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_ 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,
"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 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.
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,
"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_:
"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 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, 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:
"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. 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" .
A brother does not protect his sister from insult, nor avenge outrage.
"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.:
"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.
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);
[FOOTNOTE 205: Herrera relates (III., 340) that Nicaraguan fathers used to send out their daughters to roam the country and earn a marriage portion in a shameful way.]
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. _
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