Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 89

[179] Gerland (VI., 756) makes the same mistake here as Westermarck.

He also refers to Petermann's _Mittheilungen_ for another case of "romantic love." On consulting that periodical (1856, 451) I find that the proof of such love lay in the circ.u.mstance that in the quarrels so common in Australian camps, wives would not hesitate to join in and help their husbands!

[180] Surgeon-General Roth of Queensland does not indulge in any illusions regarding love in Australia. He uses quotation marks when he speaks of a man being in "love" (180), and in another place he speaks of the native woman "whose love, such as it is." etc. He evidently realizes that Australian lovers are only "lewd fellows of the baser sort."

[181] _Journal of the Anthrop. Inst_., 1889.

[182] Macgillivray says (II., 8) that the females of the Torres Islands are in most cases betrothed in infancy. "When the man thinks proper he takes his wife to live with him without any further ceremony, but before this she has probably had promiscuous intercourse with the young men, such, if conducted with a moderate degree of secrecy, not being considered as an offence.... Occasionally there are instances of strong mutual attachment and courts.h.i.+p, when, if the damsel is not betrothed, a small present made to the father is sufficient to procure his consent; at the Prince of Wales Islands a knife or a gla.s.s is considered as a sufficient price for the hand of a 'fair lady,' and are the articles mostly used for that purpose." I cite this pa.s.sage chiefly because it is another one of those to which Gerland refers as evidence of genuine romantic love!

[183] I am indebted for many of the following facts to H. Ling Roth's splendid compilation and monograph ent.i.tled _The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_. London, 1896.

[184] The Ida'an are the aboriginal population; in dress, habitations, manners, and customs they are essentially the same as the Dyaks in general.

[185] The above details are culled from Williams, pp. 145, 144, 38, 345, 148, 152, 43, 114, 179, 180, 344. The editor declares, in a foot-note (182), that he has repressed or softened some of the more horrible details in Williams's account.

[186] See Westermarck, 67, and footnotes on that page.

[187] If sentimentalists were gifted with a sense of humor it would have occurred to them how ludicrous and illogical it is to suppose that savages and barbarians, the world over, should in each instance have been converted by a few whites from angels to monsters of depravity with such amazing suddenness. We know, on the contrary, that in no respect are these races so stubbornly tenacious of old customs as in their s.e.xual relations.

[188] See Mariner (Martin) Introduction and Chap. XVI.

[189] _Jour. Anthr. Inst_., 1889, p. 104.

[190] Supposed to mean a beautiful flower that grows on the tops of the mountains, where sea and land breezes meet.

[191] According to Erskine (50) when a Samoan felt a violent pa.s.sion for another he would brand his arm, to symbolize his ardor.

(Waitz-Gerland, VI., 125.)

[192] See _Schopenhauer's Gesprache_ (Grisebach), 1898, p. 40, and the essay on love, in Lichtenberg's _Ausgewahlte Schriften_ (Reclam).

Lichtenberg seems, indeed, to have doubted whether anything else than sensual love actually exists.

[193] It is said that, under favorable circ.u.mstances, a distance of 3,000 miles might thus be covered in a month.

[194] There is much reason to suspect, too, that Grey expurgated and whitewashed these tales. See, on this subject, the remarks to be made in the next chapter regarding the Indian love-stories of Schoolcraft, bearing in mind that Polynesians are, if possible, even more licentious and foul-mouthed than Indians.

[195] Considerations of s.p.a.ce compel me here, as in other cases, to condense the stories; but I conscientiously and purposely retain all the sentimental pa.s.sages and expressions.

[196] _Algic Researches_, 1839, I., 43. From this work the first five of the above stories are taken, the others being from the same author's _Oneota_ (54-57; 15-16). The stories in _Algic Researches_ were reprinted in 1856 under the t.i.tle _The Myth of Hiawatha and Other Oral Legends_.

[197] I have taken the liberty of giving to most of the stories cited more attractive t.i.tles than Schoolcraft gave them. He himself changed some of the t.i.tles in his later edition.

[198] In another of these tales (_A.R._, II., 165-80) Schoolcraft refers to a girl who went astray in the woods "while admiring the scenery."

[199] Schoolcraft's volumes include, however, a number of reliable and valuable articles on various Indian tribes by other writers. These are often referred to in anthropological treatises, including the present volume.

[200] In the _Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie_, 1891, especially pages 546, 554, 555, 556, 557, 558, 559, 567-69, 640, 643; in the vol. for 1892, pages 36, 42, 44, 324, 330, 340, 386, 392, 434, 447; and in the vol.

for 1894, 283, 303, 304. It is impossible even to hint here at the details of these stories. Some are licentious, others merely filthy.

Powers, in his great work on the California Indians (348), refers to "the unspeakable obscenity of their legends."

[201] Ehrenreich says (_Zeitschr. fur Ethnol._, 1887, 31) that among the Botocudos cohabitatio coram familia et vicinibus exagitur; and of the Machacares Indians Feldner tells us (II., 143, 148) that even the children behave lewdly in presence of everybody. Parentes rident, appellunt eos canes, et usque ad silvam agunt. Some extremely important and instructive revelations are made in von den Steinen's cla.s.sic work on Brazil (195-99), but they cannot be cited here. The author concludes that "a feeling of modesty is decidedly absent among the unclothed Indians."

[202] Published in the _Papers of the American Archaeological Inst.i.tute_, III.

[203] _Works_, in Hakluyt Soc. Publ., London, 1847, II., 192.

[204] What Parkman says regarding the cruelty of the Indians perhaps applies also to their s.e.xual morality, though to a less extent. In speaking of the early missionary intercourse with the Indians he remarks (_Jes in Can._, 319):

"In the wars of the next century we do not often find these examples of diabolic atrocity with which the earlier annals were crowded. The savage burned his enemies alive still, it is true, but he rarely ate them; neither did he torment them with the same deliberation and persistency. He was a savage still, but not so often a devil. The improvement was not great, but it was distinct; and it seems to have taken place wherever Indian tribes were in close relations with any respectable community of white men."

[205] Herrera relates (III., 340) that Nicaraguan fathers used to send out their daughters to roam the country and earn a marriage portion in a shameful way.

[206] See also the remarks of Dr. W.J. Hoffmann regarding the dances of the Coyotero Apaches. _U.S. Geol. and Geogr. Survey_, Colorado, 1876, 464.

[207] Pizarro says (_Relacion_, 266) that "the virgins of the sun feigned to preserve virginity and to be chaste. In this they lied, as they cohabited with the servants and guards of the Sun, who were numerous." Regarding Peruvians in general Pizarro (1570) and Cieza (_Travels_, 1532-40) agree that parents did not care about the conduct of their daughters, and Cieza speaks of the promiscuity at festivals.

Brinton (_M.N.W._, 149) is obliged to admit that "there is a decided indecency in the remains of ancient American art, especially in Peru, and great lubricity in many ceremonies."

[208] _Indian Rights a.s.soc._, Philadelphia, 1885.

[209] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1892, 427.

[210] _Indian Com. Rep_., 1854, p. 179.

[211] Bristol in _Ind. Aff. Rep. Spec. Com_., 1867, p. 357.

[212] _Rep. Com. Ind. Aff_., 1892, p. 607.

[213] Even the wives of chiefs were treated no better than slaves.

Catlin himself tells us of the six wives of a Mandan chief who were "not allowed to speak, though they were in readiness to obey his orders." (_Smithson. Rep._. 1885, Pt. II., 458.)

[214] Such cruel treatment of women argues a total lack of sympathy in Indians, and without sympathy there can be no love. The systematic manner in which sympathy is crushed among Indians I have described in a previous chapter. Here let me add a few remarks by Theodore Roosevelt (I., 86) which coincide with what John Hance, the famous Arizona guide, told me:

"Anyone who has ever been in an encampment of wild Indians and has had the misfortune to witness the delight the children take in torturing little animals will admit that the Indian's love of cruelty for cruelty's sake cannot possibly be exaggerated. The young are so trained that when old they shall find their keenest pleasure in inflicting pain in its most appalling form. Among the most brutal white borderers a man would be instantly lynched if he practiced on any creature the fiendish torture which in the Indian camp either attracts no notice at all, or else excites merely laughter."

(See also Roosevelt's remarks--87, 831, 335 on Helen Hunt Jackson's _Century of Dishonor_.) The Indian was much wronged by unprincipled agents and others, but the border ruffians served him only as he served others of his race, the weaker being always driven out. Nor was there any real sympathy within the tribes themselves. "These people,"

wrote the old Jesuit missionary Le Jeune (VI., 245), "are very little moved by compa.s.sion. They give a sick person food and drink, but show otherwise no concern for him; to coax him with love and tenderness is a language which they do not understand. When he refuses food they kill him, partly to relieve him from suffering, partly to relieve themselves of the trouble of taking him with them when they go to some other place."

[215] _Smithsonian Rep._, 1885, Pt. II., 108.

[216] The humor of Catlin's a.s.sertions becomes more obvious still when we read how readily Indians dissolve their marriages, through love of change, caprice, etc. See cases in Westermarck, 518.

[217] Cited by Schoolcraft, _Oneota_, 57.

[218] _Transactions of the American Philosophical Society._ Philadelphia, 1819.

[219] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 251.

[220] Brinton's _Library of Aborig. Amer. Lit._, II, 65.

[221] The only way the women could secure any consideration was by overawing the men. Thus Southey says (III., 411) regarding the Abipones that the old women "were obdurate in retaining superst.i.tions that rendered them objects of fear, and therefore of respect." Smith in his book on the Araucanians of Chili, notes (238), that besides the usual medicine men there was an occasional woman "who had acquired the most unbounded influence by shrewdness, joined to a hideous personal appearance and a certain mystery with which she was invested."