REGARD FOR OTHER PERSONS’ HAPPINESS IN GENERAL— GRATITUDE—PATRIOTISM AND COSMOPOLITANISM
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Westermarck, Edward
Concerning the people of Madagascar the missionary Ellis writes:—“Whether the noble and generous feeling of gratitude has much place amongst the Malagasy has been questioned. Though often characterised by extreme apathy, they are certainly susceptible of tenderness of feeling, and their customs furnish various modes of testifying their sense of any acts of kindness shewn them, and their language contains many forms of speech expressive of thankfulness. The following are among those in most general use: ‘May you live to grow old—may you live long—may you live sacred—may you see, or obtain, justice from the sovereign.’” Moreover, with all their expressions of thankfulness, considerable action is used: sometimes the two hands are extended open as if to make a present; or the party stoops down to the ground, and clasps the legs, or touches the knee and the feet of the person he is thanking.69 Ingratitude, again, is expressed by many strong metaphors, such as “son of a thunderbolt,” or “offspring of a wild boar.”70 The Bushmans, according to Burchell, are not incapable of gratitude.71 The statement made by certain travellers or colonists that the Zulus are devoid of this feeling, is contradicted by Mr. Tyler, who asserts that “many instances might be related in which a thankful spirit has been manifested, and gifts bestowed for favours received.”72 The Basutos have words to express gratitude.73 Among the Bakongo, says Mr. Ward, “evidences of gratitude are rare indeed, although occasionally one meets with this sentiment in odd guises.
Once, by a happy chance, I saved a baby’s life. The child was brought to me by its mother in convulsions, and I was fortunate enough to find in my medicine chest a drug that effected an almost immediate cure. Yet the service I rendered to this woman, instead of meeting with any appreciation, only procured for me the whispered reputation of being a witch.” But twenty months afterwards, at midnight when all the people were sleeping, the same woman came to Mr. Ward and gave him some fowl’s eggs in payment. “I come,” she said, “in the darkness that my people may not know, for they would jeer at me if they knew of this gift.”74 A traveller tells us that the inhabitants of Great Benin “if given any trifles expressed their thanks.”75 Writing on the natives of Accra, Monrad states that gratitude is among the virtues of the Negroes, and induces them even to give their lives in return for benefits conferred on them.76 The Feloops, bordering on the Gambia, “display the utmost gratitude and affection towards their benefactors.”77 As regards the Eastern Central Africans, Mr. Macdonald affirms without any hesitation that they have gratitude, “even though we define gratitude as being much more than an ‘acute sense of favours to come.’”78 The Masai and Wadshagga have “a curious habit of spitting on things or people as a compliment or sign of gratitude”79—originally, I presume, with a view to transferring to them a blessing.
The Barea are said to be thankful for benefits.80 According to Palgrave, “gratitude is no less an Arab than a European virtue, whatever the ignorance or the prejudices of some foreigners may have affirmed to the contrary”;81 and Burckhardt says that an Arab never forgets the generosity shown to him even by an enemy.82
In other statements gratitude is directly represented as an object of praise, or its absence as an object of disapproval. Among the Atkha Aleuts, according to Father Yakof, gratitude to benefactors was considered a virtue.83 Among the Omahas, if a man receives a favour and does not manifest his thankfulness, the people exclaim:—“He does not appreciate the gift! He has no manners.”84 The Kamchadales “are not only grateful for favours, but they think it absolutely necessary to make some return for a present.”85 The Chinese say that “kindness is more binding than a loan.”86 According to the ‘Divine Panorama,’ a well-known Taouist work, those who forget kindness and are guilty of ingratitude shall be tormented after death and “shall not escape one jot of their punishments.”87 In one of the Pahlavi texts gratitude is represented as a means of arriving at heaven, whilst ingratitude is stigmatised as a heinous sin;88 and according to Ammian ungrateful persons were even punished by law in ancient Persia.89 The same, we are told, was the case in Macedonia.90 The duty of gratitude was strongly inculcated by Greek and Roman moralists.91 Aristotle observes that we ought, as a general rule, rather to return a kindness to our benefactor than to confer a gratuitous favour upon a brother in arms, just as we ought rather to repay a loan to a creditor than to spend the same sum upon a present to a friend.92 According to Xenophon the requital of benefits is enjoined by a divine law.93 “There is no duty more indispensable than that of returning a kindness,” says Cicero; “all men detest one
forgetful of a benefit.”94 Seneca calls ingratitude a most odious vice, which it is difficult to punish by law, but which we refer for judgment to the gods.95 The ancient Scandinavians considered it dishonourable for a man to kill even an enemy in blood-revenge if he had received a benefit from him.96
We may assume that among beings capable of feeling moral emotions the general disposition to be kind to a benefactor will inevitably lead to the notion that ungrateful behaviour is wrong. Such behaviour is offensive to the benefactor; as Spinoza observes, “he who has conferred a benefit on anyone from motives of love or honour will feel pain, if he sees that the benefit is received without gratitude.”97 This by itself tends to evoke in the bystander sympathetic resentment towards the offender; but his resentment is much increased by the retributive kindliness which he is apt to feel, sympathetically, towards the benefactor. He wants to see the latter’s kindness rewarded; and he is shocked by the absence of a similar desire in the very person who may be naturally expected to feel it more strongly than anybody else.
Source notes
64 Ridley, Aborigines of Australia, p. 24. See also ibid. p. 20 sqq.
65 Wyatt, ‘Manners and Superstitions of the Adelaide and Encounter Bay Aboriginal Tribes,’ in Woods, Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 162.
66 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 48 sqq.
67 Salvado, Mémoires historiques sur l’Australie, p. 146.
68 Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 44.
69 Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 258. See also Rochon, Voyage to Madagascar, p. 56.
70 Ellis, op. cit. i. 139 sq.
71 Burchell, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, ii. 68, 86, 447.
72 Tyler, Forty Years among the Zulus, p. 194.
73 Casalis, Basutos, p. 306.
74 Ward, Five Years with the Congo Cannibals, p. 47 sqq.
75 Punch, quoted by Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 45.
76 Monrad, Skildring af Guinea-Kysten, p. 8.
77 Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa, p. 14.
78 Macdonald, Africana, i. 10.
79 Johnston, Kilima-njaro Expedition, p. 438.
80 Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 533.
81 Palgrave, quoted in Spencer’s Descriptive Sociology, ‘Asiatic Races,’ p. 31.
82 Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, p. 105.
83 Yakof, quoted by Petroff, Report on the Population, &c. of Alaska, p. 158.
84 Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 270.
85 Dobell, Travels in Kamtschatka, i. 75.
86 Davis, China, ii. 123.
87 Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, ii. 374 sq. See also Thâi-Shang, 4.
88Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad, xxxvi. 28; xxxvii. 6; xliii. 9.
89 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6. 81.
90 Seneca, De beneficiis, iii. 6. 2.
91 See Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 305 sqq.
92 Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, x. 2. 3.
93 Xenophon, Memorabilia, iv. 4. 24.
94 Cicero, De officiis, i. 15 (47); ii. 18 (63).
95 Seneca, De beneficiis, iii. 6. 1 sq.
96 Maurer, Die Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes, ii. 174.
97 Spinoza, Ethica, iii. 42. A Japanese proverb says that “thankless labour brings fatigue” (Reed, Japan, ii. 109).