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Finck, Henry Theophilus, 1854-1926

"Primitive Love and Love-Stories"

I was
informed therein that "savages are not strangers to love in the most
delicate and noble form of the passion.... The wrong conclusion must
not be drawn from Monteiro's remark, 'I have never seen a negro put
his arm around a negro's waist.' It is the uneducated classes who may
be seen to exhibit in the parks those harmless endearments which
negroes have too much good taste to practise before the public." To
one who knows the African savage as he is, such an assertion is worth
a whole volume of _Punch_.
[146] Westermarck (358), as usual, accepts Johnston's statement about
poetic love on the Congo as gospel truth, without examining it
critically.
[147] Bleek credits these tales to Schoen's _Grammar of the Hausa
Language_, Schlenker's _Collection of Temne Traditions_, and Koelle's
_African Native Literature_, where the original Bornu text may be
found.
[148] _Folk Lore Journal_, London, 1888, 119-22.
[149] Compare this with what I said on page 340 about the behavior of
girls in the New Britain Group.
[150] _Revue d'Anthropologie,_ 1883.
[151] See an elaborate discussion of this question by the Rev. John
Mathew in the _Journal of the Royal Society of N.S. Wales,_ Vol.
XXIII., 335-449.
[152] See, _e.g._, the hideous pictures of Australian women enclosed
in G.W. Earl's _The Papuans_.


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