point is too abundant to quote in full.
Shortland (126-27) describes in detail all of the ceremonies which
were in former days the pastimes of the New Zealanders, and which
accompanied the singing of their _haka_ or "love-songs," to which
reference has already been made. In the front were seated three
elderly ladies and behind them in rows, eight or ten in a row, and
five or six ranks deep, sat "_the best born young belles of the town_"
who supplied the poem and the music for the _haka_ pantomime:

"The _haka_ is not a modest exhibition, but the
reverse; and, on this occasion, two of the old ladies
who stood in front ... accompanied the music by
movements of the arms and body, their postures being
often disgustingly lascivious. However, they suited the
taste of the audience, who rewarded the performers at
such times with the applause they desired.... It was
altogether as ungodly a scene as can well be imagined."

The same author, who lived among the natives several years, says (120)
that

"before marriage the greatest license is permitted to young
females. The more admirers they can attract and the greater
their reputation for intrigue, the fairer is their chance of
making an advantageous match."

William Brown writes (35) that "among the Maoris chastity is not
deemed one of the virtues; and a lady before marriage may be as
liberal of her favors as she pleased without incurring censure." "As a
rule," writes E. Tregear in the _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_ (1889),

"the girls had great license in the way of lovers. I
don't think the young woman knew when she was a virgin,
for she had love-affairs with the boys from the cradle.
This does not apply, of course, to _every_ individual
case--some girls are born proud, and either kept to one
sweetheart or had none, but this was rare."

After marriage a woman was expected to remain faithful to her husband,
but of course not from any regard for chastity, but because she was
his private property. Like so many other uncivilized races the Maori
saw no impropriety in lending his wife to a friend. (Tregear, 104.)

The faces of Maori women were always wet with red ochre and oil. Both
sexes anointed their hair (which was vermin-infested) with rancid
shark's oil, so that they were as disagreeable to the smell as
Hottentots. (Hawkesworth, 451-53.) They were cannibals, not from
necessity, but for the love of human flesh, though they did not, like
the Australians, eat their own relatives. Food, says Thompson (I.,
160), affected them "as it does wild beasts." They practised
infanticide, killed cripples, abandoned the sick--in a word, they
displayed a coarseness, a lack of delicacy, in sexual and other
matters, which makes it simply absurd to suppose they could have loved
as we love, with our altruistic feeling of sympathy and affection.
William Brown says (38) that mothers showed none of that doting
fondness for their children common elsewhere, and that they suckled
pigs and pups with "affection." "Should a husband quarrel with his
wife, she would not hesitate to kill her children, merely to annoy
him" (41). "They are totally devoid of natural affection." The men
"appear to care little for their wives," apparently from

"a want of that sympathy between the sexes which is the
source of the delicate attentions paid by the male to
the female in most civilized countries. In my own
experience I have seen only one instance where there
was any perceptible attachment between husband and
wife. To all appearance they behave to each other as if
they were not at all related; and it not infrequently
happens that they sleep in different places before the
termination of the first week of their marriage."

Thus even in the romantic isles of the Pacific we seek in vain for
true love. Let us now see whether the vast continent of North and
South America will bring us any nearer to our goal.


HOW AMERICAN INDIANS LOVE

"On the subject of love no persons have been less understood than the
Indians," wrote Thomas Ashe in 1806 (271).

"It is said of them that they have no affection, and that
the intercourse of the sexes is sustained by a brutal
passion remote from tenderness and sensibility. This is one
of the many gross errors which have been propagated to
calumniate these innocent people."

Waitz remarks (III., 102):

"How much alike human nature is everywhere is evinced
by the remarkable circumstance that notwithstanding the
degradation of woman, cases of romantic love are not
even very rare"

among Indians. "Their languages," writes Professor Brinton (_R.P._,
54),

"supply us with evidence that the sentiment of love was
awake among them, and this is corroborated by the
incidents we learn of their domestic life.... Some of
the songs and stories of this race seem to reveal even
a capability for romantic love such as would do credit
to a modern novel. This is the more astonishing, as in
the African and Mongolian races this ethereal sentiment
is practically absent, the idealism of passion being
something foreign to those varieties of man."

The Indians, says Catlin (_N.A.I._, I., 121), "are not in the least
behind us in conjugal, in filial, and in paternal affection." In the
preface to Mrs. Eastman's _Life and Legend of the Sioux_, Mrs. Kirkman
exclaims that

"in spite of all that renders gross and mechanical their
ordinary mode of marrying and giving in marriage, instances
are not rare among them of love as true, as fiery, and as
fatal as that of the most exalted hero of romance."

Let us listen to a few of the tales of Indian love, as recorded by
Schoolcraft.[195]


THE RED LOVER

Many years ago there lived a Chippewa warrior on the banks of Lake
Superior. His name was Wawanosh and he was renowed for his ancestry
and personal bravery. He had an only daughter, eighteen years old,
celebrated for her gentle virtues, her _slender_ form, her full
beaming hazel eyes, and her dark and flowing hair. Her hand was sought
by a young man of humble parentage, but a tall commanding form, a
manly step, and an eye beaming with the tropical fires of love and
youth. These were sufficient to attract the favorable notice of the
daughter, but did not satisfy the father, who sternly informed the
young man that before he could hope to mingle his humble blood with
that of so renowned a warrior he would have to go and make a name for
himself by enduring fatigue in the campaigns against enemies, by
taking scalps, and proving himself a successful hunter.

The intimidated lover departed, resolved to do a deed that should
render him worthy of the daughter of Wawanosh, or die in the attempt.
In a few days he succeeded in getting together a band of young men all
eager, like himself, to distinguish themselves in battle. Armed with
bow and quiver, and ornamented with war-paint and feathers, they had
their war-dance, which was continued for two days and nights. Before
leaving with his companions the leader sought an interview with the
daughter of Wawanosh. He disclosed to her his firm intention never to
return unless he could establish his name as a warrior. He told her of
the pangs he had felt at her father's implied imputation of effeminacy
and cowardice. He averred that he never could be happy, either with or
without her, until he had proved to the whole tribe the strength of
his heart, which is the Indian term for courage. He repeated his
_protestations of inviolable attachment_, which she returned, and,
_pledging vows of mutual fidelity_, they parted.

She never saw him again. A warrior brought home the tidings that he
had received a fatal arrow in his breast after distinguishing himself
by the most heroic bravery. From that moment the young girl never
smiled again. She pined away by day and by night. Deaf to entreaty and
reproach, she would seek a sequestered spot, where she would sit under
a shady tree, and sing her mournful laments for hours together. A
small, beautiful bird, of a kind she had never seen, sat on her tree,
every day, singing until dark. Her fond imagination soon led her to
suppose it was the spirit of her lover, and her visits were repeated
with greater frequency. She passed her time in fasting and singing her
plaintive songs. Thus she pined away, until _the death she so
fervently desired_ came to her relief. After her death the bird was
never more seen, and it became a popular opinion that this mysterious
bird had flown away with her spirit. But bitter tears of regret fell
in the lodge of Wawanosh. Too late he _regretted his false pride_ and
his harsh treatment of the noble youth.


THE FOAM WOMAN

There once lived an Ottawa woman on the shores of Lake Michigan who
had a daughter as beautiful as she was modest and discreet. She was so
handsome that her mother feared she would be carried off, and, to
prevent it, she put her in a box on the lake, which was tied by a long
string to a stake on the shore. Every morning the mother pulled the
box ashore, and combed her daughter's long, shining hair, gave her
food, and then put her out again on the lake.

One day a handsome young man chanced to come to the spot at the moment
she was receiving her morning's attentions from her mother. He was
struck with her beauty and immediately went home and told his feelings
to his uncle, who was a great chief and a powerful magician. The uncle
told him to go to the mother's lodge, sit down in a modest manner,
and, without saying a word, _think_ what he wanted, and he would be
understood and answered. He did so; but the mother's answer was: "Give
you my daughter? No, indeed, my daughter shall never marry _you_."
This pride and haughtiness angered the uncle and the spirits of the
lake, who raised a great storm on the water. The tossing waves broke
the string, and the box with the girl floated off through the straits
to Lake Huron. It was there cast on shore and found by an old spirit
who took the beautiful girl to his lodge and married her.

The mother, when she found her daughter gone, raised loud cries, and
continued her lamentations for a long time. At last, after two or
three years, the spirits had pity on her and raised another storm,
greater even than the first. When the water rose and encroached on the
lodge where the daughter lived, she leaped into the box, and the waves
carried her back to her mother's lodge. The mother was overjoyed, but
when she opened the box she found that her daughter's beauty had
almost all departed. However, she still loved her because she was her
daughter, and she now thought of the young man who had made her the
offer of marriage. She sent a formal message to him, but he had
changed his mind, for he knew that she had been the wife of another.
"_I_ marry your daughter?" said he; "_your_ daughter! No, indeed! I
shall never marry her."


THE HUMPBACK MAGICIAN

Bokwewa and his brother lived in a secluded part of the country. They
were considered as Manitoes who had assumed mortal shapes. Bokwewa was
a humpback, but had the gifts of a magician, while the brother was
more like the present race of beings. One day the brother said to the
humpback that he was going away to visit the habitations of men, and
procure a wife. He travelled alone a long time. At length he came to a
deserted camp, where he saw a corpse on a scaffold. He took it down
and found it was the body of a beautiful young woman. "She shall be my
wife," he exclaimed.

He took her and carried her home on his back. "Brother," he exclaimed,
"cannot you restore her life? Oh! do me that favor."

The humpback said he would try, and, after performing various
ceremonies, succeeded in restoring her to life. They lived very
happily for some time. But one day when the humpback was home alone
with the woman, her husband having gone out to hunt, a powerful Manito
came and carried her off, though Bokwewa used all his strength to save
her.

When the brother returned and heard what had happened he would not
taste food for several days. Sometimes he would fall to weeping for a
long time, and appear almost beside himself. At last he said he would
go in search of her. His brother, finding that he could not dissuade
him, cautioned him against the dangers of the road; he must pass by
the large grape-vine and the frog's eggs that he would come across.
But the young husband heeded not his advice. He started out on his
journey and when he found the grapes and the frog's eggs he ate them.

At length he came to the tribe into which his wife had been stolen.
Throngs of men and women, gaily dressed, came out to meet him. As he
had eaten of the grapes and frog's eggs--snares laid for him--he was
soon overcome by their flatteries and pleasures, and he was not long
afterward seen beating corn with their women (the strongest proof of
effeminacy), although his wife, for whom he had mourned so much, was
in that Indian metropolis.

Meanwhile Bokwewa waited patiently for his brother, but when he did
not return he set out in search of him. He avoided the allurements
along the road and when he came among the luxurious people of the
South he wept on seeing his brother beating corn with the women. He
waited till the stolen wife came down to the river to draw water for
her new husband, the Manito. He changed himself into a hair-snake, was
scooped up in her bucket, and drunk by the Manito, who soon after was
dead. Then the humpback resumed his human shape and tried to reclaim
his brother; but the brother was so taken up with the pleasures and
dissipations into which he had fallen that he refused to give them up.
Finding he was past reclaiming, Bokwewa left him and disappeared
forever.


THE BUFFALO KING

Aggodagauda was an Indian who lived in the forest. Though he had
accidentally lost the use of one of his two legs he was a famous
hunter. But he had a great enemy in the king of buffaloes, who
frequently passed over the plain with the force of a tempest. The
chief object of the wily buffalo was to carry off Aggodagauda's
daughter, who was very beautiful. To prevent this Aggodagauda had
built a log cabin, and it was only on the roof of this that he
permitted his daughter to take the open air and disport herself. Now
her hair was so long that when she untied it the raven locks hung down
to the ground.

One day, when her father was off on a hunt, she went out on top of the
house and sat combing her long and beautiful hair, on the eaves of the
lodge, when the buffalo king, coming suddenly by, caught her glossy
hair, and winding it about his horns, tossed her onto his shoulders
and carried her to his village. Here he _paid every attention to gain
her affections_, but all to no purpose, for she sat pensively and
disconsolate in the lodge among the other females, and scarcely ever
spoke, and took no part in the domestic cares of her lover the king.
He, on the contrary, _did everything he could think of to please her
and win her affections_. He told the others in his lodge to give her
everything she wanted, and to be _careful not to displease her_. They
set before her the choicest food. They _gave her the seat of honor in
the lodge_. The king himself went out hunting to obtain the most
dainty bits of meat. And not content with these proofs of his
attachment _he fasted himself_, and would often take his flute and sit
near the lodge indulging his mind in repeating a few pensive notes:

My sweetheart,
My sweetheart,
Ah me!
When I think of you,
When I think of you,
Ah me!
How I love you,
How I love you,
Ah me!
Do not hate me,
Do not hate me,
Ah me!

In the meantime Aggodagauda had returned from his hunt, and finding
his daughter gone, determined to recover her. During her flight her
long hair had caught on the branches and broken them, and it was by
following these broken twigs that he tracked her. When he came to the
king's lodge it was evening. He cautiously peeped in and saw his
daughter sitting disconsolately. She caught his eye, and, in order to
meet him, said to the king, "Give me a dipper, I will go and get you a
drink of water." Delighted with this token of submission, the king
allowed her to go to the river. There she met her father and escaped
with him.


THE HAUNTED GROVE

Leelinau was the favorite daughter of an Odjibwa hunter, living on the
shore of Lake Superior. From her earliest youth she was observed to be
pensive and timid, and to spend much of her time _in solitude and
fasting_. Whenever she could leave her father's lodge she would fly to
the remote haunts and recesses of the woods, or _sit upon some high
promontory of rock overhanging the lake_. But her favorite place was a
forest of pines known as the Sacred Grove. It was supposed to be
inhabited by a class of _fairies who love romantic scenes_. This spot
Leelinau visited often, _gathering on the way strange flowers or
plants_ to bring home. It was there that she fasted, supplicated, and
strolled.

The effect of these visits was to make the girl melancholy and
dissatisfied with the realities of life. She did not care to play with
the other young people. Nor did she favor the plan of her parents to
marry her to a man much her senior in years, but a reputed chief. No
attention was paid to her disinclination, and the man was informed
that his offer had been favorably received. The day for the marriage
was fixed and the guests invited.

The girl had told her parents that she would never consent to the
match. On the evening preceding the day fixed for her marriage she
dressed herself in her best garments and put on all her ornaments.
Then she told her parents she was going to meet her little lover, the
chieftain of the green plume, who was waiting for her at the Spirit
Grove. Supposing she was going to act some harmless freak, they let
her go. When she did not return at sunset alarm was felt; with lighted
torches the gloomy pine forest was searched, but no trace of the girl
was ever found, and the parents mourned the loss of a daughter whose
inclinations they had, in the end, too violently thwarted.


THE GIRL AND THE SCALP

About the middle of the seventeenth century there lived on the shores
of Lake Ontario a Wyandot girl so beautiful that she had for suitors
nearly all the young men of her tribe; but while she rejected none,
neither did she favor any one in particular. To prevent her from
falling to someone not in their tribe the suitors held a meeting and
concluded that their claims should be withdrawn and the war chief
urged to woo her. He objected on account of the disparity of years,
but was finally persuaded to make his advances. His practice had been
confined rather to the use of stone-headed arrows than love-darts, and
his dexterity in the management of hearts displayed rather in making
bloody incisions than tender impressions. But after he had painted and
arrayed himself as for battle and otherwise adorned his person, he
paid court to her, and a few days later was accepted on condition that
he would pledge his word as a warrior to do what she should ask of
him. When his pledge had been given she told him to bring her the
scalp of a certain Seneca chief whom she hated. He begged her to
reflect that this chief was his bosom friend, whose confidence it
would be an infamy to betray. But she told him either to redeem his
pledge or be proclaimed for a lying dog, and then left him.

Goaded into fury, the Wyandot chief blackened his face and rushed off
to the Seneca village, where he tomahawked his friend and rushed out
of the lodge with his scalp. A moment later the mournful scalp-whoop
of the Senecas was resounding through the village. The Wyandot camp
was attacked, and after a deadly combat of three days the Senecas
triumphed, avenging the murder of their chief by the death of his
assailant as well as of the miserable girl who had caused the tragedy.
The war thus begun lasted more than thirty years.


A CHIPPEWA LOVE-SONG

In 1759 great exertions were made by the French Indian Department
under General Montcalm to bring a body of Indians into the valley of
the lower St. Lawrence, and invitations for this purpose reached the
utmost shores of Lake Superior. In one of the canoes from that
quarter, which was left on the way down at the mouth of the Utawas,
was a Chippewa girl named Paigwaineoshe, or the White Eagle. While the
party awaited there the result of events at Quebec she formed an
attachment for a young Algonquin belonging to a French mission. This
attachment was mutual, and gave rise to a song of which the following
is a prose translation:

I. Ah me! When I think of him--when I think of him--my
sweetheart, my Algonquin.

II. As I embarked to return, he put the white wampum around my
neck--a pledge of troth, my sweetheart, my Algonquin.

III. I shall go with you, he said, to your native country--I
shall go with you, my sweetheart--my Algonquin.

IV. Alas! I replied--my native country is far, far away--my
sweetheart, my Algonquin.

V. When I looked back again--where we parted, he was still
looking after me, my sweetheart, my Algonquin.

VI. He was still standing on a fallen tree--that had fallen
into the water, my sweetheart, my Algonquin.

VII. Alas! When I think of him--when I think of him--It is when
I think of him, my Algonquin.


HOW "INDIAN STORIES" ARE WRITTEN

Here we have seven love-stories as romantic as you please and full of
sentimental touches. Do they not disprove my theory that uncivilized
races are incapable of feeling sentimental love? Some think they do,
and Waitz is not the only anthropologist who has accepted such stories
as proof that human nature, as far as love is concerned, is the same
under all circumstances. The above tales are taken from the books of a
man who spent much of his life among Indians and issued a number of
works about them, one of which, in six volumes, was published under
the auspices of the United States Government. This expert--Henry R.
Schoolcraft--was member of so many learned societies that it takes
twelve lines of small type to print them all. Moreover, he expressly
assures us[196] that "the value of these traditionary stories appears
to depend very much upon their being left, as nearly as possible, in
their original forms of thought and expression," the obvious inference
being an assurance that he has so left them; and he adds that in the
collection and translation of these stories he enjoyed the great
advantages of seventeen years' life as executive officer for the
tribes, and a knowledge of their languages.

And now, having given the enemy's battle-ship every possible
advantage, the reader will allow me to bring on my little
torpedo-boat. In the first place Schoolcraft mentions (_A.R_., I., 56)
twelve persons, six of them women, who helped him collect and
interpret the material of the tales united in his volumes; but he does
not tell us whether all or any of these collectors acted on the
principle that these stories could claim absolutely no _scientific_
value unless they were verbatim reports of aboriginal tales, _without
any additions and sentimental embroideries by the compilers_. This
omission alone is fatal to the whole collection, reducing it to the
value of a mere fairy book for the entertainment of children, and
allowing us to make no inferences from it regarding the quality and
expression of an Indian's love.

Schoolcraft stands convicted by his own action. When I read his tales
for the first time I came across numerous sentences and sentiments
which I knew from my own experience among Indians were utterly foreign
to Indian modes of thought and feeling, and which they could no more
have uttered than they could have penned Longfellow's _Hiawatha_, or
the essays of Emerson. In the stories of "The Red Lover," "The Buffalo
King," and "The Haunted Grove,"[197] I have italicized a few of these
suspicious passages. To take the last-named tale first, it is absurd
to speak of Indian "fairies who love romantic scenes," or of a girl
romantically sitting on a rocky promontory,[198] or "gathering strange
flowers;" for Indians have no conception of the romantic side of
nature--of scenery for its own sake. To them a tree is simply a grouse
perch, or a source of fire-wood; a lake, a fish-pond, a mountain, the
dreaded abode of evil spirits. In the tale of the "Buffalo King" we
read of the chief doing a number of things to win the affection of the
refractory bride--telling the others not to displease her, giving her
"the seat of honor," and going so far as to fast himself, whereas in
real life, under such circumstances, he would have curtly clubbed the
stolen bride into submission. In the tale of the "Red Lover" the girl
is admired for her "slender form," whereas a real Indian values a
woman in proportion to her weight and rotundity. Indians do not make
"protestations of inviolable attachment," or "pledge vows of mutual
fidelity," like the lovers of our fashionable novels. As Charles A.
Leland remarks of the same race of Indians (85), "When an Indian seeks
a wife, he or his mutual friend makes no great ado about it, but
utters two words which tell the whole story." But there is no need of
citing other authors, for Schoolcraft, as I have just intimated,
stands convicted by his own action. In the second edition of his
_Algic Researches_, which appeared after an interval of seventeen
years and received the title of _The Myth of Hiawatha and other Oral
Legends of the North American Indians_, he seemed to remember what he
wrote in the preface of the first regarding these stories, "that in
the original there is no attempt at ornament," so he removed nearly
all of the romantic embroideries, like those I have italicized and
commented on, and also relegated the majority of his ludicrously
sentimental interspersed poems to the appendix. In the preface to
_Hiawatha_, he refers in connection with some of these verses to "the
poetic use of aboriginal ideas." Now, a man has a perfect right to
make such "poetic use" of "aboriginal ideas," but not when he has led
his readers to believe that he is telling these stories "as nearly as
possible in their original forms of thought and expression." It is
very much as if Edward MacDowell had published the several movements
of his Indian Suite as being, not only in their ideas, but in their
(modern European) harmonies and orchestration, a faithful transcript
of aboriginal Indian music. Schoolcraft's procedure, in other words,
amounts to a sort of Ossianic mystification; and unfortunately he has
had not a few imitators, to the confusion of comparative psychologists
and students of the evolution of love.

It is a great pity that Schoolcraft, with his valuable opportunities
for ethnological research, should not have added a critical attitude
and a habit of accuracy to his great industry. The historian Parkman,
a model observer and scholar, described Schoolcraft's volumes on the
Indian Tribes of the United States as

"a singularly crude and illiterate production, stuffed with
blunders and contradictions, giving evidence on every page
of a striking unfitness for historical or scientific
inquiry."[199]


REALITY VERSUS ROMANCE

A few of the tales I have cited are not marred by superadded
sentimental adornments, but all of them are open to suspicion from
still another point of view. They are invariably so proper and pure
that they might be read to Sunday-school classes. Since one-half of
Schoolcraft's assistants in the compilation of this material were
women, this might have been expected, and if the collection had been
issued as a Fairy Book it would have been a matter of course. But they
were issued as accurate "oral legends" of wild Indians, and from the
point of view of the student of the history of love the most important
question to ask was, "Are Indian stories in reality as pure and
refined in tone as these specimens would lead us to suspect?" I will
answer that question by citing the words of one of the warmest
champions of the Indians, the eminent American anthropologist,
Professor D.G. Brinton _(M.N.W., 160):

"Anyone who has listened to Indian tales, not as they
are recorded in books, but as they are told by the
camp-fire, will bear witness to the abounding obscenity
they deal in. That the same vulgarity shows itself in
their arts and life, no genuine observer need doubt."

And in a footnote he gives this extremely interesting information:

"The late George Gibbs will be acknowledged as an
authority here. He was at the time of his death
preparing a Latin translation of the tales he had
collected, as they were too erotic to print in English.
He wrote me, 'Schoolcraft's legends are emasculated to
a degree that they become no longer Indian.'"

No longer Indian, indeed! And these doctored stories, artfully
sentimentalized at one end and expurgated at the other, are advanced
as proofs that a savage Indian's love is just as refined as that of a
civilized Christian! What Indian stories really are, the reader, if he
can stomach such things, may find out for himself by consulting the
marvellously copious and almost phonographically accurate collection
of native tales which another of our most eminent anthropologists, Dr.
Franz Boas, has printed.[200] And it must be borne in mind that these
stories are not the secret gossip of vulgar men alone by themselves,
but are national tales with which children of both sexes become
familiar from their earliest years. As Colonel Dodge remarks (213): it
is customary for as many as a dozen persons of both sexes to live in
one room, hence there is an entire lack of privacy, either in word or
act. "It is a wonder," says Powers (271), "that children grow up with
any virtue whatever, for the conversation of their elders in their
presence is often of the filthiest description." "One thing seems to
me more than intolerable," wrote the French missionary Le Jeune in
1632 (_Jesuit Relations_, V., 169).

"It is their living together promiscuously, girls,
women, men, and boys, in a smoky hole. And the more
progress one makes in the knowledge of the language,
the more vile things one hears.... I did not think that
the mouth of the savage was so foul as I notice it is
every day."

Elsewhere (VI., 263) the same missionary says:

"Their lips are constantly foul with these obscenities;
and it is the same with the little children.... The
older women go almost naked, the girls and young women
are _very modestly clad_; but, among themselves, their
language has the foul odor of the sewers."

Of the Pennsylvania Indians Colonel James Smith (who had lived among
them as a captive) wrote (140): "The squaws are generally very
immodest in their words and actions, and will often put the young men
to the blush."


DECEPTIVE MODESTY

The late Dr. Brinton shot wide off the mark when he wrote (_R. and
P._, 59) that even among the lower races the sentiment of modesty "is
never absent." With some American Indians, as in the races of other
parts of the world, there is often not even the appearance of modesty.
Many of the Southern Indians in North America and others in Central
and South America wear no clothes at all, and their actions are as
unrestrained as those of animals.[201] The tribes that do wear clothes
sometimes present to shallow or biassed observers the appearance of
modesty. To the Mandan women Catlin (I.,
93, 96) attributes "excessive modesty of demeanor."

"It was customary for hundreds of girls and women to go
bathing and swimming in the Missouri every morning, while a
quarter of a mile back on a terrace stood several sentinels
with bows and arrows in hand to protect the bathing-place
from men or boys, who had their own swimming-place
elsewhere."

This, however, tells us more about the immorality of the men and their
anxiety to guard their property than about the character of the women.
On that point we are enlightened by Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, who
found that these women were anything but prudes, having often two or
three lovers at a time, while infidelity was seldom punished (I.,
531). According to Gatschet (183) Creek women also "were assigned a
bathing-place in the river currents at some distance below the men;"
but that this, too, was a mere curiosity of pseudo-modesty becomes
obvious when we read in Schoolcraft (V., 272) that among these Indians
"the sexes indulge their propensities with each other promiscuously,
unrestrained by law or custom, and without secrecy or shame." Powers,
too, relates (55) that among the Californian Yurok "the sexes bathe
apart, and the women do not go into the sea without some garment on."
But Powers was not a man to be misled by specious appearances. He
fully understood the philosophy of the matter, as the following shows
(412):

"Notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary
by false friends and weak maundering philanthropists,
the California Indians are a grossly licentious race.
None more so, perhaps. There is no word in all their
language that I have examined which has the meaning of
'mercenary prostitute,' because such a creature is
unknown to them; but among the unmarried of both sexes
there is very little or no restraint; and this freedom
is so much a matter of course that there is no reproach
attaching to it; so that _their young women are notable
for their modest and innocent demeanor_. This very
modesty of outward deportment has deceived the hasty
glance of many travellers. But what their conduct
really is is shown by the Argus-eyed surveillance to
which women are subjected. If a married woman is seen
even walking in the forest with another man than her
husband she is chastised by him. A repetition of the
offence is generally punished with speedy death.
Brothers and sisters scrupulously avoid living alone
together. A mother-in-law is never allowed to live with
her son-in-law. To the Indian's mind the opportunity of
evil implies the commission of it."


WERE INDIANS CORRUPTED BY WHITES?

Having disposed of the modesty fallacy, let us examine once more, and
for the last time, the doctrine that savages owe their degradation to
the whites.

In the admirable preface to his book on the Jesuit missionaries in
Canada, Parkman writes concerning the Hurons (XXXIV.):

"Lafitau, whose book appeared in 1724, says that the
nation was corrupt in his time, but that this was a
degeneracy from their ancient manners. La Potherie and
Charlevoix make a similar statement. Megapolensis,
however, in 1644 says that they were then exceedingly
debauched; and Greenhalgh, in 1677, gives ample
evidence of a shameless license. One of their most
earnest advocates of the present day admits that the
passion of love among them had no other than an animal
existence (Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, 322).
There is clear proof that the tribes of the South were
equally corrupt. (See Lawson's _Carolina_, 34, and
other early writers.)"

Another most earnest advocate of the Indians, Dr. Brinton, writes
(_M.N.W._, 159) that promiscuous licentiousness was frequently
connected with the religious ceremonies of the Indians:

"Miscellaneous congress very often terminated their
dances and festivals. Such orgies were of common
occurrence among the Algonkins and Iroquois at a very
early date, and are often mentioned in the _Jesuit
Relations_; Venagas describes them as frequent among
the tribes of Lower California, and Oviedo refers to
certain festivals of the Nicaraguans, during which the
women of all ranks extended to whosoever wished just
such privileges as the matrons of ancient Babylon, that
mother of harlots and all abominations, used to grant
even to slaves and strangers in the temple of Melitta
as one of the duties of religion."

In Part I. (140-42) of the _Final Report of Investigations among the
Indians of the Southwestern United States_,[202] A.F. Bandelier, the
leading authority on the Indians of the Southwest, writes regarding
the Pueblos (one of the most advanced, of all American tribes):

"Chastity was an act of penitence; to be chaste
signified to do penance. Still, after a woman had once
become linked to a man by the performance of certain
simple rites it was unsafe for her to be caught
trespassing, and her accomplice also suffered a
penalty. But there was the utmost liberty, even
license, as toward girls. Intercourse was almost
promiscuous with members of the tribe. Toward outsiders
the strictest abstinence was observed, and this fact,
which has long been overlooked or misunderstood,