A Lie Never Justifiable | Page 9

who are rendered less veracious by contact with the whites. 'So rare
is lying among these aboriginal races when unvitiated by the 'civilized,'
that of those in Bengal, Hunter singles out the Tipperahs as 'the only
Hill Tribe in which this vice is met with.'"[12]
[Footnote 1: Glasfurd, cited in _Cycl. of Descrip. Sociol_., V., 32.]
[Footnote 2: Forsyth, Ibid.]
[Footnote 3: Macpherson, cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid.]
[Footnote 5: Sherwill, cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 6: Harkness, cited in _Cycl. of Descrip. Sociol_., V., 31.]
[Footnote 7: Spencer's _Principles of Sociology_, II., 234.]
[Footnote 8: Marshman, cited in _Cycl. of Descrip. Sociol_., V., 31.]
[Footnote 9: Wheeler, cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 10: Cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 11: Shortt, cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 12: Spencer's _Principles of Sociology_, II., 234 ff.]
The Arabs are more truthful in their more primitive state than where
they are influenced by "civilization," or by dealings with those from

civilized communities.[1] And the same would seem to be true of the
American Indians.[2] Of the Patagonians it is said: "A lie with them is
held in detestation." [3] "The word of a Hottentot is sacred;" and the
good quality of "a rigid adherence to truth," "he is master of in an
eminent degree."[4] Dr. Livingstone says that lying was known to be a
sin by the East Africans "before they knew aught of Europeans or their
teaching."[5] And Mungo Park says of the Mandingoes, among the
inland Africans, that, while they seem to be thieves by nature," one of
the first lessons in which the Mandingo women instruct their children is
the practice of truth." The only consolation of a mother whose son had
been murdered, "was the reflection that the poor boy, in the course of
his blameless life, had never told a lie."[6] Richard Burton is alone
among modern travelers in considering lying natural to all primitive or
savage peoples. Carl Bock, like other travelers, testifies to the
unvarying truthfulness of the Dyaks in Borneo,[7] and another
observant traveler tells of the disgrace that attaches to a lie in that land,
as shown by the "lying heaps" of sticks or stones along the roadside
here and there. "Each heap is in remembrance of some man who has
told a stupendous lie, or failed in carrying out an engagement; and
every passer-by takes a stick or a stone to add to the accumulation,
saying at the time he does it, 'For So-and-so's lying heap.' It goes on for
generations, until they sometimes forget who it was that told the lie, but,
notwithstanding that, they continue throwing the stones."[8] What a
blocking of the paths of civilization there would be if a "lying heap"
were piled up wherever a lie had been told, or a promise had been
broken, by a child of civilization!
[Footnote 1: Denham, and Palgrave, cited in _Cycl. of Des. Social_., V.,
30,31.]
[Footnote 2: See Morgan's _League of the Iroquois_, p. 335; also
Schoolcraft, and Keating, on the Chippewas, cited in _Cycl. of Descrip.
Sociol_., VI., 30.]
[Footnote 3: Snow, cited in Ibid.]
[Footnote 4: Kolben, and Barrow, cited in _Cycl. of Descrip. Sociol_.,
IV., 25.]
[Footnote 5: _Cycl. of Descrip. Sociol_., IV., 26.]
[Footnote 6: _Cycl. of Descrip. Social_., IV., 27.]
[Footnote 7: _Head Hunters of Borneo_, p. 209. See also Boyle, cited

in Spencer's _Cycl. of Descrip. Social_., III., 35.]
[Footnote 8: St. John's _Life in the Forests of the Far East_, I., 88 f.]
The Veddahs of Ceylon, one of the most primitive of peoples, "are
proverbially truthful."[1] The natives of Java are peculiarly free from
the vice of lying, except in those districts which have had most
intercourse with Europeans.[2]
[Footnote 1: Bailey, cited in Spencer's _Cycl. of Descrip. Social_., III.,
32.]
[Footnote 2: Earl, and Raffles, cited in Ibid., p. 35.]
It is found, in fact, that in all the ages, the world over, primitive man's
highest ideal conception of deity has been that of a God who could not
tolerate a lie; and his loftiest standard of human action has included the
readiness to refuse to tell a lie under any inducement, or in any peril,
whether it be to a friend or to an enemy. This is the teaching of ethnic
conceptions on the subject. The lie would seem to be a product of
civilization, or an outgrowth of the spirit of trade and barter, rather than
a natural impulse of primitive man. It appeared in full flower and
fruitage in olden time among the commercial Phoenicians, so
prominently that "Punic faith" became a synonym of falsehood in
social dealings.
Yet it is in the face of facts like these that a writer like Professor Fowler
baldly claims, in support of the same presupposed theory as that of
Lecky, that "it is probably owing mainly