Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to SocietyEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to Society
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
All over the world, and not excepting the most primitive savages--for even
savage life is built up on systematic constraints which sometimes need
relaxation--the principle of the orgy is recognized and accepted. Thus
Spencer and Gillen describe[111] the Nathagura or fire-ceremony of the
Warramunga tribe of Central Australia, a festival taken part in by both
sexes, in which all the ordinary rules of social life are broken, a kind
of Saturnalia in which, however, there is no sexual license, for sexual
license is, it need scarcely be said, no essential part of the orgy, even
when the orgy lightens the burden of sexual constraints. In a widely
different part of the world, in British Columbia, the Salish Indians,
according to Hill Tout,[112] believed that, long before the whites came,
their ancestors observed a Sabbath or seventh day ceremony for dancing and
praying, assembling at sunrise and dancing till noon. The Sabbath, or
periodically recurring orgy,--not a day of tension and constraint but a
festival of joy, a rest from all the duties of everyday life,--has, as we
know, formed an essential part of many of the orderly ancient
civilizations on which our own has been built;[113] it is highly probable
that the stability of these ancient civilizations was intimately
associated with their recognition of the need of a Sabbath orgy. Such
festivals are, indeed, as Crawley observes, processes of purification and
reinvigoration, the effort to put off "the old man" and put on "the new
man," to enter with fresh energy on the path of everyday life.[114]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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