CHAPTER XLIII

HOMOSEXUAL LOVE

OUR review of the moral ideas concerning sexual relations has not yet come to an end. The gratification of the sexual instinct assumes forms which fall outside the ordinary pale of nature. Of these there is one which, on account of the role which it has played in the moral history of mankind, cannot be passed over in silence, namely, intercourse between individuals of the same sex, what is nowadays commonly called homosexual love.

It is frequently met with among the lower animals.' It probably occurs, at least sporadically, among every race of mankind.2 And among some peoples it has assumed such proportions as to form a true national habit.

In America homosexual customs have been observed among a great number of the native tribes. In nearly every part of the continent there seem to have been, since ancient times, men dressing themselves in the clothes and performing the functions of women, and living with other men as their concubines or wives. Moreover, between

3

in Brazil, ii. 246; von Martius, Von dem Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens, p. 27 sq.; Lomonaco, Sulle razze indigene del Brasile,' in Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia, xix. 46; Burton, Arabian Nights, x. 246 (Brazilian Indians). Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas, ii. 441 sqq.; Cieza de Leon, 'La crónica del Perú [primera parte],' ch. 49, in

young men who are comrades in arms there are liaisons d'amitié, which, according to Lafitau, "ne laissent aucun soupçon de vice apparent, quoiqu'il y ait, ou qu'il puisse y avoir, beaucoup de vice réel."

Homosexual practices are, or have been, very prominent among the peoples in the neighbourhood of Behring Sea." In Kadiak it was the custom for parents who had a girl-like son to dress and rear him as a girl, teaching him only domestic duties, keeping him at woman's work, and letting him associate only with women and girls. Arriving at the age of ten or fifteen years, he was married to some wealthy man and was then called an achnuchik or shoopan. Dr. Bogoraz gives the following account of a

3

Biblioteca de autores españoles, xxvi. 403 (Peruvian Indians at the time of the Spanish conquest). Oviedo y

Valdés, Sumario de la natural historia de las Indias,' ch. 81, in Biblioteca de autores españoles, xxii. 508 (Isthmians). Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 585 (Indians of New Mexico); ii. 467 sq. (ancient Mexicans). Diaz del Castillo, Conquista de NuevaEspaña, ch. 208, in Biblioteca de autores españoles, xxvi. 309 (ancient Mexicans). Landa, Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan, p. 178 (ancient Yucatans). Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, 'Naufragios y relacion de la jornada que hizo a la Florida,' ch. 26, in Biblioteca de autores españoles, xxii. 538; Coreal, Voyages aux Indes Occidentales, i. 33 sq. (Indians of Florida). Perrin du Lac, Voyage dans les deux Louisianes et chez les nations sauvages du Missouri, p. 352; Bossu, Travels through Louisiana, i. 303. Hennepin, Nouvelle De couverte d'un très Grand Pays Situé dans l'Amerique, p. 219 sq.; La Salle's Last Expedition and Discoveries in North America,' in Collections of the New-York Historical Society, ii. 237 sq.; de Lahontan, Mémoires de l'Amérique septentrionale, p. 142 (Illinois). Marquette, Recit des voyages, p. 52 sq. (Illinois and Naudowessies). WiedNeuwied, Travels in the Interior of North America, p. 351 (Manitaries, Mandans, &c.). McCoy, History of Baptist Indian Missions, p. 360 sq.

(Osages). Heriot, Travels through the Canadas, p. 278; Catlin, North American Indians, ii. 214 sq. (Sioux). Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 365; James, Expedi tion from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, i. 267 (Omahas). Loskiel, History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians, i. 14 (Iroquois). Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, ii. 42 (Crees). Oswald, quoted by Bastian, Der Mensch in der Geschichte, iii. 314 (Indians of California). Holder, in New York Medical Journal, December 7th, 1889, quoted by Havelock Ellis, op. cit. p. 9 sq. (Indians of Washington and other tribes in the North-Western United States). See also Karsch, 'Uranismus oder Päderastie und Tribadie bei den Naturvölkern,' in Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, iii. 112 sqq.

1 Lafitau, Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains, i. 603, 607 sqq.

Dall, Alaska, p. 402; Bancroft, op. cit. i. 92; Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, iii. 314 (Aleuts). von Langsdorf, Voyages and Travels, ii. 48 (natives of Oonalaska). Steller, Kamtschatka, p. 289, n.a; Georgi, Russia, iii. 132 sq. (Kamchadales).

3 Davydow, quoted by Holmberg, Ethnographische Skizzen über die Völker des russischen Amerika,' in Acta Soc. Scientiarum Fennica, iv. 400 sq. Lisiansky, Voyage Round the World, p. 199. von Langsdorf, op. cit.

similar practice prevalent among the Chukchi :—“ It happens frequently that, under the supernatural influence. of one of their shamans, or priests, a Chukchi lad at sixteen years of age will suddenly relinquish his sex and imagine himself to be a woman. He adopts a woman's attire, lets his hair grow, and devotes himself altogether to female occupation. Furthermore, this disowner of his sex takes a husband into the yurt and does all the work which is usually incumbent on the wife in most unnatural and voluntary subjection. Thus it frequently happens in a yurt that the husband is a woman, while the wife is a man! These abnormal changes of sex imply the most abject immorality in the community, and appear to be strongly encouraged by the shamans, who interpret such cases as an injunction of their individual deity." The change of sex was usually accompanied by future shamanship; indeed, nearly all the shamans were former delinquents of their sex. Among the Chukchi male shamans who are clothed in woman's attire and are believed to be transformed physically into women are still quite common; and traces of the change of a shaman's sex into that of a woman may be found among many other Siberian tribes.2 In some cases at least there can be no doubt that these transformations were connected with homosexual practices. In his description of the Koriaks, Krasheninnikoff makes mention of the ke'yev, that is, men occupying the position of concubines; and he compares them with the Kamchadale koe'kčuč, as he calls them, that is, men transformed into women. Every koe'kčuč, he says, is regarded as a magician and interpreter of dreams; but from his confused description Mr. Jochelson thinks it may be inferred that the most important feature of the institution of the koe' kčuč lay, not in their shamanistic power, but in their position with regard to the satisfaction of the unnatural

ii. 64. Sauer, Billing's Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia, p. 176. Sarytschew, 'Voyage of Discovery to the North-East of Siberia,' in Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages,

vi. 16.

1 Bogoraz, quoted by Demidoff, Shooting Trip to Kamchatka, p. 74 sq. "Jochelson, Koryak Religion and Myth, pp. 52, 53 n. 3.

inclinations of the Kamchadales.

The koe'kčuč wore women's clothes, did women's work, and were in the position of wives or concubines.1

3

In the Malay Archipelago homosexual love is common,2 though not in all of the islands. It is widely spread among the Bataks of Sumatra. In Bali it is practised openly, and there are persons who make it a profession." The basir of the Dyaks are men who make their living by witchcraft and debauchery. They "are dressed as women, they are made use of at idolatrous feasts and for sodomitic abominations, and many of them are formally married to other men. "96 Dr. Haddon says that he never heard of any unnatural offences in Torres Straits; but in the Rigo district of British New Guinea several instances of pederasty have been met with, and at Mowat in Daudai it is regularly indulged in." Homosexual love is reported. as common among the Marshall Islanders 10 and in Hawaii.1 From Tahiti we hear of a set of men called by the natives mahoos, who "assume the dress, attitude, and manners, of women, and affect all the fantastic oddities and coquetries of the vainest of females. They mostly associate with the women, who court their acquaintance. With the manners of the women, they adopt their peculiar employments. . . . The encouragement of this abomination is almost solely

7 Haddon, Ethnography of the Western Tribe of Torres Straits,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xix. 315.

8 Seligmann, 'Sexual Inversion among Primitive Races,' in The Alienist and Neurologist, xxiii. 3 sqq.

9 Beardmore, Natives of Mowat, Daudai, New Guinea,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xix. 464. Haddon, ibid. xix. 315.

To Hernsheim, Beitrag zur Sprache der Marshall-Inseln, p. 40. A different opinion is expressed by Senfft, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse von eingeborenen Völkern in Afrika und Ozeanien, p. 437.

xliii.

Remy, Ka Mooolelo Hawaii, p.

que

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confined to the chiefs."4 Of the New Caledonians M. Foley writes :-"La plus grande fraternité n'est pas chez eux la fraternité utérine, mais la fraternité des armes. Il en est ainsi surtout au village de Poepo. Il est vrai cette fraternité des armes est compliquée de pédérastie." Among the natives of the Kimberley District in West Australia, if a young man on reaching a marriageable age can find no wife, he is presented with a boy-wife, known as chookadoo. In this case, also, the ordinary exogamic rules are observed, and the "husband" has to avoid his "mother-in-law," just as if he were married to a woman. The chookadoo is a boy of five years to about ten, when he is initiated. "The relations which exist between him and his protecting billalu," says Mr. Hardman, "are somewhat doubtful. There is no doubt they have connection, but the natives repudiate with horror and disgust the idea of sodomy." Such marriages are evidently exceedingly common. As the women are generally monopolised by the older and more influential men of the tribe, it is rare to find a man under thirty or forty who has a wife; hence it is the rule that, when a boy becomes five years old, he is given as a boy-wife to one of the young men. According to Mr. Purcell's description of the natives of the same district, "every useless member of the tribe gets a boy, about five or seven years old; and these boys, who are called mullawongahs, are are used for sexual purposes." Among the Chingalee of South Australia, Northern Territory, old men are often noticed with no wives but accompanied by one or two boys, whom they jealously guard and with whom they have sodomitic intercourse."

1 Turnbull, Voyage Round the World, p. 382. See also Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific, pp. 333, 361; Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 246, 258.

2 Foley, Sur les habitations et les moeurs des Néo-Calédoniens,' in Bull. Soc d'Anthrop. Paris, ser. iii. vol. ii. 606. See also de Rochas, Nouvelle Calédonie, p. 235.

3 Hardman, Notes on some Habits

and Customs of the Natives of the Kimberley District,' in Proceed. Roy. Irish Academy, ser. iii. vol. i. 74.

Ibid. pp. 71, 73. 5 Purcell,

Rites and Customs of Australian Aborigines,' in Verhandl Berliner Gesellsch. Anthrop. 1893, p. 287.

6 Ravenscroft, Some Habits and Customs of the Chingalee Tribe,' in Trans. Roy. Soc. South Australia, xv.