when she became perfect mistress of herself, and often married again
in a few days. Others remained single, admitting a man into their
houses occasionally, or lived as the mistress of various men from time
to time--that is to say, became wandering libertines or prostitutes.
Unmarried women might have intercourse with whom they pleased without
opprobrium, but they were not easily won. Gross prostitution was
unknown among them. The conduct of the men was very different. It
was thought no reproach, as a married man, to hold intercourse with
other females; but the practice was not general. It was checked by the
jealousy of the wife. Single men were extremely free in their conduct;
but seldom made attempts on married women. Rape occasionally happened.
Captives taken in war had, as a thing of course, to submit, and
incurred no dishonour through it. Few of the young men would refuse to
seduce an unmarried girl of their own nation, had they the opportunity.
Nevertheless, in comparison with the islanders in the surrounding sea,
they were rather a chaste than a libertine people.
Commodore Wilkes declares himself glad to confirm the account in
“Mariner’s Tonga Islands” as an “admirable and accurate description.”
The women are said to be virtuous, and the general state of morals
superior far to that of Tahiti. The venereal disease is much less
extensively prevalent.
In the Marquesas the curious social phenomenon of polyandrism
exists--several men cohabiting with one woman. This is in consequence
of the preponderance of the male over the female sex. A young girl may
become attached to a youth, and live with him for a short time. A man
may then become attached to her, and transfer her, with her lover,
to his house, where he supports them both. Infanticide is unknown,
but procuring abortion not uncommon. The marriage tie, though a mere
private compact signified by an exchange of presents, is, in spite
of polyandrism, distinct, binding, and enduring--the parties abiding
by the agreement they have made, until another formal agreement to
dissolve it. In other parts of the Pacific the contrary system is
carried out to an extravagant extent. In the Isle of Rotumah the land
is divided into various estates, the property of certain chiefs. Each
of these lords of the soil has absolute control over all the women in
his district, and not one can marry without his consent. Should he
not desire her for himself he allows her to contract the engagement,
on receiving a present from the bridegroom. Gifts are exchanged on
either side, bowls of cava are drunk, and the ceremony is over. The
wife, in this island, has singular power. She may, a few days after the
marriage, desire her husband to leave her. He does so for three or four
months, and then returns to spend two or three days in her society.
She may then request him again to quit the house; and this is repeated
until she consents to live with him permanently. Occasionally, when all
the preliminaries of the match are arranged, the girl will suddenly
revoke her resolution, and refuse to leave her parents’ house. The man
may be equally desirous of leaving her at home, and in this case she is
henceforward a privileged libertine, and usually lives well upon the
gains of prostitution. But if, previously to the contract, she lose
her virginity, the punishment is death, which is also inflicted for
adultery.
A similar system with respect to the chief’s authority prevails in the
Feejee group. All the young girls in his district are at his mercy; he
may take them all as concubines if he pleases. When they are allowed
to marry they become slaves, living in complete subjection to their
husbands, who flog them at will. They are denied the privilege of
entering a temple, and are bought, sold, and exchanged, like cattle.
Inclined as they are to licentiousness, they have certain ideas of
modesty, and wear a girdle round the loins; any girl seen without this
covering is put to death.
In the wild isles of the Kingsmill group in the Western Pacific,
polygamy prevails; but more consideration is paid to the female
sex than in any other part of that great insular region. All the
hard labour is performed by the men; the women pursuing only those
occupations which are truly domestic and feminine. Men, indeed, beat
their wives, but in a similar manner to the lower classes here. If
she be vigorous or bold enough, she returns blow for blow, and there
is no appeal for him against her retaliation. Chastity is scarcely
esteemed a virtue, nor is it considered essential by a man requiring
a wife. After marriage, however, continence is strictly required.
The adulteress is either put to death or expelled; but, in spite of
these punishments, offences of this class are not uncommon. They are
encouraged by the laws which forbid the younger brothers of a chief,
who are not holders of land, from marriage; for it may be laid down
as an axiom that all restrictions upon lawful intercourse with women
multiply illicit connections. The adulteress and the prostitute in the
Kingsmill Isles, as elsewhere, form the resources of those to whom
celibacy is enjoined.
A wife is not bought, but the parents of both contribute to the
household stock of the newly-married pair. It would be indecent in
the young man to inquire of the girl’s father what is the amount of
her dowry. The marriage ceremony is only a feast, which is continued
during three days. Children are sometimes betrothed during infancy,
and in this case no marriage ceremony is required: as soon as they are
sufficiently old they are sent to live together. When this is not the
case, the young man makes an offer first to the girl, and, if accepted,
next to her parents; but usually carries her off if they do not consent.
On the neighbouring isle of Maluni all the women who are married have
been betrothed during childhood; the rest, without exception, being
prostitutes, living with the single men, and receiving payment from
them.
This is, as usual, in consequence of the rich men having so many wives
that only a few women are left to live in common with the poorer sort.
Infanticide is not practised, but abortion is continually procured. A
woman has seldom more than two, and never more than three children.
After the third is born she invariably calls in the aid of a woman to
prevent another birth. This is not attended with any shame, but is,
on the contrary, considered prudent; with the unmarried females it is
invariable.
In the Samoan or Navigators’ group women now enjoy equal privileges
with the men, and no indiscriminate intercourse of the sexes is
permitted. Polygamy has been very much checked, but is generally
regretted. The people say, with a simplicity which takes away its
profanity from the expression, “Why should God be so unreasonable as to
require them to give up all their wives for his convenience?” Among the
unconverted tribes it still prevails as formerly. Girls are betrothed
early, and tabooed until marriage, which preserves the general
chastity. Infanticide never occurs. Adultery is severely punished,
and seldom committed; the marriage ceremony is only a trifling form
of exchanging presents. The power of divorce may be exercised by the
husband under certain circumstances, but not by the wife. Altogether
their morals are of a superior order; and their libertine disposition
exercises itself chiefly in the performance of lascivious dances.
Everywhere, however, in these seas, except where the power of the
missionaries is supreme, the whaling ships, on arriving at a port,
attract numbers of prostitutes, who offer themselves to the sailors at
various prices. When Coulter made his voyage, not many years ago, the
vessel was assailed at the Kingsmill Islands by dozens of these women,
who came, some attended by their fathers, mothers, or brothers, to
entice the sailors. Some of them were very beautiful, and nearly naked.
When he was in bed, in a house on shore, several young girls came in
with scarcely any clothing, and asked him to choose a companion, or
“wife.” In other places hundreds of prostitutes swarmed down to the
beach, performing the most obscene antics. It was so when La Perouse
visited the region; it is so now. It was remarked by Cook, and it was
remarked by the most recent voyager.
To pass up and down through that prodigious wilderness of sea, visiting
each group in succession, and noticing the peculiar manners of all the
various insular communities which there exist, would exceed the limits
of an ordinary work. Nor would it continue to interest the reader;
for there is an unavoidable monotony in the subject, when extended
too greatly in reference to one region. What we have described will
show that, among the innumerable islands of the Pacific, the original
condition of women, before the partial establishment of Christianity,
was pitifully degraded, and that the labours of the missionaries have
been fruitful in good results. Wherever Christianity has been received,
much outward improvement, at least, is visible. And there is something
in this. When crime is perpetrated in secret, it is so because it is
dangerous or disgraceful; and in proportion as it is either the one or
the other the inducement to it will diminish. There is an immense field
open in the Pacific; but the exertions of future missionaries may be
encouraged by contemplating the good results which have sprung from
the labours of those who have gone before them[61].
OF PROSTITUTION AMONG THE NORTH-AMERICAN INDIANS.
Various as are the phases of civilization in different parts of the
earth, no race is more peculiar than the North American Indian. It
is alone. It stands apart from the rest of the human family. It
resembles no other. In manners, customs, laws, ideas, and religion,
the nation occupies its own ground, related by no tie with any of
the innumerable tribes of the human family inhabiting the remaining
divisions of the world. It has, indeed, exercised the ingenuity of
ethnographical philosophers to trace among the North American Indians
an identity of social institutions with the people of ancient Israel;
but the comparison appears forced except in a few particulars, which
seem rather matters of accident, and by no means the prominent
characteristics of the Red or the Jewish race.
Until the complete establishment of a civilized society in North
America, and before the settlement of peace, our knowledge of the
Indian race was most imperfect. We depended on the relations of certain
imaginative travellers, who wrote not so much to inform as to startle
the reader--a practice not altogether abandoned at the present day.
Carver, indeed, with a few others, brought home honest accounts of
what he saw, but was not always careful to separate that from what
he heard; and thus, even his picture is strangely coloured in some
of its details. Later and more scrupulous travellers, however, have
investigated the manners of the Indian race, and our acquaintance with
it is gradually becoming familiar. Catlin and the various historians
have added to our knowledge; so that a clear outline, at least of
their social institutions, may be drawn. There are three classes
of writers on the subject:--those who paint the red man as poetry
incarnate; those who describe him as a vile and drunken barbarian; and
those who have the sense to discriminate between the Indian of the
seaport town corrupted in the dram-shop, and the Indian of the woods,
displaying the original characteristics of his race. It is from such
authorities we shall draw our view of the condition of women and the
state of morals among them.
[Illustration: WOMAN OF THE SACS, OR “SÁU-KIES” TRIBE OF AMERICAN
INDIANS.
[_Copied, by permission, from a Portrait taken by_ MR. CATLIN, _during
his residence among the Red Indians_.]]
A race divided into several nations, and subdivided into innumerable
tribes, might be supposed to present a similar diversity of manners.
Not so, however. The social institutions of the North-American Indian
are generally uniform, though of course there are many varieties of
detail in their habits and customs. Yet these are neither so numerous
nor so striking as to render it impossible to sketch the whole in a
general view.
The Indian loves society. He is never found wandering alone. He is
attached also to the company of women. Priding himself, however, on
his stoicism, he never, at any period of his history, condescended to
voluptuousness. His sense of manly pride prevented him from becoming
immodest or indecent. This feeling at the same time inspired him with
the idea that everything except the hunt and the war-path was below
the dignity of man. The sentiments, therefore, which saved the female
sex from becoming the mere food of lust, consigned it to an inferior
position. The Indian women formed the labouring class. Such a result
was inevitable. The warrior would only follow the chase or fight.
There was labour to be performed. No men were to be employed for hire.
Whatever, therefore, was to be done must be done by the females. The
wife is, consequently, her husband’s slave. She plants the maize,
tobacco, beans, and running vines; she drives the blackbird from the
corn, prepares the store of wild fruits for winter, tears up the
weeds, gathers the harvest, pounds the grain, dries the buffalo meat,
brings home the game, carries wood, draws water, spreads the repast,
attends on her husband, aids in canoe building, and bears the poles of
the wigwam from place to place. Among the trading communities she is
especially valuable,--joining in the hunt, preparing the skins and fur,
and filling the wigwam with the riches of the prairie, which the men
exchange for the means of a luxurious life. When the hunter kills game
he leaves it under a tree, perhaps many miles from the “smokes” of his
tribe, returns home, and sends his wife to fetch it. Making garments
of skins, sewing them with sinews and thorns; weaving mats and baskets;
embroidering with shells, feathers, and grass; preparing drugs and
administering medicine; and building huts--are among the other offices
of the sex. To educate them for this life of industry, the girls are
trained by the severe discipline of toils; taught to undergo fatigue,
to be obedient, and to suffer without complaining.
Considered as the slaves of the men, it is natural to find a plurality
of wives allowed by the Indian social law; accordingly from Florida
to the St. Lawrence polygamy is permitted, though some tribes further
north have not adopted the practice. Elsewhere also, in other
directions, more than one woman is taken into the chief’s wigwam.
They are his servants, and he counts them as we count our horses and
cattle; some of the great Mandan warriors have seven or eight; indeed,
among all the communities which Catlin had an opportunity of visiting,
polygamy was allowed, and it was no uncommon thing for him to find
six, eight, ten, twelve, or even fourteen wives in the same lodge. The
practice is of an antiquity too remote to fix, and is considered not
only as necessary, but as honourable and just; they are servants, and
a man’s wealth is partly measured by this standard. This is one of the
man’s inducements to follow the custom, though it cannot be denied
that some of these stoic warriors delight in a harem from the same
motives as the Turk or the Hindu. It is allowed, we say, to all, but is
principally confined to the great chiefs and medicine men, the others
being too humble or too poor to obtain girls from their fathers: there
are, indeed, few instances in which an ordinary man has more than one
squaw, and it might be supposed that his wigwam was most peaceful; but
it is not so. The jealousy of the Indian women is not of the same kind
as with Europeans; it is watchful of strangers, not of regular wives,
and six or seven of these dwell in great harmony under the same roof.
So well established is this usage among them, that civilization meets
more resistance in attempting to break it down, than in any other of
its efforts; indeed, in overthrowing polygamy among the North-American
Indians, or the remnant which is left of them, we shall overthrow their
whole social economy and change their national character, and this
it will be long before we are able to do. Probably the custom will
continue as long as the race exists, and be only extinguished with
it. Instances, indeed, have occurred, in which an Indian has sworn
obedience to our social law, but many examples also are known of a
return to the old habit. Sir George Simpson relates an anecdote of one
who came into the settled parts, learned to read and write, adopted
the principle of monogamy, and, returning among his countrymen, sought
to persuade them to follow the same practice, and acquire the same
accomplishments. They held long arguments with him upon the subject,
debated gravely, and, in the end, instead of being converted by him,
won him back to their ancient institution. He took a great number of
wives, forswore books, and alluded no more to his designs of social
reform. Some shame, however, possessed his mind, so that, when some
Europeans were in the village, he kept in his wigwam and would not see
them.
A chief named Five Crows, of the Cayux tribe, offered also to renounce
polygamy, but it was from impulse only, and not from the discovery of
any social principle. He had five wives, and great wealth in horses,
cattle, and slaves. Falling in love, however, with a young Christian
girl, the daughter of a gentleman in the service of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, he dismissed his old companions, and with great parade and
confidence presented himself, made the proposal, but, to his infinite
astonishment as well as mortification, was rejected; in a transport of
spite, he immediately married one of his own slave girls. Generally,
however, the American Indians are far less susceptible of the sentiment
of love, still less of sensuality, than natives of Asiatic blood, and
women among them are usually viewed with indifference; instances of the
contrary occur and will be alluded to.
Whether polygamists or otherwise, the American Indians universally
recognise the marriage contract. There is no such thing among them as
a tribe practising promiscuous intercourse; the reports of such are
idle tales. Such a community would become extinct, in the inevitable
course of nature. The circumstances of the contract vary, however, in
different parts, and among different societies. In fertile districts
polygamy is more common; in barren tracts most of the men of all
classes have only one wife. In some communities the man takes his squaw
for life, and only divorces her for a recognised cause; in others,
no more than a temporary union is expected. Everywhere, however, the
condition of the sex is humiliating, if not miserable, and marriage is
no more than the conjunction of a master with his servant. Thus the
noblest institution of society is perverted into a form of slavery.
That polygamy is practised cannot, nevertheless, be lamented in a
social view. The frequency of wars among the American Indians, in their
original state, caused a disproportion of the sexes, which allowed many
of the men to take several wives, without preventing all from having
one. Had this custom not been prevalent, one alternative only would
have remained to the superfluous women--they would have become common
prostitutes.
The conditions and forms of the marriage contract are various only
in the inferior details--the general tenour of them being that a man
procures a woman from her father as a purchase, and acquires in her a
property over which he has the control of a master. Some restrictions,
however, are laid upon the intercourse of the sexes. Marriage cannot be
contracted among any of the tribes which originally dwelt east of the
Mississippi, or indeed anywhere between kindred of a certain degree.
The Iroquois warrior may choose a partner from the same tribe, but
not the same cabin, or group of wigwams. For it is to be recollected
that, among the tribes, especially of the Algonquin race, the whole
family, or clan of several families, dwell together, bearing a common
designation. One of that nation must look for a wife beyond those who
bear the same token or family symbol. The Cherokee would marry at once
a mother and her daughter, but never a woman of his own immediate
kindred. The Indians of the Red River frequently take two or more
sisters to wife at once.
The manners of the Algonquin race are generally similar. The young
man desiring a wife offers a gift--or, if he be poor, his friends do
it for him--to the girl’s father. If this be accepted, the marriage
is complete. He goes to dwell in the woman’s house for a year,
surrendering the gains of one hunting season to her family, and then
taking her away to a wigwam of his own.
The contract is, with all the other tribes, usually made with the
girl’s father; she is virtually bought and sold. In many cases she is
never consulted at all, and the whole is a mere mercenary transaction.
Instances do occur, also, where the parties approach each other,
express mutual affection, make arrangements, and swear vows, sacred
and inviolable as vows can be; but the marriage is never consummated
without payment to the bride’s father. In the interior of Oregon the
permission of the chief is first asked, then the approval of the
parents, then the assent of the girl; but if she object, her decision
is conclusive. If she consent, the man gives from one to five horses to
her father; they have a feast, and the ceremony is complete. Espousals
often take place during infancy, but neither is absolutely bound by
this engagement. The influence of the parents is, however, so powerful,
that their will is seldom or never resisted; so that a bargain is often
concluded, and a price paid; while the girl is a child. Occasionally
the female courts the male--that is, proposes to become his squaw,
and promises to be faithful, good-tempered, and obedient, if he will
take her to his hut. He seldom refuses, for polygamy is permitted, and
a husband may in this region put away his wife when he pleases. He
usually allows each to have a separate fire.
The missionaries in Oregon have had some success, and have displayed
more prudence than some of their brethren of the same profession in the
island of Tahiti. Men who had a plurality of wives were required, on
their conversion, to maintain them; while those who had only one were
forbidden to take more.
On the Red River, when a young man desires a girl as wife, he addresses
her father, and, if accepted by him, dwells in his wigwam for a
year--as among the Algonquins--and then takes her home. This is only
observed with the first; he adds to the number, if he is wealthy, as
fast as he can. Few of the women are thus left single, and scarcely
any common prostitutes are found. Some will occasionally bear children
before marriage; and the zeal of the missionary West was displayed in
somewhat of a fanatical spirit by his refusing to baptize a child not
born in formal wedlock. We may, however, forgive this eccentric spirit
for the motive which created it; and must admit that, as Sir George
Simpson bears witness, the Indians of Oregon are vastly reformed, and
chiefly by missionary influence.
Among the curious customs preceding marriage in other parts of North
America, is that of the lover going at midnight into the tent of the
woman he desires, and, lighting a splinter of wood, holding it to her
face. If she wake and leave the torch burning, it is a sign for him
to be gone; if she blow it, he is accepted, and we are told that this
frequently leads to immoral intercourse. Catlin knew a young chief of
the Mandans on the Upper Missouri, who took four wives in one day,
paying for each a horse or two. They were from twelve to fifteen
years old, and sat happily in his wigwam, perfectly contented to dwell
under his commands. He was applauded for the act. This extreme youth
in the bride is common among the tribes; children pass from infancy to
womanhood by a single bound--we are assured, on good testimony, that
mothers twelve years of age are not unfrequent. The youths are led
by precept and example to adopt marriage; celibacy beyond the age of
puberty being very rare, especially in those communities which have
come into familiar contact with Europeans. It appears indeed that this
plan is resorted to by the men to secure virgins as their wives, for
among few barbarous nations is the chastity of unmarried woman safe
very long after she has reached a marriageable age. To have no husband
is esteemed by the females a misfortune and a disgrace, while to have
no wife entails great discomfort on a man.