Des rapports observés entre les moyens d’existence et l’état social des peuples d’espèce nègre, de l

CHAP. 25: > Of the relations observed between the means of existence and the social state of the peoples of the negro species, of New Holland and of some islands of the great Ocean. — Of the morals of these peoples under different degrees of latitude.

The peoples of the negro or Ethiopian species, spread throughout some islands of the great Ocean, are inferior, in many respects, to the peoples of the Malay species. Their industry being nil or at least very little advanced, navigators have not been able to procure provisions from them; they have consequently had fewer occasions to observe them. They have, however, given us a sufficient number of facts to compare among themselves the peoples who belong to this species of men, and to determine some of the principal physical circumstances that have arrested or favored their development.

Deceit is one of the characteristics one encounters among all peoples who have not yet emerged from the state of barbarism. There is almost none who does not know how to hide the feelings of hatred and malevolence that animate him under the exterior of goodness and frankness. The most savage peoples, who are always the weakest and least numerous, are therefore the most difficult to judge when they are visited by men who evidently have more strength than they themselves have. For their true nature to show itself as it is, it is necessary either that circumstances arise in which they believe themselves to be the strongest, or that they attribute to feelings of fear the consideration and benevolence one has for them. A considerable difference in morals has several times been observed between two peoples not far from one another and equally little advanced in civilization. When one has sought the causes of the ferocity of the one and the gentleness of the other, one has almost always remarked that one had presented oneself to the former with the appearance of weakness, whereas one had presented oneself to the latter with imposing forces and apparatus [645]. Thus, one must not hasten to judge too favorably of a people still barbarous, if it manifests feelings of gentleness, of benevolence, toward men who have the means to do it more good than it can do them harm.

One has seen among the natives of Van Diemen's Land no kind of social organization. One has observed only that two individuals who were the tallest and strongest of the people each had two wives, while the others had only one [646]. This, doubtless, is what constitutes the prerogative of those who direct the others when they go on a hunting party or when they go to attack the peoples with whom they are at war, the only circumstances where the need for chiefs can be felt by men who live on the fruits of hunting and fishing, or on the spontaneous products of the earth. There is therefore not among these peoples one class that is enslaved to another.

The natives of Van Diemen's Land have no fixed dwellings: they wander in small troops, from place to place, to seek food. One never sees more than three or four huts in one place, each able to contain at most three or four persons. The families live in perfect independence of one another; sometimes one encounters some who wander isolated on the seashore; but one always observes a great subordination of the members to the chief. Weak by their isolation, by their physical organization, by their ignorance and by their clumsiness, these men live in continual distrust and alarm. The appearance of an unknown individual makes them take flight, unless they judge him to be much weaker than themselves; for, then, their first movement is to attack him [647].

The absence of social subordination, of cultivation, and of wealth, greatly shortens the examination of the morals of these islanders; for there can be no question of their relations as governors and as governed, as proprietors and as cultivators, as masters and as servants. The only relations under which one has to consider them are those that result from the state of family, from the state of community, and those they may have with other peoples or with individuals who are not part of their association.

If one can judge the lot of their women by their physiognomy, and by the aspect they present, it is doubtful that any more miserable exist. An ignoble and coarse face, smeared with charcoal and grease, a somber and fierce gaze, generally thin and withered forms, long and pendulous breasts, a body covered with scars, and the anxious and dejected air that misfortune and servitude imprint on the brow of all enslaved beings, such are the features under which they presented themselves to the French naturalists. The terror that the presence of their husbands inspired in them, and the dangers or labors to which they have been seen condemned, have explained in an unequivocal manner the causes of their degradation and their scars [648].

The women are charged with providing for the subsistence of the family, and alone devote themselves to the labors that fishing requires. When the time for meals arrives, the mothers, followed by their daughters, with a sack or a basket tied to their necks, arm themselves with a stick, and go and plunge to the bottom of the sea, at the risk of remaining entangled in the marine plants, or of being devoured by sharks. There, they seek to make a provision of sea-ears or lobsters; when their breath fails them, they appear for an instant on the water, and plunge back in again, until the provision is complete. They then cook, at fires they have lit in advance, the products of their fishing; and, while the men feed on them without offering them any part, they withdraw in a group behind these severe masters, daring neither to speak, nor even to raise their eyes. The meal finished, they get up and go to fetch them the water they need to drink [649]. If it is a question of changing location, the women are transformed into beasts of burden; they put in sacks the objects that must follow them; fix these sacks around their foreheads by a circle of ropes; and, whatever their weight, carry them on their backs. The men lend them no assistance, and walk free behind them [650].The harshness of the men is manifested not only by the numerous scars observed on the bodies of the women, by the terror they inspire in them, by the labors to which they condemn them; it is manifested above all by the expression of their physiognomy. The passions that agitate them are painted there with force, succeeding one another with rapidity. As mobile as their affections, all their features change and are modified according to them. Their face, frightening and fierce in menace, is, in suspicion, anxious and perfidious; in laughter, it is of a mad and almost convulsive gaiety among the young men; among the older ones, it is sad, hard, and somber. But, in general, in all individuals and at whatever moment one observes them, the gaze always retains something sinister and ferocious, which could not escape an attentive observer, and which corresponds only too well to the depths of their character [651].

A naturalist made a singular remark about these tribes: he observed that they seem to have no idea of the act of kissing. The idea of a caress seems no less foreign to them; in vain were all the gestures proper to characterizing this action made to them, their surprise always proved that they did not conceive of it. Thus, these two actions that seem so natural to us, kisses and affectionate caresses, would seem to be unknown to these coarse tribes [652].

However, whatever the harshness of the men of Van Diemen's Land toward the beings of their species who are weaker than they, they have not sought to traffic in the favors of their wives or their daughters; they have, on the contrary, shown themselves to be very jealous. It even appears, as far as one has been able to understand them, that, in each tribe, the men respect one another's women, and that they consider conjugal fidelity as a duty, at least on the part of the weaker sex [653]. The English sailors who sought to obtain the favors of the women of Van Diemen's Land were repulsed.

"It will be observed," says Cook on this subject, "that, among the little-civilized tribes, where the women show themselves to be of easy access, the men are the first to offer them to strangers; and that, if they do not offer them, one will try in vain to seduce them with presents, one will seek in vain for secluded places. I can assure you that this remark is correct for all the islands where I have put in [654]."

This difference that we observe here between the conduct of the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, and the conduct of the peoples of the Malay species, is reproduced in all the islands inhabited by peoples classified under the name of the Ethiopian species, whatever the latitude under which they are placed: in no island have the men of this latter species prostituted their wives, nor suffered them to prostitute themselves.

The tribes of Van Diemen's Land are so few in number, they are placed at such a great distance from one another, and their time is so completely absorbed by the need to procure subsistence, that it has not been possible to observe the relations that may exist between them [655]; but the conduct they have held toward travelers who appeared to them inferior in strength or skill is sufficient to show that any individual who is a stranger to a horde is treated by it as an enemy; they have the same character of perfidy and ferocity that travelers have reproached in the most barbarous Malays; when they have found the opportunity to attack the travelers who had showered them with benefits, they have taken advantage of it, and their ferocity has appeared to increase with the consideration that has been shown to them [656].

"I confess," says Péron, speaking of these peoples, "that I am surprised, after so many examples of treachery and cruelty reported in voyages of discovery, to hear sensible persons repeat that men of nature are not wicked, that one can trust them; that they will be aggressors only insofar as they are excited by vengeance. Unfortunately, many travelers have been the victims of these vain sophisms. For my part, I think, from all that we have been able to see, that one cannot be too wary of men whose character has not yet been softened by civilization, and that one should approach the shores inhabited by such men only with prudence [657]."

— The natives of New Holland, although placed under different degrees of latitude, and spread over an immense territory, all have more or less the same morals. The hordes, a little more numerous, a little less rare, a little less devoid of industry than those of Van Diemen's Land, are also a little more advanced in their social organization [658]. However, the most considerable tribes barely count a hundred individuals, and most count fewer than fifty. Among them, all difference of conditions, exercises, and foods is unknown: with the same needs, with the same resources, all individuals of the same age and the same sex have the same labors to bear, the same privations to undergo, the same enjoyments to share. This uniformity, which is reproduced in all the details of their existence, and which is sustained at all periods of life, imprints upon the individuals a character of physical and moral similitude of which one would have difficulty forming a just idea in our social state [659].

None of the hordes of New Holland knows agriculture, none has succeeded in subjugating any animal other than the dog; and as this animal feeds on the same substances as man, it cannot be a resource for him. The land, abandoned to its natural fertility, produces no other food plants in this country than a few stalks of wild celery; the only fruit that the trees give there is a species of fig that resembles a pine cone, and which has caused violent nausea in the Europeans who have attempted to eat it [660]. One does not find there, as in the north of America, those numerous herds of wild beasts that furnish the natives with abundant prey when they have the good fortune to surround them; one encounters there only two quadrupeds that are very difficult to catch, and the largest of which, when it is no longer young, is scarcely better to eat than the fox.

Fishing is the principal resource of the tribes that live on the seashores; hunting is the means employed to provide for their existence by those who live in the interior of the lands; but, as neither ever makes provisions, the labor of each day must procure for them the subsistence of each day: if hunting and fishing produce nothing, which happens frequently, the entire horde is reduced to fasting, or to seeking a supplement of subsistence in productions of another kind; at the approach of winter, fish becoming scarce, the southern hordes emigrate toward the north, to find more abundant subsistence there [661].

The tribes of the interior procure their meager subsistence only with the greatest pains. To catch the smallest animals, such as the opossum and the flying squirrel, or to gather a little honey, the men must climb large trees, and they can reach the branches only by making notches on the trunk, ordinarily very high, to place their feet and hands [662]. If they remain several days without catching game, which happens frequently, famine manifests itself: they then wage an active war on frogs, lizards, snakes, caterpillars, and spiders; they eat grass and gnaw the bark of certain trees; finally, they knead ants with their larvae and fern roots, and calm their stomachs with the paste that results from this mixture. In these times of famine, which are very frequent, these men reach such an excess of thinness that one would take them for skeletons, and they appear on the point of succumbing to starvation [663].

The hordes that live on the coasts are no less exposed to famine than those of the interior. If the season or the state of the sea does not permit them to catch fish or shellfish, they feed on large worms that spread an infectious odor, or on other foods just as coarse. Sometimes the bad weather, which makes fishing impossible for them, causes a whale to wash up on the coasts; the hordes that encounter it utter cries of joy, forget their mutual hatreds, rush upon their prey, and think only of sating themselves: it is torn from all sides at once; each one eats, sleeps, wakes, eats, and sleeps again; but as soon as the last corrupted scraps have been devoured, resentments reawaken, murderous combats succeed these disgusting orgies, and they slaughter one another over bones [664]*.

The diverse tribes that inhabit New Holland differ on some points in their physical constitution; they seem to form three varieties of the same species; but no intellectual or moral difference has been observed among them: they all provide for their needs by similar means, and consequently have a uniform manner of conducting themselves. Having no other individual property than a few poor weapons, and never making provisions, they have no need of government. It must be sufficient for them to have a chief who directs them when they are at war with one another; and it does not appear, in effect, that they have a more complicated government.

The relations that exist between the two sexes are here such as one finds among all savage peoples; but they are established, however, in a particular manner. When a man wants to procure a wife, he spies, in a tribe other than his own, on which one might suit him. Having made his choice, he seeks to surprise this object of his affections; if he perceives her apart, he swoops down on her, stuns her with a blow from a club to the head, seizes her by an arm or a leg, and drags her through the brush, until he has led her to a place of safety [665].

Here, as on Van Diemen's Land, the women are the slaves of the men; they are charged with gathering shellfish, going fishing, and steering the canoes: these labors are not suspended during the time of nursing [666]. They are treated in a harsh and cruel manner: thus, they generally have a more somber air than the men [667]. One never sees on them any kind of ornament, while the men adorn themselves with dog's teeth, crayfish arms, or small bones [668].

These peoples, when they feel themselves to be the weakest, affect gentleness and benevolence; but as soon as they have some reason to believe themselves the strongest, they show themselves to be insolent and ferocious; the consideration with which one treats them is imputed to weakness, and serves only to increase their insolence: they are therefore false and mistrustful like all savages [669].

They are all of a disgusting filthiness, not only in their food, but in their entire person; they exhale a strong odor of oil, and they are covered with such a mass of filth that it is very difficult to know the true color of their skin.

"We tried several times," says Cook, "to rub it with wet fingers to remove the crust, but always uselessly. This filth makes them appear as black as negroes, and, from what we can judge, their skin is the color of soot [670]."

The inhabitants of New Caledonia, more advanced toward the equator than those of Van Diemen's Land and most of those of New Holland, belong to the same species; they have already made some progress in industry, as has been seen elsewhere; they form a more numerous population, and are subject to chiefs who have a little more authority over them [671]. These chiefs sometimes seize things that belong to their inferiors, and which excite their cupidity; however, they do not give themselves over to those acts of violence so common among the chiefs of the Malay species [672]; their authority appears, on the contrary, so weak, that the regards granted them approach deference more than submission [673]. These peoples appear to have been neither conquered, nor conquerors; among them, no class is subjected to another.

The women, among them, are also treated in a less harsh manner than among the peoples of the same species who live under a colder climate. They are charged with a part of the labors of agriculture and fishing; they clear or dig the land; they go into the sea to look for shellfish, and are sometimes charged with transporting heavy burdens. However, the men share the first of these labors with them; and in their fishing, they do not take the same pains nor expose themselves to the same dangers as the women of Van Diemen's Land. All do not appear, moreover, to be condemned to the same fate; only a few advance far enough into the sea to have water up to their waists [674]. One has not remarked on them those numerous scars that the women of Van Diemen's Land and New Holland bear, although they keep themselves, like them, distant from their husbands, and appear to fear offending them even by their gazes or their gestures [675]. They have, moreover, disagreeable features and a ferocious gaze [676].

The diverse tribes of this island, when they are at war with one another, bring to it the same animosity and the same fury that we have observed among the peoples of the Malay species; in the invasions they make on one another's territory, they burn the dwellings, destroy the harvests, cut down the trees [677]. Hunger then attacks those whom weapons have not destroyed; and, to escape the horrors of famine, or to save their wives and children from it, those who have been defeated take up arms again, swoop down in their turn on their enemies, devour them if they are victors, or serve as their fodder if they are vanquished again [678].

These islanders, who seemed to be at peace among themselves when they were visited by Captain Cook, received the English navigators with benevolence, and let them freely travel their country:

"It is easy to see," says Cook, speaking of them, "that they have received from nature only an excellent character. On this point, they surpassed all the nations we had known; and, although that did not satisfy our needs, we were charmed to find in them this quality which procured for us a precious peace and liberty [679]."

But, when they were visited by French navigators, their position was changed, and one found among them the misery, the ravages, and the morals that, among such peoples, are the consequences of war.

The French having shown them coconuts and yams while encouraging them to bring some, the islanders, far from going to fetch any, wanted to buy those that were shown to them, and offered in exchange their spears and their clubs; they made it known that they were very hungry, by showing their bellies which were extremely flattened [680]. The officers and the naturalist of the crew, having penetrated into the interior of the island, found the inhabitants to be of an extreme thinness; the women and children resembled veritable skeletons [681]. The foods on which they nourished themselves were spiders, tree shoots, and unsubstantial roots; and when that was not enough, they appeased their hunger by eating earth [682].

One should be little surprised that peoples still barbarous who are reduced to such horrible misery end by devouring their enemies, and become accustomed to feeding on human flesh.

"Some of them," says Labillardière, "approached the most robust among us and felt the most muscular parts of their arms and legs on different occasions, pronouncing kapareck with an air of admiration and even of desire, which was not very reassuring for us; however, they gave us no cause for discontent [683]."

During the stay of the French on this island, they saw inhabitants disappear for some time and return with the corpses of the enemies they had killed, which they brought to their families as hunters bring game [684].

The inhabitants of Tanna, situated at a slightly lower latitude than those of New Caledonia, also seem to differ very little from them in morals. Each village and each family appear independent; the old men, and the men most remarkable for their strength, are those who seem to have the most authority: one remarks among them no distinction of ranks [685]. The villages are at war with one another, and the customs, in such circumstances, do not appear different from those of New Caledonia [686]. The English, upon landing at Tanna, were received by the inhabitants with provocations and threats; but they succeeded, however, in calming them, by intimidating them with the noise of weapons [687].The women are again here charged with the most painful labors: while the men walk free behind them, carrying only their weapons, they are obliged to carry at once their children and the burdens with which their husbands overwhelm them; if they cannot carry these burdens, they drag them; they are, in truth, nothing but beasts of burden and obey the slightest sign from the men [688]. However, however harsh their condition may be, it is less so than that of the women of New Caledonia; the men do not inspire in them the same terror, nor keep them at the same distance [689]. They themselves, moreover, execute the most painful labors, those that consist in putting the land into cultivation, in cutting or uprooting trees and brush with stone axes [690]. These islanders have more respect for property than one ordinarily finds among peoples who are no more advanced in civilization. In the first moment of their interview with the English, they seized everything that fell into their hands; but when friendly relations were established between them, they were not guilty of any theft [691].

“The Tahitians,” says Forster, “are ordinarily obliged to suspend their riches from the roofs of their houses, to remove them from the reach of thieves; but here they are in safety on the first bush. In support of this remark, I will observe that, during our stay among the islanders at Tanna, they did not steal the slightest trifle from anyone in the crew [692].”

The inhabitants of the New Hebrides who belong to the same species and who are a few degrees closer to the equator, conducted themselves even better. Not only did they give no cause for complaint to the English navigators; but, when they could have, without danger and even without being able to be accused of bad faith, retained objects they had sold, they did all that depended on them to return them to the owners.

“They gave us,” says Cook, “such extraordinary proofs of their probity that we were surprised by them. As the ship at first moved very quickly, we left behind several of their canoes which had received our merchandise, without having had the time to give theirs in exchange. Instead of taking advantage of this opportunity to appropriate them, as our friends from the Society Islands would have done, they employed all their efforts to reach us and to deliver to us that for which they had received the price. One of the Indians followed us for a considerable time, and calm ensuing he managed to join us. As soon as he was at the ship, he showed what he had sold; several people wanted to pay him for it; but he refused to part with it until he perceived the one who had already bought it from him. The person not knowing him, offered him its value again; but this honest Indian would not accept it, and showed him what he had received in exchange [693].”

The peoples of the negro species of the great Ocean, who are closest to the tropics, are therefore, in general, much less barbarous than those who are most distant from them.