Volume 1

Primitive civilizations, or, Outlines of the history of ownership in archaic communities / by E.J. Simcox.

  • Edith Simcox
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Primitive civilizations, or, Outlines of the history of ownership in archaic communities / by E.J. Simcox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    581/594 (page 567)
    justify the legend. To obtain the desired information, the headman of the island issued orders to “certain women in authority, and they called together an adult female from every house. About 400 females assembled, and told off the numbers of their households with much readiness and propriety 383 males, or one from nearly every household, were returned as absent at sea at the time of the census. The islanders are bold seamen and experienced boat-builders; the men serve as pilots in the neighbour- hood and to Arabia, and, like the islanders described by Marco Polo, “ are capital fishermen and catch a great quantity of line large sea-fish, which they dry for food and sale.” Now, as then, the women gather the cocoa- nuts, and “their husbands do furnish them with all necessaries.”1 Marco describes the people as baptized Christians, but maintaining the ordinances of the Old Testament—a misconception which may have been due to their scrupulous cleanliness and their rules on the subject of purifi- cation and the isolation of lepers. The streets are daily swept and the village kept dean ; burial grounds for those who die of infectious diseases are separate and remote. The people are strictly monogamous, though they have long since been converted to Mahomedanism, and the women, in spite of the number of spinsters among them, will not hear ot the abrogation of their law on this point. The local feeling is so strong that the Amin, or governor of the island, did not venture to indulge his avowed wish for a supplementary spouse. The women appear freely in public with their heads uncovered, and according to Mr. Winterbotham, take the lead in almost everything except navigation.2 Every woman in the island is dressed in silk, and every husband must allow his wife at least one candy of rice, two silk gowns, and two under- cloths a year. And besides this exact counterpart to the alimentary pension of Egyptian wives, he also presents her on marriage with a fine betel pouch and other personal belongings. Courtship is a necessary pre- liminary to marriage, after which the wife remains in her mother’s house, while the husband, as already mentioned, is frequently away. If daughters are numerous, they leave the parental roof in order of seniority, and the houses erected for them become their property. 1 he men, it is reiterated, have no right of ownership over the houses—a fact which tempts us to wonder whether the significance of the Egyptian wife’s title as “ lady ot the house,” has been understood. The husband retains the power ot divorce, but inconstancy of any kind is rare. The village is divided for purposes ot administration into attiris (sea- shore or male assemblies), and varangis, or female assemblies; the boys remain under the women till the age of seven. 1 here are ten varangis, each under a headwoman, which corresponds with the hint at a system of tithings given in the proverbs quoted above. Minicoy is nominally subjec t to the Rajah of Cannanore, to whom, the islanders say, their ancestors commended themselves on condition of his protecting them against 1 Ante, p. 455- - Malaior, vol. ii, appendix: /.accadive Islands, ,p. -77 17.