A critical student will not be able, I think, to find any exceptions
to this rule of Indian depravity among tribes untouched by missionary
influences. Westermarck, indeed, refers (65) with satisfaction to
Hearne's assertion (311) that the northern Indians he visited
carefully guarded the young people. Had he consulted page 129 of the
same writer he would have seen that this does not indicate a regard
for chastity as a virtue, but is merely a result of their habit of
regarding women as property, to which Franklin, speaking of these same
Indians, refers (287); for as Hearne remarks in the place alluded to,
"it is a very common custom among the men of this country to exchange
a night's lodging with each other's wives." An equal lack of insight
is shown by Westermarck, when he professes to find female chastity
among the Apaches. For this assertion he relies on Bancroft, who does
indeed say (I., 514) that "all authorities agree that the Apache
women, both before and after marriage, are remarkably pure." Yet he
himself adds that the Apaches will lend their wives to each
other.[206] If the women are otherwise chaste, it is not from a regard
for purity, but from fear of their cruel husbands and masters. United
States Boundary Commissioner, Bartlett, has enlightened us on this
point. "The atrocities inflicted upon an Apache woman taken in
adultery baffle all description," he writes, "and the females whom
they capture from their enemies are invariably doomed to the most
infamous treatment." Thus they are like other Indians--the Comanches,
for instance, concerning whom we read in Schoolcraft (V., 683) that
"the men are grossly licentious, treating female captives in a most
cruel and barbarous manner; but they enforce rigid chastity upon their
women."
Among the Modocs a wife who violated her husband's property rights in
her "chastity," was disembowelled in public, as Bancroft informs us
(I., 350). No wonder, that, as he adds, "adultery, being attended with
so much danger, is comparatively rare, but among the unmarried, who
have nothing to fear, a gross licentiousness prevails."
The Peruvian sun virgins are often supposed to indicate a regard for
purity; but in reality the temples in which these girls were reared
and guarded were nothing but nurseries for providing a choice
assortment of concubines for the licentious Incas and their friends.
(Torquemada, IX., 16.)[207]
"In the earlier times of Peru the union of the sexes was
voluntary, unregulated, and accompanied by barbarous usages:
many of which even at the present day exist among the
uncivilized nations of South America." (Tschudi's
_Antiquities_, 184; McCulloh, 379.)
Of the Mexicans, too, it has been erroneously said
that they valued purity; but Bandelier has collected facts from the
old Spanish writers, in summing which up he says: "This almost
establishes promiscuity among the ancient Mexicans, as a preliminary
to formal marriage." Oddly enough, the crime of adultery with a
married woman was considered one against a cluster of kindred, and not
against the husband; for if he caught the culprits _in flagrante
delictu_ and killed the wife, he lost his own life!
Another source of error regarding exceptional virtue in an Indian
tribe lies in the fact that in some few cases female captives were
spared. This was due, however, not to a chivalrous regard for female
virtue, but to superstition. James Adair relates of the Choktah (164)
that even a certain chief noted for his cruelty
"did not attempt the virtue of his female captives lest
(as he told one of them) 'it should offend the Indian's
god;' though at the same time his pleasures were
heightened in proportion to the shrieks and groans from
prisoners of both sexes while they were under his
torture. Although the Choktah are libidinous, yet I
have known them to take several female prisoners
without offering the least violence to their virtue,
till the time of purgation was expired; then some of
them forced their captives, notwithstanding their
pressing entreaties and tears."
Parkman, too, was convinced (_Jes. in Can._, XXXIV.) that the
remarkable forbearance observed by some tribes was the result of
superstition; and he adds: "To make the Indian a hero of romance is
mere nonsense."