equal terms excepting when the female is of high blood. In this case she is perfectly independent, can exercise the same powers as her husband, and in some particulars can even throw off her allegiance to him.
Polygamy was, and still is, practiced among the chiefs. Even where missionary influences have been successful, the chiefs look upon the abolition of polygamy as a most objectionable innovation. They look back to their past liberty with regret, and can not understand why they are restricted to one wife. Polygamy could, of course, only be practiced by the powerful at the expense of the weak. Already, from various causes operating among savages there was a preponderance of males over females, rendered still more great by polygamy. This again depreciated female virtue, justifying illicit intercourse to those who lived in forced celibacy, and in its consequences came concealment and infanticide. To such an extent was illicit intercourse carried, that some writers assert that no girl ever reached the age of puberty a virgin. The nature of the marriage bond is very uncertain. The husband could get rid of the wife at pleasure. There seems to have been a slight distinction between marriage and concubinage. Most of these social institutions are extended over all the islands alike, with very few local differences. Infanticide, for example, has been practiced in most of the islands, but not invariably so. At Tutuila,[367] one of the Samoan group, it had never obtained. Circumcision was common among most of the natives.
Among the Samoans the women are treated with consideration.[368] The men do all the hard work, even to cooking, while the women perform only in-door labor, attend to the children, and prepare the food for the fire. In the Sandwich Islands there is no such chivalrous sentiment. At the arrival of the missionaries there were no marriage institutions among them. The only laws were such as to regulate somewhat their licentiousness. There were traditions to show that at some past time, before the discovery of the island, the marriage tie had been held in respect by the natives, and that the marriage ceremony had been an important one. At present, personal chastisement of the wife by her husband is not infrequent, and it is spoken of by them as a matter of course.
The relations of parents to children differed much at different periods. The Samoans seem to have been the most observant of moral obligations and natural ties. Among them it was the usage of the mothers to suckle the children for several years, and to bring them up with great care and attention, so much so that a crippled child was sometimes discreditable as evincing a degree of culpable carelessness in the mother.
The Society and Sandwich Islanders, whose lives were habitually dissolute, shunned all trouble which interfered with their freedom of intercourse, and children were considered especially burdensome. Infanticide prevailed to a frightful extent among them, and, as if the ordinary dissoluteness of the people had not been ample inducement to this most flagitious crime, the tyranny of the rulers invented a poll-tax, in whose operation children over ten were included. The poorer inhabitants of these blissful regions, who already felt the rod of oppression too severely, found in this an additional motive to child-murder. But in its operation it was even more cruel than infanticide, for many children who had been suffered to live were put to death as they approached the period when they would be liable to taxation. The murder was consummated sometimes by the parents, at times mercifully, and at times horribly. There were a class of persons who practiced child-murder professionally.
In the Samoan group the girls are often early betrothed, without reference to years, the girl being taboo until of marriageable age. During the intervening period the bridegroom accumulates property. The marriage festival is held with all circumstances of uproar and debauchery, and the guests stay as long as there is any thing to eat. The consummation of the marriage and the virginity of the bride are published by the proofs required in the Jewish law.
When a man in this group wishes to take a wife, he must ask the chief's consent. This obtained, he presents to the girl of his choice a basket of bread-fruit, by accepting which she accepts the donor. The husband then pays the parents a sum of money for her, according to her rank and estimation; sometimes the courtship is to the family, without consulting the girl, who is expected to conform to her parents' will in the matter.
A Samoan may repudiate his wife and marry again on certain conditions, but the woman may not leave her husband without his consent.
Adultery among the Samoans was formerly punished by death, and the marriage vow is strictly observed by them. It is considered highly discreditable for a young woman to form a connection with a native before marriage, although temporary intercourse with a foreigner is not considered objectionable. It may be that such a distinction is in compliment to the conceded superiority of the white; but the explanation of a chief would rather put the question on convenience than morality, for he objected to native young men as always hanging about the premises, and attaching themselves to the young woman, whereas the foreigner gave his presents and sailed away when the period of his stay was ended, leaving the object of his choice free again.
The Marquesas Islands have a singular institution, similar to one prevalent among the ancient Lacedæmonians. A woman has more than one husband. This has been called polyandrism, but it does not seem precisely such. A wife of a young warrior unknown to fame is honored by the advances of a more distinguished individual, by whom children may be begotten. The superior chief takes the wife and her lawful husband under his protection and into his hut.
The population of some of the districts in the Sandwich Islands is rapidly decreasing. By a register kept in Hawaii, it appears there are three deaths to one birth. This disproportion is attributed to low habit of body, the consequence of venereal disease. Syphilis was introduced into these islands by Cook's expedition, and the whole of the natives in some districts are now said to be reduced to a morbid, sickly state, many of the women being incapable of child-bearing, and but few of the children attaining maturity.
There are other concurrent causes to contribute toward this decay, among which the difference of food, and the introduction of clothing, and consequent diminution of ablution among a people who spent half their lives in the water, are not unimportant; but the district of Hanapepe, where the decrease was most rapid, was that in which the virus was first introduced, and here it is still most virulent in its action and effects.
Whatever the causes, the same effect is in powerful operation, though not to the same depopulating extent, in other places. At Waialua, in 1832, the population was 2640; in 1835 it had fallen to 2415. There had been no war nor epidemic. It was the ordinary condition of the people. Sterility and abortion are considered the most potent causes. Abortion is very common, and there are cases in which women have had six or seven, and sometimes ten in as many years, and no children.[369]
Personal and mutual abuse had been much practiced in early life among the settlers, and is a cause of sterility.
Previous to 1840, infanticide was, as we have shown, common. But here, as elsewhere, the marriage regulations which have been enforced by the missionaries and adopted by the converted natives are already operating in a reactionary manner against the decrease of population, and infanticide is almost unknown. The poll-tax for children over ten years of age has been repealed, and in its stead premiums are given for rearing large families of legitimate children.
It is admitted by all that licentiousness prevails extensively among the people even at present, but to a far less degree than formerly, when promiscuous intercourse was universal. Men were living with several wives, and vice versa. All improvement in this respect is to be ascribed to the labors of Christian missionaries. To them the Sandwich Islanders owe their moral code, and the enactment of laws respecting marriage, as well as their political institutions.
The observance of outward morality and decency of behavior has, as we have mentioned, been made compulsory in those islands in which the missionaries have permanently fixed themselves, and acquired sufficient power to make their regulations respected. They have interdicted public gatherings for the purpose of amusement, and even suppressed private games and diversions. This has been objected to as an interference with innocent recreation and pastime, and as encouraging formalism.
But the missionaries had no choice in the matter. Paganism was deeply rooted in the daily life and habits of the people. In all religious festivals, feasting, dancing, and diversion formed so prominent a part, that the only method of eradicating the attachment of the people to their heathen practices was to abolish the usages which made the worship attractive. The dances are always immodest, often lascivious and grossly indecent. They consist of little more than contortions and twistings of the limbs and body, and of throwing themselves into postures which, as they are mostly performed by females, are highly conducive to immorality.
Even among the Samoans, the dances, as performed by the women, are of the same libidinous character with the others, though the dances of the men are not indecorous.
The diseases generally prevalent are skin affections. From the delightful climate and simple diet of the people, these are not of a very severe character. The islanders have been no gainers in this respect by their intercourse with Europeans. The venereal disease has been introduced, and, from the deficiency of medical treatment, makes great ravages. Secondary syphilis is sometimes severe. At Tutuila, one of the Samoan group, it is said that venereal disease is entirely unknown, while in the other islands of the group it is very rare.
Political circumstances; the introduction of new elements into Polynesian life; the daily increasing intercourse between the islanders and foreigners, all contribute to make the alterations in the social aspects of the South Sea Islands very rapid, so that every year may work new changes. Some recent writers affect to doubt the benefits of missionary labors among the islanders, who, as they say, have been thereby diverted from their innocent and simple habits of life; in place of which, it is alleged, a harsh and hypocritical austerity has been adopted; the purity of their morals and the vigor of their constitutions have been sapped and destroyed by the contact with Europeans and Americans, and the whole result of foreign intercourse has been unmixed evil. We reject these conclusions, as savoring too strongly of party prejudice and class antipathies. The tendency of the Gospel always is to purify and elevate savage tribes. The missionaries have, perhaps, overestimated and overstated the extent of benefit accomplished by them, and the gayety and cheerfulness, so pleasing in appearance to the casual visitor, yet so deceptive in reality, may have been diminished. But the purity of savage life is a delusion, and something has been achieved if only an outward conformity to the laws and dictates of Christianity has been produced.
WEST INDIES.
A very slight notice of the West Indies will suffice, for of the savage races scarcely a vestige remains; of the negro population a general view is all that is required, and the civilized colonists retain so much of the impress of the countries whence they came as to require no special remarks. When Columbus first visited these beautiful islands, he found them inhabited by two classes of men--the savage Caribs, who delighted in war and preyed upon the weaker tribes; and the simple communities, whose pacific habits made them victims of their violent neighbors. The people were alike distinct in the treatment of women. The peaceful islanders admitted females to a participation in all the delights of their rural life, allowing them to mingle in the dance, to inherit power, and to share all their pleasures. Among the cannibal Caribs a different fashion prevailed. The handsomest of their war-prisoners were retained as slaves, the rest were drowned. The lot of these exiles, as of the Carib women themselves, was hard enough. The nation was low and barbarous, and its women were treated accordingly, the men regarding them as an inferior race, whose degradation was only natural. A wife was her husband's slave, and all the drudgery of life fell upon her. She approached him with abject humility, and, if she ever complained of ill-usage, it was at the risk of her life; her children, however, were loved and watched with tender care.
The original inhabitants of the West Indian islands have disappeared, and are succeeded by a mixture of races, of whom the negroes claim our attention now. Among the blacks of Antigua, as an example, immorality is characteristic. Infanticide is frequently practiced, even since the Emancipation Bill was passed. The reason for this is clear. Under slavery, negroes could not contract a legal marriage; they therefore cohabited, and the union lasted as long as their affection or appetite existed. No disgrace attached to a woman who had borne children to several men. Now an idea of female virtue has been awakened, and they seek to escape the consequences of an illicit amour by destroying its offspring, upon the principle that where no tangible evidence of a crime exists, no crime has been committed.
During slavery, concubinage was general; and although many masters offered rewards to such as lived faithfully with one partner, the vice was all but universal, and a permanent engagement between a man and woman was seldom formed. Two females frequently lived with one man, one being considered his wife, and the other his mistress. When the negroes were emancipated in 1834, many were anxious to be legally married, and others put away the partners of their compulsory servitude and took new companions. Bigamy was not uncommon then, nor is it rare now, many devices being adopted to elude the stringent laws on this matter. Concubinage is less general than formerly, but the marriage covenant is by no means respected, nor is chastity much esteemed.
In St. Lucia sexual intercourse was unrestrained and almost promiscuous, and the negroes of the island are, even to this day, averse to matrimony and inclined to concubinage. In either relation they are equally faithless, the only redeeming feature being love of their children.
The same low state of morals is observable in Santa Cruz, but in Jamaica the negroes are mostly married and faithful to their engagements. Formerly the intercourse of the sexes was loose, profligate, and lewd. When the missionaries attempted to reform this, any who submitted to their teachings were ridiculed by the demoralized of their comrades. It must be admitted that Europeans have not shown any good example to the negroes, but, on the contrary, have encouraged their vices.
JAVA.
A curious system of manners now prevails in Java. Hindoos have been succeeded by Mohammedans, and they, in turn, have given place to Dutch, each having impressed some characteristic on the people. As elsewhere, the condition of the female sex will indicate the general character. The institution of marriage is universally known, if not practiced or respected, and the lot of women may be considered fortunate. They are not ill-used in any manner, and the seclusion imposed upon the more opulent is rather a withdrawal from the indiscriminate gaze of the people than that lonely secrecy exacted by jealousy in some parts of the East. The condition of the sex in Java is an exception to the habits of Asiatics. They associate with the men in all the pleasures and offices of life, eat with them, and live on terms of mutual equality. They are sometimes permitted to ascend the throne, and, in short, nowhere throughout the island are they treated with coarseness, violence, or neglect. They are willing and industrious, and are admitted to many honorable employments. Men sometimes act tyrannically in their households, but this only shows the fault of an individual, not of a class.
Polygamy and concubinage are practiced by the nobility without reference to public opinion, but are not generally adopted, being regarded as vicious luxuries. The first wife is always mistress of the household; the others are her servants, who may minister to her husband's pleasures, but do not share his rank or wealth. No man will give his daughter as second or third wife, unless to some one far superior in rank to himself; and a woman considers it dishonorable, not, in the abstract, to prostitute herself, but to form a connection with any man of humbler birth than herself.
But, though polygamy and concubinage are seldom known in Java, their absence must not be considered as implying superior morality. On the contrary, it is the most immoral country in Asia. A woman who would not condescend to be the second wife of a chief would not scruple to commit adultery with him. In general terms, both sexes are profligate and depraved, although the islanders boast the chastity of their women as a distinguishing ornament, because a married woman would shriek if a stranger attempted to kiss her before her attendants.
Divorce can be procured in Java with the utmost freedom, and is a privilege in which the women indulge themselves to a wanton degree. If a wife pays her husband a sum of money, he must leave her. He is not legally bound to accept her offer, but public opinion considers it disreputable to live with a woman who has thus signified her wishes for a separation, and he yields to general sentiment what is not exacted by law. The husband is often changed three or four times before the woman is thirty years old, and some boast the exercise of this privilege twelve times. As the means of subsistence abound, and are procured as easily by women as by men, the former are independent of the latter, and find no difficulty in living without husbands. Unfortunately for the theories of some female reformers of the present day, who imagine that such independence foreshadows the millennium of woman's rights, it must be admitted that, where the experiment has been tried, the sex are proverbially dissolute.
Among the wealthier classes the utmost immorality prevails, and in the great towns the population is debauched to the last degree. Intrigues with married women continually occur, and are prosecuted almost before the face of the husbands, who are often so tame and servile that they dare not assert their conjugal rights. Travelers have noticed flagrant instances of the looseness of Japanese manners, but one case will suffice. One of the princes, who had seduced a married woman, and was in the habit of visiting her at times when her husband, an officer in the public guard, was on duty, was surprised in her company on one occasion, the chief having returned home earlier than was expected. He knew the rank of his visitor, and discreetly coughed, so that the prince had time to escape. He then went to the chamber and flogged his wife. She complained to the prince, who was particularly desirous, at that time, to conciliate his subjects. He sent for the husband, made him many rich presents, and allowed him to select the handsomest woman in the royal household in place of the frail one who had betrayed him. The husband accepted the peace-offerings, allowed his wife to return home with him, and all the parties were satisfied.
In Java women are usually married very young, as their chastity is in danger as soon as they reach maturity. At eighteen or twenty a girl is considered to be getting old, and scarcely any are unmarried after twenty-two. Yet age does not exclude a woman from the probabilities of matrimony, for widows often procure husbands at fifty. The preliminary arrangements are made by the parents, as scandal would not allow the young people to take any part in a transaction in which they are looked upon, as the natives express it, as mere puppets. The father of the youth, having made a suitable choice, proposes to the parents of the girl. If they are willing, the betrothal is ratified by some trifling present, and visits are made, that the intended nuptials may be publicly known. Subsequently the price of the lady is arranged, varying according to the rank and circumstances of the family. Sometimes this is plainly called the "purchase-money," and sometimes by a more delicate term, the "deposit." It is considered as a settlement for the bride. The only religious feature in the marriage ceremony is an exchange of vows in the mosque. This is followed by many observances of etiquette and parade. Finally, the married couple eat from the same vessel, to testify their common fortune, or the bride washes her husband's feet in token of subjection.
The Javanese support a large class of women as public dancers. The inhabitants are passionately fond of this amusement, but no respectable woman will join in it, and all its female partisans are prostitutes; in fact, the words dancer and prostitute are synonymous in their language. A chief of high rank is not ashamed to be seen with one of these women, who figure at most large entertainments, and frequently amass enough money to induce some petty chief to marry them. So strong, however, is their ruling passion, they soon ascertain that domesticity is not their sphere, and become tired of their husbands, whom they divorce without ceremony, and coolly return to their public life. The dress in which they perform is very immodest, but they seldom descend to such obscene and degrading postures as may be witnessed in other Eastern countries.
European example has not done much for Java. The Dutch merchant has usually a native female called his housekeeper. In every city public prostitutes abound, while about the roads in the vicinity may be found others ready for hire. Their disguise as dancers is thought to conceal their profligacy.
SUMATRA.
The population of this island is divided into several tribes, slightly differing in their manners. The Rejangs, who may be supposed to represent its original inhabitants, are rude barbarians, scrupulously attentive to the show, but wanting the spirit of delicacy. They drape their women from head to foot, dread lest a virgin should expose any part of her person, and yet modesty is not a characteristic of the people in towns and villages. Those in rural districts who are not so rigid as to costume are more distinguished by decency.
The customs of Sumatra are of a peculiar character, great importance being attached to required formulas; and the ritual is more essential than the principle. It is curious to examine the intricate details of a Sumatran marriage contract, which appears to be so little understood even by the people themselves that, we are informed, one of these documents is sufficient to originate an almost endless litigation.
There are several modes of forming a marriage contract. The first is when one man agrees to pay another a certain sum in exchange for his daughter. A portion of the amount, say about five dollars, is generally held back, to keep the transaction open, and allow the girl's parents a chance to complain if she is ill used. If the husband wound her, he is liable to a fine, and in many ways his authority is controlled. But if he insists on paying the balance of the purchase-money, her parents must accept it, and then their right of interference ceases. If a father desires to get rid of a girl suffering from any infirmity, he sells her without this reservation, and she has fewer privileges in consequence.
In other cases marriage is an affair of barter, one virgin being given for another. A man having a son and a daughter will give the latter in exchange for a wife for the former; or a brother will dispose of his sister in the same way. Sometimes a girl evades these customs by eloping with a lover of her own choice. If the fugitives are overtaken on the road, they can be separated; but if they have taken refuge in any house, and the man declares his willingness to obey existing rules, his wife is secured to him. The Jewish custom of a man marrying his brother's widow is in force among the Sumatrans, and if there be no brother, she must be taken by the nearest male relative, the father excepted, who is made responsible for any balance of her purchase-money which may be due.
Adultery is not frequently committed under this system, but when it is, the husband chastises his wife himself, or else forgives the offense. If he desire to divorce her, he may claim back the purchase-money, less twenty-five dollars, which is allowed her parents for depreciation in the woman's value. If a man who has taken a wife is unable to pay the whole price, her friends may sue for a divorce, but then they must return all they have received from him. The ceremony of divorce consists in cutting a ratan in two in presence of the parties and their witnesses.
Another kind of marriage is when a girl's father selects some man whom he adopts into his family, receiving a premium of about twenty dollars. The father-in-law's family thus acquire a property in the young husband; they are answerable for his debts, claim all he earns, and have the privilege of turning him out of doors when they are tired of him.
The Malays of Sumalda have generally adopted a third kind of marriage, which they call the free. In this the families approach each other on an equal level. A small sum, about twelve dollars, is paid to the girl's parents, and an agreement is made that all property shall be common between husband and wife, and if a divorce takes place it shall be fairly divided. The actual ceremony of marriage is simple: a feast is given, the couple join their hands, and some one pronounces them man and wife.
Where the female is an article of sale, little of what we call courtship can be expected. It is opposed to the manners of the country, which impose strict separation of the sexes in youth; and, besides, when a man pays the price of his wife, he considers he is entitled to possession, without any question as to her predilections. But traces of courtship may be met with. On the very few occasions when young people are allowed to meet, such as public festivals, a degree of respect is shown to women contrasting very favorably with the observances of more civilized communities, and mutual attachments sometimes spring from these associations. The festivals are enlivened by dances and songs. The former have been described as licentious, but an English traveler says he has often seen more immodest displays in a ball-room in his native country. The songs are extempore, and love is the constant theme.
Polygamy is permitted, but only a few chiefs have more than one wife. To be a second one is considered far below the dignity of a respectable woman, and a man would demand a divorce for his daughter if her husband was about to take an additional companion.
Marsden, the traveler already mentioned, says that in the country parts of Sumatra chastity is general; but the merit is lost when he adds that interest causes the parents to be watchful of their daughters, because the selling price of a virgin is far above that of a woman who has been defiled. If a case of seduction occurs, the seducer can be forced to marry the girl and pay her original price, or else give her parents the sum which they would lose by her error.
Regular prostitution is rare. In the bazars of the towns some women of this class may be found, and in the sea-ports profligacy abounds, troops of professional courtesans parading the streets. No one would estimate the morality of a country from the spectacles exhibited in maritime cities. As a general rule, the Sumatran is content to marry, and is faithful to his wife. This may proceed from temperament rather than morality, as their ideas on the latter are not very rigid. This is shown by their opinion of incest, which they regard as an infraction of conventional law, sometimes punishing it by a fine, and at other times confirming the marriage, unless it occurs within the first degree of relationship.
BORNEO.
Notwithstanding the attention which has been drawn to the island of Borneo within the last few years, it is yet but little known to the general reader. The investigations of Sir James Brooke and others have enabled us to discern many of its social features. Most of the inhabitants of Borneo are in a state of barbarism. Some wander naked in the forest, and subsist on the spontaneous productions of the earth; others cultivate the soil, dwell in villages, and trade with their neighbors. The river communities are more advanced than those who live inland, and the inhabitants of sea-ports are more educated and more profligate than any. These have been farther debased by the abominable system of piracy, which, until recently, was their occupation.
Among the Sea Dyaks, or dwellers on the coast, there is no social law to govern sexual intercourse before marriage, nor is the authority of parents recognized in the matter. The Dyak girl selects a husband for herself, and, while she remains single, incurs no disgrace by cohabiting with as many as she pleases. After marriage she is subject to more stringent rules, for, as a man is allowed only one wife, he requires her to be faithful, or in default punishes her with a severe whipping. If he is incontinent he incurs a similar penalty. Cases of adultery are not frequent, though they sometimes occur in time of war.
The ceremony of marriage is as simple as possible. The consent of the woman is first obtained, then the bride and bridegroom meet and give a feast, which completes the contract.
If a girl becomes pregnant, the father of the child must marry her, and this is a common way of securing a husband. A man and woman live together for a time, and separate if there is no prospect of a family. During this probation constancy is not considered indispensable. The fear of not becoming the father of a family, a misfortune greatly dreaded by the Dyaks, favors the loose intercourse of unmarried people. In some tribes the duties of hospitality require that if a chief is traveling he shall be furnished with a pro tempore female companion at every place where he sleeps.
Among the Dyaks dwelling on the hills morality is of a higher standard. Single men are obliged to sleep in a separate building, and the girls are not allowed to approach them. Marriage is contracted at a very early age, and adultery is almost unknown. Polygamy is not allowed, but some of the chiefs indulge in a concubine, for which they are generally blamed. There are certain degrees of consanguinity within which marriage is unlawful. One man shocked public feeling by marrying his granddaughter, and the people affirm that ruin and darkness have covered the face of the sun ever since that act of incest. As they marry constantly within their own tribe, the whole commonwealth is in time united by ties of blood, and to this is ascribed the insanity common among them, a conclusion warranted to some extent by the imbecile state of well-known royal families condemned to perpetual intermarriages.
It is said that many prostitutes may be found among the people of the South, but this rests on doubtful testimony, and in the Dyak language there is no word to express the vice.
The Sibnouan females are neither concealed from strangers nor shy before them. They will bathe naked in the presence of men. The unmarried people sleep promiscuously in a common room, but married couples have separate apartments. The labor of the household is allotted to females, who grind rice, carry burdens, fetch water, catch fish, and till the ground. They are not so degraded as in other barbarous nations. They eat with the men, and take part in their festivals as well as their labor.
Among the Mohammedan Malays there is more civilization and more corruption. They are polygamists, indulge in concubinage, encourage prostitutes, and ill use their wives. An English physician lately received a message from the wife of a chief appointing a secret meeting. He was punctual to the assignation, and met the lady, who asked him for a close of arsenic to poison her husband, as he ill-treated her. Report says that the Englishman was disappointed in the nature of the interview, but firmly refused to grant her request.
The rich Malays allow their wives to keep female slaves, and the jealousy of the mistress renders their situation any thing but pleasant. They sometimes serve as concubines, in which case the law renders them free, but many refuse to avail themselves of this advantage.
We have no definite account of prostitutes in sea-port towns, but they appear to be of several classes: those who cohabit temporarily with the Malays, those who prostitute themselves indiscriminately to all comers, and those who are supported by sailors and profligate Chinese, who invariably create such a class wherever they settle. It is certain that women of this class exist in considerable numbers in Borneo.