Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure · 9 of 9

The New Morality

The tendency of the Evolution Theory, as it penetrates human thought, is to rub out lines—the old lines of formal classification. We no longer now put in a class apart those animals which have horns or cloven hooves, because we find that continuous descent and close kinship weave relations which are not bounded by horns or hooves. And, for a not dissimilar reason, modern thought, based on the theory of evolution, is tending to rub out the hard and fast lines between moral Right and Wrong—the old formal classifications of actions as some in their nature good, and some in their nature bad.

The Eastern, or at least Indian, thought and religion rubbed out these lines long ago. Its philosophy indeed was founded on a theory of Evolution—the continuous evolution or emanation of the Many from the One. It could not therefore regard any class of beings or creatures as essentially bad, or any class of actions as essentially wrong, since all sprang from a common Root. The only essential evil was ignorance (avidya)—that is, the fact of the being or creature not knowing or perceiving its emanation from, or kinship with, the One—and of course any action done under this condition of avidya, however outwardly correct, was essentially wrong; while on the other hand all actions done by beings fully realising and conscious of their union with the One were necessarily right.

Of this attitude towards Right and Wrong there are abundant instances in the Upanishads. The choice of the path does not lie between Good and Bad, as in the Pilgrim’s Progress, but it lies above and in a region transcending them both. “By the serenity of his thoughts a man blots out all actions, whether good or bad.”[42] “He does not distress himself with the thought, Why did I not do what is good? Why did I do what is bad?”[43] All religions indeed, by the very fact of their being religions, have indicated a sphere above morality, to which their followers shall and must aspire. What else is St. Paul’s reiterated charge to escape from the dominion of sin and law, into the glorious liberty of the children of God? And in all ages the great mystics—those who stand near the fountain-sources of evolution and emanation—have seen and said the same. Says Spinoza:—“With regard to good and evil, these terms indicate nothing positive in things considered in themselves, nor are they anything else than modes of thought, or notions which we form from the comparison of one thing with another. For one and the same thing may at the same time be both good and evil, or indifferent.”[44]

Here indeed, in these pregnant words, we come upon the very root of the matter. A thing, an action, may be called good or bad in respect to a certain purpose or object; but in itself, No. Wine may be good for the encouragement of sociability, but may be bad for the liver. The Sabbath-day may be pronounced a beneficial institution from some points of view, but not from others. A scrupulous respect for private property may certainly be a help to settled social life; but the practice of thieving—as recommended by Plato—may be very useful to check the lust of private riches. To speak of wine as in its nature good or bad is manifestly absurd; and the same of a pious respect for private property or the Sabbath-day. These things are good under certain conditions or for certain purposes, and bad under other conditions or for other purposes. But of course it belongs and goes with the brute externalising tendency of the mind, to stereotype the actual material thing—which should be only the vehicle of the spirit—and give it a character and a cult as good or bad. The Sabbath ceases to be made for man, and man is made for the Sabbath. Law, Custom, Pharisaism, and Self-righteousness spring up and usurp the sphere of morality, and all the histories of savage and civilised nations, with their endless fetishes and taboos and superstitions and ceremonies, and caste-marks and phylacteries, and petty regulations and proprieties,—including bitter scorn and persecution of those who do not fulfil them,—are but illustrations of this process.

All the prophets and saviours of the world have been for the Spirit as against the letter—and the teachings of all religions have in their turn become literalised and fossilised! Perhaps there has been no greater anti-literal than Jesus of Nazareth, and yet perhaps no religion has become more a thing of forms and dogmas than that which passes under his name. Even his counsels of Gentleness and Love—which one would indeed have thought might escape this process—have been corrupted into mere prescriptions of morality, such as those of Non-resistance, and of philanthropic Altruism.

It seems strange indeed that so great a man as Tolstoy should have lent himself to this process—to the pinning down of the excellent spirit of Christ (who by the way was man enough to drive the money-changers out of the Temple) to a mere formula, as one might pin a dragon-fly to a labelled card—Thou shalt not use Violence: thou shalt not Resist! And all the while to cleave to a formula only means to admit the evil in some other shape which the formula does not meet—to forswear the stick only means to resort to rebuke and sarcasm in self-defence, which may inflict more pain and a deeper scar, and in some cases more injury, than the stick; or if self-defence in any shape is quite forsworn then that only means to resign and abandon one’s place in the world completely.

And the same of the somewhat spooney Altruism, which was at one time much recommended as the maxim of conduct. For all the while it is notorious that the specially altruistic people are as a rule painfully dull and uninteresting, and afford far less life and charm to those around them than many who are frankly egotistic; and so by following a formula of Altruism it seems they wreck the very work they set before themselves to do—namely, that of making the world brighter!

Against these weaknesses of Christianity Nietzsche was a healthy reaction. It was he insisted on the terms “good” and “bad” being restored to their proper use, as terms of relation—“good” for what? “bad” for what? But his reaction against maudlin altruism and non-resistance led him towards a pitfall in the opposite direction, towards the erection of the worship of Force almost into a formula, Thou shalt use Violence, thou shalt Resist. His contempt for the feeble and the spooney and the knock-kneed and the humbug is very delightful and entertaining, and, as I say, healthy in the sense of reaction; but one does not get a very clear idea what the strength which Nietzsche glorifies is for, or whither it is going to lead. His blonde beasts and his laughing lions may represent the Will to Power; but Nietzsche seems to have felt, himself, that this latter alone would not suffice, and so he passed on to his discovery or invention of the Beyond-man,—i.e. of a childlike being who, without argument, affirms and creates, and before whom institutions and conventions dissolve, as it were of their own accord.[45] This was a stroke of genius; but even so it leaves doubtful what the relation of such Beyond-men to each other may be, and whether, if they have no common source of life, their actions will not utterly cancel and destroy each other.

The truth is that Nietzsche never really penetrated to the realisation of that farther state of consciousness in which the deep underlying unity of man with Nature and his fellows is perceived and felt. He saw apparently that there is a life and an inspiration of life beyond all technical good and evil. But for some reason—partly because of the natural difficulty of the subject, partly perhaps because the Eastern outlook was uncongenial to his mind—he never found the solution which he needed; and his outline of the Superman remains cloudy and uncertain, vague and variously interpreted by followers and critics.

The question arises, What do we need? We are to-day, in this matter, in a somewhat parlous state. The old codes of Morality are moribund; the Ten Commandments command only a very qualified assent; the Christian religion as a real inspiration of practical life and conduct is dead; the social conventions and Mrs. Grundy remain, feebly galling and officious. What are we to do? Are we to bolster up the old codes, in which we have largely ceased to believe, merely in order to have a code?—or are we to let them go?

Of course, if we have decided what the final purpose or life of Man is, then we may say that what is good for that purpose is finally “good,” and what is bad for that purpose is finally “evil.” The Eastern philosophy, as I have said, deciding that the final purpose of Man is identification with Brahm, declares all actions to be evil (even the most saintly) which are done by the self as separate from Brahm; and all actions as good which are done in the condition of vidya or conscious union. But here, though a final good and evil are allowed and acknowledged, as existing respectively in the conditions of vidya or avidya, those conditions altogether escape any external rule or classification.

Mr. Gilbert Chesterton, taking up this subject not long ago in a criticism[46] of Mr. Orage’s little book on Nietzsche, said that all this talk about “beyond good and evil” was nonsense; that we must have some code; and that in effect, any code, even a bad one, was better than none. And one sees what he means. It is perfectly true, in a sense, that the harness, the shafts, and the blinkers keep a large part of the world on the beaten road and out of the ditch, and that folk are always to be found who, rather than use their higher faculties, will rely on these external guides; but to encourage this kind of salvation by blinkers seems the very reverse of what ought to be done; and one might even ask whether salvation by such means is salvation at all—whether the ditch were not better!

Besides, what can we do? It is not so much that we are deliberately abandoning the codes as that they are abandoning us. With the gradual infiltration of new ideas, of Eastern thought, of Darwinian philosophy, of customs and creeds of races other than our own, with Bernard Shaw lecturing on the futility of the Ten Commandments, and so forth, it is not difficult to see that in a short while it will be impossible to rehabilitate any of the ancient codes or to give them a sanction and a sense of awe in the public mind. If with Gilbert Chesterton we should succeed in bolstering up such a thing for a time—well, it will only be for a time.

And the question is, whether the time has not really come for us to stand up—like sensible men and women—and do without rules; whether we cannot trust ourselves at last to throw aside the blinkers. The question is whether we cannot realise that solid and central life which underlies and yet surpasses all rules. For truly, if we cannot do this, our state is pitiable—having ceased to believe in the letter of Morality, and yet unable to find its spirit!

It is here, then, that the New Morality comes in, as more or less clearly understood and expressed by the progressive sections to-day. Modern Socialism, in effect, taking up a position in its way somewhat similar to that of Eastern philosophy, says: Morality in its essence is not a code, but simply the realisation of the Common Life;[47] and that is a thing which is not foreign and alien to humanity, but very germane and natural to it—a thing so natural that without doubt it would be more in evidence than it is, did not the institutions and teachings of Western civilisation tend all along to deny and disguise it. To liberate this instinct of the Common Life, freeing it from hard and cramping rules, and to let it take its own form or forms—grafted on and varied of course by the personal and selective element of Affection and Sympathy—is the hope that lies before the world to-day for the solution of all sorts of moral and social problems.

And the more this position is thought over, the more, I believe, will it commend itself. The sense of organic unity, of the common welfare, the instinct of Humanity, or of general helpfulness, are things which run in all directions through the very fibre of our individual and social life—just as they do through that of the gregarious animals. In a thousand ways: through heredity and the fact that common ancestral blood flows in our veins—though we be only strangers that pass in the street; through psychology, and the similarity of structure and concatenation in our minds; through social linkage, and the necessity of each and all to the others’ economic welfare; through personal affection and the ties of the heart; and through the mystic and religious sense which, diving deep below personalities, perceives the vast flood of universal being—in these and many other ways does this Common Life compel us to recognise itself as a fact—perhaps the most fundamental fact of existence.

To teach this simple foundational fact and what flows from it to every child—not only as a theory, but as a practical habit and inspiration of conduct—is not really difficult, but easy. Children, having this sense woven into their very being, grow up in the spirit and practical habitude of it, and from the beginning possess the inspiration of what we call Morality—far more effectually indeed than copy-book maxims can provide. Respect for truth, consideration towards parents and elders, respect for the reasonable properties, dignities, conveniences of others, as well as for one’s own needs and dignities, become perfectly natural and habitual. And that this is no mere hypothesis the example of Japan has lately shown where every young thing is brought up so far drenched in the sentiment of community that to give one’s life for one’s country is looked upon as a privilege.[48] The general lines, I say, of morality would be secure, and much more secure than they now are, if we could only bring the children up in an educational and practical atmosphere of that solidarity which as a matter of fact is demanded to-day by socialism and the economic movement generally.

And on this ground-work, as I have hinted, Personal Affection and Sympathy would build a superstructure of their own; they would outline a society as much more beautiful, powerful and closely knit than the present one founded on the Cash-nexus, as, say, the Athenian society of the time of Pericles was superior to that of the Lapithæ who first bitted and bridled the horse.

While the general Life, equal, pervasive, and in a sense undifferentiated, is a great fact which has to be acknowledged; so this personal Love and Affection, choosing, selecting, and giving outline and form to that life, is equally a fact, equally undeniable, equally sacred—and one which has to be taken in conjunction with the other.

I say equally sacred: because there has been a tendency (no doubt due to certain causes) to look upon personal affection, in its various phases from slight inclinations of sympathy to the stronger compulsions of passion, as something rather dubious in character, at best an amiable weakness not to be encouraged. Tolstoy, in one of his writings, figures the case of a little household in days of famine not really having bread enough for their own wants. Then a stranger child comes to the door and pleads for food. Tolstoy suggests that the mother ought to take the scanty crust from her own child to feed the stranger withal, or at least to share the food equally between the two children. But such a conclusion seems to me doubtful.

Whatever “ought” may mean in such a connexion, we know pretty well that such never will be the rule of human life, we may almost say never can be; perhaps we should be equally justified in saying, never “ought” to be. For obviously there must be preferences, selections. Our affections, our affinities, our sympathies, our passions, are not given us for nothing. It is not for nothing that every individual person, every tree, every animal has a shape, a shape of its own. If it were not so the world would be infinitely, inconceivably, dull. Yet to ask that a mother should in all cases treat strange children exactly the same as her own, that a man from the oceanic multitude should single out no special or privileged friends, but should love all alike, is to ask that these folk in their mental and moral nature should become as jellyfish—of no distinct shape or satisfaction to themselves or any one else. Profound and indispensable as is the Law of Equality—the law, namely, that there is a region within all beings where they touch to a common and equal life—the other law, that of Individual predilection, is equally indispensable. Try to reduce all to the one motive of the general interest, and you might have a perfect morality, but a morality woodeny, hard and dull, without form and feature. Try to dispense with this, and to found society on individual affection and love, and on individual initiative, without morals, and you would have a flighty, unstable thing, without consistency or backbone.

My contention, then, is that our hope for the future society lies in its embodiment of these two great principles jointly: (1) the recognition of the Common Life as providing the foundation-element of general morality, and (2) the recognition of Individual Affection and Expression—and to a much greater degree than hitherto—as building up the higher groupings and finer forms of the structure. And in proportion as (1) provides a solider basis of morals than we have hitherto had, so will it be possible to give to (2) a width of scope and freedom of action hitherto untried or untrusted. Conjointly with the strengthening of these principles of Solidarity and Affection in society must of course come the strengthening of Individuality—the right and the desire of every being to preserve and develop its own proper shape, and so to add to the richness and interest of life—and this involves the right of Resistance, and (once more) the relegation of the formula of non-resistance into the background.

These considerations, however, are leading us too far afield, and away from the special subject of our paper. I mention them chiefly in order to show that while we are considering Morality as a foundation-element of Society, it must never be lost sight of that it is not the only element, and that it would be comparatively senseless and useless unless grafted on and complemented and completed by the others.

The method of the New Morality, then, will be to minimise formulæ, and (except as illustrations) to use them sparely; and to bring children up—and so indirectly all citizens—in such conditions of abounding life and health that their sympathies, overflowing naturally to those around, will cause them to realise in the strongest way their organic part in the great whole of society—and this not as an intellectual theory, so much as an abiding consciousness and foundation-fact of their own existence. Make this the basis of all teaching. Make them realise—by all sorts of habit and example—that to injure or deceive others is to injure themselves—that to help others somehow satisfies and fortifies their own inner life. Let them learn, as they grow up, to regard all human beings, of whatever race or class, as ends in themselves—never to be looked upon as mere things or chattels to be made use of. Let them also learn to look upon the animals in the same light—as beings, they too, who are climbing the great ladder of creation—beings with whom also we humans have a common spirit and interest. And let them learn to respect themselves as worthy and indispensable members of this great Body. Thus will be established a true Morality—a morality far more searching, more considerate of others, more adaptive and more genuine than that of the present day—a morality, we may say, of common-sense.

For it may indeed be said that Morality—taking a downright and almost physiological view of it—is simply abundance of life. That is, that when a man has so abounding and vital an inner nature that his sympathies and activities overflow the margin of his own petty days and personal advantage, he is by that fact entering the domain of morality. Before that time and while limited to the personal organism, the creative life in each being is either non-moral like that of the animals, or simply selfish like that of the immature man; but when it overflows this limit it necessarily becomes social, and moves to the support and consideration of the neighbour. Having formerly found its complete activity in the sustentation of the personal self it now spreads its helpful energies into the lives of the other selves around. Altruism, in fact, in its healthy forms, is the overflow of abounding vitality. It is a morality without a code, and happily free from limiting formulæ.[49]

And if it be again said that a morality of this kind, which rests on a principle and a mental attitude only, is a danger, let us pause for a moment to consider how much more dangerous is one which rests on formulæ. If morality without a code is a serious matter, how much more serious is one which is nailed up within a code! For looking back on history it would sometimes seem that the black-and-white, the this-thing-right-and-that-thing-wrong morality has been the most wicked thing in the world. It has been an excuse for all the most devilish deeds and persecutions imaginable. A formula of the Sabbath-day, a formula about Witchcraft, a formula of Marriage (regardless of the real human relation), a formula concerning Theft (regardless of the dire need of the thief)—and burnings, hangings, torturings without mercy! The terrible thing about this Right-and-Wrong morality is not only that it leads to these dreadful reprisals; but that it brands upon the victim as well as upon the oppressor the fatuous notions that a certain thing is right or wrong, and that what one has to do is to save oneself—two notions both of which are directly contrary to true Morality. A boy tells a verbal lie—perhaps through fear, perhaps through inadvertence. He has broken a formula and is immediately caned. Moral: he will keep to verbal truth afterwards—however mean or insidious it may be—and be pharisaically self-satisfied; but he will never realise that the importance of truth and lies rests not in the words, but in the confidence and mutual trust which they either create or destroy. The peculiarly English worship of Duty is open to the same objection. “Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds,” and splendid as is the conception and practice of Duty, as a self-oblivious inspiration and enthusiasm, it becomes a truly revolting thing when it takes the all-too-common form “I have done my Duty, I’m all right!” “I am going to do my Duty, whatever becomes of you.” Can anything be imagined more disintegrating to society, more certain to split it up into a dustheap of self-regarding units, than a formula of this kind? “It is my painful Duty to condemn you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead,” says the Judge to the wretched girl who, in a frenzy of despair, has drowned her baby. What he really means is that while he perfectly recognises the monstrosity of the Law which he has sworn to administer, and the soul-killing effect on the girl which his sentence may have, yet in order to save himself from the risk or the wrong of breaking that Law, he is willing and ready to pronounce that sentence. “It is my duty to burn you,” says the Inquisitor to the heretic; and the implication is really, “I am afraid that if I do not burn you I shall get burnt myself, in the next world.”

The sooner an end can be made of this sort of morality, the better—which under the cloak of public advantage or benefit is only thinking about self-promotion and self-interest, either in this world or the next, and which truly is calculated not to further human solidarity but to destroy it. It runs and trickles through all of modern society, poisoning the well-springs of affection, this morality which, having paid its domestic servants their regular wages, is quite satisfied with itself, and expects them to do their duty in return, but is silent about their real needs and welfare; which treats its wage-workers as simple machines for the grinding out of profits, and lifts its eyebrows in serene surprise when they retaliate against such treatment; which can only regard a criminal as a person who has broken a formula, and in return must be punished according to a formula; and a pig as an animal for which you provide reasonable provender and a stye, and which in return you are entitled to eat. Pharisaical, self-centred and self-interested, materialistic to the last degree, and really senseless in its outlook, this current morality is indeed, and very seriously, a public peril.

Thou shalt not steal: an empty feat, When it’s so lucrative to cheat.

Keep within the code, within the letter; always speak the nominal truth (whoever may suffer thereby); keep up the accepted formulæ of marriage and the sex-relation (though hearts may be bleeding and perishing); pay every respect to property, and so forth; and you may have the gratification of being looked upon as a bulwark of society. But none the less it is probable that you are undermining and corrupting that society to the core. Your outlook is merely on the surface, while you are condoning deep-seated ill.

Of course the New Morality—to look within, to feel and refer to the needs of others almost as instinctively as to one’s own, to refuse to regard any thing as in itself good or bad, and to look upon all beings, oneself included, as ends in themselves and not as a means of personal self-advancement and glorification—while it is the more natural, is also the more difficult in a sense, as providing no set pattern or rule. But surely the time has arrived for its adoption. It is the morality which must underlie the freer, more varied forms of the society of the future; and it is the only escape from the corruption of the old order.

To take particular examples. Truth, in word or act, is—we all feel—very important, very fundamental. It is the basis of the common understanding of which I have spoken. It is the basis of the expression of oneself, and of the recognition of others. Any one who is deeply imbued with the consciousness of the common life will necessarily have a deep respect for the Truth; he will also have a deep respect for the Life, the Property, the good Name, the Affections, and so forth, of others, as well as for his own similar attributes. He will not be able to say, as a formula: I will never deceive another (tell a lie); I will never take the life of others, man or animal (kill); and so on, because he knows there are situations in which that very Life arising within him, or even his own absolute necessity, will demand such actions, will compel him to the performance of them; but all the same he will in his ordinary existence carry out the principle which underlies these formulæ, and much more thoroughly, probably, than the formulæ themselves would demand.

Similarly about such matters as sexual morality. There are outcries against Lady-Godiva-shows and living statuary—apparently because folk are afraid of such things rousing the passions. No doubt the things may act that way. But why, we may ask, should people be afraid of rousing passions which, after all, are the great driving forces of human life? Clearly it is because they think the other forces which should guide these passions or give them a helpful and useful direction are too weak. And in this last respect they are right. The guiding and inhibiting forces in our present society are feeble—because they consist only in a few conventional formulæ, which are rapidly being undermined. We are generating steam in a boiler which is already cankered with rust. The cure is not to cut off the passions, or to be weakly afraid of them, but to find a new, sound, healthy engine of general morality and common-sense within which they will work. And this is what in the future we must try to do.

This morality, this organic, vital, almost physiological morality of the common life—which means a quick response of each unit to the needs of the other units, and much the same in the body politic as health means in the physical body—must underlie and be the basis of the societies of the future. It will mean the liberation of a thousand and one instincts, desires and capacities which since our childhood’s days have lain buried within us, concealed and ignored because we have thought them wrong or unworthy, when really all they have wanted has been recognition and the opportunity to become healthy by recognition—by the process in fact of balancing against each other, and against opposing and complementary elements, and so finding their places in the Whole. On this new Morality of acceptance and recognition and wide-reaching redemption, it will be possible, as I have already said, to graft not only a stronger expression of individuality all round, but also a higher and more varied and more gracious life of personal affection—which now alas! lies like a thing wounded and half dead. Its establishment will, I take it, mean the oncoming of a society which will liberate personal affection and love—will liberate forces hitherto artificially crippled because their liberation would tear our current morality of formulæ to mere rags and tatters. It means, I take it, the oncoming of a society whose main motive will no longer be the struggle for Bread (since that is ruled out by the enormous growth of our wealth-producing powers), but the desire for the satisfaction of the Heart—thus preparing no doubt new and unforeseen difficulties and sufferings, yet filling life with such beautiful things that the motives of greed and the mean pursuit of money, which now weigh upon the world, will be like an evil nightmare of the Past from which the dawn delivers us.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Maitrayana-Brahmana-Upanishad, vi. 34, 4.

[43] Taittiriyaka-Up, ii. 9, etc.

[44] Spinoza’s Ethic, part iv.

[45] It must be remembered that Nietzsche supposes three stages of the spirit—(1) the Camel, (2) the Lion, and (3) the Child. And the Beyond-man properly corresponds to the last stage.

[46] Daily News, December 29, 1906.

[47] I need hardly say that this does not mean, as Nietzsche so often and sardonically suggests, the realisation of the common-place life, but something very different.

[48] Many Japanese committed suicide on account of not being allowed to join in the Russian War. See also Lafcadio Hearn’s description of the habitual dignity and courtesy of the youth of Japan.—Life and Letters, vol. i, pp. 12, 113.

[49] This morality, indeed, may be said to be implicit in much of the teaching of Christ; yet, curiously enough, it has never been seriously adopted by the Churches. And as to the regard for animals as ends in themselves, the Roman Catholic Church, I believe, positively repudiates any such attitude.

APPENDIX

As the author’s attacks in the body of this book upon the Civilisation peoples have sometimes been regarded as extreme and unjustified, it has been thought appropriate, here in the Appendix, to collect a few notes from reliable authorities on the characteristics and customs of pre-civilised men—not so much of course with the object of proving the latter always superior to the former, as of bringing to light the many admirable virtues of the early peoples, which a cheap modern civilisation has neglected or somewhat contemptuously ignored.

No one would deny that there are many cases of primitive folk—folk unclean and ignorant and absurdly superstitious—who can hardly be said to command our admiration. On the other hand there are a vast number of cases of an opposite sort—cases which present to us the realisation of some remarkable human characteristic or social capacity well worthy of consideration or even of imitation. If our Civilisation is ever to move on to some form better than the present, it is these latter cases which ought to be of assistance; for they not only direct our attention to human possibilities, but by showing what has been realised in the past assure us that such ideals are by no means unattainable now.

It is therefore with a view to cases of this kind that the following Appendix has been framed.

E. C.

+Civilisation does not Engross all the Virtues.+

Quotations from Herman Melville’s Typee, pp. 225, etc. (John Murray, 1861.)

“Civilisation does not engross all the virtues of humanity: she has not even her full share of them. They flourish in greater abundance and attain greater strength among many barbarous people. The hospitality of the wild Arab, the courage of the North American Indian, and the faithful friendships of some of the Polynesian nations, far surpass anything of a similar kind among the polished communities of Europe. If truth and justice, and the better principles of our nature, cannot exist unless enforced by the statute-book, how are we to account for the social condition of the Typees? So pure and upright were they in all the relations of life, that entering their valley, as I did, under the most erroneous impressions of their character, I was soon led to exclaim in amazement: ‘Are these the ferocious savages, the bloodthirsty cannibals of whom I have heard such frightful tales! They deal more kindly with each other, and are more humane, than many who study essays on virtue and benevolence, and who repeat every night that beautiful prayer breathed first by the lips of the divine and gentle Jesus.’ I will frankly declare, that after passing a few weeks in this valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained. But alas! since then I have been one of the crew of a man-of-war, and the pent-up wickedness of five hundred men has nearly overturned all my previous theories.

* * * * *

“How little do some of these poor islanders comprehend, when they look around them, that no inconsiderable part of their disasters originate in certain tea-party excitements, under the influence of which benevolent-looking gentlemen in white cravats solicit alms, and old ladies in spectacles, and young ladies in sober russet low gowns, contribute sixpences towards the creation of a fund, the object of which is to ameliorate the spiritual condition of the Polynesians, but whose end has almost invariably been to accomplish their temporal destruction!

“Let the savages be civilised, but civilise them with benefits, and not with evils; and let heathenism be destroyed, but not by destroying the heathen. The Anglo-Saxon hive have extirpated Paganism from the greater part of the North American continent; but with it they have likewise extirpated the greater portion of the Red race. Civilisation is gradually sweeping from the earth the lingering vestiges of Paganism, and at the same time the shrinking forms of its unhappy worshippers.

“Among the islands of Polynesia, no sooner are the images overturned, the temples demolished, and the idolaters converted into nominal Christians, than disease, vice, and premature death make their appearance. The depopulated land is then recruited from the rapacious hordes of enlightened individuals who settle themselves within its borders, and clamorously announce the progress of the Truth. Neat villas, trim gardens, shaven lawns, spires, and cupolas arise, while the poor savage soon finds himself an interloper in the country of his fathers, and that too on the very site of the hut where he was born.

* * * * *

“During my whole stay on the island I never witnessed a single quarrel, nor any thing that in the slightest degree approached even to a dispute. The natives appeared to form one household, whose members were bound together by the ties of strong affection. The love of kindred I did not so much perceive, for it seemed blended in the general love; and where all were treated as brothers and sisters, it was hard to tell who were actually related to each other by blood.

“Let it not be supposed that I have overdrawn this picture. I have not done so. Nor let it be urged that the hostility of this tribe to foreigners, and the hereditary feuds they carry on against their fellow-islanders beyond the mountains, are facts which contradict me. Not so: these apparent discrepancies are easily reconciled. By many a legendary tale of violence and wrong, as well as by events which have passed before their eyes, these people have been taught to look upon white men with abhorrence. The cruel invasion of their country by Porter has alone furnished them with ample provocation; and I can sympathize in the spirit which prompts the Typee warrior to guard all the passes to his valley with the point of his levelled spear, and, standing upon the beach, with his back turned upon his green home, to hold at bay the intruding European.”

+Influences of “Civilisation”+

From R. L. Stevenson’s In the South Seas, p. 43. (Chatto and Windus, 1908.)

[It is asked] “Was not the Polynesian always unchaste? Doubtless he was so always: doubtless he is more so since the coming of his remarkably chaste visitors from Europe. Take the Hawaiian account of Cook: I have no doubt it is entirely fair. Take Krusenstern’s candid, almost innocent description of a Russian man-of-war at the Marquesas; consider the disgraceful history of missions in Hawaii itself … add the practice of whaling fleets to call at the Marquesas and carry off a complement of women for the cruise … and bear in mind how it was the custom of the adventurers, and we may almost say the business of the missionaries, to deride and infract even the most salutary tapus (taboos).”

+Captain Cook at Owyhee in 1799+

From his Life and Voyages, p. 379. (George Newnes, 1904.)

“In the progress of the intercourse which was maintained between our voyagers and the natives, the quiet and inoffensive behaviour of the latter took away every apprehension of danger, so that the English trusted themselves among them at all times and in all situations. The instances of kindness and civility which our people experienced from them were so numerous that they could not easily be recounted. A society of priests, in particular, displayed a generosity and munificence of which no equal example had hitherto been given: for they furnished a constant supply of hogs and vegetables to our navigators, without ever demanding a return, or even hinting at it in the most distant manner.” Of the island of Wateeoo (p. 309), “the inhabitants are very numerous, and many of the young men were perfect models in shape.”

+Natives of Tahiti+

From Havelock Ellis’ Sex in relation to Society, p. 148. (1910.)

“The example of Tahiti is instructive as regards the prevalence of chastity among peoples of what we generally consider low grades of civilisation. An early explorer, J. R. Forster (Observations made on a voyage round the World, 1778), speaks of the fine climate and the beauty of the females, as inviting powerfully to the enjoyments and pleasures of love. Yet he is over and over again impelled to set down facts which bear testimony to the virtues of these people. Though rather effeminate in build they are athletic, he says. Moreover in their wars they fight with great bravery and valour. They are, for the rest, hospitable. He remarks that they treat their married women with great respect, and that women generally are nearly the equals of men, both in intelligence and social position; he gives a charming description of the women. ‘In short their character,’ he concludes, ‘is as amiable as that of any nation that ever came unimproved out of the hands of Nature’[!]”…

“When Cook,” continues Ellis, “who visited Tahiti many times, was among this ‘benevolent, humane’ people, he noted their esteem for chastity, and found that not only were betrothed girls strictly guarded before marriage, but that men also who had refrained from sexual intercourse for some time before marriage were believed to pass at death immediately into the abode of the blessed.”

+Radack—one of the Caroline Islands+

From Chamisso’s Reise um die Welt, p. 183. (Leipzig.)

“Thus we made acquaintance with a people who have endeared themselves to me more than any others of the children of Earth. The very weaknesses of the Radack folk removed mistrust on our side; their very gentleness and goodness caused them to be trustful towards us, the all-powerful strangers; we became declared friends. I found among them simple, unsophisticated manners, charm, natural grace, and the pleasant bloom of modesty. In the matter, certainly, of strength and manly independence the O-Waihier [Owyhees] are greatly their superiors. My friend, Kadu, who, though not belonging to this island-group, attached himself to us, was one of the finest characters I have ever met and one of the most dear to me of human beings; and he afterwards became my instructor with regard to Radack and the Caroline Islands.”

+Adaptation of Early Peoples to Surroundings+

THE DINKAS (Central Africa): from Grogan’s Cape to Cairo, p. 278. (Hurst & Blackett, 1900.)

“Every one in Dinka-land carries a long spear, or pointed fish-spear, and a club made of a heavy purple wood, while the more important gentlemen wear enormous ivory bracelets round their upper arm; strict nudity is the fashion, and a marabout feather in the hair is the essence of chic. They are all beautifully built, having broad shoulders, small waist, good hips, and well-shaped legs. The stature of some is colossal. It was most curious to see how these Dinkas, living as they do in the marshes, approximate to the type of the waterbird. They have much the same walk as a heron, picking their feet up very high and thrusting them well forward; while their feet are enormous. Their colossal height is indeed a great advantage in the reed grown country in which they live. The favourite pose of a Dinka (on one foot, with the other foot resting on the knee) is in reality the favourite pose of a water bird.... They are the complete antithesis of the pigmy, as the country in which they live is the complete antithesis of the dense forest which is the home of the dwarfs.... Our camp was near a large village where there were at least 1,500 head of cattle, besides sheep and goats, and the chief brought me a fine fat bull-calf—which settled the nervous question of food for two days.... The rambling village with its groups of figures and long lines of home-coming cattle, dimly seen in the smoke of a hundred fires as I approached at sunset, was very picturesque.”

THE PIGMIES: from Cape to Cairo, pp. 144 and 161.

“The pigmies have no settled villages, nor do they cultivate anything. They live the life of the brute in the forests, perpetually wandering in search of honey or in pursuit of elephant; when they succeed in killing anything, they throw up a few grass shelters and remain there till all the meat is either eaten or dried. They depend upon the other natives for the necessary grain, which they either steal or barter for elephant meat or honey. All their knives, spearheads and arrow-heads they likewise purchase from other people, but they make their own bows and arrows. So well are these made that they are held in great esteem by the surrounding people.” … “An hour later I met an elderly pigmy in the forest and managed to induce him to talk. He was a splendid little fellow, full of self-confidence, and gave me most concise information, stating that the white man with many belongings had passed near by two days before, and had then gone down to the lake-shore, where he was camped at that moment. These people must have a wonderful code of signs and signals, as despite their isolated and nomadic existence they always know exactly what is happening everywhere. He was a typical pigmy as found on the volcanoes—squat, gnarled, proud, and easy of carriage. His beard hung down over his chest, and his thighs and chest were covered with wiry hair. He carried the usual pigmy bow made of two pieces of cane spliced together with grass, and with a string made of a single strand of a rush that grows in the forests. The pigmies are splendid examples of the adaptability of Nature to her surroundings; the combination of strength and conciseness enabling them to move with astonishing rapidity in the pig-runs that form the only pathway through the impenetrable growth, and to endure the fatigue of elephant-hunting.”

NATIVES IN RUANDA (near Lake Kivu): Cape to Cairo, p. 118.

“Society in Ruanda is divided into two castes, the Watusi and the Wahutu. The Watusi are the descendants of a great wave of Galla invasion that reached even to Tanganyika. They still retain their pastoral instincts, and refuse to do any other work than the tending of cattle; and so great is their affection for their beasts, that rather than sever company they will become slaves, and do the menial work of their beloved cattle for the benefit of their conquerors. This is all the more remarkable when one takes into account their inherent pride of race and contempt for other peoples, even for the white man.... Many signs of superior civilisation, observable in the peoples with whom the Watusi have come into contact, are traceable to this Galla influence.

“The hills are terraced, thus increasing the area of cultivation, and obviating the denudation of fertile slopes by torrential rains. In many cases irrigation is carried out on a sufficiently extensive scale, and the swamps are drained by ditches. Artificial reservoirs are built with side troughs for watering cattle. The fields are in many cases fenced in by planted hedges of euphorbia and thorn, and similar fences are planted along the narrow parts of the main cattle tracks, to prevent the beasts from straying or trampling down the cultivation.

“There is also an exceptional diversity of plants cultivated, such as hungry rice, maize, red and white millet, several kinds of beans, peas, bananas, and the edible arum. Some of the higher growing beans are even trained on sticks planted for the purpose. Pumpkins and sweet potatoes are also common; and the Watusi own and tend enormous herds of cattle, goats and sheep. Owing to the magnificent pasturage the milk is of excellent quality, and they make large quantities of butter. They are exceedingly clever with their beasts, and have many calls which the cattle understand. At milking time they light smoke-fires to keep the flies from irritating the beasts.... They are tall slightly built men of graceful nonchalant carriage, and their features are delicate and refined. I noticed many faces that, bleached and set in a white collar, would have been conspicuous for character in a London drawing-room. The legal type was especially pronounced.” …

“The Wahutu are their absolute antithesis. They are the aborigines of the country, and any pristine originality or character has been effectually stamped out of them. Hewers of wood and drawers of water, they do all the hard work, and unquestioning in abject servility give up the proceeds on demand. Their numerical proportion to the Watusi must be at least a hundred to one, yet they defer to them without protest; and in spite of the obvious hatred in which they hold their over lords, there seems to be no friction.”

+Natives of the Andaman Islands+

The following extracts, about the Andaman-islanders of the Bay of Bengal, the Bushmen of South Africa, and the Eskimo tribes of Northern latitudes, are specially interesting because they deal with peoples whose present-day culture is undoubtedly on a par with, and in all probability directly inherited from, the peoples of a long-past Stone Age. Thus we get indirectly a glimpse of what the culture of the Stone Ages was—both in its material acquisitions and its grade of social and psychological evolution.

From In the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 184, by C. Boden Kloss. (Murray, 1903.)

“The Andaman Islands are inhabited by people of pure Negrito blood, members of perhaps the most ancient race remaining on the earth, and standing closest to the primitive human type.... It would be impossible to find anywhere a race of purer descent than the Andamanese, for ever since they peopled the islands in the Stone Age, they have remained secluded from the outer world.... In stature they are far below the average height; but although they have been called dwarfs and pygmies, these words must not be understood to imply anything in the nature of a monstrosity. Their reputation for hideousness, like their poisoned arrows and cannibalism, has long been a fallacy which, though widely popular, should now be exploded. The average heights of the men and women are found to be 4 feet 10¾ inches, and 4 feet 7¼ inches respectively, and their figures, which are proportionately built, are very symmetrical and graceful. Although not to be described as muscular, they are of good development, the men being agile, yet sturdy, with broad chests and square shoulders.”

From E. H. Man on The Aborigines of the Andaman Islands, p. 14. (Trübner, 1883.)

“No idiots, maniacs or lunatics have ever yet been observed among them, and this is not because those so afflicted are killed or confined by their fellows, for the greatest care and attention are invariably paid to the sick, aged and helpless.”

Mr. Man also remarks (Journ. Anthrop. Inst. XII, 92): “It has been observed with regret by all interested in the race, that intercourse with the alien population has, generally speaking, prejudicially affected their morals; and that the candour, veracity, and self-reliance they manifest in their savage and untutored state are, when they become associated with foreigners, to a great extent lost, and habits of untruthfulness, dependence and sloth engendered.”

+The Bushmen+

Extract from F. C. Selous’ African Nature-Notes, pp. 344 and 347. (1908.)

“When I met with the first Bushmen I ever saw, on the banks of the Orange River in 1872, I was a very young man, and, regarding them with some repugnance, wrote in my diary that they appeared to be removed by a very few steps from the brute creation. That was a very foolish and ignorant remark to make, and I have since found out that though Bushmen may possibly be to-day in the same backward state of material development and knowledge as once were the palæolithic ancestors of the most highly cultured European races in prehistoric times, yet fundamentally there is very little difference between the natures of primitive and civilised men, so that it is quite possible for a member of one of the more cultured races to live for a time quite happily and contentedly amongst beings who are often described as degraded savages, and from whom he is separated by thousands of years in all that is implied by the word ‘civilisation.’ I have hunted a great deal with Bushmen, and during 1884 I lived amongst these people continuously for several months together. On many and many a night I have slept in their encampments without even any Kafir attendants, and though I was entirely in their power I always felt perfectly safe among them. As most of the men spoke Sechwana I was able to converse with them, and found them very intelligent, good-natured companions, full of knowledge concerning the habits of all the wild animals inhabiting the country in which they lived.... I have never seen their women and children ill-treated by them, and I have seen both the men and the women show affection for their children.”

Elsewhere Selous speaks of “John”—a member of the close-related Korana clan—who was in his service, as “of a pale yellow-brown colour, beautifully proportioned, with small delicately made hands and feet.”

From preface by Henry Balfour to the book Bushmen Paintings Copied, by Helen Tongue.

“It is certain that the designs representing animals, etc., which are painted upon the walls of their caves and rock-shelters, frequently exhibit a realism and freedom in treatment which are quite remarkable in the art of so primitive a people. The skill with which many of the characteristic South African animals are portrayed testifies not only to unusual artistic efficiency, but also to a close observance of and an intimate acquaintanceship with the habits and peculiarities of the animals themselves.... The paintings are remarkable not only for the realism exhibited by so many, but also for a freedom from the limitation to delineation in profile which characterises for the most part the drawings of primitive peoples, especially where animals are concerned. Attitudes of a kind difficult to render were ventured upon without hesitation, and an appreciation even of the rudiments of perspective is occasionally to be noted.”

Note from the same book, by S. Bleek, daughter of the well-known Dr. Bleek, of the Grey Library at Cape Town (1870).

“Bushmen are called liars and thieves all over the Colony, but all those who stayed with us were truthful and very honest. On no occasion did they steal even a pocket-knife lost in the garden, or fruit from the trees. They might have taken sheep from hostile farmers, but they would never rob a friend or neighbour. They were cleanly in their habits, and most particular about manners.... As a people they were grateful and revengeful, independent in spirit, excellent fighters—who preferred death to captivity.... Captives were sometimes made servants, but not often well-treated, nor did they take to a settled life easily. Even kind masters found their longing for freedom hard to conquer.”

+The Nechilli Eskimo+

From Amundsen’s North West Passage, vol. i, p. 294. (Constable, 1908.)

“We were suddenly brought face to face here with a people from the Stone Age: we were abruptly carried back several thousand years in the advance of human progress, to people who as yet knew no other method of procuring fire than by rubbing two pieces of wood together, and who with great difficulty managed to get their food just lukewarm, over the seal-oil flame on a stone slab, while we cooked our food in a moment with our modern cooking apparatus. We came here, with our most ingenious and most recent inventions in the way of firearms, to people who still used lances, bows and arrows of reindeer horn.... However, we should be wrong if from the weapons, implements, and domestic appliances of these people we were to argue that they were of low intelligence. Their implements, apparently so very primitive, proved to be as well adapted to their existing requirements and conditions as experience and the skilful tests of many centuries could have made them.”

+Ugpi, an Eskimo+

From Amundsen vol. i, p. 190.

“Ugpi or Uglen (the ‘Owl’) as we always called him, attracted immediate attention by his appearance. With his long black hair hanging over his shoulders, his dark eyes and frank honest expression, he would have been good-looking if his broad face and large mouth had not spoilt his beauty from a European standpoint. There was something serious, almost dreamy, about him. Honesty and truthfulness are unmistakably impressed on his features, and I would never have hesitated for a moment to entrust him with anything. During his association with us he became an exceptionally clever hunter both for birds and reindeer. He was about thirty years old and was married to Kabloka, a very small girl of seventeen.”

+Eskimo and Civilisation+

From Amundsen vol. ii, p. 48.

“During the voyage of the Gjoa, we came into contact with ten different Eskimo tribes in all … and I must state it as my firm conviction that the Eskimo living absolutely isolated from civilisation of any kind are undoubtedly the happiest, healthiest, most honorable and most contented among them. It must therefore be the bounden duty of civilised nations who come into contact with the Eskimo to safeguard them against contaminating influences, and by laws and stringent regulations protect them against the many perils and evils of so-called civilisation. Unless this is done they will inevitably be ruined.... My sincerest wish for our friends the Nechilli Eskimo is that Civilisation may never reach them.”

+High Standard of Tribal Morality among the Aleoutes+

Witnessed to by the Russian missionary, Veniaminoff. See Mutual Aid, pp. 99 and 100, by P. Kropotkin.

The high standard of the tribal morality of the Eskimos has often been mentioned in general literature. Nevertheless the following remarks upon the manners of the Aleoutes—nearly akin to the Eskimos—will better illustrate savage morality as a whole. They were written, after a ten years’ stay among the Aleoutes, by a most remarkable man—the Russian missionary, Veniaminoff. I sum them up, mostly in his own words:—

Endurability (he wrote) is their chief feature. It is simply colossal. Not only do they bathe every morning in the frozen sea, and stand naked on the beach, inhaling the icy wind, but their endurability, even when at hard work on insufficient food, surpasses all that can be imagined. During a protracted scarcity of food, the Aleoute cares first for his children; he gives them all he has, and himself fasts. They are not inclined to stealing; that was remarked even by the first Russian immigrants. Not that they never steal; every Aleoute would confess having sometime stolen something, but it is always a trifle; the whole is so childish. The attachment of the parents to their children is touching, though it is never expressed in words or pettings. The Aleoute is with difficulty moved to make a promise, but once he has made it he will keep it whatever may happen. (An Aleoute made Veniaminoff a gift of dried fish, but it was forgotten on the beach in the hurry of the departure. He took it home. The next occasion to send it to the missionary was in January; and in November and December there was a great scarcity of food in the Aleoute encampment. But the fish was never touched by the starving people, and in January it was sent to its destination.)

+Home Life of the Eskimo+

By Villialm Stefansson. From Harper’s Monthly, October, 1908.

Stefansson lived for thirteen months in the household of a Chief, Ovaynak, on the Mackenzie River, and knew his subject well. He says:—

“With their absolute equality of the sexes and perfect freedom of separation, a permanent union of uncongenial persons is well-nigh inconceivable. But if a couple find each other congenial enough to remain married a year or two, divorce becomes exceedingly improbable, and is much rarer among the middle-aged than among us. People of the age of twenty-five and over are usually very fond of each other, and the family—when once it becomes settled—appears to be on a higher level of affection and mutual consideration than is common among us. In an Eskimo home I have never heard an unpleasant word between a man and his wife, never seen a child punished, nor an old person treated inconsiderately. Yet the household affairs are carried on in an orderly way, and the good behaviour of the children is remarked by practically every traveller.

“These charming qualities of the Eskimo home may be largely due to their equable disposition and the general fitness of their character for the communal relations; but it seems reasonable to give a portion of the credit to their remarkable social organisation; for they live under conditions for which some of our best men are striving—conditions that with our idealists are even yet merely dreams.”

+Religious Beliefs among the Eskimos+

From Rasmussen’s People of the Polar North, pp. 125 and 127. (1908.)

“Their religious opinions do not lead them to any sort of worship of the supernatural, but consist—if they are to be formulated in a creed—of a list of commandments and rules of conduct controlling their relations with unknown forces hostile to man.”

“A wise and independent thinking Eskimo, Otag the Magician, said to me of death: ‘You ask, but I know nothing of death; I am only acquainted with life. I can only say what I believe: either death is the end of life, or else it is the transition into another mode of life. In neither case is there anything to fear. Nevertheless I do not want to die, because I consider that it is good to live.’ This calm way of envisaging death is not unusual; I have seen many pagan Eskimos go to meet certain death without a trace of fear.”

+Periodical Distributions to Obviate Accumulations of Wealth+

From Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid, p. 97. (Heinemann, 1908.)

“(The Eskimos) have an original means for obviating the inconveniences arising from a personal accumulation of wealth—which would soon destroy their tribal unity. When a man has grown rich he convokes the folk of his clan to a great festival, and after much eating, distributes among them all his fortune. On the Yukon river Dall saw an Aleoute family distributing in this way ten guns, ten full fur dresses, two hundred strings of beads, numerous blankets, ten wolf furs, two hundred beavers and five hundred zibellines. After that they took off their festival dresses, and putting on old ragged furs, addressed a few words to their kinsfolk, saying that, though they are now poorer than any one of them, they have won their friendship.[50] Like distributions of wealth appear to be a regular habit with the Eskimos, and to take place at a certain season, after an exhibition of all that has been obtained during the year. In my (Kropotkin) opinion, these distributions reveal a very old institution, contemporaneous with the first apparition of personal wealth; they must have been a means for re-establishing equality among the members of the clan, after it had been disturbed by the enrichment of the few. The periodical redistribution of land and the periodical abandonment of all debts, which took place in historical times with so many different races (Semites, Aryans, etc.), must have been a survival of that old custom.”

+The Samoyedes+

From Icebound on the Kolguev, p. 384, by A. Trevor-Battye. (Constable, 1895.)

“Family affection among the Samoyeds is very strongly developed. It would be impossible to find greater evidence of this among any people. Another extremely marked character among them is family order. All everyday offices and occupations are carried out by a well-defined method and subdivision of labour. I never saw a single instance of anything approaching a family quarrel.... They are very handy sailors, patient and successful hunters and fishermen, and admirable workmen with such tools as they understand. No man can repair a damaged boat more quickly than a Samoyed, and from the roughest drift-wood (such as an English carpenter would throw on the fire), they fashion bows, arrows, sleighs, spoons, drinking-cups, bullet-moulds, and a variety of articles of everyday use.”

+The Belle of Kolguev+

From Icebound on the Kolguev, p. 130.

“Her sister-in-law Ustynia was really, if you accept the type, a pretty girl.... Her eyes were bright, and a pleasant smile played about her lips. When she laughed—and these people are always laughing—she betrayed the most perfectly beautiful teeth it is possible to imagine. Indeed all these people, even old Uano, had most wonderful teeth—white, regular and perfectly shaped. On her fingers Ustynia wore heavy rings of white and yellow metal, and her hands, like those of all Samoyeds, were faultless in shape and extraordinarily supple. If you add to this a dress reaching to the knees, formed of young reindeer skin, worked in many stripes of white and brown, the skirt banded with scarlet cloth and dogskin fur, and foot and leg coverings of soft patterned skin reaching above the knee—there you have Ustynia, the belle of Kolguev.”

+The Todas+

Quoted from The Todas, by W. H. Rivers (1906).

These people live on a very lofty and isolated plateau of the Nilgiri Hills in South India; and are especially interesting to us because till 1812 “they were absolutely unknown to Europeans,” and developed their own customs untouched by Western civilisation. “They are a purely pastoral people, limiting their activities almost entirely to the care of their buffaloes and to the complicated ritual which has grown up in association with these animals.” (p. 6) … They have a completely organised and definite system of polyandry. When a woman marries a man, it is understood that she becomes the wife of his brothers at the same time. When a boy is married to a girl, not only are his brothers usually regarded as also the husbands of the girl, but any brother born later will similarly be regarded as sharing his older brother’s rights.” (p. 515.)

“The men are strong and very agile; the agility being most in evidence when they have to catch their infuriated buffaloes at the funeral ceremonies. They stand fatigue well, and often travel great distances.... In going from one part of the hills to another a Toda always travels as nearly as possible in a straight line, ignoring altogether the influence of gravity, and mounting the steepest hills with no apparent effort. In all my work with the men it seemed to me they were extremely intelligent. They grasped readily the points of any enquiry on which I entered, and often showed a marked appreciation of complicated questions.... I can only record my impression, after several months’ intercourse with the Todas, that they were just as intelligent as one would have found any average body of educated Europeans.... The characteristic note in their demeanour is their absolute belief in their own superiority over the surrounding races. They are grave and dignified, and yet thoroughly cheerful and well-disposed towards all.” (pp. 18-23.)

+Nudity+

THE PELEW ISLANDS: from J. G. Wood (vol. America, p. 447). See Captain H. Wilson, who was wrecked there in 1783.

“The inhabitants are of a dark copper colour, well-made, tall, and remarkable for their stately gait. They employ the tattoo in rather a curious manner, pricking the patterns thickly on their legs from the ankles to a few inches above the knees, so that they look as if their legs were darker in colour than the rest of their bodies. They are cleanly in their habits, bathing frequently and rubbing themselves with coco-nut oil, so as to give a soft and glossy appearance to the skin.... The men wear no clothing, not even the king himself having the least vestige of raiment, the tattoo being supposed to answer the purposes of dress.... In spite, however, of the absence of dress, the deportment of the sexes towards each other is perfectly modest. For example, the men and women will not bathe at the same spot, nor even go near a bathing place of the opposite sex unless it be deserted.”

+Natives of the Amazon Region+

Alfred Russell Wallace, in his Travels on the Amazon (1853), speaks most warmly about the aborigines of that district—both as to their grace of form, their quickness of hand, and their goodnatured inoffensive disposition. He says (chap. xvii): “Their figures are generally superb; and I have never felt so much pleasure in gazing at the finest statue as at these living illustrations of the human form.” In his My Life, vol. ii, p. 288, he says: “Their whole aspect and manner were different (from the semi-civilised tribes); they walked with the free step of the independent forest-dweller … original and self-sustaining as the wild animals of the forest … living their own lives in their own way, as they had done for countless generations before America was discovered. The true denizen of the Amazonian forests, like the forest itself, is unique and not to be forgotten.”

From The Putumayo, or Devil’s Paradise. By W. E. Hardenburg (1912).

“The Huitotos are a well-formed race, and although small, are stout and strong, with a broad chest and a prominent bust; but their limbs, especially the lower, are but little developed.... That repugnant sight, a protruding abdomen, so common among the ‘whites’ and half-breeds on the Amazon, is very rare among these aborigines.... Notwithstanding some defects it is not rare to find among these women many who are really beautiful—so magnificent are their figures, and so free and graceful their movements.” (p. 152).

“Unions are considered binding among the Huitotos, and it is very rarely that serious disagreements arise between husband and wife. The women are naturally chaste, and it was not till the advent of the rubber collectors that they began to lose this primitive virtue—so generally met with among people not yet in contact with white men” (p. 154).

[N.B.—These were some of the people so villainously tortured—men, women and children—for the collection of rubber, by commercial scoundrels, whose atrocities were exposed by Roger Casement and others. E.C.]

+Fine Figures and Features of the Dyaks+

Quotations from Beccar’s In the Forests of Borneo, pp. 325 and 329. (Constable 1904.)

“On the morning of October 19, as previously arranged, Ladja, with eight other Dyaks, came to the fort duly equipped for the journey. Ladja was a handsome young man, tall like most of his companions, slender, and beautifully made. His profile was nearly regular, the nose perfectly straight, but the cheek bones rather too prominent and the chin rather pointed. His complexion was very light.” … “Our Arno boatmen in Florence always pole where the river is shallow, and use their poles exactly as the Dyaks do theirs, only they certainly cannot compare with the latter in the length of the journeys thus performed with their light canoes. Ours literally flew over the water handled with incomparable dexterity by my six young savages. There is to my mind no lighter and more pleasant mode of progression, and certainly no kind of work displays so well the elegant movements and perfect proportions of these young Dyaks, who, practically unencumbered with clothing, are truly splendid specimens of humanity.”

From Ida Pfeiffer’s book Meine zweite Weltreise, vol. i, p. 116. (Vienna, 1856.)

“I must confess that I would gladly have journeyed longer among the free Dayaks. I found them wonderfully honourable, gentle and modest; indeed in these respects I put them above any people that I have as yet become acquainted with. I could leave all my things about, and go away for hours together, and never was the least thing missing. They begged me occasionally for many an object they saw, but immediately gave way when I explained that I needed it myself. They were never over-pressing or tiresome. It will be said, in denial of this, that the beheading of corpses and preservation of skulls does not look exactly like gentleness; but it must be remembered that this sad custom is chiefly the result of rude and ignorant superstition. I stick to my opinion, and as a further proof, would cite their domestic and thoroughly patriarchal mode of life, their morals and manners, the love that they have for their children, and the respect their children show to them.”

+A Rodiya Boy+

Ernst Haeckel in his Visit to Ceylon, describes the devotion to him of his Rodiya serving-boy at Belligam near Galle. The keeper of the rest-house there was an old man whom Haeckel, from his likeness to a well-known head, called by the name of Socrates. And Haeckel continues: “It really seemed as though I should be pursued by the familiar aspects of classical antiquity from the first moment of my arrival at my idyllic home. For as Socrates led me up the steps of the open central hall of the rest-house, I saw before me, with uplifted arms in an attitude of prayer, a beautiful naked brown figure, which could be nothing else than the famous statue of the ‘Youth Adoring.’ How surprised I was when the graceful bronze statue suddenly came to life, and dropping his arms fell on his knees, and after raising his black eyes imploringly to mine bowed his handsome face so low at my feet that his long black hair fell on the floor! Socrates informed me that this boy was a Pariah, a member of the lowest caste, the Rodiyas, who had lost his parents at an early age. He was told off to my exclusive service, and in answer to the question what I was to call my new body-servant, the old man informed me that his name was Gamameda. Of course I immediately thought of Ganymede, for the favorite of Jove himself could not have been more finely made, or have had limbs more beautifully proportioned and moulded.

“Among the many beautiful figures which move in the foreground of my memories of the Paradise of Ceylon, Ganymede remains one of my dearest favorites. Not only did he fulfil his duties with the greatest attention and conscientiousness, but he developed a personal attachment and devotion to me which touched me deeply. The poor boy, as a miserable outcast of the Rodiya caste, had been from his birth the object of the deepest contempt of his fellow-men, and subjected to every sort of brutality and ill-treatment. He was evidently as much surprised as delighted to find me willing to be kind to him from the first.... I owe many beautiful and valuable contributions to my museum to Ganymede’s unfailing zeal and dexterity. With the keen eye, the neat hand, and the supple agility of the Cinghalese youth, he could catch a fluttering moth or a gliding fish with equal promptitude; and his nimbleness was really amazing when, out hunting, he climbed the tall trees like a cat, or scrambled through the densest jungle to recover the prize I had killed.” (p. 200.)

+Second Sight+

Native “diviners” in South Africa, from The Spiritualism of the Zulu, by C. H. Bull, of Durban.

“Many years ago I was riding transport between Durban and the Umzimkulu. I checked my loads at Durban and found them correct with the waybill, but when I reached my destination I discovered that I was one case short, for which I had to pay. On my return to my farm, I mentioned the fact to my brother, who proposed, more in the spirit of fun than anything else, that we should visit a diviner, and endeavour to discover what had become of it. I consented, and together we repaired to a native diviner. He immediately informed us of the object of our visit, although, so far as I can tell, it was morally impossible for him to have known it through any ordinary channels, and then he went on speaking as though in a dream: ‘I see a waggon loaded with cases climbing up the Umgwababa Hill; there has been a lot of rain and the roads are slippery. Half way up the hill the rains have washed a gully; into this the waggon lurches, displacing a small case, which falls to the ground, but the driver, who is busy urging his team up the hill, does not notice it. Now the waggon has passed out of sight, but I see a Kaffir coming up the hill. When he reaches the spot where the case is lying, he stops for a few moments to examine it, and then proceeds to the top of the hill, where he stands for a few moments shading his eyes with his hand, as though looking beyond. Now he returns to where the case is lying, and lifting it up, crosses the road, and pushing his way through some tall tambootie grass, he reaches a large indonie tree; under the tree there is a stunted clump of wild bananas. He places the case in the centre of the clump, and after concealing it with some of the dry leaves, he goes on his way. The case is still there.’

“Though wholly incredulous of the truth of the vision, I sent two ‘boys’ to the spot indicated, and they returned bringing with them the lost case, having found it exactly where the diviner said that he saw it.”

+The Zulus+

THE ZULUS: Quotations from General Sir W. Butler’s Naboth’s Vineyard, p. 263 (given in Blyden’s African Life and Customs, p. 43).

“In all the sad history of South Africa few things are sadder than the Zulu question. Where the Zulu came (in those days), no lock or key were necessary. No man who knew the Zulu—not even the white colonist, whose rage was largely the result of his being unable to get servile labour from him—could say that he had not found the Zulu honest, truthful, faithful; that the white wife and child had not been entirely safe from insult or harm at the hands of this black man; or that money and property were not immeasurably more secure in Zulu charge than in that of Europeans or Asiatics.”

From Blyden’s African Life and Customs, p. 37.

“There are to-day hundreds of so-called civilised Africans who are coming back to themselves. They have grasped the principles underlying the European social and economic order and reject them as not equal to their own as means of making adequate provision for the normal needs of all members of society both present and future—from birth all through life to death. They have discovered all the waste places, all the nakedness of the European system, both by reading and travel. The great wealth can no longer dazzle them, or conceal from their view the vast masses of the population living under what they once supposed to be the ideal system—who are of no earthly use to themselves or to others.... Under the African system of communal property and co-operative effort, every member of a community has a home and a sufficiency of food and clothing and other necessaries of life—and for life; and his children after him have the same advantages. In this system there is no workhouse and no necessity for such an arrangement.”

+Over-government+

From Wallace’s Malay Archipelago, p. 336. (1894 edition.)

“This motley, ignorant, bloodthirsty, thievish population (Papuans, Javanese, Chinese, etc.), live here without the shadow of a government, with no police, no courts, and no lawyers; yet they do not cut each other’s throats; do not plunder each other day and night; do not fall into the anarchy such a state of things might be supposed to lead to. It is very extraordinary! It puts strange thoughts into one’s head about the mountain-load of government under which people exist in Europe, and suggests the idea that we may be over-governed. Think of the hundred Acts of Parliament annually enacted to prevent us, the people of England, from cutting each other’s throats, or from doing to our neighbours as we would not be done by. Think of the thousands of lawyers and barristers whose whole lives are spent in telling us what the hundred Acts of Parliament mean, and one would be led to infer that if Dobbo has too little law England has too much.”

+Society without Government+

From Morley’s Rousseau, vol. ii, p. 227, note. (Eversley edition, 1910.)

“Jefferson, who was American minister in France from 1784 to 1789, and absorbed a great many of the ideas then afloat, writes in words that seem as if they were borrowed from Rousseau: ‘I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians), which live without government, enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments. Among the former public opinion is in the state of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of government, they have divided the nation into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate; this is a true picture of Europe.’” (From Tucker’s Life of Jefferson, vol. i, p. 255.)

+Security without Government+

From Tafilet, p. 353. By W. B. Harris. (Blackwood, 1895.)

“The Moors have a proverb, and it is a very true one, that safety and security can only be found in the districts where there is no government—that is to say, where the government is a tribal one.”

+Degradation through “Civilisation”+

From The Spiritualism of the Zulu. By C. H. Bull, of Durban.

“Thirty-two years ago, I lived for some time in a district in Natal, then thickly populated with natives, still conforming to the primitive customs of their race, yet honest, manly and intelligent people, with very definite ideas in regard to moral questions. After an absence of thirty years, just prior to my sailing for England, I again visited the district and was amazed to observe the change which had taken place in the people; their habits, characters and physique. Sordid poverty, dressed in mean rags or tawdry finery, suggestive of service to vice, had displaced the old dignity, born of conscious physical strength and symmetry of form, which once, though attired only in the trappings that simple art could devise from the rough products of nature, was characteristic; whilst drunkenness, dishonesty and immorality sought shelter under the meagre cloaks of the religion dispensed by the different sections of belief, established in the little iron, or wattle and daub churches, which everywhere disfigured the country side. The change was complete and deplorable, nor were the natives unconscious of their degradation, or without regret for the passing of the old days.”

+Slavery+

From Waitz’s Anthropologie der Naturvölker, vol. ii, p. 281. (Leipzig, 1860.)

“One finds that the fate of Slaves among the ruder peoples is much happier than among the civilised; indeed it seems to grow worse and worse in proportion to the civilisation of the ruling folk. Strange and incredible as at first sight this seems, the following facts establish it beyond doubt. And indeed it is not difficult to explain. The chief reason is that with the increase of merely material culture, Time and Labour-force are more and more prized, and consequently always more violently and unscrupulously exploited, while on the contrary among primitive people in general a lesser value is placed on these things.”

+The Fraud of Western Civilisation+

Extract from “A Letter to a Chinese Gentleman,” by Leo Tolstoy. (Published in Saturday Review, December 1, 1906.)

“Amongst all these Western nations there unceasingly proceeds a strife between the destitute exasperated working people and the government and wealthy, a strife which is restrained only by coercion on the part of deceived men who constitute the army; a similar strife is continually waging between the different states demanding endlessly increasing armaments, a strife which is any moment ready to plunge into the greatest catastrophes. But however dreadful this state of things may be, it does not constitute the essence of the calamity of the Western nations. Their chief and fundamental calamity is that the whole life of these nations who are unable to furnish themselves with food is entirely based on the necessity of procuring means of sustenance by violence and cunning from other nations, who like China, India, Russia and others still preserve a rational agricultural life.

“Constitutions, protective tariffs, standing armies, all this together has rendered the Western nations what they are—people who have abandoned agriculture and become unused to it, occupied in towns and factories in the production of articles for the most part unnecessary, people who with their armies are adapted only to every kind of violence and robbery. However brilliant their position may appear at first sight it is a desperate one, and they must inevitably perish if they do not change the whole structure of their life founded as it now is on deceit and the plunder and pillage of the agricultural nations.”

From O’Brien’s White Shadows in the South Seas. (New York, 1919.)

“A hundred years ago there were 160,000 Marquesans in these [South Sea] Islands. To-day their total number does not reach 2,100.” O’Brien describes the bad effects of Christianity on these “savages.” For he says the so-called superstitions of these races had a great vitalising influence. Their dancing, their tattooing, their religious rites, their chanting and their warfare gave them a zest in life. But “to-day all Polynesians from Hawaii to Tahiti are dying because of the suppression of the play-instinct that had its expression in most of their customs and occupations.” And they are now “nothing but joyless machines” and “tired of life.”

+Failure of Our Civilisation+

For a searching comparison between our social conditions and those of the many savage communities visited by him—and much to the general advantage of the latter—see A. R. Wallace’s Malay Archipelago (1st ed. 1869), pp. 456, 7 (ed. 1894). And he ends the book by saying:

“Until there is a more general recognition of this failure of our civilisation—resulting mainly from our neglect to train and develop more thoroughly the sympathetic feelings and moral faculties of our nature, and to allow them a larger share of influence in our legislation, our commerce, and our whole social organisation—we shall never, as regards the whole community, attain to any real or important superiority over the better class of savages. This is the lesson I have been taught by my observations of uncivilised man.

“I now bid my readers—Farewell!”

FOOTNOTE:

[50] Dall, Alaska and its Resources, Cambridge, U.S., 1870.