Chapter 50

Shortland (126-27) describes in detail all of the ceremonies which were in former days the pastimes of the New Zealanders, and which accompanied the singing of their _haka_ or "love-songs," to which reference has already been made. In the front were seated three elderly ladies and behind them in rows, eight or ten in a row, and five or six ranks deep, sat "_the best born young belles of the town_" who supplied the poem and the music for the _haka_ pantomime:

"The _haka_ is not a modest exhibition, but the reverse; and, on this occasion, two of the old ladies who stood in front ... accompanied the music by movements of the arms and body, their postures being often disgustingly lascivious. However, they suited the taste of the audience, who rewarded the performers at such times with the applause they desired.... It was altogether as ungodly a scene as can well be imagined."

The same author, who lived among the natives several years, says (120) that

"before marriage the greatest license is permitted to young females. The more admirers they can attract and the greater their reputation for intrigue, the fairer is their chance of making an advantageous match."

William Brown writes (35) that "among the Maoris chastity is not deemed one of the virtues; and a lady before marriage may be as liberal of her favors as she pleased without incurring censure." "As a rule," writes E. Tregear in the _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_ (1889),

"the girls had great license in the way of lovers. I don't think the young woman knew when she was a virgin, for she had love-affairs with the boys from the cradle. This does not apply, of course, to _every_ individual case--some girls are born proud, and either kept to one sweetheart or had none, but this was rare."

After marriage a woman was expected to remain faithful to her husband, but of course not from any regard for chastity, but because she was his private property. Like so many other uncivilized races the Maori saw no impropriety in lending his wife to a friend. (Tregear, 104.)

The faces of Maori women were always wet with red ochre and oil. Both sexes anointed their hair (which was vermin-infested) with rancid shark's oil, so that they were as disagreeable to the smell as Hottentots. (Hawkesworth, 451-53.) They were cannibals, not from necessity, but for the love of human flesh, though they did not, like the Australians, eat their own relatives. Food, says Thompson (I., 160), affected them "as it does wild beasts." They practised infanticide, killed cripples, abandoned the sick--in a word, they displayed a coarseness, a lack of delicacy, in sexual and other matters, which makes it simply absurd to suppose they could have loved as we love, with our altruistic feeling of sympathy and affection. William Brown says (38) that mothers showed none of that doting fondness for their children common elsewhere, and that they suckled pigs and pups with "affection." "Should a husband quarrel with his wife, she would not hesitate to kill her children, merely to annoy him" (41). "They are totally devoid of natural affection." The men "appear to care little for their wives," apparently from

"a want of that sympathy between the sexes which is the source of the delicate attentions paid by the male to the female in most civilized countries. In my own experience I have seen only one instance where there was any perceptible attachment between husband and wife. To all appearance they behave to each other as if they were not at all related; and it not infrequently happens that they sleep in different places before the termination of the first week of their marriage."

Thus even in the romantic isles of the Pacific we seek in vain for true love. Let us now see whether the vast continent of North and South America will bring us any nearer to our goal.

HOW AMERICAN INDIANS LOVE

"On the subject of love no persons have been less understood than the Indians," wrote Thomas Ashe in 1806 (271).

"It is said of them that they have no affection, and that the intercourse of the sexes is sustained by a brutal passion remote from tenderness and sensibility. This is one of the many gross errors which have been propagated to calumniate these innocent people."

Waitz remarks (III., 102):

"How much alike human nature is everywhere is evinced by the remarkable circumstance that notwithstanding the degradation of woman, cases of romantic love are not even very rare"

among Indians. "Their languages," writes Professor Brinton (_R.P._, 54),

"supply us with evidence that the sentiment of love was awake among them, and this is corroborated by the incidents we learn of their domestic life.... Some of the songs and stories of this race seem to reveal even a capability for romantic love such as would do credit to a modern novel. This is the more astonishing, as in the African and Mongolian races this ethereal sentiment is practically absent, the idealism of passion being something foreign to those varieties of man."

The Indians, says Catlin (_N.A.I._, I., 121), "are not in the least behind us in conjugal, in filial, and in paternal affection." In the preface to Mrs. Eastman's _Life and Legend of the Sioux_, Mrs. Kirkman exclaims that

"in spite of all that renders gross and mechanical their ordinary mode of marrying and giving in marriage, instances are not rare among them of love as true, as fiery, and as fatal as that of the most exalted hero of romance."

Let us listen to a few of the tales of Indian love, as recorded by Schoolcraft.[195]

THE RED LOVER

Many years ago there lived a Chippewa warrior on the banks of Lake Superior. His name was Wawanosh and he was renowed for his ancestry and personal bravery. He had an only daughter, eighteen years old, celebrated for her gentle virtues, her _slender_ form, her full beaming hazel eyes, and her dark and flowing hair. Her hand was sought by a young man of humble parentage, but a tall commanding form, a manly step, and an eye beaming with the tropical fires of love and youth. These were sufficient to attract the favorable notice of the daughter, but did not satisfy the father, who sternly informed the young man that before he could hope to mingle his humble blood with that of so renowned a warrior he would have to go and make a name for himself by enduring fatigue in the campaigns against enemies, by taking scalps, and proving himself a successful hunter.

The intimidated lover departed, resolved to do a deed that should render him worthy of the daughter of Wawanosh, or die in the attempt. In a few days he succeeded in getting together a band of young men all eager, like himself, to distinguish themselves in battle. Armed with bow and quiver, and ornamented with war-paint and feathers, they had their war-dance, which was continued for two days and nights. Before leaving with his companions the leader sought an interview with the daughter of Wawanosh. He disclosed to her his firm intention never to return unless he could establish his name as a warrior. He told her of the pangs he had felt at her father's implied imputation of effeminacy and cowardice. He averred that he never could be happy, either with or without her, until he had proved to the whole tribe the strength of his heart, which is the Indian term for courage. He repeated his _protestations of inviolable attachment_, which she returned, and, _pledging vows of mutual fidelity_, they parted.

She never saw him again. A warrior brought home the tidings that he had received a fatal arrow in his breast after distinguishing himself by the most heroic bravery. From that moment the young girl never smiled again. She pined away by day and by night. Deaf to entreaty and reproach, she would seek a sequestered spot, where she would sit under a shady tree, and sing her mournful laments for hours together. A small, beautiful bird, of a kind she had never seen, sat on her tree, every day, singing until dark. Her fond imagination soon led her to suppose it was the spirit of her lover, and her visits were repeated with greater frequency. She passed her time in fasting and singing her plaintive songs. Thus she pined away, until _the death she so fervently desired_ came to her relief. After her death the bird was never more seen, and it became a popular opinion that this mysterious bird had flown away with her spirit. But bitter tears of regret fell in the lodge of Wawanosh. Too late he _regretted his false pride_ and his harsh treatment of the noble youth.

THE FOAM WOMAN

There once lived an Ottawa woman on the shores of Lake Michigan who had a daughter as beautiful as she was modest and discreet. She was so handsome that her mother feared she would be carried off, and, to prevent it, she put her in a box on the lake, which was tied by a long string to a stake on the shore. Every morning the mother pulled the box ashore, and combed her daughter's long, shining hair, gave her food, and then put her out again on the lake.

One day a handsome young man chanced to come to the spot at the moment she was receiving her morning's attentions from her mother. He was struck with her beauty and immediately went home and told his feelings to his uncle, who was a great chief and a powerful magician. The uncle told him to go to the mother's lodge, sit down in a modest manner, and, without saying a word, _think_ what he wanted, and he would be understood and answered. He did so; but the mother's answer was: "Give you my daughter? No, indeed, my daughter shall never marry _you_." This pride and haughtiness angered the uncle and the spirits of the lake, who raised a great storm on the water. The tossing waves broke the string, and the box with the girl floated off through the straits to Lake Huron. It was there cast on shore and found by an old spirit who took the beautiful girl to his lodge and married her.

The mother, when she found her daughter gone, raised loud cries, and continued her lamentations for a long time. At last, after two or three years, the spirits had pity on her and raised another storm, greater even than the first. When the water rose and encroached on the lodge where the daughter lived, she leaped into the box, and the waves carried her back to her mother's lodge. The mother was overjoyed, but when she opened the box she found that her daughter's beauty had almost all departed. However, she still loved her because she was her daughter, and she now thought of the young man who had made her the offer of marriage. She sent a formal message to him, but he had changed his mind, for he knew that she had been the wife of another. "_I_ marry your daughter?" said he; "_your_ daughter! No, indeed! I shall never marry her."

THE HUMPBACK MAGICIAN

Bokwewa and his brother lived in a secluded part of the country. They were considered as Manitoes who had assumed mortal shapes. Bokwewa was a humpback, but had the gifts of a magician, while the brother was more like the present race of beings. One day the brother said to the humpback that he was going away to visit the habitations of men, and procure a wife. He travelled alone a long time. At length he came to a deserted camp, where he saw a corpse on a scaffold. He took it down and found it was the body of a beautiful young woman. "She shall be my wife," he exclaimed.

He took her and carried her home on his back. "Brother," he exclaimed, "cannot you restore her life? Oh! do me that favor."

The humpback said he would try, and, after performing various ceremonies, succeeded in restoring her to life. They lived very happily for some time. But one day when the humpback was home alone with the woman, her husband having gone out to hunt, a powerful Manito came and carried her off, though Bokwewa used all his strength to save her.

When the brother returned and heard what had happened he would not taste food for several days. Sometimes he would fall to weeping for a long time, and appear almost beside himself. At last he said he would go in search of her. His brother, finding that he could not dissuade him, cautioned him against the dangers of the road; he must pass by the large grape-vine and the frog's eggs that he would come across. But the young husband heeded not his advice. He started out on his journey and when he found the grapes and the frog's eggs he ate them.

At length he came to the tribe into which his wife had been stolen. Throngs of men and women, gaily dressed, came out to meet him. As he had eaten of the grapes and frog's eggs--snares laid for him--he was soon overcome by their flatteries and pleasures, and he was not long afterward seen beating corn with their women (the strongest proof of effeminacy), although his wife, for whom he had mourned so much, was in that Indian metropolis.

Meanwhile Bokwewa waited patiently for his brother, but when he did not return he set out in search of him. He avoided the allurements along the road and when he came among the luxurious people of the South he wept on seeing his brother beating corn with the women. He waited till the stolen wife came down to the river to draw water for her new husband, the Manito. He changed himself into a hair-snake, was scooped up in her bucket, and drunk by the Manito, who soon after was dead. Then the humpback resumed his human shape and tried to reclaim his brother; but the brother was so taken up with the pleasures and dissipations into which he had fallen that he refused to give them up. Finding he was past reclaiming, Bokwewa left him and disappeared forever.

THE BUFFALO KING

Aggodagauda was an Indian who lived in the forest. Though he had accidentally lost the use of one of his two legs he was a famous hunter. But he had a great enemy in the king of buffaloes, who frequently passed over the plain with the force of a tempest. The chief object of the wily buffalo was to carry off Aggodagauda's daughter, who was very beautiful. To prevent this Aggodagauda had built a log cabin, and it was only on the roof of this that he permitted his daughter to take the open air and disport herself. Now her hair was so long that when she untied it the raven locks hung down to the ground.

One day, when her father was off on a hunt, she went out on top of the house and sat combing her long and beautiful hair, on the eaves of the lodge, when the buffalo king, coming suddenly by, caught her glossy hair, and winding it about his horns, tossed her onto his shoulders and carried her to his village. Here he _paid every attention to gain her affections_, but all to no purpose, for she sat pensively and disconsolate in the lodge among the other females, and scarcely ever spoke, and took no part in the domestic cares of her lover the king. He, on the contrary, _did everything he could think of to please her and win her affections_. He told the others in his lodge to give her everything she wanted, and to be _careful not to displease her_. They set before her the choicest food. They _gave her the seat of honor in the lodge_. The king himself went out hunting to obtain the most dainty bits of meat. And not content with these proofs of his attachment _he fasted himself_, and would often take his flute and sit near the lodge indulging his mind in repeating a few pensive notes:

My sweetheart, My sweetheart, Ah me! When I think of you, When I think of you, Ah me! How I love you, How I love you, Ah me! Do not hate me, Do not hate me, Ah me!

In the meantime Aggodagauda had returned from his hunt, and finding his daughter gone, determined to recover her. During her flight her long hair had caught on the branches and broken them, and it was by following these broken twigs that he tracked her. When he came to the king's lodge it was evening. He cautiously peeped in and saw his daughter sitting disconsolately. She caught his eye, and, in order to meet him, said to the king, "Give me a dipper, I will go and get you a drink of water." Delighted with this token of submission, the king allowed her to go to the river. There she met her father and escaped with him.

THE HAUNTED GROVE

Leelinau was the favorite daughter of an Odjibwa hunter, living on the shore of Lake Superior. From her earliest youth she was observed to be pensive and timid, and to spend much of her time _in solitude and fasting_. Whenever she could leave her father's lodge she would fly to the remote haunts and recesses of the woods, or _sit upon some high promontory of rock overhanging the lake_. But her favorite place was a forest of pines known as the Sacred Grove. It was supposed to be inhabited by a class of _fairies who love romantic scenes_. This spot Leelinau visited often, _gathering on the way strange flowers or plants_ to bring home. It was there that she fasted, supplicated, and strolled.

The effect of these visits was to make the girl melancholy and dissatisfied with the realities of life. She did not care to play with the other young people. Nor did she favor the plan of her parents to marry her to a man much her senior in years, but a reputed chief. No attention was paid to her disinclination, and the man was informed that his offer had been favorably received. The day for the marriage was fixed and the guests invited.

The girl had told her parents that she would never consent to the match. On the evening preceding the day fixed for her marriage she dressed herself in her best garments and put on all her ornaments. Then she told her parents she was going to meet her little lover, the chieftain of the green plume, who was waiting for her at the Spirit Grove. Supposing she was going to act some harmless freak, they let her go. When she did not return at sunset alarm was felt; with lighted torches the gloomy pine forest was searched, but no trace of the girl was ever found, and the parents mourned the loss of a daughter whose inclinations they had, in the end, too violently thwarted.

THE GIRL AND THE SCALP

About the middle of the seventeenth century there lived on the shores of Lake Ontario a Wyandot girl so beautiful that she had for suitors nearly all the young men of her tribe; but while she rejected none, neither did she favor any one in particular. To prevent her from falling to someone not in their tribe the suitors held a meeting and concluded that their claims should be withdrawn and the war chief urged to woo her. He objected on account of the disparity of years, but was finally persuaded to make his advances. His practice had been confined rather to the use of stone-headed arrows than love-darts, and his dexterity in the management of hearts displayed rather in making bloody incisions than tender impressions. But after he had painted and arrayed himself as for battle and otherwise adorned his person, he paid court to her, and a few days later was accepted on condition that he would pledge his word as a warrior to do what she should ask of him. When his pledge had been given she told him to bring her the scalp of a certain Seneca chief whom she hated. He begged her to reflect that this chief was his bosom friend, whose confidence it would be an infamy to betray. But she told him either to redeem his pledge or be proclaimed for a lying dog, and then left him.

Goaded into fury, the Wyandot chief blackened his face and rushed off to the Seneca village, where he tomahawked his friend and rushed out of the lodge with his scalp. A moment later the mournful scalp-whoop of the Senecas was resounding through the village. The Wyandot camp was attacked, and after a deadly combat of three days the Senecas triumphed, avenging the murder of their chief by the death of his assailant as well as of the miserable girl who had caused the tragedy. The war thus begun lasted more than thirty years.

A CHIPPEWA LOVE-SONG

In 1759 great exertions were made by the French Indian Department under General Montcalm to bring a body of Indians into the valley of the lower St. Lawrence, and invitations for this purpose reached the utmost shores of Lake Superior. In one of the canoes from that quarter, which was left on the way down at the mouth of the Utawas, was a Chippewa girl named Paigwaineoshe, or the White Eagle. While the party awaited there the result of events at Quebec she formed an attachment for a young Algonquin belonging to a French mission. This attachment was mutual, and gave rise to a song of which the following is a prose translation:

I. Ah me! When I think of him--when I think of him--my sweetheart, my Algonquin.

II. As I embarked to return, he put the white wampum around my neck--a pledge of troth, my sweetheart, my Algonquin.

III. I shall go with you, he said, to your native country--I shall go with you, my sweetheart--my Algonquin.

IV. Alas! I replied--my native country is far, far away--my sweetheart, my Algonquin.

V. When I looked back again--where we parted, he was still looking after me, my sweetheart, my Algonquin.

VI. He was still standing on a fallen tree--that had fallen into the water, my sweetheart, my Algonquin.

VII. Alas! When I think of him--when I think of him--It is when I think of him, my Algonquin.

HOW "INDIAN STORIES" ARE WRITTEN

Here we have seven love-stories as romantic as you please and full of sentimental touches. Do they not disprove my theory that uncivilized races are incapable of feeling sentimental love? Some think they do, and Waitz is not the only anthropologist who has accepted such stories as proof that human nature, as far as love is concerned, is the same under all circumstances. The above tales are taken from the books of a man who spent much of his life among Indians and issued a number of works about them, one of which, in six volumes, was published under the auspices of the United States Government. This expert--Henry R. Schoolcraft--was member of so many learned societies that it takes twelve lines of small type to print them all. Moreover, he expressly assures us[196] that "the value of these traditionary stories appears to depend very much upon their being left, as nearly as possible, in their original forms of thought and expression," the obvious inference being an assurance that he has so left them; and he adds that in the collection and translation of these stories he enjoyed the great advantages of seventeen years' life as executive officer for the tribes, and a knowledge of their languages.

And now, having given the enemy's battle-ship every possible advantage, the reader will allow me to bring on my little torpedo-boat. In the first place Schoolcraft mentions (_A.R_., I., 56) twelve persons, six of them women, who helped him collect and interpret the material of the tales united in his volumes; but he does not tell us whether all or any of these collectors acted on the principle that these stories could claim absolutely no _scientific_ value unless they were verbatim reports of aboriginal tales, _without any additions and sentimental embroideries by the compilers_. This omission alone is fatal to the whole collection, reducing it to the value of a mere fairy book for the entertainment of children, and allowing us to make no inferences from it regarding the quality and expression of an Indian's love.