In the improvised ditties that are sung during these dances Darwin would, of course, have found the most convincing proofs of the applicability of his theory to poetry. Among love-inspired songs few specimens can be found which are so genuine, and at the same time so full of delicate feeling, as the harvest antiphonies sung by the Khyoungtha boys and girls.[360] How high an opinion of the power in poetry to charm is held by these tribes can be judged from the fact that the Chukmas never allow any songs but those of a religious character to be sung in their villages. Our girls would be demoralised, they say, if boys were allowed to sing freely. When living in the jungle, however, where the rules of morality are laxer, the Chukmas allow their poetry greater license.[361]
It is needless to say that some kind of erotic poetry is generally to be found in all the tribes where dancing expresses love. There have been translated some exquisite samples of erotic songs composed by the Malay tribes of Java and Sumatra. In some instances it is quite evident that these songs have been used as means of winning the favour of the women. In other cases, however, it seems safest to draw no conclusions as to their purpose. At any rate, love occupies an important place in the poetry which has been collected in Malaysia, not only among the Malays proper, but also among the Tagals, Alfuras, Battaks, etc.[362]
In some of their dancing songs the Australian aboriginal poets are said to describe the charms of their sweethearts.[363] But we know of no poems in which they appear to be directly addressed. Neither have we found any decisive statement as to the character of the erotic poetry in Tahiti and New Zealand.[364]
Purer and more unmistakable examples of singing used as a means of erotic propitiation can be adduced from some of the American nations. The Iroquois, for whom dancing festivals are of great importance in the intercourse between the sexes, are well aware of the powers of a serenade when they wish to entice a girl from her hut to a meeting.[365] In old Mexico and Peru, where erotic poetry had reached a high degree of refinement, songs and music were undoubtedly used in courtship.[366] But with these barbaric but not savage peoples we have already left primitive man far behind.
It is undeniable that increased knowledge of the various tribes of mankind may necessitate important corrections in the above review of erotic art. There might be collected, for instance, specimens of love-inspired poetry from the really primitive tribes, such as the Veddas, the Fuegians, etc. Perhaps also it may be proved that dancing and singing really serve the purposes of erotic propitiation to a much greater extent than travellers hitherto have been able to discover. But the general conclusions are very unlikely to be changed by any further researches. It is sufficiently obvious that the Darwinian æsthetic has its chief support in the productions of barbaric nations, whose social conditions have been eminently favourable for the development of erotic art. This view might be in danger if we had no knowledge of any artistic activity in the most primitive tribes. But as a relatively developed religious drama, and perhaps even some traditional mythical songs have been found among the Fuegians;[367] as the Veddas have at least one dance, possibly religious, and various magic poems;[368] as the Bushmen are masters of pictorial art and develop a great dramatic power in their pantomimic imitations of animals;[369] as among the Australians the surprisingly high development of theatrical management and instruction[370] stands in the strongest contrast to their poor erotic lyric;—in a word, as the religious, superstitious, and traditional forms of art among the lower savages have such an unmistakable predominance over those of erotic propitiation, there is no ethnological support for the assertion that the beginnings of art were due to the impulse “to attract by pleasing.”
It may, of course, be argued that the Fuegians, the Veddas, the Bushmen, and the rest, far from representing primitive man, are really to be considered as degenerate types. And it may furthermore be contended that before marriage customs and other social institutions had reached those forms which now prevail among the lower tribes, the promiscuous intercourse between all males and females during a fixed pairing season must have produced an erotic art. Whatever value such reasoning may have, it at any rate implies the admission that the art-creating influence of sexual selection cannot be proved on historical grounds. The question how primitive society is to be reconstructed cannot as yet be considered to be finally solved. But even if the original marriage customs had been such as Darwin supposes, and even if courtship at this unknown stage of evolution had been carried on by means of art,[371] the fact that several existing tribes appear to be quite devoid of poetic and dramatic forms of erotic propitiation restricts the validity of Darwin’s principle in a considerable degree.
The attraction of the Darwinian theory is of course obvious. After having realised the important part which sexual selection plays in the “artistic” activities of animals, one is naturally tempted to apply the same principle to all similar activities in men. The influence of erotic preferences is a biological datum, and, as such, a principle of a more universal order, so to speak, than any one of the social or religious motives.[372] However advantageous it may be to apply this all-embracing explanation to the whole field of art, a descriptive study of the facts must needs compel us to pay attention to the sociological influences which assist or impede the operation of sexual selection. There is no doubt that there are some secondary sexual characters and activities which are developed under all social conditions. And it is no less certain that both sexes are everywhere influenced by individual predilections. But these predilections cannot, of course, be regarded as factors of importance in a society where strictly-fixed marriage customs allow the partners no freedom of choice. They will, on the other hand, produce special and differentiated means of attraction where, either from demoralisation, as in Tahiti, or as the result of institutional polygamy, as in the Mohammedan countries, or owing to free and idyllic conditions of life, as among the various tribes of India, competition for the favour of a male or a female is unrestricted.
It is impossible, without transgressing the limits of the present work, to give a complete account of the influences of society on erotic art. An author who should be able to embrace in his treatment all stages of evolution, the latest and most highly developed as well as the earliest, would undoubtedly contribute an interesting chapter to art-philosophy if he were to explain in detail and with examples how, e.g., lyric poetry has changed with changed marriage customs. Taking the art of historic nations, the contrast between the literature of polygamous Orientals and that of Europeans, whose notions of love are influenced by marriage institutions at least officially monogamous, would afford an opportunity for most suggestive comparisons. And even within the limits of modern art a comparison perhaps equally instructive may be made between the different classes of society with their varying forms of sexual life. No task could be more interesting than that of finding out to how great an extent the marvellously refined and differentiated expressions of romantic love which characterise some schools of modern poetry are dependent upon the peculiar forms of sexual life prevailing among the upper classes. As social factors of powerful, though never sufficiently recognised influence, the veiled polyandry and polygamy which lie at the bottom of modern society have undoubtedly influenced æsthetic notions as well as artistic activities. By causing a division of the sexual impulses these conditions have facilitated the development of an ideal and æsthetic love-literature which never would have appeared, and cannot even be understood, among nations where this division does not exist. On the other hand, the same causes have, as it is needless to point out, produced a literature and an art which, by their deliberate grossness, stand in the strongest contrast not only to the romantic utterances of civilised nations, but even to the more naïve products of primitive tribes.
We cannot in this connection do more than indicate these general views, the validity of which may be easily tested by the reader by application to modern art. Within the boundaries of ethnological art—that is, between the stages of evolution represented by Tierra del Fuego on one side and ancient Mexico at the other end—there can, however, be found sufficient proofs of the general law which manifests itself more fully in the richer and more highly differentiated products of modern art. Love, although fundamentally one and uniform as a feeling, is in its utterances ever changing with changing conditions of life. If its ground is biological, its nuances are always determined by sociological influences. Without taking into due account all these nuances it is impossible to assert anything about the influences of sexual selection on art.