That the practice of circumcision arose from the same desire as that which led to other kinds of mutilation, is rendered more probable by the fact that disfiguration is sometimes effected in quite a different way. Novae Zealandiae incolas Cook narrat non solum se non circumcidere, sed contra tam necessarium habere praeputium, ut anteriorem eius partem redimire soleant ligamento, quo glandem penis tegant.[1246] The same curious usage is met with in some other Islands of the South Sea;[1247] and in Brazil, according to Dr. Karl von den Steinen, among the Trumaí.[1248] Indigenae Portus Lincoln pueros pubertatem ingressos mirum in modum secant: quarzi fragmento penem ex ore secundum inferiorem partem usque ad scrotum incidunt itaque totum longitudinis spatium detegunt.[1249] In defence of this practice, says Mr. Schürmann, the natives had nothing to suggest except that “it was observed by their forefathers, and must therefore be upheld by themselves.”[1250] In Ponapé, boys are always subjected to semi-castration, as Dr. Finsch remarks, in order to prevent the possibility of orchitis, and, further, because the girls consider men thus disfigured handsomer and more attractive than others. According to Captain Wright, the same custom prevails in Niutabutabu, of the Tonga Islands.[1251]
Among many peoples of Africa, and in certain tribes of the Malay Archipelago and South America, the girls also undergo a sort of circumcision, and this is looked upon as an indispensable preliminary to marriage.[1252] Sunt autem gentes, quarum contrarius mos est, ut clitoris et labia minora non exsecentur, verum extendantur, et saepe longissime extendandur. Atque ista etiam deformatio insigne pulchritudinis existimatur.[1253] De indigenis Ponapéis haec adnotat Dr. Finsch; labia interna longius extenta et pendentia puellis et uxoribus singulare sunt incitamentum, quae res eodem modo se habet apud alias gentes, ut apud Hottentottas.[1254]
It certainly seems strange that such deformities should have been originally intended to improve the appearance. But we must remember the rough taste of savages, and the wish for variety so deeply rooted in human nature. These practices evidently began at a time when man went in a state of perfect nudity. The mutilations, as the eyes became accustomed to them, gradually ceased to be interesting, and continued to be inflicted merely through the force of habit, or from a religious motive. A new stimulus was then invented, parts of the body which had formerly been exposed being hidden by a scanty covering: as the Chinese women at first had their feet pressed in order to excite admiration, but afterwards began to conceal them from coquetry, or as the Tassai beauties, though entirely naked otherwise, wear two or three petticoats one over another.[1255]
How, then, are we to explain the connection which undoubtedly exists between nakedness and the feeling of shame? The hypothesis here set forth cannot be regarded as fully established until this question is answered.
“The ideas of modesty,” Forster truly says, “are different in every country, and change in different periods of time.”[1256] As v. Humboldt remarks, “A woman in some parts of Asia is not permitted to show the ends of her fingers; while an Indian of the Caribbean race is far from considering herself naked, when she wears a ‘guajuco’ two inches broad. Even this band is regarded as a less essential part of dress than the pigment which covers the skin. To go out of the hut without being painted with arnotta, is to transgress all the rules of Caribbean decency.”[1257] In Tahiti, a person not properly tattooed would “be as much reproached and shunned, as if with us he should go about the streets naked;”[1258] and, in Tonga also, the men would think it very indecent not to be tattooed.[1259]
M. Letourneau reports that, at Basra on the Euphrates, it was the duty of a woman, if surprised when taking her bath, to turn her face; no further concealment was considered necessary.[1260] The same habit prevailed among the fellah women in Egypt;[1261] while, in Arabia, according to Ebers, a woman acts even more indecorously in uncovering the back of the head than in uncovering the face, though this also is carefully hidden.[1262]
The Tubori women in Central Africa wear only a narrow strap, to which is attached a twig hanging down behind; but they feel greatly ashamed if the twig happens to fall off.[1263] A Chinese woman, as previously stated, is not permitted by the law of modesty to show her feet; and the Samoans considered it most disgraceful to expose the navel.[1264] The savage tribes of Sumatra and Celebes have a like feeling about the exposure of the knee, which is always carefully covered.[1265] Speaking of the horrible mouth adornment worn by the women of Port des Français (Alaska), which makes the lower part of the mouth jut out two or three inches, La Pérouse remarks, “We sometimes prevailed on them to pull off this ornament, to which they with difficulty agreed; they then testified the same embarrassment, and made the same gestures, as a woman in Europe who discovers her bosom.”[1266] Et Polynesios, quamquam eum tenent morem, nullam ut aliam corporis partem nisi glandem penis tegant, hanc tamen nudare vehementer pudet. Ita Lisiansky animadvertit indigenas Nukahivae, qui praeputium peni abductum habent et extremam eius partem lino constrictam, linum illud magni aestimare manifesto apparere. “Accidit enim,” inquit, “ut frater regis, ubi navem meam ascendit, linum amitteret, qua occasione mala quam maxime angebatur. Qui cum constratum navis ingrederetur, illa re commotus partem non redimitam manibus velavit.”[1267] Dr. Mosely asserts that the Admiralty Islanders, who wear nothing but a shell, always cover themselves hastily on removing the shell for barter, and evidently consider that they are exposing themselves either indecently or irreligiously, if they show themselves perfectly nude.[1268] The Kubus of Sumatra have a tradition that they are descendants of the youngest of three brothers, the first and second of whom were circumcised in the usual way, while it was found that no instruments would circumcise the third. This so ashamed him that he betook himself to the woods.[1269]
Ideas of modesty, therefore, are altogether relative and conventional. Peoples who are accustomed to tattoo themselves are ashamed to appear untattooed; peoples whose women are in the habit of covering their faces consider such a covering indispensable for every respectable woman; peoples who for one reason or another have come to conceal the navel, the knee, the bosom, or other parts, blush to reveal what is hidden. It is not the feeling of shame that has provoked the covering, but the covering that has provoked the feeling of shame.
This feeling, Dr. Bain remarks, “is resolved by a reference to the dread of being condemned, or ill-thought of, by others.”[1270] Such dread is undoubtedly one of the most powerful motives of human action. Speaking of the Greenlanders, Cranz says that the mainspring of all that they do is their fear of being blamed or mocked by other men.[1271] Among savages, custom is a tyrant as potent as law has ever been in civilized societies, every deviation from a usage which has taken root among the people being laughed to scorn, or regarded with disdain. The young ladies of Balonda, wholly unconscious of their own deficiency, could not maintain their gravity at the sight of the naked backs of Livingstone’s men. “Much to the annoyance of my companions,” he says, “the young girls laughed outright whenever their backs were turned to them, for the Balonda men wear a dress consisting of skins of small animals, hanging before and behind from a girdle round the loins.”[1272] By degrees a custom is associated with religion, and then becomes even more powerful than before. Mr. Williams tells us of a Fijian priest, who, like all his countrymen, was satisfied with a “masi,” or scanty hip-cloth, but on hearing a description of the naked inhabitants of New Caledonia and of their idols, exclaimed, contemptuously, “Not have a ‘masi,’ and yet pretend to have gods!”[1273] And, as Peschel remarks, “were a pious Mussulman of Ferghana to be present at our balls, and see the bare shoulders of our wives and daughters, and the semi-embraces of our round dances, he would silently wonder at the long-suffering of Allah, who had not long ago poured fire and brimstone on this sinful and shameless generation.”[1274]