Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 61

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 superst.i.tion. 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 G.o.d;' though at the same time his pleasures were heightened in proportion to the shrieks and groans from prisoners of both s.e.xes 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._, x.x.xIV.) that the remarkable forbearance observed by some tribes was the result of superst.i.tion; and he adds: "To make the Indian a hero of romance is mere nonsense."

INTIMIDATING CALIFORNIA SQUAWS

Besides the atrocious punishments inflicted on women who forgot their role as private property, some of the Indians had other ways of intimidating them, while reserving for themselves the right to do as they pleased. Powers relates (156-61) that, among the California Indians in general,

"there is scarcely such an attribute known as virtue or chast.i.ty in either s.e.x before marriage. Up to the time when they enter matrimony most of the young women are a kind of _femmes incomprises_, the common property of the tribe; and after they have once taken on themselves the marriage covenant, simple as it is, they are guarded with a Turkish jealousy, for even the married women are not such models as Mrs. Ford.... The one great burden of the harangues delivered by the venerable peace-chief on solemn occasions is the necessity and excellence of _female_ virtue; all the terrors of superst.i.tious sanction and the direst threats of the great prophet are levelled at unchast.i.ty, and all the most dreadful calamities and pains of a future state are hung suspended over the heads of those who are persistently lascivious. All the devices that savage cunning can invent, all the mysterious masquerading horrors of devil-raising, all the secret sorceries, the frightful apparitions and bugbears, which can be supposed effectual in terrifying women into virtue and preventing smock treason, are resorted to by the Pomo leaders."

Among these Pomo Indians, and Californian tribes almost universally (406), there existed secret societies whose simple purpose was to conjure up infernal terrors and render each other a.s.sistance in keeping their women in subjection. A special meeting-house was constructed for this purpose, in which these secret women-tamers held a grand devil-dance once in seven years, twenty or thirty men daubing themselves with barbaric paint and putting vessels of pitch on their heads. At night they rushed down from the mountains with these vessels of pitch flaming on their heads, and making a terrible noise. The squaws fled for dear life; hundreds of them clung screaming and fainting to their valorous protectors. Then the chief took a rattlesnake from which the fangs had been extracted, brandished it into the faces of the shuddering women, and threatened them with dire things if they did not live lives of chast.i.ty, industry, and obedience, until some of the terrified squaws shrieked aloud and fell swooning upon the ground.

GOING A-CALUMETING

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 pa.s.sion' in their love-affairs." He admits, indeed, that "no expressions of endearment or tenderness ever escape the Indian s.e.xes 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 navete, 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 circ.u.mstance _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 coa.r.s.e 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 coa.r.s.e, 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.

SQUAWS AND PERSONAL BEAUTY

An excellent test of the Indian's capacity for refined amorous feeling may be found in his att.i.tude toward personal beauty. Does he admire real beauty, and does it decide his choice of a mate? That there are good-looking girls among some Indian tribes cannot be denied, though they are exceptional. Among the thousands of squaws I have seen on the Pacific Slope, from Mexico to Alaska, I can recall only one whom I could call really beautiful. She was a pupil at a Sitka Indian school, spoke English well, and I suspect had some white blood in her. Joaquin Miller, who married a Modoc girl and is given to romancing and idealizing, relates (227) how "the brown-eyed girls danced, gay and beautiful, half-nude, in their rich black hair and flowing robes."

Herbert Walsh,[208] speaking of the girls at a Navajo Indian school, writes that

"among them was one little girl of striking beauty, with fine, dark eyes, regularly and delicately modelled features, and a most winning expression. Nothing could be more attractive than the unconscious grace of this child of nature."

I can find no indication, however, that the Indians ever admire such exceptional beauty, and plenty of evidence that what they admire is not beautiful. "These Indians are far from being connoisseurs in beauty," wrote Mrs. Eastman (105) of the Dakotas. Dobrizhoffer says of the Abipones (II., 139) what we read in Schoolcraft concerning the Creeks: "Beauty is of no estimation in either s.e.x;" and I have also previously quoted Belden's testimony (302), that the men select the squaws not for their personal beauty but "their strength and ability to work;" to which he should have added, their weight; for bulk is the savage's synonym for beauty. Burton (_C.S._, 128) admired the pretty doll-like faces of the Sioux girls, but only up to the age of six.

"When full grown the figure becomes dumpy and _trapu_;" and that is what attracts the Indian. The examples given in the chapter on Personal Beauty of the Indians' indifference to geological layers of dirt on their faces and bodies would alone prove beyond all possibility of dispute that they can have no esthetic appreciation of personal charms. The very highest type of Indian beauty is that described by Powers in the case of a California girl

"just gliding out of the uncomfortable obesity of youth, her complexion a soft, creamy hazel, her wide eyes dreamy and idle ... a not unattractive type of vacuous, facile, and voluptuous beauty"

--a beauty, I need not add, which may attract, but would not inspire love of the sentimental kind, even if the Indian were capable of it.

ARE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS GALLANT?

Having failed to find mental purity and admiration of personal beauty in the Indian's love-affairs, let us now see how he stands in regard to the altruistic impulses which differentiate love from self-love. Do Indians behave gallantly toward their women? Do they habitually sacrifice their comfort and, in case of need, their lives for their wives?

Dr. Brinton declares (_Am. R._, 48) that "the position of women in the social scheme of the American tribes has often been portrayed in darker colors than the truth admits." Another eminent American anthropologist, Horatio Hale, wrote[209] that women among the Indians and other savages are not treated with harshness or regarded as inferiors except under special circ.u.mstances. "It is entirely a question of physical comfort, and mainly of the abundance or lack of food," he maintains. For instance, among the sub-arctic Tinneh, women are "slaves," while among the Tinneh (Navajos) of sunny Arizona they are "queens." Heckewelder declares (_T.A.P.S._, 142) that the labors of the squaws "are no more than their fair share, under every consideration and due allowance, of the hardships attendant on savage life." This benevolent and oft-cited old writer shows indeed such an eager desire to whitewash the Indian warrior that an ignorant reader of his book might find some difficulty in restraining his indignation at the horrid, lazy squaws for not also relieving the poor, unprotected men of the only two duties which they have retained for themselves--murdering men or animals. But the most "fearless" champion of the n.o.ble red man is a woman--Rose Yawger--who writes (in _The Indian and the Pioneer_, 42) that "the position of the Indian woman in her nation was not greatly inferior to that enjoyed by the American woman of to-day." ... "They were treated with great respect." Let us confront these a.s.sertions with facts.

Beginning with the Pacific Coast, we are told by Powers (405) that, on the whole, California Indians did not make such slaves of women as the Indians of the Atlantic side of the continent. This, however, is merely comparative, and does not mean that they treat them kindly, for, as he himself says (23), "while on a journey the man lays far the greatest burdens on his wife." On another page (406) he remarks that while a California boy is not "taught to pierce his mother's flesh with an arrow to show him his superiority over her, as among the Apaches and Iroquois," he nevertheless afterward "slays his wife or mother-in-law, if angry, with very little compunction." Colonel McKee, in describing an expedition among California Indians (Schoolcraft, III., 127), writes:

"One of the whites here, in breaking in his squaw to her household duties, had occasion to beat her several times. She complained of this to her tribe and they informed him that he must not do so; if he was dissatisfied, _let him kill her and take another_!"

"The men," he adds, "allow themselves the privilege of shooting any woman they are tired of."

The Pomo Indians make it a special point to slaughter the women of their enemies during or after battle. "They do this because, as they argue with the greatest sincerity, one woman destroyed is tantamount to five men killed" (Bancroft, I., 160), for without women the tribe cannot multiply. A Modoc explained why he needed several wives--one to take care of his house, a second to hunt for him, a third to dig roots (259). Bancroft cites half a dozen authorities for the a.s.sertion that among the Indians of Northern California "boys are disgraced by work"

and "women work while men gamble or sleep" (I., 351). John Muir, in his recent work on _The Mountains of California_ (80), says it is truly astonishing to see what immense loads the haggard old Pah Ute squaws make out to carry bare-footed over the rugged pa.s.ses. The men, who are always with them, stride on erect and unburdened, but when they come to a difficult place they "kindly" pile stepping-stones for their patient pack-animal wives, "just as they would prepare the way for their ponies."

Among some of the Klamath and other California tribes certain women are allowed to attain the rank of priestesses. To be "supposed to have communication with the devil" and be alone "potent over cases of witchcraft and witch poisoning" (67) is, however, an honor which women elsewhere would hardly covet. Among the Yurok, Powers relates (56), when a young man cannot afford to pay the amount of sh.e.l.l-money without which marriage is not considered legal, he is sometimes allowed to pay half the sum and become what is termed "half-married."

"Instead of bringing her to his cabin and making her his slave, he goes to live in her cabin and becomes her slave." This, however, "occurs only in case of soft uxorious fellows." Sometimes, too, a squaw will take the law in her own hands, as in a case mentioned by the same writer (199). A Wappo Indian abandoned his wife and went down the river to a ranch where he took another woman. But the lawful spouse soon discovered his whereabouts, followed him up, confronted him before his paramour, upbraided him fiercely, and then seized him by the hair and led him away triumphantly to her bed and basket. It is to check such unseemly "new-womanish" tendencies in their squaws that the Californians resorted to the bugaboo performances already referred to. The Central Californian women, says Bancroft (391), are more apt than the others to rebel against the tyranny of their masters; but the men usually manage to keep them in subjection. The Tatu and Pomo tribes intimidate them in this way:

"A man is stripped naked, painted with red and black stripes, and then at night takes a sprig of poison oak, dips it in water, and sprinkles it on the squaws, who, from its effects on their skins, are convinced of the man's satanic power, so that his object is attained."

(Powers, 141.)

The pages of Bancroft contain many references besides those already quoted, showing how far the Indians of California were from treating their women with chivalrous, self-sacrificing devotion. "The princ.i.p.al labor falls to the lot of the women" (I., 351). Among the Gallinomeros,

"_as usual_, the women are treated with great contempt by the men, and forced to do all the hard and menial work; they are not even allowed to sit at the same fire or eat at the same repast with their lords" (390).

Among the Shoshones "the weaker s.e.x _of course_ do the hardest labor"

(437), etc. With the Hupa a girl will bring in the market $15 to $50--"about half the valuation of a man." (Powers, 85.)

Nor do matters mend if we proceed northward on the Pacific coast.

Thus, Gibbs says (198) of the Indians of Western Oregon and Washington, "the condition of the woman is that of slavery under any circ.u.mstances;" and similar testimony might be adduced regarding the Indians of British Columbia and Alaska.

Among the eastern neighbors of the Californians there is one Indian people--the Navajos of Arizona and New Mexico--that calls for special attention, as its women, according to Horatio Hale, are not slaves but "queens." The Navajos have lived for centuries in a rich and fertile country; their name is said to mean "large cornfields" and the Spaniards found, about the middle of the sixteenth century, that they practised irrigation. A more recent writer, E.A. Graves,[210] says that the Navajos "possess more wealth than all the wild tribes in New Mexico combined. They are rich in horses, mules, a.s.ses, goats, and sheep." Bancroft cites evidence (I., 513) that the women were the owners of the sheep; that they were allowed to take their meals with the men, and admitted to their councils; and that they were relieved of the drudgery of menial work. Major E. Backus also noted (Schoolcraft, IV., 214) that Navajo women "are treated more kindly than the squaws of the northern tribes, and perform far less of laborious work than the Sioux or Chippewa women." But when we examine the facts more closely we find that this comparative "emanc.i.p.ation" of the Navajo women was not a chivalrous concession on the part of the men, but proceeded simply from the lack of occasion for the exercise of their selfish propensities. No one would be so foolish as to say that even the most savage Indian would put his squaw into the treadmill merely for the fun of seeing her toil. He makes a drudge of her in order to save himself the trouble of working. Now the Navajos were rich enough to employ slaves; their labor, says Major Backus, was "mostly performed by the poor dependants, both male and female." Hence there was no reason for making slaves of their wives. Backus gives another reason why these women were treated more kindly than other squaws. After marriage they became free, for sufficient cause, to leave their husbands, who were thus put on their good behavior. Before marriage, however, they had no free choice, but were the property of their fathers. "The consent of the father is absolute, and the one so purchased a.s.sents or is taken away by force."[211]

A total disregard of these women's feelings was also shown in the "very extensive prevalence of polygamy," and in the custom that the wife last chosen was always mistress of her predecessors. (Bancroft, I., 512.) But the utter incapacity of Navajo men for sympathetic, gallant, chivalrous sentiment is most glaringly revealed by the barbarous treatment of their female captives, who, as before stated, were often shot or delivered up for indiscriminate violence. Where such a custom prevails as a national inst.i.tution it would be useless to search for refined feeling toward any woman. Indeed, the Navajo women themselves rendered the growth of refined s.e.xual feeling impossible by their conduct. They were notorious, even among Indians, for their immodesty and lewd conduct, and were consequently incapable of either feeling or inspiring any but the coa.r.s.est sensual pa.s.sion.

They were not queens, as the astonishing Hale would have it, but they certainly were queans.

Concerning other Indians of the Southwest--Yumas, Mojaves, Pueblos, etc.--M.A. Dorchester writes:[212]

"The native Indian is naturally polite, but until touched by civilization, it never occurred to him to be polite to his wife." "If there is one drawback to Indian civilization more difficult to overcome than any other, it is to convince the Indian that he ought not to put the hardest work upon the Indian women."

The ferocious Apaches make slaves of their women. (Bancroft, I., 512.) Among the Comanches "the women do all the menial work." The husband has the pleasant excitement of killing the game, while the women do the hard work even here: "they butcher and transport the meat, dress the skins, etc." "The females are abused and often beaten unmercifully." (Schoolcraft, I., 236, V., 684.) The Moquis squaws were exempt from field labor not from chivalrous feelings but because the men feared amorous intrigues. (Waitz, IV., 209.) A Snake, Lewis and Clarke found (308),

"would consider himself degraded by being compelled to walk any distance; and were he so poor as to possess only two horses, he would ride the best of them, and leave the other for his wives and children and their baggage; and if he has too many wives or too much baggage for the horse, the wives have no alternative but to follow him on foot."

Turning to the great Dakota or Sioux stock, we run against one of the most nave of the sentimentalists, Catlin, who perpetrated several books on the Indians and made many "fearless" a.s.sertions about the red men in general and the Mandans in particular. G.E. Ellis, in his book, _The Red Man and the While Man_ (101), justly observes of Catlin that "he writes more like a child than a well-balanced man," and Mitch.e.l.l (in Schoolcraft, III., 254) declares that much of what Catlin wrote regarding the Mandans existed "entirely in the fertile imagination of that gentleman," Yet this does not prevent eminent anthropologists like Westermarck (359) from soberly quoting Catlin's declaration that "it would be untrue and doing injustice to the Indians, to say that they were in the least behind us in conjugal, in filial, and in paternal affection" (_L.N.N.A.I._, I., 121). There is only one way of gauging a man's affection, and that is by his actions. Now how, according to Catlin himself, does an Indian act toward his wife? Even among the Mandans, so superior to the other Indians he visited, he found that the women, however attractive or hungry they might be,

"are not allowed to sit in the same group with the men while at their meals. So far as I have yet travelled in the Indian country I have never seen an Indian woman eating with her husband. Men form the first group at the banquet, and _women and children and dogs_ all come together at the next."

Men first, women and dogs next--yet they are "not in the least behind us in conjugal affection!" With his childish disregard of logic and lack of a sense of humor Catlin goes on to tell us that Mandan women lose their beauty soon because of their early marriages and "the slavish life they lead." In many cases, he adds, the inclinations of the girl are not considered in marriage, _the father selling her to the highest bidder_.

Mandan conjugal affection, "just like ours," is further manifested by the custom, previously referred to, which obliges mourning women to crop off all their hair, while of a man's locks, which "are of much greater importance," only one or two can be spared. (Catlin, _l.c._, I., 95, 119, 121; II., 123.) An amusing ill.u.s.tration of the Mandan's supercilious contempt for women, also by Catlin, will be given later.[213]

The Sioux tribes in general have always been notorious for the brutal treatment of their women. Mrs. Eastman, who wrote a book on their customs, once received an offer of marriage from a chief who had a habit of expending all his surplus bad temper upon his wives. He had three of them, but was willing to give them all up if she would live with him. She refused, as she "did not fancy having her head split open every few days with a stick of wood." G.P. Belden, who also knew the Sioux thoroughly, having lived among them twelve years, wrote (270, 303-5) that "the days of her childhood are the only happy or pleasant days the Indian girl ever knows." "From the day of her marriage [in which she has no choice] until her death she leads a most wretched life." The women are "the servants of servants." "On a winter day the Sioux mother is often obliged to travel eight or ten miles and carry her lodge, camp-kettle, ax, child, and several small dogs on her back and head." She has to build the camp, cook, take care of the children, and even of the pony on which her lazy and selfish husband has ridden while she tramped along with all those burdens. "So severe is their treatment of women, a happy female face is hardly ever seen in the Sioux nation." Many become callous, and take a beating much as a horse or ox does. "Suicide is very common among Indian women, and, considering the treatment they receive, it is a wonder there is not more of it."[214]