The dances and festivals of many savage peoples are notoriously accompanied by the most hideous licentiousness. Then the young men and women endeavour to please each other in various ways, painting themselves with brilliant colours, and decorating themselves with all sorts of ornaments.[1198] On such occasions many tribes who go naked in everyday life put on a scanty covering. Mr. Bonwick states that, among the Tasmanians, a fur string or band of emu feathers was used by some tribes, but only on great festivities; and the women wore in the dance a covering of leaves or feathers, which, as among the Australians on similar occasions, was removed directly afterwards. Tasmanian dances were performed “with the avowed intention of exciting the passions of the men, in whose presence one young woman had the dance to herself.”[1199] Among the Australian Pegulloburras, who generally go entirely naked, the women on festive occasions wear round the middle small fringes.[1200] Speaking of the Brazilian Uaupés, Mr. Wallace asserts that, “while dancing in their festivals, the women wear a small ‘tanga,’ or apron, made of beads, prettily arranged. It is only about six inches square, but is never worn at any other time, and immediately the dance is over, it is taken off.” Besides, their bodies are painted.[1201] The same was the case with the Tahitian Areois—a sort of privileged libertines, leading a most licentious life, and practising lewd dances and pantomimes,—who also sometimes, on public occasions, put on a girdle of the yellow “ti” leaves, which, in appearance, resembled the feather girdles of the Peruvians or other South American tribes.[1202] As to the South African Basutos, Mr. Casalis states that marriageable girls “frequently indulge in grotesque dances, and at those times wear, as a sort of petticoat, long bands composed of a series of rushes artistically strung together.”[1203]
Very generally in the savage world, where climate does not put obstacles in the way, both sexes go naked till they reach manhood, covering being resorted to at the same period of life as other ornaments.[1204] A South Australian boy, for instance, when fourteen or sixteen years old, has to undergo the initiatory rites of manhood as follows:—he is smeared all over with red ochre and grease, the hair is plucked from his body, and all his friends gather green gum bushes, which they place under his armpits and over the os pubis, after which the boy is entitled to marry.[1205]
In conformity with other ornaments, what we consider decent covering is said to be more common with savage men than with women. “If dress were the result of a feeling of shame,” Professor Waitz observes, “we should expect it to be more indispensable to woman than to man, which is not the case.”[1206] In America, according to v. Humboldt—among the Caribs, for instance—the men are often more decently clothed than the women.[1207] The same is stated of the Nagas of Upper Assam;[1208] and Barth, who had a vast experience of African savages, remarks, “I have observed that many heathen tribes consider a covering, however poor and scanty it may be, more necessary for man than woman.”[1209] Whether this is the rule among savage peoples is doubtful. At any rate, the egoism of the men cannot be blamed for the nakedness of the women. For a savage Eve may pluck her clothes from the trees.
In support of the psychological presumption which underlies the hypothesis here adduced, it may be added that some peoples are in the habit of covering other parts of the body also, in order to “excite through the unknown.” Thus, among the Tipperahs, the married women wear nothing but a short petticoat, while the unmarried girls cover the breast with a gaily-dyed cloth with fringed ends.[1210] Among the Toungtha, the bosoms of women are left uncovered after the birth of the first child, but the unmarried girls wear a narrow breast cloth.[1211] The Chinese consider small feet to be the chief charm of their women, and the girls have to undergo horrible torture while their feet are being compressed to the smallest possible size. It might be supposed that they would at least have the pleasure of fascinating the men by a beauty so painfully acquired. But Dr. Stricker assures us that, in China, a woman is considered immodest if she shows her artificially distorted foot to a man. It is even improper to speak of a woman’s foot, and in decent pictures this part is always concealed under the dress.[1212] The women of Agades, according to Barth, generally go unveiled, and if they sometimes cover their heads, this is done rather from coquetry than from a feeling of shame.[1213] Mr. Man remarks that a Hindu woman who attempts to hide her face, while she wears a gauze which displays her whole form, in her simulated modesty always appears as if attempting to convey an arrière pensée.[1214] Among the Tacullies, it is customary for the girls to have over their eyes a kind of veil or fringe, made either of strung beads or of narrow strips of deer skin garnished with porcupine quills;[1215] and, among the Chawanons, according to Moore, those young women who have any pretensions to beauty, as soon as they become marriageable, “muffle themselves up so that when they go abroad it is impossible to see anything but their eyes. On these indications of beauty they are eagerly sought in marriage.”[1216]
Finally, it is worth noting that this covering, or half covering, is only one of the means by which savage men and women endeavor to direct attention to that which civilized man conceals from a sense of shame. Among the Admiralty Islanders, the only covering is a shell, which shell is often tastefully engraved with the usual zigzag patterns, whilst its dazzling whiteness forms a very striking contrast with the blackness of the skin.[1217] On reaching puberty, the Tankhul Nagas assume, instead of a shell, a horn or ivory ring from an eighth to a quarter of an inch in breadth; being apparently of opinion that exposure, if so attended, is not a matter to be ashamed of.[1218] Some of the Brazilian Tupis, according to Castlenau, “mentulam inserunt in annulum ligneum, unde appellantur Porrudos, i.e. mentulati;”[1219] and, in several of the South Sea Islands, those parts of the body which civilized people are most anxious to conceal, are decorated with tattoos.[1220] De indigenis Tanembaris et Timorlaonis dum loquitur Reidel, adulescentes et puellas dicit saepe consulto abradere pilos pubis nulla alia mente, nisi ut illæ partes alteri sexui magis conspicuæ fiant.[1221]
Above all the practice of circumcision should be noticed in this connection, since, as I believe, it owes its origin to the same cause. It is by no means a specifically Jewish custom, but is widely spread over the earth. It is in use among all the Mohammedan peoples, among most of the tribes inhabiting the African West Coast, among the Kafirs, among nearly all the peoples of Eastern Africa, among the Christian Abyssinians, Bogos, and Copts,[1222] throughout all the various tribes inhabiting Madagascar,[1223] and, in the heart of the Black Continent, among the Monbuttu and Akka. Moreover, it is practised very commonly in Australia, in many islands of Melanesia,[1224] and in Polynesia universally. It has also been met with in some parts of America: in Yucatan,[1225] on the Orinoco,[1226] and among certain tribes in the Rio Branco in Brazil.[1227] The Jews, Mohammedans,[1228] Abyssinians,[1229] and some other peoples being excepted, it is always performed when the boy attains manhood—i.e., at the same age as that at which he is tattooed or painted, or begins to dress or adorn himself. Indeed, through the operation of circumcision, the boy becomes a man, and, where it is wanting, some other operation or deformation of the body supplies its place.[1230] Thus, in Australia, some tribes practise circumcision, others knock out teeth, when the youth becomes virile.[1231] Where circumcision is in use it is generally considered an indispensable preliminary to marriage, “uncircumcised” being a bad word, and the women often refusing all intercourse with such a man.[1232]
Several different explanations of this custom have been suggested.[1233] Some authors believe that it is due to hygienic motives. But circumcised and uncircumcised peoples live under the same conditions in the same neighbourhood side by side, without any difference in their physical condition.[1234] Mr. Sturt remarks that, in Australia, “you would meet with a tribe with which that custom did not prevail, between two with which it did.”[1235] Moreover, as Mr. Spencer observes, while the usage does not exist among the most cleanly races in the world, it is common among the most uncleanly.[1236] Among the Damaras and Bechuanas, the boys are circumcised, though these peoples are described as exceedingly filthy in their habits,[1237] and so also among the people of Madagascar and the Malays, who are far from being so cleanly as might be desired.[1238]
Again, according to Mr. Spencer, circumcision involves an offering to the gods. He suggests that in the first instance vanquished enemies were mutilated in order that a specially valuable trophy after a battle might be presented to the king Then, “in a highly militant society governed by a divinely-descended despot, ... we may expect that the presentation to the king of these trophies taken from enslaved enemies, will develop into the offering to the god of like trophies taken from each generation of male citizens in acknowledgment of their slavery to him.”[1239] This conclusion Mr. Spencer draws from the single fact that, “among the Abyssinians, the trophy taken by circumcision from an enemy’s dead body is presented by each warrior to his chief.” But there is no evidence whatever that this curious custom is of common occurrence. Circumcision is spread over a very large part of the earth, and prevails even in societies which are not “governed by a divinely-descended despot,” who could require all his subjects to bear this badge of servitude. With regard to the Australian aborigines, many tribes of whom practise circumcision, Mr. Curr says, “On the subject of government (by which I mean the habitual exercise of authority, by one or a few individuals, over a community or a body of persons) I have made many inquiries and received written replies from the observers of about a hundred tribes to the effect that none exists. Indeed, no fact connected with our tribes seems better established.”[1240] Since there is nothing to indicate that there ever was a different state of things in Australia, how are we to reconcile these facts with the interpretation offered by Mr. Spencer?
In the Book of Genesis the practice of circumcision is presented as a religious rite, deriving its origin from a command of God. But among most peoples it appears to have little, if any, religious significance.[1241] Sometimes, indeed, it is performed by a priest of the community, but, as Herr Andree justly remarks, this has no necessary relation to the question, the priests generally being the physicians of savage tribes.[1242] Moreover, as has already been pointed out, almost every ancestral custom may by degrees take a religious character. Thus, the ancient Peruvians’ habit of enlarging the lobe of the ear, so as to enable it to carry ear-tubes of great size, is supposed to have been connected with sun-worship; for Spanish historians mention that elaborate religious ceremonies were held at the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, on the occasion of the boring of the ears of young Peruvian nobles.[1243] But we should not be warranted in inferring that this custom had originally anything to do with religion. With regard to circumcision among the Jews, I agree with Herr Andree that its religious character was almost certainly of a comparatively late date.[1244]
The peoples among whom this practice prevails are themselves unable to give any adequate account of its origin. With reference to the circumcision of the Southern Africans, the Rev. H. H. Dugmore says that they do not know how it began and that they have no traditionary remembrances about it, except that it has prevailed as a national custom from generation to generation. “Our forefathers did so, and therefore we do the same,” is all that the present generation can say about the matter.[1245]