Iron County register., 1888-01-12
WAYS OF SAvAGES.
Manners and Morals Prevailing Among
Strange People.

Manners and Morals Prevailing Among
Strange People.
Sir John Lubb ock's recent lecture
on the habits and ideas of savages
furnished the text for editorials in
nearly all the London papers Morals
we have so long been accustomed to
look upon as a matter of creed and
code, that we are apt to forget that
throughout the far-stretching British
Empire they are very much question
of latitude and longitude. What is
virtuous under one sky is believed to
be folly under another. An act which
we regard as a capital crime is by
millions of our fellow subjects held to
be duty incumbent on every good
tribesman. A thug murders as part
of his religion. and the thief caste in
India steals for the same reason. A
dyak would consider himself dis
graced if he failed to lay human
head at the feet of his inamorata,
and Sioux or Cheyenne will COM
fort himself with the thought that his
boy is already the best horse thief in
the village There are people, neither
very low in the human scale nor
notable for the cruelty of their dis po-
sition, who believe the murder of their
relatives to be "a filial duty. When
old age approaches and the powers be-
gin to wane they quietly join the fu-
neral procession, and are decently
knocked on the head. in order that
in the land of sports they may arrive
hale and hearty. There are tribes in
Sumatra who set their aged pare nts
astrlde of the branches of tree, and
then shake he branches and devour
what fall, under the pious delusion
that they are feasting off the fruits of
the forest. It is mistake to imagine
that a savage eats his enemy
simply for the sake of en-
joying a comfortable meal. He is i'm
bued, in many instances, by loftier
motive. The warn ior in life acquitted
himself like man, and-according to
their ideas of animism-is capa bic,
when eaten. of imparting some of his
most enviable qualities to those who
feed upon him. Moreover, it would
fare badly with the enemies of dead
and uneaten tribes9an if they arrived
in the Land of the Hereafter friendless
and strange, while the warrior who
had gone before was there as strong
as ever and had troops of friends and
acquaintances ready to espouse his
quarrel. Accordingly, the savage
logic is, eat him, and SO prevent any
future complications. The English
man goes into a new country so full
of eagerness and so thoroughly i'm
bued with his own insular habits,
that he scarcely takes into ac-
count the fact that the people
with whom he has to deal,
and over whom perhaps he has to rule,
have for number of centuries been
governed by ideas and customs en-
tirely different When the barbara an
sleeps, his belief is that in dreaming
his soul wanders far afield, and hence
to waken him is to run the risk of
sending about his business q man
worse placed than Peter Schlemild,
since the chances are that. unlike Un-
dine, he may be without his errant
spirit The etiquette of man varies
"A DIIbOh SAdhCo
there are Eskimo tribes who expires s
their esteem for visitor by pulling
his nose. We take off our hats as a
mark of esteem; there are other races
who don their head covering in the
presence of superior. To extend
the fingers from the tip of the nose
is an act which, in this hemi-
sphere, is not considered mark of per-
sonal respect. Yet to ''take sight
is, in some parts of that empire on
which the sun never sets, a proof of
the highest good breeding. Even in
the matter of gifts, the gulf between
the ruler and the ruled is often very
broad. A Chinaman-and China
man is, of course, any thing but saw
age-looks upon coffin as neat and
appropriate present to an aged per-
son, over whom the doctor is shaking
his head, and in the Malay Islands one
friend sends to another a tooth brush
as the most delicate mark of consider
alton he can devise. London Stand
ard.