human marriage—evolution of the parental instinct—social conditions among papuans—child’s place in the tribe.
it is now believed by many scientists that the cradle of the human race was the indo-malaysian intertropical lands.
the discovery of the remains of the pithecanthropus erectus in 1892 by dr. eugene dubois in the pliocene beds of east java, established as a strong probability what was up to that time regarded as a mere speculation. keane14 and sir john evans15 now assert that man originated in the east in this vicinity and migrated thence to europe.
in this semi-glacial period, man, having taken on much of his human character and being now an erect animal (although in physical and mental respects he still resembled his nearest kin), had little difficulty in migrating.
during the immensely long old stone age to which peroché assigns a period of some three16 hundred thousand years since the beginning of the ghellian epoch, the pleistocene precursors underwent very few or slight specializations or developments, a fact due mainly to the moderate and unchanging character of the climate during this long period. progress in the arts, however, there was, to such an extent that in some things the period has not been equalled. of this character are the exquisitely wrought flints of the silurian period, which cannot be reproduced now.
primitive man as he existed in the stone age had very little in common with the “primitive men” of today. there are savages today who represent, in a way, a degree of savagery and a remoteness from civilization that in some respects takes them farther down the social ladder than any of the aryan race of the stone age. “no pure primitive race exists in any part of the world today.”16 contact with more advanced races has invariably produced, sometimes a good and sometimes an evil effect. races are what climate, soil, diet, pursuits, and inherited character make them,17 and the aryan savages of the stone age had a different set of these conditions to face from the negro savages of today.
a well-cared for eskimo infant
(courtesy of museum of natural history, new york)
native east african mother and infant
(courtesy of the museum of natural history, new york)
it is not surprising to find today a race that in 17many respects represents the stone age period of civilization, displaying, together with the most barbarous customs, a wide knowledge of the arts, indicating that there had been contact with some higher race or its representatives.
tribes grade into one another in the matter of culture so that it is hard to classify them.18 a struggle for existence may leave its mark on an advanced tribe so that while it may in general retain prominent barbaric or primitive characteristics, it will, in every other regard but these, seem an advanced tribe. the nigritans, for instance,19 have learned from their neighbours, the abyssinians and the arabs, the use of iron; yet they have not arrived at the stone and bronze ages in culture, and show in their social relations and domestic habits none of the characteristics of the more advanced tribes.
so in the treatment of children. wherever the treatment of the child is at variance with the other customs or conditions of the race, it will almost invariably be discovered that the change is due to economic reasons or to contact with a stronger race. that it is this contact with higher races that has helped undeveloped races to advance, is the opinion of sir h. h. johnson.20
“in some respects i think the tendency of the negro for several centuries past has been an actual18 retrograde one. as we come to read the unwritten history of africa by researches into languages, manners, customs, traditions, we seem to see a backward rather than a forward movement going on for some thousand years past—a return towards the savage and even the brute. i can believe it possible that, had africa been more isolated from contact with the rest of the world, and cut off from the immigration of the arab and the european, the purely negroid races, left to themselves, so far from advancing towards a higher type of humanity, might have actually reverted by degrees to a type no longer human.”
on the other hand, g. stanley hall says that our intercourse with the african races “had been a curse and not a blessing. our own indians are men of the stone age whom bishop whipple thought originally the noblest men on earth. look at them now!”21
up to a short time ago men of authority asserted that marriage had sprung up from a “state of promiscuity,” the believers in this theory forgetting that even “among animals the most akin to man, this state of promiscuity is rather exceptional.”
most of the people cited as following this practice have been shown to have individual marriage to the exclusion of other forms. undoubtedly in many cases what are called group marriages have19 been mistaken for promiscuity. almost equally low in the social scale is polyandry, where one woman may have several husbands.
whatever the origin of marriage, the fact is, however, that the idea of marriage comes after the idea of the child—as in the animal world, the family is established for the purpose of taking care of the children that have been brought into the world.22
in mahabharata, the indian poem, we are told that marriage was founded by swetaketu, son of the rishi uddalaka; according to the chinese annals, the emperor fou-hi established the custom; the egyptians ascribed its introduction to menes, and the greeks to kekrops. nowhere is it assumed as a condition of the race of all time. its origin, growth, and development are really the origin, growth, and development of the idea of protecting human offspring.
a convincing scientific explanation of marriage, however, has been set forth by westermarck.23 among the great sub-kingdom of the invertebrata not even the female parent exhibits any anxiety about the offspring. the heat of the sun hatches the eggs of the highest order, the insects, and in most cases the mother does not even see her young.24
20
parental care is rare among the lowest vertebrata. among fishes the young are generally hatched without the assistance of the parents. there are exceptions to this among the teleostei, where the male assumes the usual maternal functions of constructing a nest and jealously guarding the ova deposited there by the female. the male of certain species of the arius, carries the ova in his pharynx. nearly all of the reptiles, having placed their eggs in a convenient sunny spot, pay no more attention to them.
with few exceptions, the relations of the sexes of the lower vertebrata can be described as fickle; they meet in the pairing time, part again, and have little more to do with one another.
“the chelonia form,” says westermarck, “with regard to their domestic habits, transition to the birds, as they do also from a zo?logical and particularly from an embryological point of view.” he then goes on to show that parental affection in the latter class, not only on the side of the mother but on that of the father, has come to high development. members of the two sexes aid each other in nest-building, the females bringing the materials and the males doing the work. other duties which come with the mating season are 21shared by both, the mother being concerned with incubation and the father aiding her by taking her position when she leaves the nest for intervals, providing her with food which he gathers, and protecting her from dangers. when the breeding season is over and the young have come, a new set of duties is evolved. young birds are not left alone by their parents, absences being necessitated only by searches for food for all members of the nest. when dangers threaten the nest both father and mother defend it bravely.
family life among birds. group of american egret (courtesy of museum of natural history, new york)
all efforts are made to have the young shift for themselves as soon as they have grown strong enough to make it feasible. independence and self-dependence come only after they are in all ways capable of meeting their needs.
on the other hand, there are some species whose young, from the beginning of their ultra-oval existence, require and receive no care from the parents. the duck is one of a species which leaves all parental care to the female. in general it may be said that both parents share the parental duties, the chief duties, such as hatching and rearing of the young, falling to the mother, while the father gathers food and keeps off enemies.25
the relations of the two sexes are, therefore, very intimate, and association lasts even after the22 breeding season has passed. and only the birds of the gallinaceous family are an exception to the rule of making such association permanent once it has been started, death alone ending it.
real marriage is to be found only among birds.26 for mammals the same cannot be said, for though the mother generally gives much attention to the young, the father does not always have as much concern. he even, in some cases, is the enemy of his own offspring. yet even in the cases of mammals there are durable associations between the sexes. very often these last only during the rutting season, but among whales, seals, hippopotami, the cervus campestris,27 gazelles,28 the neotragus hemprichii and other small antelopes, reindeer, the hydromus coypus, squirrels, moles, the ichneumon, and certain carnivorous animals, among the latter cats, martens, the yaguarundi of south america, and the canis brasiliensis and perhaps the wolf, there are durable matings. association between the sexes is common among all of these animals for periods after the young have been born. and in all cases the male is the family’s protector.
what is an exception among the lower mammals is, however, a rule among the quadrumana. according to the natives of madagascar some species23 of prosimii are nursed by both male and female in common. among the arctopitheci the female is always assisted by the male in taking care of the young.
coming to the man-like apes, we are told by lieutenant de crespigny that “in the northern part of borneo they live in families—the male, female, and young one. on one occasion,” he says, “i found a family in which were two young ones, one of them much larger than the other, and i took this as a proof that the family tie had existed for at least two seasons. they build commodious nests in the trees which form their feeding-ground, and, so far as i could observe, the nests, which are well lined with dry leaves, are occupied only by the female and young, the male passing the night in the fork of the same or another tree in the vicinity. the nests are very numerous all over the forest, for they are not occupied above a few nights, the mias (or orang-utan) leading a roving life.”
dr. savage says that the gorillas live in bands and that but one male is seen in every band. m. du chaillu says that the male gorilla is always accompanied by the female.
it is among the negritians of africa that we find today the at-hand evidence of the attitude of man toward his progeny in the first stages of culture, or perhaps the last stages of savagery. it must be remembered that in africa, however, habits of other races will be found grafted on the24 negro stock, thereby causing them to appear sometimes unusually gentle or again unusually advanced. in africa the semitic and the hamitic grafts on negro stock provide many varieties of mankind, just as in oceania, the mongol (malay) and the caucasian (indonesian) grafts on the negro stock have produced many varieties there. as an example of the methods of the lowest of savage tribes, there is, however, no better example than the papuans of new guinea of whom the ethnologist, keane, says: “they stand in some respects on the lowest rung of the social ladder.”
as an example of the low state of culture in which part of them exist it is said that those near astrolabe bay on the north-west coast of new guinea had no knowledge of the metals, all their implements being of stone, wood, or bones; neither had they knowledge of fire, the grandfathers of the present generation being able to recall the time when they had no fire at all, but ate their food raw. in the study of these people we are studying contemporaries of our own neolithic ancestors.
according to their most popular myth, a crocodile named nugu was responsible for the frequent disappearance of children until the tribe made an agreement to supply him with pig’s fat instead. here we have the beginning of the theory of sacrifice.
a family of anthropoid apes. from a drawing by dan beard. (courtesy of the museum of natural history, new york)
family of polar bears (courtesy of museum of natural history. new york city)
“in their treatment of children they are often 25violent and cruel,” says alfred russell wallace,29 and an example of their idea of kindness may be gathered from the following description of the “ornamentation” of a young papuan:
“the faces of both men and women are frequently ornamented all over with cicatrices either circular or chevron-shaped. the operation is a painful and costly one, as the professional tattooer has to be highly paid for his trouble, and not every child’s friends can afford the fee demanded. the instrument used is the claw of the flying-fox. the unfortunate patient is not allowed to sleep for two or three nights before the operation is performed, and then, when he is ready to drop from weariness, the tattooer begins his work, and completes it at one sitting. i never saw the actual process, but a child was brought for my inspection whose face had just been finished off. it was in a painful state of nervous irritation, and the face swelled to an enormous size.”30
of the condition of these people no one is better able to speak than lieutenant governor j. h. p. murray,31 who describes tribes where the savages have only weapons of wood, know nothing of the bow and arrow, and are noted for their immorality.
“it is very often the case that the best of the26 young girls are sold by their parents as courtesans, the native name being jelibo. i came across men married, and possessing, in addition, these women. young fellows, not having reached puberty, had clubbed together in parties of three and four, and bought young girls from the parents to make courtesans. at feasts, these girls are used for the purpose of enriching themselves and their owners.”32
as to the attitude of the children, we gain some idea of the aboriginal point of view by this statement:
“there are some villages in which children absolutely swarm, but there are few large families; practically every one is married, but there are many couples who have no children, or only one or two. in many parts of the territory it is considered a disgrace for a woman to have a child until she has been married at least two years; infanticide and abortion, though rarely proved, are said to be common, and a medical expert would probably discover the existence of other checks to population. the result of all this is that in some districts the population is increasing while in others it is not; such investigations as we have been able to make lead, in the absence of definite statistics, to the conclusion that the population in that part of the territory which is under control is certainly not diminishing, though the increase, if any, is probably very small. the reason why27 the population does not increase as one would expect now that village warfare has ceased is, as far as i can see, simply that neither men nor women want children, which i take to be the chief cause that limits population elsewhere. the reason why they do not want them is, i think, partly because they find them a nuisance (which is a consideration that was probably effective even before the white man came) and partly that, in their present state of transition from one stage of development to another, they do not exactly see what there will be for their children to do.”
another custom of these people is to bury children alive, when the parents or some person of importance dies; the excuse given for this practice is that the child will be needed to wait on the parent in the other world, a practice that lasted long among the civilized egyptians.
cannibalism is rife among these people. mr. murray reports that on one occasion a young man was brought before him for having murdered a man in order to please a married woman with whom he was in love—a lover who has not “killed his man” being considered lukewarm.
“on my remonstrating with him on the impropriety of paying attention to a married woman he informed me that there were no girls in the village, as they had all been killed and eaten in a recent raid. the position of a young man who found himself in a village where all the women were either married or eaten was no doubt a difficult28 one, and i hope that i took it into consideration in passing sentence.”33
how little is the feeling among these people over the murder of children, is shown from the fact that murder is the only outlet for their feelings!
“i have known cases where a man, grieving over the loss of a relative or over some slight that has been put upon him, has set fire to his house, quite regardless of whether any one was inside, with the result, occasionally, that a child is burnt to death, and i recently tried a case of murder which was the direct outcome of grief over the death of a pig. the prisoners were brothers, and their pig bore the pretty name of mehboma; but mehboma died, and the brothers in their unquenchable grief went forth and killed the first man they saw. the victim had nothing to do with mehboma’s death, but the mourning brothers did not care for that—somebody had got to be killed over it. the prisoners told me that it was the custom of the village to show their grief in this way, so that their neighbours must occasionally have suffered rather severely.”34
as the australians are closely allied to the papuans and represent about the same period of culture, we may postulate their attitude toward woman and a marriage from the description of an early victorian tribe-marriage given by brough smith and quoted by a. h. keane, the latter au29thor remarking that “a common test of a people’s culture is the treatment of their women, and in this respect the australians must, as prof. r. semon shows, be ranked below the bushman and on a level with the fuegians.”
primitive family life among the hopi indians (courtesy of the museum of natural history, new york)
“a man having a daughter of thirteen or fourteen years of age,” says mr. smith in his description of the marriage customs in vogue among the victorian tribes, “arranges with some elderly person for the disposal of her; and, when all are agreed, she is brought out and told that her husband wants her. perhaps she has never seen him but to loathe him. the father carries a spear and a waddy, or tomahawk, and, anticipating resistance, is thus prepared for it. the poor girl, sobbing and sighing, and muttering words of complaint, claims pity from those who will show none. if she resists the mandates of her father, he strikes her with his spear; if she rebels and screams, the blows are repeated; and if she attempts to run away, a stroke on the head from the waddy or tomahawk quiets her. the mother screams and scolds and beats the ground with her kan-nan (fighting-stick); the dogs bark and whine; but nothing interrupts the father, who, in the performance of his duty, is strict and mindful of the necessity of not only enforcing his authority, but of showing to all that he has the means to enforce it. seizing the bride by her long hair he drags her to the home prepared for her by her new owner. further resistance often subjects her to30 brutal treatment. if she attempts to abscond, the bridegroom does not hesitate to strike her savagely on the head with his waddy, and the bridal screams and yells make the night hideous.”