Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-01-26
SAVAGE WAYS.

Manners and Morals Among Savage People.
Sir John Lnbbock's recent lecture on
the habits and ideas of savages furnished
the texts for editorials in nearly all the
London papers. The Standard says:
Morals we have SO long been accustomed
to look upon as 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 I'M
der another. An act which we regard as
a capital crime is by millions of our sub
iects held to be a duty incumbent on
every good tribesman. A thug murders
as a part of his religion, and the thief
caste in India steals for the same reason.
dyak would consider himself disgraced
if he failed to lay human head at the
feet of his inamorata, and a Sioux or
Cheyenne will comfort 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 position, who believe the murder of
their relitives to be a filial duty. When
old age approach IS and the powers be-
gin to wane they quietly join the funeral
procession, and are decoRtly 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 parents astride of The branch
es of tree, and then shake the branches
and devour what fall under the pious de-
fusion that they are eating TIE fruit of
the forest.
tits mistake to believe that savage
eats his enemy simply for the sake of
enjoying a comfortable meal. He is i'm
bued in many instances by loftier mo-
tive. The warrior in life acquitted him
self like man and--accordlng to their
ideas of animi5m-is ca pable 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 uHeaten tribesmaD
if they arrived in the Land of the Here
after friendless and strangers, while the
warrior who had gone before was there
as strong IS ever and had troops of
friends and acqua1ntances ready to es-
pouse his cause. Accordingly the savage
logic is, eat him, and SO prevent auy fu-
ture complications. The Englishman
goes into a new country so full OF eager
ness and so thoroughly imbued with his
own insular habits that he scarcely takes
into account the fact that the people
with whom he has to deal, and over whom
perhaps he has to rule, have for a number
of centuries been governed by ideas and
customs entirely different. When the
barbarian sleeps, his belief is that in
dreaming his soul wanders far afeld and
hence TO Waken him is to run the risk of
sending about his business man worse
placed than Peter Schlemild, since the
chances are that, unlike Undine, he may
be without his Grant spirit. The ETH
quette of man varies greatly.
4 Briton shakes hands; there are Es-
quimaux tribes who express their esteem
for q visitor by pulling his nose. We
take of our hats IS 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 hemis phere,
is not considered mark of personal re-
speet.
Yet, to stake sight, is in some parts |
of that empire on which the sun never
sets, a proof of the highest good breed |
ing. Even in the matter of gifts TIE
gulf between the ruler and the ruled is