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Blackfoot Indians, too, there was apparently no form of courtship, and
young men seldom spoke to girls unless they were relatives. (Grinnell,
216.) It was a common thing among these Indians for a youth and a girl
not to know about each other until they were informed of their
impending marriage.
The Araucanian maidens of Chili are disposed of with even less
ceremony. In the choice of husbands, as we have seen, they have no
more freedom than a Circassian slave. Our informant (E.R. Smith, 214)
adds, however, that attachments do sometimes spring up, and, though
the lovers have little opportunity to communicate freely, they resort
occasionally to amatory songs, tender glances, and other tricks which
lovers understand. "Matrimony may follow, but such a preliminary
courtship is by no means considered necessary." When a man wants a
girl he calls on her father with his friends. While the friends talk
with the parent, he seizes the bride
"by the hair or by the heel, as may be most convenient,
and drags her along the ground to the open door. Once
fairly outside, he springs to the saddle, still firmly
grasping his screaming captive, whom he pulls up over
the horse's back, and yelling forth a whoop of triumph,
he starts off at full gallop.... Gaining the woods, the
lover dashes into the tangled thickets, while the
friends considerately pause upon the outskirts until
the screams of the bride have died away."
A day or two later the couple emerge from the forest and without
further ceremony live as man and wife. This is the usual way; but
sometimes
"a man meets a girl in the fields alone, and far away
from home; a sudden desire to better his solitary
condition seizes him, and without further ado he rides
up, lays violent hands upon the damsel and carries her
off. Again, at their feasts and merrymakings (in which
the women are kept somewhat aloof from the men), a
young man may be smitten with a sudden passion, or be
emboldened by wine to express a long slumbering
preference for a dusky maid; his sighs and amorous
glances will perhaps be returned, and rushing among the
unsuspecting females, he will bear away the object of
his choice while yet she is in the melting mood. When
such an attempt is foreseen the unmarried girls form a
ring around their companion, and endeavor to shield
her; but the lover and his friends, by well-directed
attacks, at length succeed in breaking through the
magic circle, and drag away the damsel in triumph;
perhaps, in the excitement of the game, some of her
defenders too may share her fate."
A Patagonian courtship is amusingly described by Bourne (91). The
chief of the tribe that held him a captive several months would not
allow anyone to marry without his consent. In his opinion
"no Indian who was not an accomplished
rogue--particularly in the horse-stealing line--an
expert hunter, able to provide plenty of meat and
grease, was fit to have a wife on any conditions."
One day a suitor appeared for the hand of the chief's own daughter, a
quasi-widow, but the chief repulsed him because he had no horses. As a
last resort the suitor appealed to the young woman herself, promising,
if she favored him, that he would give her plenty of grease. This
grease argument she was unable to resist, so she entreated her father
to give his consent. At this he broke out in a towering passion, threw
cradle and other chattels out of the door and ordered her to follow at
once. The girl's mother now interceded, whereupon "seizing her by the
hair, he hurled her violently to the ground and beat her with his
clenched fists till I thought he would break every bone in her body."
The next morning, however, he went to the lodge of the newly married
couple, made up, and they returned, bag and baggage, to his tent.
Grease appears to play a rôle in the courtship of northern Indians
too. Leland relates (40) that the Algonquins make sausages from the
entrails of bears by simply turning them inside out, the fat which
clings to the outside of the entrails filling them when they are thus
turned. These sausages, dried and smoked, are considered a great
delicacy. The girls show their love by casting a string of them round
the neck of the favored youth.
PANTOMIMIC LOVE-MAKING
It is noticeable in the foregoing accounts that courtship and even
proposal are apt to be by pantomime, without any spoken words. The
young Piute who visits his girl while she is in bed with her
grandmother "does not speak to her." The Nishinam hunter leaves his
presents and they are accepted "without a word being spoken;" and the
Apaches, as we saw, "pop the question" with stones or ponies. Why this
silent courtship? Obviously because the Indian is not used to playing
so humble a rôle as that of suitor to so inferior a being as a woman.
He feels awkward, and has nothing to say. As Burton has remarked
_(C.S._, 144), "in savage and semi-barbarous societies the separation
of the sexes is the general rule, because, as they have no ideas in
common, each prefers the society of its own." "Between the sexes,"
wrote Morgan (322)
"there was but little sociality, as this term is
understood in polished society. Such a thing as formal
visiting was entirely unknown. When the unmarried of
opposite sexes were casually brought together there was
little or no conversation between them. No attempts by
the unmarried to please or gratify each other by acts
of personal attention were ever made. At the season of
councils and religious festivals there was more of
actual intercourse and sociality than at any other
time; but this was confined to the dance and was in
itself limited."
HONEYMOON
It is needless to say that where there is no mental intercourse there
can be no choice and union of souls, but only of bodies; that is,
there can be no sentimental love. The honeymoon, where there is
one,[242] is in this respect no better than the period of courtship.
Parkman gives this realistic sketch from life among the Ogallalla
Indians (_O.T._, ch. XI.):
"The happy pair had just entered upon the honeymoon.
They would stretch a buffalo robe upon poles, so as to
protect them from the fierce rays of the sun, and,
spreading beneath this rough canopy a luxuriant couch
of furs, would sit affectionately side by side for half
a day, though I could not discover that much
conversation passed between them. Probably they had
nothing to say; for an Indian's supply of topics is far
from being copious."
MUSIC IN INDIAN COURTSHIP
Inasmuch as music is said to begin where words end, we might expect it
to play a role in the taciturn courtship of Indians. One of the
maidens described by Mrs. Eastman (85) "had many lovers, who wore
themselves out playing the flute, to as little purpose as they braided
their hair and painted their faces," Gila Indians court and pop the
question with their flutes, according to the description by Bancroft
(I., 549):
"When a young man sees a girl whom he desires for a
wife he first endeavors to gain the good-will of the
parents; this accomplished, he proceeds to serenade his
lady-love, and will often sit for hours, day after day,
near her house playing on his flute. Should the girl
not appear, it is a sign that she rejects him; but if,
on the other hand, she comes out to meet him, he knows
that his suit is accepted, and he takes her to his
house. No marriage ceremony is performed."
In Chili, among the Araucanians, every lover carries with him an
amatory Jew's-harp, which is played almost entirely by inhaling.
According to Smith
"they have ways of expressing various emotions by
different modes of playing, all of which the Araucanian
damsels seem fully to appreciate, although I must
confess that I could not.
"The lover usually seats himself at a distance from the
object of his passion, and gives vent to his feeling in
doleful sounds, indicating the maiden of his choice by
slyly gesturing, winking, and rolling his eyes toward
her. This style of courtship is certainly sentimental
and might be recommended to some more civilized lovers
who always lose the use of their tongues at the very
time it is most needed."
"Sentimental" in one sense of the word, but not in the sense in which
it is used in this book. There is nothing in winking, rolling the
eyes, and playing the Jew's-harp, either by inhalation or exhalation,
to indicate whether the youth's feelings toward the girl are refined,
sympathetic, and devoted, or whether he merely longs for an amorous
intrigue. That these Indian lovers _may_ convey definite _ideas_ to
the minds of the girls is quite possible. Even birds have their
love-calls, and savages in all parts of the world use "leading
motives" _ŕ la_ Wagner, i.e., musical phrases with a definite
meaning.[243]
Chippewayan medicine men make use of music-boards adorned with
drawings which recall special magic formulae to their minds. On one of
these (Schoolcraft, V., 648) there is the figure of a young man in the
frenzy of love. His head is adorned with feathers, and he has a drum
in hand which he beats while crying to his absent love: "Hear my drum!
Though you be at the uttermost parts of the earth, hear my drum!"
"The flageolet is the musical instrument of young men and is
principally used in love-affairs to attract the attention of the
maiden and reveal the presence of the lover," says Miss Alice
Fletcher, who has written some entertaining and valuable treatises on
Indian music and love-songs.[244] Mirrors, too, are used to attract
the attention of girls, as appears from a charming idyl sketched by
Miss Fletcher, which I will reproduce here, somewhat condensed.
One day, while dwelling with the Omahas, Miss Fletcher
was wandering in quest of spring flowers near a creek
when she was arrested by a sudden flash of light among
the branches. "Some young man is near," she thought,
"signalling with his mirror to a friend or sweetheart."
She had hardly seen a young fellow who did not carry a
looking-glass dangling at his side. The flashing signal
was soon followed by the wild cadences of a flute. In a
few moments the girls came in sight, with merry faces,
chatting gayly. Each one carried a bucket. Down the
hill, on the other side of the brook, advanced two
young men, their gay blankets hanging from one
shoulder. The girls dipped their pails in the stream
and turned to leave when one of the young men jumped
across the creek and confronted one of the girls, her
companion walking away some distance. The lovers stood
three feet apart, she with downcast face, he evidently
pleading his cause to not unwilling ears. By and by she
drew from her belt a package containing a necklace,
which she gave to the young man, who took it shyly from
her hands. A moment later the girl had joined her
friend, and the man recrossed the brook, where he and
his friend flung themselves on the grass and examined
the necklace. Then they rose to go. Again the flute was
heard gradually dying away in the distance.
INDIAN LOVE-POEMS
As it is not customary for an Indian to call at the lodge where a girl
lives, about the only chance an Omaha has to woo is at the creek where
the girl fetches water, as in the above idyl. Hence courting is always
done in secret, the girls never telling the elders, though they may
compare notes with each other.
"Generally an honorable courtship ends in a more or less
speedy elopement and marriage, but there are men and women
who prefer dalliance, and it is this class that furnishes
the heroes and heroines of the Wa-oo-wa-an."
These Wa-oo-wa-an, or woman songs, are a sort of ballad relating the
experiences of young men and women. "They are sung by young men when
in each other's company, and are seldom overheard by women, almost
never by women of high character;" they "belong to that season in a
man's career when 'wild oats' are said to be sown." Some of them are
vulgar, others humorous.
"They are in no sense love-songs, they have nothing to
do with courtship, and are reserved for the exclusive
audience of men." "The true love-song, called by the
Omahas Bethae wa-an ... is sung generally in the early
morning, when the lover is keeping his tryst and
watching for the maiden to emerge from the tent and go
to the spring. They belong to the secret courtship, and
are sometimes called Me-the-g'thun wa-an--courting
songs." "The few words in these songs convey the one
poetic sentiment: 'With the day I come to you;' or
'Behold me as the day dawns.' Few unprejudiced
listeners," the writer adds, "will fail to recognize in
the Bethae wa-an, or love-songs, the emotion and the
sentiment that prompts a man to woo the woman of his
choice."
Miss Fletcher is easily satisfied. For my part I cannot see in a tune,
however rapturously sung or fluted, or in the words "with the day I
come to you" and the like any sign of real sentiment or the faintest
symptom differentiating the two kinds of love. Moreover, as Miss
Fletcher herself remarks:
"The Omahas as a tribe have ceased to exist. The young
men and women are being educated in English speech, and
imbued with English thought; their directive emotion
will hereafter take the lines of our artistic forms."
Even if traces of sexual sentiment were to be found among Indians like
the Ornahas, who have been subjected for some generations to
civilizing influences, they would allow no inference as to the
love-affairs of the real, wild Indian.
Miss Fletcher makes the same error as Professor Fillmore, who assisted
her in writing _A Study of Omaha Indian Music_. He took the wild
Indian tunes and harnessed them to modern German harmonies--a
procedure as unscientific as it would be unhistoric to make Cicero
record his speeches in a phonograph. Miss Fletcher takes simple Indian
songs and reads into them the feelings of a New York or Boston woman.
The following is an instance. A girl sings to a warrior (I give only
Miss Fletcher's translation, omitting the Indian words): "War; when
you returned; die; you caused me; go when you did; God; I appealed;
standing," This literal version our author explains and translates
freely, as follows:
"No. 82 is the confession of a woman to the man she
loves, that he had conquered her heart before he had
achieved a valorous reputation. The song opens upon the
scene. The warrior had returned victorious and passed
through the rites of the Tent of War, so he is entitled
to wear his honors publicly; the woman tells him how,
when he started on the war-path, she went up on the
hill and standing there cried to Wa-kan-da to grant him
success. He who had now won that success had even then
vanquished her heart, 'had caused her to die' to all
else but the thought of him"(!)
Another instance of this emotional embroidery may be found on pages
15-17 of the same treatise. What makes this procedure the more
inexplicable is that both these songs are classed by Miss Fletcher
among the Wa-oo-wa-an or "woman songs," concerning which she has told
us that "they are in no sense love-songs," and that usually they are
not even the effusions of a woman's own feelings, but the compositions
of frivolous and vain young men put into the mouth of wanton women.
The honorable secret courtships were never talked of or sung about.
Regarding the musical and poetic features of Dakota courtship,
S.R. Riggs has this to say (209):
"A boy begins to feel the drawing of the other sex and,
like the ancient Roman boys, he exercises his ingenuity
in making a 'cotanke,' or rude pipe, from the bone of a
swan's wing, or from some species of wood, and with
that he begins to call to his lady-love, on the night
air. Having gained attention by his flute, he may sing
this:
Stealthily, secretly, see me,
Stealthily, secretly, see me,
Stealthily, secretly, see me,
Lo! thee I tenderly regard;
Stealthily, secretly, see me."
Or he may commend his good qualities as a hunter by singing this song:
Cling fast to me, and you'll ever have plenty,
Cling fast to me, and you'll ever have plenty,
Cling fast to me...."
"A Dacota girl soon learns to adorn her fingers with rings, her ears
with tin dangles, her neck with beads. Perhaps an admirer gives her a
ring, singing:
Wear this, I say;
Wear this, I say;
Wear this, I say;
This little finger ring,
Wear this, I say."
For traces of real amorous sentiment one would naturally look to the
poems of the semi-civilized Mexicans and Peruvians of the South rather
than to the savage and barbarous Indians of the North. Dr. Brinton
(_E. of A_., 297) has found the Mexican songs the most delicate. He
quotes two Aztec love-poems, the first being from the lips of an
Indian girl:
I know not whether thou hast been absent:
I lie down with thee, I rise up with thee,
In my dreams thou art with me.
If my ear-drop trembles in my ears,
I know it is thou moving within my heart.
The second, from the same language, is thus rendered:
On a certain mountain side,
Where they pluck flowers,
I saw a pretty maiden,
Who plucked from me my heart,
Whither thou goest,
There go I.
Dr. Brinton also quotes the following poem of the Northern Kioways as
"a song of true love in the ordinary sense:"
I sat and wept on the hillside,
I wept till the darkness fell;
I wept for a maiden afar off,
A maiden who loves me well.
The moons are passing, and some moon,
I shall see my home long-lost,
And of all the greetings that meet me,
My maiden's will gladden me most.
"The poetry of the Indians is the poetry of naked thought. They have
neither rhyme nor metre to adorn it," says Schoolcraft (_Oneota,_ 14).
The preceding poem has both; what guarantee is there that the
translator has not embellished the substance of it as he did its form?
Yet, granting he did not embroider the substance, we know that weeping
and longing for an absent one are symptoms of sensual as well as of
sentimental love, and cannot, therefore, be accepted as a criterion.
As for the Mexican and other poems cited, they give evidence of a
desire to be near the beloved, and of the all-absorbing power of
passion (monopoly) which likewise are characteristic of both kinds of
love. Of the true criteria of love, the altruistic sentiments of
gallantry, self-sacrifice, sympathy, adoration, there is no sign in
any of these poems. Dr. Brinton admits, too, that such poems as the
above are rare among the North American Indians anywhere.
"Most of their chants in relation to the other sex are
erotic, not emotional; and this holds equally true of
those which in some tribes on certain occasions are
addressed by the women to the men."
Powers says (235) that the Wintun of California have a special dance
and celebration when a girl reaches the age of puberty. The songs sung
on this occasion "sometimes are grossly licentious." Evidences of this
sort might be supplied by the page.[245]
An interesting collection of erotic songs sung by the Klamath Indians
of Southern Oregon has been made by A.S. Gatschet.[246] "With the
Indians," he says,
"all these and many other erotic songs pass under the name
of puberty songs. They include lines on courting,
love-sentiments, disappointments in love, marriage fees paid
to the parents, on marrying and on conjugal life."
From this collection I will cite those that are pertinent to our
inquiry. Observe that usually it is the girl that sings or does the
courting.
1. I have passed into womanhood.
3. Who comes there riding toward me?
4. My little pigeon, fly right into the dovecot!
5. This way follow me before it is full daylight.
9. I want to wed you for you are a chief's son.
7. Very much I covet you as a husband, for in times to come you
will live in affluence.
8. She: And when will you pay for me a wedding gift?
He: A canoe I'll give for you half filled with water.
9. He spends much money on women, thinking to obtain them
easily.
11. It is not that black fellow that I am striving to secure.
14. That is a pretty female that follows me up.
16. That's because you love me that rattle around the lodge.
27. Why have you become so estranged to me?
37. I hold you to be an innocent girl, though I have not lived
with you yet.
38. Over and over they tell me,
That this scoundrel has insulted me.
52. Young chaps tramp around;
They are on the lookout for women.
54. Girls: Young man, I will not love you, for you run around
with no blanket on; I do not desire such a husband.
Boys: And I do not like a frog-shaped woman with swollen
eyes.[247]
Most of these poems, as I have said, were composed and sung by women.
The same is true of a collection of Chinook songs (Northern Oregon and
adjacent country) made by Dr. Boas.[248] The majority of his poems, he
says, "are songs of love and jealousy, such as are made by Indian
women living in the cities, or by rejected lovers." These songs are
rather pointless, and do not tell us much about the subject of our
inquiry. Here are a few samples:
1. Yaya,
When you take a wife,
Yaya,
Don't become angry with me.
I do not care.
2. Where is Charlie going now?
Where is Charlie going now?
He comes back to see me,
I think.
3. Good-by, oh, my dear Charlie!
When you take a wife
Don't forget me.
4. I don't know how I feel
Toward Johnny.
That young man makes a foe of me.
5. My dear Annie,
If you cast off Jimmy Star,
Do not forget
How much he likes
You.
Of much greater interest are the "Songs of the Kwakiutl Indians," of
Vancouver Island, collected by Dr. Boas.[249] One of them is too
obscene to quote. The following lines evidence a pretty poetic fancy,
suggesting New Zealand poetry:
1. Y[=i]! Yawa, wish I could----and make my true love happy,
haigia, hay[=i]a.
Y[=i]! Yawa, wish I could arise from under the ground right
next to my true love, haigia hay[=i]a.
Y[=i]! Yawa, wish I could alight from the heights, from the
heights of the air right next to my true love, haigia,
hay[=i]a.
Y[=i]! Yawa, wish I could sit among the clouds and fly with
them to my true love.
Y[=i]! Yawa, I am downcast on account of my true love.
Y[=i]! Yawa, I cry for pain on account of my true love, my
dear.
Dr. Boas confesses that this song is somewhat freely translated. The
more's the pity. An expression like "my true love," surely is utterly
un-Indian.
2. An[=a]ma! Indeed my strong-hearted, my dear.
An[=a]ma! Indeed, my strong hearted, my dear.
An[=a]ma! Indeed my truth toward my dear.
Not pretend I I know having master my dear.
Not pretend I I know for whom I am gathering property, my
dear.
Not pretend I I know for whom I am gathering blankets, my
dear.
3. Like pain of fire runs down my body my love to you, my dear!
Like pain runs down my body my love to you, my dear.
Just as sickness is my love to you, my dear.
Just as a boil pains me my love to you, my dear.
Just as a fire burns me my love to you, my dear.
I am thinking of what you said to me
I am thinking of the love you bear me.
I am afraid of your love, my dear.
O pain! O pain!
Oh, where is my true love going, my dear?
Oh, they say she will be taken away far from here. She will
leave me, my true love, my dear.
My body feels numb on account of what I have said, my true
love, my dear.
Good-by, my true love, my dear.[250]
MORE LOVE-STORIES
Apart from "free translations" and embellishments, the great
difficulty with poems like these, taken down at the present day, is
that one never knows, though they may be told by a pure Indian, how
far they may have been influenced by the half-breeds or the
missionaries who have been with these Indians, in some cases for many
generations. The same is true of not a few of the stories attributed
to Indians.
Powers had heard among other "Indian" tales one of a lover's leap, and
another of a Mono maiden who loved an Awani brave and was imprisoned
by her cruel father in a cave until she perished. "But," says Powers
(368), "neither Choko nor any other Indian could give me any
information touching them, and Choko dismissed them all with the
contemptuous remark, '_White man too much lie_.'" I have shown in this
chapter how large is the number of white men who "too much lie" in
attributing to Indians stories, thoughts, and feelings, which no
Indian ever dreamt of.[251]
The genuine traditional literature of the Indians consists, as Powers
remarks (408), almost entirely of petty fables about animals, and
there is an almost total lack of human legends. Some there are, and a
few of them are quite pretty. Powers relates one (299) which may well
be Indian, the only suspicious feature being the reference to a
"beautiful" cloud (for Indians know only the utility, not the charm,
of nature).
"One day, as the sun was setting, Kiunaddissi's daughter
went out and saw a beautiful red cloud, the most lovely
cloud ever seen, resting like a bar along the horizon,
stretching southward. She cried out to her father, 'O
father, come and see this beautiful [bright?] cloud!' He did
so.... Next day the daughter took a basket and went out into
the plain to gather clover to eat. While picking the clover
she found a very pretty arrow, trimmed with yellow-hammer's
feathers. After gazing at it awhile in wonder she turned to
look at her basket, and there beside it stood a man who was
called Yang-wi'-a-kan-üh (Red Cloud) who was none other than
the cloud she had seen the day before. He was so bright and
resplendent to look upon that she was abashed; she modestly
hung down her head and uttered not a word. But he said to
her, 'I am not a stranger. You saw me last night; you see me
every night when the sun is setting. I love you; you love
me; look at me; be not afraid.' Then she said, 'If you love
me, take and eat this basket of grass-seed pinole.' He
touched the basket and in an instant all the pinole vanished
in the air, going no man knows whither. Thereupon the girl
fell away in a swoon, and lay a considerable time there upon
the ground. But when the man returned to her behold she had
given birth to a son. And the girl was abashed, and would
not look in his face, but she was full of joy because of her
new-born son."
The Indian's anthropomorphic way of looking at nature (instead of the
esthetic or scientific, both of which are as much beyond his mental
capacity as the faculty for sentimental love) is also illustrated by
the following Dakota tale, showing how two girls got married.[252]
"There were two women lying out of doors and looking up to
the shining stars. One of them said to the other, 'I wish
that very large and bright shining star was my husband,' The
other said, 'I wish that star that shines so brightly were
my husband.' Thereupon they both were immediately taken up.
They found themselves in a beautiful country, which was full
of twin flowers. They found that the star which shone most
brightly was a large man, while the other was only a young
man. So they each had a husband, and one became with child."
Fear and superstition are, as we know, among the obstacles which
prevent an Indian from appreciating the beauties of nature. The story
of the Yurok siren, as related by Powers (59), illustrates this point:
"There is a certain tract of country on the north side of
the Klamath River which nothing can induce an Indian to
enter. They say that there is a beautiful squaw living there
whose fascinations are fatal. When an Indian sees her he
straightway falls desperately in love. She decoys him
farther and farther into the forest, until at last she
climbs a tree and the man follows. She now changes into a
panther and kills him; then, resuming her proper form, she
cuts off his head and places it in a basket. She is now,
they say, a thousand years old, and has an Indian's head for
every year of her life."
Such tales as these may well have originated in an Indian's
imagination. Their local color is correct and charming, and they do
not attribute to a savage notions and emotions foreign to his mind and
customs.
"WHITE MAN TOO MUCH LIE"
It is otherwise with a class of Indian tales of which Schoolcraft's
are samples, and a few more of which may here be referred to. With the
unquestioning trust of a child the learned Waitz accepts as a specimen
of genuine romantic love a story[253] of an Indian maiden who, when an
arrow was aimed at her lover's heart, sprang before him and received
the barbed shaft in her own heart; and another of a Creek Indian who
jumped into a cataract with the girl he loved, meeting death with her
when he found he could not escape the tomahawk of the pursuers. The
solid facts of the first story will be hinted at presently in speaking
of Pocahontas; and as for the second story it is, reduced to Indian
realism, simply an incident of an elopement and pursuit such as may
have easily happened, though the motive of the elopement was nothing
more than the usual desire to avoid paying for the girl. Such
sentences as "she loved him with an intensity of passion that only the
noblest souls know," and "they vowed eternal love; they vowed to live
and die with each other," ought to have opened Waitz's eyes to the
fact that he was not reading an actual Indian story, but a story
sentimentalized and embellished in the cheapest modern dime-novel
style. The only thing such stories tell us is that "white man too much
lie."
White woman, too, is not always above suspicion. Mrs. Eastman assures
us that she got her Sioux legends from the Indians themselves. One of
these stories is entitled "The Track Maker" (122-23). During an
interval of peace between the Chippewas and Dakotas, she relates, a
party of Chippewas visited a camp of the Dakotas. A young Dakota
warrior fell in love with a girl included in the Chippewa party.
"_Though he would have died to save her from sorrow_, yet he knew that
she could never be his wife," for the tribes were ever at war. Here
Mrs. Eastman, with the recklessness of a newspaper reporter, puts into
an Indian's head a sentiment which no Indian ever dreamt of. All the
facts cited in this chapter prove this, and, moreover, the sequel of
her own story proves it. After exchanging vows of love (!) with the
Dakotan brave, the girl departed with her Chippewa friends. Shortly
afterward two Dakotas were murdered. The Chippewas were suspected, and
a party of warriors at once broke up in pursuit of the innocent and
unsuspecting party. The girl, whose name was Flying Shadow, saw her
lover among the pursuers, who had already commenced to slaughter and
scalp the other women, though the maidens clasped their hands in a
"vain appeal to the merciless wretches, who see neither beauty nor
grace when rage and revenge are in their hearts." Throwing herself in
his arms she cried, "Save me! save me! Do not let them slay me before
your eyes; make me your prisoner! You said that you loved me, spare my
life!" He did spare her life; he simply touched her with his spear,
then passed on, and a moment later the girl was slain and scalped by
his companions. And why did the gallant and self-sacrificing lover
touch her with his spear before he left her to be murdered? Because
touching an enemy--male or female--with his spear entitles the noble
red man to wear a feather of honor as if he had taken a scalp! Yet he
"would have died to save her from sorrow"!
An Indian's capacity for self-sacrifice is also revealed in a favorite
Blackfoot tale recorded by Grinnell (39-42). A squaw was picking
berries in a place rendered dangerous by the proximity of the enemy.
Suddenly her husband, who was on guard, saw a war party approaching.
Signalling to the squaw, they mounted their horses and took to flight.
The wife's horse, not being a good one, soon tired out and the husband
had to take her on his. But this was too much of a load even for his
powerful animal. The enemy gained on them constantly. Presently he
said to his wife: "Get off. The enemy will not kill you. You are too
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