Part 60 (2/2)
Of the New York Indians J. Buchanan wrote (II., 104):
”that it is no offence for their married women to a.s.sociate 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 chast.i.ty;” 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 admire le valeur dans le combat, a s'unir a leurs femmes pour perpetuer 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 diminis.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.bler specimen of man than the Indian,” wrote Catlin, the sentimentalist, who is often cited as an authority. To proceed: ”Prost.i.tution is the rule among the (Yuma) women, not the exception.”
The Colorado River Indians ”barter and sell their women into prost.i.tution, 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 d.a.m.ning list might be continued for the Central and South American Indians. We should find that the Mosquito Indians often did not wait for p.u.b.erty (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 ”chast.i.ty is not considered an indispensable virtue among the unmarried women” (Dalton, I., 80); that the Patagonians often p.a.w.ned 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 a.s.sertion (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 chast.i.ty 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 chast.i.ty among the Apaches. For this a.s.sertion 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 chast.i.ty upon their women.”
Among the Modocs a wife who violated her husband's property rights in her ”chast.i.ty,” 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 a.s.sortment of concubines for the licentious Incas and their friends.
(Torquemada, IX., 16.)[207]
”In the earlier times of Peru the union of the s.e.xes 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 cl.u.s.ter 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!
<script>