We are now in a position to appreciate the unintentional humor of
Ashe's indignant outcry, cited at the beginning of this chapter,
against those who calumniate these innocent people "by denying that
there is anything but 'brutal passion' in their love-affairs." He
admits, indeed, that "no expressions of endearment or tenderness ever
escape the Indian sexes toward each other," as all observers have
remarked, but claims that this reserve is merely a compliance with a
political and religious law which "stigmatizes youth wasting their
time in female dalliance, except when covered with the veil of night
and beyond the prying eye of man." Were a man to speak to a squaw of
love in the daytime, he adds, she would run away from him or disdain
him. He then proceeds, with astounding naïveté, to describe the
nocturnal love-making of "these innocent people." The Indians leave
their doors open day and night, and the lovers take advantage of this
when they go a-courting, or "a-calumeting," as it is called.
"A young man lights his calumet, enters the cabin of
his mistress, and gently presents it to her. If she
extinguishes it she admits him to her arms; but if she
suffer it to burn unnoticed he softly retires with a
disappointed and throbbing heart, knowing that while
there was light she never could consent to his wishes.
This spirit of nocturnal amour and intrigue is attended
by one dreadful practice: the girls drink the juice of
a certain herb which prevents conception and often
renders them barren through life. They have recourse to
this to avoid the shame of having a child--a
circumstance _in which alone_ the disgrace of their
conduct consists, and which would be thought a thing so
heinous as to deprive them forever of respect and
religious marriage rites. _The crime is in the
discovery_." "I never saw gallantry conducted with more
_refinement_ than I did during my stay with the Shawnee
nation."
In brief, Ashe's idea of "refined" love consists in promiscuous
immorality carefully concealed! "On the subject of love," he sums up
with an injured air, "no persons have been less understood than the
Indians." Yet this writer is cited seriously as a witness by
Westermarck and others!
In view of the foregoing facts every candid reader must admit that to
an Indian an expression like "Love hath weaned my heart from low
desires," or Werther's "She is sacred to me; all desire is silent in
her presence," would be as incomprehensible as Hegel's metaphysics;
that, in other words, mental purity, one of the most essential and
characteristic ingredients of romantic love, is always absent in the
Indian's infatuation. The late Professor Brinton tried to come to the
rescue by declaring (_E.A._, 297) that
"delicacy of sentiment bears no sort of constant
relation to culture. Every man ... can name among his
acquaintances men of unusual culture who are coarse
voluptuaries and others of the humblest education who
have the delicacy of a refined woman. So it is with
families, and so it is with tribes."
Is it? That is the point to be proved. I myself have pointed out that
among nations, as among individuals, intellectual culture alone does
not insure a capacity for true love, because that also implies
emotional and esthetic culture. Now in our civilized communities there
are all sorts of individuals, many coarse, a few refined, while some
civilized races, too, are more refined than others. To prove his point
Dr. Brinton would have had to show that among the Indians, too, there
are tribes and individuals who are morally and esthetically refined;
and this he failed to do; wherefore his argument is futile. Diligent
and patient search has not revealed to me a single exception to the
rule of depravity above described, though I admit the possibility that
among the Indians who have been for generations under missionary
control such exceptions might be found. But we are here considering
the wild Indian and not the missionary's garden plant.