Studies in the Psychology of Sex (Vol. 1-6). Havelock Ellis
are strange creatures in their manners and customs and are apt to elude the most persistent observer. No animal is more depraved. Mating between males, and still more frequently between females, often occurs at an early age: up to the second year. I have had several pairs of pigeons formed by subjects of the same sex who for many months behaved as if the mating were natural. In some cases this had taken place among young birds of the same nest, who acted like real mates, though both subjects were males. In order to mate them productively we have had to separate them and shut each of them up for some days with a female."[11] In the Berlin Zoölogical Gardens also, it has been noticed that two birds of the same sex will occasionally become attached to each other and remain so in spite of repeated advances from individuals of opposite sex. This occurred, for instance, in the case of two males of the Egyptian goose who were thus to all appearance paired, and always kept together, vigorously driving away any female that approached. Similarly a male Australian sheldrake was paired to a male of another species.[12]
Among birds generally, inverted sexuality seems to accompany the development of the secondary sexual characters of the opposite sex which is sometimes found. Thus, a poultry-breeder describes a hen (colored Dorking) crowing like a cock, only somewhat more harshly, as a cockerel crows, and with an enormous comb, larger than is ever seen in the male. This bird used to try to tread her fellow-hens. At the same time she laid early and regularly, and produced "grand chickens."[13] Among ducks, also, it has occasionally been observed that the female assumes at the same time both male livery and male sexual tendencies. It is probable that such observations will be multiplied in the future, and that sexual inversion in the true sense will be found commoner among animals than at present it appears to be.
Traces of homosexual practices, sometimes on a large scale, have been found among all the great divisions of the human race. It would be possible to collect a considerable body of evidence under this head.[14] Unfortunately, however, the travellers and others on whose records we are dependent have been so shy of touching these subjects, and so ignorant of the main points for investigation, that it is very difficult to discover sexual inversion in the proper sense in any lower race. Travellers have spoken vaguely of crimes against nature without defining the precise relationship involved nor inquiring how far any congenital impulse could be distinguished.
Looking at the phenomena generally, so far as they have been recorded among various lower races, we seem bound to recognize that there is a widespread natural instinct impelling men toward homosexual relationships, and that this has been sometimes, though very exceptionally, seized upon and developed for advantageous social purposes. On the whole, however, unnatural intercourse (sodomy) has been regarded as an antisocial offense, and punishable sometimes by the most serious penalties that could be invented. This was, for instance, the case in ancient Mexico, in Peru, among the Persians, in China, and among the Hebrews and Mohammedans.
Even in very early history it is possible to find traces of homosexuality, with or without an implied disapproval. Its existence in Assyria and Babylonia is indicated by the Codex Hamurabi and by inscriptions which do not on the whole refer to it favorably.[15] As regards Egypt we learn from a Fayum papyrus, found by Flinders Petrie, translated by Griffiths, and discussed by Oefele,[16] that more than four thousand years ago homosexual practices were so ancient that they were attributed to the gods Horus and Set. The Egyptians showed great admiration of masculine beauty, and it would seem that they never regarded homosexuality as punishable or even reprehensible. It is notable, also, that Egyptian women were sometimes of very virile type, and Hirschfeld considers that intermediate sexual types were specially widespread among the Egyptians.[17]
One might be tempted to expect that homosexual practices would be encouraged whenever it was necessary to keep down the population. Aristotle says that it was allowed by law in Crete for this end. And Professor Haddon tells me that at Torres Straits a native advocated sodomy on this ground.[18] There seems, however, on the whole, to be little evidence pointing to this utilization of the practice. The homosexual tendency appears to have flourished chiefly among warriors and warlike peoples. During war and the separation from women that war involves, the homosexual instinct tends to develop; it flourished, for instance, among the Carthaginians and among the Normans, as well as among the warlike Dorians, Scythians, Tartars, and Celts,[19] and, when there has been an absence of any strong moral feeling against it, the instinct has been cultivated and, idealized as a military virtue, partly because it counteracts the longing for the softening feminine influences of the home and partly because it seems to have an inspiring influence in promoting heroism and heightening esprit de corps. In the lament of David over Jonathan we have a picture of intimate friendship—"passing the love of women"—between comrades in arms among a barbarous, warlike race. There is nothing to show that such a relationship was sexual, but among warriors in New Caledonia friendships that were undoubtedly homosexual were recognized and regulated; the fraternity of arms, according to Foley,[20] complicated with pederasty, was more sacred than uterine fraternity. We have, moreover, a recent example of the same relationships recognized in a modern European race—the Albanians.
Hahn, in the course of his Albanische Studien (1854, p. 166), says that the young men between 16 and 24 lore boys from about 12 to 17. A Gege marries at the age of 24 or 25, and then he usually, but not always, gives up boy-love. The following passage is reported by Hahn as the actual language used to him by an Albanian Gege: "The lover's feeling for the boy is pure as sunshine. It places the beloved on the same pedestal as a saint. It is the highest and most exalted passion of which the human breast is capable. The sight of a beautiful youth awakens astonishment in the lover, and opens the door of his heart to the delight which the contemplation of this loveliness affords. Love takes possession of him so completely that all his thought and feeling goes out in it. If he finds himself in the presence of the beloved, he rests absorbed in gazing on him. Absent, he thinks of nought but him. If the beloved unexpectedly appears, he falls into confusion, changes color, turns alternately pale and red. His heart beats faster and impedes his breathing. He has ears and eyes only for the beloved. He shuns touching him with the hand, kisses him only on the forehead, sings his praise in verse, a woman's never." One of these love-poems of an Albanian Gege runs as follows: "The sun, when it rises in the morning, is like you, boy, when you are near me. When your dark eye turns upon me, it drives my reason from my head."
It should be added that Prof. Weigand, who knew the Albanians well, assured Bethe (Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, 1907, p. 475) that the relations described by Hahn are really sexual, although tempered by idealism. A German scholar who travelled in Albania some years ago, also, assured Näcke (Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. ix, 1908, p. 327) that he could fully confirm Hahn's statements, and that, though it was difficult to speak positively, he doubted whether these relationships were purely ideal. While most prevalent among the Moslems, they are also found among the Christians, and receive the blessing of the priest in church. Jealousy is frequently aroused, the same writer remarks, and even murder may be committed on account of a boy.
It may be mentioned here that among the Tschuktsches, Kamschatdals, and allied peoples (according to a Russian anthropological journal quoted in Sexual-Probleme, January, 1913, p. 41) there are homosexual marriages among the men, and occasionally among the women, ritually consecrated and openly recognized.
The Albanians, it is possible, belonged to the same stock which produced the Dorian Greeks, and the most important and the most thoroughly known case of socially recognized homosexuality is that of