Part 36 (1/2)
”A brave named 'Big Rain' was elected chief of the village. He possessed a most beautiful squaw, who was the admiration of the young men, and all were plotting to win her from her lord. I determined to steal her, be the consequences what they might.” Having enticed the husband to a smoking-party, he says, ”I went to Big Rain's lodge, dressed and painted in the extreme of fas.h.i.+on, and saw the lady reclining upon her couch. She started up, saying, 'Who is here?' 'Hus.h.!.+ it is I.' 'What do you want here?' 'I have come to see you because I love you.' 'Don't you know that I am the chief's wife?' 'Yes, I know it, but he does not love you as I do. I can paint your face and bring you fine horses, but as long as you are the wife of Big Rain he will never paint your face. With you by my side I could bring home many scalps. Then we could often dance, and our hearts would be merry.' * * * * 'Go, now,' she pleaded, 'for if my husband should return I fear he would kill you. Go, for your own sake and for mine.' 'No, I will not go till you give me a pledge that you will be mine.' She hesitated for a moment, and then slipped a ring from her finger and placed it on mine. All I had to do now was to watch for a favorable chance to take her away. * * * * The appointed time had arrived, and on going to the place of a.s.signation, I found the lady true to her word--in fact, she was there first. We joined the party, and were absent about a week. We succeeded in capturing (stealing?) one hundred and seventeen horses, and arrived safe with them in the camp. Meanwhile Big Rain discovered the loss of his wife. When we rode in, he took no part in the rejoicing, but ordered his wife and me to be surrounded, and, with half a dozen of his sisters, all armed with scourges, administered a most unmerciful whipping.
I received it with Indian fort.i.tude. If I had resisted, they would have been justified in killing me; also, if they had drawn one drop of blood, I should have been justified in taking their lives.”
Without wis.h.i.+ng to delay the progress of the narrative, we can not resist the impulse to express admiration of the Indian punishment for a seducer of married women. Could the same unromantic penalty be duly and zealously inflicted for similar transgressions, in places of more pretensions, some of the scandals of civilized life would be curtailed. To resume:
”I sent word to the wife of Big Rain that I should go out again the next night, and should expect her company. She returned a favorable answer, and was faithful to her promise. On my return I received another such flogging as the first. Two nights afterward I started on a third expedition, my new wife accompanying me, and received a third sound thras.h.i.+ng from her husband. Finally, he grew furious; but my soldiers said to him, 'You have whipped him three times, and shall whip him no more; we will buy your claim.' He acceded to the offer, and consented to resign all interest and t.i.tle in Mrs. Big Rain for the consideration of one war-horse, ten guns, ten chief's coats of scarlet cloth, ten pairs of new leggins, and the same number of moccasins.”[357] This was not a bad remuneration for a faithless woman.
In another case an intrigue resulted tragically. One of the wives of a Minnetaree chief eloped with a man who had formerly been her lover. He deserted her in a short time. She returned to her father's hut, whither her husband traced her. He walked deliberately into the hut, smoked quietly for a time, and then took her by the hair, led her to the door, and killed her with a single blow of his tomahawk.[358] The caprice or generosity of the same chief gave a very different conclusion to a similar incident which occurred some time afterward. Another of his wives eloped with a young man who was not able to support her as she wished, and both returned to the village. She presented herself before her husband and asked his pardon. He sent for the man, inquired if they still loved each other, and on their acknowledgment gave up his wife to her lover, made them a present of three horses, and restored them both to his favor.[359]
With the exception of some national customs, the outward life of the Indian is generally decent. A temporary interval of wild license, corresponding to the Saturnalia of the ancients, and called the festival of dreams, is common among the Canadian tribes. This carnival lasts fifteen days, and, laying aside all their usual gravity, they then commit every imaginable extravagance.[360] Our authority does not say whether immorality forms a portion of this relaxation, but from the custom of other bands it is not improbable. Lewis and Clarke mention several instances in which they were present at dancing and similar festivals, and witnessed exhibitions of the most foul and revolting indecency.
Mr. Catlin records his opinion that the Old World has very little of superior morality or virtue to hold as an example to the North American Indians, and we are not inclined to enter into any long comparison of the races. The manners of each have been described; and while it would be unjust to expect the untutored son of the forest to display as much delicacy as his more cultivated fellow-men, it would be equally ungenerous to a.s.sert that the white female population, as an aggregate, are governed by the impulses which apparently sway the Indian woman.
But whatever doubts there may exist as to the immorality of the Indian women in their natural state, all are entirely removed as soon as they come in contact with the white race. Those in the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada have rapidly learned the worst of vices.
They are drunken, sensual, and depraved. The venereal disease commits frightful ravages among them; in fact, most of their sickness arises from excess of one kind or another. Maclean, in his ”Twenty-five years' Service in Hudson's Bay,” says that the men employed by the company are reconciled to their hard employment and poor remuneration by the immorality of the women, of whom numbers are prost.i.tutes, selling themselves for the smallest remuneration. On the Northwest Coast chast.i.ty is scarcely even a name. The sea tribes are the most licentious, and at some places, where s.h.i.+ps touch for supplies, hundreds of women come down to the beach, and by indecent exposures of their persons endeavor to obtain permission to come on board. Sir George Simpson received a visit from a chief who wanted to negotiate the loan of Lady Simpson, and offered his squaw in temporary exchange.
Many of the traders on the Upper Missouri, from motives of policy, connect themselves with women of the tribes. The most beautiful girls aspire to this station, which elevates them above their ordinary servile occupations. These engagements are not marriages in our sense of the word; a price is paid for the girl, and she is transferred at once to the trader's house. With equal facility he can annul the contract, for which her father is not sorry, as he is thus enabled to sell her over again. The tariff of prices will range from two horses to a handful of awls: such is the remuneration for which an Indian chief will prost.i.tute his daughter.
It must be added that occasionally the couple live permanently together as man and wife, the possibility of their doing so being always supposed in the first instance.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
BARBAROUS NATIONS.[361]
Africa.--Australasia.--West Indies.--Java.--Sumatra.--Borneo.
The relations of the s.e.xes among uneducated races are modified by every circ.u.mstance of their position, but the natural ascendency of the strong over the weak is universally displayed, and wherever woman is allowed a social rank approaching that of man, it will be found that a degree of civilization has been attained. Many branches of the human family have advanced, more or less, beyond the utterly savage state, the love of ornament and the practice of exchange having raised them one step in the scale, while they vary as much in the characteristics of their barbarism as civilized nations do in their refinement. Waiving generalities, a better idea of their respective customs will be obtained by noticing the position of females among the different nations.
AFRICA.
Some of the most wild and savage tribes of the human family are to be found in the immense peninsula of Africa. Observation has proved that a medium state of refinement is accompanied with the least immorality, and that it is among the merest savages and the most highly-polished communities that the greatest profligacy exists. In order to present the subject clearly, we will make a geographical arrangement, and, commencing from the south, pa.s.s over the continent, till we reach the valley of the Lower Nile.
The Hottentots are a dissolute, profligate race, and have borne that character from the earliest period. It was remarked by Van Riebeck in 1655, and confirmed by Colonel Napier in 1840, the latter describing them as ”proverbially unchaste.” Indecency and lewdness are their characteristics; and even now, though accustomed to clothing, it is not uncommon for them to strip themselves, and dance in a lascivious manner at their festivals. The females prost.i.tute themselves readily to strangers, some from inclination, others for money or a gift of finery; but we have no means of estimating the numbers of this disreputable cla.s.s. A few of superior order are scattered among these degraded creatures, and intelligent and well-conducted women have attracted the notice of travelers.
The pastoral Kaffirs are more moral, though more ferocious than the Hottentots, being more addicted to arms, and less to debauch. They practice polygamy, buying their wives for so many head of cattle. The girls undergo a probation before marriage, during which they are kept in seclusion. As the tribe wander from place to place, they carry their women with them, and upon them all the domestic labor falls, even the chief's wives a.s.sisting in grinding corn and similar work. Divorce is easy on very slight grounds. We occasionally hear of women committing fornication, but no professed cla.s.s of prost.i.tutes has been described. Marriage is not held as a sacred tie, but adultery by a wife is severely punished. Natural affections appear extremely weak among the Kaffirs, and mothers have but little attachment to their children, the sickly and feeble being sometimes abandoned to avoid the trouble of rearing them. Mrs. Ward knew of a woman who buried alive a sickly daughter. The little creature was but imperfectly interred; it burst from the grave and ran home. A second time it was subjected to the same torture, and again escaped. A third attempt was made with a similar result, when its mother received it, and it ultimately recovered. Such instances of inhumanity are not rare. Husbands frequently drag their sick wives into a thicket, and leave them to die. It is important to mention that, where these people have embraced Christianity, their manners have totally changed; polygamy has been renounced, and they manifest an inclination to conform to the morals taught them.
Between the tropics the people are notorious for licentiousness. Morality is a strange idea to them, nor is a man restrained by any social law from intercourse with as many females as he pleases. The result is, that women are regarded strictly as marketable commodities, and the commonest feelings of humanity are unknown. On the Gold Coast husbands openly prost.i.tute their wives for money. In other places an adulterer pays a fine to the husband, and many urge their wives to commit the crime for the sake of the penalty. When Laird visited the Niger in 1832, he found the condition of the females upon its borders most humiliating. Polygamy was universal, and wives were reduced to slavery in their own houses. In short, the race may be described as the most idle, ignorant, and profligate in Africa. The king possessed one hundred and forty wives, one of whom was under thirteen years of age, and all had been purchased for a few muskets or a piece of cloth. Half a dozen of the fattest were known as his favorites, and one of them was said to weigh over three hundred and fifty pounds. The mother of this prince lived in his palace, and amused the court with obscene dances. Adultery by any inmate of the harem was punished with death. When a man died, one at least of his wives was expected to attend him; she was bound and thrown into the river. In another place the woman was buried alive; and in the kingdom of Fundal, when a chief died leaving fifteen wives, the king selected the ugliest to be hanged over the grave, and transferred the remaining fourteen to his own quarters.
The native of Western Africa looks upon his wife as a source of pleasure and gain, reckoning her as property to the amount she can earn. With a strange inconsistency, some of these barbarians profess a sentiment of attachment. The King of Atta told Lander that he loved him as he loved his wife. As he was a polygamist, it is to be a.s.sumed the traveler thought it a divided affection. Marriage is held as one of the common occurrences of life. When a man is old enough, he takes a wife, and goes on adding to his property until he probably owns a hundred, if he has means enough to buy them. Even under this system many women can not obtain stated husbands, as some men will not take permanent wives; but it is safe to a.s.sert that no single man lives without female intercourse, and no single woman remains chaste. A wife suspected of adultery is forced to drink a poisonous decoction, but she sometimes bribes the priest to render it harmless.
Widows who have lived on bad terms with their husbands have to undergo the same ordeal. An illicit connection with the king's wife results in death to both parties, but for the wife of a chief the gift of a slave is an expiation. The price of a handsome wife is from eighteen to thirty-six dollars; a plain-looking one is worth about seven dollars. As a man's inclination varies, he often sells one wife, and buys another with the proceeds of the transaction.
In the kingdom of Dahomey, once the centre of the slave-trade, a most profligate population is found, and the traveler entering its sea-port is immediately struck with the immodesty of the women. Throughout the country the same characteristic is observable; they are profligates from the highest to the lowest. The king is superior in brutality and filthiness (traits which seem hereditary to the throne of Dahomey) to any of his subjects. He has thousands of wives, his chiefs have hundreds, his subjects tens. The royal favorites are too sacred for the gaze of common people, who must turn aside or hide their faces if any of them are pa.s.sing. Strangers are excluded from the harem, but the privileged n.o.bility attend the king's feasts, at which his wives take a leading part in drinking rum and conducting the debauch. When the king desires to confer honor on any favorite, he chooses a wife for him, and presents her publicly. She hands her husband a cup of rum, which is a sign of union.
The King of Dahomey supports an army of several thousand amazons, who dress in male attire, do not marry, and are supposed not to have intercourse with men. These troops were long considered invincible, but a few years ago they encountered a defeat on one of their marauding expeditions, and a thousand or more were killed on the field.
As the king and his wealthy subjects have so many wives, poor people are obliged to content themselves with the company of prost.i.tutes, who are a licensed and taxed cla.s.s in Dahomey. There appears to be a band of these in every village, but their profits are often insufficient for support, and they resort to industrial occupation, hiring themselves to carry heavy burdens, etc. One traveler saw two hundred and fifty collected in a troop, and another was a.s.sailed by a crowd of women who offered to ”be his wives”
for a drop of rum. Many of the poorest cla.s.s stroll about naked, and a gratuity, however small, will purchase their favors.
The dirty, lazy, dull people of the Fantee Coast have the same moral aspect as the subjects of Dahomey. Parents sell their children, husbands sell their wives, women sell themselves, for a trifling sum. One woman was so anxious to make a bargain of this kind that she took possession of a traveler's bed, and force was necessary to expel her. Marriage is a mere purchase, a wife costing about sixteen dollars. Women are unsalable when more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Any man committing adultery is forced to buy his paramour at her cost price.