[184] Dr. J.W. Howe (_Excessive Venery, Masturbation, and Continence_,
London and New York, 1883, p. 62) writes of masturbation: "In savage lands
it is of rare occurrence. Savages live in a state of Nature. No moral
obligations exist which compel them to abstain from a natural
gratification of their passions. There is no social law which prevents
them from following the dictates of their lower nature. Hence, they have
no reason for adopting onanism as an outlet for passions. The moral
trammels of civilized society, and ignorance of physiological laws, give
origin to the vice." Every one of these six sentences is incorrect or
misleading. They are worth quoting as a statement of the popular view of
savage life.
[185] I can recall little evidence of its existence among the Australian
aborigines, though there is, in the Wiradyuri language, spoken over a
large part of New South Wales, a word (whether ancient or not, I do not
know) meaning masturbation (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
July-Dec., 1904, p. 303). Dr. W. Roth (_Ethnological Studies Among the
Northwest-Central Queensland Aborigines_, p. 184), who has carefully
studied the blacks of his district, remarks that he has no evidence as to
the practice of either masturbation or sodomy among them. More recently
(1906) Roth has stated that married men in North Queensland and elsewhere
masturbate during their wives' absence.
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