Note 353 — Chapter XVII · EROTIC ART

Cf. Cook, (1st) Voyage, pp. 206-208; cf. p. 265 (Tahiti). For other Polynesian erotic dances see Marques in Boletim da Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa, viii. p. 60 (Samoa); Turner, Samoa, p. 125; Gill, South. Pacific, p. 20 (Hervey Islands); Rienzi, Océanie, iii. p. 160 (Maori Slave Girls). On Polynesian dance parties, arranged in order to bring into notice the daughters of the chiefs and nobles, cf. Gill, From Darkness to Light, pp. 29, 253 (Mangaia); Ellis, Pol. Res. i. pp. 215-217 (Tahiti); Vancouver, Voyage, i. p. 119. (Tahiti). Examples of similar dances and pantomimes, often in plain connection with sexual orgies, can be found among Australians and Melanesians. Cf. especially Eyre, Expeditions into Central Australia, ii. p. 235; Mathew in Curr, Australian Race, iii. pp. 168, 169 (Mary River Natives). Koeler in his list of Australian words describes “Korrobbora” as an obscene dance-pantomime performed by men before the women; Monatsber. d. Ges. für Erdkunde zu Berlin, iii. p. 53; Mathews in Journ. Anthr. Inst. xxv. pp. 226-228 (Kamilaroi); Woods, Native Tribes, p. 38 (Taplin, “The Narrinyeri”), p. 243 (Schürmann, “Port Lincoln Tribe,” men and women dancing some rounds together); Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes, p. 381. Few of these facts, however, entitle us to assume a simple purpose of pleasing the opposite sex.