564 IDEAS OF VIRTUE. 



Among the ancient Greeks, we see in Homer that the 

 deceitful cunning of Ulysses was looked upon with approval. 



" Is a man to starve," said an African, indignantly, to Capt. 

 Burton, " while his sister has children whom she might sell ? " 

 This sentiment reads at first like the acme of selfishness, but 

 this impression would perhaps be unjust. Marsden records a 

 Sumatran Malay as saying, in admiration of an European 

 watch, :< Is it not fitting that such as we should be slaves to 

 people who have the ingenuity to invent, and the skill to 

 construct, so wonderful a machine ?"* 



Chastity before marriage was not reckoned as a virtue by 

 the New Zealanders,-f- the Hill Tribes of North Aracan,J or 

 by many of the ruder inhabitants of Northern and Central 

 America ; it was disapproved of, though for very different 

 reasons, by some of the Brazilian tribes, by the inhabitants of 

 the Ladrones, and by the Andamaners. According to Ulloa,|| 

 the Brazilians do not approve of chastity in an unmarried 

 woman, regarding it as a proof that she can have nothing 

 attractive about her. The inhabitants of the Ladrones,1T and 

 of the Andaman Islands,** come to the same conclusion ; in 

 the latter case, however, for a different reason, regarding it as 

 a proof of selfishness and pride. On the other hand, the 

 Australians would have been shocked at a man marrying a 

 woman of his own family name ; the Abipones thought it a 

 sin for a man to pronounce his own name ; the Tahitians 

 thought it very wrong to eat in company, and were horrified 

 at an English sailor, who carried some food in a basket on his 

 head. This prejudice was also shared by the New Zealanders,-f-f 



* History of Sumatra, p. 205. Native Races of the Pacific States, 



f Brown, New Zealand and its vol. i. pp. 123, 242. 



Aborigines, p. 35. || Pinkerton, vol. xiv. p. 521. 



t St. John, Jour. Anthr. Inst. 1" Freycinet, vol. ii. p. 370. 



1872, p. 239. ** Trans. Ethn. Soc., New Ser. 



Franklin's Journeys to the vol. ii. p. 35. 



Polar Seas, vol. i. p. 132. Dunn's ft D'Urville, vol. ii. p. 533. 

 Oregon Territory, p. 92. Bancroft, 



