I don’t believe that there exists a nation, however high in the scale of civilization, that can pick a hole in the character of the lowest, without being in danger of finding one nearly, if not quite, as big in its own. The vices of the savage are, like his person, very much exposed to view. Our own nakedness is not less unseemly than his, but is carefully concealed under the convenient cloak which we call “civilization,” but which I fear he, in his ignorance, poor fellow, might, on some occasions, be led to look upon as hypocrisy.[62]
In the West Indian Islands where Columbus landed, lived tribes which are represented as having been “the most gentle and benevolent of the human race.” Regarding these Mr. Tylor remarks:
Schomburgk, the traveller, who knew the warlike Caribs well in their home life, draws a paradise-like picture of their ways, where they have not been corrupted by the vices of the white men; he saw among them peace and cheerfulness and simple family affection, unvarnished friendship, and gratitude not less true for not being spoken in sounding words; the civilized world, he says, has not to teach them morality, for, though they do not talk about it, they live in it.[63]
The men who with Captain Cook first visited the Sandwich Islands reported the natives as modest and chaste in their habits; but, later, after coming in contact with the influences of civilization, modesty and chastity among them were virtues almost entirely unknown. The same is true of the people of Patagonia.
Barrow says of the Kaffir woman that she is “chaste and extremely modest,” and we are told that among this people banishment is the penalty for incontinence for both women and men. Of the reports which from time to time come from the aborigines of certain portions of Australia relative to the lewdness of the women, Mr. Brough Smyth says that they are irreconcilable with the severe penalties imposed for unchastity in former times amongst the natives of Victoria.[64] This writer is of the opinion that the lewd practices reported are modern, and that they are the result of communication with the poor whites. We are assured that the women of Nubia are virtuous, that public women are not tolerated in the country.[65] Also that in Fiji adultery is one of the crimes generally punished with death.[66]
Marsden observes that in Sumatra “the old women are very attentive to the conduct of the girls, and the male relations are highly jealous of any insults that may be shown them.”[67] The same writer says that prostitution for hire is unknown in the country; adultery is punishable by fine, but the crime is rare. Regarding the conduct of men toward women he remarks: “They preserve a degree of delicacy and respect toward the sex which might justify their retorting on many of the polished nations of antiquity the epithet of barbarism.”[68]
Crantz says that among the Greenlanders single persons have rarely any connection.[69] According to the testimony of St. Boniface, the punishment for unchastity among the early Germans was death to the man, while the woman was driven naked through the streets.[70]
Among the Central Asian Turks we are assured that a fallen girl is unknown. Mr. Westermarck, quoting from Klemm, states that although among the Kalmucks and gypsies the girls take pride in having gallant affairs, they are “dishonoured if they have children previous to marriage.” The same writer quotes also from Winwood Reade, who says that among the Equatorial Africans “a girl who disgraces her family by wantonness is banished from her clan; and, in cases of seduction, the man is severely flogged.”[71]
Mr. Westermarck adduces much testimony going to show that the “lawlessness” of lower races is due not to inherent vicious tendencies, but to the evil associations of civilized peoples. He is of the opinion that the licentiousness among many of the South Sea Islanders owes its origin to the intercourse of the natives with Europeans; and of the tribes who once inhabited the Adelaide Plains, quoting from Mr. Edward Stephens who went to Australia half a century ago, he says:
Those who speak of the natives as a naturally degraded race, either do not speak from experience, or they judge them by what they have become when the abuse of intoxicants and contact with the most wicked of the white race have begun their deadly work. As a rule, to which there are no exceptions, if a tribe of blacks is found away from the white settlement, the more vicious of the white men are most anxious to make the acquaintance of the natives, and that, too, solely for purposes of immorality.... I saw the natives and was much with them before those deadly immoralities were well known ... and I say it fearlessly, that nearly all their evils they owed to the white man’s immorality and to the white man’s drink.[72]