Pre-Adolescent Sexual Life in the
TROBRIAND ISLANDS (circa Early 20th Century)

     But if there could be any doubt about the facts of this difference between the classes and about its cause, such doubts should disappear when we turn to Melanesia. Here certainly the facts are different from those found among the educated classes. As we saw in Chapter Five, the early sexual indecencies, clandestine games and interests are absent. In fact, it might be said that for these children the categories of decent-indecent, pure-impure, do not exist. The same reasons which makes this distinction weaker and less important among our peasants and even our bourgeois act even more strongly and directly among the Melanesians. In Melanesia there is no taboo on sex in general; there is no putting on any veils on natural functions, certainly not in the case of a child. When we consider that these children run about naked, and that their excretory functions are treated openly and naturally, that there is no general taboo on bodily parts or on nakedness in general; when we further consider that small children at the age of three or four are beginning to be aware of the existence of such a thing as genital sexuality, and of the fact that this will be their pleasure quite soon just as other infantile plays will be -- we can see that social factors rather than biological explain the difference between the two societies.
     The stage which I am now describing in Melanesia -- that which corresponds to our latency period -- is the stage of infantile independence, where small boys and girls play together in a sort of juvenile republic. Now, one of the main interests of these children consists of sexual pastimes. At an early age the children are initiated by each other, or sometimes by a slightly older companion, into the practices of sex. Naturally at this stage they are unable to carry out the act properly, but they content themselves with all sorts of games in which they are left quite at liberty by their elders, and thus they can easily satisfy their curiosity and their sensuality directly and without disguise.
     There can be no doubt that the dominating interest of such games is what Freud would call 'genital,' that they are largely determined by the desire to imitate the acts and interests of elder children and elders, and that this period is one which is almost completely absent from the life of better-class children in Europe, and which exists only to small degree among peasants and proletarians. When speaking of these amusements of the children, the natives will frequently allude to them as 'copulation amusement' (mwaygini kwayta). Or else it is said that they are playing at marriage.
     It must not be imagined that all games are sexual. But there are some particular pastimes of small children in which sex plays the predominant part. Melanesian children are fond of 'playing husband and wife.' A boy and a girl build a little shelter and call it their home; there they pretend to assume the functions of husband and wife, and amongst those of course the most important one of sexual intercourse. At other times, a group of children will go for a picnic where the entertainment consists of eating, fighting and making love. Or they will carry out a mimic ceremonial trade exchange, ending up with sexual activities. Crude sensual pleasure alone does not seem to satisfy them; in much more elaborate games it must be blended with some imaginative and romantic interest.
     A very important point about this infantile sexuality is the attitude of the elder generation towards it. As I have said, the parents do not look upon it as in the least reprehensible. Generally they take it entirely for granted. The most they will do is speak jestingly about it to one another, discussing the love tragedies and comedies of the child's world. Never would they dream of interfering or frowning disapproval, provided that the children show a due amount of discretion, that is, do not perform their amorous games in the house, but go away somewhere apart in the bush.
     But above all the children are left entirely to themselves in their love affairs. Not only is there no parental interference, but rarely, if ever, does it come about that a man or a woman take a perverse sexual interest in children, and certainly they would never be seen to mix themselves up in the games in this role. Violation of children is unknown, and a person who played sexually with a child would be thought ridiculous and disgusting.
     An extremely important feature in the sexual relations of children is the brother and sister taboo, already mentioned. From an early age, when the girl first puts on her grass petticoat, brothers and sisters of the same mother must be separated from each other, in obedience to the strict taboo which enjoins that there shall be no intimate relations between them. Even earlier, when they first can move about and walk, they play in different groups. Later on they never consort together socially on a free footing, and above all there must never be the slightest suspicion of an interest of one of them in the love affairs of the other. Although there is comparative freedom in playing and language between children, not even quite a small boy would associate sex with his sisters, still less make any sexual allusion or joke in their presence. This continues right through life, and it is the highest degree of bad form to speak to a brother about his sister's love affairs, or vice versa. The imposition of this taboo leads to an early breaking up of family life, since the boys and girls, in order to avoid each other, must leave the parental home and go elsewhere. With all this, we can perceive the enormous difference which obtains in the juvenile sexuality at this stage of later childhood between ourselves and the Melanesians. While amongst ourselves, in the educated classes, there is at this time a break of sexuality and a period of latency with amnesia, in Melanesia the extremely early beginning of genital interest leads to a type of sexuality entirely unknown among us. From this time, the sexuality of the Melanesians will continuously though gradually develop, till it reaches puberty. On the condition that one taboo is respected in the strictest and most complete manner, society gives complete free play to juvenile sexuality.

[Note: Taboos are established only where the tabooed actions invariably have powerful, natural and tempting sexual forces driving them to express and fulfill themselves. -- jmm]

[ Sex and Repression in Savage Society, by Bronislaw Malinowski, "Meridian Books", The World Publishing Company, Cleveland and New York, First published 1927, First Meridian printing August 1955, pp. 56-9. ]

17 CHILDREN INVOLVED IN SEX RING, POLICE SAY

     YORK HAVEN, Pa. -- A ring of children as young as 7 in a small Pennsylvania community taught each other to have sex, and a half-dozen of them have been charged in juvenile court.
     The children, all students at Northeastern Middle School or York Haven Elementary School, hid their activities from adults but readily answered questions asked by police. Their candor was all the more troubling, said Newberry Township Police Chief Bill Myers.
     Six children have been charged in juvenile court on charges including rape, involving deviate sexual intercourse and indecent assault, Myers said yesterday. At least one or two have been convicted and sent to juvenile detention facilities, he said; their sentences are sealed by juvenile court.

[ Date of article - probably circa 1970's - source not noted -- jmm. ]

     When studying the Trobrianders, it would be futile for an ethnographer to compare them with Europeans, for with us there are innumerable other factors which complicate the picture and contribute to the formation of mental disease. But some thirty miles south of the Trobriands there are the Amphlett Islands, inhabited by people essentially similar in race, custom, and language, but who differ, however, very much in social organization, have strict sexual morals, that is, regard pre-nuptial sexual intercourse with disapproval and have no institutions to support sexual license, while their family life is much more closely knit. Though matrilineal, they have a much more developed patriarchal authority, and this, combined with sexual repressiveness, established a picture of childhood more similar to our own.^[1]
     Now even with my own limited knowledge of the subject, I received quite a different impression of the neurotic disposition of these natives. In the Trobriands, though I knew scores of natives intimately and had a nodding acquaintance with many more, I could not name a single man or woman who was hysterical or even neurasthenic. Nervous tics, compulsory actions or obsessive ideas were not to be found. In the system of native pathology, based, of course, on belief in black magic, but reasonably true to the symptoms of disease, there are two categories of mental disorder -- nagowa, which corresponds to cretinism, and is also given to people who have a defect of speech; and gwayluwa, which corresponds roughly to mania, and comprises those who from time to time break out into acts of violence and deranged behavior. The natives of the Trobriands know well and recognize that in the neighboring islands of the Amphletts and d'Entrecasteaux there are other types of black magic which can produce effects on the mind different from those known to themselves, of which the symptoms are according to their accounts compulsory actions, nervous tics and various forms of obsession. And during my few months' stay in the Amphletts, my first and strongest impression was that this was a community of neurasthenics. Coming from the open, gay, hearty and accessible Trobrianders, it was astonishing to find oneself among a community of people distrustful of the newcomer, impatient in work, arrogant in their claims, though easily cowed and extremely nervous when tackled more energetically. The women ran away as I landed in their villages and kept in hiding the whole of my stay, with the exception of a few old hags. Apart from this general picture, I at once found a number of people affected with nervousness whom I could not use as informants, because they would either lie in some sort of fear, or else become excited or offended over my more detailed questioning. It is characteristic that in the Trobriands even the spiritualistic mediums are poseurs rather than abnormal people. And while in the Trobriands black magic is practiced in a scientific manner by men, that is by methods which present small claim to the supernatural, in the islands of the south there are 'flying wizards' who practice the magic which in other parts belong only to semi-fabulous witches, and who make at first sight a quite abnormal impression.
     In another community among whom I served my ethnographic apprenticeship, and whom I therefore did not study with the same methods or come to know as intimately as I did the Trobrianders, the conditions are even more repressive than in the Amphlett Islands. The Mailu, inhabiting a portion of the south coast of New Guinea, are patrilineal, have a fairly strict code of repressive sexual morals.^[2] Among these natives, I had noted a number of people whom I had classed as neurasthenics, and therefore useless as ethnographic informants.
     But all these tentative remarks, though they are not sheer guesses, are intended to raise the problem, and to indicate what the solution would most probably be. The problem therefore would be: to study a number of matrilineal and patriarchal communities of the same level of culture, to register the variation of sexual repression and of the family constitution, and to note the correlation between the amount of sexual and family repression and the prevalence of hysteria and compulsion neurosis. The conditions in Melanesia, where side by side we find communities living under entirely different conditions, are like a naturally arranged experiment for this purpose.
     Another point which might be interpreted in favor of the Freudian solution of this problem is the correlation of sexual perversions with sexual repression. Freud has shown that there is a deep connection between the course of infantile sexuality and the occurrence of perversion in later life. On the basis of his theory, an entirely lax community like that of the Trobrianders, who do not interfere with the free development of infantile sexuality, should show a minimum of perversions. This is fully confirmed in the Trobriands. Homosexuality was known to exist in other tribes and regarded as a filthy and ridiculous practice. It cropped up in the Trobriands only with the influence of the white man, more especially the white man's morality. The boys and girls on a Mission Station, penned in separate and strictly isolated houses, cooped up together, had to help themselves out as best they could, since that which every Trobriander looks upon as his due and right was denied to them. According to very careful inquiries made of non-missionary as well as missionary natives, homosexuality is the rule among those whom the white man's morality has been forced in such an irrational and unscientific manner. At any rate, there were a few cases in which 'evil doers' caught in flagrante delicto, were ignominiously banished from the face of God back into the villages, where one of them tried to continue it, but had to give up under the pressure of the native morals, expressed in scorn and derision. I have also reason to suppose that perversions are much more prevalent in the Amphlett and d'Entrecasteaux archipelago to the south, but again I have to regret that I was not able to study this important subject in detail.

     There are plenty of opportunities for both boys and girls to receive instruction in erotic matters from their companions. The children initiate each other into the mysteries of sexual life in a directly practical manner at a very early age. A premature amorous existence begins among them long before they are able really to carry out the act of sex. They indulge in plays and pastimes in which they satisfy their curiosity concerning the appearance and function of the organs of generation, and incidentally receive, it would seem, a certain amount of positive pleasure. Genital manipulation and such minor perversions as oral stimulation of the organs are typical forms of amusement. Small boys and girls are said to be frequently initiated by their somewhat older companions, who allow them to witness their own amorous dalliance. As they are untrammeled by the authority of their elders and unrestrained by any moral code, except that of specific tribal taboo, there is nothing but their degree of curiosity, of ripeness, and of "temperament" or sensuality, to determine how much or how little they shall indulge in sexual pastimes.
     The attitude of the grown-ups and even of the parents towards such infantile indulgence is either that of complete indifference or that of complacency -- they find it natural, and do not see why they should scold or interfere. Usually they show a kind of tolerant and amused interest, and discuss the love affairs of their children with easy jocularity. I often heard some such benevolent gossip as this: "So-and-so (a little girl) has already had intercourse with So-and-so (a little boy)." And if such were the case, it would be added that it was her first experience. An exchange of lovers, or some small love drama in the little world would be half-seriously, half-jokingly discussed. The infantile sexual act, or its substitute, is regarded as an innocent amusement. "It is their play to kayta (to have intercourse). They give each other a coconut, a small piece of betel-nut, a few beads or some fruits from the bush, and then they go and hide, and kayta." But it is not considered proper for the children to carry on their affairs in the house. It has always to be done in the bush.
     The age at which a girl begins to amuse herself in this manner is said to coincide with her putting on the small fiber skirt, between, that is, the ages of four or five. But this obviously can refer only to incomplete practices and not the real act. Some of my informants insist that such small female children actually have intercourse with penetration. Remembering, however, the Trobriander's very strong tendency to exaggerate in the direction of the grotesque, a tendency not altogether devoid of a certain malicious Rabelaisian humor, I am inclined to discount those statements of my authorities. If we place the beginning of real sexual life at the age of six to eight in the case of girls, and ten to twelve in the case of boys, we shall probably not be erring very greatly in either direction. And from these times sexuality will gradually assume a greater and greater importance as life goes on, until it abates in the course of nature.
     Sexual, or at least sensuous, pleasure constitutes if not the basis of, at least an element in, many of the children's pastimes. Some of them do not, of course, provide any sexual excitement at all, as for instance those in imitation of the grown-up economic and ceremonial activities (see pl. 17), or games of skill or childish athletics; but all sorts of round games, which are played by the children of both sexes on the central place of the village, have a more or less strongly marked flavor of sex, though the outlets they furnish are indirect and only accessible to the elder youths and maidens, who also join in them. Indeed, we shall have to return later (chs. ix and xi) to a consideration of sex in certain games, songs, and stories, for as the sexual association becomes more subtle and indirect it appeals more and more to older people alone and has, therefore, to be examined in the contexts of later life.
     There are, however, some specific games in which older children never participate, and into which sex directly enters. The little ones sometimes play, for instance, at house-building, and at family life. A small hut of sticks and boughs is constructed in a secluded part of the jungle, and a couple or more repair thither and play at husband and wife, prepare food and carry out or imitate as best they can the act of sex. Or else a band of them , in imitation of the amorous expeditions of their elders, carry food to some favorite spot on the sea-shore or in the coral ridge, cook and eat vegetables there, and "when they are full of food, the boys sometimes fight with each other, or sometimes kayta with the girls." When the fruit ripens on certain wild berry trees in the jungle they go in parties to pick it, to exchange presents, make kula (ceremonial exchange) of the fruit, and engage in erotic pastimes.^[1]
     Thus it will be seen that they have a tendency to palliate the crudity of their sexual interest and indulgence by associating it with something more poetic. Indeed, the Trobriand children show a great sense of the singular and romantic in their games. For instance, if a part of the jungle or village has been flooded by rain, they go and sail their small canoes on this new water; or if a very strong sea has thrown up some interesting flotsam, they proceed to the beach and inaugurate some imaginative games around it. The little boys, too, search for unusual animals, insects, or flowers, and give them to the little girls, thus lending a redeeming aesthetic touch to their premature eroticisms.
     In spite of the importance of the sexual motive in the life of the younger generation, it must be kept in mind that the separation of the sexes, in many matters, obtains also among children. Small girls can very often be seen playing or wandering in independent parties by themselves. Little boys in certain moods -- and these seem their more usual ones -- scorn the society of the female and amuse themselves alone (pl. 17). Thus the small republic falls into two distinct groups which are perhaps to be seen more often apart than together; and, though they frequently unite in play, this need by no means be necessarily sensuous.

[ The Sexual Life of Savages (in North-Western Melanesia), by Bronislaw Malinowski (with a preface by Havelock Ellis), A Harvest Book / Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., New York, 1929, pp. 55-9. ]

[Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski, 1884-1942, social anthropologist, born in Poland.]

" So it may happen that, in presence of the picture Dr. Malinowski here presents to us, we may become aware, not only of a unique contribution to anthropological research, but of suggestions bearing on civilized life and its efforts towards social reform. The Trobriand Islanders are a small community living in a confined space; they only supply one of the patterns of savage life, though it may well be a fairly typical pattern. When we study it we find not merely that in this field the savage man is very like the civilized man, with the like vices and virtues under different forms, but we may even find that in some respects the savage has here reached a finer degree of civilization than the civilized man. The comparisons we can thus make furnish suggestions even for the critical study of our own social life. "

H. E. [Havelock Ellis]

Letters to the Editor [year and name of publication not noted]

Rewards at Any Age

To the Editor:
     Re "Young Love: The Good, the Bad and the Educational" (Nov. 13): I am a 16-year-old who has been in a relationship for three years now, and I know that my relationship has altered and enriched my life in ways beyond which I could ever list here. It has been educational -- helping me both to define myself as an individual and to learn to be part of something greater than myself.
     Adults as well as teenagers need to know that teenage relationships can truly be rewarding experiences, which can foster personal growth and development. Why? So that the relationships will be encouraged rather than inhibited.
     I can speak only from my experience: I am incredibly happy, and I can only hope that every person has the chance to experience what I feel I have.

EZRA MARKOWITZ

Pre-Adolescent Sexual Life in the TROBRIAND ISLANDS (circa Early 20th Century)

Pre-Adolescent Sexual Life in the
TROBRIAND ISLANDS (circa Early 20th Century)