________________________________________________
_ Some of the Indian courtship customs are quite romantic; perhaps we may find evidence of romantic love in this direction. Those of the Apaches have been already referred to. Pawnee courtship is thus described by Grinnell.[241]
"The young man took his stand at some convenient point
where he was likely to see the young woman and waited
for her appearance. Favorite places for waiting were
near the trail which led down to the river or to the
spot usually resorted to for gathering wood. The lover,
wrapped in his robe or blanket, which covered his whole
person except his eyes, waited here for the girl, and
as she made her appearance stepped up to her and threw
his blanket about her, holding her in his arms. If she
was favorably inclined to him she made no resistance,
and they might stand there concealed by the blanket,
which entirely covered them, talking to one another for
hours. If she did not favor him she would at once free
herself from his embrace and go away."
[FOOTNOTE 241: _American Anthropologist_, IV., 276.]
This blanket-courtship, as it might be called, also prevailed among the Indians of the great plains described by Colonel Dodge (193-223). The lover, wrapped in a blanket, approaches the girl's lodge and sits before it. Though in plain view of everybody, it is etiquette not to see a lover under such circumstances. After more or less delay the girl may give signs and come out, but not until she has taken certain precautions against the Indian's "romantic" love which have been already referred to. He seizes her and carries her off a little distance. At first they sit under two blankets, but later on one suffices. Thus they remain as long as they please, and no one disturbs them. If there is more than one suitor the girl cries out if seized by the wrong one, who at once lets go. In these cases it may seem as if the girl had her own choice. But it does not at all follow that because she favors a certain suitor she will be allowed to marry him. If her father prefers another she will have to take him, unless her lover is ready to risk an elopement.
The Piutes of the Pacific slope, like some eastern Indians, appear to have indulged in a form of nocturnal courtship strikingly resembling that of the Dyaks of Borneo. The Indian woman (Sarah W. Hopkins) who wrote _Life Among the Piutes_ declares that the lover never speaks to his chosen one,
"but endeavors to attract her attention by showing his
horsemanship, etc. As he knows that she sleeps next to
her grandmother in the lodge, he enters in full dress
after the family has retired for the night, and seats
himself at her feet. If she is not awake, her
grandmother wakes her. He does not even speak to the
young woman or grandmother, but when the young woman
wishes him to go away, she rises and goes and lies down
by the side of her mother. He then leaves as silently
as he came in. This goes on sometimes for a year or
longer if the young woman has not made up her mind. She
is never forced by her parents to marry against her
wishes."
Courtship among the Nishinam Indians of California is thus described by Powers:
"The Nishinam may be said to set up and dissolve the
conjugal estate almost as easily as do the brute
beasts. No stipulated payment is made for the wife. A
man seeking to become a son-in-law is bound to cater
(_ye-lin_) or make presents to the family, which is to
say, he will come along some day with a deer on his
shoulder, perhaps fling it off on the ground before the
wigwam, and go his way without a single word being
spoken. Some days later he may bring along a brace of
hare or a ham of grizzly-bear meat, or some fish, or a
string of _ha-wok_ [shell money]. He continues to make
these presents for awhile, and if he is not acceptable
to the girl and her parents they return him an
equivalent for each present (to return his gift would
be grossly insulting); but if he finds favor in her
eyes they are quietly appropriated, and in due course
of time he comes and leads her away, or comes to live
at her house."
Belden remarks that a Sioux seldom gets the girl he wants to marry to love him. He simply buys her of her parents, and as for the girl, after being informed that she has been sold
"she immediately packs up her little keepsakes and
trinkets, and without exhibiting any emotion, such as
is common to white girls, leaves her home, and goes to
the lodge of her master,"
where she is henceforth his wife and "willing slave." Among the 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 role in the courtship of northern Indians too. Leland relates 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. _
Read next: Pantomimic Love-Making
Read previous: Love-Charms
Table of content of How American Indians Love
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
