The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia

The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia Synopsis

Excerpt from The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia: An Ethnographic Account of Courtship, Marriage and Family Life Among the Natives of the Trobriand Islands, British New Guinea

In the nineteenth century the more sombre View pre vailed. The explorers were now mainly English, and they carried with them the anglo-saxon Puritanism for which all sexual customs that are unfamiliar are either Shocking or disgusting. Obscene was the word com monly used, and it was left to the reader's imagination to picture what that might mean. The sexual behaviour of savages seemed mostly unspeakable. The urethral sub incision practised by some Australian tribes was mysteri ously named the terrible rite. A similar mutilation Of the nose or ear, or anywhere a little higher up or a little lower down, would not have seemed terrible; but at that particular spot it aroused a shuddering and Shame faced awe.

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