Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 68

I am afraid of your love, my dear.

O pain! O pain!

Oh, where is my true love going, my dear?

Oh, they say she will be taken away far from here. She will leave me, my true love, my dear.

My body feels numb on account of what I have said, my true love, my dear.

Good-by, my true love, my dear.[250]

MORE LOVE-STORIES

Apart from "free translations" and embellishments, the great difficulty with poems like these, taken down at the present day, is that one never knows, though they may be told by a pure Indian, how far they may have been influenced by the half-breeds or the missionaries who have been with these Indians, in some cases for many generations. The same is true of not a few of the stories attributed to Indians.

Powers had heard among other "Indian" tales one of a lover's leap, and another of a Mono maiden who loved an Awani brave and was imprisoned by her cruel father in a cave until she perished. "But," says Powers (368), "neither Choko nor any other Indian could give me any information touching them, and Choko dismissed them all with the contemptuous remark, '_White man too much lie_.'" I have shown in this chapter how large is the number of white men who "too much lie" in attributing to Indians stories, thoughts, and feelings, which no Indian ever dreamt of.[251]

The genuine traditional literature of the Indians consists, as Powers remarks (408), almost entirely of petty fables about animals, and there is an almost total lack of human legends. Some there are, and a few of them are quite pretty. Powers relates one (299) which may well be Indian, the only suspicious feature being the reference to a "beautiful" cloud (for Indians know only the utility, not the charm, of nature).

"One day, as the sun was setting, Kiunaddissi's daughter went out and saw a beautiful red cloud, the most lovely cloud ever seen, resting like a bar along the horizon, stretching southward. She cried out to her father, 'O father, come and see this beautiful [bright?] cloud!' He did so.... Next day the daughter took a basket and went out into the plain to gather clover to eat. While picking the clover she found a very pretty arrow, trimmed with yellow-hammer's feathers. After gazing at it awhile in wonder she turned to look at her basket, and there beside it stood a man who was called Yang-wi'-a-kan-uh (Red Cloud) who was none other than the cloud she had seen the day before. He was so bright and resplendent to look upon that she was abashed; she modestly hung down her head and uttered not a word. But he said to her, 'I am not a stranger. You saw me last night; you see me every night when the sun is setting. I love you; you love me; look at me; be not afraid.' Then she said, 'If you love me, take and eat this basket of gra.s.s-seed pinole.' He touched the basket and in an instant all the pinole vanished in the air, going no man knows whither. Thereupon the girl fell away in a swoon, and lay a considerable time there upon the ground. But when the man returned to her behold she had given birth to a son. And the girl was abashed, and would not look in his face, but she was full of joy because of her new-born son."

The Indian's anthropomorphic way of looking at nature (instead of the esthetic or scientific, both of which are as much beyond his mental capacity as the faculty for sentimental love) is also ill.u.s.trated by the following Dakota tale, showing how two girls got married.[252]

"There were two women lying out of doors and looking up to the s.h.i.+ning stars. One of them said to the other, 'I wish that very large and bright s.h.i.+ning star was my husband,' The other said, 'I wish that star that s.h.i.+nes so brightly were my husband.' Thereupon they both were immediately taken up.

They found themselves in a beautiful country, which was full of twin flowers. They found that the star which shone most brightly was a large man, while the other was only a young man. So they each had a husband, and one became with child."

Fear and superst.i.tion are, as we know, among the obstacles which prevent an Indian from appreciating the beauties of nature. The story of the Yurok siren, as related by Powers (59), ill.u.s.trates this point:

"There is a certain tract of country on the north side of the Klamath River which nothing can induce an Indian to enter. They say that there is a beautiful squaw living there whose fascinations are fatal. When an Indian sees her he straightway falls desperately in love. She decoys him farther and farther into the forest, until at last she climbs a tree and the man follows. She now changes into a panther and kills him; then, resuming her proper form, she cuts off his head and places it in a basket. She is now, they say, a thousand years old, and has an Indian's head for every year of her life."

Such tales as these may well have originated in an Indian's imagination. Their local color is correct and charming, and they do not attribute to a savage notions and emotions foreign to his mind and customs.

"WHITE MAN TOO MUCH LIE"

It is otherwise with a cla.s.s of Indian tales of which Schoolcraft's are samples, and a few more of which may here be referred to. With the unquestioning trust of a child the learned Waitz accepts as a specimen of genuine romantic love a story[253] of an Indian maiden who, when an arrow was aimed at her lover's heart, sprang before him and received the barbed shaft in her own heart; and another of a Creek Indian who jumped into a cataract with the girl he loved, meeting death with her when he found he could not escape the tomahawk of the pursuers. The solid facts of the first story will be hinted at presently in speaking of Pocahontas; and as for the second story it is, reduced to Indian realism, simply an incident of an elopement and pursuit such as may have easily happened, though the motive of the elopement was nothing more than the usual desire to avoid paying for the girl. Such sentences as "she loved him with an intensity of pa.s.sion that only the n.o.blest souls know," and "they vowed eternal love; they vowed to live and die with each other," ought to have opened Waitz's eyes to the fact that he was not reading an actual Indian story, but a story sentimentalized and embellished in the cheapest modern dime-novel style. The only thing such stories tell us is that "white man too much lie."

White woman, too, is not always above suspicion. Mrs. Eastman a.s.sures us that she got her Sioux legends from the Indians themselves. One of these stories is ent.i.tled "The Track Maker" (122-23). During an interval of peace between the Chippewas and Dakotas, she relates, a party of Chippewas visited a camp of the Dakotas. A young Dakota warrior fell in love with a girl included in the Chippewa party.

"_Though he would have died to save her from sorrow_, yet he knew that she could never be his wife," for the tribes were ever at war. Here Mrs. Eastman, with the recklessness of a newspaper reporter, puts into an Indian's head a sentiment which no Indian ever dreamt of. All the facts cited in this chapter prove this, and, moreover, the sequel of her own story proves it. After exchanging vows of love (!) with the Dakotan brave, the girl departed with her Chippewa friends. Shortly afterward two Dakotas were murdered. The Chippewas were suspected, and a party of warriors at once broke up in pursuit of the innocent and unsuspecting party. The girl, whose name was Flying Shadow, saw her lover among the pursuers, who had already commenced to slaughter and scalp the other women, though the maidens clasped their hands in a "vain appeal to the merciless wretches, who see neither beauty nor grace when rage and revenge are in their hearts." Throwing herself in his arms she cried, "Save me! save me! Do not let them slay me before your eyes; make me your prisoner! You said that you loved me, spare my life!" He did spare her life; he simply touched her with his spear, then pa.s.sed on, and a moment later the girl was slain and scalped by his companions. And why did the gallant and self-sacrificing lover touch her with his spear before he left her to be murdered? Because touching an enemy--male or female--with his spear ent.i.tles the n.o.ble red man to wear a feather of honor as if he had taken a scalp! Yet he "would have died to save her from sorrow"!

An Indian's capacity for self-sacrifice is also revealed in a favorite Blackfoot tale recorded by Grinnell (39-42). A squaw was picking berries in a place rendered dangerous by the proximity of the enemy.

Suddenly her husband, who was on guard, saw a war party approaching.

Signalling to the squaw, they mounted their horses and took to flight.

The wife's horse, not being a good one, soon tired out and the husband had to take her on his. But this was too much of a load even for his powerful animal. The enemy gained on them constantly. Presently he said to his wife: "Get off. The enemy will not kill you. You are too young and pretty. Some one of them will take you, and I will get a big party of our people and rescue you." But the woman cried "No, no, I will die here with you." "Crazy person," cried the man, and with a quick jerk he threw the woman off and escaped. Having reached the lodge safely, he painted himself black and "walked all through the camp crying." Poor fellow! How he loved his wife! The Indian, as Catlin truly remarked, "is not in the least behind us in conjugal affection." The only difference--a trifling one to be sure--is that a white man, under such circ.u.mstances, would have spilt his last drop of blood in defence of his wife's life and her honor.

THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS

The rescue of John Smith by Pocahontas is commonly held to prove that the young Indian girl, smitten with sudden love for the white man, risked her life for him. This fanciful notion has however, been irreparably damaged by John Fiske (_O.V._, I., 102-111). It is true that "the Indians debated together, and presently two big stones were placed before the chiefs, and Smith was dragged thither and his head laid upon them;" and that

"even while warriors were standing with clubs in hand, to beat his brains out, the chief's young daughter Pocahontas rushed up and embraced him, whereupon her father spared his life."

It is true also that Smith himself thought and wrote that "Pocahontas hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save" his. But she did no such thing. Smith simply was ignorant of Indian customs:

"From the Indian point of view there was nothing romantic or extraordinary in such a rescue: it was simply a not uncommon matter of business. The romance with which readers have always invested it is the outcome of a misconception no less complete than that which led the fair dames of London to make obeisance to the tawny Pocahontas as to a princess of imperial lineage. Time and again it used to happen that when a prisoner was about to be slaughtered some one of the dusky a.s.semblage, moved by pity or admiration or some unexplained freak, would interpose in behalf of the victim; and as a rule such interposition was heeded. Many a poor wretch, already tied to the fatal tree and benumbed with unspeakable terror, while the firebrands were heating for his torment, has been rescued from the jaws of death and adopted as brother or lover by some laughing young squaw, or as a son by some grave wrinkled warrior. In such cases the new-comer was allowed entire freedom and treated like one of the tribe.... Pocahontas, therefore, did not hazard the beating out of her own brains, though the rescued stranger, looking with civilized eyes, would naturally see it in that light.

Her brains were perfectly safe. This thirteen-year-old squaw liked the handsome prisoner, claimed him, and got him, according to custom."

VERDICT: NO ROMANTIC LOVE

In the hundreds of genuine Indian tales collected by Boas I have not discovered a trace of sentiment, or even of sentimentality. The notion that there is any refinement of pa.s.sion or morality in the s.e.xual relations of the American aborigines has been fostered chiefly by the stories and poems of the whites--generally such as had only a superficial acquaintance with the red men. "The less we see and know of real Indians," wrote G.E. Ellis (111), "the easier will it be to make and read poems about them." General Custer comments on Cooper's false estimate of Indian character, which has misled so many.

"Stripped of the beautiful romance with which we have been so long willing to envelop him, transferred from the inviting pages of the novelist to the localities where we are compelled to meet with him in his native village, on the warpath, and when raiding upon our frontier settlements and lines of travel, the Indian forfeits his claim to the appellation of the 'n.o.ble red man'" (12).

The great explorer Stanley did not see as much of the American savage as of the African, yet he had no difficulty in taking the American's correct measure. In his _Early Travels and Adventures_ (41-43), he pokes fun at the romantic ideas that poets and novelists have given about Indian maidens and their loves, and then tells in unadorned terms what he saw with his own eyes--Indian girls with "coa.r.s.e black hair, low foreheads, blazing coal-black eyes, faces of a dirty, greasy color"--and the Indian young man whose romance of wooing is comprised in the question, "How much is she worth?'"

One of the keenest and most careful observers of Indian life, the naturalist Bates, after living several years among the natives of Brazil, wrote concerning them (293):

"Their phlegmatic, apathetic temperament; coldness of desire and deadness of feeling; want of curiosity and slowness of intellect, make the Amazonian Indians very uninteresting companions anywhere. Their imagination is of a dull-gloomy quality, and they seemed never to be stirred by the emotions--love, pity, admiration, fear, wonder, joy, enthusiasm. These are characteristics of the whole race,"

In Schoolcraft (V., 272) we read regarding the Creeks that "the refined pa.s.sion of love is unknown to any of them, although they apply the word _love_ to rum or anything else they wish to be possessed of."

A capital definition of Indian love! I have already quoted the opinion of the eminent expert George Gibbs that the attachment existing among the Indians of Oregon and Was.h.i.+ngton, though it is sometimes so strong as to lead to suicide, is too sensual to deserve the name of love.

Another eminent traveller, Keating, says (II., 158) concerning the Chippewas:

"We are not disposed to believe that there is frequently among the Chippewas an inclination entirely dest.i.tute of sensual considerations and partaking of the nature of a sentiment; such may exist in a few instances, but in their state of society it appears almost impossible that it should be a common occurrence."

M'Lean, after living for twenty-five years among Indians, says, in writing of the Nascopies (II., 127):

"Considering the manner in which their women are treated it can scarcely be supposed that their courts.h.i.+ps are much influenced by sentiments of love; in fact, the tender pa.s.sion seems unknown to the savage breast."

From his observations of Canadian Indians Heriot came to the conclusion (324) that "The pa.s.sion of love is of too delicate a nature to admit of divided affections, and its real influence can scarcely be felt in a society where polygamy is tolerated." And again (331): "The pa.s.sion of love, feeble unless aided by imagination, is of a nature too refined to acquire a great degree of influence over the mind of savages." He thinks that their mode of life deadens even the physical ardor for the s.e.x, but adds that the females appear to be "much more sensible of tender impressions." Even Schoolcraft admits implicitly that Indian love cannot have been sentimental and esthetic, but only sensual, when he says (_Travels_, etc., 231) that Indian women are "without either mental resources or personal beauty."

But the most valuable and weighty evidence on this point is supplied by Lewis A. Morgan in his cla.s.sical book, _The League of the Iroquois_ (320-35). He was an adopted member of the Senecas, among whom he spent nearly forty years of his life, thus having unequalled opportunities for observation and study. He was moreover a man of scientific training and a thinker, whose contributions to some branches of anthropology are of exceptional value. His bias, moreover, is rather in favor of the Indians than against them, which doubles the weight of his testimony. This testimony has already been cited in part, but in summing up the subject I will repeat it with more detail. He tells us that marriage among these Indians "was not founded on the affections ... but was regulated exclusively as a matter of physical necessity."

The match was made by the mothers, and

"not the least singular feature of the transaction was the entire ignorance in which the parties remained of the pending negotiations; the first intimation they received being the announcement of their marriage without, perhaps, ever having known or seen each other. Remonstrance or objections on their part was never attempted; they received each other as the gift of their parents."

There was no visiting or courting, little or no conversation between the unmarried, no attempts were made to please each other, and the man regarded the woman as his inferior and servant. The result of such a state of affairs is summed up by Morgan in this memorable pa.s.sage:

"From the nature of the marriage inst.i.tution among the Iroquois it follows that the pa.s.sion of love was entirely unknown among them. Affections after marriage would naturally spring up between the parties from a.s.sociation, from habit, and from mutual dependence; but of that marvellous pa.s.sion which originates in a higher development of the pa.s.sions of the human heart and is founded upon the cultivation of the affections between the s.e.xes they were entirely ignorant. In their temperaments they were below this pa.s.sion in its simplest forms. Attachments between individuals, or the cultivation of each other's affections before marriage, was entirely unknown; so also were promises of marriage."

Morgan regrets that his remarks "may perhaps divest the mind of some pleasing impressions" created by novelists and poets concerning the attachments which spring up in the bosom of Indian society; but these, he adds, are "entirely inconsistent with the marriage inst.i.tution as it existed among them, and with the facts of their social history." I may add that another careful observer who had lived among the Indians, Parkman, cites Morgan's remarks as to their incapacity for love with approval.

There is one more important conclusion to be drawn from Morgan's evidence. The Iroquois were among the most advanced of all Indians.

"In intelligence," says Brinton (_A.R._, 82), "their position must be placed among the highest." As early as the middle of the fifteenth century the great chief Hiawatha completed the famous political league of the Iroquois. The women, though regarded as inferiors, had more power and authority than among most other Indians. Morgan speaks of the "unparallelled generosity" of the Iroquois, of their love of truth, their strict adherence to the faith of treaties, their ignorance of theft, their severe punishment for the infrequent crimes and offences that occurred among them. The account he gives of their various festivals, their eloquence, their devout religious feeling and grat.i.tude to the Great Spirit for favors received, the thanks addressed to the earth, the rivers, the useful herbs, the moving wind which banishes disease, the sun, moon, and stars for the light they give, shows them to be far superior to most of the red men. And yet they were "below the pa.s.sion of love in its simplest forms." Thus we see once more that refinement of s.e.xual feeling, far from being, as the sentimentalists would have us believe, shared with us by the lowest savages, is in reality one of the latest products of civilization--if not the very latest.

THE UNLOVING ESKIMO

Throughout this chapter no reference has been made to the Eskimos, who are popularly considered a race apart from the Indians. The best authorities now believe that they are a strictly American race, whose primal home was to the south of the Hudson Bay, whence they spread northward to Labrador, Greenland, and Alaska.[254] I have reserved them for separate consideration because they admirably ill.u.s.trate the grand truth just formulated, that a race may have made considerable progress in some directions and yet be quite below the sentiment of love. Westermarck's opinion (516) that the Eskimos are "a rather advanced race" is borne out by the testimony of those who have known them well. They are described as singularly cheerful and good-natured among themselves. Hall says "their memory is remarkably good, and their intellectual powers, in all that relates to their native land, its inhabitants, its coasts, and interior parts, is of a surprisingly high order" (I., 128). But what is of particular interest is the great apt.i.tude Eskimos seem to show for art, and their fondness for poetry and music. King[255] says that "the art of carving is universally practised" by them, and he speaks of their models of men, animals, and utensils as "executed in a masterly style." Brinton indeed says they have a more artistic eye for picture-writing than any Indian race north of Mexico. They enliven their long winter nights with imaginative tales, music, and song. Their poets are held in high honor, and it is said they get their notion of the music of verse by sleeping by the sound of running water, that they may catch its mysterious notes.

Yet when we look at the Eskimos from another point of view we find them horribly and b.e.s.t.i.a.lly unaesthetic. Cranz speaks of "their filthy clothes swarming with vermin." They make their oil by chewing seal blubber and spurting the liquid into a vessel. "A kettle is seldom washed except the dogs chance to lick it clean." Mothers wash children's faces by licking them all over.[256]