young and pretty. Some one of them will take you, and I will get a big
party of our people and rescue you." But the woman cried "No, no, I
will die here with you." "Crazy person," cried the man, and with a
quick jerk he threw the woman off and escaped. Having reached the
lodge safely, he painted himself black and "walked all through the
camp crying." Poor fellow! How he loved his wife! The Indian, as
Catlin truly remarked, "is not in the least behind us in conjugal
affection." The only difference--a trifling one to be sure--is that a
white man, under such circumstances, would have spilt his last drop of
blood in defence of his wife's life and her honor.


THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS

The rescue of John Smith by Pocahontas is commonly held to prove that
the young Indian girl, smitten with sudden love for the white man,
risked her life for him. This fanciful notion has however, been
irreparably damaged by John Fiske (_O.V._, I., 102-111). It is true
that "the Indians debated together, and presently two big stones were
placed before the chiefs, and Smith was dragged thither and his head
laid upon them;" and that

"even while warriors were standing with clubs in hand, to
beat his brains out, the chief's young daughter Pocahontas
rushed up and embraced him, whereupon her father spared his
life."

It is true also that Smith himself thought and wrote that "Pocahontas
hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save" his. But she did
no such thing. Smith simply was ignorant of Indian customs:

"From the Indian point of view there was nothing romantic or
extraordinary in such a rescue: it was simply a not uncommon
matter of business. The romance with which readers have
always invested it is the outcome of a misconception no less
complete than that which led the fair dames of London to
make obeisance to the tawny Pocahontas as to a princess of
imperial lineage. Time and again it used to happen that when
a prisoner was about to be slaughtered some one of the dusky
assemblage, moved by pity or admiration or some unexplained
freak, would interpose in behalf of the victim; and as a
rule such interposition was heeded. Many a poor wretch,
already tied to the fatal tree and benumbed with unspeakable
terror, while the firebrands were heating for his torment,
has been rescued from the jaws of death and adopted as
brother or lover by some laughing young squaw, or as a son
by some grave wrinkled warrior. In such cases the new-comer
was allowed entire freedom and treated like one of the
tribe.... Pocahontas, therefore, did not hazard the beating
out of her own brains, though the rescued stranger, looking
with civilized eyes, would naturally see it in that light.
Her brains were perfectly safe. This thirteen-year-old squaw
liked the handsome prisoner, claimed him, and got him,
according to custom."


VERDICT: NO ROMANTIC LOVE

In the hundreds of genuine Indian tales collected by Boas I have not
discovered a trace of sentiment, or even of sentimentality. The notion
that there is any refinement of passion or morality in the sexual
relations of the American aborigines has been fostered chiefly by the
stories and poems of the whites--generally such as had only a
superficial acquaintance with the red men. "The less we see and know
of real Indians," wrote G.E. Ellis (111), "the easier will it be to
make and read poems about them." General Custer comments on Cooper's
false estimate of Indian character, which has misled so many.

"Stripped of the beautiful romance with which we have been
so long willing to envelop him, transferred from the
inviting pages of the novelist to the localities where we
are compelled to meet with him in his native village, on the
warpath, and when raiding upon our frontier settlements and
lines of travel, the Indian forfeits his claim to the
appellation of the 'noble red man'" (12).

The great explorer Stanley did not see as much of the American savage
as of the African, yet he had no difficulty in taking the American's
correct measure. In his _Early Travels and Adventures_ (41-43), he
pokes fun at the romantic ideas that poets and novelists have given
about Indian maidens and their loves, and then tells in unadorned
terms what he saw with his own eyes--Indian girls with "coarse black
hair, low foreheads, blazing coal-black eyes, faces of a dirty, greasy
color"--and the Indian young man whose romance of wooing is comprised
in the question, "How much is she worth?'"

One of the keenest and most careful observers of Indian life, the
naturalist Bates, after living several years among the natives of
Brazil, wrote concerning them (293):

"Their phlegmatic, apathetic temperament; coldness of desire
and deadness of feeling; want of curiosity and slowness of
intellect, make the Amazonian Indians very uninteresting
companions anywhere. Their imagination is of a dull-gloomy
quality, and they seemed never to be stirred by the
emotions--love, pity, admiration, fear, wonder, joy,
enthusiasm. These are characteristics of the whole race,"

In Schoolcraft (V., 272) we read regarding the Creeks that "the
refined passion of love is unknown to any of them, although they apply
the word _love_ to rum or anything else they wish to be possessed of."
A capital definition of Indian love! I have already quoted the opinion
of the eminent expert George Gibbs that the attachment existing among
the Indians of Oregon and Washington, though it is sometimes so strong
as to lead to suicide, is too sensual to deserve the name of love.
Another eminent traveller, Keating, says (II., 158) concerning the
Chippewas:

"We are not disposed to believe that there is frequently
among the Chippewas an inclination entirely destitute of
sensual considerations and partaking of the nature of a
sentiment; such may exist in a few instances, but in their
state of society it appears almost impossible that it should
be a common occurrence."

M'Lean, after living for twenty-five years among Indians, says, in
writing of the Nascopies (II., 127):

"Considering the manner in which their women are treated it
can scarcely be supposed that their courtships are much
influenced by sentiments of love; in fact, the tender
passion seems unknown to the savage breast."

From his observations of Canadian Indians Heriot came to the
conclusion (324) that "The passion of love is of too delicate a nature
to admit of divided affections, and its real influence can scarcely be
felt in a society where polygamy is tolerated." And again (331): "The
passion of love, feeble unless aided by imagination, is of a nature
too refined to acquire a great degree of influence over the mind of
savages." He thinks that their mode of life deadens even the physical
ardor for the sex, but adds that the females appear to be "much more
sensible of tender impressions." Even Schoolcraft admits implicitly
that Indian love cannot have been sentimental and esthetic, but only
sensual, when he says (_Travels_, etc., 231) that Indian women are
"without either mental resources or personal beauty."

But the most valuable and weighty evidence on this point is supplied
by Lewis A. Morgan in his classical book, _The League of the Iroquois_
(320-35). He was an adopted member of the Senecas, among whom he spent
nearly forty years of his life, thus having unequalled opportunities
for observation and study. He was moreover a man of scientific
training and a thinker, whose contributions to some branches of
anthropology are of exceptional value. His bias, moreover, is rather
in favor of the Indians than against them, which doubles the weight of
his testimony. This testimony has already been cited in part, but in
summing up the subject I will repeat it with more detail. He tells us
that marriage among these Indians "was not founded on the affections
... but was regulated exclusively as a matter of physical necessity."
The match was made by the mothers, and

"not the least singular feature of the transaction was the
entire ignorance in which the parties remained of the
pending negotiations; the first intimation they received
being the announcement of their marriage without, perhaps,
ever having known or seen each other. Remonstrance or
objections on their part was never attempted; they received
each other as the gift of their parents."

There was no visiting or courting, little or no conversation between
the unmarried, no attempts were made to please each other, and the man
regarded the woman as his inferior and servant. The result of such a
state of affairs is summed up by Morgan in this memorable passage:

"From the nature of the marriage institution among the
Iroquois it follows that the passion of love was entirely
unknown among them. Affections after marriage would
naturally spring up between the parties from association,
from habit, and from mutual dependence; but of that
marvellous passion which originates in a higher development
of the passions of the human heart and is founded upon the
cultivation of the affections between the sexes they were
entirely ignorant. In their temperaments they were below
this passion in its simplest forms. Attachments between
individuals, or the cultivation of each other's affections
before marriage, was entirely unknown; so also were promises
of marriage."

Morgan regrets that his remarks "may perhaps divest the mind of some
pleasing impressions" created by novelists and poets concerning the
attachments which spring up in the bosom of Indian society; but these,
he adds, are "entirely inconsistent with the marriage institution as
it existed among them, and with the facts of their social history." I
may add that another careful observer who had lived among the Indians,
Parkman, cites Morgan's remarks as to their incapacity for love with
approval.

There is one more important conclusion to be drawn from Morgan's
evidence. The Iroquois were among the most advanced of all Indians.
"In intelligence," says Brinton (_A.R._, 82), "their position must be
placed among the highest." As early as the middle of the fifteenth
century the great chief Hiawatha completed the famous political league
of the Iroquois. The women, though regarded as inferiors, had more
power and authority than among most other Indians. Morgan speaks of
the "unparallelled generosity" of the Iroquois, of their love of
truth, their strict adherence to the faith of treaties, their
ignorance of theft, their severe punishment for the infrequent crimes
and offences that occurred among them. The account he gives of their
various festivals, their eloquence, their devout religious feeling and
gratitude to the Great Spirit for favors received, the thanks
addressed to the earth, the rivers, the useful herbs, the moving wind
which banishes disease, the sun, moon, and stars for the light they
give, shows them to be far superior to most of the red men. And yet
they were "below the passion of love in its simplest forms." Thus we
see once more that refinement of sexual feeling, far from being, as
the sentimentalists would have us believe, shared with us by the
lowest savages, is in reality one of the latest products of
civilization--if not the very latest.


THE UNLOVING ESKIMO

Throughout this chapter no reference has been made to the Eskimos, who
are popularly considered a race apart from the Indians. The best
authorities now believe that they are a strictly American race, whose
primal home was to the south of the Hudson Bay, whence they spread
northward to Labrador, Greenland, and Alaska.[254] I have reserved
them for separate consideration because they admirably illustrate the
grand truth just formulated, that a race may have made considerable
progress in some directions and yet be quite below the sentiment of
love. Westermarck's opinion (516) that the Eskimos are "a rather
advanced race" is borne out by the testimony of those who have known
them well. They are described as singularly cheerful and good-natured
among themselves. Hall says "their memory is remarkably good, and
their intellectual powers, in all that relates to their native land,
its inhabitants, its coasts, and interior parts, is of a surprisingly
high order" (I., 128). But what is of particular interest is the great
aptitude Eskimos seem to show for art, and their fondness for poetry
and music. King[255] says that "the art of carving is universally
practised" by them, and he speaks of their models of men, animals, and
utensils as "executed in a masterly style." Brinton indeed says they
have a more artistic eye for picture-writing than any Indian race
north of Mexico. They enliven their long winter nights with
imaginative tales, music, and song. Their poets are held in high
honor, and it is said they get their notion of the music of verse by
sleeping by the sound of running water, that they may catch its
mysterious notes.

Yet when we look at the Eskimos from another point of view we find
them horribly and bestially unaesthetic. Cranz speaks of "their filthy
clothes swarming with vermin." They make their oil by chewing seal
blubber and spurting the liquid into a vessel. "A kettle is seldom
washed except the dogs chance to lick it clean." Mothers wash
children's faces by licking them all over.[256]

Such utter lack of delicacy prepares us for the statement that the
Eskimos are equally coarse in other respects, notably in their
treatment of women and their sexual feelings. It would be a stigma
upon an Eskimo's character, says Cranz (I., 154), "if he so much as
drew a seal out of the water." Having performed the pleasantly
exciting part of killing it, he leaves all the drudgery and hard work
of hauling, butchering, cooking, tanning, shoe-making, etc., to the
women. They build the houses, too, while the men look on with the
greatest insensibility, not stirring a finger to assist them in
carrying the heavy stones. Girls are often "engaged" as soon as born,
nor are those who grow up free allowed to marry according to their own
preference. "When friendly exhortations are unavailing she is
compelled by force, and even blows, to receive her husband." (Cranz,
I., 146.) They consider children troublesome, and the race is dying
out. Women are not allowed to eat of the first seal of the season. The
sick are left to take care of themselves. (Hall, II., 322, I., 103.)
In years of scarcity widows "are rejected from the community, and
hover about the encampments like starving wolves ... until hunger and
cold terminate their wretched existence." (M'Lean, II., 143.) Men and
women alike are without any sense of modesty; in their warm hovels
both sexes divest themselves of nearly all their clothing. Nor,
although they fight and punish jealousy, have they any regard for
chastity _per se_. Lending a wife or daughter to a guest is a
recognized duty of hospitality. Young couples live together on trial.
When the husband is away hunting or fishing the wife has her
intrigues, and often adultery is committed _sans gêne_ on either side.
Unnatural vices are indulged in without secrecy, and altogether the
picture is one of utter depravity and coarseness.[257]

Under such circumstances we hardly needed the specific assurance of
Rink, who collected and published a volume of _Tales and Traditions of
the Eskimo_, and who says that "never is much room given in this
poetry to the almost universal feeling of love." He refers, of course,
to any kind of love, and he puts it very mildly. Not only is there no
trace of altruistic affection in any of these tales and traditions,
but the few erotic stories recorded (_e.g._, pp. 236-37) are too
coarse to be cited or summarized here. Hall, too, concluded that
"love--if it come at all--comes after marriage." He also informs us
(II., 313) that there "generally exists between husband and wife a
steady but not very demonstrative affection;" but here he evidently
wrongs the Eskimos; for, as he himself remarks (126), they

"always summarily punish their wives for any real or
imaginary offence. They seize the first thing at hand--a
stone, knife, hatchet, or spear--and throw it at the
offending woman, just as they would at their dogs."

What could be more "demonstrative" than such "steady affection?"


INDIA--WILD TRIBES AND TEMPLE GIRLS

India, it has been aptly said, "forms a great museum of races in which
we can study man from his lowest to his highest stages of culture." It
is this multiplicity of races and their lack of patriotic co-operation
that explains the conquest of the hundreds of millions of India by the
tens of millions of England. Obviously it would be impossible to make
any general assertion regarding love that would apply equally to the
10,000,000 educated Brahmans, who consider themselves little inferior
to gods, the 9,000,000 outcasts who are esteemed and treated
infinitely worse than animals, and the 17,000,000 of the aboriginal
tribes who are comparable in position and culture to our American
Indians. Nevertheless, we can get an approximately correct composite
portrait of love in India by making two groups and studying first, the
aboriginal tribes, and then the more or less civilized Hindoos (using
this word in the most comprehensive sense), with their peculiar
customs, laws, poetic literature, and bayadères, or temple girls.

In Bengal and Assam alone, which form but a small corner of this vast
country, the aborigines are divided into nearly sixty distinct races,
differing from each other in various ways, as American tribes do. They
have not been described by as many and as careful observers as our
American Indians have, but the writings of Lewin, Galton, Rowney, Man,
Shortt, Watson and Kaye, and others supply sufficient data to enable
us to understand the nature of their amorous feelings.


"WHOLE TRACTS OF FEELING UNKNOWN TO THEM"

Lewin gives us the interesting information (345-47) that with the
Chittagong hill-tribes

"women enjoy perfect freedom of action; they go unveiled,
they would seem to have equal rights of heritage with men,
while their power of selecting their own husband is to the
full as free as that of our own English maidens."

Moreover, "in these hills the crime of infidelity among wives is
almost unknown; so also harlots and courtesans are held in abhorrence
amongst them."

On reading these lines our hopes are raised that at last we may have
come upon a soil favorable to the growth of true love. But Lewin's
further remarks dispel that illusion:

"In marriage, with us, a perfect world springs up at
the word, of tenderness, of fellowship, trust, and
self-devotion. With them it is a mere animal and
convenient connection for procreating their species and
getting their dinner cooked. They have no idea of
tenderness, nor of the chivalrous devotion that
prompted the old Galilean fisherman when he said 'Give
ye honor unto the woman as to the weaker vessel,' ...
The best of them will refuse to carry a burden if there
be a wife, mother, or sister near at hand to perform
the task." "_There are whole tracts of mind, and
thought, and feeling, which are unknown to them_."


PRACTICAL PROMISCUITY

One of the most important details of my theory is that while there can
be no romantic love without opportunity for genuine courtship and free
choice, nevertheless the existence of such opportunity and choice does
not guarantee the presence of love unless the other conditions for its
growth--general refinement and altruistic impulses--coexist with them.
Among the Chittagong hill-tribes these conditions--constituting "whole
tracts of mind, and thought, and feeling"--do not coexist with the
liberty of choice, hence it is useless to look for love in our sense
of the word. Moreover, when we further read in Lewin that the reason
why there are no harlots is that they "are rendered unnecessary by the
freedom of intercourse indulged in and allowed to both sexes before
marriage," we see that what at first seemed a virtue is really a mark
of lower degradation. Some of the oldest legislators, like Zoroaster
and Solon, already recognized the truth that it was far better to
sacrifice a few women to the demon of immorality than to expose them
all to contamination. The wild tribes of India in general have not yet
arrived at that point of view. In their indifference to chastity they
rank with the lowest savages, and usually there is a great deal of
promiscuous indulgence before a mate is chosen for a union of
endurance. Among the Oráons, as Dalton tells us (248), "liaisons
between boys and girls of the same village seldom end in marriage;"
and he gives strange details regarding the conduct of the young people
which may not be cited here, and in which the natives see "no
impropriety." Regarding the Butias Rowney says (142):

"The marriage tie is so loose that chastity is quite
unknown amongst them. The husbands are indifferent to
the honor of their wives, and the wives do not care to
preserve that which has no value attached to it. ...
The intercourse of the sexes is, in fact, promiscuous."

Of the Lepchas Rowney says (139) that "chastity in adult girls
previous to marriage is neither to be met with nor cared for." Of the
Mishmees he says (163): "Wives are not expected to be chaste, and are
not thought worse off when otherwise," and of the Kookies (186): "All
the women of a village, married or unmarried, are available to the
chief at his will, and no stigma attaches to those who are favored by
him." In some tribes wives are freely exchanged. Dalton says of the
Butan (98) that "the intercourse between the sexes is practically
promiscuous." Rhyongtha girls indulge in promiscuous intercourse with
several lovers before marriage. (Lewin, 121.) With the Kurmuba, "no
such ceremony as marriage exists." They "live together like the brute
creation." (W.R. King, 44.)

My theory that in practice, at any rate, if not in form, promiscuity
was the original state of affairs among savages, in India as
elsewhere, is supported by the foregoing facts, and also by what
various writers have told us regarding the licentious festivals
indulged in by these wild tribes of India. "It would appear," says
Dalton (300),

"that most of the hill-tribes found it necessary to
promote marriage by stimulating intercourse between the
sexes at particular seasons of the year.... At one of
the Kandh festivals held in November all the lads and
lasses assemble for a spree, and a bachelor has then
the privilege of making off with any unmarried girl
whom he can induce to go with him, subject to a
subsequent arrangement with the parents of the maiden."

Dalton gives a vivid description of these festivals as practised by
the Hos in January, when the granaries are full of wheat and the
natives "full of deviltry:"

"They have a strange notion that at this period men and
women are so overcharged with vicious propensities,
that it is absolutely necessary for the safety of the
person to let off steam by allowing, for a time, full
vent to the passions. The festival therefore becomes a
saturnale, during which servants forget their duties to
their masters, children their reverence for parents,
even their respect for women, and women all notions of
modesty, delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging
bacchantes....

"The Ho population of the village forming the environs
of Chaibasa are at other seasons quiet and reserved in
manner, and in their demeanor toward women gentle and
decorous; even in the flirtations I have spoken of they
never transcend the bounds of decency. The girls,
though full of spirits and somewhat saucy, have innate
notions of propriety that make them modest in demeanor,
though devoid of all prudery.... Since their adoption
of clothing they are careful to drape themselves
decently as well as gracefully, but they throw all this
aside during the Mágh feast. Their natures appear to
undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile
their parents in gross language, and parents their
children; men and women become almost like animals in
the indulgence of their amorous propensities. They
enact all that was ever portrayed by prurient artists
in a bacchanalian festival or pandean orgy; and as the
light of the sun they adore and the presence of
numerous spectators seem to be no restraint on their
indulgence, it cannot be expected that chastity is
preserved when the shades of night fall on such a scene
of licentiousness and debauchery."


"MARVELLOUSLY PRETTY AND ROMANTIC"

Nor are these festivals of rare occurrence. They last three or four
days and are held at the different villages at different dates, so the
inhabitants of each may take part in "a long succession of these
orgies." When Dalton declares (206) regarding these coarse and
dissolute Hos, who thus spend a part of each year in "a long
succession of orgies," in which their own wives and daughters
participate, that they are nevertheless capable of the higher
emotions--though he admits they have no words for them--he merely
proves that long intercourse with such savages blunted his own
sensibilities, or what is more probable--that he himself never
understood the real nature of the higher emotions--those "tracts of
feeling" which Lewin found missing among the hill-tribes. We are
confirmed in this suspicion by noticing Dalton's ecstatic delight over
the immoral courtship customs of the Bhúiyas, which he found
"marvellously pretty and romantic" and describes as follows:

"In each village there is, as with the Oráons, an open
space for a dancing ground, called by the Bhúiyas the
Darbár; and near it the bachelors' hall.... here the
young men must all sleep at night, and here the drums
are kept. Some villages have a 'Dhangarin bássa,' or
house for maidens, which, strange to say, they are
allowed to occupy without anyone to look after them.
They appear to have very great liberty, and slips of
morality, as long as they are confined to the tribe,
are not much heeded. Whenever the young men of the
village go to the Darbár and beat the drums the young
girls join them there, and they spend their evenings
dancing and enjoying themselves without any
interference on the part of the elders.

"The more exciting and exhilarating occasions are when
the young men of one village proceed to visit the
maidens of another village, or when the maidens return
the call. The young men provide themselves with
presents for the girls, generally consisting of combs
for the hair and sweets, and going straight to the
Darbár of the village they visit, they proclaim their
arrival loudly by beating their drums and tambourines.
The girls of that village immediately join them. Their
male relations and neighbors must keep entirely out of
view, leaving the field clear for the guests. The
offerings of the visitors are now gallantly presented
and graciously accepted and the girls at once set to
work to prepare a dinner for their beaux, and after the
meal they dance and sing and flirt all night together,
and the morning dawns on more than one pair of pledged
lovers. Then the girls, if the young men have conducted
themselves to their satisfaction, make ready the
morning meal for themselves and their guests; after
which the latter rise to depart, and still dancing and
playing on the drums, move out of the village followed
by the girls, who escort them to the boundary. This is
generally a rock-broken stream with wooded banks; here
they halt, the girls on one side, the lads on the
other, and to the accompaniment of the babbling brook
sing to each other in true bucolic style. The song on
these occasions is to a certain extent improvised, and
is a pleasant mixture of raillery and love-making....

"The song ended, the girls go down on their knees, and
bowing to the ground respectfully salute the young men,
who gravely and formally return the compliment, and
they part.

"The visit is soon returned by the girls. They are
received by the young men in their Darbár and
entertained, and the girls of the receiving village
must not be seen....

"They have certainly more wit, more romance, and more
poetry in their composition than is usually found among
the country folk in India."


LIBERTY OF CHOICE

All this may indeed be "marvellously pretty and romantic," but I fail
to see the least indication of the "higher emotions." Nor can I find
them in some further interesting remarks regarding the Hos made by the
same author (192-93). Thirty years ago, he says, a girl of the better
class cost forty or fifty head of cattle. Result--a decrease in the
number of marriages and an increase of immoral intimacies. Sometimes a
girl runs away with her lover, but the objection to this is that
elopements are not considered respectable.

"It is certainly not from any yearning for celibacy
that the marriage of Singbhum maidens is so long
postponed. The girls will tell you frankly that they do
all they can to please the young men, and I have often
heard them pathetically bewailing their want of
success. They make themselves as attractive as they
can, flirt in the most demonstrative manner, and are
not too coy to receive in public attentions from those
they admire. They may be often seen in well-assorted
pairs returning from market with arms interlaced, and
looking at each other as lovingly as if they were so
many groups of Cupids and Psyches, but with all this
the 'men will not propose.' Tell a maiden you think her
nice-looking, she is sure to reply 'Oh, yes! I am, but
what is the use of it, the young men of my acquaintance
don't see it.'"

Here we note a frankly commercial view of marriage, without any
reference to "higher emotions." In this tribe, too, the girls are not
allowed the liberty of choice. Indeed, when we examine this point we
find that Westermarck is wrong, as usual, in assigning such a
privilege to the girls of most of these tribes. He himself is obliged
to admit (224) that

"in many of the uncivilized tribes of India parents are in
the habit of betrothing their sons.... The paternal
authority approaches the _patria potestas_ of the ancient
Aryan nations."

The Kisans, Mundas, Santals, Máriás, Mishmis, Bhils, and Yoonthalin
Karens are tribes among whom fathers thus reserve the right of
selecting wives for their sons; and it is obvious that in all such
cases daughters have still less choice than sons. Colonel Macpherson
throws light on this point when he says of the Kandhs:

"The parents obtain the wives of their sons during
their boyhood, as very valuable _domestic servants,_
and _their selections are avowedly made with a view to
utility in this character."_[258]

Rowney reports (103) that the Khond boys are married at the age of ten
and twelve to girls of fifteen to sixteen; and among the Reddies it is
even customary to marry boys of five or six years to women of sixteen
to twenty. The "wife," however, lives with an uncle or relation, who
begets children for the boy-husband. When the boy grows up his "wife"
is perhaps too old for him, so he in turn takes possession of some
other boy's "wife".[259] The young folks are obviously in the habit of
obeying implicitly, for as Dalton says (132) of the Kisans, "There is
no instance on record of a youth or maiden objecting to the
arrangement made for them." With the Savaras, Boad Kandhs, Hos, and
Kaupuis, the prevalence of elopements shows that the girls are not
allowed their own choice. Lepcha marriages are often made on credit,
and are breakable if the payment bargained for is not made to the
parent within the specified time. (Rowney, 139.)[260]


SCALPS AND FIELD-MICE

While among the Nagas, as already stated, the women must do all the
hard work, they have one privilege: tribal custom allows them to
refuse a suitor until he has put in their hands a human skull or
scalp; and the gentle maidens make rigorous use of this privilege--so
much so that in consequence of the difficulty of securing these "gory
tokens of love" marriages are contracted late in life. The head need
not be that of an enemy: "A skull may be acquired by the blackest
treachery, but so long as the victim was not a member of the clan,"
says Dalton (39), "it is accepted as a chivalrous offering of a true
knight to his lady," Dalton gives another and less grewsome instance
of "chivalry" occurring among the Oráons (253).

"A young man shows his inclination for a girl thus: He
sticks flowers in the mass of her back-hair, and if she
subsequently return the compliment, it is concluded
that she desires a continuance of his attention. The
next step may be an offering to his lady-love of some
nicely grilled field-mice, which the Oráons declare to
be the most delicate of food. Tender looks and squeezes
whilst both are engaged in the dance are not much
thought of. They are regarded merely as the result of
emotions naturally arising from pleasant contiguity and
exciting strains; but when it comes to flowers and
field-mice, matters look serious."


A TOPSY-TURVY CUSTOM

Coyness as well as primitive gallantry has its amusing phases among
these wild tribes. The following description seems so much like an
extravaganza that the reader may suspect it to be an abstract of a
story by Frank Stockton or a libretto by Gilbert; but it is a serious
page from Dalton's _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_ (63-64). It
relates to the Garos, who are thus described:

"The women are on the whole the most unlovely of the
sex, but I was struck with the pretty, plump, nude
figures, the merry musical voices and good-humored
countenances of the Garos girls. Their sole garment is
a piece of cloth less than a foot in breadth that just
meets round the loins, and in order that it may not
restrain the limbs it is only fastened where it meets
under the hip at the upper corners."

But if they have not much to boast of in the way of dress, these girls
enjoy a privilege rare in India or elsewhere of making the first
advances.

"As there is no restriction on innocent intercourse,
the boys and girls freely mixing together in the labors
of the field and other pursuits, an amorous young lady
has ample opportunity of declaring her partiality, and
it is her privileged duty to speak first.... The maiden
coyly tells the youth to whom she is about to surrender
herself that she has prepared a spot in some quiet and
secluded valley to which she invites him.... In two or
three days they return to the village and their union
is then publicly proclaimed and solemnized. Any
infringement of the rule which declares that the
initiative shall in such cases rest with the girl is
summarily and severely punished."

For a man to make the advances would be an insult not only to the girl
but to the whole tribe, resulting in fines. But let us hear the rest
of the topsy-turvy story.

"The marriage ceremony chiefly consists of dancing,
singing, and feasting. The bride is taken down to the
nearest stream and bathed, and the party next proceeds
to the house of the bridegroom, who pretends to be
unwilling and runs away, but is caught and subjected to
a similar ablution, and then taken, in spite of the
resistance and the counterfeited grief and lamentation
of his parents, to the bride's house."

It is true that this inversion of the usual process of proposing and
acting a comedy of sham coyness occurs only in the case of the poor
girls, the wealthy ones being betrothed by their parents in infancy;
but it would be interesting to learn the origin of this quaint custom
from someone who has had a chance to study this tribe. Probably the
girl's poverty furnishes the key. The whole thing seems like a
practical joke raised to the dignity of an institution. The perversion
of all ordinary rules is consistently carried out in this, too, that
"if the old people refuse they can be beaten into compliance!" That
the loss of female coyness is not a gain to the cause of love or of
virtue is self-evident.


PAHÁRIA LADS AND LASSES

Thus, once more, we are baffled in our attempts to find genuine
romantic love. Of its fourteen ingredients the altruistic ones are
missing entirely. What Dalton writes (248) regarding the Oráons,

"Dhúmkúria lads are no doubt great flirts, but each has
a special favorite among the young girls of his
acquaintance, and the girls well know to whose touch
and pressure in the dance each maiden's heart is
especially responsive," will not mislead any reader of
this book, who will know that it indicates merely
individual preference, which goes with all sorts of
love, and is moreover, characteristically shallow here;
for, as Dalton has told us, these village flirtations
"seldom end in marriage."

The other ingredients that primitive love shares with romantic
love--monopoly, jealousy, coyness, etc., are also, as we saw, weak
among the wild tribes of India. Westermarck (503) indeed fancied he
had discovered the occurrence among them of "the absorbing passion for
one." "Colonel Dalton," he says, "represents the Pahária lads and
lasses as forming very romantic attachments; 'if separated only for an
hour,' he says, 'they are miserable.'" In reality Dalton does not