groups of humanity. First, the Australian, inhabiting the great island
continent that seems to be the southeastern extension of Asia; they are
considered the lowest among the races of mankind, have black skins, but
not woolly hair, and are looked upon as a distinct race. Second, come
the Papuan women, who are in every respect negroes, resembling their
kindred in Africa in the variety of their types, including the tall,
very woolly-headed people of New Guinea, who have black skins and comely
bodies. Of the same race, but differing greatly in ethnic
characteristics, are the pigmy people of the Andaman Islands, of the
Malay Peninsula, and of the Philippines. Third, the brown Polynesians,
who are among the finest looking people on the face of the earth; they
inhabit the groups of small islands all about the Pacific Ocean, from
Hawaii to New Zealand, and from Easter Island to Samoa. Fourth and
finally, the Malays proper, who are a small, wiry, energetic people of
southeastern Asia and the great islands lying around Java, Sumatra,
Borneo, and the Philippines. The eight million people (called Filipinos)
in the last-named islands are, as will be seen later, of mixed blood, a
compound of all the sub-species of humanity, brown, black, yellow, and
white, even a small sprinkling of American Indian blood being there.
Women of so great admixture of blood must necessarily exhibit wide
differences of personal appearance and of inherited as well as acquired
traits.
It would be highly instructive to take up the women of these several
races and consider them one by one in the various experiences of their
lives, from birth to burial, in childhood and name, in girlhood and
marriage, in family life and social standing, in religion and the last
act; for interest in this study extends far beyond the lives and
activities of those to whom it is directed. The whole human species are
one, and it is not a violation of good reasoning to suppose that the
activities and social life of these lowly women may, in a certain
general way, represent the standing of members of our own race in the
early stages of their progress. It is true, however, that in the
Indo-Pacific area we are more or less in the suburbs of the world.
Caution, therefore, must be exercised in forming conclusions that the
abject conditions of the Australians, for instance, is a correct picture
of a previous condition of the Caucasian race. These races have lagged
in the progress of the world, and in all the centuries of their
isolation have rather retrograded than advanced. They are in possession
of arts and practise social customs that are evidently the survival of a
more advanced state, as will be seen in the separate study of each race.
Further interest is added to the study of these tribes in that, despite
the fact that they are the lowest of the world's peoples, they each lead
a rounded existence. Industries, fine art, speech, social forms and
usages, the explanation of things, creed and cult, all fit together
harmoniously. To the civilized woman, almost every act in the life of
her sex among the people named would be intolerable, but to the woman
there, these actions are the things to be done and any contrary course
would never enter her thoughts. The joys of life come from obedience to
the present order and to the venerable customs and traditions that have
come down from mothers for many generations.
In height, Australian women average about five feet two inches, the
tallest not exceeding five feet five inches. They have small feet and
hands, the widest span being six inches. The color of the skin is dark
chocolate, the lips are thick, the nose is broad and incurved, the head
long, the hair black, but not woolly, and is generally worn short. Some
of the young girls are pretty, and from carrying burdens on the head
they have an erect pose; the Australians, however, are an unhandsome
race, and at thirty, if she lives so long, the woman is an old hag, the
acme of indescribable ugliness intensified by following the habit of
knocking out the front teeth for the sake of fashion.
The girl-child born in Australia has little care beyond what is
necessary to preserve her life. The almost deserted mother is placed
apart in a brush shelter and is attended by some old woman of her clan.
The birthplace of the little girl is amid the greatest squalor. On rare
occasions mothers practise infanticide. The child is killed as soon as
born, in the belief (in the words of Nicodemus) that it can enter a
second time into the mother's womb and be reborn. As infants are suckled
several years, the chief cause of this unnatural act is the inability of
the mother to add another ounce to life's burdens. Being considered
uncanny, twins are immediately killed; and once in a while a healthy
child meets with a like fate, in order that its vigor may go into a
weaker one.
The baby's name is inherited from her mother, or perhaps from her
father. It is merely a class title, for every tribe in Australia is
separated into classes with names. If descent be in the female line,
then everyone in a class has the same name from the mothers; if it be in
the male line, all whose fathers are in the same class are named alike.
In all Australia there is no such title as "mother," in our sense of the
word. Of the girl-child here considered, there are as many mothers as
there are females in that class belonging to the same generation. If the
reader were an Australian girl, she would, then, have several or many
mothers; there would be her own mother, her maternal aunts, and all
collateral female kin of that generation and of the mother's class. For
example, suppose a tribe in which the two moieties were named Brown and
Smith. Every Brown man would have to marry a Smith woman and vice versa.
A Smith would not and dare not marry a Smith, or a Brown marry a Brown.
Now, if the mother-right prevailed, all the children of the Brown
mothers would be Browns, of the Smith mothers would be Smiths; but if
father-right prevailed, then all the children of Brown mothers would be
Smiths, and those of the Smith mothers would be Browns. The marriage tie
is so loose in Australia that the family exists only in the group, and
the little girl is not "Miss Brown," but a Brown--one of the Browns. The
principle is as here stated, but the practice in detail is most
bewildering. The little newborn girl is not merely "Miss S." or "Miss
B." Her tribe, with its two moieties or classes, may have six totems in
each. In that case, her father and her mother will have totem names.
Take the Urabrinna tribe with its two classes, Matthurie and Kirarwa. If
the father be a Dingo Matthurie and the mother be a Water Hen Kirarwa,
our little girl will bear her mother's name, so will all other girls of
Water Hen mothers and, also, their children to remotest posterity.
The girls of this generation are, in fact, sisters and look upon the
whole generation that gave them birth as a class of mothers; it is the
best they can do.
In some tribes the classification takes this quaint form: every man
belongs to one of a number of families or classes, which we may mark,
for convenience, A, B, C, and D. Every woman belongs, also, to one of a
number of named classes, which we may call E, F, G, and H. Now, all the
men in the A class are compelled to marry one of the four classes of
women, and their children are classified by rule under the other letters
in the most confusing but interesting fashion. The system is far more
intricate than that of the American Indians.
Besides these class or totem names, each little Australian girl has a
personal name by which she is freely addressed by all excepting such of
the opposite sex as are tabooed by custom. She may also have nicknames
like the American Indian girls, and finally, every girl of the tribe has
her secret name which may be that of some celebrated woman handed down
by tradition. It is never uttered except upon most solemn occasions, and
is known to those only who are initiated. When mentioned at all, it is
in a whisper. If a stranger should know one's name, he would have a
special chance to work her ill by ways of magic.
At a very early age, the Australian girl has graduated in all the
hardening processes which result in the survival of the fittest, and is
ready to take her place among women. The rites by which she is initiated
into womanhood lessen her vitality, if they do not destroy it. No sooner
does the little girl get upon her feet than her education begins. Her
play is imitation of her mother's labors and enjoyments. A group of
girls will amuse themselves by the hour, playing little dramas with the
hands. Many of these games are to be found among civilized peoples. Your
meaningless piling of fists in the play: "Take it off, or I'll knock it
off," is part of a game which represents the entire operation of finding
a honey tree, cutting it down, gathering the honey, mixing it with
water, and eating it.
The marriage tie of Australian women cannot be likened to that existing
among Christian nations, nor is it similar to the polygamy of Mohammedan
peoples, but is a modified form of group marriage.
The Australian man obtains his wife in one of four different ways. His
father secures her for him by an arrangement with the girl's father; he
charms his intended by magic; he captures her as he would an enemy in
battle; or she elopes with him. It is to be understood, of course, that
the woman belongs to the proper class by descent. The Australians are
very particular in this regard. The first and most usual method of
taking a wife is connected with the law which makes every woman the
possible wife of some man. There is little or no ceremony in connection
with the rite of matrimony. When a man has secured a wife, she becomes
his private property.
Let us imagine, therefore, that a man has set his heart upon a woman of
the proper group. There are several ways of practising magic to procure
a wife. Spencer and Gillan, the greatest authorities in this line of
study, say, that when a man is desirous of securing a woman for his
wife,--it makes no difference whether or not she be already assigned to
some other man,--he takes a small strip of wood, attached at one end to
a string, and marks it with the design of his totem, and with this
instrument (called by the American boy a "buzzer") he goes into the bush
accompanied by his friends. All night long the men keep up a low singing
and chanting of amorous phrases. At daylight, the man stands up alone
and swings his roarer. The sound of the instrument and the singing of
the air is carried to the ear of the woman by magic, and it has the
power of compelling her affections. It is asserted that women have been
known to come fifty miles in order to marry the man who had bewitched
them. There are other ways of charming a woman upon whom the lover has
set his heart,--such as the charm of the gaudy headband worn on a public
occasion, the charm of blowing the horn, and more. Elopement is only
another form of magic. The third method of obtaining a wife, by capture,
has been described as universal among the Australians, but the latest
writers affirm that it is the rarest way in which the central Australian
secures his wife.
Among the Australians, Polynesians, Malays, and many others of the
lower races, descent has been primarily and uniformly through the
mother. It was not until tribes became sedentary and property was held
by individuals that inheritance passed to the male members of the
family. The so-called mother-right is based upon the belief that
individuals forming a certain clan or group, by whatever name they may
be called, are the offspring of a woman who lived long ago. The term
_mutterrecht_, by which this custom is called, is of course a sort of
legal fiction; for men have always governed the world. Two benefits grew
out of this form of descent. One was the certainty of motherhood. The
other was the assurance, to every individual, of family support, as the
children of a number of sisters were not cousins to one another, but all
were brothers and sisters. So long as there were provisions with any one
of this group, the rest were sure of a meal. This plan of descent
through the mother has survived in many curious ways. It is found among
many African tribes. Even to-day the Spaniards, who have a great deal of
Moorish blood in their veins, have the custom of adding the mother's
name to the father's to show that the descent is legitimate. It may be
of interest to know, in passing, that James Smithson, the founder of the
Smithsonian Institution, was required by his father, the Duke of
Northumberland, to be known by his mother's name until he was of age,
when he was allowed to assume the family name of the duke, which was
Smithson. This is but a modern instance of how persistent the ancient
custom has been. As soon as sedentary life and settled ownership of
property took the place of nomadic life and communal ownership,
mother-right or matriarchy passed gradually into patriarchy. It is
curious to know that among the American Indians at the time they were
discovered one could find all degrees of this transition. We must be
careful, too, to discriminate between the tribe and the clan, or gens,
for all savage tribes are exogamous with respect to the clans and
endogamous with respect to the tribes. When the people develop the
tendency to marriage within the tribe, it is evident that they have
passed out of the earlier stages of clan grouping into the stage of
property grouping. Marrying in the tribes was necessary, in order, as we
might put it, to "keep the money in the family." Among many of the
lowest as well of the highest civilization, the practice is against
marrying a girl who is akin; and it is always a subject of humor when a
young woman in our own country marries without changing her name, a
quiet recognition of the old practice of the exogamous marriage between
clan members.
Clothing for warmth or protection is not worn by Australian women; even
the apron is not universal. The sense of beauty, however, has been
awakened in these savage breasts, and expresses itself in pretty
headbands, necklaces, and breast ornaments of seeds, teeth, and strings
colored with ochre. The men, too, are but little better attired; but one
indispensable article of their costumes must not be omitted in this
connection, namely, the knout, or coil of twine, with which they thrash
the women.
The home of the Australian woman, where she and her co-wives and their
children live, is nothing more than a brush shelter, so faced as to
protect the occupants from the prevailing wind. In front of this, or
under it, they work, eat, sleep, and hold social intercourse. In the
morning, they go forth with their digging sticks and wooden troughs to
gather small animals. They take no thought of what they shall eat, the
problem being to have anything to eat. When the men hunt the small
kangaroo, the women surround the game and drive it toward the ambush.
Every edible thing is known and is used for food. The women are the
gleaners also, gathering large quantities of seeds, throwing them from
one trough to another so that the wind may blow away the chaff, grinding
them on one stone with another, and cooking in hot ashes the dough made
from the meal. The cooking of flesh food is done by men, as that
prepared by females may not be eaten by them; the women attend to the
vegetable diet. In many places, females over a certain age take their
meals apart; this rule, however, is not uniform.
Should the Australian woman allow her child to live past the earliest
stages of infancy, she is usually a devoted mother. She often bears her
child about on her shoulders as she attends upon her tasks, even after
the child has become five or six years old. And should the little one
die, she will continue to bear the dear body with her, apparently not
noting the decomposition, which soon sets in. Mothers have been known to
carry the body of a dead child for weeks.
From earliest childhood, girls as well as boys are trained to note the
tracks of every living thing. For amusement, skilful women imitate, in
the sand, the tracks of animals; and they know one another's footsteps.
Spencer and Gillan say that every woman has her _pitchi_, or "wooden
trough," from one to three feet long, in which she carries everything,
even the baby, for she is both pack and passenger beast; when she is
hunting, it will very often be used as a scoop-shovel to clear out
earth. Her only other implement is her digging stick, the primitive
pick-plow excavator. It is a straight staff, pointed at the end. When at
work requiring its use, the owner loosens the earth with the digging
stick, held in the right hand, while her left hand plays the part of
shovel. Acre after acre of the soil wherein lives the honey ant is dug
over for this toothsome mite. Little girls go out with their mothers;
and while the latter are digging up vermin and insects, the toddlers,
with little picks, will be taking their first lesson in what will be
their chief lifework.
Among savages, the textile art--woman's peculiar industry--is little
encouraged. The spindle used in Australia before the discovery of the
island-continent in 1606, and which is still in use among the wild
tribes, is the most primitive conceivable, for it is merely a little
switch with a hooked end. The women make string for tying, as well as
for bags and network, out of human, opossum, and kangaroo hair, from
sinew, like the Eskimo, and from vegetable fibre. They sit upon the
ground, use the left hand for a distaff, and with the right hand roll
the spindle dexterously on the naked thigh. When a foot or so of string
is finished, it is rolled about the hook of the spindle for a bobbin.
When two of these are completed, a stick is driven into the ground, and
a rude rope or twine walk is set up. The women know the dyes in many
plants and use them. With the strings they make basketry, nets, bags,
plaiting, and many ornamental forms of simple lacework and borders.
Indeed, the Australian aborigines are at the bottom of the textile
ladder, where human fingers perform all spinning, netting, and weaving.
In lieu of the gaudy costumes and of the tattooed tooth patterns etched
upon the skin among other Indo-Pacific tribes, Australian women decorate
their breasts and other parts with horrid scars. They cut the skin with
flint or glass, and rub ashes or down into the open wounds in order that
the cicatrices may be large and prominent. They submit to these tortures
with the greatest satisfaction, and add more from time to time as
memorials of personal experiences or in honor of the dead.
The Australian women are fond of games and sports. Dr. Roth, the
Northern Protector of Aborigines in Queensland, says that with a fair
length of twine adult women will amuse themselves for hours at a time.
The twine is used in the form of an endless string, known to Europeans
as "cat's cradle" or "catch cradle." Hundreds of the most intricate and
bewildering designs are made, in the formation of which the mouth, the
knees, and the toes cooperate with the hand. Some of the figures are
extremely complicated. Dr. Roth gives the plates of the finished
patterns, which certainly are as fascinating as any work of savage
hands.
Australian women are described as cheerful and light-hearted, but, on
occasion, they fight with their digging sticks most furiously, giving
and taking blows like men. The testimony of the best observers is to the
effect that, in most tribes, women are not treated with excessive
cruelty, which would be quickly fatal to the tribe in longevity,
fecundity, and service. Women receive their share of the resources, be
they abundant or meagre. What seems to be cruelty is only custom or, as
one would say, fashion; and in Australia, even more so than in Paris,
you had as well be out of the world as out of the fashion.
All her life, the Australian woman is in the most abject social state;
her connection with the rites and ceremonies of her tribes is only as an
assistant or attendant. She is charged with all the industrial
occupations of food getting, and is not allowed to venture near the
sacred places on in of death. She is bound hand and foot by custom.
No Australian woman is believed to die a natural death. All are killed
by magic--it may be a personal enemy near at hand or by a great sorcerer
far away. Their life, so remote from ours, is, however, less sensitive,
and it would be untrue to say that they are a melancholy set, living in
perpetual dread.
When an Australian woman dies, she is at once placed in a sitting
posture, with the knees doubled up against the chin. The body thus
prepared is deposited in a round hole at once or is placed on a
platform, made of boughs, until some of the flesh disappears, after
which the bones are put into a grave. Nothing whatever is deposited with
her, and the earth is piled directly upon the body so as to form a low
mound with a depression on the side toward the camp ground. As soon as
the burial is over, her camp is burnt utterly and her group remove to
another place. Those who stood in certain kinship to her may never
mention her name again or go near her grave after the last act of
quieting the spirit has been performed. This ceremony occurs about a
year after the death of a woman, and consists of trampling on her grave.
Her mother and the nearest clan kin paint themselves with kaolin and
visit her grave, accompanied by certain of her tribal brothers. On the
way, the actual mother throws herself on the ground and is only
prevented from frightfully cutting herself by watchful attendants. At
the grave, the blood flows copiously from self-inflicted wounds upon all
the mourners. After this blood letting, charms are planted upon the
grave mound, the blood stained pipe clay, with which the half dead
mother has smeared herself, is rubbed off and the grave is smoothed
over. All this is done cheerfully, as it is the custom of the country.
The widow (or widows) of a deceased man smears her hair, face, and
breast with white pipe clay, and remains silent during a long time,
perhaps a year, communicating by means of gesture language. She remains
in camp, performing assiduously the ceremonies for the dead; indeed,
should she venture forth on her old avocations, a younger brother of her
husband, on meeting her, might run her through with his spear. When the
time comes to have the ban of silence removed, she smears herself afresh
with kaolin, prepares a large tray full of food, and accompanied by
female friends walks to the dividing line of her camp. They are joined
by the proper kindred of the deceased, who, after an elaborate ceremony,
release her from her vows, and certify to her having done her whole
widowly duties. At the ceremony of trampling on the grave of the dead
man, in which certain women take part, and especially the widow, who
scrapes the kaolin from her body, showing that her mourning is ended.
When a child dies, not only does the actual _mia_, or "mother," cut
herself, but all the sisters of the latter perform a like ceremony. On
the death of relatives, women gash themselves. The scars thus made have
naught to do with the decorative cicatrices across the breast, before
mentioned. They are specially proud of these self-inflicted wounds,
since they are the permanent record of their faithfulness to their dead.
Let us turn our attention to the smallest women of the world. History,
ethnology, and classic myth have united to make the Eastern pigmies the
most interesting people in the world. Though they are a little people,
and have been hard pressed by larger and stronger races, they have
survived for centuries. They are to be found in Asia, Africa, and the
islands of the sea. Africa was doubtless their aboriginal home; but this
negrito type has spread eastward, probably in their canoes in the early
days, till the islands of the South Seas have become their home.
The women among these little people are even smaller than the men. The
Mincopies of the Andaman Islands are among the most interesting of the
negritos. Because of their roving nature, they live in huts which are
rather temporary in character. These are put up by the women, though
when a sojourn in a given locality is to be of longer duration the men
build huts that are more permanent. The boys and girls do not sleep in
the same huts with the married people, but in huts specially constructed
for them. The women often become quite expert in the manufacture of
pottery by hand, the vessels having rounded bottoms, and being decorated
with wavy lines, or lines made by a wooden style.