|
|
TRUKESE, Chuuk (Truk)
(3-,3-,3+,3+,2-,2-;9,9;AF) (eHRAF) (Eastern Caroline Islands; Micronesia)
Featured: Caroline Islands [Palauans, Yapese, Trukese, Ponape, Ulithi, Ifaluk], Gilbert Isl., Marshall Isl.
“The Truk children
are merry little people and often quite pretty to see, with their black
locks, aside from the necessary dirt, of course”, says Bollig
(1927:p96)[1], a Capuchin missionary.
However:
“Unfortunately the Truk children lack something which makes our [Western]
children so attractive and that is innocence, guilelessness.
The native children are well informed. There are no secrets before them. They
hear so much dirt in the conversations of the adults and see so much with
their own eyes that one should not be surprised. Their conversations often
revolve around the same material as those of the adults. Fortunately through
their whole way of life the sexual, the naked, is as natural to them as
eating and drinking. It does not excite them. Therefore most of them are
nevertheless good. When they reach puberty, to be sure, many, if not all, are
morally depraved. The parents do nothing about it, and what are they to do?
This is indeed Truk custom” (ibid., p97).
Early childhood betrothal and age-asymmetric
marriage has already been mentioned. Thus,
(Bollig, 1927:p93) “[n]icht selten
heiraten Erwachsene Männer
Mädchen, die noch nicht geschlechtsreif
sind und verkehren auch mit ihnen”. Damm
and Sarfert (1935:p153)[2], on the Chuuk [Truk]: “Dem Geschlechtstrieb, der sich sehr frühzeitig
einstelt, wird bereits in jungen Jahren stark gehuldigt. Bestimmte Grenzen scheinen dabei nicht zu bestehen
[…]”.
The Trukese do not consider sexual maturity
to be reached gradually, Gladwin writes; “in their view, at puberty as
culturally defined (or actually slightly before) the person is capable of a
sexual role as complete as he will ever achieve and is expected to begin at
once to fulfil this role” (Gladwin).
The Truk are known
to apply menopoetic meaning to coitarche
(Fisher, 1950:p26[3]; Fischer, 1963:p531[4];
Gladwin and Sarason, 1953:p100[5];
Swartz, 1958:p467-8[6]).
Swartz (1958:p467-8):
“The first sex
experience for a boy is not said to produce any physiological change.
However, girls are believed to begin menstruating and/or developing breasts
only after their first coitus. Informants did not agree on this: some said
that when a girl’s breasts begin to develop it is then known by all that she
has had sexual relations. Others said that both the onset of menstruation and
the development of the breasts are due to coitus. One rather sophisticated
informant suggested that men only get interested in girls when the breasts
begin to develop, that perhaps both would begin without copulation, but that
“we Trukese are bad and when we see a girl is almost a young woman, we want
to have intercourse with her. […] Some informants say that preadolescent
children would get sick if they engaged in sexual activity. Others said that
boys “just did not start to think of women until they were almost young men”.
Sex play was not observed in children’s groups, although boys in the 10- to
13-year-old age range were sometimes heard laughingly to accuse each other of
masturbation” ”.
[To contest the biosophy
in case of girls, Goodenough (1949:p615)[7],
who has few words on childhood, stated that “[a]ll
informants agree that girls normally start having intercourse when, at the
age of fourteen, their breasts become fairly well developed. The initial
sexual experiences of boys occur at a somewhat later age, between the ages of
sixteen and seventeen”. Another source told Ford and Beach (1951:p181)[8]
that in Trukese society, “children play at intercourse at an early age,
although their parents will beat them if they are caught].
Gladwin and Sarason
(1953:p89)[9] noted that the Truk vigorously battled masturbation.
“While idle fingering of the
genitals is not stopped until the child can talk, active masturbation begins
to be discouraged even before this time. Once the child is felt to be able to
understand any such activity is dealt with severely. Heterosexual
experimentation does not begin until later, probably not until shortly before
puberty. It appears that most children of this age have experimented to some
degree, but not many are caught at it. When they are they are disciplined but
it is important to note that the reason given is not that it is inherently
bad; rather it is not good for a child and will make him sick. The child is
told to wait until he has reached puberty and then it will be all right”[10].
Specifically,
“[…] it appears that for several
years they undertake little or no heterosexual experimentation of their own. Masturbation
would of course be expected to be driven “underground” by parental censure,
and we can make no estimate of the degree to which it is practised. However,
even among children such self-stimulation evokes ridicule and since a child
is seldom alone we are probably safe in saying that sexual activity is at a
low level during the middle years of childhood- a lower level than it will
again attain until real old age. During the two or three years which precede
puberty, however, and possibly before, heterosexual activity of a limited
sort does begin in spite of parental warnings. This probably results from the
increasing contact of older children with young adolescents who, although
considered mature sexually, are embracing this activity only tentatively. While
such behavior even in late childhood continues to
be disapproved it appears that parents actually expect their children to
disregard their admonitions when the opportunity presents itself […]. Although
it appears fairly certain that actual sexual intercourse takes place shortly
before physiological puberty, at least in girls, we have already noted that
several years prior to this time most children undertake at least some
heterosexual experimentation, usually consisting in the boy putting his
finger in and manipulating the girl’s genitals (p253)”.
Also,
“In our society sex is often
explained to the child (frequently when he has been caught experimenting and
punished) as “dirty”, or he is told it will make him sick, or even crazy. He
gains the impression that sex is inherently bad and dangerous. The Trukese,
on the other hand, also tell their children sexual activity will make them
sick, but only because they are still
too young for it. They thus do not get the impression that sex is
inherently bad and, as adults, in spite of the overevaluation
and anxiety attached to sexual activity from other sources, show no signs of
real impotence or frigidity. An example from our society of this type of
restriction might be the driving of automobiles: we do not let our children
drive because they are too small, but we do not tell them it is an
essentially wicked activity; when they grow old enough to drive they learn to
do so without any difficulty and, whether they are actually good drivers or
not, are seldom troubled by any real anxiety over their competence on this score,
in spite of the great economic, social and functional importance of driving a
car” (p253).
The masturbation attitude of the Trukese is
remarkable, since they are reported to masturbate their infants themselves
(Gladwin and Sarason, 1953:p75, 257[11]; Stephens, 1971:p407[12]; Broude,
1995[13])[14].
Goodenough (1951)[15]:
“In aboriginal times such a
[marriage by] purchase was often made for a girl under puberty, though the
marriage was not consummated until after she had reached puberty. Old men
used it as a technique for getting young brides. Informants reported that
this type of marriage has always been in disfavor”.
Fischer (1961)[16]:
“No doubt increased
sexual interest at puberty can interfere with scholastic achievement in large
urbanized societies as well. The point to be noted here is that Trukese
culture maximized this interference by regarding early sexual activity as
normal and healthy, whereas modern European cultures would tend to limit
heterosexual contact and stigmatize sexual intercourse immediately upon
reaching puberty as precocious and unhealthy”.
Mahoney:
“Sexual intercourse is
also offered as an explanation for illness in some of the branches of the
spirit power “massage”. Indeed, people are often treated with massage for
strains, sprains and other muscular aches and pains thought to be due to too
vigorous sexual activities. Here, too, however, this theory is used as an
important control over sexual behavior,
particularly, in this case, to restrain and to postpone the exploratory behavior of preadolescents. Young people are often warned
about the possibility that something may go wrong with their bodies if they
engage in sexual activities before they are considered old enough. (Since
Trukese believe that first menstruation is brought on by inter-course, young
people are not required to wait too long)”.
Janssen,
D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin:
Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology, Berlin
Last
revised: Sept 2004
|
|