Children's Sexual Customs
Marquesas Islands
1940's
Marquesan children's sexuality - aboriginal Times
During his voyages of 1790-1792 Marchand observed that eight-year old girls were definitely not novices in sexual techniques. In 1813 the Rusian explorer Kruzenshtern noted that a father brought a girl of 10 to 12 years old to his ship where she engaged in sexual intercourse with the sailors. Early reports concerned with the sexuality of children include that of Lisiankii who remarked in 1814 that some100 Marquesan females, "practised all the arts of lewd expression and gesture to get aboard…. Among them were some not more than ten years of age. These infants rivaled their mothers in wantonness of their motions and the arts of allurement." It seems likely that at the time of first European contact that Marquesan girls' enjoyed their first intercourse before or around ten years old (Suggs, 1966).
Marquesan childrens' sexuality - 1940's
Within weeks after birth, many female infants were begun on a cycle of medication, which prepared them for their role in adolescent and adult sex life. The medications administered were astringents, which were believed to possess cleaning qualities. They were intended, according to Suggs' informants, to shrink the mucus membrane lining of the vaginal canal and generally aid in increasing muscle tone. They were also believed to inhibit the production of lubricatory fluids in the vaginal canal and suppress vaginal malodorousness. The results of these medications - decrease in size of vagina, increased muscle tone, inhibition of mucus production and suppression of malodorousness were of major importance as qualifications for a sexual partner. The use of astringents raised Marquesan women far above the level of either Tahitians or Whites who were thought to have over large, malodorous genitalia.
The medicines included extracts from Antidesma sp., Staphylaea sp., young coco nuts - Coco nucifera, Achyrathes aspera, Szygium jambos, Aleurites trilobita and Thespesnia populines. Adults have been known to use the medication but they may have dangerous side effects such as extreme swelling of the mucus lining of the vagina. Suggs found that Antidesma sp. Was the most popular of these medicines. The leaves were pounded with water and strained through a cloth. The mother or grandmother applied one or two drops daily in the vagina after the child has been bathed, but medication began only after the child could crawl. The medication, once begun was continued up to age of menstruation or a little before. Another medicine, the young coco nut was crushed on a stone and squeezed for juice, which was administered three times daily in one or two drops from the time the infant crawled until she reached about one year old.
Another mark of beauty in women was a flat symphysis pubis. To this end, mothers and grandmothers massaged girls' mons veneris during infancy and girlhood. This massage was accompanied by stretching of the labaie to elongate them. The girl's mother stretched the labaie during the daily bath. She grabbed the child by the ankles, held her legs held apart and manipulated the labaie with her lips. For male infants, the foreskin was pulled back and cleaned at bathing.
Until the child was 7 or 8 years old he or she slept beside their parents. Most adults preferred to believe that their children were asleep when they had sexual intercourse, but they also recall some of the acts they witnessed as children. One result was that Marquesan children were very sexually sophisticated at an early age, and that older children who baby-sat taught sexual practices to younger ones.
Children formed loose play and work groups in early childhood. The groups consisted of children of approximately the same age and sex. Groups of children often functioned in direct response to adult commands. The groups fluctuated in size and attachments formed in the groups children formed life-long friendships. Girls' groups often collected shellfish and offered a certain amount of protection against advances made by older males, especially as girls' puberty approached. Even when they would have been willing partners, girls had a hard time detaching themselves from such groups and feared that the story would be spread to the village.
Girls had a special relationship with their grandmother, who most often applied the vaginal astringent and instructed her granddaughter on the techniques of intercourse. Marquesans were extremely sensitive to body odor and dirt and body cleanliness was of major importance. Marquesans bathed frequentlyand girls were taught to bath many times a day. Children learned early on to apply coconut oil scented with flowers and sandalwood oil as perfume. Boys were taught to pay scrupulous attention to cleaning beneath their foreskin.
Adults sometimes threatened very young boys who were behaving badly by brandishing one of the ever-present butcher knives and gesturing towards the boy's penis saying, "I'm going to hack your penis." This was quite effective. Usually the boy, nearly in tears would grab his penis, bend over it, and back away. Masturbation amongst males began at about age three. Older boys taught younger ones to use salive to moisten their penis and their hand. Boys from the ages of six gathered surreptitiously in the bush for masturbation contests. The winner was the boy who ejaculated first. Mutual masturbation also occured in these gatherings. Little is known about girls' masturbation although one of Suggs' informants witnessed a very young girl in Convent School digitally masturbate din the mornings, and other reports suggest that it was as frequent as boys' masturbation.
Heterosexual group sexual activities begin at about age seven. Boys and girls played "mother and father" and often rubbed their genitals together. The girl either stood against a tree or laid supine on the ground with her legs spread apart, while the boy assummed the normal position for coitus on top of her. Children carried out the activity with much laughter in isolated areas where adults qould not be likely to surprise the gathering. Children didn't like to be caught by adults, but the error was not in the act itself, but getting caught.
Girls generally began their heterosexual relations earlier than boys. Most girls began sexual relations at about age 11 0r 12 and Suggs thought it noteworthy that often girls had their first child before their first menstruation. A girl's first intercourse was usually with an adult male, usually in a chance situation where the girl was surprised alone in the brush or while bathing. Defloration usually occured before first intercourse, a result of strenuous work, athletic play, bareback horse-riding and masturbation with instruments.
At about ages 12 to 14 circumcision marked the boys' passage to puberty and the community considered it the gateway to intercourse. The operation consisted of a longitudinal incision through the foreskin of the upper part of the glans penis. A group of boys gathered together in a central area of the village. A circumcision specialist stretched the boys' foreskin tightly over a splint of bamboo and cut an incision with a knife. In the aboriginal past, the specialist made the cut with a bamboo knife. No attempt was made to anesthetize the locale of the incision. After the circumcision boys applied the juice of the candle-nut tree Aleurites trilobita daily after bathing and carefully cleaned the wound he them placed his penis placed against a sun heated stream boulder until it dried. No case of infection has ever been reported.
Boys carefully buried the slip of bamboo where women would walk over it, and one of Suggs' informants reported that the best place to bury the bamboo was in the courtyard of the church where all the girls congregated several times a week. One churchyard was reported to have had bamboo slips from several generations of Marquesan males buried in its courtyard. A boy knew when a girl had been standing over the bamboo because an erection quickly followed the mere sight of the girl.
Circumcised males made nocturnal visits to girls as the girls approached puberty. Parents sometimes responded by forcing the girls to sleep in inaccessible corners of the house where younger children were close by, forbidding trips to the latrine alone, closing all the windows and doors tightly and tying a noisy dog around the house. But, under certain circumstances parents would openly condone sexual relationships for young girls, the motivation being economic.
Sources
Fleurieu, C.P. Claret de & Marchand, E. 1798-1800. Voyage autour du Monde, pendant les années 1790, 1791, et 1792. Précédé d'une introduction historique auquel on a joint des recherches sur les Terres Australes de Drake, et un examen critique du Voyage de Roggeveen. Paris, Imprimerie de la République. 4 volumes.
Kruzenshtern, Ivan Fedorovich, 1973 (1813). Voyage around the world in the years 1803, 1804, 1805, & 1806, by order of His Imperial Majesty Alexander the First, on board the ships Nadeshda and Neva, under the command of Captain A. J. Von Krusenstern, of the Imperial Navy. Translated from the original German by Richard Belgrave Hoppner. [Facsimile ed.] London, John Murray, 1813. Tenri, Japan, Tenri University Press, 1973.
Lisianskii, U.F. 1814. Voyage Round the World in the Years 1803, 4, 5 & 6, A, …in the Ship 'Neva'. London.
O'Brien, Frederick1919. White shadows in the South Seas. New York: The Century Co.
Suggs, R.C. 1966. Marquesan sexual behavior. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World.
Reviews from antique book sellers
Review of Fleurieu & Marchand: "The second French circumnavigation in the course of a single voyage and the first French commercial voyage to the Northwest coast. It was commanded by Capt. Etienne Marchand. The trading firm of Baux in Marseille underwrote the expedition in order to establish the lucrative fur trade between the Northwest coast and China. The expedition was economically a disaster as the furs could not be sold in China. There are in this work excellent detailed descriptions of the Northwest coast and of the natives inhabiting these coasts, as well as valuable nautical observations and descriptions of the natural history. A large part of volume 2 and 3 deals with natural history. Fleurieu included a lengthy account of the discoveries along the American coast, from Cortes in 1537 to Malaspina in 1790. "This is a very important and authoritative work for the history of the Northwest Coast" (Lada-Mocarski 54). An excellent uncut copy with a library stamp on the fly leaf of each volume."
Review of Kruzenshtern: "Highly important account of the first Russian circumnavigation, written by its commander. Hill notes that Kruzenshtern "had serving with him a brilliant corps of officers, including Lisiansky, Langsdorff, and Kotezebue. The expedition was to attempt to `open relations with Nippon and the Sandwich Islands, to facilitate trade in South America, to examine California for a possible colony, and make a thorough study and report of the Northwest coast, its trade and its future.'" The work is significant for many aspects, among them Krusenstern's account of the unsuccessful attempt to trade with Japan; the discoveries and rectification of charts, particularly in the North Pacific and the northwest coast of America; and the overall view of Russian commerce in the eighteenth century, Russian voyages to the Pacific, and the fur trade, which is given in the introduction"
Review of Lisianskii: This is the English translation (by the author) of his original Russian text: Puteshestvie vokrug sveta. Published in St Petersburg, 1812
Graphic of "Marquesan Queen" Copyright 1919. The Century Co.
Index
Primates Victorian England Azande-Congo Hill Maria-India Nuba-Sudan Nuba-Otoro Child Marriage: India Irish Village
