Dr. Seemann observes, greater intensity of feeling in a single musical note than in pages of writing. Nearly the same emotions, but much weaker and less complex, are probably felt by birds when the male pours forth his full volume of song, in rivalry with other males, for the sake of captivating the female. Love is still the commonest theme of our own songs. As Herbert Spencer remarks, music “arouses dormant sentiments of which we had not conceived the possibility, and do not know the meaning; or, as Richter says, tells us of things we have not seen and shall not see.”[410] Conversely, when vivid emotions are felt and expressed by the orator or even in common speech, musical cadences and rhythm are instinctively used. Monkeys also express strong feelings in different tones—anger and impatience by low,—fear and pain by high notes.[411] The sensations and ideas excited in us by music, or by the cadences of impassioned oratory, appear from their vagueness, yet depth, like mental reversions to the emotions and thoughts of a long-past age.
All these facts with respect to music become to a certain extent intelligible if we may assume that musical tones and rhythm were used by the half-human progenitors of man, during the season of courtship, when animals of all kinds are excited by the strongest passions. In this case, from the deeply-laid principle of inherited associations, musical tones would be likely to excite in us, in a vague and indefinite manner, the strong emotions of a long-past age. Bearing in mind that the males of some quadrumanous animals have their vocal organs much more developed than in the females, and that one anthropomorphous species pours forth a whole octave of musical notes and may be said to sing, the suspicion does not appear improbable that the progenitors of man, either the males or females, or both sexes, before they had acquired the power of expressing their mutual love in articulate language, endeavoured to charm each other with musical notes and rhythm. So little is known about the use of the voice by the Quadrumana during the season of love, that we have hardly any means of judging whether the habit of singing was first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind. Women are generally thought to possess sweeter voices than men, and as far as this serves as any guide we may infer that they first acquired musical powers in order to attract the other sex.[412] But if so, this must have occurred long ago, before the progenitors of man had become sufficiently human to treat and value their women merely as useful slaves. The impassioned orator, bard, or musician, when with his varied tones and cadences he excites the strongest emotions in his hearers, little suspects that he uses the same means by which, at an extremely remote period, his half-human ancestors aroused each other’s ardent passions, during their mutual courtship and rivalry.
On the influence of beauty in determining the marriages of mankind.—In civilised life man is largely, but by no means exclusively, influenced in the choice of his wife by external appearance; but we are chiefly concerned with primeval times, and our only means of forming a judgment on this subject is to study the habits of existing semi-civilised and savage nations. If it can be shewn that the men of different races prefer women having certain characteristics, or conversely that the women prefer certain men, we have then to enquire whether such choice, continued during many generations, would produce any sensible effect on the race, either on one sex or both sexes; this latter circumstance depending on the form of inheritance which prevails.
It will be well first to shew in some detail that savages pay the greatest attention to their personal appearance.[413] That they have a passion for ornament is notorious; and an English philosopher goes so far as to maintain that clothes were first made for ornament and not for warmth. As Professor Waitz remarks, “however poor and miserable man is, he finds a pleasure in adorning himself.” The extravagance of the naked Indians of South America in decorating themselves is shewn “by a man of large stature gaining with difficulty enough by the labour of a fortnight to procure in exchange the chica necessary to paint himself red.”[414] The ancient barbarians of Europe during the Reindeer period brought to their caves any brilliant or singular objects which they happened to find. Savages at the present day everywhere deck themselves with plumes, necklaces, armlets, earrings, &c. They paint themselves in the most diversified manner. “If painted nations,” as Humboldt observes, “had been examined with the same attention as clothed nations, it would have been perceived that the most fertile imagination and the most mutable caprice have created the fashions of painting, as well as those of garments.”
In one part of Africa the eyelids are coloured black; in another the nails are coloured yellow or purple. In many places the hair is dyed of various tints. In different countries the teeth are stained black, red, blue, &c., and in the Malay Archipelago it is thought shameful to have white teeth like those of a dog. Not one great country can be named, from the Polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves. This practice was followed by the Jews of old and by the ancient Britons. In Africa some of the natives tattoo themselves, but it is much more common to raise protuberances by rubbing salt into incisions made in various parts of the body; and these are considered by the inhabitants of Kordofan and Darfur “to be great personal attractions.” In the Arab countries no beauty can be perfect until the cheeks or temples have been gashed.”[415] In South America, as Humboldt remarks, “a mother would be accused of culpable indifference towards her children, if she did not employ artificial means to shape the calf of the leg after the fashion of the country.” In the Old and New World the shape of the skull was formerly modified during infancy in the most extraordinary manner, as is still the case in many places, and such deformities are considered ornamental. For instance, the savages of Colombia[416] deem a much flattened head “an essential point of beauty.”
The hair is treated with especial care in various countries; it is allowed to grow to full length, so as to reach to the ground, or is combed into “a compact frizzled mop, which is the Papuan’s pride and glory.”[417] In Northern Africa “a man requires a period of from eight to ten years to perfect his coiffure.” With other nations the head is shaved, and in parts of South America and Africa even the eyebrows are eradicated. The natives of the Upper Nile knock out the four front teeth, saying that they do not wish to resemble brutes. Further south, the Batokas knock out the two upper incisors, which, as Livingstone[418] remarks, gives the face a hideous appearance, owing to the growth of the lower jaw; but these people think the presence of the incisors most unsightly, and on beholding some Europeans, cried out, “Look at the great teeth!” The great chief Sebituani tried in vain to alter this fashion. In various parts of Africa and in the Malay Archipelago the natives file the incisor teeth into points like those of a saw, or pierce them with holes, into which they insert studs.
As the face with us is chiefly admired for its beauty, so with savages it is the chief seat of mutilation. In all quarters of the world the septum, and more rarely the wings of the nose are pierced, with rings, sticks, feathers, and other ornaments inserted into the holes. The ears are everywhere pierced and similarly ornamented, and with the Botocudos and Lenguas of South America the hole is gradually so much enlarged that the lower edge touches the shoulder. In North and South America and in Africa either the upper or lower lip is pierced; and with the Botocudos the hole in the lower lip is so large that a disc of wood four inches in diameter is placed in it. Mantegazza gives a curious account of the shame felt by a South American native, and of the ridicule which he excited, when he sold his tembeta,—the large coloured piece of wood which is passed through the hole. In central Africa the women perforate the lower lip and wear a crystal, which, from the movement of the tongue, has “a wriggling motion indescribably ludicrous during conversation.” The wife of the chief of Latooka told Sir S. Baker[419] that his “wife would be much improved if she would extract her four front teeth from the lower jaw, and wear the long pointed polished crystal in her under lip.” Further south with the Makalolo, the upper lip is perforated, and a large metal and bamboo ring, called a pelelé, is worn in the hole. “This caused the lip in one case to project two inches beyond the tip of the nose; and when the lady smiled the contraction of the muscles elevated it over the eyes. ‘Why do the women wear these things?’ the venerable chief, Chinsurdi, was asked. Evidently surprised at such a stupid question, he replied, ‘For beauty! They are the only beautiful things women have; men have beards, women have none. What kind of a person would she be without the pelelé? She would not be a woman at all with a mouth like a man, but no beard.’”[420]
Hardly any part of the body, which can be unnaturally modified, has escaped. The amount of suffering thus caused must have been wonderfully great, for many of the operations require several years for their completion, so that the idea of their necessity must be imperative. The motives are various; the men paint their bodies to make themselves appear terrible in battle; certain mutilations are connected with religious rites; or they mark the age of puberty, or the rank of the man, or they serve to distinguish the tribes. As with savages the same fashions prevail for long periods,[421] mutilations, from whatever cause first made, soon come to be valued as distinctive marks. But self-adornment, vanity, and the admiration of others, seem to be the commonest motives. In regard to tattooing, I was told by the missionaries in New Zealand, that when they tried to persuade some girls to give up the practice, they answered, “We must just have a few lines on our lips; else when we grow old we shall be so very ugly.” With the men of New Zealand, a most capable judge[422] says, “to have fine tattooed faces was the great ambition of the young, both to render themselves attractive to the ladies, and conspicuous in war.” A star tattooed on the forehead and a spot on the chin are thought by the women in one part of Africa to be irresistible attractions.[423] In most, but not all parts of the world, the men are more highly ornamented than the women, and often in a different manner; sometimes, though rarely, the women are hardly at all ornamented. As the women are made by savages to perform the greatest share of the work, and as they are not allowed to eat the best kinds of food, so it accords with the characteristic selfishness of man that they should not be allowed to obtain, or to use, the finest ornaments. Lastly it is a remarkable fact, as proved by the foregoing quotations, that the same fashions in modifying the shape of the head, in ornamenting the hair, in painting, tattooing, perforating the nose, lips, or ears, in removing or filing the teeth, &c., now prevail and have long prevailed in the most distant quarters of the world. It is extremely improbable that these practices which are followed by so many distinct nations are due to tradition from any common source. They rather indicate the close similarity of the mind of man, to whatever race he may belong, in the same manner as the almost universal habits of dancing, masquerading, and making rude pictures.