we meet once more with the anomalous fact that they seem ignorant, on
the whole, of a clever invention known even to some animals. Sir John
Lubbock, after referring to Steele’s opinion that kissing is coeval with
courtship, remarks: “It was, on the contrary, entirely unknown to the
Tahitians, the New Zealanders, the Papuas, and the aborigines of
Australia, nor was it in use among the Somals or the Esquimaux.” Jemmy
Button, the Fuegian, told Darwin that kissing was unknown in his land;
and another writer gives an amusing account of an attempt he made to
kiss a young negro girl. She was greatly terrified, probably imagining
him a new species of cannibal who had made up his mind to eat her on the
spot, raw, and without salt and pepper.
Monteiro, in a passage previously quoted, says that in all the long
years he has been in Africa he has “never seen a negro put his arm round
a woman’s waist, or give or receive any caress whatever that would
indicate the slightest loving regard or affection on either side.”
Considering the general obtuseness of a savage’s nerves, it is no wonder
that the subtle thrill of a kiss should be unknown to him. In many
cases, moreover, Kissing is rendered physically impossible by the habit
indulged in of mutilating and enlarging the lips. For instance,
Schweinfurth, in his _Heart of Africa_, says that among the Bongo women
“the lower lip is extended horizontally till it projects far beyond the
upper, which is also bored and fitted with a copper plate or nail, and
now and then by a little ring, and sometimes by a bit of straw, about as
thick as a lucifer match.” Many other similar cases could be cited.
Evidently, under these circumstances, kissing would prove a snare and a
delusion.