The opinion prevails that everywhere and always the first advances
were made by the men, the women being passive, and coyly reserved.
This opinion--like many other notions regarding the relations of the
sexes--rests on ignorance, pure ignorance. In collecting the scattered
facts bearing on this subject I have been more and more surprised at
the number of exceptions to the rule, if, indeed, rule it be. Not only
are there tribes among whom women _must_ propose--as in the Torres
Straits Islands, north of Australia, and with the Garos of India,
concerning whom interesting details will be given in later chapters;
but among many other savages and barbarians the women, instead of
repelling advances, make them.
"In all Polynesia," says Gerland (VI., 127), "it was a common
occurrence that the women wooed the men." "A proposal of marriage,"
writes Gill (_Savage Life in Polynesia_, II.), "may emanate with
propriety from a woman of rank to an equal or an inferior." In an
article on Fijian poetry (731-53), Sir Arthur Gordon cites the
following native poem:
The girls of Vunivanua all had lovers,
But I, poor I, had not even one.
Yet I fell desperately in love one day,
My eye was filled with the beauty of Vasunilawedua.
She ran along the beach, she called the canoe-men.
She is conveyed to the town where her beloved dwells.
Na Ulumatua sits in his canoe unfastening its gear.
He asks her, "Why have you come here, Sovanalasikula?"
"They have been falling in love at Vunivanua," she answers;
"I, too, have fallen in love. I love your lovely son,
Vasunilawedua."
Na Ulumatua rose to his feet. He loosened a tambua whale's
tooth from the canoe.
"This," he said, presenting it to her, "is my offering to
you for your return. My son cannot wed you, lady."
Tears stream from her eyes, they stream down on her breast.
"Let me only live outside his house," she says;
"I will sleep upon the wood-pile. If I may only light his
seluka [cigarrette] for him, I shall rejoice.
If I may only hear his voice from a distance, it will
suffice. Life will be pleasant to me."
Na Ulumatua replied, "Be magnanimous, lady, and return.
We have many girls of our own. Return to your own land.
Vasunilawedua cannot wed a stranger."
Sovanalasikula went away crying.
She returned to her own town, forlorn.
Her life was sadness.
Ia nam bosulu.
Tregear (102) describes the "wooing house" in which New Zealand girls
used to stand up in the dark and say: "I love so-and-so, I want him
for a husband;" whereupon the chosen lover, if willing, would say yes,
or cough to signify his assent. Among the Pueblo Indians
"the usual order of courtship is reversed; when a girl is
disposed to marry, she does not wait for a young man to
propose to her, but selects one to her own liking and
consults her father, who visits the parents of the youth and
acquaints them with his daughter's wishes. It seldom happens
that any objections to the match are made" (Bancroft, I.,
547);
and concerning the Spokane Indians the same writer says (276) that a
girl "may herself propose if she wishes." Among the Moquis, "instead
of the swain asking the hand of the fair one, she selects the young
man who is to her fancy, and then her father proposes the match to the
sire of the lucky youth" (Schoolcraft, IV., 86). Among the Dariens,
says Heriot (325), "it is considered no mark of forwardness" in a
woman "openly to avow her inclination," and in Paraguay, too, women
were allowed to propose (Moore, 261). Indian girls of the Hudson River
region
"were not debarred signifying their desire to enter
matrimonial life. When one of them wished to be married, she
covered her face with a veil and sat covered as an
indication of her desire. If she attracted a suitor,
negotiations were opened with parents or friends, presents
given, and the bride taken" (Ruttenber).
A comic mode of catching a husband is described in an episode from the
tale "Owasso and Wayoond" (Schoolcraft, _A.R._ II., 210-11):
"Manjikuawis was forward in her advances toward him.
He, however, paid no attention to it, and shunned her.
She continued to be very assiduous in attending to his
wants, such as cooking and mending his mocassins. She
felt hurt and displeased at his indifference, and
resolved to play him a trick. Opportunity soon offered.
The lodge was spacious, and she dug a hole in the
ground, where the young man usually sat, covering it
very carefully. When the brothers returned from the
chase the young man threw himself down carelessly at
the usual place, and fell into the cavity, his head and
feet remaining out, so that he was unable to extricate
himself. 'Ha! ha!' cried Manjikuawis, as she helped him
out, 'you are mine, I have caught you at last, and I
did it on purpose.' A smile came over the young man's
face, and he said, 'So be it, I will be yours;' and
from that moment they lived happily as man and wife."
It was a common thing among various Indian tribes for the women to
court distinguished warriors; and though they might have no choice in
the matter, they could at any rate place themselves temptingly in the
way of these braves, who, on their part, had no occasion to be coy,
since they could marry all the squaws they pleased. The squaws, too,
did not hesitate to indulge, if not in two husbands, in more than one
lover. Commenting on the Mandans, for instance, Maximilian Prinz zu
Wied declares (II., 127) that "coyness is not a virtue of the Indian
women; they often have two or three lovers at a time." Among the
Pennsylvania Indians it was a common thing for a girl to make suit to
a young man.
"Though the first address may be by the man, yet the other
is the most common. The squaws are generally very immodest
in their words and actions, and will often put the young men
to the blush. The men commonly appear to be possessed of
much more modesty than the women." (Bancroft, II., 140.)
Even a coating of culture does not seem to curb the young squaw's
propensity to make the first advances. Captain R.H. Pratt (_U.S. Geol.
and G.S_., IX., 260), of the Carlisle School, relates an amusing story
of a Kiowa young man who, under a variety of circumstances, "never
cared for girl. 'But when Laura say she love me, then I began to care
for girl.'"
In his _First Footsteps_ (85, 86) Burton gives a glimpse of the
"coyness" of Bedouin women:
"We met a party of Esa girls, who derided my color and
doubted the fact of my being a Moslem. The Arabs
declared me to be a shaykh of shaykhs, and translated
to the prettiest of the party an impromptu proposal of
marriage. She showed but little coyness and stated her
price to be an Andulli or necklace, a couple of
Tobes--she asked one too many--a few handfuls of beads,
and a small present for her papa. She promised, naïvely
enough, to call next day and inspect the goods. The
publicity of the town did not deter her, but the
shamefacedness of my two companions prevented our
meeting again."
In his book on Southern Abyssinia Johnston relates how, while staying
at Murroo, he was strongly recommended to follow the example of his
companions and take a temporary wife. There was no need of hunting for
helpmates--they offered themselves of their own accord. One of the
girls who presented herself as a candidate was stated by her friends
to be a very strong woman, who had already had four or five husbands.
"I thought this a rather strange recommendation," he adds, "but it was
evidently mentioned that she might find favor in my eyes." He found
that the best way out of such a dilemma was to engage the first old
hag that came along and leave it to her to ward off the others.
Masculine coyness under such conditions has its risks. Johnston
mentions the case of an Arab who, in the region of the Muzeguahs,
scorned a girl who wanted to be his temporary wife; whereupon "the
whole tribe asserted he had treated them with contempt by his haughty
conduct toward the girl, and demanded to know if she was not good
enough for him." He had to give them some brass wire and blue sood
before he could allay the national indignation aroused by his refusal
to take the girl. Women have rights which must be respected, even in
Africa!
In Dutch Borneo there is a special kind of "marriage by stratagem"
called _matep_. If a girl desires a particular man he is inveigled
into her house, the door is shut, the walls are hung with cloth of
different colors and other ornaments, dinner is served up and he is
informed of the girl's wish to marry him. If he declines, he is
obliged to pay the value of the hangings and the ornaments. (Roth,
II., CLXXXI.)
"Uncertain, coy, and hard to please" obviously cannot be sung of such
women.
In one of the few native Australian stories on record the two wives of
a man are represented as going to his brother's hut when he was
asleep, and imitating the voice of an emu. The noise woke him, and he
took his spear to kill them; but as soon as he ran out the two women
spoke and requested him to be their husband. (Wood's _Native Tribes_,
210.)
The fact that Australian women have absolutely no choice in the
assignment of husbands, must make them inclined to offer themselves to
men they like, just as Indian girls offer themselves to noted warriors
in the hope of thus calling attention to their personal attractions.
As we shall see later, one of the ways in which an Australian wins a
wife is by means of magic. In this game, as Spencer and Gillen tell us
(556), the women sometimes take the initiative, thus inducing a man to
elope with them.