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
(92),
"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 (1814) 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 (439).
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 (198),
"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_ (168):
"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
admiré le valeur dans le combat, à s'unir à leurs femmes pour
perpétuer sa race." Concerning the Kickapoo, Kansas, and Osage Indians
we are informed by Hunter (203), who lived among them, that
"a female may become a parent out of wedlock without
loss of reputation, or 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 (204):
"For an unmarried Indian girl to be found away from her
lodge alone is to invite outrage, consequently she is
never sent out to cut and bring wood, nor to take care
of the stock."
He speaks of the "Indian men who, animal-like, approach a female only
to make love to her," and to whom the idea of continence is unknown
(210). Among the Cheyennes and Arapahoes
"no unmarried woman considers herself dressed to meet
her beau at night, to go to a dance or other gathering,
unless she has tied her lower limbs with a rope....
Custom has made this an almost perfect protection
against the brutality of the men. Without it she would
not be safe for an instant, and even with it, an
unmarried girl is not safe if found alone away from the
immediate protection of the lodge" (213).
A brother does not protect his sister from insult, nor avenge outrage
(220).
"Nature has no 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. (69):
"Comparatively little virtue existed among the
unmarried women. Their chances of marriage were not
diminished, but rather augmented, by the fact that they
had been great favorites, provided they had avoided
conception during their years of general pleasure."
The wife "was deterred, by fear of public punishment, from the
commission of indiscretions." "The unmarried women among the Natchez
were unusually unchaste," says McCulloh (165).
This 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);
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.