STUFF AND NONSENSE

When a great poet can blunder so flagrantly in his diagnosis of love, we cannot wonder that minor writers should often be erratic.  For instance, in The Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona (45-46), Captain J.D.  Bourke exclaims: 

“So much stuff and nonsense has been written about the entire absence of affection from the Indian character, especially in the relations between the sexes, that it affords me great pleasure to note this little incident”

—­namely, a scene between an Indian and a young squaw: 

“They had evidently only lately had a quarrel, for which each was heartily sorry.  He approached, and was received with a disdain tempered with so much sweetness and affection that he wilted at once, and, instead of boldly asserting himself, dared do nothing but timidly touch her hand.  The touch, I imagine, was not disagreeable, because the girl’s hand was soon firmly held in his, and he, with earnest warmth, was pouring into her ear words whose purport it was not difficult to conjecture.”

That the simplest kind of a sensual caress—­squeezing a young woman’s hand and whispering in her ear—­should be accepted as evidence of affection is naive, to say the least, and need not be commented on after what has just been said about the true nature of affection and its altruistic test.  Unfortunately many travellers who came in contact with the lower races shared Bourke’s crude conception of the nature of affection, and this has done much to mislead even expert anthropologists; Westermarck, for instance, who is induced by such testimony to remark (358) that conjugal affection has among certain uncivilized peoples “reached a remarkably high degree of development.”  Among those whom he relies on as witnesses is Schweinfurth, who says of the man-eating African Niam-Niam that “they display an affection for their wives which is unparalleled among natives of so low a grade. ...  A husband will spare no sacrifice to redeem an imprisoned wife” (I., 472).

SACRIFICES OF CANNIBAL HUSBANDS

This looks like strong evidence, but when we examine the facts the illusion vanishes.  The Nubians, it appears, are given to stealing the wives of these Niam-Niam, to induce them to ransom them with ivory.  A case occurred within Dr. Schweinfurth’s own experience (II., 180-187).  Two married women were stolen, and during the night

“it was touching, through the moaning of the wind, to catch the lamentations of the Niam-Niam men bewailing the loss of their captured wives; cannibals though they were, they were evidently capable of true conjugal affection.  The Nubians remained quite unaffected by any of their cries, and never for a moment swerved from their purpose of recovering the ivory before they surrendered the women.”