Equally deceptive are all other apparent exceptions to the customary
contempt for women. While the women of Fiji, Tonga, and other islands
of the Pacific were excluded from all religious worship, and Papuan
females were not even allowed to approach a temple, it is not uncommon
among the inferior races for women to be priestesses. Bosnian relates
(363) that on the African Slave Coast the women who served as
priestesses enjoyed absolute sway over their husbands, who were in the
habit of serving them on their knees. This, however, was contrary to
the general rule, wherefore it is obvious that the homage was not to
the woman as such, but to the priestess. The feeling inspired in such
cases is, moreover, fear rather than respect; the priestess among
savages is a sorceress, usually an old woman whose charms have faded,
and who has no other way of asserting herself than by assuming a
pretence to supernatural powers and making herself feared as a
sorceress. Hysterical persons are believed by savages to be possessed
of spirits, and as women are specially liable to hysteria and to
hallucinations, it was natural that they should be held eligible for
priestly duties. Consequently, if there was any respect involved here
at all, it was for an infirmity, not for a virtue--a result of
superstition, not of appreciation or admiration of special feminine
qualities.[28]