Savagery

“ Would the witness be kind enough to say whether those special characteristics of the manlier variety of wild folk which have given the word "savagery" its unfavourable sense, namely, their bloodthirstiness and indiscriminate cruelty, contain, or do not contain, the germ and promise of that stern yet disciplined mood in which the best of civilized men may be expected to fight against injustice and oppression?
The answer of the anthropologist would, surely, be that the savagery of the primitive warrior is the accident, not the essence, of his fighting quality. ”

“ Certainly the Eton of the ’sixties and ’seventies, whatever superficial show it might make of learning and refinement, was at heart a stronghold of savagery—a most graceful, easy-going savagery, be it granted; for savages, as we know, are often a very pleasant people. ”

“ As for you, sir, who also laugh, let some man come and strike you in the face whilst you are enjoying that marvellous-looking dish, and we shall soon see how much of the savage there is in you.
There, I might go on for ever, but what is the good? Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt. A vainglory is it, and like a northern light, comes but to fade and leave the sky more dark. ”

“ Duty, honour, love, self-sacrifice—these are the fruits of The Spirit; unknown to, and unobeyed by, the savage, or by the civilized man who—as has too often happened—as is happening now in too many lands, on both sides of the Atlantic, is sinking back into inward savagery, amid an outward and material civilization. ”

“ Between the savage and the gentleman is but a good night's lodging. Give the savage a peaceful hearth to sit by, a roof to his head, and a copious well-cooked supper, and his savagery will surrender itself to the sleek content of a Dutch merchantman. ”

“ Far otherwise is it with man at the stage of savagery—the stage of petty groups pursuing a self-centred life of inveterate custom, in an isolation almost as complete as if they were marooned on separate atolls of the ocean. ”

“ The tale which I have based upon several such historical instances in real life endeavours briefly to hint at the modes of feeling likely to accompany such a relapse into barbarism in an essentially fine and sensitive savage nature. To most European readers, no doubt, such a sheer fall from the pinnacle of civilization to the nethermost abysses of savagery, would seem to call for the display of no other emotion than pure disgust and aversion ”

“ The ecstatic frenzies, which were mistaken for divine inspiration, the mangling of the body, the theory of a new birth and the remission of sins through the shedding of blood, have all their origin in savagery, and they naturally appealed to peoples in whom the savage instincts were still strong. ”

“ Is this lust for blood, this love of cruelty; latent in every woman and but restrained, by the gentler teachings and promptings of her more developed nature in its highest presentation? So some psychists would have us believe; but they have only slight ground for their sweeping assertion. That civilisation is but restrained savagery may perhaps be conceded; but if the restraint has grown to be the ever-dominant impulse, then has the savage been slain. ”

“ Hence every young savage, being descended on both sides from ancestors who in their own way perfectly fulfilled the ideal of complete savagery—were good hunters, good fishers, good fighters, good craftsmen of bow or boomerang—inherits from these his successful predecessors all those qualities of eye and hand and brain and nervous system which go to make up the abstractly Admirable Crichton of a savage. ”

“ In the olden time, in the days of savagery and superstition, when some poor man was struck by lightning, when a blackened mark was left on the breast of and mother, the poor savage supposed that son angered by something he had done, had taken revenge. ”

“ People often indignantly ask, with reference to some cruel action or custom, whether we are living “in an age of civilization or of savagery,” the implication being that in an era of the highest and noblest civilization, such as ours is assumed to be, some unaccountably barbarous persons are stooping to an unworthy practice. ”

“ There is a remnant, a trace, of savagery — sometimes even a very large and positive ingredient of it — actively present in individual persons under the highest civilization. In this respect, after all that the elevating and refining influences which, through generations struggling upward from barbarism, have done to remove us from primitive rudeness, we none the less may find a parallel in some of our surviving instincts and propensities to manifestations observable in tamed and domesticated animals. ”

“ Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt. ”

“ For we cherish a belief that if we truly love and seek knowledge for its own sake, without any ulterior aim, every addition we may make to it, however insignificant and useless it may appear, will yet at last be found to work together with the whole accumulated store for the general good of mankind.
Social Anthropology embraces the study, first, of savagery, and, second, of folklore, that is, of the traces of savagery in civilization. ”

“ Religion is the last refuge of human savagery. ”

“ Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery. ”

“ Their ferocity, cruelty, and moral depravity are depicted in dark colours by those who had the best opportunity of knowing them in the old days before their savagery was mitigated by contact with a milder religious faith and a higher civilisation. ”

“ The incidents of which they are composed are based upon ideas not peculiar to any one people, ideas familiar to savages [Pg 25] everywhere, and only slowly modified and transformed as savagery gives way to barbarism, and barbarism to modern civilization and scientific knowledge of the material phenomena of the universe. The ideas referred to are expressed by races in the lower culture both in belief and in custom. And many of the tales which now amuse our children appear to have grown out of myths believed in the most matter-of-fact way by our remote forefathers ”

“ To give you, Madam, a summary sketch of the character of the savages in this country, I am to observe to you, that under a savage appearance, with manners and customs, that favor entirely of barbarism, may be found a society exempt from almost all the faults that so often vitiate the happiness of ours.
They appear to be without passion, but they are in cold blood, and sometimes even from principle, all that the most violent and most unbridled passion can inspire into those, who no longer listen to reason. ”

“ The perils, I grant, are many and great, but greater still are those that lie in wait for an armed traveller. The savage may be terrified and overpowered by the massacres with which civilization asserts its tyrannical superiority but the venom of hatred has entered his soul and he meditates and prepares an ambush which sooner or later, without fail, will give him his revenge. ”

“ But when the savage hears the distant humming of the bull-roarer, at whatever distance, he knows that the mysteries of his god are in full swing, and he hurries forward in haste, leaving his work or his pleasure, and running, naked as he stands, to take his share in the worship, lest the anger of heaven should burst forth in devouring flames to consume him. ”

“ Savage of some actions which scarcely any provocation will be thought sufficient to justify, such as seizing what he had in his lodgings, and other instances of wanton cruelty, by which he increased the distress of Savage without any advantage to himself. ”

“ To the savage, however, it is no figure of speech to call upon the sun to behold some great deed, or to declare that the moon hides her face; to assert that the ocean smiles, or that the river swells with rage, and overwhelms a wayfarer who is crossing it, or an unsuspecting village on its banks. These phrases for him fit the facts of nature as closely as those which record that the man eats or the boy runs. ”

“ For two months I have endured the pains of the lost through him. A wild, untameable savage, subject to no laws, a heathen, a butcher, a scoffer at things holy, an idler, a highwayman, a traitor, a rebel, an Irish Papist wolf-hound! ”

“ How little does that savage, the demon of the place, mind your sweet, small voices, that give forth a piteous wail, like the last notes of the dying swan, every time he lays his merciless hands on you. ”

“ The scene was made for man, not savage man, The cunningest of brutes, the crafty king Of beasts! but Man the Spiritualised, With all the light of knowledge in his brain, With all the light of love within his heart! And yet they were but savages who stood On Moeatoa's hill, above the scene, Mere savages, a step beyond the brute! ”

“ Is it not wiser, and more conducive to one’s personal peace of mind, to reverse this assumption, and to start with the frank avowal that the present age, in spite of its vast mechanical cleverness, is, from an ethical point of view, one of positive barbarism, not so savage, of course, as some that have preceded it, but still undeniably savage as compared with what we foresee of a civilized future? ”

“ And in the savage the brain retains, as we may say, but few impressions, it is wholly at the mercy of the feeling that rushes in upon it; while in the civilized man, ideas sink into the heart and change it; he has a thousand interests and many feelings, where the savage has but one at a time. ”

“ To the savage mind it is clothed with a deep veil of mystery, and is the abode of all manner of demons and unshapely monsters. Once inhabited by the Great Spirit, it has now become the sheol of modern times, and it is certain death for any proud savage to behold it. ”

“ I will close my remarks by repeating that the savage is right in his belief, and that disease is indeed the result of—I might call them spiritual harpies, who, though they may not in these civilized times be driven out by the beating of drums, the tom-tom, and the howling of frenzied savages, yet can be dislodged by kindred manipulations, such as mesmeric passes, deep breathing, and a positive though almost quiet exercise of the will. ”

“ We have seen how, to clothe himself, the savage robs the beast; how, like animals, primitive man constructs his habitation, provides food, rears a family, exercises authority, holds property, wages war, indulges in amusements, gratifies social instincts; and that in all this, the savage is but one remove from the brute. ”

“ A savage has outraged me even in the very manner of punishing me! He has inflicted upon me that chastisement, the first effect of which is to shock one’s modesty; that most humiliating of chastisements, which takes one back to one’s childhood. ”

“ Being a savage—and, consequently, led entirely by feeling, which is perhaps the chief characteristic of savage, as distinguished from civilised, man,—he hated his enemies with exceeding bitterness, and loved his friends with all his heart. ”

“ They glory in the mere shedding of blood, as a hunter delights in the death of his game. Yet this savage passion is far removed from simple cruelty, and may be quite compatible with a low form of goodness of heart. ”

“ What more natural, therefore, than that the savage should offer excuses to the beasts and the fruits for the painful necessity he is under of consuming them, and that he should endeavour to alleviate their pangs by soft words and an air of respectful sympathy, in order that they may bear him no grudge, and may in due time come again to be again eaten and again lamented? ”

“ What, then, must we think of the diabolical savage who exercises the worst of all cruelties, because the most lasting and affecting to both body and mind, on the most beautiful and amiable of all creatures on this side heaven, made expressly for his happiness, solace, and delight, by first corrupting and betray­ing her, and then basely abandoning her to perish in want, pain, wretchedness, and misery? ”

“ Again and again it had manifested itself in those moments of craven fear and ruthless, murderous promptings, when kindliness, gratitude, love, all the humanizing motives, had turned suddenly to frenzied hatred, and the primitive savage had leaped up, fiercely raging with the blood-lust. ”

“ Among savages and early communities, writes one authority, when their chieftain sat in his hall with his warriors, they amused themselves by turning enemies and opponents into mockery, laughing at their weaknesses, joking on their defects, giving them nicknames, and so forth.176 The savage—again like a boy—is apt to be a vain sort of fellow, and to think that his ways are a lot better than those of the rest of mankind. ”

“ Their cunning in hunting, their patience in fishing, their skill in trapping, their infinite dodges for deceiving and cajoling the animals or enemies that they need to outwit, have moved the wonder and admiration of innumerable travellers. The savage, in fact, is not stupid: in his own way his cleverness is extraordinary. ”

“ Just as the state of mind of the adult savage is paralleled by that of our children, so we must expect that so common a weapon as a stone is to our boys must be extensively used by savages. And this, in fact, is what we do find. ”

“ I tell you, sir, that, besides its being forbidden, both by law and gospel, it's an idiotical and totally absurd practice, that of duelling. An honest savage has more sense than to practise it—he takes his bow or his gun, as the thing may be, and shoots his enemy from behind a bush. ”

“ I believe—though I must confess I haven't seen any pioneers who share my belief—that the savage has a beautiful side to his character. I know of many noble deeds done by them, and I believe, if they are honestly dealt with, they will return good for good. ”

“ In many parts of the country it would be no improbable conjecture in explanation of a savage yell heard at a distance, that a company of rationals may be witnessing the writhings, agonies, and cries, of some animal struggling for escape or for life, while it is suffering the infliction, perhaps, of stones, and kicks, or wounds by more directly fatal means of violence. ”