explains the prevailing idea that before the coming of
the white man the Indians were both chaste and moral,
while the contrary is the truth."

Lewis and Clarke travelled a century ago among Indians that had never
been visited by whites. Their observations regarding immoral practices
and the means used to obviate the consequences bear out the above
testimony. M'Lean (II., 59, 120) also ridicules the idea that Indians
were corrupted by the whites. But the most conclusive proof of
aboriginal depravity is that supplied by the discoverers of America,
including Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. Columbus on his fourth voyage
touched the mainland going down near Brazil. In Cariay, he
writes,[203] the enchanters

"sent me immediately two girls very showily dressed.
The elder could not be more than eleven years of age
and the other seven, and both exhibited so much
immodesty that more could not be expected from public
women."

On another page (30) he writes: "The habits of these Caribbees are
brutal," adding that in their attacks on neighboring islands they
carry off as many women as they can, using them as concubines. "These
women also say that the Caribbees use them with such cruelty as would
scarcely be believed; and that they eat the children which they bear
to them."

Brazil was visited in 1501 by Amerigo Vespucci. The account he gives
of the dissolute practices of the natives, who certainly had never set
eye on a white man, is so plain spoken that it cannot be quoted here
in full. "They are not very jealous," he says, "and are immoderately
libidinous, and the women much more so than the men, so that for
decency I omit to tell you the ... They are so void of affection and
cruel that if they be angry with their husbands they ... and they slay
an infinite number of creatures by that means.... The greatest sign of
friendship which they can show you is that they give you their wives
and their daughters" and feel "highly honored" if they are accepted.
"They eat all their enemies whom they kill or capture, as well females
as males." "Their other barbarous customs are such that expression is
too weak for the reality."

The ineradicable perverseness of some minds is amusingly illustrated
by Southey, in his _History of Brazil_. After referring to Amerigo
Vespucci's statements regarding the lascivious practices of the
aboriginals, he exclaims, in a footnote: "This is false! Man has never
yet been discovered in such a state of depravity!" What the navigators
wrote regarding the cannibalism and cruelty of these savages he
accepts as a matter of course; but to doubt their immaculate purity is
high treason! The attitude of the sentimentalists in this matter is
not only silly and ridiculous, but positively pathological. As their
number is great, and seems to be growing (under the influence of such
writers as Catlin, Helen Hunt Jackson, Brinton, Westermarck, etc.), it
is necessary, in the interest of the truth, to paint the Indian as he
really was until contact with the whites (missionaries and others)
improved him somewhat.[204]


THE NOBLE RED MAN

Beginning with the Californians, their utter lack of moral sense has
already been described. They were no worse than the other Pacific
coast tribes in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska.
George Gibbs, the leading authority on the Indians of Western Oregon
and Washington, says regarding them (I., 197-200):

"Prostitution is almost universal. An Indian, perhaps,
will not let his favorite wife, but he looks upon his
others, his sisters, daughters, female relatives, and
slaves, as a legitimate source of profit....
Cohabitation of unmarried females among their own
people brings no disgrace if unaccompanied with
child-birth, which they take care to prevent. This
commences at a very early age, perhaps ten or twelve
years."

"Chastity is not considered a virtue by the Chinook women," says Ross
(92),

"and their amorous propensities know no bounds. All classes,
from the highest to the lowest, indulge in coarse sensuality
and shameless profligacy. Even the chief would boast of
obtaining a paltry toy or trifle in return for the
prostitution of his virgin daughter."

Lewis and Clarke (1814) found that among the Chinooks, "_as, indeed,
among all Indians_" they became acquainted with on their perilous
pioneer trips through the Western wilds, prostitution of females was
not considered criminal or improper (439).

Such revelations, illustrating not individual cases of depravity, but
a whole people's attitude, show how utterly hopeless it is to expect
refined and pure love of these Indians. Gibbs did not give himself up
to any illusions on this subject. "A strong _sensual_ attachment often
undoubtedly exists," he wrote (198),

"which leads to marriage, and instances are not rare of
young women destroying themselves on the death of a
lover; but where the idea of chastity is so entirely
wanting in both sexes, _this cannot deserve the name of
love_, or it is at best of a temporary duration." The
italics are mine.

In common with several other high authorities who lived many years
among the Indians (as we shall see at the end of this chapter) Gibbs
clearly realized the difference between red love and white
love--between sensual and sentimental attachments, and failed to find
the latter among the American savages.

British Columbian capacity for sexual delicacy and refined love is
sufficiently indicated by the reference on a preceding page (556) to
the stories collected by Dr. Boas. Turning northeastward we find
M'Lean, who spent twenty-five years among the Hudson's Bay natives,
declaring of the Beaver Indians (Chippewayans) that "the unmarried
youth, of both sexes, are generally under no restraint whatever," and
that "the lewdness of the Carrier [Taculli] Indians cannot possibly be
carried to a greater excess." M'Lean, too, after observing these
northern Indians for a quarter of a century, came to the conclusion
that "the tender passion seems unknown to the savage breast."

"The Hurons are lascivious," wrote Le Jeune (whom I have already
quoted), in 1632; and Parkman says (_J.N.A._, XXXIV.):

"A practice also prevailed of temporary or experimental
marriage, lasting a day, a week, or more.... An
attractive and enterprising damsel might, and often
did, make twenty such marriages before her final
establishing."

Regarding the Sioux, that shrewd observer, Burton, wrote (_C. of S._,
116): "If the mother takes any care of her daughter's virtue, it is
only out of regard to its market value." The Sioux, or Dakotas, are
indeed, sometimes lower than animals, for, as S.R. Riggs pointed out,
in a government publication (_U.S. Geogr. and Geol. Soc._, Vol. IX.),
"Girls are sometimes taken very young, before they are of marriageable
age, which generally happens with a man who has a wife already." "The
marriageable age," he adds, "is from fourteen years old and upward."
Even the Mandans, so highly lauded by Catlin, sometimes brutally
dispose of girls at the age of eleven, as do other tribes (Comanches,
etc.).

Of the Chippewas, Ottawas, and Winnebagoes we read in H. Trumbull's
_History of the Indian Wars_ (168):

"It appears to have been a very prevalent custom with
the Indians of this country, before they became
acquainted with the Europeans, to compliment strangers
with their wives;"

and "the Indian women in general are amorous, and before marriage not
less esteemed for gratifying their passions."

Of the New York Indians J. Buchanan wrote (II., 104):

"that it is no offence for their married women to
associate with another man, provided she acquaint her
husband or some near relation therewith, but if not, it
is sometimes punishable with death."

Of the Comanches it is said (Schoolcraft, V., 683) that while "the men
are grossly licentious, treating female captives in a most cruel and
barbarous manner," upon their women "they enforce rigid chastity;" but
this is, as usual, a mere question of masculine property, for on the
next page we read that they lend their wives; and Fossey (_Mexique_,
462) says: "Les Comanches obligent le prisonnier blanc, dont ils ont
admiré le valeur dans le combat, à s'unir à leurs femmes pour
perpétuer sa race." Concerning the Kickapoo, Kansas, and Osage Indians
we are informed by Hunter (203), who lived among them, that

"a female may become a parent out of wedlock without
loss of reputation, or diminishing her chances for a
subsequent matrimonial alliance, so that her paramour
is of respectable standing."

Maximilian Prinz zu Weid found that the Blackfeet, though they
horribly mutilated wives for secret intrigues [violation of property
right], offered these wives as well as their daughters for a bottle of
whiskey. "Some very young girls are offered" (I., 531). "The Navajo
women are very loose, and do not look upon fornication as a crime."

"The most unfortunate thing which can befall a captive
woman is to be claimed by two persons. In this case she
is either shot or delivered up for indiscriminate
violence" (Bancroft, I., 514).

Colonel R.I. Dodge writes of the Indians of the plains (204):

"For an unmarried Indian girl to be found away from her
lodge alone is to invite outrage, consequently she is
never sent out to cut and bring wood, nor to take care
of the stock."

He speaks of the "Indian men who, animal-like, approach a female only
to make love to her," and to whom the idea of continence is unknown
(210). Among the Cheyennes and Arapahoes

"no unmarried woman considers herself dressed to meet
her beau at night, to go to a dance or other gathering,
unless she has tied her lower limbs with a rope....
Custom has made this an almost perfect protection
against the brutality of the men. Without it she would
not be safe for an instant, and even with it, an
unmarried girl is not safe if found alone away from the
immediate protection of the lodge" (213).

A brother does not protect his sister from insult, nor avenge outrage
(220).

"Nature has no nobler specimen of man than the Indian," wrote Catlin,
the sentimentalist, who is often cited as an authority. To proceed:
"Prostitution is the rule among the (Yuma) women, not the exception."
The Colorado River Indians "barter and sell their women into
prostitution, with hardly an exception." (Bancroft, I., 514.) In his
_Antiquities of the Southern Indians_, C.C. Jones says of the Creeks,
Cherokees, Muscogulges, etc. (69):

"Comparatively little virtue existed among the
unmarried women. Their chances of marriage were not
diminished, but rather augmented, by the fact that they
had been great favorites, provided they had avoided
conception during their years of general pleasure."

The wife "was deterred, by fear of public punishment, from the
commission of indiscretions." "The unmarried women among the Natchez
were unusually unchaste," says McCulloh (165).

This damning list might be continued for the Central and South
American Indians. We should find that the Mosquito Indians often did
not wait for puberty (Bancroft, I., 729); that, according to Martius,
Oviedo, and Navarette,

"in Cuba, Nicaragua,[205] and among the Caribs and
Tupis, the bride yielded herself first to another, lest
her husband should come to some ill-luck by exercising
a priority of possession.... This _jus primae noctis_
was exercised by the priests" (Brinton, _M.N.W._, 155);

that the Waraus give girls to medicine men in return for professional
services (Brett, 320); that the Guaranis lend their wives and
daughters for a drink (Reich, 435); that among Brazilian tribes the
_jus primae noctis_ is often enjoyed by the chief (_Journ. Roy. G.S._,
II., 198); that in Guiana "chastity is not considered an indispensable
virtue among the unmarried women" (Dalton, I., 80); that the
Patagonians often pawned and sold their wives and daughters for brandy
(Falkner, 97); that their licentiousness is equal to their cruelty
(Bourne, 56-57), etc., etc.


APPARENT EXCEPTIONS

A critical student will not be able, I think, to find any exceptions
to this rule of Indian depravity among tribes untouched by missionary
influences. Westermarck, indeed, refers (65) with satisfaction to
Hearne's assertion (311) that the northern Indians he visited
carefully guarded the young people. Had he consulted page 129 of the
same writer he would have seen that this does not indicate a regard
for chastity as a virtue, but is merely a result of their habit of
regarding women as property, to which Franklin, speaking of these same
Indians, refers (287); for as Hearne remarks in the place alluded to,
"it is a very common custom among the men of this country to exchange
a night's lodging with each other's wives." An equal lack of insight
is shown by Westermarck, when he professes to find female chastity
among the Apaches. For this assertion he relies on Bancroft, who does
indeed say (I., 514) that "all authorities agree that the Apache
women, both before and after marriage, are remarkably pure." Yet he
himself adds that the Apaches will lend their wives to each
other.[206] If the women are otherwise chaste, it is not from a regard
for purity, but from fear of their cruel husbands and masters. United
States Boundary Commissioner, Bartlett, has enlightened us on this
point. "The atrocities inflicted upon an Apache woman taken in
adultery baffle all description," he writes, "and the females whom
they capture from their enemies are invariably doomed to the most
infamous treatment." Thus they are like other Indians--the Comanches,
for instance, concerning whom we read in Schoolcraft (V., 683) that
"the men are grossly licentious, treating female captives in a most
cruel and barbarous manner; but they enforce rigid chastity upon their
women."

Among the Modocs a wife who violated her husband's property rights in
her "chastity," was disembowelled in public, as Bancroft informs us
(I., 350). No wonder, that, as he adds, "adultery, being attended with
so much danger, is comparatively rare, but among the unmarried, who
have nothing to fear, a gross licentiousness prevails."

The Peruvian sun virgins are often supposed to indicate a regard for
purity; but in reality the temples in which these girls were reared
and guarded were nothing but nurseries for providing a choice
assortment of concubines for the licentious Incas and their friends.
(Torquemada, IX., 16.)[207]

"In the earlier times of Peru the union of the sexes was
voluntary, unregulated, and accompanied by barbarous usages:
many of which even at the present day exist among the
uncivilized nations of South America." (Tschudi's
_Antiquities_, 184; McCulloh, 379.)

Of the Mexicans, too, it has been erroneously said
that they valued purity; but Bandelier has collected facts from the
old Spanish writers, in summing which up he says: "This almost
establishes promiscuity among the ancient Mexicans, as a preliminary
to formal marriage." Oddly enough, the crime of adultery with a
married woman was considered one against a cluster of kindred, and not
against the husband; for if he caught the culprits _in flagrante
delictu_ and killed the wife, he lost his own life!

Another source of error regarding exceptional virtue in an Indian
tribe lies in the fact that in some few cases female captives were
spared. This was due, however, not to a chivalrous regard for female
virtue, but to superstition. James  Adair relates of the Choktah (164)
that even a certain chief noted for his cruelty

"did not attempt the virtue of his female captives lest
(as he told one of them) 'it should offend the Indian's
god;' though at the same time his pleasures were
heightened in proportion to the shrieks and groans from
prisoners of both sexes while they were under his
torture. Although the Choktah are libidinous, yet I
have known them to take several female prisoners
without offering the least violence to their virtue,
till the time of purgation was expired; then some of
them forced their captives, notwithstanding their
pressing entreaties and tears."

Parkman, too, was convinced (_Jes. in Can._, XXXIV.) that the
remarkable forbearance observed by some tribes was the result of
superstition; and he adds: "To make the Indian a hero of romance is
mere nonsense."


INTIMIDATING CALIFORNIA SQUAWS

Besides the atrocious punishments inflicted on women who forgot their
role as private property, some of the Indians had other ways of
intimidating them, while reserving for themselves the right to do as
they pleased. Powers relates (156-61) that, among the California
Indians in general,

"there is scarcely such an attribute known as virtue or
chastity in either sex before marriage. Up to the time
when they enter matrimony most of the young women are a
kind of _femmes incomprises_, the common property of
the tribe; and after they have once taken on themselves
the marriage covenant, simple as it is, they are
guarded with a Turkish jealousy, for even the married
women are not such models as Mrs. Ford.... The one
great burden of the harangues delivered by the
venerable peace-chief on solemn occasions is the
necessity and excellence of _female_ virtue; all the
terrors of superstitious sanction and the direst
threats of the great prophet are levelled at
unchastity, and all the most dreadful calamities and
pains of a future state are hung suspended over the
heads of those who are persistently lascivious. All the
devices that savage cunning can invent, all the
mysterious masquerading horrors of devil-raising, all
the secret sorceries, the frightful apparitions and
bugbears, which can be supposed effectual in terrifying
women into virtue and preventing smock treason, are
resorted to by the Pomo leaders."

Among these Pomo Indians, and Californian tribes almost universally
(406), there existed secret societies whose simple purpose was to
conjure up infernal terrors and render each other assistance in
keeping their women in subjection. A special meeting-house was
constructed for this purpose, in which these secret women-tamers held
a grand devil-dance once in seven years, twenty or thirty men daubing
themselves with barbaric paint and putting vessels of pitch on their
heads. At night they rushed down from the mountains with these vessels
of pitch flaming on their heads, and making a terrible noise. The
squaws fled for dear life; hundreds of them clung screaming and
fainting to their valorous protectors. Then the chief took a
rattlesnake from which the fangs had been extracted, brandished it
into the faces of the shuddering women, and threatened them with dire
things if they did not live lives of chastity, industry, and
obedience, until some of the terrified squaws shrieked aloud and fell
swooning upon the ground.


GOING A-CALUMETING

We are now in a position to appreciate the unintentional humor of
Ashe's indignant outcry, cited at the beginning of this chapter,
against those who calumniate these innocent people "by denying that
there is anything but 'brutal passion' in their love-affairs." He
admits, indeed, that "no expressions of endearment or tenderness ever
escape the Indian sexes toward each other," as all observers have
remarked, but claims that this reserve is merely a compliance with a
political and religious law which "stigmatizes youth wasting their
time in female dalliance, except when covered with the veil of night
and beyond the prying eye of man." Were a man to speak to a squaw of
love in the daytime, he adds, she would run away from him or disdain
him. He then proceeds, with astounding naïveté, to describe the
nocturnal love-making of "these innocent people." The Indians leave
their doors open day and night, and the lovers take advantage of this
when they go a-courting, or "a-calumeting," as it is called.

"A young man lights his calumet, enters the cabin of
his mistress, and gently presents it to her. If she
extinguishes it she admits him to her arms; but if she
suffer it to burn unnoticed he softly retires with a
disappointed and throbbing heart, knowing that while
there was light she never could consent to his wishes.
This spirit of nocturnal amour and intrigue is attended
by one dreadful practice: the girls drink the juice of
a certain herb which prevents conception and often
renders them barren through life. They have recourse to
this to avoid the shame of having a child--a
circumstance _in which alone_ the disgrace of their
conduct consists, and which would be thought a thing so
heinous as to deprive them forever of respect and
religious marriage rites. _The crime is in the
discovery_." "I never saw gallantry conducted with more
_refinement_ than I did during my stay with the Shawnee
nation."

In brief, Ashe's idea of "refined" love consists in promiscuous
immorality carefully concealed! "On the subject of love," he sums up
with an injured air, "no persons have been less understood than the
Indians." Yet this writer is cited seriously as a witness by
Westermarck and others!

In view of the foregoing facts every candid reader must admit that to
an Indian an expression like "Love hath weaned my heart from low
desires," or Werther's "She is sacred to me; all desire is silent in
her presence," would be as incomprehensible as Hegel's metaphysics;
that, in other words, mental purity, one of the most essential and
characteristic ingredients of romantic love, is always absent in the
Indian's infatuation. The late Professor Brinton tried to come to the
rescue by declaring (_E.A._, 297) that

"delicacy of sentiment bears no sort of constant
relation to culture. Every man ... can name among his
acquaintances men of unusual culture who are coarse
voluptuaries and others of the humblest education who
have the delicacy of a refined woman. So it is with
families, and so it is with tribes."

Is it? That is the point to be proved. I myself have pointed out that
among nations, as among individuals, intellectual culture alone does
not insure a capacity for true love, because that also implies
emotional and esthetic culture. Now in our civilized communities there
are all sorts of individuals, many coarse, a few refined, while some
civilized races, too, are more refined than others. To prove his point
Dr. Brinton would have had to show that among the Indians, too, there
are tribes and individuals who are morally and esthetically refined;
and this he failed to do; wherefore his argument is futile. Diligent
and patient search has not revealed to me a single exception to the
rule of depravity above described, though I admit the possibility that
among the Indians who have been for generations under missionary
control such exceptions might be found. But we are here considering
the wild Indian and not the missionary's garden plant.


SQUAWS AND PERSONAL BEAUTY

An excellent test of the Indian's capacity for refined amorous feeling
may be found in his attitude toward personal beauty. Does he admire
real beauty, and does it decide his choice of a mate? That there are
good-looking girls among some Indian tribes cannot be denied, though
they are exceptional. Among the thousands of squaws I have seen on the
Pacific Slope, from Mexico to Alaska, I can recall only one whom I
could call really beautiful. She was a pupil at a Sitka Indian school,
spoke English well, and I suspect had some white blood in her. Joaquin
Miller, who married a Modoc girl and is given to romancing and
idealizing, relates (227) how "the brown-eyed girls danced, gay and
beautiful, half-nude, in their rich black hair and flowing robes."
Herbert Walsh,[208] speaking of the girls at a Navajo Indian school,
writes that

"among them was one little girl of striking beauty,
with fine, dark eyes, regularly and delicately modelled
features, and a most winning expression. Nothing could
be more attractive than the unconscious grace of this
child of nature."

I can find no indication, however, that the Indians ever admire such
exceptional beauty, and plenty of evidence that what they admire is
not beautiful. "These Indians are far from being connoisseurs in
beauty," wrote Mrs. Eastman (105) of the Dakotas. Dobrizhoffer says of
the Abipones (II., 139) what we read in Schoolcraft concerning the
Creeks: "Beauty is of no estimation in either sex;" and I have also
previously quoted Belden's testimony (302), that the men select the
squaws not for their personal beauty but "their strength and ability
to work;" to which he should have added, their weight; for bulk is the
savage's synonym for beauty. Burton (_C.S._, 128) admired the pretty
doll-like faces of the Sioux girls, but only up to the age of six.
"When full grown the figure becomes dumpy and _trapu_;" and that is
what attracts the Indian. The examples given in the chapter on
Personal Beauty of the Indians' indifference to geological layers of
dirt on their faces and bodies would alone prove beyond all
possibility of dispute that they can have no esthetic appreciation of
personal charms. The very highest type of Indian beauty is that
described by Powers in the case of a California girl

"just gliding out of the uncomfortable obesity of
youth, her complexion a soft, creamy hazel, her wide
eyes dreamy and idle ... a not unattractive type of
vacuous, facile, and voluptuous beauty"

--a beauty, I need not add, which may attract, but would not inspire
love of the sentimental kind, even if the Indian were capable of it.


ARE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS GALLANT?

Having failed to find mental purity and admiration of personal beauty
in the Indian's love-affairs, let us now see how he stands in regard
to the altruistic impulses which differentiate love from self-love. Do
Indians behave gallantly toward their women? Do they habitually
sacrifice their comfort and, in case of need, their lives for their
wives?

Dr. Brinton declares (_Am. R._, 48) that "the position of women in the
social scheme of the American tribes has often been portrayed in
darker colors than the truth admits." Another eminent American
anthropologist, Horatio Hale, wrote[209] that women among the Indians
and other savages are not treated with harshness or regarded as
inferiors except under special circumstances. "It is entirely a
question of physical comfort, and mainly of the abundance or lack of
food," he maintains. For instance, among the sub-arctic Tinneh, women
are "slaves," while among the Tinneh (Navajos) of sunny Arizona they
are "queens." Heckewelder declares (_T.A.P.S._, 142) that the labors
of the squaws "are no more than their fair share, under every
consideration and due allowance, of the hardships attendant on savage
life." This benevolent and oft-cited old writer shows indeed such an
eager desire to whitewash the Indian warrior that an ignorant reader
of his book might find some difficulty in restraining his indignation
at the horrid, lazy squaws for not also relieving the poor,
unprotected men of the only two duties which they have retained for
themselves--murdering men or animals. But the most "fearless" champion
of the noble red man is a woman--Rose Yawger--who writes (in _The
Indian and the Pioneer_, 42) that "the position of the Indian woman in
her nation was not greatly inferior to that enjoyed by the American
woman of to-day." ... "They were treated with great respect." Let us
confront these assertions with facts.

Beginning with the Pacific Coast, we are told by Powers (405) that, on
the whole, California Indians did not make such slaves of women as the
Indians of the Atlantic side of the continent. This, however, is
merely comparative, and does not mean that they treat them kindly,
for, as he himself says (23), "while on a journey the man lays far the
greatest burdens on his wife." On another page (406) he remarks that
while a California boy is not "taught to pierce his mother's flesh
with an arrow to show him his superiority over her, as among the
Apaches and Iroquois," he nevertheless afterward "slays his wife or
mother-in-law, if angry, with very little compunction." Colonel McKee,
in describing an expedition among California Indians (Schoolcraft,
III., 127), writes:

"One of the whites here, in breaking in his squaw to
her household duties, had occasion to beat her several
times. She complained of this to her tribe and they
informed him that he must not do so; if he was
dissatisfied, _let him kill her and take another_!"
"The men," he adds, "allow themselves the privilege of
shooting any woman they are tired of."

The Pomo Indians make it a special point to slaughter the women of
their enemies during or after battle. "They do this because, as they
argue with the greatest sincerity, one woman destroyed is tantamount
to five men killed" (Bancroft, I., 160), for without women the tribe
cannot multiply. A Modoc explained why he needed several wives--one to
take care of his house, a second to hunt for him, a third to dig roots
(259). Bancroft cites half a dozen authorities for the assertion that
among the Indians of Northern California "boys are disgraced by work"
and "women work while men gamble or sleep" (I., 351). John Muir, in
his recent work on _The Mountains of California_ (80), says it is
truly astonishing to see what immense loads the haggard old Pah Ute
squaws make out to carry bare-footed over the rugged passes. The men,
who are always with them, stride on erect and unburdened, but when
they come to a difficult place they "kindly" pile stepping-stones for
their patient pack-animal wives, "just as they would prepare the way
for their ponies."

Among some of the Klamath and other California tribes certain women
are allowed to attain the rank of priestesses. To be "supposed to have
communication with the devil" and be alone "potent over cases of
witchcraft and witch poisoning" (67) is, however, an honor which women
elsewhere would hardly covet. Among the Yurok, Powers relates (56),
when a young man cannot afford to pay the amount of shell-money
without which marriage is not considered legal, he is sometimes
allowed to pay half the sum and become what is termed "half-married."
"Instead of bringing her to his cabin and making her his slave, he
goes to live in her cabin and becomes her slave." This, however,
"occurs only in case of soft uxorious fellows." Sometimes, too, a
squaw will take the law in her own hands, as in a case mentioned by
the same writer (199). A Wappo Indian abandoned his wife and went down
the river to a ranch where he took another woman. But the lawful
spouse soon discovered his whereabouts, followed him up, confronted
him before his paramour, upbraided him fiercely, and then seized him
by the hair and led him away triumphantly to her bed and basket. It is
to check such unseemly "new-womanish" tendencies in their squaws that
the Californians resorted to the bugaboo performances already referred
to. The Central Californian women, says Bancroft (391), are more apt
than the others to rebel against the tyranny of their masters; but the
men usually manage to keep them in subjection. The Tatu and Pomo
tribes intimidate them in this way:

"A man is stripped naked, painted with red and black
stripes, and then at night takes a sprig of poison oak,
dips it in water, and sprinkles it on the squaws, who,
from its effects on their skins, are convinced of the
man's satanic power, so that his object is attained."
(Powers, 141.)

The pages of Bancroft contain many references besides those already
quoted, showing how far the Indians of California were from treating
their women with chivalrous, self-sacrificing devotion. "The principal
labor falls to the lot of the women" (I., 351). Among the
Gallinomeros,

"_as usual_, the women are treated with great contempt
by the men, and forced to do all the hard and menial
work; they are not even allowed to sit at the same fire
or eat at the same repast with their lords" (390).

Among the Shoshones "the weaker sex _of course_ do the hardest labor"
(437), etc. With the Hupâ a girl will bring in the market $15 to
$50--"about half the valuation of a man." (Powers, 85.)

Nor do matters mend if we proceed northward on the Pacific coast.
Thus, Gibbs says (198) of the Indians of Western Oregon and
Washington, "the condition of the woman is that of slavery under any
circumstances;" and similar testimony might be adduced regarding the
Indians of British Columbia and Alaska.

Among the eastern neighbors of the Californians there is one Indian
people--the Navajos of Arizona and New Mexico--that calls for special
attention, as its women, according to Horatio Hale, are not slaves but
"queens." The Navajos have lived for centuries in a rich and fertile
country; their name is said to mean "large cornfields" and the
Spaniards found, about the middle of the sixteenth century, that they
practised irrigation. A more recent writer, E.A. Graves,[210] says
that the Navajos "possess more wealth than all the wild tribes in New
Mexico combined. They are rich in horses, mules, asses, goats, and
sheep." Bancroft cites evidence (I., 513) that the women were the
owners of the sheep; that they were allowed to take their meals with
the men, and admitted to their councils; and that they were relieved
of the drudgery of menial work. Major E. Backus also noted
(Schoolcraft, IV., 214) that Navajo women "are treated more kindly
than the squaws of the northern tribes, and perform far less of
laborious work than the Sioux or Chippewa women." But when we examine
the facts more closely we find that this comparative "emancipation" of
the Navajo women was not a chivalrous concession on the part of the
men, but proceeded simply from the lack of occasion for the exercise
of their selfish propensities. No one would be so foolish as to say
that even the most savage Indian would put his squaw into the
treadmill merely for the fun of seeing her toil. He makes a drudge of
her in order to save himself the trouble of working. Now the Navajos
were rich enough to employ slaves; their labor, says Major Backus, was
"mostly performed by the poor dependants, both male and female." Hence
there was no reason for making slaves of their wives. Backus gives
another reason why these women were treated more kindly than other
squaws. After marriage they became free, for sufficient cause, to
leave their husbands, who were thus put on their good behavior. Before
marriage, however, they had no free choice, but were the property of
their fathers. "The consent of the father is absolute, and the one so
purchased assents or is taken away by force."[211]

A total disregard of these women's feelings was also shown in the
"very extensive prevalence of polygamy," and in the custom that the
wife last chosen was always mistress of her predecessors. (Bancroft,
I., 512.) But the utter incapacity of Navajo men for sympathetic,
gallant, chivalrous sentiment is most glaringly revealed by the
barbarous treatment of their female captives, who, as before stated,
were often shot or delivered up for indiscriminate violence. Where
such a custom prevails as a national institution it would be useless
to search for refined feeling toward any woman. Indeed, the Navajo
women themselves rendered the growth of refined sexual feeling
impossible by their conduct. They were notorious, even among Indians,
for their immodesty and lewd conduct, and were consequently incapable
of either feeling or inspiring any but the coarsest sensual passion.
They were not queens, as the astonishing Hale would have it, but they
certainly were queans.

Concerning other Indians of the Southwest--Yumas, Mojaves, Pueblos,
etc.--M.A. Dorchester writes:[212]

"The native Indian is naturally polite, but until
touched by civilization, it never occurred to him to be
polite to his wife." "If there is one drawback to
Indian civilization more difficult to overcome than any
other, it is to convince the Indian that he ought not
to put the hardest work upon the Indian women."

The ferocious Apaches make slaves of their women. (Bancroft, I., 512.)
Among the Comanches "the women do all the menial work." The husband
has the pleasant excitement of killing the game, while the women do
the hard work even here: "they butcher and transport the meat, dress
the skins, etc." "The females are abused and often beaten
unmercifully." (Schoolcraft, I., 236, V., 684.) The Moquis squaws were
exempt from field labor not from chivalrous feelings but because the
men feared amorous intrigues. (Waitz, IV., 209.) A Snake, Lewis and
Clarke found (308),

"would consider himself degraded by being compelled to
walk any distance; and were he so poor as to possess
only two horses, he would ride the best of them, and
leave the other for his wives and children and their
baggage; and if he has too many wives or too much
baggage for the horse, the wives have no alternative
but to follow him on foot."

Turning to the great Dakota or Sioux stock, we run against one of the
most naïve of the sentimentalists, Catlin, who perpetrated several
books on the Indians and made many "fearless" assertions about the red
men in general and the Mandans in particular. G.E. Ellis, in his book,
_The Red Man and the While Man_ (101), justly observes of Catlin that
"he writes more like a child than a well-balanced man," and Mitchell
(in Schoolcraft, III., 254) declares that much of what Catlin wrote
regarding the Mandans existed "entirely in the fertile imagination of
that gentleman," Yet this does not prevent eminent anthropologists