Part 58 (1/2)
”before marriage the greatest license is permitted to young females. The more admirers they can attract and the greater their reputation for intrigue, the fairer is their chance of making an advantageous match.”
William Brown writes (35) that ”among the Maoris chast.i.ty is not deemed one of the virtues; and a lady before marriage may be as liberal of her favors as she pleased without incurring censure.” ”As a rule,” writes E. Tregear in the _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_ (1889),
”the girls had great license in the way of lovers. I don't think the young woman knew when she was a virgin, for she had love-affairs with the boys from the cradle.
This does not apply, of course, to _every_ individual case--some girls are born proud, and either kept to one sweetheart or had none, but this was rare.”
After marriage a woman was expected to remain faithful to her husband, but of course not from any regard for chast.i.ty, but because she was his private property. Like so many other uncivilized races the Maori saw no impropriety in lending his wife to a friend. (Tregear, 104.)
The faces of Maori women were always wet with red ochre and oil. Both s.e.xes anointed their hair (which was vermin-infested) with rancid shark's oil, so that they were as disagreeable to the smell as Hottentots. (Hawkesworth, 451-53.) They were cannibals, not from necessity, but for the love of human flesh, though they did not, like the Australians, eat their own relatives. Food, says Thompson (I., 160), affected them ”as it does wild beasts.” They practised infanticide, killed cripples, abandoned the sick--in a word, they displayed a coa.r.s.eness, a lack of delicacy, in s.e.xual and other matters, which makes it simply absurd to suppose they could have loved as we love, with our altruistic feeling of sympathy and affection.
William Brown says (38) that mothers showed none of that doting fondness for their children common elsewhere, and that they suckled pigs and pups with ”affection.” ”Should a husband quarrel with his wife, she would not hesitate to kill her children, merely to annoy him” (41). ”They are totally devoid of natural affection.” The men ”appear to care little for their wives,” apparently from
”a want of that sympathy between the s.e.xes which is the source of the delicate attentions paid by the male to the female in most civilized countries. In my own experience I have seen only one instance where there was any perceptible attachment between husband and wife. To all appearance they behave to each other as if they were not at all related; and it not infrequently happens that they sleep in different places before the termination of the first week of their marriage.”
Thus even in the romantic isles of the Pacific we seek in vain for true love. Let us now see whether the vast continent of North and South America will bring us any nearer to our goal.
HOW AMERICAN INDIANS LOVE
”On the subject of love no persons have been less understood than the Indians,” wrote Thomas Ashe in 1806 (271).
”It is said of them that they have no affection, and that the intercourse of the s.e.xes is sustained by a brutal pa.s.sion remote from tenderness and sensibility. This is one of the many gross errors which have been propagated to calumniate these innocent people.”
Waitz remarks (III., 102):
”How much alike human nature is everywhere is evinced by the remarkable circ.u.mstance that notwithstanding the degradation of woman, cases of romantic love are not even very rare”
among Indians. ”Their languages,” writes Professor Brinton (_R.P._, 54),
”supply us with evidence that the sentiment of love was awake among them, and this is corroborated by the incidents we learn of their domestic life.... Some of the songs and stories of this race seem to reveal even a capability for romantic love such as would do credit to a modern novel. This is the more astonis.h.i.+ng, as in the African and Mongolian races this ethereal sentiment is practically absent, the idealism of pa.s.sion being something foreign to those varieties of man.”
The Indians, says Catlin (_N.A.I._, I., 121), ”are not in the least behind us in conjugal, in filial, and in paternal affection.” In the preface to Mrs. Eastman's _Life and Legend of the Sioux_, Mrs. Kirkman exclaims that
”in spite of all that renders gross and mechanical their ordinary mode of marrying and giving in marriage, instances are not rare among them of love as true, as fiery, and as fatal as that of the most exalted hero of romance.”
Let us listen to a few of the tales of Indian love, as recorded by Schoolcraft.[195]
THE RED LOVER
Many years ago there lived a Chippewa warrior on the banks of Lake Superior. His name was Wawanosh and he was renowed for his ancestry and personal bravery. He had an only daughter, eighteen years old, celebrated for her gentle virtues, her _slender_ form, her full beaming hazel eyes, and her dark and flowing hair. Her hand was sought by a young man of humble parentage, but a tall commanding form, a manly step, and an eye beaming with the tropical fires of love and youth. These were sufficient to attract the favorable notice of the daughter, but did not satisfy the father, who sternly informed the young man that before he could hope to mingle his humble blood with that of so renowned a warrior he would have to go and make a name for himself by enduring fatigue in the campaigns against enemies, by taking scalps, and proving himself a successful hunter.
The intimidated lover departed, resolved to do a deed that should render him worthy of the daughter of Wawanosh, or die in the attempt.
In a few days he succeeded in getting together a band of young men all eager, like himself, to distinguish themselves in battle. Armed with bow and quiver, and ornamented with war-paint and feathers, they had their war-dance, which was continued for two days and nights. Before leaving with his companions the leader sought an interview with the daughter of Wawanosh. He disclosed to her his firm intention never to return unless he could establish his name as a warrior. He told her of the pangs he had felt at her father's implied imputation of effeminacy and cowardice. He averred that he never could be happy, either with or without her, until he had proved to the whole tribe the strength of his heart, which is the Indian term for courage. He repeated his _protestations of inviolable attachment_, which she returned, and, _pledging vows of mutual fidelity_, they parted.
She never saw him again. A warrior brought home the tidings that he had received a fatal arrow in his breast after distinguis.h.i.+ng himself by the most heroic bravery. From that moment the young girl never smiled again. She pined away by day and by night. Deaf to entreaty and reproach, she would seek a sequestered spot, where she would sit under a shady tree, and sing her mournful laments for hours together. A small, beautiful bird, of a kind she had never seen, sat on her tree, every day, singing until dark. Her fond imagination soon led her to suppose it was the spirit of her lover, and her visits were repeated with greater frequency. She pa.s.sed her time in fasting and singing her plaintive songs. Thus she pined away, until _the death she so fervently desired_ came to her relief. After her death the bird was never more seen, and it became a popular opinion that this mysterious bird had flown away with her spirit. But bitter tears of regret fell in the lodge of Wawanosh. Too late he _regretted his false pride_ and his harsh treatment of the n.o.ble youth.
THE FOAM WOMAN
There once lived an Ottawa woman on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Michigan who had a daughter as beautiful as she was modest and discreet. She was so handsome that her mother feared she would be carried off, and, to prevent it, she put her in a box on the lake, which was tied by a long string to a stake on the sh.o.r.e. Every morning the mother pulled the box ash.o.r.e, and combed her daughter's long, s.h.i.+ning hair, gave her food, and then put her out again on the lake.
One day a handsome young man chanced to come to the spot at the moment she was receiving her morning's attentions from her mother. He was struck with her beauty and immediately went home and told his feelings to his uncle, who was a great chief and a powerful magician. The uncle told him to go to the mother's lodge, sit down in a modest manner, and, without saying a word, _think_ what he wanted, and he would be understood and answered. He did so; but the mother's answer was: ”Give you my daughter? No, indeed, my daughter shall never marry _you_.”