One of the most important details of my theory is that while there can
be no romantic love without opportunity for genuine courtship and free
choice, nevertheless the existence of such opportunity and choice does
not guarantee the presence of love unless the other conditions for its
growth--general refinement and altruistic impulses--coexist with them.
Among the Chittagong hill-tribes these conditions--constituting "whole
tracts of mind, and thought, and feeling"--do not coexist with the
liberty of choice, hence it is useless to look for love in our sense
of the word. Moreover, when we further read in Lewin that the reason
why there are no harlots is that they "are rendered unnecessary by the
freedom of intercourse indulged in and allowed to both sexes before
marriage," we see that what at first seemed a virtue is really a mark
of lower degradation. Some of the oldest legislators, like Zoroaster
and Solon, already recognized the truth that it was far better to
sacrifice a few women to the demon of immorality than to expose them
all to contamination. The wild tribes of India in general have not yet
arrived at that point of view. In their indifference to chastity they
rank with the lowest savages, and usually there is a great deal of
promiscuous indulgence before a mate is chosen for a union of
endurance. Among the Oráons, as Dalton tells us (248), "liaisons
between boys and girls of the same village seldom end in marriage;"
and he gives strange details regarding the conduct of the young people
which may not be cited here, and in which the natives see "no
impropriety." Regarding the Butias Rowney says (142):
"The marriage tie is so loose that chastity is quite
unknown amongst them. The husbands are indifferent to
the honor of their wives, and the wives do not care to
preserve that which has no value attached to it. ...
The intercourse of the sexes is, in fact, promiscuous."
Of the Lepchas Rowney says (139) that "chastity in adult girls
previous to marriage is neither to be met with nor cared for." Of the
Mishmees he says (163): "Wives are not expected to be chaste, and are
not thought worse off when otherwise," and of the Kookies (186): "All
the women of a village, married or unmarried, are available to the
chief at his will, and no stigma attaches to those who are favored by
him." In some tribes wives are freely exchanged. Dalton says of the
Butan (98) that "the intercourse between the sexes is practically
promiscuous." Rhyongtha girls indulge in promiscuous intercourse with
several lovers before marriage. (Lewin, 121.) With the Kurmuba, "no
such ceremony as marriage exists." They "live together like the brute
creation." (W.R. King, 44.)
My theory that in practice, at any rate, if not in form, promiscuity
was the original state of affairs among savages, in India as
elsewhere, is supported by the foregoing facts, and also by what
various writers have told us regarding the licentious festivals
indulged in by these wild tribes of India. "It would appear," says
Dalton (300),
"that most of the hill-tribes found it necessary to
promote marriage by stimulating intercourse between the
sexes at particular seasons of the year.... At one of
the Kandh festivals held in November all the lads and
lasses assemble for a spree, and a bachelor has then
the privilege of making off with any unmarried girl
whom he can induce to go with him, subject to a
subsequent arrangement with the parents of the maiden."
Dalton gives a vivid description of these festivals as practised by
the Hos in January, when the granaries are full of wheat and the
natives "full of deviltry:"
"They have a strange notion that at this period men and
women are so overcharged with vicious propensities,
that it is absolutely necessary for the safety of the
person to let off steam by allowing, for a time, full
vent to the passions. The festival therefore becomes a
saturnale, during which servants forget their duties to
their masters, children their reverence for parents,
even their respect for women, and women all notions of
modesty, delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging
bacchantes....
"The Ho population of the village forming the environs
of Chaibasa are at other seasons quiet and reserved in
manner, and in their demeanor toward women gentle and
decorous; even in the flirtations I have spoken of they
never transcend the bounds of decency. The girls,
though full of spirits and somewhat saucy, have innate
notions of propriety that make them modest in demeanor,
though devoid of all prudery.... Since their adoption
of clothing they are careful to drape themselves
decently as well as gracefully, but they throw all this
aside during the Mágh feast. Their natures appear to
undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile
their parents in gross language, and parents their
children; men and women become almost like animals in
the indulgence of their amorous propensities. They
enact all that was ever portrayed by prurient artists
in a bacchanalian festival or pandean orgy; and as the
light of the sun they adore and the presence of
numerous spectators seem to be no restraint on their
indulgence, it cannot be expected that chastity is
preserved when the shades of night fall on such a scene
of licentiousness and debauchery."
"MARVELLOUSLY PRETTY AND ROMANTIC"
Nor are these festivals of rare occurrence. They last three or four
days and are held at the different villages at different dates, so the
inhabitants of each may take part in "a long succession of these
orgies." When Dalton declares (206) regarding these coarse and
dissolute Hos, who thus spend a part of each year in "a long
succession of orgies," in which their own wives and daughters
participate, that they are nevertheless capable of the higher
emotions--though he admits they have no words for them--he merely
proves that long intercourse with such savages blunted his own
sensibilities, or what is more probable--that he himself never
understood the real nature of the higher emotions--those "tracts of
feeling" which Lewin found missing among the hill-tribes. We are
confirmed in this suspicion by noticing Dalton's ecstatic delight over
the immoral courtship customs of the Bhúiyas, which he found
"marvellously pretty and romantic" and describes as follows:
"In each village there is, as with the Oráons, an open
space for a dancing ground, called by the Bhúiyas the
Darbár; and near it the bachelors' hall.... here the
young men must all sleep at night, and here the drums
are kept. Some villages have a 'Dhangarin bássa,' or
house for maidens, which, strange to say, they are
allowed to occupy without anyone to look after them.
They appear to have very great liberty, and slips of
morality, as long as they are confined to the tribe,
are not much heeded. Whenever the young men of the
village go to the Darbár and beat the drums the young
girls join them there, and they spend their evenings
dancing and enjoying themselves without any
interference on the part of the elders.
"The more exciting and exhilarating occasions are when
the young men of one village proceed to visit the
maidens of another village, or when the maidens return
the call. The young men provide themselves with
presents for the girls, generally consisting of combs
for the hair and sweets, and going straight to the
Darbár of the village they visit, they proclaim their
arrival loudly by beating their drums and tambourines.
The girls of that village immediately join them. Their
male relations and neighbors must keep entirely out of
view, leaving the field clear for the guests. The
offerings of the visitors are now gallantly presented
and graciously accepted and the girls at once set to
work to prepare a dinner for their beaux, and after the
meal they dance and sing and flirt all night together,
and the morning dawns on more than one pair of pledged
lovers. Then the girls, if the young men have conducted
themselves to their satisfaction, make ready the
morning meal for themselves and their guests; after
which the latter rise to depart, and still dancing and
playing on the drums, move out of the village followed
by the girls, who escort them to the boundary. This is
generally a rock-broken stream with wooded banks; here
they halt, the girls on one side, the lads on the
other, and to the accompaniment of the babbling brook
sing to each other in true bucolic style. The song on
these occasions is to a certain extent improvised, and
is a pleasant mixture of raillery and love-making....
"The song ended, the girls go down on their knees, and
bowing to the ground respectfully salute the young men,
who gravely and formally return the compliment, and
they part.
"The visit is soon returned by the girls. They are
received by the young men in their Darbár and
entertained, and the girls of the receiving village
must not be seen....
"They have certainly more wit, more romance, and more
poetry in their composition than is usually found among
the country folk in India."