Among the Papuans in some parts of New Guinea, as already mentioned, homosexuality is said to be well recognized, and is resorted to for convenience as well, perhaps, as for Malthusian reasons.[38] But in the Rigo district of British New Guinea, where habitual sodomy is not practised, Dr. Seligmann, of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, made some highly important observations on several men and women who clearly appeared to be cases of congenital sexual inversion with some degree of esthetic inversion and even some anatomical modification.[39] These people, it may be noted, belong to a primitive race, uncontaminated by contact with white races, and practically still in the Stone Age.

Finally, among another allied primitive people, the Australians, it would appear that homosexuality has long been well established in tribal customs.  Among the natives of Kimberley, Western Australia (who are by no means of low type, quick and intelligent, with special aptitudes for learning languages and music), if a wife is not obtainable for a young man he is presented with a boy-wife between the ages of 5 and 10 (the age when a boy receives his masculine initiation).  The exact nature of the relations between the boy-wife and his protector are doubtful; they certainly have connection, but the natives repudiate with horror and disgust the idea of sodomy.[40]

Further light is thrown on homosexuality in Australia by the supposition of Spencer and Gillen that the mika operation (urethral subincision), an artificial hypospadias, is for the purpose of homosexual intercourse.  Klaatsch has discussed the homosexual origin of the mika operation on the basis of information he received from missionaries at Niol-Niol, on the northwest coast.  The subincised man acts as a female to the as yet unoperated boys, who perform coitus in the incised opening.  Both informed Klaatsch in 1906 that at Boulia in Queensland the operated men are said to “possess a vulva."[41]

These various accounts are of considerable interest, though for the most part their precise significance remains doubtful.  Some of them, however,—­such as Holder’s description of the bote, Baumann’s account of homosexual phenomena in Zanzibar, and especially Seligmann’s observations in British New Guinea,—­indicate not only the presence of esthetic inversion but of true congenital sexual inversion.  The extent of the evidence will doubtless be greatly enlarged as the number of competent observers increases, and crucial points are no longer so frequently overlooked.

On the whole, the evidence shows that among lower races homosexual practices are regarded with considerable indifference, and the real invert, if he exists among them, as doubtless he does exist, generally passes unperceived or joins some sacred caste which sanctifies his exclusively homosexual inclinations.

Even in Europe today a considerable lack of repugnance to homosexual practices may be found among the lower classes.  In this matter, as folklore shows in so many other matters, the uncultured man of civilization is linked to the savage.  In England, I am told, the soldier often has little or no objection to prostitute himself to the “swell” who pays him, although for pleasure he prefers to go to women; and Hyde Park is spoken of as a center of male prostitution.