[133] Darwin was evidently puzzled by the queer nature of Reade's evidence in other matters (D.M., Chap. XIX.); yet he naïvely relies on him as an authority. Reade told him that the ideas of negroes on beauty are "on the whole, the same as ours." Yet in several other pages of Darwin we see it noted that according to Reade, the negroes have a horror of a white skin and admire a skin in proportion to its blackness; that "they look on blue eyes with aversion, and they think our noses too long and our lips too thin." "He does not think it probable," Darwin adds, "that negroes would ever prefer the most beautiful European woman, on the mere ground of physical admiration, to a good-looking negress." How extraordinarily like our taste! If a man had talked to Darwin about corals or angleworms as foolishly and inconsistently as Reade did about negroes, he would have ignored him. But in matters relating to beauty or love all rubbish is accepted, and every globe-trotter and amateur explorer who wields a pen is treated as an authority.
[134] See McLennan's Studies in Ancient History, first and second series; Spencer's Principles of Sociology, I., Part 3, Chap. 4; Westermarck, Chap. XIV., etc.
[135] Westermarck, 364-66, where many other striking cases of racial prejudice are given.
[136] For instance omal-win-yuk-un-der, illpoogee, loityo, kernoo, ipamoo, badjeerie, mungaroo, yowerda, yowada, yoorda, yooada, yongar, yunkera, wore, yowardoo, marloo, yowdar, koolbirra, madooroo, oggra, arinva, oogara, augara, uggerra, bulka, yshuckuru, koongaroo, chookeroo, thaldara, kulla, etc.
[137] See also Merensky's Süd Afrika, 68.
[138] As Fritsch says (306) "Kolben found them most excellent specimens of mankind and invested them with the most manifold virtues" (see also 312 and 328). A person thus biased is under suspicion when he praises, but not when he exposes shady sides. My page references are to the French edition of Kolben. The italics are mine.
[139] Gathered from Hahn's Tsuni and Krönlein's Wortschatz der Namaqua Hottentotten.
[140] The details given by the Rev. J. MacDonald (Journal Anthrop. Soc., XX., 1890, 116-18) cannot possibly be cited here. Our argument is quite strong enough without them. Westermarck devotes ten pages to an attempt to prove that immorality is not characteristic of uncivilized races in general. He leads off with that preposterous statement of Barrow that "a Kaffir woman is chaste and extremely modest;" and most of his other instances are based on equally flimsy evidence. I shall recur to the subject repeatedly. It is hardly necessary to call the reader's attention to the unconscious humor of the assertion of Westermarck's friend Cousins that "between their various feasts the Kaffirs have to live in strict continence"—which is a good deal like saying of a toper that "between drinks he is strictly sober."
[141] It may seem inconsistent to condemn Barrow on one page as unreliable and then quote him approvingly on another. But in the first case his assertion was utterly opposed to the unanimous testimony of those who knew the Kaffirs best, while in this instance his remarks are in perfect accordance with what we would expect under the circumstances and with the testimony of the standard authorities.
[142] Vid. Mantegazza, Geschlechtsverhältnisse des Menschen, 213.