Even trivial misdemeanours or acts which we should deem perfectly innocent may draw condign punishment on the thoughtless, the imprudent, the light-hearted in the Indian Archipelago. Extreme severity of the code of sexual morality in Lombok. Thus we read that in the island of Lombok “the men are exceedingly jealous and very strict with their wives. A married woman may not accept a cigar or a sirih leaf from a stranger under pain of death. I was informed that some years ago one of the English traders had a Balinese woman of good family living with him—the connexion being considered quite honourable by the natives. During some festival this girl offended against the law by accepting a flower or some such trifle from another man. This was reported to the Rajah (to some of whose wives the girl was related), and he immediately sent to the Englishman’s house ordering him to give the woman up as she must be ‘krissed.’ In vain he begged and prayed, and offered to pay any fine the Rajah might impose, and finally refused to give her up unless he was forced to do so. This the Rajah did not wish to resort to, as he no doubt thought he was acting as much for the Englishman’s honour as for his own; so he appeared to let the matter drop. But some time afterwards he sent one of his followers to the house, who beckoned the girl to the door, and then saying, ‘The Rajah sends you this,’ stabbed her to the heart. More serious infidelity is punished still more cruelly, the woman and her paramour being tied back to back and thrown into the sea, where some large crocodiles are always on the watch to devour the bodies. One such execution took place while I was at Ampanam, but I took a long walk into the country to be out of the way till it was all over.”[70.1]
The severity of the code based at bottom on superstition. As the Malay peoples of the Indian Archipelago, from whom the foregoing examples are drawn, have reached a fair level of culture, it might perhaps be thought that the extreme severity with which they visit offences against their code of sexual morality springs from an excessive refinement of feeling rather than from a crude superstition; and no doubt it may well happen that extreme sensitiveness on the point of honour, of which the Malays are susceptible, contributes in many cases to sharpen the sword of justice and add fresh force to the stroke. Yet under this delicacy of sentiment there appears to lie a deep foundation of superstition, as we may see by the extraordinary and disastrous influence which in the opinion of these people sexual crime exerts, not so much on the criminals themselves, as on the whole realm of nature, drawing down deluges of rain from the clouds till the crops rot in the fields, shaking the solid earth beneath men’s feet, and blowing up into flames the slumbering fires of the volcano, till the sky is darkened at noon by a black canopy of falling ashes and illumined at night by the sullen glow of the molten lava shot forth from the subterranean furnace.[71.1] A similar severity in sexual matters observed among the Australian aborigines, the lowest of existing savages. And however much an over-refinement of feeling may be invoked to explain the more than Puritanical severity of the Malay moral code in sexual matters, no such explanation can be applied to the like emotion of horror which similar offences excite among the savage aborigines of Australia, the lowest and the least refined probably of all the races of men about whom we possess accurate information. These rude savages also treated with rigorous severity all breaches of that widely ramified network of prohibitions in which throughout the Australian continent, before it fell under English rule, the two sexes lived immeshed. The whole community of a tribe or nation was commonly subdivided into a number of minute bodies, which we are accustomed to call classes or clans according to the principle on which they were variously constituted. No man might marry a woman of his own class or clan, and in most tribes his freedom of choice was still further limited by complex rules of marriage and descent which excluded him from seeking a wife in many more subdivisions of the tribe, and sometimes compelled him to look for her only in one out of them all. And the ordinary penalty for any violation of these rules was death. The offender was lucky who escaped with his life and a body more or less riddled with spear wounds. Severe punishments inflicted for sexual offences among the aborigines of Victoria. Thus one who knew the aborigines of Victoria well in the old days, before they were first contaminated and then destroyed by contact with European civilization, tells us that “no marriage or betrothal is permitted without the approval of the chiefs of each party, who first ascertain that no ‘flesh’ relationship exists, and even then their permission must be rewarded by presents. So strictly are the laws of marriage carried out, that, should any signs of affection and courtship be observed between those of ‘one flesh,’ the brothers, or male relatives of the woman beat her severely; the man is brought before the chief, and accused of an intention to fall into the same flesh, and is severely reprimanded by the tribe. If he persists, and runs away with the object of his affections, they beat and ‘cut his head all over’; and if the woman was a consenting party she is half killed. If she dies in consequence of her punishment, her death is avenged by the man’s receiving an additional beating from her relatives. No other vengeance is taken, as her punishment is legal. A child born under such conditions is taken from the parents, and handed over to the care of its grandmother, who is compelled to rear it, as no one else will adopt it. It says much for the morality of the aborigines and their laws that illegitimacy is rare, and is looked upon with such abhorrence that the mother is always severely beaten by her relatives, and sometimes put to death and burned. Her child is occasionally killed and burned with her. The father of the child is also punished with the greatest severity, and occasionally killed. Should he survive the chastisement inflicted upon him, he is always shunned by the woman’s relatives, and any efforts to conciliate them with gifts are spurned, and his presents are put in the fire and burned. Since the advent of the Europeans among them, the aborigines have occasionally disregarded their admirable marriage laws, and to this disregard they attribute the greater weakness and unhealthiness of their children.”[72.1]
Severe punishments inflicted for sexual offences in the Wakelbura tribe of Queensland. Again, in the Wakelbura tribe of eastern Queensland the law was extremely strict as to unlawful connexions or elopements between persons too nearly related to each other. Such persons might be, for example, those whom we call cousins both on the father’s and the mother’s side, as well as those who belonged to a forbidden class. If such a man carried off a woman who had been betrothed to another, he would be pursued not only by the male relations of the woman and of her betrothed husband, but also by the men of his own tribal subdivision, whom he had outraged by his breach of the marriage law; and wherever they overtook him, he would have to fight them all. His own brothers would challenge him to fight by throwing boomerangs or other weapons at him; and if he did not accept the challenge, they would turn on the woman and cripple or kill her with their weapons, unless she could escape into the bush. Nay, the woman’s own mother would cut and perhaps slay her with her own hands. Sooner or later the ravisher had to engage in single combat with the man he had injured. Both were fully armed with shield, spear, boomerang and knife. When they had exhausted their missiles, they closed on each other with their knives, a dense ring of blacks generally forming round the combatants to see fair play. In such a fight the man who had broken the tribal law always came off worst; for even if he got the better of his adversary, the other men and even his own brothers would attack him and probably gash him with their knives. Fatal stabs were sometimes given in these fights, but more usually, it would seem, the onlookers interfered and wrested the weapons from the two combatants before they proceeded to extremities. In any case the woman who had eloped was terribly mauled with knives, and if she survived the ordeal was restored to the man whom she had deserted.[73.1]
Severe punishment inflicted for sexual offences among the aborigines of other parts of Australia. Among the tribes in the central parts of North-West Queensland, if a man eloped with a single woman whom he might lawfully marry, but who for any reason was forbidden to him by the tribal council, he had on returning to camp with his wife to run the gauntlet of the outraged community, who hacked his buttocks and shoulders with knives, beat his head and limbs with sticks and boomerangs, and pricked the fleshy parts of his thighs with spears, taking care, however, not to inflict fatal injuries, lest they should incur blood revenge. But if the woman with whom the man had eloped was of a class into which he might not marry, both the culprits were put to death, the relations on both sides tacitly consenting to the execution.[74.1] In the Yuin tribe of New South Wales, if a man eloped with a woman of his own tribal subdivision, all the men would pursue him; and if he refused to give the woman up, the sorcerer of the place would probably say to his men, “This man has done very wrong, you must kill him”; whereupon somebody would thrust a spear into him, his relatives not interfering lest the same fate should befall them.[74.2] The same punishment was inflicted for the same offence by the Wotjobaluk tribe of North-Western Victoria; but their western neighbours, the Mukjarawaint tribe, not content with killing the guilty man, cut off the flesh off his thighs and upper arms, roasted and ate it, his own brother partaking of the cannibal meal. As for the rest of the body, they chopped it up small and left it lying on a log. The same custom is said to have been observed by the Jupagalk tribe.[74.3] Among many tribes of Western Australia, as well as of other parts of that continent, persons who bear the same class-name may not marry. Any such marriage is regarded as incest and rigorously punished. For example, “the union of Boorong and Boorong is to the natives the union of brother and sister, although there may be no real blood relationship between the pair, and a union of that kind is looked upon with horror, and the perpetrators very severely punished and separated, and if the crime is repeated they are both killed.”[74.4] On the other side of the continent the Kamilaroi of New South Wales similarly inflicted condign punishment on both the culprits who persisted in marrying each other contrary to the tribal law; the male relations of the man killed him, and the female relations of the woman killed her. Penalty of death inflicted for the crime of speaking to a mother-in-law. The Kamilaroi of the Gwydir River went further; they killed any man who so much as spoke to or held any communication with his mother-in-law,[75.1] for one of the most stringent laws of savage etiquette is that which prohibits any direct social intercourse between a man and his wife’s mother. The law has been variously explained,[75.2] but a large body of evidence points to the conclusion that this custom of mutual avoidance is simply a precaution to prevent improper relations between the two. Hence a brief consideration of it is appropriate in this place; for to all appearance the custom, though it may be wholesome and beneficial in practice, has originated purely in superstition. But before giving my reasons for thinking so it may be well, for the sake of those who are unfamiliar with savage etiquette, to illustrate the practice itself by a few examples.[75.3]
The custom of avoiding a mother-in-law and other relations by marriage among the Boloki of the Congo. Speaking of the Boloki, a Bantu tribe of the Upper Congo, an experienced missionary, the Rev. John H. Weeks, writes as follows: “Perhaps this will be the best place in which to make a few remarks on the mother-in-law. She and her son-in-law may never look on each other’s face. I have often heard a man say, ‘So-and-so, your mother-in-law is coming,’ and the person addressed would run into my house and hide himself until his wife’s mother had gone by. They can sit at a little distance from each other, with their backs to one another, and talk over affairs when necessary. Bokilo means mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, father-in-law, sister of mother-in-law, brother of father-in-law, wife of wife’s brother, and in fact any relation-in-law. Bokilo, the noun, is derived from kila = to forbid, prohibit, taboo, and indicates that all bearing the relationship of bokilo can have no intimate relationship with one another, for it is regarded as incestuous; and it is according to native ideas just as wrong for a daughter-in-law to speak or look at her husband’s father, as for the son-in-law to speak or look at his wife’s mother. Some have told me that this was to guard against all possibility of cohabitation, ‘For a person you never look at you never desire.’ Others have said, ‘Well, don’t you see, my wife came from her womb.’ I am strongly inclined to the opinion that the former is the real reason.”[76.1]
From this statement it appears that a man and his wife’s mother are not the only persons who are bound to avoid each other in society; the same rule of social avoidance is incumbent on a man and his son’s wife, and on many other persons of opposite sex who are connected with each other by marriage; and in regard to all such persons it is held that any intimate relationship between them would be incestuous. Hence we see, what is important to bear in mind, that the rule of social avoidance incumbent on a man and his wife’s mother is by no means solitary of its kind, and cannot be considered apart from a large number of similar rules of avoidance observed between other persons. The custom of avoiding relations by marriage among the Batamba of Busoga. The same large extension of the rule appears in the customs of the Batamba, a Bantu tribe of Busoga, a country on the north side of the Lake Victoria Nyanza. A Catholic missionary, who has laboured among the Batamba for nine years, describes their practice in this matter as follows:—
“There is a very strange custom which may be considered here. If a son marries or if a daughter does the same, then if they are grown up, from the day the son or daughter marries, the mother, father of both parties, the brothers and sisters of both parties are not allowed to sleep under the same roof. If a man marries, then he builds a house for himself, and should his parents live with him, or his brothers and sisters, then they must have a separate house near by. They are not forbidden to go in and visit him or her, but are not allowed to sleep there. The reason is this. They say that otherwise sickness is caused, and this is called endivade ya buko, the sickness of relationship, literally taken. The sickness is called bujugumiro, trembling, from the verb kujugumira, to shiver or tremble. This cannot be got out of their heads, and no amount of talking or arguing will convince them of the opposite. I have attended many cases of this disease and I have not known one to recover.
“Again, the father and mother of the bride and bridegroom, the aunts and uncles of bride and bridegroom may no more shake hands or touch in any way the bride and bridegroom, or else the same disease, bujugumiro, will follow. Of course much less will they commit themselves between each other for the fear of the same reason. And it is never heard of that a brother and sister, aunt and nephew, niece and uncle have ever committed themselves seriously. They are so afraid of the disease they say will follow, that, as a man here over seventy years of age tells me, he has never in his whole life heard of such a misbehaviour. The people say, ‘Jekiyinzika = it is impossible for such a thing to happen.’ And no doubt one is struck with the care they take. The disease following does not come as a punishment from the gods, but they say, ‘Endwada ejja yokka, the illness comes by itself.’ ”[77.1]
Avoidance of blood relations as well as of connexions by marriage. From the foregoing account it appears that among the Batamba the rules of social avoidance are observed between blood-relations of opposite sexes, such as brothers and sisters, uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, as well as between connexions by marriage. This is a further extension of the rule of social avoidance which it is important to bear in mind. We shall recur to it presently. For our present purpose it deserves also to be noticed that breaches of the custom are believed to be punished by a disease of trembling or shivering, which, though it probably springs purely from the imagination of the culprits, nevertheless appears to be always fatal. Further, we learn that the mere apprehension of this disease acts as a most efficient check upon improper relations between persons who are connected with each other by blood or marriage.
The custom of avoiding mother-in-law and own daughter among the Akamba of British East Africa. Among the Akamba, a Bantu tribe of British East Africa, “if a man meets his mother-in-law in the road they both hide their faces and pass by in the bush on opposite sides of the path. If a man did not observe this custom and at any time wanted to marry another wife, it would prove a serious stigma, and parents would have nothing to do with him. Moreover, if a wife heard that her husband had stopped and spoken to her mother in the road, she would leave him. If a man has business he wishes to discuss with his mother-in-law, he goes to her hut at night, and she will talk to him from behind the partition in the hut.… If a girl of the age of puberty meets her father in the road, she hides as he passes, nor can she ever go and sit near him in the village until the day comes when he tells her that it has been arranged for her to marry a certain man. After marriage she does not avoid her father in any way.”[78.1] Thus among the Akamba a man must avoid his own marriageable, but unmarried, daughter exactly as he avoids his wife’s mother; but the custom of avoidance ceases when his daughter marries. This extension of the rule to a man’s own daughter, and its limitation to the time during which the girl is nubile but single, are most significant, and point plainly to a fear of improper relations between father and daughter. To that point we shall return shortly.