A NATURALIST AND HIS “GANYMEDE”: ERNST HAECKEL IN CEYLON
BY C. CAUNTER, July 2025

“In answer to my request for the name of my page, Socrates informed me that it was, “Gamameda” … Naturally Ganymede instantly substituted itself, for a nobler namesake of Jove’s favorite than this lithe-limbed, symmetrical youth could not have been found. Besides, Gamameda soon developed a wonderful efficiency as cup-bearer.” The opening of one of those saucy Acolyte Press stories? No: lines from a German scientist’s 1883 travel account.

Untouchable

Strongly impressed by Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the zoologist and naturalist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) became his time’s foremost promulgator of the theory of evolution, both for scientific and lay audiences. Anguish over the early death of his wife led him to reject religion. He had three children with his second wife, including the later painter Walter Haeckel. Ernst Haeckel drew attention to important biological questions, coined terms such as “ecology” and “phylogeny”, made contributions to the knowledge of invertebrates and was an accomplished artist representing the natural world. However, he also believed that the human races evolved independently from speechless ancestors and postulated a racial hierarchy of development with “Mediterranean man” at the summit. Notwithstanding, the science historian Robert J. Richards noted: “Haeckel, on his travels to Ceylon and Indonesia, often formed closer and more intimate relations with natives, even members of the untouchable classes, than with the European colonials.”^[1]

Haeckel travelled in India and in Ceylon (today’s Sri Lanka) in 1881 and 1882. He wrote up these travels in a series of lively articles, which were then collected in the book Indische Reisebriefe (1883). That same year, the labours of two ladies probably working unaware of each other led to two English translations: A Visit to Ceylon, translated by Clara Bell (London: Kegan Paul) and India and Ceylon, translated by Mrs. S. E. Boggs (New York: John W. Lovell), the latter a “not strictly literal translation of Prof. Haeckel’s interesting “letters of Indian Travel,” which appeared in serial form in the Rundschau”. In his travelogue, Haeckel dwells on the beauty and devotion of a boy from the untouchable caste who became his assistant and whom he treated with a kindness that higher-caste Ceylonese found incomprehensible. I cite the relevant passages from Mrs. Boggs’s translation, adding in square brackets some background information as well as my own translations of a few words and parts of sentences that are in the German but not in the translation. Readers will find the German original, taken from Indische Reisebriefe, in footnotes.

With a freshly plucked cocoanut

In Chapter X of India and Ceylon, Haeckel is in “Bellagemma” – his nickname for Belligam, the English form of Weligama, a town at the southern tip of Ceylon:

“And now it seemed as if the familiar impressions of classic antiquity which greeted me on the very threshold of my idyllic abode were to continue to haunt me. When Socrates [the elderly keeper of the rest-house in which Haeckel stayed – C.] conducted me across the portico into the wide entrance hall, there, with arms uplifted, in an attitude of supplication, stood a lovely nude bronze figure that could be no other than the celebrated statue of the boy at prayer, the “Adorante.”^[2] What was my surprise, to see this exquisite bronze image suddenly quicken, drop its arms, kneel at my feet, lift its eyes beseechingly to my face, then bow its beautiful head in mute submission until the long black locks lay on the stone floor.

“The boy—so Socrates  informed me—who was a member of one of the lowest castes, the Rodiya, had lost his parents when a mere child, and had been befriended out of compassion by the rest-house keeper. He was intended for my personal service, and would have nothing to do but wait exclusively on me; he was a good-natured lad, and would be sure to perform his duties faithfully. In answer to my request for the name of my page, Socrates informed me that it was, “Gamameda” (village-centre: gama, village; and meda, centre). Naturally Ganymede instantly substituted itself, for a nobler namesake of Jove’s favorite than this lithe-limbed, symmetrical youth could not have been found. Besides, Gamameda soon developed a wonderful efficiency as cup-bearer. He would not allow anyone but himself to open a cocoanut for me, or fetch me a glass of palm wine. I was therefore justified in changing his name, as well as that of his master. Among the many valued images that animate my recollections of this tropical paradise, Ganymede is one of the most highly prized. He not only performed his menial duties with extreme conscientiousness and attention, but he exhibited an attachment for my person and a readiness to serve me that was really touching. An unfortunate member of the Rodiya caste, the poor boy had from his infancy been subjected to the contempt of his fellows, and had been the object of constant unkindness and even cruelty; with the exception of old Socrates (who at times also treated him rather harshly), no one had taken kindly notice of him. Consequently my gentleness towards him from the very first moment was as novel to him as it was delightful. He was specially grateful for the following service: A few days before my arrival he had run a thorn deep into his foot; in drawing it out a fragment had broken off and remained in the wound. I removed it after considerable trouble, and treated the painful wound with carbolic acid so successfully that it healed in a short time. From that hour the grateful Ganymede followed me like my shadow, and sought to read my wishes in my eyes. Scarcely had I risen from my bed when he was beside me with a freshly plucked cocoanut, from which he offered me a delicious morning drink. At table he never took his eyes from my face, and always anticipated my every wish. When at work, he would clean my anatomical instruments and the microscope lenses. But happy Ganymede, when we sallied out to the cocoa-groves, or the sea-shore, to sketch or collect, to hunt or fish. On such occasions, if I allowed him to carry the paint-box or photographic camera, to sling the gun or the botanical case over his shoulder, he would strut after me with a beaming face, and look proudly around at the wondering Singhalese, who saw in him only the despised Rodiya slave; to them such distinction was utterly incomprehensible. My interpreter, the grudging William, was especially aggrieved, and sought every opportunity to slander Ganymede, but soon found that I would not tolerate any injury to my favorite. [German: “meinem Liebling”, Liebling meaning favourite as well as darling. “Jove’s favorite”, used by Haeckel above, in the German is “Liebling des Zeus” – C.] Many of the handsomest and most valuable acquisitions in my collections I owe to the untiring zeal and skill of this despised Rodiya. With the keen eye, dextrous hand, and fleetness of motion common to the Singhalese children, he knew how to secure the soaring butterfly and the darting fish. When hunting in the forest, he would climb like a cat to tops of the tallest trees, or dart through the thickest jungle with a nimbleness that was truly marvellous.

“Although the Rodiya caste to which Gamameda belongs, is of purely Ceylonese origin, it is regarded by the higher castes on the island (notwithstanding the fact that caste distinctions are not so rigid here as on the mainland) with as much abhorrence as the Pariahs in India. Its members perform only such labor as is considered degrading—to which, singularly enough, is reckoned the washing of clothes—and no Singhalese of higher caste will have any association whatever with a Rodiya.

“As if kind mother nature wished to atone for the unjust treatment of her outcast children, she bestows on them not only the blessing of perfect contentment [and modesty], but endows them with the graceful gift of beauty—a benefice that may be constantly admired, as the Rodiyas wear only the most necessary clothing.

“The boys and young men, as well as the younger girls, are, on an average, more beautifully formed and of nobler feature than the rest of the Singhalese—circumstances which perhaps account for the envy and hatred of the higher castes.

“As a general thing the stronger sex in Ceylon is also the handsomer, especially the youths [German: “Knaben”, boys – C.], whose noble Aryan features are distinguished by a certain dreaminess of expression that is very attractive. Their delicate mouths are particularly beautiful, while their dark, soulful eyes are eloquent with promises their dull brains are unable to fulfil; added to these perfections is a perfectly oval face framed by luxuriant raven tresses. As neither boys nor girls wear clothes until their eighth or ninth year—or at most only a narrow cloth around the loins—they furnish the most suitable “life” for the Eden-like landscape; and the traveler frequently imagines he sees before him an animated Greek god [German: “lebendige griechische Statuen”, living Greek statues – C.]. Ransonnet, on Plate IV., in his work on Ceylon, has a sketch of a fourteen-year-old Siniapu boy^[3] that illustrates the characteristics above mentioned. Ganymede is very like the sketch, only his features are even more delicate and girlish, and remind one of the lovely face of Mignon^[4].”[5]

A shower of fragrant blossoms

From Chapter XIV:

“They [the locals living near Borala wawa, a lagoon northwest of Weligama – C.] are pure Singhalese, with clear bronze [German: “zimmtbrauner”, cinnamon brown] complexions and delicate forms[; their clothing is limited to a narrow, white loincloth]. The nimble[, beautiful] boys were of great assistance to me in collecting plants and insects, while the graceful black-eyed girls decorated my little bullock cart with garlands of flowers.

“When, late in the evening, the swift-footed zebu was harnessed, and the two-wheeled cart, in which there was scarcely room for me beside the Arachy [the second head-man of Weligama – C.], was set in motion, it was the special delight of these sprightly children to run after us. Frequently a swarm of twenty or thirty of the merry elves surrounded our cart [as we rolled along the enchanting shores of Lake Borala], shouting and waving palm leaves. I could not sufficiently admire their perseverance and fleetness of motion.

“When we entered the darkening grove, the boys would kindle torches and run in front of the cart to light the way. At an abrupt turn of the road we would occasionally be deluged with a shower of fragrant blossoms, a ripple of laughter in the dense shrubbery betraying the pranks of the mischievous dryads in hiding there. Among the latter was [a girl of about 16,] a niece of the Arachy’s, whose perfect form might have served as a model for a sculptor, while the beauty of several of the lads rivalled even that of Ganymede.”^[6]

From Chapter XV, the closing lines of the book:

“But the greatest trial of all was the farewell to my faithful Ganymede. The dear lad wept bitterly, and piteously besought me to take him to Europe. In vain I [had already denied him this wish several times and] told him of the icy climate and gray skies of our dreary North — he clasped his arms around my knees and vowed that he was ready to follow me anywhere. I was almost compelled to force myself from his clinging arms, and when I waved a last adieu with my handkerchief to all the dear brown friends, I felt as if I were quitting Paradise. Beautiful Gem! Bella Gemma.”^[7]

A pre-hysteria mindset

Haeckel’s account is a textbook example of the learned Westerner of a hundred and more years ago who lands in what is to him a paradise and frames the beauty he sights there in terms of a classical education which has since been mostly lost. That is to say, someone with a 19^th-century higher education might naturally have thought of the pun Ganymede when introduced to a beautiful boy called Gamameda (and might in addition, like Haeckel, have been inspired to style a broad-faced, snub-nosed elderly Ceylonese “Socrates”). But would this connection be as likely to occur to scholars and scientists forged in the crucible of the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, not to mention locked into a culture in which an adult acknowledging the beauty of an adolescent is hardly the done thing?

One could speculate whether Haeckel was simply aesthetically and sentimentally appreciative of his boy servant’s beauty and affection or whether in addition there was sexual attraction. Unlike a more ambiguous name such as Adonis or Apollo, the term “Ganymede” (not to mention its derivative “catamite”) referred to a boy found sexually attractive by a man. Then again, Haeckel’s hand was practically forced by a name lending itself as splendidly to this wordplay as Gamameda, if that was indeed the boy’s name. Moreover, if there had been a love relationship – and there was enough mutual affection that sexual relations would surely have expressed themselves on such terms, not as mere bodily gratification – would Haeckel have been able to rebuff the boy as implacably as he conveys he did on being beseeched to take him back with him to Europe? It is true he had little choice, what with his family awaiting him in Germany.

But such speculation distracts from a more general point: the pre-hysteria mindset, informed by an education in the classics, was far more conducive to creating the conditions in which Greek love might thrive if both parties gravitated towards it. People in Haeckel’s time, however their sexuality was constituted, could be openly appreciative – open towards others such as their readers and towards themselves – of the beauty of boys without being seized by the terror that this might be (construed as being) indicative of “paedophilia”. Of course, they could and did sometimes fret about possible sodomitical implications, but evidently this fear was not commensurately strong.

The beardless continuum

The cryptoreligious mind’s cacodemon that is the “paedophile” had not yet been invented; “homosexuality” as a cemented identity was only coyly starting to emerge. If recognising a boy’s beauty made one any kind of homo, it was likelier to be the homo universalis or polymath, as Haeckel has been called. Ancient Greece and Renaissance art, obvious associations for those who had enjoyed higher education, provided reassuringly lofty templates. It should also be kept in mind that in many if not most human cultures it has been considered so normal for men to find pubescent boys attractive that pederasty, compatible with a predominant interest in the opposite sex, tended to some or other extent to be institutionalised. I’m not saying Germany in Haeckel’s day was such a culture, but rather that the biological propensity for men’s attraction to boys remains general.

Typically, boys were considered attractive as long as they were delicately featured and beardless, putting them on a continuum of what most men, drawn to feminine qualities, could be attracted to if the cultural framework was approving. In many cultures, girls were kept out of the public eye to a greater extent and a premium was put on their prenuptial virginity, making them more dangerous territory and less available than boys. Haeckel observes in Chapter XII of India and Ceylon that on his walks in Weligama and other Sinhalese villages, he was “always struck by the absence of the fair sex[, namely young girls between the ages of 12 and 20]; even among the children playing in the streets the boys formed by all odds the greater number.”^[8]

With this in mind, it is not surprising that Haeckel praises Gamameda’s “delicate and girlish” features – although interestingly, as far as this goes, in his opinion the Sinhalese boys generally surpass the girls in girlish beauty! The Austrian artist and biologist Eugen von Ransonnet-Villez (1838-1926), whose lithograph of a 14-year-old Sinhalese boy is referred to by Haeckel in his attempt to conjure for the reader an idea of Gamameda’s beauty, spelled out (in English) the template of attraction: “Europeans generally do not sufficiently appreciate the beauty of their darker brothers in the East, though it cannot be denied, that many among them have very regular and interesting features and, if not, at all events, more perfect figures than we can boast of. The Singhalese especially must be called a fine people and their features distinctly show their descent from the Caucasian race. … It is very difficult for strangers to distinguish boys from girls, during their first stay at Ceylon, so striking is the similarity of their features and costumes. The expression of the eyes soft and timid like that of a gazelle, the delicate face and long silky hair, give them a feminine rather than a masculine appearance.”[9]

Metamorphoses of the mignon

The girlish appearance of boys also worked the other way around, in the figure of the boyish girl – the twain meeting in the androgynous middle. Goethe’s literary creation Mignon, of whom Gamameda reminded Haeckel, is a girl of about 12 or 13 with long, black, curly hair; on first seeing her, the protagonist in Goethe’s novel isn’t sure whether she’s a boy or a girl.^[10] Significantly, her name (French for “darling”, “favourite”) is in the masculine form. The word previously referred to the effeminate courtiers of King Henri III of France; following Goethe it came to signify a lovely, mysterious, sometimes androgynous girl. Goethe, the primus inter pares of polymaths, was on familiar ground: he had a keen understanding of Greek love and reportedly tasted it, but in the main preferred girls.^[11] In addition to these impressions of gender ambiguity that Sinhalese boys gave European travellers, it stands to reason that the latter would have felt freer to report openly on the strange beauty observed in an exotic, faraway locale – much as one would dwell on the beauty of a rare tropical bird – than they would have done to praise boy specimens from their own country or social milieu.

This framework of factors that made it okay to acknowledge the beauty of at least some boys has in our time been displaced by a dense mesh of drastic deterrents. A thorough grounding in Ancient Greek or Latin is now virtually unheard of, and out with the bathwater of these dead languages – shoved aside by programming languages – has gone the baby of a “feel” for the classical cultures associated with them. As far as attraction to anyone too far below oneself in age, denial has become a matter of survival and secure social functioning. External repression is in most cases not necessary: no denial works better than self-denial and no censorship is more efficient than self-censorship, powered by the overriding need to be approved by the group. Unsurprisingly, today’s biologists writing popular-science bestsellers destined for the display tables at Waterstones and the gift shops of natural history museums have little incentive to wax lyrical about the divine beauty of boy favourites. For their part, boys today – although undoubtedly more so in the West – grow up in the sign of stranger danger, aside from having to wonder if partaking in certain affections means they are gay.

Haeckel’s “classical” appreciation of his Ceylonese cupbearer did not go unnoticed. The English writer and social reformer Edward Carpenter (1844-1929), today considered a queer trailblazer, cites him at length in Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship (1902), compiled at a time when same-sex activism still integrated – without feet-shuffling or youngmanist distortion – the man-boy paradigm found everywhere in history and literature. More recently, Haeckel turned up in Guido Fuchs’s Tadzios Brüder: Der »schöne Knabe« in der Literatur (Tadzio’s Brothers: The “Beautiful Boy” in Literature, 2015) – fittingly, a compendium of meditations on boys’ beauty and its philosophical implications, often penned by those not ordinarily occupied with such beauty. Fuchs in his foreword calls his work a “testament to the naturalness and taken-for-grantedness with which it was once possible to take delight in the beauty of a boy and to give expression to that delight.”^[12] As the inquisitive naturalist he was, Ernst Haeckel jovially gave expression to his natural delight.

Sources

Carpenter, Edward (ed.) (1902), Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, https://archive.org/details/iolusanthology00carpuoft

Eglinton, J. Z. (1964), Greek Love, New York, NY: Oliver Layton Press

Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Ernst Haeckel”, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ernst-Haeckel

Fuchs, Guido (2015), Tadzios Brüder: Der »schöne Knabe« in der Literatur, Hildesheim: Monika Fuchs

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1795/6), Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, Berlin: Johann Friedrich Unger

Haeckel, Ernst (1883), Indische Reisebriefe, Berlin: Gebrüder Paetel, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Indische_Reisebriefe_%28IA_indischereisebri00haec%29.pdf

Haeckel, Ernst (1883), India and Ceylon, Mrs. S. E. Boggs’s “not strictly literal translation of Prof. Haeckel’s interesting “letters of Indian Travel,” which appeared in serial form in the Rundschau (1882)”, New York: John W. Lovell, https://noolaham.net/project/974/97364/97364.pdf

Haeckel, Ernst (1883), A Visit to Ceylon, translated by Clara Bell, London: Kegan Paul, http://www.biolib.de/haeckel/ceylon_e/index.html

Ransonnet, Baron Eugène de (1867), Sketches of the Inhabitants, Animal Life and Vegetation in the Lowlands and High Mountains of Ceylon, as Well as of the Submarine Scenery Near the Coast, Taken in a Diving Bell, Vienna: printed for the author by Gerold

Richards, Robert J. (2009), “Myth 19: That Darwin and Haeckel Were Complicit in Nazi Biology”, in Ronald L. Numbers (ed.), Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press

^[1] Richards (2009), p. 174

^[2] See the accompanying illustration. The Berlin Adorant is a bronze from about 300 BC, found on Rhodes and currently in the Altes Museum in Berlin.

^[3] See the accompanying illustration. Note that the translator has misunderstood “eines vierzehnjährigen Knaben Siniapu”: Siniapu is the boy’s given name. The illustration is from Ransonnet (1867), p. 16 (see the Sources).

^[4] Mignon is an Italian girl of about 12 or 13 in Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, 1795/6).

^[5] “Nun schien es, als ob ich gleich beim Eintritte in mein idyllisches Heim die vertrauten Eindrücke des classischen Alterthums nicht los werden sollte. Denn als mich Sokrates über die Freitreppe in den offenen Mittelraum des Rasthauses hineinführte, stand da mit erhobenen Armen, in einer betenden Stellung, eine reizende, nackte, braune Figur, die nichts Anderes sein konnte, als die berühmte Statue des betenden Knaben, des „Adoranten“. Wie erstaunte ich aber, als die zierliche Broncestatue plötzlich lebendig wurde, die Arme senkend vor mir niederkniete, die schwarzen Augen bittend zu mir aufschlug und dann stumm in demüthigster Weise das schöne Haupt neigte, so daß die langen schwarzen Locken auf den Boden herabfielen. Sokrates belehrte mich, daß dieser Knabe ein Pariah sei, ein Angehöriger der niedersten Kaste, der „Rodiah“, der frühzeitig seine Eltern verloren, und dessen er sich daher aus Mitleid angenommen habe. Er sei ausschließlich für meinen persönlichen Dienst bestimmt, habe den ganzen Tag nur auf meine Wünsche zu achten, und sei ein guter Junge, der sicher seine Pflicht ordentlich üben werde. Auf die Frage, wie ich meinen neuen Leibpagen denn zu rufen habe, antwortete mir der Alte, daß er  G a m a m e d a  (oder „Mittendorf“) heiße (Gama = Dorf, Meda = Mitte). Natürlich fiel mir dabei sofort  G a n y m e d e  s  ein; denn einen edleren Körperbau, ein feineres Ebenmaß der zierlichen Glieder konnte der schöne Liebling des Zeus wohl nicht besessen haben. Da nun Gamameda gerade als Mundschenk eine vorzügliche Fertigkeit entwickelte, und es sich nicht nehmen ließ, mir jede Cocosnuß selbst zu öffnen, jedes Glas Palmenwein selbst einzuschenken, so war es gewiß nur gerechtfertigt, daß ich ihn Ganymedes nannte. 
     “Unter den vielen schönen Figuren, welche in meiner Erinnerung das Paradies von Ceylon beleben, ist Ganymedes mir eine der liebsten und werthesten geblieben. Denn nicht allein erfüllte er seine Dienstpflichten mit der größten Aufmerksamkeit und Gewissenhaftigkeit, sondern entwickelte auch bald eine besondere Anhänglichkeit und Dienstwilligkeit für meine Person, die mich wahrhaft rührte. Der arme Junge war bisher, als unglückliches Glied der Rodiah-Kaste schon von Geburt an der tiefsten Verachtung seiner Landsleute geweiht, Gegenstand vielfacher Rohheiten und selbst Mißhandlungen gewesen; mit Ausnahme des alten Sokrates (— der ihn übrigens auch ziemlich barsch behandelte —) hatte sich vielleicht noch Niemand seiner angenommen. Es war daher offenbar für ihn ebenso überraschend als beglückend, daß ich ihm von Anfang an freundlich entgegenkam. Ganz besonders dankbar aber erwies er sich für folgenden kleinen Dienst. Wenige Tage vor meiner Ankunft hatte er sich einen Dorn tief in den Fuß gestochen; beim Herausziehen desselben war ein Stück abgebrochen und in der Wunde stecken geblieben. Ich entfernte denselben durch eine ziemlich mühsame Operation und behandelte die schmerzhafte Wunde mit Carbolsäure so glücklich, daß sie schon nach kurzer Zeit geheilt war. Seitdem folgte mir Ganymed wie mein Schatten und suchte mir alle Wünsche von den Augen abzusehen. Kaum hatte ich mich früh von meinem Lager erhoben, so stand er schon vor mir mit der frisch geöffneten Cocosnuß, aus der er mir den kühlen Labetrunk des Morgens kredenzte. Bei Tisch verwendete er kein Auge von meinen Bewegungen und wußte immer schon im Voraus, was ich begehrte. Beim Arbeiten putzte er meine Instrumente und die Gläser für das Mikroskop. Glücklich aber war Ganymed, wenn es hinaus in den Cocoswald oder an den Seestrand ging, zum Malen und Sammeln, Jagen und Fischen. Wenn ich ihm dann erlaubte, den Malkasten oder die photographische Camera zu tragen, das Jagdgewehr oder die Botanisirtrommel umzuhängen, dann schritt er mit strahlendem Antlitz hinter mir her, stolz herabblickend auf die verwunderten Singhalesen, die in ihm nur den unwürdigen Rodiah gesehen hatten und eine derartige Auszeichnung unbegreiflich fanden. Besonders ärgerlich war darüber mein Dolmetscher, der neidische William; er suchte den guten Ganymed bei jeder Gelegenheit anzuschwärzen, überzeugte sich aber bald, daß ich meinem Liebling kein Leid anthun lasse. Viele hübsche und werthvolle Erwerbungen meiner Sammlung verdanke ich nur dem unermüdlichen Eifer und der Geschicklichkeit des letzteren. Mit dem scharfen Auge, der geschickten Hand und der flinken Behendigkeit der singhalesischen Kinder wußte er sich ebenso des fliegenden Schmetterlings wie des schwimmenden Fisches zu bemächtigen, und bewunderungswürdig war seine Gewandtheit, wenn er auf der Jagd katzengleich einen hohen Baum erkletterte oder in das dichte Djungle sprang, um die hineingefallene Jagdbeute herauszuholen.
     “Die Rodiahkaste, zu welcher Gamameda gehörte, ist zwar rein singhalesischen Ursprungs, wird aber von allen Bewohnern der Insel (— trotzdem hier das Kastenwesen lange nicht so schroff als auf dem indischen Festlande entwickelt ist —) als eine sehr tief stehende verachtet, gleich den Pariah. Die Angehörigen derselben treiben meistens nur Gewerbe, welche als verächtlich gelten; dazu gehört sonderbarer Weise das Waschen. Kein Indier höherer Kaste wird mit einem Rodiah in nähere Gemeinschaft treten. Als ob aber die gütige Mutter Natur das schwere Unrecht, das so einem ihrer Kinder geschieht, wieder gut machen wollte, hat sie die armen verstoßenen Rodiah nicht allein mit der großen Glücksgabe der Zufriedenheit und Genügsamkeit ausgestattet, sondern ihnen auch das anmuthige Geschenk eines besonders schönen Körperbaues verliehen; und da sie nur die nothdürftigste Kleidung tragen, hat man stets Gelegenheit, denselben zu bewundern. Sowohl die Knaben und die Jünglinge als auch die jungen Mädchen sind durchschnittlich von stattlicherem Wuchs und edlerer Gesichtsbildung, als die übrigen Singhalesen; vielleicht ist es gerade dieser Umstand, der den Neid und Haß der letzteren erregt.
     "Im Allgemeinen ist auf Ceylon überhaupt das starke Geschlecht zugleich das schöne; und ganz besonders zeichnen sich Knaben durch einen gewissen schwärmerischen Ausdruck der edlen arischen Gesichtszüge aus. Vorzüglich spricht sich dieser in dem feingeschnittenen Munde und in dem tiefdunklen, seelenvollen Auge aus, welches mehr verspricht, als das Gehirn hält; dazu ist das schöne Oval des Gesichts von einer dichten Fülle langer rabenschwarzer Locken eingerahmt. Da die Kinder beiderlei Geschlechts (wenigstens auf den Dörfern) bis zum achten oder neunten Jahre ganz nackt gehen oder nur einen schmalen Lendenschurz tragen, so bilden sie die passendste Staffage zu der paradiesischen Landschaft; oft meint man lebendige griechische Statuen vor sich zu haben. Ransonnet hat auf Taf. IV seines Werkes über Ceylon in der Abbildung eines vierzehnjährigen Knaben Siniapu jene charakteristischen Züge sehr gut wiedergegeben. Diesem ganz ähnlich war auch Gamameda, nur hatten seine Züge noch etwas Weicheres und Mädchenhafteres, erinnernd an Mignon.”

^[6] “Alle waren reine Singhalesen, von schön zimmtbrauner Hautfarbe und zartem Gliederbau; die Kleidung beschränkte sich auf einen schmalen weißen Lendenschurz. Die munteren hübschen Knaben waren mir beim Sammeln der Pflanzen und Insecten eifrig behilflich, während die schwarzäugigen zierlichen Mädchen Blumenkränze flochten und meinen kleinen Ochsenkarren mit den schönsten Guirlanden schmückten. Wurde dann spät abends der schnellfüßige Laufochse eingespannt und setzte sich der zweiräderige Karren, in dem ich neben dem Aretschi kaum Platz hatte, in rasche Bewegung, so machte es den munteren Kindern besonderes Vergnügen, uns noch eine Strecke weit zu begleiten. Während wir an den reizenden Ufern des Boralusees hinrollten, folgte oft ein Schwarm von 20-30 dieser anmuthigen Gestalten, unermüdlich, laut rufend und Palmenblätter schwingend. Ich konnte die Ausdauer und Schnelligkeit ihres Laufes nicht genug bewundern.
     “Traten wir dann in den dunkeln Wald ein, so zündeten die Knaben Palmfackeln an, mit denen sie dem Wagen vorausliefen und den Weg erleuchteten. Bei einer plötzlichen Biegung des Weges wurden wir bisweilen von einem duftenden Blumenregen überschüttet, und ein helles Kichern aus dem dichten Gebüsche verrieth uns die Neckerei der kleinen Dryaden, die sich dahinter versteckt hatten. Unter den letzteren war ein Mädchen von ungefähr 16 Jahren, eine Nichte des Aretschi, deren vollendet schöne Körperform jedem Bildhauer hätte als Modell dienen können. Von dem Knaben konnten mehrere mit Ganymed an Schönheit wetteifern.”

^[7] “Am schwersten aber wurde mir der Abschied von dem treuen Ganymedes. Der gute Junge weinte bitterlich und bat mich, ich solle ihn mit nach Europa nehmen. Vergebens hatte ich ihm schon vorher diesen Wunsch mehrmals abgeschlagen und ihm von dem eisigen Klima und dem grauen Himmel unseres öden Nordens erzählt. Er hielt meine Kniee fest umschlungen und versicherte mir, daß er mir überallhin ohne Wanken folgen wolle. Fast mit Gewalt mußte ich mich endlich losreißen und den harrenden Wagen besteigen, und als ich den lieben braunen Freunden den letzten Abschied mit den Taschentuche zuwinkte, hatte ich fast das Gefühl des verlorenen Paradieses: „Schöner Edelstein!  B e l l a  G e m m a !“”

^[8] “Bei diesen Dorfpromenaden fiel mir, ebenso wie bei den späteren Besuchen anderer singhalesischer Dörfer, nichts so sehr auf wie die Seltenheit des schönen Geschlechts, namentlich der jungen Mädchen im Alter zwischen 12 und 20 Jahren; selbst unter den spielenden Kindern sind die Knaben weit überwiegend.”

^[9] Ransonnet (1867), p. 15. Note that the metaphor of the gazelle, referring to a beautiful young woman or a beautiful boy, is a staple in traditional Arabic and Hebrew poetry.

^[10] Goethe (1795/6), Book II, Chapter 4

^[11] Eglinton (1964), pp. 349-52

^[12] “Es ist so auch ein Zeugnis der Unbefangenheit und Selbstverständlichkeit, mit der man früher an der Schönheit eines Knaben Gefallen finden und dieses auch zum Ausdruck bringen durfte.” – Fuchs (2015), p. 15