There was a girl of high rank named Hine-Moa. She was of rare beauty, and was so prized by her family that they would not betroth her to anyone. Such fame attended her beauty and rank that many of the men wanted her; among them a chief named Tutanekai and his elder brothers.
Tutanekai had built an elevated balcony where, with his friend Tiki, he used to play the horn and the pipe at night. On calm nights the music was wafted to the village and reached the ears of the beautiful Hine-Moa, whose heart was gladdened by it, and who said to herself, "Ah, that is the music of Tutanekai which I hear."
She and Tutanekai had met each other on those occasions when all the people of Eotorua come together. In those great assemblies they had often glanced each at the other, to the heart of each of them the other appeared pleasing, and worthy of love, so that in the breast of each there grew up a secret passion for the other. Nevertheless, Tutanekai could not tell whether he might venture to approach Hine-Moa to take her hand, to see would she press his in return, because, said he, "Perhaps I may be by no means agreeable to her;" on the other hand, Hine-Moa's heart said to her, "If you send one of your female friends to tell him of your love, perchance he will not be pleased with you."
However, after they had thus met for many, many days, and had long fondly glanced at each other, Tutanekai sent a messenger to Hine-Moa, to tell of his love; and when Hine-Moa had seen the messenger, she said, "Eh-hu! have we then each loved alike?"
Some time after this, a dispute arose among the brothers as to which of them the girl loved. Each one claimed that he had pressed the hand of Hine-Moa and that she had pressed his in return. But the elder brothers sneered at Tutanekai's claims (for he was an illegitimate son), saying, "Do you think she would take any notice of such a lowborn fellow as you?" But in reality Tutanekai had already arranged for an elopement with the girl, and when she asked, "What shall be the sign by which I shall know that I should then run to you?" he said to her, "A trumpet will be heard sounding every night, it will be I who sound it, beloved—paddle then your canoe to that place."
Now always about the middle of the night Tutanekai and his friend went up into their balcony and played. Hine-Moa heard them and vastly desired to paddle over in her canoe; but her friends suspecting something, had all the canoes on the shore of the lake. At last, one evening, she again heard the horn of Tutanekai, and the young and beautiful chieftainess felt as if an earthquake shook her to make her go to the beloved of her heart. At last she thought, perhaps I might be able to swim across. So she took six large, dry, empty gourds as floats, lest she should sink in the water, threw oft her clothes, and plunged into the water. It was dark, and her only guide was the sound of her lover's music. Whenever her limbs became tired she rested, the gourds keeping her afloat. At last she reached the island on which her lover dwelt. Near the shore there was a hot spring, into which she plunged, partly to warm her trembling body, and partly also, perhaps, from modesty, at the thoughts of meeting Tutanekai.
Whilst the maiden was thus warming herself in the hot spring, Tutanekai happened to feel thirsty and sent his servant to fetch him a calabash of water. The servant came to dip it from the lake near where the girl was hiding. She called out to him in a gruff voice, like that of a man, asking him for some to drink, and he gave her the calabash, which she purposely threw down and broke. The servant went back for another calabash and again she broke it in the same way. The servant returned and told his master that a man in the hot spring had broken all his calabashes. "How did the rascal dare to break my calabashes?" exclaimed the young man. "Why, I shall die of rage."
He threw on some clothes, seized his club, and hurried to the hot spring, calling out "Where's that fellow who broke my calabashes?" And Hine-Moa knew the voice, and the sound of it was that of the beloved of her heart; and she hid herself under the overhanging rocks of the hot spring; but her hiding was hardly a real hiding, but rather a bashful concealing of herself from Tutanekai, that he might not find her at once, but only after trouble and careful searching for her; so he went feeling about along the banks of the hot spring, searching everywhere, whilst she lay coyly hid under the ledges of the rock, peeping out, wondering when she would be found. At last he caught hold of a hand, and cried out "Hollo, who's this?" And Hine-Moa answered, "It's I, Tutanekai;" And he said, "But who are you?—who's I?" Then she spoke louder and said., "It's I, 'tis Hine-Moa." And he said "Ho! ho! ho! can such in very truth be the case? Let us two then go to the house." And she answered, "Yes," and she rose up in the water as beautiful as the wild white hawk, and stepped upon the edge of the bath as the shy white crane; and he threw garments over her and took her, and they proceeded to his house, and reposed there; and thenceforth, according to the ancient laws of the Maori, they were man and wife.
A young man named Maru-tuahu left home in quest of his father, who had abandoned his mother before the son was born because he had been unjustly accused of stealing sweet potatoes from another chief. Maru-tuahu took along a slave, and they carried with them a spear for killing birds for food on the journey through the forest. One morning, after they had been on the way a month, he happened to be up in a forest tree when two young girls, daughters of a chief, came along. They saw the slave sitting at the root of the tree, and sportively contested with each other whose slave he should be.
All this time Maru-tuahu was peeping down at the two girls from the top of the tree; and they asked the slave, saying, "Where is your master?" He answered, "I have no master but him," Then the girls looked about, and there was a cloak lying on the ground, and a heap of dead birds, and they kept on asking, "Where is he?" but it was not long before a flock of Tuis settled on the tree where Maru-tuahu was sitting; he speared at them and struck one of the birds, which made the tree ring with its cries; the girls heard it, and looking up, the youngest saw the young chief sitting in the top boughs of the tree; and she at once called up to him, "Ah! you shall be my husband;" but the eldest sister exclaimed, "You shall be mine," and they began jesting and disputing between themselves which should have him for a husband, for he was a very handsome young man.
Then the two girls called up to him to come down from the tree, and down he came, and dropped upon the ground, and pressed his nose against the nose of each of the young girls. They then asked him to come to their village with them; to which he consented, but said, "You two go on ahead, and leave me and my slave, and we will follow you presently;" and the girls said, "Very well, do you come after us." Maru-tuahu then told his slave to make a present to the girls of the food they had collected, and he gave them two bark baskets of pigeons, preserved in their own fat, and they went off to their village with these.
As soon as the girls were gone, Maru-tuahu went to a stream, washed his hair, and combed it carefully, tied it in a knot, and stuck fifty red Kaka feathers and other plumes in his head, till he looked as handsome as the large-crested cormorant. The young girls soon came back from the village to meet their so-called husband, and when they saw him in his new head-dress and attired in a chief's cloak they felt deeply in love with him and they said, "Come along to our father's village with us." On the way they found out from the slave that his master was the far-famed Maru-tuahu, and they replied: "Dear, dear, we had not the least idea that it was he," Then they ran off to tell his father (for this was the place where his father had gone and married again) that he was coming. The son was warmly welcomed. All the young girls ran outside, waved the corners of their cloaks and cried out, "Welcome, welcome, make haste."
Then there was a great feast, at which ten dogs were eaten. But all this time the two girls were quarrelling with each other as to which of them should have the young chief for a husband. The elder girl was plain, but thought herself pretty, and could not see the least reason why he should be frightened at her; but Maru-tuahu did not like her on account of her plainness, and her pretty sister kept him as her husband.
A chief named Rangirarunga had a daughter so celebrated for her beauty that the fame of it had reached all parts of these islands. A young hero named Takarangi also heard of her beauty, and it may be that his heart sometimes dwelt long on the thoughts of such loveliness. They belonged to different tribes, and war broke out between them, during which the fortress of the girl's father was besieged. Soon the inhabitants were near dying from want of food and water. At last the old chief Rangirarunga, overcome by thirst, stood on the top of the defences and cried out to the enemy: "I pray you to give me one drop of water." Some were willing, and got calabashes of water, but others were angry thereat and broke them in their hands. The old chief then appealed to the leader of the enemy, who was Takarangi, and asked him if he could calm the wrath of these fierce men. Takarangi replied: "This arm of mine is one which no dog dares to bite." But what he was really thinking was, "That dying old man is the father of Rau-mahora, of that lovely maid. Ah, how should I grieve if one so young and innocent should die tormented with the want of water." Then he filled a calabash with fresh cool water, and the fierce warriors looked on in wonder and silence while he carried it to the old man and his daughter. They drank, both of them, and Taka-rangi gazed eagerly at the young girl, and she too looked eagerly at Takarangi; long time gazed they each one at the other; and as the warriors of the army of Takarangi looked on, lo, he had climbed up and was sitting at the young maiden's side; and they said, amongst themselves, "O comrades, our lord Takarangi loves war, but one would think he likes Rau-mahora almost as well."
At last a sudden thought struck the heart of the aged chief; so he said to his daughter, "O my child, would it be pleasing to you to have this young chief for a husband?" And the young girl said, "I like him." Then the old man consented that his daughter should be given as a bride to Takarangi, and he took her as his wife. Thence was that war brought to an end, and the army of Takarangi dispersed.
Two tribes had long been at war, but as neither gained a permanent victory peace was at last concluded. Then one day the chief Te Ponga, with some of his followers, approached the fortress of their former enemies. They were warmly welcomed, ovens were heated, food cooked, served in baskets and distributed. But the visitors did not eat much, in order that their waists might be slim when they stood up in the ranks of the dancers, and that they might look as slight as if their waists were almost severed in two.
As soon as it began to get dark the villagers danced, and whilst they sprang nimbly about, Puhihuia, the young daughter of the village chief, watched them till her time came to enter the ranks. She performed her part beautifully; her fall-orbed eyes seemed clear and brilliant as the full moon rising in the horizon, and while the strangers looked at the young girl they all were quite overpowered with her beauty; and Te Ponga, their young chief, felt his heart grow wild with emotion when he saw so much loveliness before him.
Then up sprang the strangers to dance in their turn. Te Ponga waited his opportunity, and when the time came, danced so beautifully that the people of the village were surprised at his agility and grace, and as for the young girl, Puhihuia, her heart conceived a warm passion for Te Ponga.
When the dance was concluded, everyone, overcome with weariness, went to sleep—all except Te Ponga, who lay tossing from side to side, unable to sleep, from his great love for the maiden, and devising scheme after scheme by which he might have an opportunity of conversing with her alone. At last he decided to carry out a plan suggested by his servant. The next night, when he had retired in the chief's house, he called this servant to fetch him some water; but the servant, following out the plot, had concealed himself and refused to respond. Then the chief said to his daughter, "My child, run and fetch some water for our guest." The maiden rose, and taking a calabash, went off to fetch some water, and no sooner did Te Ponga see her start off than he too arose and went out, feigning to be angry with his slave and going to give him a beating; but as soon as he was out of the house he went straight off after the girl. He did not well know the path to the well, but was guided by the voice of the maiden, who sang merrily as she went along.
When she arrived at the fountain she heard someone behind her, and turning suddenly around she beheld the young chief. Astonished, she asked, "What can have brought you here?" He answered, "I came here for a draught of water." But the girl replied, "Ha, indeed! Did not I come here to draw water for you? Could not you have remained at my father's house until I brought the water for you?" Then Te Ponga answered, "You are the water that I thirsted for." And as the maiden listened to his words, she thought within herself, "He, then, has fallen in love with me," and she sat down, and he placed himself by her side, and they conversed together, and to each of them the words of the other seemed most pleasant and engaging. Before they separated they arranged a time when they might escape together, and then they returned to the village.
When the time came for Te Ponga to leave his host he directed some dozen men of his to go to the landing-place in the harbor, prepare one large canoe in which he and his followers might escape, and then to take the other canoes and cut the lashings which made the top sides fast to the hulls. The next morning he announced that he must return to his own country. The chief and his men accompanied him part of the way to the harbor. Puhihuia and the other girls had stolen a little way along the road, laughing and joking with the visitors. The chief, seeing his daughter going on after he had turned back, called out, "Children, children, come back here!" Then the other girls stopped and ran back toward the village, but as to Puhihuia, her heart beat but to the one thought of escaping with her beloved Te Ponga. So she began to run. Te Ponga and his men joined in the swift flight, and as soon as they had reached the water they jumped into their canoe, seized their paddles and shot away, swift as a dart from a string. When the pursuing villagers arrived at the beach they laid hold of another canoe, but found that the lashings of all had been cut, so that pursuit was impossible. Thus the party that had come to make peace returned joyfully to their own country, with the enemy's young chieftainess, while their foes stood like fools upon the shore, stamping with rage and threatening them in vain.
These stories are undoubtedly romantic; but again I ask, are they stories of romantic love? There is romance and quaint local color in the feat of the girl who, reversing the story of Hero and Leander, swam over to her lover; in the wooing of the two girls proposing to an unseen man up a tree; in the action of the chief who saved the beautiful girl and her father from dying of thirst, and acted so that his men came to the conclusion he must love her "almost as well" as war; in the slyly planned elopement of Te Ponga. But there is nothing to indicate the quality of the love—to show an "illumination of the senses by the soul," or a single altruistic trait. Even such touches of egoistic sentimentality as the phrase "To the heart of each of them the other appeared pleasing and worthy, so that in the breast of each there grew up a secret passion for the other;" and again, "he felt his heart grow wild with emotion, when he saw so much loveliness before him," are quite certainly a product of Grey's fancy, for Polynesians, as we have seen, do not speak of the "heart" in that sense, and such a word as "emotions" is entirely beyond their powers of abstraction and conception. Grey tells us that he collected different portions of his legends from different natives, in very distant parts of the country, at long intervals, and afterward rearranged and rewrote them. In this way he succeeded in giving us some interesting legends, but a phonographic record of thefragmentsrelated to him, without any embroidering of "heart-affairs," "wild emotions," and other adornments of modern novels, would have rendered them infinitely more valuable to students of the evolution of emotions. It is a great pity that so few of the recorders of aboriginal tales followed this principle; and it is strange that such neatly polished, arranged, and modernized tales as these should have been accepted so long as illustrations of primitive love.[194]
Besides their stories of love, the Maoris of New Zealand also have poems, some accompanied with (often obscene) pantomimes, others without accompaniment. Shortland (146-55), Taylor (310), and others have collected and translated some of these poems, of which the following are the best. Taylor cites this one:
The tears gush from my eyes,My eyelashes are wet with tears;But stay, my tears, within,Lest you should be called mine.
Alas! I am betrothed (literally, my hands are bound);It is for Te MauneeThat my love devours me.But I may weep indeed,Beloved one, for thee,Like Tiniran's lamentFor his favorite pet TutunuiWhich was slain by Ngae.Alas!
Shortland gives these specimens of the songs that are frequently accompanied by immodest gestures of the body. Some of them are "not sufficiently decent to bear translating." The one marked (4) is interesting as an attempt at hyperbole.
(1)
Your body is at Waitemata,But your spirit came hitherAnd aroused me from my sleep.
(4)
Tawera is the bright starOf the morning.Not less beautiful is theJewel of my heart.
(5)
The sun is setting in his cave,Touching as he descends (theLand) where dwells my mate,He who is whirled awayTo southern seas.
More utilitarian are (6) and (7), in which a woman asks "Who will marry a man too lazy to till the ground for food?" And a man wants to know "Who will marry a woman too lazy to weave garments?" Very unlover-like is the following:
I don't like the habits of woman.When she goes out—SheKuikuisSheKoakoasShe chattersThe very ground is terrified,And the rats run away.Just so.
More poetic are thewaiata, which are sung without the aid of any action. The following ode was composed by a young woman forsaken by her lover:
Look where the mistHangs over Pukehina.There is the pathBy which went my love.
Turn back again hither,That may be poured outTears from my eyes.
It was not I who first spoke of love.You it was who made advances to meWhen I was but a little thing.
Therefore was my heart made wild.This is my farewell of love to thee.
A young woman, who had been carried away prisoner from Tuhua, gives vent to her longing in these lines:
"My regret is not to be expressed. Tears like a spring gush from my eyes. I wonder whatever is Te Kaiuku [her lover] doing: he who deserted me. Now I climb upon the ridge of Mount Parahaki; from whence is clear the view of the island Tahua. I see with regret the lofty Taumo, where dwells Tangiteruru. If I were there, the shark's tooth would hang from my ear. How fine, how beautiful, should I look. But see whose ship is that tacking? Is it yours? O Hu! you husband of Pohiwa, sailing away on the tide to Europe.
"O Tom! pray give me some of your fine things; forbeautiful are the clothes of the sea-god.
"Enough of this. I must return to my rags, and to mynothing-at-all."
In this case the loss of her finery seems to trouble the girl a good deal more than the loss of her lover. In another ode cited by Shortland a deserted girl, after referring to her tearful eyes, winds up with the light-hearted
Now that you are absent in your native land,The day of regret will, perhaps, end.
There is a suggestion of Sappho in the last of these odes I shall cite:
"Love does not torment forever. It came on me like the fire which rages sometimes at Hukanai. If this (beloved) one is near me, do not suppose, O Kiri, that my sleep is sweet. I lie awake the live-long night, for love to prey on me in secret.
"It shall never be confessed, lest it be heard of by all. The only evidence shall be seen on my cheeks.
"The plain which extends to Tauwhare: that path I trod that I might enter the house of Rawhirawhwi. Don't be angry with me, O madam [addressed to Rawhirawhwi's wife]; I am only a stranger. For you there is the body (of your husband). For me there remains only the shadow of desire."
"In the last two lines," writes Shortland, "the poetess coolly requests the wife of the person for whom she acknowledges an unlawful passion not to be angry with her, because 'she—the lawful wife—has always possession of the person of her husband; while hers is only an empty, Platonic sort of love.' This is rather a favorite sentiment, and is not unfrequently introduced similarly into love-songs of this description."
It is noticeable that these love-poems are all by females, and most frequently by deserted females. This does not speak well for the gallantry or constancy of the men. Perhaps they lacked those qualities to offset the feminine lack of coyness. In the first of our Maori stories the maiden swims to the man, who calmly awaits her, playing his horn. In the second, a man is simultaneously proposed to by two girls, before he has time to come off his perch on the tree. This arouses a suspicion which is confirmed by E. Tregear's revelations regarding Maori courtship(Journ. Anthrop. Inst., 1889):
"The girl generally began the courting. I have often seen the pretty little love-letter fall at the feet of a lover—it was a little bit of flax made into a sort of half-knot—'yes' was made by pulling the knot tight—'no' by leaving the matrimonial noose alone. Now, I am sorry to say, it is often thrown as an invitation for love-making of an improper character. Sometimes in theWhare-Matoro(the wooing-house), a building in which the young of both sexes assemble for play, songs, dances, etc., there would be at stated times a meeting; when the fires burned low a girl would stand up in the dark and say, 'I love So-and-so, I want him for my husband,' If he coughed (sign of assent), or said 'yes' it was well; if only dead silence, she covered her head with her robe and was ashamed. This was not often, as she generally had managed to ascertain (either by her own inquiry or by sending a girl friend) if the proposal was acceptable. On the other hand, sometimes a mother would attend and say 'I want So-and-so for my son.' If not acceptable there was general mocking, and she was told to let the young people have their house (the wooing-house) to themselves. Sometimes, if the unbetrothed pair had not secured the consent of the parents, a late suitor would appear on the scene, and the poor girl got almost hauled to death between them all. One would get a leg, another an arm, another the hair, etc. Girls have been injured for life in these disputes, or even murdered by the losing party."
The assertion that "the girl generally began the courting" must not mislead us into supposing that Maori women were free, as a rule, to marry the husbands of their choice. As Tregear's own remarks indicate, the advances were either of an improper character, or the girl had made sure beforehand that there was no impediment in the way of her proposal. The Maori proverb that as the fastidious Kahawai fish selects the hook which pleases it best, so a woman chooses a man out of many (on the strength of which alone Westermarck, 217, claims liberty of choice for Maori women) must also refer to such liaisons before marriage, for all the facts indicate that the original Maori customs allowed women no choice whatever in regard to marriage. Here the brother's consent had to be obtained, as Shortland remarks (118). Many of the girls were betrothed in infancy, and many others married at an age—twelve to thirteen—when the word choice could have had no rational meaning. Tregear informs us that if a couple had not been betrothed as children, everyone in the tribe claimed a right to interfere, and the only way the couple could get their own way was by eloping. Darwin was informed by Mantell "that until recently almost every girl in New Zealand who was pretty or promised to be pretty was tapu to some chief;" and we further read that
"when a chief desires to take to himself a wife, he fixes his attention upon her, and takes her, if need be, by force, without consulting her feelings and wishes or those of anyone else."
This is confirmed by William Brown, in his book on the aborigines. But the most graphic and harrowing description of Maori maltreatment of women is given by the Rev. E. Taylor:
"Theancient and most general wayof obtaining a wife was for the gentleman to summon his friends and make a regulartaua, or fight, to carry off the lady by force, and oftentimes with great violence…. If the girl had eloped with someone on whom she had placed her affection, then her father and brother would refuse their consent," and fight to get her back. "The unfortunate female, thus placed between two contending parties, would soon be divested of every rag of clothing, and would then be seized by her head, hair, or limbs," her "cries and shrieks would be unheeded by her savage friends. In this way the poor creature was often nearly torn to pieces. These savage contests sometimes ended in the strongest party bearing off in triumph the naked person of the bride. In some cases, after a long season of suffering, she recovered, to be given to a person for whom she had no affection, in others to die within a few hours or days from the injuries which she had received. But it was not uncommon for the weaker party, when they found they could not prevail, for one of them to put an end to the contest by suddenly plunging his spear into the woman's bosom to hinder her from becoming the property of another."
After giving this account on page 163 of the Maori's "ancient andmost generalway" of obtaining a wife—which puts him below the most ferocious brutes, since those at least spare their females—the same writer informs us on page 338 that "there are few races who treat their women with more deference than the Maori!" If that is so, it can only be due to the influence of the whites, since all the testimony indicates that the unadulterated Maori—with whom alone we are here concerned—did not treat them "with great respect," nor pay any deference to them whatever. The cruel method of capture described above was so general that, as Taylor himself tells us, the native term for courtship washe aru aru, literally, a following or pursuing after; and there was also a special expression for this struggling of two suitors for a girl—he puna rua. As for their "great respect" for women, they do not allow them to eat with the men. A chief, says Angas (II., 110), "will sometimes permit his favorite wife to eat with him, though not out of the same dish." Ellis relates (III., 253) that New Zealanders are "addicted to the greatest vices that stain the human character—treachery, cannibalism, infanticide, and murder." The women caught in battle, as well as the men, were, he says, enslaved or eaten. "Sometimes they chopped off the legs and arms and otherwise mangled the body before they put the victim to death." Concubines had to do service as household drudges. A man on dying would bequeath his wives to his brother. No land was bequeathed to female children. The real Maori feeling toward women is brought out in the answer given to a sister who went to her brothers to ask for a share of the lands of the family: "Why, you're only a slave to blow up your husband's fire." (Shortland, 119, 255-58.)
When Hawkesworth visited New Zealand with Captain Cook, he one day came accidentally across some women who were fishing, and who had thrown off their last garments. When they saw him they were as confused and distressed as Diana and her nymphs; they hid among the rocks and crouched down in the sea until they had made and put on girdles of seaweeds (456). "There are instances," writes William Brown (36-37), "of women committing suicide from its being said that they had been seen naked. A chief's wife took her own life because she had been hung up by the heels and beaten in the presence of the whole tribe."
Shall we conclude from this that the Maoris were genuinely modest and perhaps capable of that delicacy in regard to sexual matters which is a prerequisite of sentimental love? What is modesty? TheCentury Dictionarysays it is "decorous feeling or behavior; purity or delicacy of thought or manner; reserve proceeding from pure or chaste character;" and theEncyclopaedic Dictionarydefines it as "chastity; purity of manners; decency; freedom from lewdness or un-chastity." Now, Maori modesty, if such it maybe called, was only skin deep. Living in a colder climate than other Polynesians, it became customary among them to wear more clothing; and what custom prescribes must be obeyed to the letter among all these peoples, be the ordained dress merely a loin cloth or a necklace, or a cover for the back only, or full dress. It does not argue true modesty on the part of a Maori woman to cover those parts of her body which custom orders her to cover, any more than it argues true modesty on the part of an Oriental barbarian to cover her face only, on meeting a man, leaving the rest of her body exposed. Nor does suicide prove anything, since it is known that the lower races indulge in self-slaughter for as trivial causes as they do in the slaughter of others. True modesty, as defined above, is not a Maori characteristic. The evidence on this point is too abundant to quote in full.
Shortland (126-27) describes in detail all of the ceremonies which were in former days the pastimes of the New Zealanders, and which accompanied the singing of theirhakaor "love-songs," to which reference has already been made. In the front were seated three elderly ladies and behind them in rows, eight or ten in a row, and five or six ranks deep, sat "the best born young belles of the town" who supplied the poem and the music for thehakapantomime:
"Thehakais not a modest exhibition, but the reverse; and, on this occasion, two of the old ladies who stood in front … accompanied the music by movements of the arms and body, their postures being often disgustingly lascivious. However, they suited the taste of the audience, who rewarded the performers at such times with the applause they desired…. It was altogether as ungodly a scene as can well be imagined."
The same author, who lived among the natives several years, says (120) that
"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 chastity 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 theJournal of the Anthropological Institute(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, toeveryindividual 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 chastity, 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 sexes 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 coarseness, a lack of delicacy, in sexual 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 sexes 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.
"On the subject of love no persons have been less understood than theIndians," wrote Thomas Ashe in 1806 (271).
"It is said of them that they have no affection, and that the intercourse of the sexes is sustained by a brutal passion 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 circumstance 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 astonishing, as in the African and Mongolian races this ethereal sentiment is practically absent, the idealism of passion 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'sLife 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 bySchoolcraft.[195]
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, herslenderform, 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 hisprotestations 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 distinguishing 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 passed her time in fasting and singing her plaintive songs. Thus she pined away, untilthe death she so fervently desiredcame 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 heregretted his false prideand his harsh treatment of the noble youth.
There once lived an Ottawa woman on the shores 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 shore. Every morning the mother pulled the box ashore, and combed her daughter's long, shining 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,thinkwhat 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 marryyou." This pride and haughtiness angered the uncle and the spirits of the lake, who raised a great storm on the water. The tossing waves broke the string, and the box with the girl floated off through the straits to Lake Huron. It was there cast on shore and found by an old spirit who took the beautiful girl to his lodge and married her.
The mother, when she found her daughter gone, raised loud cries, and continued her lamentations for a long time. At last, after two or three years, the spirits had pity on her and raised another storm, greater even than the first. When the water rose and encroached on the lodge where the daughter lived, she leaped into the box, and the waves carried her back to her mother's lodge. The mother was overjoyed, but when she opened the box she found that her daughter's beauty had almost all departed. However, she still loved her because she was her daughter, and she now thought of the young man who had made her the offer of marriage. She sent a formal message to him, but he had changed his mind, for he knew that she had been the wife of another. "Imarry your daughter?" said he; "yourdaughter! No, indeed! I shall never marry her."
Bokwewa and his brother lived in a secluded part of the country. They were considered as Manitoes who had assumed mortal shapes. Bokwewa was a humpback, but had the gifts of a magician, while the brother was more like the present race of beings. One day the brother said to the humpback that he was going away to visit the habitations of men, and procure a wife. He travelled alone a long time. At length he came to a deserted camp, where he saw a corpse on a scaffold. He took it down and found it was the body of a beautiful young woman. "She shall be my wife," he exclaimed.
He took her and carried her home on his back. "Brother," he exclaimed, "cannot you restore her life? Oh! do me that favor."
The humpback said he would try, and, after performing various ceremonies, succeeded in restoring her to life. They lived very happily for some time. But one day when the humpback was home alone with the woman, her husband having gone out to hunt, a powerful Manito came and carried her off, though Bokwewa used all his strength to save her.
When the brother returned and heard what had happened he would not taste food for several days. Sometimes he would fall to weeping for a long time, and appear almost beside himself. At last he said he would go in search of her. His brother, finding that he could not dissuade him, cautioned him against the dangers of the road; he must pass by the large grape-vine and the frog's eggs that he would come across. But the young husband heeded not his advice. He started out on his journey and when he found the grapes and the frog's eggs he ate them.
At length he came to the tribe into which his wife had been stolen. Throngs of men and women, gaily dressed, came out to meet him. As he had eaten of the grapes and frog's eggs—snares laid for him—he was soon overcome by their flatteries and pleasures, and he was not long afterward seen beating corn with their women (the strongest proof of effeminacy), although his wife, for whom he had mourned so much, was in that Indian metropolis.
Meanwhile Bokwewa waited patiently for his brother, but when he did not return he set out in search of him. He avoided the allurements along the road and when he came among the luxurious people of the South he wept on seeing his brother beating corn with the women. He waited till the stolen wife came down to the river to draw water for her new husband, the Manito. He changed himself into a hair-snake, was scooped up in her bucket, and drunk by the Manito, who soon after was dead. Then the humpback resumed his human shape and tried to reclaim his brother; but the brother was so taken up with the pleasures and dissipations into which he had fallen that he refused to give them up. Finding he was past reclaiming, Bokwewa left him and disappeared forever.
Aggodagauda was an Indian who lived in the forest. Though he had accidentally lost the use of one of his two legs he was a famous hunter. But he had a great enemy in the king of buffaloes, who frequently passed over the plain with the force of a tempest. The chief object of the wily buffalo was to carry off Aggodagauda's daughter, who was very beautiful. To prevent this Aggodagauda had built a log cabin, and it was only on the roof of this that he permitted his daughter to take the open air and disport herself. Now her hair was so long that when she untied it the raven locks hung down to the ground.
One day, when her father was off on a hunt, she went out on top of the house and sat combing her long and beautiful hair, on the eaves of the lodge, when the buffalo king, coming suddenly by, caught her glossy hair, and winding it about his horns, tossed her onto his shoulders and carried her to his village. Here hepaid every attention to gain her affections, but all to no purpose, for she sat pensively and disconsolate in the lodge among the other females, and scarcely ever spoke, and took no part in the domestic cares of her lover the king. He, on the contrary,did everything he could think of to please her and win her affections. He told the others in his lodge to give her everything she wanted, and to becareful not to displease her. They set before her the choicest food. Theygave her the seat of honor in the lodge. The king himself went out hunting to obtain the most dainty bits of meat. And not content with these proofs of his attachmenthe fasted himself, and would often take his flute and sit near the lodge indulging his mind in repeating a few pensive notes:
My sweetheart,My sweetheart,Ah me!When I think of you,When I think of you,Ah me!How I love you,How I love you,Ah me!Do not hate me,Do not hate me,Ah me!
In the meantime Aggodagauda had returned from his hunt, and finding his daughter gone, determined to recover her. During her flight her long hair had caught on the branches and broken them, and it was by following these broken twigs that he tracked her. When he came to the king's lodge it was evening. He cautiously peeped in and saw his daughter sitting disconsolately. She caught his eye, and, in order to meet him, said to the king, "Give me a dipper, I will go and get you a drink of water." Delighted with this token of submission, the king allowed her to go to the river. There she met her father and escaped with him.
Leelinau was the favorite daughter of an Odjibwa hunter, living on the shore of Lake Superior. From her earliest youth she was observed to be pensive and timid, and to spend much of her timein solitude and fasting. Whenever she could leave her father's lodge she would fly to the remote haunts and recesses of the woods, orsit upon some high promontory of rock overhanging the lake. But her favorite place was a forest of pines known as the Sacred Grove. It was supposed to be inhabited by a class offairies who love romantic scenes. This spot Leelinau visited often,gathering on the way strange flowers or plantsto bring home. It was there that she fasted, supplicated, and strolled.
The effect of these visits was to make the girl melancholy and dissatisfied with the realities of life. She did not care to play with the other young people. Nor did she favor the plan of her parents to marry her to a man much her senior in years, but a reputed chief. No attention was paid to her disinclination, and the man was informed that his offer had been favorably received. The day for the marriage was fixed and the guests invited.
The girl had told her parents that she would never consent to the match. On the evening preceding the day fixed for her marriage she dressed herself in her best garments and put on all her ornaments. Then she told her parents she was going to meet her little lover, the chieftain of the green plume, who was waiting for her at the Spirit Grove. Supposing she was going to act some harmless freak, they let her go. When she did not return at sunset alarm was felt; with lighted torches the gloomy pine forest was searched, but no trace of the girl was ever found, and the parents mourned the loss of a daughter whose inclinations they had, in the end, too violently thwarted.
About the middle of the seventeenth century there lived on the shores of Lake Ontario a Wyandot girl so beautiful that she had for suitors nearly all the young men of her tribe; but while she rejected none, neither did she favor any one in particular. To prevent her from falling to someone not in their tribe the suitors held a meeting and concluded that their claims should be withdrawn and the war chief urged to woo her. He objected on account of the disparity of years, but was finally persuaded to make his advances. His practice had been confined rather to the use of stone-headed arrows than love-darts, and his dexterity in the management of hearts displayed rather in making bloody incisions than tender impressions. But after he had painted and arrayed himself as for battle and otherwise adorned his person, he paid court to her, and a few days later was accepted on condition that he would pledge his word as a warrior to do what she should ask of him. When his pledge had been given she told him to bring her the scalp of a certain Seneca chief whom she hated. He begged her to reflect that this chief was his bosom friend, whose confidence it would be an infamy to betray. But she told him either to redeem his pledge or be proclaimed for a lying dog, and then left him.
Goaded into fury, the Wyandot chief blackened his face and rushed off to the Seneca village, where he tomahawked his friend and rushed out of the lodge with his scalp. A moment later the mournful scalp-whoop of the Senecas was resounding through the village. The Wyandot camp was attacked, and after a deadly combat of three days the Senecas triumphed, avenging the murder of their chief by the death of his assailant as well as of the miserable girl who had caused the tragedy. The war thus begun lasted more than thirty years.
In 1759 great exertions were made by the French Indian Department under General Montcalm to bring a body of Indians into the valley of the lower St. Lawrence, and invitations for this purpose reached the utmost shores of Lake Superior. In one of the canoes from that quarter, which was left on the way down at the mouth of the Utawas, was a Chippewa girl named Paigwaineoshe, or the White Eagle. While the party awaited there the result of events at Quebec she formed an attachment for a young Algonquin belonging to a French mission. This attachment was mutual, and gave rise to a song of which the following is a prose translation:
I. Ah me! When I think of him—when I think of him—mysweetheart, my Algonquin.
II. As I embarked to return, he put the white wampum around myneck—a pledge of troth, my sweetheart, my Algonquin.
III. I shall go with you, he said, to your native country—Ishall go with you, my sweetheart—my Algonquin.
IV. Alas! I replied—my native country is far, far away—mysweetheart, my Algonquin.
V. When I looked back again—where we parted, he was stilllooking after me, my sweetheart, my Algonquin.
VI. He was still standing on a fallen tree—that had falleninto the water, my sweetheart, my Algonquin.
VII. Alas! When I think of him—when I think of him—It is whenI think of him, my Algonquin.
Here we have seven love-stories as romantic as you please and full of sentimental touches. Do they not disprove my theory that uncivilized races are incapable of feeling sentimental love? Some think they do, and Waitz is not the only anthropologist who has accepted such stories as proof that human nature, as far as love is concerned, is the same under all circumstances. The above tales are taken from the books of a man who spent much of his life among Indians and issued a number of works about them, one of which, in six volumes, was published under the auspices of the United States Government. This expert—Henry R. Schoolcraft—was member of so many learned societies that it takes twelve lines of small type to print them all. Moreover, he expressly assures us[196] that "the value of these traditionary stories appears to depend very much upon their being left, as nearly as possible, in their original forms of thought and expression," the obvious inference being an assurance that he has so left them; and he adds that in the collection and translation of these stories he enjoyed the great advantages of seventeen years' life as executive officer for the tribes, and a knowledge of their languages.
And now, having given the enemy's battle-ship every possible advantage, the reader will allow me to bring on my little torpedo-boat. In the first place Schoolcraft mentions (A.R., I., 56) twelve persons, six of them women, who helped him collect and interpret the material of the tales united in his volumes; but he does not tell us whether all or any of these collectors acted on the principle that these stories could claim absolutely noscientificvalue unless they were verbatim reports of aboriginal tales,without any additions and sentimental embroideries by the compilers. This omission alone is fatal to the whole collection, reducing it to the value of a mere fairy book for the entertainment of children, and allowing us to make no inferences from it regarding the quality and expression of an Indian's love.
Schoolcraft stands convicted by his own action. When I read his tales for the first time I came across numerous sentences and sentiments which I knew from my own experience among Indians were utterly foreign to Indian modes of thought and feeling, and which they could no more have uttered than they could have penned Longfellow'sHiawatha, or the essays of Emerson. In the stories of "The Red Lover," "The Buffalo King," and "The Haunted Grove,"[197] I have italicized a few of these suspicious passages. To take the last-named tale first, it is absurd to speak of Indian "fairies who love romantic scenes," or of a girl romantically sitting on a rocky promontory,[198] or "gathering strange flowers;" for Indians have no conception of the romantic side of nature—of scenery for its own sake. To them a tree is simply a grouse perch, or a source of fire-wood; a lake, a fish-pond, a mountain, the dreaded abode of evil spirits. In the tale of the "Buffalo King" we read of the chief doing a number of things to win the affection of the refractory bride—telling the others not to displease her, giving her "the seat of honor," and going so far as to fast himself, whereas in real life, under such circumstances, he would have curtly clubbed the stolen bride into submission. In the tale of the "Red Lover" the girl is admired for her "slender form," whereas a real Indian values a woman in proportion to her weight and rotundity. Indians do not make "protestations of inviolable attachment," or "pledge vows of mutual fidelity," like the lovers of our fashionable novels. As Charles A. Leland remarks of the same race of Indians (85), "When an Indian seeks a wife, he or his mutual friend makes no great ado about it, but utters two words which tell the whole story." But there is no need of citing other authors, for Schoolcraft, as I have just intimated, stands convicted by his own action. In the second edition of hisAlgic Researches, which appeared after an interval of seventeen years and received the title ofThe Myth of Hiawatha and other Oral Legends of the North American Indians, he seemed to remember what he wrote in the preface of the first regarding these stories, "that in the original there is no attempt at ornament," so he removed nearly all of the romantic embroideries, like those I have italicized and commented on, and also relegated the majority of his ludicrously sentimental interspersed poems to the appendix. In the preface toHiawatha, he refers in connection with some of these verses to "the poetic use of aboriginal ideas." Now, a man has a perfect right to make such "poetic use" of "aboriginal ideas," but not when he has led his readers to believe that he is telling these stories "as nearly as possible in their original forms of thought and expression." It is very much as if Edward MacDowell had published the several movements of his Indian Suite as being, not only in their ideas, but in their (modern European) harmonies and orchestration, a faithful transcript of aboriginal Indian music. Schoolcraft's procedure, in other words, amounts to a sort of Ossianic mystification; and unfortunately he has had not a few imitators, to the confusion of comparative psychologists and students of the evolution of love.
It is a great pity that Schoolcraft, with his valuable opportunities for ethnological research, should not have added a critical attitude and a habit of accuracy to his great industry. The historian Parkman, a model observer and scholar, described Schoolcraft's volumes on the Indian Tribes of the United States as
"a singularly crude and illiterate production, stuffed with blunders and contradictions, giving evidence on every page of a striking unfitness for historical or scientific inquiry."[199]
A few of the tales I have cited are not marred by superadded sentimental adornments, but all of them are open to suspicion from still another point of view. They are invariably so proper and pure that they might be read to Sunday-school classes. Since one-half of Schoolcraft's assistants in the compilation of this material were women, this might have been expected, and if the collection had been issued as a Fairy Book it would have been a matter of course. But they were issued as accurate "oral legends" of wild Indians, and from the point of view of the student of the history of love the most important question to ask was, "Are Indian stories in reality as pure and refined in tone as these specimens would lead us to suspect?" I will answer that question by citing the words of one of the warmest champions of the Indians, the eminent American anthropologist, Professor D.G. Brinton _(M.N.W., 160):
"Anyone who has listened to Indian tales, not as they are recorded in books, but as they are told by the camp-fire, will bear witness to the abounding obscenity they deal in. That the same vulgarity shows itself in their arts and life, no genuine observer need doubt."
And in a footnote he gives this extremely interesting information:
"The late George Gibbs will be acknowledged as an authority here. He was at the time of his death preparing a Latin translation of the tales he had collected, as they were too erotic to print in English. He wrote me, 'Schoolcraft's legends are emasculated to a degree that they become no longer Indian.'"
No longer Indian, indeed! And these doctored stories, artfully sentimentalized at one end and expurgated at the other, are advanced as proofs that a savage Indian's love is just as refined as that of a civilized Christian! What Indian stories really are, the reader, if he can stomach such things, may find out for himself by consulting the marvellously copious and almost phonographically accurate collection of native tales which another of our most eminent anthropologists, Dr. Franz Boas, has printed.[200] And it must be borne in mind that these stories are not the secret gossip of vulgar men alone by themselves, but are national tales with which children of both sexes become familiar from their earliest years. As Colonel Dodge remarks (213): it is customary for as many as a dozen persons of both sexes to live in one room, hence there is an entire lack of privacy, either in word or act. "It is a wonder," says Powers (271), "that children grow up with any virtue whatever, for the conversation of their elders in their presence is often of the filthiest description." "One thing seems to me more than intolerable," wrote the French missionary Le Jeune in 1632 (Jesuit Relations, V., 169).
"It is their living together promiscuously, girls, women, men, and boys, in a smoky hole. And the more progress one makes in the knowledge of the language, the more vile things one hears…. I did not think that the mouth of the savage was so foul as I notice it is every day."
Elsewhere (VI., 263) the same missionary says:
"Their lips are constantly foul with these obscenities; and it is the same with the little children…. The older women go almost naked, the girls and young women arevery modestly clad; but, among themselves, their language has the foul odor of the sewers."
Of the Pennsylvania Indians Colonel James Smith (who had lived among them as a captive) wrote (140): "The squaws are generally very immodest in their words and actions, and will often put the young men to the blush."
The late Dr. Brinton shot wide off the mark when he wrote (R. and P., 59) that even among the lower races the sentiment of modesty "is never absent." With some American Indians, as in the races of other parts of the world, there is often not even the appearance of modesty. Many of the Southern Indians in North America and others in Central and South America wear no clothes at all, and their actions are as unrestrained as those of animals.[201] The tribes that do wear clothes sometimes present to shallow or biassed observers the appearance of modesty. To the Mandan women Catlin (I., 93, 96) attributes "excessive modesty of demeanor."
"It was customary for hundreds of girls and women to go bathing and swimming in the Missouri every morning, while a quarter of a mile back on a terrace stood several sentinels with bows and arrows in hand to protect the bathing-place from men or boys, who had their own swimming-place elsewhere."
This, however, tells us more about the immorality of the men and their anxiety to guard their property than about the character of the women. On that point we are enlightened by Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, who found that these women were anything but prudes, having often two or three lovers at a time, while infidelity was seldom punished (I., 531). According to Gatschet (183) Creek women also "were assigned a bathing-place in the river currents at some distance below the men;" but that this, too, was a mere curiosity of pseudo-modesty becomes obvious when we read in Schoolcraft (V., 272) that among these Indians "the sexes indulge their propensities with each other promiscuously, unrestrained by law or custom, and without secrecy or shame." Powers, too, relates (55) that among the Californian Yurok "the sexes bathe apart, and the women do not go into the sea without some garment on." But Powers was not a man to be misled by specious appearances. He fully understood the philosophy of the matter, as the following shows (412):
"Notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary by false friends and weak maundering philanthropists, the California Indians are a grossly licentious race. None more so, perhaps. There is no word in all their language that I have examined which has the meaning of 'mercenary prostitute,' because such a creature is unknown to them; but among the unmarried of both sexes there is very little or no restraint; and this freedom is so much a matter of course that there is no reproach attaching to it; so thattheir young women are notable for their modest and innocent demeanor. This very modesty of outward deportment has deceived the hasty glance of many travellers. But what their conduct really is is shown by the Argus-eyed surveillance to which women are subjected. If a married woman is seen even walking in the forest with another man than her husband she is chastised by him. A repetition of the offence is generally punished with speedy death. Brothers and sisters scrupulously avoid living alone together. A mother-in-law is never allowed to live with her son-in-law. To the Indian's mind the opportunity of evil implies the commission of it."
Having disposed of the modesty fallacy, let us examine once more, and for the last time, the doctrine that savages owe their degradation to the whites.
In the admirable preface to his book on the Jesuit missionaries inCanada, Parkman writes concerning the Hurons (XXXIV.):
"Lafitau, whose book appeared in 1724, says that the nation was corrupt in his time, but that this was a degeneracy from their ancient manners. La Potherie and Charlevoix make a similar statement. Megapolensis, however, in 1644 says that they were then exceedingly debauched; and Greenhalgh, in 1677, gives ample evidence of a shameless license. One of their most earnest advocates of the present day admits that the passion of love among them had no other than an animal existence (Morgan,League of the Iroquois, 322). There is clear proof that the tribes of the South were equally corrupt. (See Lawson'sCarolina, 34, and other early writers.)"
Another most earnest advocate of the Indians, Dr. Brinton, writes (M.N.W., 159) that promiscuous licentiousness was frequently connected with the religious ceremonies of the Indians:
"Miscellaneous congress very often terminated their dances and festivals. Such orgies were of common occurrence among the Algonkins and Iroquois at a very early date, and are often mentioned in theJesuit Relations; Venagas describes them as frequent among the tribes of Lower California, and Oviedo refers to certain festivals of the Nicaraguans, during which the women of all ranks extended to whosoever wished just such privileges as the matrons of ancient Babylon, that mother of harlots and all abominations, used to grant even to slaves and strangers in the temple of Melitta as one of the duties of religion."
In Part I. (140-42) of theFinal Report of Investigations among the Indians of the Southwestern United States,[202] A.F. Bandelier, the leading authority on the Indians of the Southwest, writes regarding the Pueblos (one of the most advanced, of all American tribes):
"Chastity was an act of penitence; to be chaste signified to do penance. Still, after a woman had once become linked to a man by the performance of certain simple rites it was unsafe for her to be caught trespassing, and her accomplice also suffered a penalty. But there was the utmost liberty, even license, as toward girls. Intercourse was almost promiscuous with members of the tribe. Toward outsiders the strictest abstinence was observed, and this fact, which has long been overlooked or misunderstood, explains the prevailing idea that before the coming of the white man the Indians were both chaste and moral, while the contrary is the truth."
Lewis and Clarke travelled a century ago among Indians that had never been visited by whites. Their observations regarding immoral practices and the means used to obviate the consequences bear out the above testimony. M'Lean (II., 59, 120) also ridicules the idea that Indians were corrupted by the whites. But the most conclusive proof of aboriginal depravity is that supplied by the discoverers of America, including Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. Columbus on his fourth voyage touched the mainland going down near Brazil. In Cariay, he writes,[203] the enchanters
"sent me immediately two girls very showily dressed. The elder could not be more than eleven years of age and the other seven, and both exhibited so much immodesty that more could not be expected from public women."
On another page (30) he writes: "The habits of these Caribbees are brutal," adding that in their attacks on neighboring islands they carry off as many women as they can, using them as concubines. "These women also say that the Caribbees use them with such cruelty as would scarcely be believed; and that they eat the children which they bear to them."