III (part 1 of 2)

III (part 1 of 2)

In the mountain war of 1876 there was in the native force on the government side a handsome lad of the name of Naloko, much admired by the ladies. One day, all the camp and the village of Nasauthoko were found singing this song, which someone had composed:

"The wind blows over the great mountain of Magondro, It blows among the rocks of Magondro. The same wind plays in and raises the yellow locks of Naloko. Thou lovest me, Naloko, and to thee I am devoted, Shouldst thou forsake me, sleep would forever forsake me. Shouldst thou enfold another in thine arms, All food would be to me as the bitter root of the via. The world to me would become utterly joyless Without thee, my handsome, slender waisted, Strong-shouldered, pillar-necked lad."

SERENADES AND PROPOSALS

At the time when Williams studied the Fijians, their poetry consisted of dirges, serenades, wake-songs, war-songs, and hymns for the dance (99). Of love-songs addressed to individuals he says nothing. The serenades do not come under that head, since, as he says (140), they are practised at night "by companies of men and women"--which takes all the romance out of them. One detail of the romance of courtship had, however, been introduced even in his time, through European influence. "Popping the question" is, he says, of recent date, "and though for the most part done by the men, yet the women do not hesitate to adopt the same course when so inclined." No violent individual preference seems to be shown. The following is a specimen of a man's proposal.

Simioni Wang Ravou, wishing to bring the woman he wanted to a decision, remarked to her, in the hearing of several other persons:

"I do not wish to have you because you are a good-looking woman; that you are not. But a woman is like a necklace of flowers--pleasant to the eye and grateful to the smell: but such a necklace does not long continue attractive; beautiful as it is one day, the next it fades and loses its scent. Yet a pretty necklace tempts one to ask for it, but, if refused no one will often repeat his request. If you love me, I love you; but if not, neither do I love you: let it be a settled thing" (150).

SUICIDES AND BACHELORS

Hearts are not likely to be broken by a refusal under such circumstances, which bears out Williams's remark (148) that no distinctive preference is apparent among these men and women. Under such circumstances it may appear strange that some widowers should commit suicide upon the death of a wife, as Seernan assures us they do (193). Does not this indicate deep feeling? Not in a savage. In all countries suicide is usually a sign of a weak intellect rather than of strong feelings, and especially is this the case among the lower races, where both men and women are apt to commit suicide in a moment of excitement, often for the most trivial cause, as we shall see in the next chapter. Williams tells us (106) of a chief on Thithia who was addressed disrespectfully by a younger brother and who, rather than live to have the insult made the topic of common talk, loaded his musket, placed the muzzle at his breast, and pushing the trigger with his toe, shot himself through the heart. He knew a similar case on Vanua Levu.

"Pride and anger combined often lead to self-destruction. ... The most common method of suicide in Fiji is by jumping over a precipice. This is, among the women, the fashionable way of destroying themselves; but they sometimes resort to the rope. Of deadly poisons they are ignorant, and drowning would be a difficult thing; for from infancy they learn to be almost as much at home in the water as on dry land."

In his book on the Melanesians Codrington says (243) that

"a wife jealous of her husband, or in any way incensed at him, would in former times throw herself from a cliff or tree, swim out to sea, hang or strangle herself, stab herself with an arrow, or thrust one down her throat; and a man jealous or quarrelling with his wife would do the like; but now it is easy to go off with another's wife or husband in a labor vessel to Queensland or Fiji."

There is one class of men in Fiji who are not likely to commit suicide. They are the bachelors, who, though they are scorned and frowned on in this life, must look forward to a worse fate after death. There is a special god, named Nangganangga--"the bitter hater of bachelors"--who watches for their souls, and so untiring is his watch, as Williams was informed (206), that no unwedded spirit has ever reached the Elysium of Fiji. Sly bachelors sometimes try to dodge him by stealing around the edge of a certain reef at low tide; but he is up to their tricks, seizes them and dashes them to pieces on the large black stone, just as one shatters rotten fire-wood.

SAMOAN TRAITS

Cruel and degraded as the Fijians are, they mark a considerable advance over the Australian savages. A further advance is to be noted as we come to the Samoans. Cannibalism was indulged in occasionally in more remote times, but not, as in Fiji, owing to a relish for human flesh, but merely as a climax of hatred and revenge. To speak of roasting a Samoan chief is a deadly insult and a cause for war (Turner, 108). Sympathy was a feeling known to Samoans; their treatment of the sick was invariably humane (141). And whereas in Australia, Borneo, and Fiji, it is just as honorable to slay a female as a male, Samoans consider it cowardly to kill a woman (196). Nor do they practise infanticide; but this abstinence is counterbalanced by the fact that the custom of destroying infants before birth prevailed to a melancholy extent (79).

Yet here as everywhere we discover that the sexual refinement on which the capacity for supersensual love depends comes last of the virtues. The Rev. George Turner, who had forty years of experience among the Polynesians, writes (125) that at their dances "all kinds of obscenity in looks, language, and gesture prevailed; and often they danced and revelled till daylight." The universal custom of tattooing was connected with immoral practices (90). During the wedding ceremonies of chiefs the friends of the bride

"took up stones and beat themselves until their heads were bruised and bleeding. The ceremony to prove her virginity which preceded this burst of feeling will not bear the light of description.... Night dances and the attendant immoralities wound up the ceremonies."

The same obscene ceremonies, he adds, were gone through, and this custom, he thinks, had some influence in cultivating chastity, especially among young women of rank who feared the disgrace and beating that was the lot of faithless brides. Presents were also given to those who had preserved their virtue; but the result of these efforts is thus summed up by Turner (91):

"Chastity was ostensibly cultivated by both sexes; but it was more a name than a reality. From their childhood their ears were familiar with the most obscene conversation; and as a whole family, to some extent, herded together, immorality was the natural and prevalent consequence. There were exceptions, especially among the daughters of persons of rank; but they were the exceptions, not the rule. Adultery, too, was sadly prevalent, although often severely punished by private revenge."

When a chief took a wife, the bride's uncle or other relative had to give up a daughter at the same time to be his concubine; to refuse this, would have been to displease the household god. A girl's consent was a matter of secondary importance: "She had to agree if her parents were in favor of the match." Many marriages were made chiefly for the sake of the attendant festivities, the bride being compelled to go whether or not she was willing. In this way a chief might in a short time get together a harem of a dozen wives; but most of them remained with him only a short time:

"If the marriages had been contracted merely for the sake of the property and festivities of the occasion, the wife was not likely to be more than a few days or weeks with her husband."

COURTSHIP PANTOMIME

Elopements occur in Samoa in some cases where parental consent is refused. A vivid description of the pantomimic courtship preceding an elopement has been given by Kubary (Globus, 1885). A young warrior is surrounded by a bevy of girls. Though unarmed, he makes various gestures as if spearing or clubbing an enemy, for which the girls cheer him.

He then selects one, who at first seems coyly unwilling, and begins a dance with her. She endeavors to look indifferent and forbidding, while he, with longing looks and words, tries to win her regard. Presently, yielding to his solicitations, she smiles, and opens her arms for him. But he, foolishly, stops to reproach her for holding him off so long. He shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and lo! when he gets ready to grasp her at last, she eludes him again, with a mocking laugh.

It is now his turn to be perverse. Revenge is in his mind and mien. All his looks and gestures indicate contempt and malice, and he keeps turning his back to her. She cannot endure this long; his scorn overcomes her pride, and when he changes his attitude and once more begins to entreat, she at last allows him to seize her and they dance wildly. When finally the company separates for the evening meal, one may hear the word tóro whispered. It means "cane," and indicates a nocturnal rendezvous in the cane-field, where lovers are safe from observation. They find each other by imitating the owl's sound, which excites no suspicion.

When they have met, the girl says: "You know that my parents hate you; nothing remains but awenga." Awenga means flight; three nights later they elope in a canoe to some small island, where they remain for a few weeks till the excitement over their disappearance has subsided in the village and their parents are ready to pardon them.

TWO SAMOAH LOVE-STORIES

Turner devotes six pages (98-104) to two Samoan love-stories. One of them illustrates the devotion of a wife and her husband's ingratitude and faithlessness, as the following summary will show:

There was a youth called Siati, noted for his singing. A serenading god came along, threw down a challenge, and promised him his fair daughter if he was the better singer. They sang and Siati beat the god. Then he rode on a shark to the god's home and the shark told him to go to the bathing-place, where he would find the god's daughters. The girls had just left the place when Siati arrived, but one of them had forgotten her comb and came back to get it. "Siati," said she, "however have you come here?" "I've come to seek the song-god and get his daughter to wife." "My father," said she, "is more of a god than man--eat nothing he hands you, never sit on a high seat lest death should follow, and now let us unite."

The god did not like his son-in-law and tried various ways to destroy him, but his wife Puapae always helped him out of the scrape, one time even making him cut her into two and throw her into the sea to be eaten by a fish and find a ring the god had lost and asked him to get. She was afterward cast ashore with the ring; but Siati had not even kept awake, and she scolded him for it. To save his life, she subsequently performed several other miracles, in one of which her father and sister were drowned in the sea. Then she said to Siati: "My father and sister are dead, and all on account of my love to you; you may go now and visit your family and friends while I remain here, but see that you do not behave unseemly." He went, visited his friends, and forgot Puapae. He tried to marry again, but Puapae came and stood on the other side. The chief called out, "Which is your wife, Siati?" "The one on the right side." Puapae then broke silence with, "Ah, Siati, you have forgotten all I did for you;" and off she went. Siati remembered it all, darted after her crying, and then fell down dead.

Apart from the amusing "suddenness" of the proposal and the marriage, this tale is of interest as indicating that among the lower races woman has--as many observations indicate--a greater capacity for conjugal attachment than man.

The courtship scene cited above indicates an instinctive knowledge of the strategic value of coyness and feigned displeasure. The following story, which I condense from the versified form in which Turner gives it, would seem to be a sort of masculine warning to women against the danger and folly of excessive coyness, so inconvenient to the men:

Once there were two sisters, Sinaleuuna and Sinaeteva, who wished they had a brother. Their wish was gratified; a boy was born to their parents, but they brought him up apart, and the sisters never saw him till one day, when he had grown up, he was sent to them with some food. The girls were struck with his beauty.

Afterwards they sat down and filled into a bamboo bottle the liquid shadow of their brother. A report had come to them of Sina, a Fijian girl who was so beautiful that all the swells were running after her. Hearing this, and being anxious to get a wife for their brother, they dressed up and went to Fiji, intending to tell Sina about their brother. But Sina was haughty; she slighted the sisters and treated them shamefully. She had heard of the beauty of the young man, whose name was Maluafiti ("Shade of Fiji"), and longed for his coming, but did not know that these were his sisters.

The slighted girls got angry and went to the water when Sina was taking her bath. From the bottle they threw out on the water the shadow of their brother. Sina looked at the shadow and was struck with its beauty. "That is my husband," she said, "wherever I can find him." She called out to the villagers for all the handsome young men to come and find out of whom the figure in the water was the image. But the shadow was more beautiful than any of these young men and it wheeled round and round in the water whenever Maluafiti, in his own land, turned about. All this time the sisters were weeping and exclaiming:

"Oh, Maluafiti! rise up, it is day; Your shadow prolongs our ill-treatment. Maluafiti, come and talk with her face to face, Instead of that image in the water."

Sina had listened, and now she knew it was the shadow of Maluafiti. "These are his sisters too," she thought, "and I have been ill-using them; forgive me, I've done wrong," But the ladies were angry still. Maluafiti came in his canoe to court Lady Sina, and also to fetch his sisters. When they told him of their treatment he flew into an implacable rage. Sina longed to get him; he was her heart's desire and long she had waited for him. But Maluafiti frowned and would return to his island, and off he went with his sisters. Sina cried and screamed, and determined to follow swimming. The sisters pleaded to save and to bring her, but Maluafiti relented not and Sina died in the ocean.

PERSONAL CHARMS OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS

"Falling in love" with a person of the other sex on the mere report of his or her beauty is a very familiar motive in the literature of Oriental and mediaeval nations in particular. It is, therefore, interesting to find such a motive in the Samoan story just cited. In my view, as previously explained, beauty, among the lower races, means any kind of attractiveness, sensual more frequently than esthetic. The South Sea Islanders have been credited with considerable personal charms, although it is now conceded that the early voyagers (to whom, after an absence from shore of several months, almost any female must have seemed a Helen) greatly exaggerated their beauty.

Captain Cook kept a level head. He found Tongan women less distinguished from the men by their features than by their forms, while in the case of Hawaiians even the figures were remarkably similar (II., 144, 246). In Tahitian women he saw "all those delicate characteristics which distinguish them from the men in other countries." The Hawaiians, though far from being ugly, are "neither remarkable for a beautiful shape, nor for striking features" (246).

The indolent, open-air, amphibious life led by the South Sea Islanders was favorable to the development of fine bodies. Cook saw among the Tongans "some absolutely perfect models of the human figure." But fine feathers do not make fine birds. The nobler phases of love are not inspired by fine figures so much as by beautiful and refined faces. Polynesian and Melanesian features are usually coarse and sensual. Hugo Zoller says that "the most beautiful Samoan woman would stand comparison at best with a pretty German peasant girl;" and from my own observations at Honolulu, and a study of many photographs, I conclude that what he says applies to the Pacific Islanders in general. Edward Reeves, in his recent volume on Brown Men and Women (17-22), speaks of "that fraud--the beautiful brown woman." He found her a "dream of beauty and refinement" only in the eyes of poets and romancers; in reality they were malodorous and vulgar. "All South Sea Island women are very much the same."

"To compare the prettiest Tongan, Samoan, Tahitian, or even Rotuman, to the plainest and most simply educated Irish, French, or Colonial girl that has been decently brought up is an insult to one's intelligence."

Wilkes (II., 22) hesitated to speak of the Tahitian females because he could not discover their much-vaunted beauty:

"I did not see among them a single woman whom I could call handsome. They have, indeed, a soft sleepiness about the eyes, which may be fascinating to some, but I should rather ascribe the celebrity their charms have obtained among navigators to their cheerfulness and gaiety. Their figures are bad, and the greater part of them are parrot-toed."

TAHITIANS AND THEIR WHITE VISITORS

Tongan girls are referred to in Reeves's book as "bundles of blubber." It is not necessary to refer once more to the fact that "blubber" is the criterion and ideal of "beauty" among the Pacific Islanders, as among barbarians in general. Consequently their love cannot have been ennobled by any of the refined, esthetic, intellectual, and moral qualities which are embodied in a refined face and a daintily modelled figure.

Coarsest of all the Polynesians were the Tahitians; yet even here efforts have been made[186] to convey the impression that they owed their licentious practices to the influence of white visitors. The grain of truth in this assertion lies in the undoubted fact that the whites, with their rum and trinkets and diseases, aggravated the evil; but their contribution was but a drop in the ocean of iniquity which existed ages before these islands were discovered by whites. Tahitian traditions trace their vilest practices back to the earliest times known. (Ellis, I., 183.) The first European navigators found the same vices which later visitors deplored. Bougainville, who tarried at Tahiti in 1767, called the island Nouvelle Cythère, on account of the general immorality of the natives. Cook, when he visited the island in the following year, declined to make his journal "the place for exhibiting a view of licentious manners which could only serve to disgust" his readers (212). Hawkesworth relates (II., 206) that the Tahitians offered sisters and daughters to strangers, while breaches of conjugal fidelity are punished only by a few hard words or a slight beating:

"Among other diversions there is a dance called Timorodee, which is performed by young girls, whenever eight or ten of them can be collected together, consisting of motions and gestures beyond imagination wanton, in the practice of which they are brought up from their earliest childhood, accompanied by words which, if it were possible, would more explicitly convey the same ideas." "But there is a scale in dissolute sensuality, which these people have ascended, wholly unknown to every other nation whose manners have been recorded from the beginning of the world to the present hour, and which no imagination could possibly conceive."

This is the testimony of the earliest explorers who saw the natives before whites could have possibly corrupted them.[187] The later missionaries found no change for the better. Captain Cook already referred to the Areois who made a business of depravity (220). "So agreeable," he wrote,

"is this licentious plan of life to their disposition, that the most beautiful of both sexes thus commonly spend their youthful days, habituated to the practice of enormities which would disgrace the most savage tribes."

Ellis, who lived several years on this island, declares that they were noted for their humor and their jests, but the jests

"were in general low and immoral to a disgusting degree.... Awfully dark, indeed, was their moral character, and notwithstanding the apparent mildness of their disposition, and the cheerful vivacity of their conversation, no portion of the human race was ever, perhaps, sunk lower in brutal licentiousness and moral degradation than this isolated people" (87).

He also describes the Areois (I., 185-89) as "privileged libertines," who travelled from place to place giving improper dances and exhibitions, "addicted to every kind of licentiousness," and "spreading a moral contagion throughout society," Yet they were "held in the greatest respect" by all classes of the population. They had their own gods, who were "monsters in vice," and "patronized every evil practice perpetrated during such seasons of public festivity."

Did the white sailors also give the Tahitians their idea of Tahitian dances, and professional Areois, and corrupt gods? Did they teach them customs which Hawkesworth, himself a sailor, and accustomed to scenes of low life, said "no imagination could possibly conceive?" Did the European whites teach these natives to regard men as ra (sacred) and women as noa (common)? Did they teach them all those other customs and atrocities which the following paragraphs reveal?

HEARTLESS TREATMENT OF WOMEN

It can be shown that quite apart from their sensuality, the Tahitians were too coarse and selfish to be able to entertain any of those refined sentiments of love which the sentimentalists would have us believe prevailed before the advent of the white man.

Love is often compared to a flower; but love cannot, like a flower, grow on a dunghill. It requires a pure, chaste soul, and it requires the fostering sunshine of sympathy and adoration. To a Tahitian a woman was merely a toy to amuse him. He liked her as he liked his food and drink, or his cool plunge into the waves, for the reason that she pleased his senses. He could not feel sentimental love for her, since, far from adoring her, he did not even respect or well-treat her. Ellis (I., 109) relates that

"The men were allowed to eat the flesh of the pig, and of fowls, and a variety of fish, cocoanuts, and plantains, and whatever was presented as an offering to the gods; these the females, on pain of death, were forbidden to touch, as it was supposed they would pollute them. The fires at which the men's food was cooked were also sacred, and were forbidden to be used by the females. The baskets in which their provision was kept, and the house in which the men ate, were also sacred, and prohibited to the females under the same cruel penalty. Hence the inferior food, both for wives, daughters, etc., was cooked at separate fires, deposited in distinct baskets, and eaten in lonely solitude by the females, in little huts erected for the purpose."

Not content with this, when one man wished to abuse another in a particularly offensive way he would use some expression referring to this degraded condition of the women, such as "mayst thou be baked as food for thy mother." Young children were deliberately taught to disregard their mother, the father encouraging them in their insults and violence (205). Cook (220) found that Tahitian women were often treated with a degree of harshness, or rather "brutality," which one would scarcely suppose a man would bestow on an object for whom he had the least affection. Nothing, however, is more common than "to see the men beat them without mercy" (II., 220). They killed more female than male infants, because, as they said, the females were useless for war, the fisheries, or the service of the temple. For the sick they had no sympathy; at times they murdered them or buried them alive. (Ellis, I., 340; II., 281.) In battle they gave no quarter, even to women or children. (Hawkesworth, II., 244.)

"Every horrid torture was practised. The females experienced brutality and murder, and the tenderest infants were perhaps transfixed to the mother's heart by a ruthless weapon--caught up by ruffian hands, and dashed against the rocks or the trees--or wantonly thrown up into the air, and caught on the point of the warrior's spear, where it writhed in agony, and died, ... some having two or three infants hanging on the spear they bore across their shoulders" (I., 235-36). The bodies of females slain in war were treated with "a degree of brutality as inconceivable as it was detestable."

TWO STORIES OF TAHITIAN INFATUATION

While ferocity, cruelty, habitual wantonness and general coarseness are fatal obstacles to sentimental love, they may be accompanied, as we have seen, by the violent sensual infatuation which is so often mistaken for love. Unsuccessful Tahitian suitors have been known to commit suicide under the influence of revenge and despair, as is stated by Ellis (I., 209), who also notes two instances of violent individual preference.

The chief of Eimeo, twenty years old, of a mild disposition, became attached to a Huahine girl and tendered proposals of marriage. She was a niece of the principal roatira in the island, but though her family was willing, she declined all his proposals. He discontinued his ordinary occupations, and repaired to the habitation of the individual whose favor he was so anxious to obtain. Here he appeared subject to the deepest melancholy, and from morning to night, day after day, he attended his mistress, performing humiliating offices with apparent satisfaction. His disappointment finally became the topic of general conversation. At length the girl was induced to accept him. They were publicly married and lived very comfortably together for a few months, when the wife died.

In the other instance the girl was the lover and the man unwilling. A belle of Huahine became exceedingly fond of the society of a young man who was temporarily staying on the island and living in the same house. It was soon intimated to him that she wished to become his companion for life. The intimation, however, was disregarded by the young man, who expressed his intention to prosecute his voyage. The young woman became unhappy, and made no secret of the cause of her distress. She was assiduous in redoubling her efforts to please the individual whose affection she was desirous to retain. At this period Ellis never saw him either in the house of his friend or walking abroad without the young woman by his side. Finding the object of her attachment, who was probably about eighteen years of age, unmoved by her attentions, she not only became exceedingly unhappy, but declared that if she continued to receive the same indifference and neglect, she would either strangle or drown herself. Her friends now interfered, using their endeavors with the young man. He relented, returned the attentions he had received, and the two were married. Their happiness, however, was of short duration. The attachment which had been so ardent in the bosom of the young woman before marriage was superseded by a dislike as powerful, and though he seemed not unkind to her, she not only treated him with insult but finally left him.

"The marriage tie," says Ellis (I., 213),

"was probably one of the weakest and most brittle that existed among them; neither party felt themselves bound to abide by it any longer than it suited their convenience. The slightest cause was often sufficient to occasion or justify the separation."

CAPTAIN COOK ON TAHITIAN LOVE

It has been said of Captain Cook that his maps and topographical observations are characterized by remarkable accuracy. The same may be said in general of his observations regarding the natives of the islands he visited more than a century ago. He, too, noted some cases of strong personal preference among Tahitians, but this did not mislead him into attributing to them a capacity for true love:

"I have seen several instances where the women have preferred personal beauty to interest, though I must own that, even in these cases, they seem scarcely susceptible of those delicate sentiments that are the result of mutual affection; and I believe that there is less Platonic love in Otaheite than in any other country."

Not that Captain Cook was infallible. When he came across the Tonga group he gave it the name of "Friendly Islands," because of the apparently amicable disposition of the natives toward him; but, as a matter of fact, their intention was to massacre him and his crew and take the two ships--a plan which would have been put in execution if the chiefs had not had a dispute as to the exact mode and time of making the assault.[188] Cook was pleased with the appearance and the ways of these islanders; they seemed kind, and he was struck at seeing "hundreds of truly European faces" among them. He went so far as to declare that it was utterly wrong to call them savages, "for a more civilized people does not exist under the sun." He did not stay with them long enough to discover that they were morally not far above the other South Sea Islanders.

WERE THE TONGANS CIVILIZED?

Mariner, who lived among the Tongans four years, and whose adventures and observations were afterward recorded by Martin, gives information which indicates that Cook was wrong when he said that a more civilized people does not exist under the sun. "Theft, revenge, rape and murder," Mariner attests (II., 140), "under many circumstances are not held to be crimes." It is considered the duty of married women to remain true to their husbands and this, Mariner thinks, is generally done. Unmarried women "may bestow their favors upon whomsoever they please, without any opprobrium" (165). Divorced women, like the unmarried, may admit temporary lovers without the least reproach or secresy.

"When a woman is taken prisoner (in war) she generally has to submit; but this is a thing of course, and considered neither an outrage nor dishonor; the only dishonor being to be a prisoner and consequently a sort of servant to the conqueror. Rape, though always considered an outrage, is not looked upon as a crime unless the woman be of such rank as to claim respect from the perpetrator" (166).

Many of their expressions, when angry, are

"too indelicate to mention." "Conversation is often intermingled with allusions, even when women are present, which could not be allowed in any decent society in England."

Two-thirds of the women

"are married and are soon divorced, and are married again perhaps three, four, or five times in their lives." "No man is understood to be bound to conjugal fidelity; it is no reproach to him to intermix his amours." "Neither have they any word expressive of chastity except nofo mow, remaining fixed or faithful, and which in this sense is only applied to a married woman to signify her fidelity to her husband."

Even the married women of the lower classes had to yield to the wishes of the chiefs, who did not hesitate to shoot a resisting husband. (Waitz-Gerland, VI., 184.)

While these details show that Captain Cook overrated the civilization of the Tongans, there are other facts indicating that they were in some respects superior to other Polynesians, at any rate. The women are capable of blushing, and they are reproached if they change their lovers too often. They seem to have a dawning sense of the value of chastity and of woman's claims to consideration. In Mariner's description (I., 130) of a chief's wedding occurs this sentence:

"The dancing being over, one of the old matabooles (nobles) addressed the company, making a moral discourse on the subject of chastity--advising the young men to respect, in all cases, the wives of their neighbors, and never to take liberties even with an unmarried woman against her free consent."

The wives of chiefs must not go about without attendants. Mariner says, somewhat naïvely, that when a man has an amour, he keeps it secret from his wife,

"not out of any fear or apprehension, but because it is unnecessary to excite her jealousy, and make her perhaps unhappy; for it must be said, to the honor of the men, that they consult in no small degree, and in no few respects, the happiness and comfort of their wives."

If Mariner tells the truth, it must be said in this respect that the Tongans are superior to all other peoples we have so far considered in this book. Though the husband's authority at home is absolute, and though one girl in every three is betrothed in her infancy, men do not, he says, make slaves or drudges of their wives, or sell their daughters, two out of every three girls being allowed to choose their own husbands--"early and often." The men do most of the hard work, even to the cooking. "In Tonga," says Seemann (237), "the women have been treated from time immemorial with all the consideration demanded by their weaker and more delicate constitution, not being allowed to perform any hard work." Cook also found (II., 149) that the province allotted to the men was "far more laborious and extensive than that of the women," whose employments were chiefly such as may be executed in the house.

LOVE OF SCENERY

If we may rely on Mariner there is still another point in which the Tongans appear to be far above other Polynesians, and barbarians in general. He would have us believe that while they seldom sing about love or war, they evince a remarkable love of nature (I., 293). He declares that they sometimes ascend a certain rock to "enjoy the sublime beauty of the surrounding scenery," or to reflect on the deeds of their ancestors. He cites a specimen of their songs, which, he says, is often sung by them; it is without rhymes or regular measure, and is given in a sort of recitative beginning with this highly poetic passage:

"Whilst we were talking of Vaváoo toóa Licoo, the women said to us, let us repair to the back of the island to contemplate the setting sun: there let us listen to the warbling of the birds and the cooing of the wood-pigeon. We will gather flowers ... and partake of refreshments ... we will then bathe in the sea and ... anoint our skins in the sun with sweet-scented oil, and will plait in wreaths the flowers gathered at Matáwlo. And now, as we stand motionless on the eminence over Ana Mánoo, the whistling of the wind among the branches of the lofty toa shall fill us with a pleasing melancholy; or our minds shall be seized with astonishment as we behold the roaring surf below, endeavoring but in vain to tear away the firm rocks. Oh! how much happier shall we be thus employed, than when engaged in the troublesome and insipid affairs of life."

Inasmuch as Mariner did not take notes on the spot, but relied on his memory after an absence of several years, it is to be feared that the above passage may not be unadulterated Tongan. The rest of the song has a certain Biblical tone and style in a few of the sentences which arouse the suspicion (remember Ossian!) that a missionary may have edited, if not composed, this song. However that may be, the remainder of it gives us several pretty glimpses of Tongan amorous customs and may therefore be cited, omitting a few irrelevant sentences:

"Alas! how destructive is war!--Behold! how it has rendered the land productive of weeds, and opened untimely graves for departed heroes! Our chiefs can now no longer enjoy the sweet pleasure of wandering alone by moonlight in search of their mistresses: but let us banish sorrow from our hearts: since we are at war, we must think and act like the natives of Fiji, who first taught us this destructive art. Let us therefore enjoy the present time, for to-morrow perhaps or the next day we may die. We will dress ourselves with chi coola, and put bands of white tappa round our waists: we will plait thick wreaths of jiale for our heads, and prepare strings of hooni for our necks, that their whiteness may show off the color of our skins. Mark how the uncultivated spectators are profuse of their applause!--But now the dance is over: let us remain here to-night, and feast and be cheerful, and to-morrow we will depart for the Móoa. How troublesome are the young men, begging for our wreaths of flowers, while they say in their flattery, 'See how charming these young girls look coining from Licoo!--how beautiful are their skins, diffusing around a fragrance like the flowery precipice of Mataloco:' Let us also visit Licoo; we will depart to-morrow."

A CANNIBAL BARGAIN

This story intimates, what may be true, that the Fijians first taught the Tongans the art of war, and if the Tongans were not originally a warlike people, we would have in that significant fact alone an explanation of much of their superiority to other Pacific islanders. The Fijians also appear to have taught them cannibalism, to which, however, they never became so addicted as their teachers. Mariner (I., 110-111) tells a story of two girls who, in a time of scarcity, agreed to play a certain game with two young men on these conditions: if the girls won, they were to divide a yam belonging to them and give half to the men; if the two men won they were still to have their share of the yam, but they were to go and kill a man and give half his body to the girls. The men won and promptly proceeded to carry out their part of the contract. Concealing themselves near a fortress, they soon saw a man who came to fill his cocoanut shells with water. They rushed on him with their clubs, brought the body home at the risk of their lives, divided it and gave the young women the promised half.

THE HANDSOME CHIEFS

To Captain Cook the muscular Tongan men conveyed the suggestion of strength rather than of beauty. They have, however, a legend which indicates that they had a high opinion of their personal appearance. It is related by Mariner (II., 129-34).

The god Langai dwelt in heaven with his two daughters. One day, as he was going to attend a meeting of the gods, he warned the daughters not to go to Tonga to gratify their curiosity to see the handsome chiefs there. But hardly had he gone when they made up their minds to do that very thing. "Let us go to Tonga," they said to each other; "there our celestial beauty will be appreciated more than here where all the women are beautiful." So they went to Tonga and, arm in arm, appeared before the feasting nobles, who were astounded at their beauty and all wanted the girls. Soon the nobles came to blows, and the din of battle was so great that it reached the ears of the gods. Langai was despatched to bring back and punish the girls. When he arrived, one of them had already fallen a victim to the contending chiefs. The other he seized, tore off her head, and threw it into the sea, where it was transformed into a turtle.

HONEYMOON IN A CAVE

On the west coast of the Tongan Island of Hoonga there is a peculiar cave, the entrance to which is several feet beneath the surface of the sea, even at low water. It was first discovered by a young chief, while diving after a turtle. He told no one about it, and luckily, as we shall see. He was secretly enamoured of a beautiful young girl, the daughter of a certain chief, but as she was betrothed to another man, he dared not tell her of his love. The governor of the islands was a cruel tyrant, whose misdeeds at last incited this girl's father to plot an insurrection. The plot unfortunately was discovered and the chief with all his relatives, including the beautiful girl, condemned to be taken out to sea in a canoe and drowned.

No time was to be lost. The lover hastened to the girl, informed her of her danger, confessed his love, and begged her to come with him to a place of safety. Soon her consenting hand was clasped in his; the shades of evening favored their escape; while the woods afforded her concealment until her lover had brought a canoe to a lonely part of the beach. In this they speedily embarked, and as he paddled her across the smooth water he related his discovery of the cavern destined to be her asylum till an opportunity offered of conveying her to the Fiji Islands.

When they arrived at the rock he jumped into the water, and she followed close after; they rose into the cavern, safe from all possibility of discovery, unless he should be watched. In the morning he returned to Vavaoo to bring her mats to lie on, and gnatoo (prepared bark of mulberry-tree) for a change of dress. He gave her as much of his time as prudence allowed, and meanwhile pleaded his tale of love, to which she was not deaf; and when she confessed that she, too, had long regarded him with a favorable eye (but a sense of duty had caused her to smother her growing fondness), his measure of happiness was full.

This cave was a very nice place for a honeymoon, but hardly for a permanent residence. So the young chief contrived a way of getting her out of the cavernous prison. He told his inferior chiefs that he wanted them to take their families and go with him to Fiji. A large canoe was soon got ready, and as they embarked he was asked if he would not take a Tongan wife with him. He replied, No! but that he should probably find one by the way. They thought this a joke, but when they came to the spot where the cave was, he asked them to wait while he went into the sea to fetch his wife. As he dived, they began to suspect he was insane, and as he did not soon reappear they feared he had been devoured by a shark.

While they were deliberating what to do, all at once, to their great surprise, he rose to the surface and brought into the canoe a beautiful young woman who, they all supposed, had been drowned with her family. The chief now told the story of the cave, and they proceeded to Fiji, where they lived some years, until the cruel governor of Tonga died, whereupon they returned to that island.

A HAWAIIAN CAVE-STORY

In an interesting book called The Legends and Myths of Hawaii, by King Kalakaua, there is a tale called "Kaala, the Flower of Lanai; A Story of the Spouting Cave of Palikaholo," which also involves the use of a submarine cave, but has a tragic ending. It takes the King fifteen pages to tell it, but the following condensed version retains all the details of the original that relate directly to love:

Beneath a bold rocky bluff on the coast of Lanai there is a cave whose only entrance is through the vortex of a whirlpool. Its floor gradually rises from the water, and is the home of crabs, polypi, sting-rays, and other noisome creatures of the deep, who find here temporary safety from their larger foes. It was a dangerous experiment to dive into this cave. One of the few who had done it was Oponui, a minor chief of Lanai Island. He had a daughter named Kaala, a girl of fifteen, who was so beautiful that her admirers were counted by the hundreds.

It so happened that the great monarch Kamehameha I. paid a visit to Lanai about this time (near the close of the eighteenth century). He was received with enthusiasm, and among those who brought offerings of flowers was the fair Kaala. As she scattered the flowers she was seen by Kaaialii, one of the King's favorite lieutenants. "He was of chiefly blood and bearing" with sinewy limbs and a handsome face, and when he stopped to look into the eyes of Kaala and tell her that she was beautiful, she thought the words, although they had been frequently spoken to her by others, had never sounded so sweetly to her before. He asked her for a simple flower and she twined a lei for his neck. He asked her for a smile, and she looked up into his face and gave him her heart.

After they had seen each other a few times the lieutenant went to his chief and said:

"I love the beautiful Kaala, daughter of Oponui. Give her to me for a wife."

"The girl is not mine to give," replied the King. "We must be just. I will send for her father. Come to-morrow."

Oponui was not pleased when he was brought before the King and heard his request. He had once, in war, narrowly escaped death at the hand of Kaaialii and now felt that he would rather feed his daughter to the sharks than give her to the man who had sought his life. Still, as it would have been unwise to openly oppose the King's wishes, he pretended to regard the proposal with favor, but regretted that his daughter was already promised to another man. He was, however, willing, he added, to let the girl go to the victor in a contest with bare hands between the two suitors.

The rival suitor was Mailou, a huge, muscular savage known as the "bone breaker." Kaala hated and feared him and had taken every occasion to avoid him; but as her father was anxious to secure so strong an ally, his desire finally had prevailed against her aversion.

Kaaialii was less muscular than his rival, but he had superior cunning, and thus it happened that in the fierce contest which followed he tripped up the "bone-breaker," seized his hair as he fell, placed his knees against his back, and broke his spine.

Breaking away from her disappointed father Kaala sprang through the crowd and threw herself into the victor's arms. The king placed their hands together and said: "You have won her nobly. She is now your wife. Take her with you."

But Oponui's wrath was greater than before, and he plotted revenge. On the morning after the marriage he visited Kaala and told her that her mother was dangerously ill at Mahana and wanted to see her before she died. The daughter followed him, though her husband had some misgivings. Arriving at the seashore, the father told her, with a wild glare in his eyes, that he had made up his mind to hide her down among the gods of the sea until the hated Kaaialii had left the island, when he would bring her home again. She screamed and tried to escape, but he gathered the struggling girl in his arms and jumped with her into the circling waters above the Spouting Cave. Sinking a fathom or so, they were sucked upward into the cave, where he placed her just above the reach of the water among the crabs and eels, with scarcely light enough to see them. He offered to take her back if she would promise to accept the love of the chief of Olowalu and allow Kaaialii to see her in the embrace of another. But she declared she would sooner perish in the cave. Having warned her that if she attempted to escape she would surely be dashed against the rocks and become the food of the sharks, he returned to the shore.

Kaaialii awaited his wife's return with his heart aching for her warm embrace. He recalled the sullen look of Oponui, and panic seized him. He climbed a hill to watch for her return and his heart beat with joy when he saw a girl returning toward him. He thought it was Kaala, but it was Ua, the friend of Kaala and almost her equal in beauty. Ua told him that his wife had not been seen at her mother's, and as her father had been seen taking her through the forest, it was feared she would not be allowed to return.

With an exclamation of rage Kaaialii started down toward the coast. Here he ran across Oponui and tried to seize him by the throat; but Oponui escaped and ran into a temple, where he was safe from an attack. In a paroxysm of rage and disappointment Kaaialii threw himself upon the ground cursing the tabu that barred him from his enemy. His friends took him to his hut, where Ua sought to soothe and comfort him. But he talked and thought alone of Kaala, and after partaking hastily of food, started out to find her. Of every one he met he inquired for Kaala, and called her name in the deep valleys and at the hilltops.

Near the sacred spring of Kealia he met a white-haired priest who took pity on him and told him where Kaala had been hidden. "The place is dark and her heart is full of terror. Hasten to her, but tarry not, or she will be the food of the creatures of the sea."

Thanking the priest, Kaaialii hastened to the bluff. With the words "Kaala, I come!" he sprang into the whirlpool and disappeared. The current sucked him up and suddenly he found himself in a chilly cave, feeling his way on the slimy floor by the dim light. Suddenly a low moan reached his ear. It was the voice of Kaala. She was lying near him, her limbs bruised with fruitless attempts to leave the cave, and no longer strong enough to drive away the crabs that were feeding upon her quivering flesh. He lifted her up and bore her toward the light. She opened her eyes and whispered, "I am dying, but I am happy, for you are here." He told her he would save her, but she made no response, and when he put his hand on her heart he found she was dead.

For hours he held her in his arms. At length he was aroused by the splashing of water. He looked up and there was Ua, the gentle and beautiful friend of Kaala, and behind her the King Kamehameha. Kaaialii rose and pointed to the body before him. "I see," said the King, softly, "the girl is dead. She could have no better burial-place. Come, Kaaialii, let us leave it." But Kaaialii did not move. For the first time in his life he refused to obey his King. "What! would you remain here?" said the monarch. "Would you throw your life away for a girl? There are others as fair. Here is Ua; she shall be your wife, and I will give you the valley of Palawai. Come, let us leave at once lest some angry god close the entrance against us!"

"Great chief," replied Kaaialii, "you have always been kind and generous to me, and never more so than now. But hear me; my life and strength are gone. Kaala was my life, and she is dead. How can I live without her? You are my chief. You have asked me to leave this place and live. It is the first request of yours I have ever disobeyed. It shall be the last!" Then seizing a stone, with a swift, strong blow he crushed in brow and brain, and fell dead upon the body of Kaala.

A wail of anguish went up from Ua. Kamehameha spoke not, moved not. Long he gazed upon the bodies before him; and his eye was moist and his strong lips quivered as, turning away at last, he said: "He loved her indeed!"

Wrapped in kapa, the bodies were laid side by side and left in the cavern; and there to-day may be seen the bones of Kaala, the flower of Lanai, and of Kaaialii, her knightly lover, by such as dare seek the passage to them through the whirlpool of Palikaholo.

IS THIS ROMANTIC LOVE?

These two Polynesian cave-stories are of interest from several points of view. In Waitz-Gerland (VI., 125), the Tongan tale is referred to as "a very romantic love-story," and if the author had known the Hawaiian story he would have had even more reason to call it romantic. But is either of these tales a story of romantic love? Is there evidence in them of anything but strong selfish passion or eagerness to possess one of the other sex? Is there any trace of the higher phases of love--of unselfish attachment, sympathy, adoration, as of a superior being, purity, gallantry, self-sacrifice? Not one. The Hawaiian Kaaialii does indeed smash his own skull when he finds his bride is dead. But that is a very different thing from sacrificing himself to save or please her. We have seen, too, on how slight a provocation these islanders will commit suicide, an act which proves a weak intellect rather than strong feeling. A man capable of feeling true love would have brains enough to restrain himself from committing such a silly and useless act in a fit of disappointment.

There is every reason to believe, moreover, that these stories have been embroidered by the narrators. In the vast majority of cases the men who have had an opportunity to note down primitive love-stories unfortunately did not hesitate to disguise their native flavor with European sauce in order to make them more palatable to the general public. This makes them interesting stories, made realistic by the use of local color, but utterly mars them for the scientific epicure who often relishes most what is caviare to the general. Take that Hawaiian story. It is supposed to be told by King Kalakaua himself. At least, the book of Legend and Myths has "By His Hawaiian Majesty" on the title page. Beneath those words we read that the book was edited by the Hon. E.M. Daggett; and in the preface acknowledgment is made to as many as eight persons "for material in the compilation of many of the legends embraced in this volume." Thus there are ten cooks, and the question arises, "did they carefully and conscientiously tell these stories exactly as related to them by aboriginal Hawaiians, free from missionary influences, or did they flavor the broth with European condiments?" To this question no answer is given in the book, but there is plenty of evidence that either the King himself, in order to make his people as much like ours as possible, or his foreign assistants, embellished them with sentimental details. To take only two significant points: it sounds very sentimental to be told that the girl Ua, after Kaaialii had jumped into the vortex "wailed upon the winds a requiem of love and grief," but a native Hawaiian has no more notion of the word requiem than he has of a syllogism. Then again, the story is full of expressions like this: "His heart beat with joy, for he thought she was Kaala;" or "He asked her for a smile and she gave him her heart." Such phrases mislead not only the general reader but careless anthropologists into the belief that the lower races feel and express their love just as we do. As a matter of fact, Polynesians do not attribute feelings to the heart. Ellis (II., 311), could not even make them understand what he was talking about when he tried to explain to them our ideas regarding the heart as a seat of moral feeling. The fact that our usage in this respect is a mere convention, not based on physiological facts, makes it all the more reprehensible to falsify psychology by adorning aboriginal tales with the borrowed plumes and phrases of civilization.

VAGARIES OF HAWAIIAN FONDNESS

It is quite possible that the events related in the cave-story did occur; but a Hawaiian, untouched by missionary influences, would have told them very differently. It is very much more likely, however, that if a Hawaiian had found himself in the predicament of Kaaialii, he would have sympathized with the king's contemptuous speech: "What! would you throw your life away for a girl? There are others as fair. Here is Ua; she shall be your wife." This would have been much more in accordance with what observers have told us of Hawaiian "heart-affairs." "The marriage tie is loose," says Ellis (IV., 315), "and the husband can dismiss his wife on any occasion." "The loves of the Hawaiians are usually ephemeral," says "Häolé," the author of Sandwich Island Notes (267). The widow seldom or never plants a solitary flower over the grave of her lord. She may once visit the mound that marks the repose of his ashes, but never again, unless by accident. It not unfrequently happens that a second husband is selected while the remains of the first are being conveyed to his "long home." Hawaiian women seem more attached to pigs and puppies than to their husbands or even their children. The writer just quoted says whole volumes might be written concerning the "silly affection" of the women for animals. They carry them in their bosoms, and do not hesitate to suckle them. It is one of their duties to drive pigs to the market, and one day "Häolé" came across a group of native women who had taken off their only garments and soaked them in water to cool their dear five hundred-pounder, while others were fanning him! As late as 1881 Isabella Bird wrote (213) that

"the crime of infanticide, which formerly prevailed to a horrible extent, has long been extinct; but the love of pleasure and the dislike of trouble which partially actuated it are apparently still stronger among the women than the maternal instinct, and they do not take the trouble necessary to rear infants.... I have nowhere seen such tenderness lavished upon infants as upon the pet dogs that the women carry about with them."

HAWAIIAN MORALS

Hawaiians did not treat women as brutally as Fijians do; yet how far they were from respecting, not to speak of adoring, them, is obvious from the contemptuous and selfish taboos which forbade women, on penalty of death, to eat any of the best and commonest articles of food, such as bananas, cocoanuts, pork, turtle; or refused them permission to eat with their lords and masters, or to share in divine worship, because their touch would pollute the offerings to the gods.

The grossness of the Hawaiian erotic taste is indicated by "Häolé's" reference (123) to "the immense corpulency of some of the old Hawaiian queens, a feature which, in those days, was deemed the ne plus ultra of female beauty." Incest was permitted to the chiefs, and the people vied with their rulers in the grossest sensuality.

"Nearly every night, with the gathering darkness, crowds would retire to some favorite spot, where, amid every species of sensual indulgence, they would revel until the morning twilight" (412).

"In Hawaii, whether the woman was married or single, she would have been thought very churlish and boorish if she refused any favor asked by a male friend of the family,"

says E. Tregear;[189] and in Dibble's History of the Sandwich Islands (126-27) we read:

"For husbands to interchange wives, or for wives to interchange husbands, was a common act of friendship, and persons who would not do this were not considered on good terms of sociability. For a man or a woman to refuse a solicitation for illicit intercourse was considered an act of meanness, and so thoroughly was this sentiment wrought into their minds that, even to the present day, they seem not to rid themselves of the feeling of meanness in making a refusal."

The Hawaiian word for marriage is hoao, meaning "trial." It was also customary for a married woman to have an acknowledged lover known as punula. The word hula hula is familiar the world over as the name of an improper dance, but it is nothing to what it used to be. The famous cave Niholua was consecrated to it. In past generations

"warriors came here to revel with their paramours. The Tartarean gloom was slightly relieved by torches ingeniously formed of strings of the candle-nut. Beneath this rugged roof, and amid this darkness--their faces strangely reflecting the feeble torch-light--and divested of every particle of apparel, they promiscuously united in dancing the hula hula (the licentious dance).... Wives were exchanged, and so were concubines; fathers despoiled their own daughters, and brothers deemed it no crime to perpetrate incest."

Waitz-Gerland (VI., 459) cite Wise as attesting that "in 1848 the missionaries gave up a girls' school, because it was impossible to preserve the virtue of their pupils," and Steen Bill wrote that in 1846 seventy per cent of all the crimes punished were of a lewd character, and that on the whole island there was not a chaste girl of eleven years of age. Isabella Bird wrote (169) that "the Hawaiian women have no notions of virtue as we understand it, and if there is to be any future for this race it must come through a higher morality."

THE HELEN OF HAWAII

As there was practically no difference between married and unmarried women in Hawaii, it is not strange that cases of abduction of wives should have occurred. The following story, related in Kalakana's book, probably suffered no great change at the hands of the recorder. I give a condensed version of it:

In the twelfth century, the close of the second era of migration from Tahiti and Samoa, there lived a girl named Hina, noted as the most beautiful maiden on the islands. She married the chief Hakalanileo, and had two children by him. Reports of her beauty had excited the fancy of Kaupeepee, the chief of Haupu. He went to test the reports with his own eyes, and saw that they were not exaggerated. So he hovered around the coast of Hilo watching for a chance to abduct her. It came at last. One day, after sunset, when the moon was shining, Hina repaired to the beach with her women to take a bath. A signal was given--it is thought by the first wife of Hina's husband--and, not long after, a light but heavily manned canoe dashed through the surf and shot in among the bathers. The women screamed and started for the shore. Suddenly a man leaped from the canoe into the water. There was a brief struggle, a stifled scream, a sharp word of command, and a moment later Kaupeepee was again in the canoe with the nude and frantic Hina in his arms. The boatmen lost no time to start; they rowed all night and in the morning reach Haupu.

Hina had been wrapped in folds of soft kapa, and she spent the night sobbing, not knowing what was to become of her. When shore was reached she was borne to the captor's fortress and given an apartment provided with every luxury. She fell asleep from fatigue, and when she awoke and realized where she was it was not without a certain feeling of pride that she reflected that her beauty had led the famous and mighty Kaupeepee to abduct her.

After partaking of a hearty breakfast, she sent for him and he came promptly. "What can I do for you ?" he asked. "Liberate me!" was her answer. "Return me to my children!" "Impossible!" was the firm reply. "Then kill me," she exclaimed. The chief now told her how he had left home specially to see her, and found her the most beautiful woman in Hawaii. He had risked his life to get her. "You are my prisoner," he said, "but not more than I am yours. You shall leave Haupu only when its walls shall have been battered down and I lie dead among the ruins."

Hina saw that resistance was useless. He had soothed her with flattery; he was a great noble; he was gentle though brave. "How strangely pleasant are his words and voice," she said to herself. "No one ever spoke so to me before. I could have listened longer." After that she hearkened for his footsteps and soon accepted him as her lover and spouse.

For seventeen years she remained a willing prisoner. In the meantime her two sons by her first husband had grown up; they ascertained where their mother was, demanded her release, and on refusal waged a terrible war which at last ended in the death of Kaupeepee and the destruction of his walls.

INTERCEPTED LOVE-LETTERS

The Rev. H.T. Cheever prints in his book on the Sandwich Islands (226-28) a few amusing specimens of the love-letters exchanged between the native lads of the Lahainaluna Seminary and certain lasses of Lahaina. The following ones were intercepted by the missionaries. The first was penned by a girl:

"Love to you, who speakest sweetly, whom I did kiss. My warm affections go out to you with your love. My mind is oppressed in consequence of not having seen you these times. Much affection for thee dwelling there where the sun causeth the head to ache. Pity for thee in returning to your house, destitute as you supposed. I and she went to the place where we had sat in the meeting-house, and said she, Let us weep. So we two wept for you, and we conversed about you.

"We went to bathe in the bread-fruit yard; the wind blew softly from Lahainaluna, and your image came down with it. We wept for you. Thou only art our food when we are hungry. We are satisfied with your love.

"It is better to conceal this; and lest dogs should prowl after it, and it should be found out, when you have read this letter, tear it up."

The next letter is from one of the boys to a girl:

"Love to thee, thou daughter of the Pandanus of Lanahuli. Thou hina hina, which declarest the divisions of the winds.[190] Thou cloudless sun of the noon. Thou most precious of the daughters of the earth. Thou beauty of the clear nights of Lehua. Thou refreshing fountain of Keipi. Love to thee, O Pomare, thou royal woman of the Pacific here. Thou art glorious with ribbons flying gracefully in the gentle breeze of Puna. Where art thou, my beloved, who art anointed with the fragrance of glory? Much love to thee, who dost draw out my soul as thou dwellest in the shady bread-fruits of Lahaina. O thou who art joined to my affection, who art knit to me in the hot days of Lahainaluna!

"Hark! When I returned great was my love. I was overwhelmed with love like one drowning. When I lay down to sleep I could not sleep; my mind floated after thee. Like the strong south wind of Lahaina, such is the strength of my love to thee, when it comes. Hear me; at the time the bell rings for meeting, on Wednesday, great was my love to you. I dropped my hoe and ran away from my work. I secretly ran to the stream of water, and there I wept for my love to thee. Hearken, my love resembles the cold water far inland. Forsake not thou this our love. Keep it quietly, as I do keep it quietly here."

Here is another from one of the students in the missionary school:

"Love to thee, by reason of whom my heart sleeps not night nor day, all the days of my dwelling here. O thou beautiful one, for whom my love shall never cease. Here also is this--at the time I heard you were going to Waihekee, I was enveloped in great love. And when I had heard you had really gone, great was my regret for you, and exceeding great my love. My appearance was like a sick person who cannot answer when spoken to. I would not go down to the sea again, because I supposed you had not returned. I feared lest I should see all the places where you and I conversed together, and walked together, and I should fall in the streets on account of the greatness of my love to you. I however did go down, and I was continually longing with love to you. Your father said to me, Won't you eat with us? I refused, saying I was full. But the truth was I had eaten nothing. My great love to you, that was the thing which could alone satisfy me. Presently, however, I went to the place of K----, and there I heard you had arrived. I was a little refreshed by hearing this. But my eyes still hung down. I longed to see you, but could not find you, though I waited till dark. Now, while I am writing, my tears are dropping down for you; now my tears are my friends, and my affection to you, O thou who wilt forever be loved. Here, also is this: consent thou to my desire, and write me, that I may know your love. My love to you is great, thou splendid flower of Lana-kahula."

Cheever seems to accept these letters as proof that love is universal, and everywhere the same. He overlooks several important considerations. Were these letters penned by natives or by half-castes, with foreign blood in their veins and inherited capacities of feeling? Unless we know that, no scientific deduction is allowable. These natives are very imitative. They learn our music easily and rapidly, and with the art of writing and reading they readily acquire our amorous phrases. A certain Biblical tone, suggesting the Canticles, is noticeable. The word "heart" is used in a way foreign to Polynesian thought, and apart from these details, is there anything in these letters that goes beyond selfish longing and craving for enjoyment? Is there anything in them that may not be summed up in the language of appetite: "Thou art very desirable--I desire thee--I grieve, and weep, and refuse to eat, because I cannot possess thee now?" Such longing, so intense and fiery[191] that it seems as if all the waters of the ocean could not quench it, constitutes a phase of all amorous passion, from the lowest up to the highest. Philosophers have, indeed, disputed as to which is the more violent and irrepressible, animal passion or sentimental love. Schopenhauer believed the latter, Lichtenberg the former.[192]

MAORIS OF NEW ZEALAND

Hawaii has brought us quite near the coast of America, whose red men will form the subject of our next chapter. But, before passing on to the Indians, we must once more return to the neighborhood of Australia, to the island of New Zealand, which offers some points of great interest to a student of love and a collector of love-stories. We have seen that the islands of Torres Straits, north of Australia, have natives and customs utterly unlike those of Australia. We shall now see that south of Australia, too, there is an island (or rather two islands), whose inhabitants are utterly un-Australian in manners and customs, as well as in origin. The Maoris (that is, natives) of New Zealand have traditions that their ancestors came from Hawaii (Hawaiki), disputes about land having induced them to emigrate. They may have done so by way of other islands, on some of their large canoes, aided by the trade winds.[193] The Maoris are certainly Polynesians, and they resemble Hawaiians and Tongans in many respects. Their ferocity and cannibalism put them on a level with Fijians, making them a terror to navigators, while in some other respects they appear to have been somewhat superior to most of their Polynesian cousins, the Tongans excepted. The Maoris and Tongans best bear out Waitz-Gerland's assertion that "the Polynesians rank intellectually considerably higher than all other uncivilized peoples." The same authorities are charmed by the romantic love-stories of the Maoris, and they certainly are charming and romantic. Sir George Grey's Polynesian Mythology contains four of these stories, of which I will give condensed versions, taking care, as usual, to preserve all pertinent details and intimations of higher qualities.

THE MAIDEN OF ROTORUA

There was a girl of high rank named Hine-Moa. She was of rare beauty, and was so prized by her family that they would not betroth her to anyone. Such fame attended her beauty and rank that many of the men wanted her; among them a chief named Tutanekai and his elder brothers.

Tutanekai had built an elevated balcony where, with his friend Tiki, he used to play the horn and the pipe at night. On calm nights the music was wafted to the village and reached the ears of the beautiful Hine-Moa, whose heart was gladdened by it, and who said to herself, "Ah, that is the music of Tutanekai which I hear."

She and Tutanekai had met each other on those occasions when all the people of Eotorua come together. In those great assemblies they had often glanced each at the other, to the heart of each of them the other appeared pleasing, and worthy of love, so that in the breast of each there grew up a secret passion for the other. Nevertheless, Tutanekai could not tell whether he might venture to approach Hine-Moa to take her hand, to see would she press his in return, because, said he, "Perhaps I may be by no means agreeable to her;" on the other hand, Hine-Moa's heart said to her, "If you send one of your female friends to tell him of your love, perchance he will not be pleased with you."

However, after they had thus met for many, many days, and had long fondly glanced at each other, Tutanekai sent a messenger to Hine-Moa, to tell of his love; and when Hine-Moa had seen the messenger, she said, "Eh-hu! have we then each loved alike?"

Some time after this, a dispute arose among the brothers as to which of them the girl loved. Each one claimed that he had pressed the hand of Hine-Moa and that she had pressed his in return. But the elder brothers sneered at Tutanekai's claims (for he was an illegitimate son), saying, "Do you think she would take any notice of such a lowborn fellow as you?" But in reality Tutanekai had already arranged for an elopement with the girl, and when she asked, "What shall be the sign by which I shall know that I should then run to you?" he said to her, "A trumpet will be heard sounding every night, it will be I who sound it, beloved--paddle then your canoe to that place."

Now always about the middle of the night Tutanekai and his friend went up into their balcony and played. Hine-Moa heard them and vastly desired to paddle over in her canoe; but her friends suspecting something, had all the canoes on the shore of the lake. At last, one evening, she again heard the horn of Tutanekai, and the young and beautiful chieftainess felt as if an earthquake shook her to make her go to the beloved of her heart. At last she thought, perhaps I might be able to swim across. So she took six large, dry, empty gourds as floats, lest she should sink in the water, threw oft her clothes, and plunged into the water. It was dark, and her only guide was the sound of her lover's music. Whenever her limbs became tired she rested, the gourds keeping her afloat. At last she reached the island on which her lover dwelt. Near the shore there was a hot spring, into which she plunged, partly to warm her trembling body, and partly also, perhaps, from modesty, at the thoughts of meeting Tutanekai.

Whilst the maiden was thus warming herself in the hot spring, Tutanekai happened to feel thirsty and sent his servant to fetch him a calabash of water. The servant came to dip it from the lake near where the girl was hiding. She called out to him in a gruff voice, like that of a man, asking him for some to drink, and he gave her the calabash, which she purposely threw down and broke. The servant went back for another calabash and again she broke it in the same way. The servant returned and told his master that a man in the hot spring had broken all his calabashes. "How did the rascal dare to break my calabashes?" exclaimed the young man. "Why, I shall die of rage."

He threw on some clothes, seized his club, and hurried to the hot spring, calling out "Where's that fellow who broke my calabashes?" And Hine-Moa knew the voice, and the sound of it was that of the beloved of her heart; and she hid herself under the overhanging rocks of the hot spring; but her hiding was hardly a real hiding, but rather a bashful concealing of herself from Tutanekai, that he might not find her at once, but only after trouble and careful searching for her; so he went feeling about along the banks of the hot spring, searching everywhere, whilst she lay coyly hid under the ledges of the rock, peeping out, wondering when she would be found. At last he caught hold of a hand, and cried out "Hollo, who's this?" And Hine-Moa answered, "It's I, Tutanekai;" And he said, "But who are you?--who's I?" Then she spoke louder and said., "It's I, 'tis Hine-Moa." And he said "Ho! ho! ho! can such in very truth be the case? Let us two then go to the house." And she answered, "Yes," and she rose up in the water as beautiful as the wild white hawk, and stepped upon the edge of the bath as the shy white crane; and he threw garments over her and took her, and they proceeded to his house, and reposed there; and thenceforth, according to the ancient laws of the Maori, they were man and wife.

THE MAN ON THE TREE

A young man named Maru-tuahu left home in quest of his father, who had abandoned his mother before the son was born because he had been unjustly accused of stealing sweet potatoes from another chief. Maru-tuahu took along a slave, and they carried with them a spear for killing birds for food on the journey through the forest. One morning, after they had been on the way a month, he happened to be up in a forest tree when two young girls, daughters of a chief, came along. They saw the slave sitting at the root of the tree, and sportively contested with each other whose slave he should be.

All this time Maru-tuahu was peeping down at the two girls from the top of the tree; and they asked the slave, saying, "Where is your master?" He answered, "I have no master but him," Then the girls looked about, and there was a cloak lying on the ground, and a heap of dead birds, and they kept on asking, "Where is he?" but it was not long before a flock of Tuis settled on the tree where Maru-tuahu was sitting; he speared at them and struck one of the birds, which made the tree ring with its cries; the girls heard it, and looking up, the youngest saw the young chief sitting in the top boughs of the tree; and she at once called up to him, "Ah! you shall be my husband;" but the eldest sister exclaimed, "You shall be mine," and they began jesting and disputing between themselves which should have him for a husband, for he was a very handsome young man.

Then the two girls called up to him to come down from the tree, and down he came, and dropped upon the ground, and pressed his nose against the nose of each of the young girls. They then asked him to come to their village with them; to which he consented, but said, "You two go on ahead, and leave me and my slave, and we will follow you presently;" and the girls said, "Very well, do you come after us." Maru-tuahu then told his slave to make a present to the girls of the food they had collected, and he gave them two bark baskets of pigeons, preserved in their own fat, and they went off to their village with these.

As soon as the girls were gone, Maru-tuahu went to a stream, washed his hair, and combed it carefully, tied it in a knot, and stuck fifty red Kaka feathers and other plumes in his head, till he looked as handsome as the large-crested cormorant. The young girls soon came back from the village to meet their so-called husband, and when they saw him in his new head-dress and attired in a chief's cloak they felt deeply in love with him and they said, "Come along to our father's village with us." On the way they found out from the slave that his master was the far-famed Maru-tuahu, and they replied: "Dear, dear, we had not the least idea that it was he," Then they ran off to tell his father (for this was the place where his father had gone and married again) that he was coming. The son was warmly welcomed. All the young girls ran outside, waved the corners of their cloaks and cried out, "Welcome, welcome, make haste."

Then there was a great feast, at which ten dogs were eaten. But all this time the two girls were quarrelling with each other as to which of them should have the young chief for a husband. The elder girl was plain, but thought herself pretty, and could not see the least reason why he should be frightened at her; but Maru-tuahu did not like her on account of her plainness, and her pretty sister kept him as her husband.

LOVE IN A FORTRESS

A chief named Rangirarunga had a daughter so celebrated for her beauty that the fame of it had reached all parts of these islands. A young hero named Takarangi also heard of her beauty, and it may be that his heart sometimes dwelt long on the thoughts of such loveliness. They belonged to different tribes, and war broke out between them, during which the fortress of the girl's father was besieged. Soon the inhabitants were near dying from want of food and water. At last the old chief Rangirarunga, overcome by thirst, stood on the top of the defences and cried out to the enemy: "I pray you to give me one drop of water." Some were willing, and got calabashes of water, but others were angry thereat and broke them in their hands. The old chief then appealed to the leader of the enemy, who was Takarangi, and asked him if he could calm the wrath of these fierce men. Takarangi replied: "This arm of mine is one which no dog dares to bite." But what he was really thinking was, "That dying old man is the father of Rau-mahora, of that lovely maid. Ah, how should I grieve if one so young and innocent should die tormented with the want of water." Then he filled a calabash with fresh cool water, and the fierce warriors looked on in wonder and silence while he carried it to the old man and his daughter. They drank, both of them, and Taka-rangi gazed eagerly at the young girl, and she too looked eagerly at Takarangi; long time gazed they each one at the other; and as the warriors of the army of Takarangi looked on, lo, he had climbed up and was sitting at the young maiden's side; and they said, amongst themselves, "O comrades, our lord Takarangi loves war, but one would think he likes Rau-mahora almost as well."

At last a sudden thought struck the heart of the aged chief; so he said to his daughter, "O my child, would it be pleasing to you to have this young chief for a husband?" And the young girl said, "I like him." Then the old man consented that his daughter should be given as a bride to Takarangi, and he took her as his wife. Thence was that war brought to an end, and the army of Takarangi dispersed.

STRATAGEM OF AN ELOPEMENT

Two tribes had long been at war, but as neither gained a permanent victory peace was at last concluded. Then one day the chief Te Ponga, with some of his followers, approached the fortress of their former enemies. They were warmly welcomed, ovens were heated, food cooked, served in baskets and distributed. But the visitors did not eat much, in order that their waists might be slim when they stood up in the ranks of the dancers, and that they might look as slight as if their waists were almost severed in two.

As soon as it began to get dark the villagers danced, and whilst they sprang nimbly about, Puhihuia, the young daughter of the village chief, watched them till her time came to enter the ranks. She performed her part beautifully; her fall-orbed eyes seemed clear and brilliant as the full moon rising in the horizon, and while the strangers looked at the young girl they all were quite overpowered with her beauty; and Te Ponga, their young chief, felt his heart grow wild with emotion when he saw so much loveliness before him.

Then up sprang the strangers to dance in their turn. Te Ponga waited his opportunity, and when the time came, danced so beautifully that the people of the village were surprised at his agility and grace, and as for the young girl, Puhihuia, her heart conceived a warm passion for Te Ponga.

When the dance was concluded, everyone, overcome with weariness, went to sleep--all except Te Ponga, who lay tossing from side to side, unable to sleep, from his great love for the maiden, and devising scheme after scheme by which he might have an opportunity of conversing with her alone. At last he decided to carry out a plan suggested by his servant. The next night, when he had retired in the chief's house, he called this servant to fetch him some water; but the servant, following out the plot, had concealed himself and refused to respond. Then the chief said to his daughter, "My child, run and fetch some water for our guest." The maiden rose, and taking a calabash, went off to fetch some water, and no sooner did Te Ponga see her start off than he too arose and went out, feigning to be angry with his slave and going to give him a beating; but as soon as he was out of the house he went straight off after the girl. He did not well know the path to the well, but was guided by the voice of the maiden, who sang merrily as she went along.

When she arrived at the fountain she heard someone behind her, and turning suddenly around she beheld the young chief. Astonished, she asked, "What can have brought you here?" He answered, "I came here for a draught of water." But the girl replied, "Ha, indeed! Did not I come here to draw water for you? Could not you have remained at my father's house until I brought the water for you?" Then Te Ponga answered, "You are the water that I thirsted for." And as the maiden listened to his words, she thought within herself, "He, then, has fallen in love with me," and she sat down, and he placed himself by her side, and they conversed together, and to each of them the words of the other seemed most pleasant and engaging. Before they separated they arranged a time when they might escape together, and then they returned to the village.

When the time came for Te Ponga to leave his host he directed some dozen men of his to go to the landing-place in the harbor, prepare one large canoe in which he and his followers might escape, and then to take the other canoes and cut the lashings which made the top sides fast to the hulls. The next morning he announced that he must return to his own country. The chief and his men accompanied him part of the way to the harbor. Puhihuia and the other girls had stolen a little way along the road, laughing and joking with the visitors. The chief, seeing his daughter going on after he had turned back, called out, "Children, children, come back here!" Then the other girls stopped and ran back toward the village, but as to Puhihuia, her heart beat but to the one thought of escaping with her beloved Te Ponga. So she began to run. Te Ponga and his men joined in the swift flight, and as soon as they had reached the water they jumped into their canoe, seized their paddles and shot away, swift as a dart from a string. When the pursuing villagers arrived at the beach they laid hold of another canoe, but found that the lashings of all had been cut, so that pursuit was impossible. Thus the party that had come to make peace returned joyfully to their own country, with the enemy's young chieftainess, while their foes stood like fools upon the shore, stamping with rage and threatening them in vain.

These stories are undoubtedly romantic; but again I ask, are they stories of romantic love? There is romance and quaint local color in the feat of the girl who, reversing the story of Hero and Leander, swam over to her lover; in the wooing of the two girls proposing to an unseen man up a tree; in the action of the chief who saved the beautiful girl and her father from dying of thirst, and acted so that his men came to the conclusion he must love her "almost as well" as war; in the slyly planned elopement of Te Ponga. But there is nothing to indicate the quality of the love--to show an "illumination of the senses by the soul," or a single altruistic trait. Even such touches of egoistic sentimentality as the phrase "To the heart of each of them the other appeared pleasing and worthy, so that in the breast of each there grew up a secret passion for the other;" and again, "he felt his heart grow wild with emotion, when he saw so much loveliness before him," are quite certainly a product of Grey's fancy, for Polynesians, as we have seen, do not speak of the "heart" in that sense, and such a word as "emotions" is entirely beyond their powers of abstraction and conception. Grey tells us that he collected different portions of his legends from different natives, in very distant parts of the country, at long intervals, and afterward rearranged and rewrote them. In this way he succeeded in giving us some interesting legends, but a phonographic record of the fragments related to him, without any embroidering of "heart-affairs," "wild emotions," and other adornments of modern novels, would have rendered them infinitely more valuable to students of the evolution of emotions. It is a great pity that so few of the recorders of aboriginal tales followed this principle; and it is strange that such neatly polished, arranged, and modernized tales as these should have been accepted so long as illustrations of primitive love.[194]

MAORI LOVE-POEMS

Besides their stories of love, the Maoris of New Zealand also have poems, some accompanied with (often obscene) pantomimes, others without accompaniment. Shortland (146-55), Taylor (310), and others have collected and translated some of these poems, of which the following are the best. Taylor cites this one:

The tears gush from my eyes, My eyelashes are wet with tears; But stay, my tears, within, Lest you should be called mine.

Alas! I am betrothed (literally, my hands are bound); It is for Te Maunee That my love devours me. But I may weep indeed, Beloved one, for thee, Like Tiniran's lament For his favorite pet Tutunui Which was slain by Ngae. Alas!

Shortland gives these specimens of the songs that are frequently accompanied by immodest gestures of the body. Some of them are "not sufficiently decent to bear translating." The one marked (4) is interesting as an attempt at hyperbole.

(1)

Your body is at Waitemata, But your spirit came hither And aroused me from my sleep.

(4)

Tawera is the bright star Of the morning. Not less beautiful is the Jewel of my heart.

(5)

The sun is setting in his cave, Touching as he descends (the Land) where dwells my mate, He who is whirled away To southern seas.

More utilitarian are (6) and (7), in which a woman asks "Who will marry a man too lazy to till the ground for food?" And a man wants to know "Who will marry a woman too lazy to weave garments?" Very unlover-like is the following:

I don't like the habits of woman. When she goes out-- She Kuikuis She Koakoas She chatters The very ground is terrified, And the rats run away. Just so.

More poetic are the waiata, which are sung without the aid of any action. The following ode was composed by a young woman forsaken by her lover:

Look where the mist Hangs over Pukehina. There is the path By which went my love.

Turn back again hither, That may be poured out Tears from my eyes.

It was not I who first spoke of love. You it was who made advances to me When I was but a little thing.

Therefore was my heart made wild. This is my farewell of love to thee.

A young woman, who had been carried away prisoner from Tuhua, gives vent to her longing in these lines:

"My regret is not to be expressed. Tears like a spring gush from my eyes. I wonder whatever is Te Kaiuku [her lover] doing: he who deserted me. Now I climb upon the ridge of Mount Parahaki; from whence is clear the view of the island Tahua. I see with regret the lofty Taumo, where dwells Tangiteruru. If I were there, the shark's tooth would hang from my ear. How fine, how beautiful, should I look. But see whose ship is that tacking? Is it yours? O Hu! you husband of Pohiwa, sailing away on the tide to Europe.

"O Tom! pray give me some of your fine things; for beautiful are the clothes of the sea-god.

"Enough of this. I must return to my rags, and to my nothing-at-all."

In this case the loss of her finery seems to trouble the girl a good deal more than the loss of her lover. In another ode cited by Shortland a deserted girl, after referring to her tearful eyes, winds up with the light-hearted

Now that you are absent in your native land, The day of regret will, perhaps, end.

There is a suggestion of Sappho in the last of these odes I shall cite:

"Love does not torment forever. It came on me like the fire which rages sometimes at Hukanai. If this (beloved) one is near me, do not suppose, O Kiri, that my sleep is sweet. I lie awake the live-long night, for love to prey on me in secret.

"It shall never be confessed, lest it be heard of by all. The only evidence shall be seen on my cheeks.

"The plain which extends to Tauwhare: that path I trod that I might enter the house of Rawhirawhwi. Don't be angry with me, O madam [addressed to Rawhirawhwi's wife]; I am only a stranger. For you there is the body (of your husband). For me there remains only the shadow of desire."

"In the last two lines," writes Shortland, "the poetess coolly requests the wife of the person for whom she acknowledges an unlawful passion not to be angry with her, because 'she--the lawful wife--has always possession of the person of her husband; while hers is only an empty, Platonic sort of love.' This is rather a favorite sentiment, and is not unfrequently introduced similarly into love-songs of this description."

THE WOOING-HOUSE

It is noticeable that these love-poems are all by females, and most frequently by deserted females. This does not speak well for the gallantry or constancy of the men. Perhaps they lacked those qualities to offset the feminine lack of coyness. In the first of our Maori stories the maiden swims to the man, who calmly awaits her, playing his horn. In the second, a man is simultaneously proposed to by two girls, before he has time to come off his perch on the tree. This arouses a suspicion which is confirmed by E. Tregear's revelations regarding Maori courtship (Journ. Anthrop. Inst., 1889):

"The girl generally began the courting. I have often seen the pretty little love-letter fall at the feet of a lover--it was a little bit of flax made into a sort of half-knot--'yes' was made by pulling the knot tight--'no' by leaving the matrimonial noose alone. Now, I am sorry to say, it is often thrown as an invitation for love-making of an improper character. Sometimes in the Whare-Matoro (the wooing-house), a building in which the young of both sexes assemble for play, songs, dances, etc., there would be at stated times a meeting; when the fires burned low a girl would stand up in the dark and say, 'I love So-and-so, I want him for my husband,' If he coughed (sign of assent), or said 'yes' it was well; if only dead silence, she covered her head with her robe and was ashamed. This was not often, as she generally had managed to ascertain (either by her own inquiry or by sending a girl friend) if the proposal was acceptable. On the other hand, sometimes a mother would attend and say 'I want So-and-so for my son.' If not acceptable there was general mocking, and she was told to let the young people have their house (the wooing-house) to themselves. Sometimes, if the unbetrothed pair had not secured the consent of the parents, a late suitor would appear on the scene, and the poor girl got almost hauled to death between them all. One would get a leg, another an arm, another the hair, etc. Girls have been injured for life in these disputes, or even murdered by the losing party."

LIBERTY OF CHOICE AND RESPECT FOR WOMEN

The assertion that "the girl generally began the courting" must not mislead us into supposing that Maori women were free, as a rule, to marry the husbands of their choice. As Tregear's own remarks indicate, the advances were either of an improper character, or the girl had made sure beforehand that there was no impediment in the way of her proposal. The Maori proverb that as the fastidious Kahawai fish selects the hook which pleases it best, so a woman chooses a man out of many (on the strength of which alone Westermarck, 217, claims liberty of choice for Maori women) must also refer to such liaisons before marriage, for all the facts indicate that the original Maori customs allowed women no choice whatever in regard to marriage. Here the brother's consent had to be obtained, as Shortland remarks (118). Many of the girls were betrothed in infancy, and many others married at an age--twelve to thirteen--when the word choice could have had no rational meaning. Tregear informs us that if a couple had not been betrothed as children, everyone in the tribe claimed a right to interfere, and the only way the couple could get their own way was by eloping. Darwin was informed by Mantell "that until recently almost every girl in New Zealand who was pretty or promised to be pretty was tapu to some chief;" and we further read that

"when a chief desires to take to himself a wife, he fixes his attention upon her, and takes her, if need be, by force, without consulting her feelings and wishes or those of anyone else."

This is confirmed by William Brown, in his book on the aborigines. But the most graphic and harrowing description of Maori maltreatment of women is given by the Rev. E. Taylor:

"The ancient and most general way of obtaining a wife was for the gentleman to summon his friends and make a regular taua, or fight, to carry off the lady by force, and oftentimes with great violence.... If the girl had eloped with someone on whom she had placed her affection, then her father and brother would refuse their consent," and fight to get her back. "The unfortunate female, thus placed between two contending parties, would soon be divested of every rag of clothing, and would then be seized by her head, hair, or limbs," her "cries and shrieks would be unheeded by her savage friends. In this way the poor creature was often nearly torn to pieces. These savage contests sometimes ended in the strongest party bearing off in triumph the naked person of the bride. In some cases, after a long season of suffering, she recovered, to be given to a person for whom she had no affection, in others to die within a few hours or days from the injuries which she had received. But it was not uncommon for the weaker party, when they found they could not prevail, for one of them to put an end to the contest by suddenly plunging his spear into the woman's bosom to hinder her from becoming the property of another."

After giving this account on page 163 of the Maori's "ancient and most general way" of obtaining a wife--which puts him below the most ferocious brutes, since those at least spare their females--the same writer informs us on page 338 that "there are few races who treat their women with more deference than the Maori!" If that is so, it can only be due to the influence of the whites, since all the testimony indicates that the unadulterated Maori--with whom alone we are here concerned--did not treat them "with great respect," nor pay any deference to them whatever. The cruel method of capture described above was so general that, as Taylor himself tells us, the native term for courtship was he aru aru, literally, a following or pursuing after; and there was also a special expression for this struggling of two suitors for a girl--he puna rua. As for their "great respect" for women, they do not allow them to eat with the men. A chief, says Angas (II., 110), "will sometimes permit his favorite wife to eat with him, though not out of the same dish." Ellis relates (III., 253) that New Zealanders are "addicted to the greatest vices that stain the human character--treachery, cannibalism, infanticide, and murder." The women caught in battle, as well as the men, were, he says, enslaved or eaten. "Sometimes they chopped off the legs and arms and otherwise mangled the body before they put the victim to death." Concubines had to do service as household drudges. A man on dying would bequeath his wives to his brother. No land was bequeathed to female children. The real Maori feeling toward women is brought out in the answer given to a sister who went to her brothers to ask for a share of the lands of the family: "Why, you're only a slave to blow up your husband's fire." (Shortland, 119, 255-58.)

MAORI MORALS AND CAPACITY FOR LOVE

When Hawkesworth visited New Zealand with Captain Cook, he one day came accidentally across some women who were fishing, and who had thrown off their last garments. When they saw him they were as confused and distressed as Diana and her nymphs; they hid among the rocks and crouched down in the sea until they had made and put on girdles of seaweeds (456). "There are instances," writes William Brown (36-37), "of women committing suicide from its being said that they had been seen naked. A chief's wife took her own life because she had been hung up by the heels and beaten in the presence of the whole tribe."

Shall we conclude from this that the Maoris were genuinely modest and perhaps capable of that delicacy in regard to sexual matters which is a prerequisite of sentimental love? What is modesty? The Century Dictionary says it is "decorous feeling or behavior; purity or delicacy of thought or manner; reserve proceeding from pure or chaste character;" and the Encyclopaedic Dictionary defines it as "chastity; purity of manners; decency; freedom from lewdness or un-chastity." Now, Maori modesty, if such it maybe called, was only skin deep. Living in a colder climate than other Polynesians, it became customary among them to wear more clothing; and what custom prescribes must be obeyed to the letter among all these peoples, be the ordained dress merely a loin cloth or a necklace, or a cover for the back only, or full dress. It does not argue true modesty on the part of a Maori woman to cover those parts of her body which custom orders her to cover, any more than it argues true modesty on the part of an Oriental barbarian to cover her face only, on meeting a man, leaving the rest of her body exposed. Nor does suicide prove anything, since it is known that the lower races indulge in self-slaughter for as trivial causes as they do in the slaughter of others. True modesty, as defined above, is not a Maori characteristic. The evidence on this point is too abundant to quote in full.

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.

Schoolcraft stands convicted by his own action. When I read his tales for the first time I came across numerous sentences and sentiments which I knew from my own experience among Indians were utterly foreign to Indian modes of thought and feeling, and which they could no more have uttered than they could have penned Longfellow's Hiawatha, or the essays of Emerson. In the stories of "The Red Lover," "The Buffalo King," and "The Haunted Grove,"[197] I have italicized a few of these suspicious passages. To take the last-named tale first, it is absurd to speak of Indian "fairies who love romantic scenes," or of a girl romantically sitting on a rocky promontory,[198] or "gathering strange flowers;" for Indians have no conception of the romantic side of nature--of scenery for its own sake. To them a tree is simply a grouse perch, or a source of fire-wood; a lake, a fish-pond, a mountain, the dreaded abode of evil spirits. In the tale of the "Buffalo King" we read of the chief doing a number of things to win the affection of the refractory bride--telling the others not to displease her, giving her "the seat of honor," and going so far as to fast himself, whereas in real life, under such circumstances, he would have curtly clubbed the stolen bride into submission. In the tale of the "Red Lover" the girl is admired for her "slender form," whereas a real Indian values a woman in proportion to her weight and rotundity. Indians do not make "protestations of inviolable attachment," or "pledge vows of mutual fidelity," like the lovers of our fashionable novels. As Charles A. Leland remarks of the same race of Indians (85), "When an Indian seeks a wife, he or his mutual friend makes no great ado about it, but utters two words which tell the whole story." But there is no need of citing other authors, for Schoolcraft, as I have just intimated, stands convicted by his own action. In the second edition of his Algic Researches, which appeared after an interval of seventeen years and received the title of The Myth of Hiawatha and other Oral Legends of the North American Indians, he seemed to remember what he wrote in the preface of the first regarding these stories, "that in the original there is no attempt at ornament," so he removed nearly all of the romantic embroideries, like those I have italicized and commented on, and also relegated the majority of his ludicrously sentimental interspersed poems to the appendix. In the preface to Hiawatha, he refers in connection with some of these verses to "the poetic use of aboriginal ideas." Now, a man has a perfect right to make such "poetic use" of "aboriginal ideas," but not when he has led his readers to believe that he is telling these stories "as nearly as possible in their original forms of thought and expression." It is very much as if Edward MacDowell had published the several movements of his Indian Suite as being, not only in their ideas, but in their (modern European) harmonies and orchestration, a faithful transcript of aboriginal Indian music. Schoolcraft's procedure, in other words, amounts to a sort of Ossianic mystification; and unfortunately he has had not a few imitators, to the confusion of comparative psychologists and students of the evolution of love.

It is a great pity that Schoolcraft, with his valuable opportunities for ethnological research, should not have added a critical attitude and a habit of accuracy to his great industry. The historian Parkman, a model observer and scholar, described Schoolcraft's volumes on the Indian Tribes of the United States as

"a singularly crude and illiterate production, stuffed with blunders and contradictions, giving evidence on every page of a striking unfitness for historical or scientific inquiry."[199]

REALITY VERSUS ROMANCE

A few of the tales I have cited are not marred by superadded sentimental adornments, but all of them are open to suspicion from still another point of view. They are invariably so proper and pure that they might be read to Sunday-school classes. Since one-half of Schoolcraft's assistants in the compilation of this material were women, this might have been expected, and if the collection had been issued as a Fairy Book it would have been a matter of course. But they were issued as accurate "oral legends" of wild Indians, and from the point of view of the student of the history of love the most important question to ask was, "Are Indian stories in reality as pure and refined in tone as these specimens would lead us to suspect?" I will answer that question by citing the words of one of the warmest champions of the Indians, the eminent American anthropologist, Professor D.G. Brinton _(M.N.W., 160):

"Anyone who has listened to Indian tales, not as they are recorded in books, but as they are told by the camp-fire, will bear witness to the abounding obscenity they deal in. That the same vulgarity shows itself in their arts and life, no genuine observer need doubt."

And in a footnote he gives this extremely interesting information:

"The late George Gibbs will be acknowledged as an authority here. He was at the time of his death preparing a Latin translation of the tales he had collected, as they were too erotic to print in English. He wrote me, 'Schoolcraft's legends are emasculated to a degree that they become no longer Indian.'"

No longer Indian, indeed! And these doctored stories, artfully sentimentalized at one end and expurgated at the other, are advanced as proofs that a savage Indian's love is just as refined as that of a civilized Christian! What Indian stories really are, the reader, if he can stomach such things, may find out for himself by consulting the marvellously copious and almost phonographically accurate collection of native tales which another of our most eminent anthropologists, Dr. Franz Boas, has printed.[200] And it must be borne in mind that these stories are not the secret gossip of vulgar men alone by themselves, but are national tales with which children of both sexes become familiar from their earliest years. As Colonel Dodge remarks (213): it is customary for as many as a dozen persons of both sexes to live in one room, hence there is an entire lack of privacy, either in word or act. "It is a wonder," says Powers (271), "that children grow up with any virtue whatever, for the conversation of their elders in their presence is often of the filthiest description." "One thing seems to me more than intolerable," wrote the French missionary Le Jeune in 1632 (Jesuit Relations, V., 169).

"It is their living together promiscuously, girls, women, men, and boys, in a smoky hole. And the more progress one makes in the knowledge of the language, the more vile things one hears.... I did not think that the mouth of the savage was so foul as I notice it is every day."

Elsewhere (VI., 263) the same missionary says:

"Their lips are constantly foul with these obscenities; and it is the same with the little children.... The older women go almost naked, the girls and young women are very modestly clad; but, among themselves, their language has the foul odor of the sewers."

Of the Pennsylvania Indians Colonel James Smith (who had lived among them as a captive) wrote (140): "The squaws are generally very immodest in their words and actions, and will often put the young men to the blush."

DECEPTIVE MODESTY

The late Dr. Brinton shot wide off the mark when he wrote (R. and P., 59) that even among the lower races the sentiment of modesty "is never absent." With some American Indians, as in the races of other parts of the world, there is often not even the appearance of modesty. Many of the Southern Indians in North America and others in Central and South America wear no clothes at all, and their actions are as unrestrained as those of animals.[201] The tribes that do wear clothes sometimes present to shallow or biassed observers the appearance of modesty. To the Mandan women Catlin (I., 93, 96) attributes "excessive modesty of demeanor."

"It was customary for hundreds of girls and women to go bathing and swimming in the Missouri every morning, while a quarter of a mile back on a terrace stood several sentinels with bows and arrows in hand to protect the bathing-place from men or boys, who had their own swimming-place elsewhere."

This, however, tells us more about the immorality of the men and their anxiety to guard their property than about the character of the women. On that point we are enlightened by Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, who found that these women were anything but prudes, having often two or three lovers at a time, while infidelity was seldom punished (I., 531). According to Gatschet (183) Creek women also "were assigned a bathing-place in the river currents at some distance below the men;" but that this, too, was a mere curiosity of pseudo-modesty becomes obvious when we read in Schoolcraft (V., 272) that among these Indians "the sexes indulge their propensities with each other promiscuously, unrestrained by law or custom, and without secrecy or shame." Powers, too, relates (55) that among the Californian Yurok "the sexes bathe apart, and the women do not go into the sea without some garment on." But Powers was not a man to be misled by specious appearances. He fully understood the philosophy of the matter, as the following shows (412):

"Notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary by false friends and weak maundering philanthropists, the California Indians are a grossly licentious race. None more so, perhaps. There is no word in all their language that I have examined which has the meaning of 'mercenary prostitute,' because such a creature is unknown to them; but among the unmarried of both sexes there is very little or no restraint; and this freedom is so much a matter of course that there is no reproach attaching to it; so that their young women are notable for their modest and innocent demeanor. This very modesty of outward deportment has deceived the hasty glance of many travellers. But what their conduct really is is shown by the Argus-eyed surveillance to which women are subjected. If a married woman is seen even walking in the forest with another man than her husband she is chastised by him. A repetition of the offence is generally punished with speedy death. Brothers and sisters scrupulously avoid living alone together. A mother-in-law is never allowed to live with her son-in-law. To the Indian's mind the opportunity of evil implies the commission of it."

WERE INDIANS CORRUPTED BY WHITES?

Having disposed of the modesty fallacy, let us examine once more, and for the last time, the doctrine that savages owe their degradation to the whites.

In the admirable preface to his book on the Jesuit missionaries in Canada, Parkman writes concerning the Hurons (XXXIV.):

"Lafitau, whose book appeared in 1724, says that the nation was corrupt in his time, but that this was a degeneracy from their ancient manners. La Potherie and Charlevoix make a similar statement. Megapolensis, however, in 1644 says that they were then exceedingly debauched; and Greenhalgh, in 1677, gives ample evidence of a shameless license. One of their most earnest advocates of the present day admits that the passion of love among them had no other than an animal existence (Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 322). There is clear proof that the tribes of the South were equally corrupt. (See Lawson's Carolina, 34, and other early writers.)"

Another most earnest advocate of the Indians, Dr. Brinton, writes (M.N.W., 159) that promiscuous licentiousness was frequently connected with the religious ceremonies of the Indians:

"Miscellaneous congress very often terminated their dances and festivals. Such orgies were of common occurrence among the Algonkins and Iroquois at a very early date, and are often mentioned in the Jesuit Relations; Venagas describes them as frequent among the tribes of Lower California, and Oviedo refers to certain festivals of the Nicaraguans, during which the women of all ranks extended to whosoever wished just such privileges as the matrons of ancient Babylon, that mother of harlots and all abominations, used to grant even to slaves and strangers in the temple of Melitta as one of the duties of religion."

In Part I. (140-42) of the Final Report of Investigations among the Indians of the Southwestern United States,[202] A.F. Bandelier, the leading authority on the Indians of the Southwest, writes regarding the Pueblos (one of the most advanced, of all American tribes):

"Chastity was an act of penitence; to be chaste signified to do penance. Still, after a woman had once become linked to a man by the performance of certain simple rites it was unsafe for her to be caught trespassing, and her accomplice also suffered a penalty. But there was the utmost liberty, even license, as toward girls. Intercourse was almost promiscuous with members of the tribe. Toward outsiders the strictest abstinence was observed, and this fact, which has long been overlooked or misunderstood, explains the prevailing idea that before the coming of the white man the Indians were both chaste and moral, while the contrary is the truth."

Lewis and Clarke travelled a century ago among Indians that had never been visited by whites. Their observations regarding immoral practices and the means used to obviate the consequences bear out the above testimony. M'Lean (II., 59, 120) also ridicules the idea that Indians were corrupted by the whites. But the most conclusive proof of aboriginal depravity is that supplied by the discoverers of America, including Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. Columbus on his fourth voyage touched the mainland going down near Brazil. In Cariay, he writes,[203] the enchanters

"sent me immediately two girls very showily dressed. The elder could not be more than eleven years of age and the other seven, and both exhibited so much immodesty that more could not be expected from public women."

On another page (30) he writes: "The habits of these Caribbees are brutal," adding that in their attacks on neighboring islands they carry off as many women as they can, using them as concubines. "These women also say that the Caribbees use them with such cruelty as would scarcely be believed; and that they eat the children which they bear to them."

Brazil was visited in 1501 by Amerigo Vespucci. The account he gives of the dissolute practices of the natives, who certainly had never set eye on a white man, is so plain spoken that it cannot be quoted here in full. "They are not very jealous," he says, "and are immoderately libidinous, and the women much more so than the men, so that for decency I omit to tell you the ... They are so void of affection and cruel that if they be angry with their husbands they ... and they slay an infinite number of creatures by that means.... The greatest sign of friendship which they can show you is that they give you their wives and their daughters" and feel "highly honored" if they are accepted. "They eat all their enemies whom they kill or capture, as well females as males." "Their other barbarous customs are such that expression is too weak for the reality."

The ineradicable perverseness of some minds is amusingly illustrated by Southey, in his History of Brazil. After referring to Amerigo Vespucci's statements regarding the lascivious practices of the aboriginals, he exclaims, in a footnote: "This is false! Man has never yet been discovered in such a state of depravity!" What the navigators wrote regarding the cannibalism and cruelty of these savages he accepts as a matter of course; but to doubt their immaculate purity is high treason! The attitude of the sentimentalists in this matter is not only silly and ridiculous, but positively pathological. As their number is great, and seems to be growing (under the influence of such writers as Catlin, Helen Hunt Jackson, Brinton, Westermarck, etc.), it is necessary, in the interest of the truth, to paint the Indian as he really was until contact with the whites (missionaries and others) improved him somewhat.[204]

THE NOBLE RED MAN

Beginning with the Californians, their utter lack of moral sense has already been described. They were no worse than the other Pacific coast tribes in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. George Gibbs, the leading authority on the Indians of Western Oregon and Washington, says regarding them (I., 197-200):

"Prostitution is almost universal. An Indian, perhaps, will not let his favorite wife, but he looks upon his others, his sisters, daughters, female relatives, and slaves, as a legitimate source of profit.... Cohabitation of unmarried females among their own people brings no disgrace if unaccompanied with child-birth, which they take care to prevent. This commences at a very early age, perhaps ten or twelve years."

"Chastity is not considered a virtue by the Chinook women," says Ross (92),

"and their amorous propensities know no bounds. All classes, from the highest to the lowest, indulge in coarse sensuality and shameless profligacy. Even the chief would boast of obtaining a paltry toy or trifle in return for the prostitution of his virgin daughter."

Lewis and Clarke (1814) found that among the Chinooks, "as, indeed, among all Indians" they became acquainted with on their perilous pioneer trips through the Western wilds, prostitution of females was not considered criminal or improper (439).

Such revelations, illustrating not individual cases of depravity, but a whole people's attitude, show how utterly hopeless it is to expect refined and pure love of these Indians. Gibbs did not give himself up to any illusions on this subject. "A strong sensual attachment often undoubtedly exists," he wrote (198),

"which leads to marriage, and instances are not rare of young women destroying themselves on the death of a lover; but where the idea of chastity is so entirely wanting in both sexes, this cannot deserve the name of love, or it is at best of a temporary duration." The italics are mine.

In common with several other high authorities who lived many years among the Indians (as we shall see at the end of this chapter) Gibbs clearly realized the difference between red love and white love--between sensual and sentimental attachments, and failed to find the latter among the American savages.

British Columbian capacity for sexual delicacy and refined love is sufficiently indicated by the reference on a preceding page (556) to the stories collected by Dr. Boas. Turning northeastward we find M'Lean, who spent twenty-five years among the Hudson's Bay natives, declaring of the Beaver Indians (Chippewayans) that "the unmarried youth, of both sexes, are generally under no restraint whatever," and that "the lewdness of the Carrier [Taculli] Indians cannot possibly be carried to a greater excess." M'Lean, too, after observing these northern Indians for a quarter of a century, came to the conclusion that "the tender passion seems unknown to the savage breast."

"The Hurons are lascivious," wrote Le Jeune (whom I have already quoted), in 1632; and Parkman says (J.N.A., XXXIV.):

"A practice also prevailed of temporary or experimental marriage, lasting a day, a week, or more.... An attractive and enterprising damsel might, and often did, make twenty such marriages before her final establishing."

Regarding the Sioux, that shrewd observer, Burton, wrote (C. of S., 116): "If the mother takes any care of her daughter's virtue, it is only out of regard to its market value." The Sioux, or Dakotas, are indeed, sometimes lower than animals, for, as S.R. Riggs pointed out, in a government publication (U.S. Geogr. and Geol. Soc., Vol. IX.), "Girls are sometimes taken very young, before they are of marriageable age, which generally happens with a man who has a wife already." "The marriageable age," he adds, "is from fourteen years old and upward." Even the Mandans, so highly lauded by Catlin, sometimes brutally dispose of girls at the age of eleven, as do other tribes (Comanches, etc.).

Of the Chippewas, Ottawas, and Winnebagoes we read in H. Trumbull's History of the Indian Wars (168):

"It appears to have been a very prevalent custom with the Indians of this country, before they became acquainted with the Europeans, to compliment strangers with their wives;"

and "the Indian women in general are amorous, and before marriage not less esteemed for gratifying their passions."

Of the New York Indians J. Buchanan wrote (II., 104):

"that it is no offence for their married women to associate with another man, provided she acquaint her husband or some near relation therewith, but if not, it is sometimes punishable with death."

Of the Comanches it is said (Schoolcraft, V., 683) that while "the men are grossly licentious, treating female captives in a most cruel and barbarous manner," upon their women "they enforce rigid chastity;" but this is, as usual, a mere question of masculine property, for on the next page we read that they lend their wives; and Fossey (Mexique, 462) says: "Les Comanches obligent le prisonnier blanc, dont ils ont admiré le valeur dans le combat, à s'unir à leurs femmes pour perpétuer sa race." Concerning the Kickapoo, Kansas, and Osage Indians we are informed by Hunter (203), who lived among them, that

"a female may become a parent out of wedlock without loss of reputation, or diminishing her chances for a subsequent matrimonial alliance, so that her paramour is of respectable standing."

Maximilian Prinz zu Weid found that the Blackfeet, though they horribly mutilated wives for secret intrigues [violation of property right], offered these wives as well as their daughters for a bottle of whiskey. "Some very young girls are offered" (I., 531). "The Navajo women are very loose, and do not look upon fornication as a crime."

"The most unfortunate thing which can befall a captive woman is to be claimed by two persons. In this case she is either shot or delivered up for indiscriminate violence" (Bancroft, I., 514).

Colonel R.I. Dodge writes of the Indians of the plains (204):

"For an unmarried Indian girl to be found away from her lodge alone is to invite outrage, consequently she is never sent out to cut and bring wood, nor to take care of the stock."

He speaks of the "Indian men who, animal-like, approach a female only to make love to her," and to whom the idea of continence is unknown (210). Among the Cheyennes and Arapahoes

"no unmarried woman considers herself dressed to meet her beau at night, to go to a dance or other gathering, unless she has tied her lower limbs with a rope.... Custom has made this an almost perfect protection against the brutality of the men. Without it she would not be safe for an instant, and even with it, an unmarried girl is not safe if found alone away from the immediate protection of the lodge" (213).

A brother does not protect his sister from insult, nor avenge outrage (220).

"Nature has no nobler specimen of man than the Indian," wrote Catlin, the sentimentalist, who is often cited as an authority. To proceed: "Prostitution is the rule among the (Yuma) women, not the exception." The Colorado River Indians "barter and sell their women into prostitution, with hardly an exception." (Bancroft, I., 514.) In his Antiquities of the Southern Indians, C.C. Jones says of the Creeks, Cherokees, Muscogulges, etc. (69):

"Comparatively little virtue existed among the unmarried women. Their chances of marriage were not diminished, but rather augmented, by the fact that they had been great favorites, provided they had avoided conception during their years of general pleasure."

The wife "was deterred, by fear of public punishment, from the commission of indiscretions." "The unmarried women among the Natchez were unusually unchaste," says McCulloh (165).

This damning list might be continued for the Central and South American Indians. We should find that the Mosquito Indians often did not wait for puberty (Bancroft, I., 729); that, according to Martius, Oviedo, and Navarette,

"in Cuba, Nicaragua,[205] and among the Caribs and Tupis, the bride yielded herself first to another, lest her husband should come to some ill-luck by exercising a priority of possession.... This jus primae noctis was exercised by the priests" (Brinton, M.N.W., 155);

that the Waraus give girls to medicine men in return for professional services (Brett, 320); that the Guaranis lend their wives and daughters for a drink (Reich, 435); that among Brazilian tribes the jus primae noctis is often enjoyed by the chief (Journ. Roy. G.S., II., 198); that in Guiana "chastity is not considered an indispensable virtue among the unmarried women" (Dalton, I., 80); that the Patagonians often pawned and sold their wives and daughters for brandy (Falkner, 97); that their licentiousness is equal to their cruelty (Bourne, 56-57), etc., etc.

APPARENT EXCEPTIONS

A critical student will not be able, I think, to find any exceptions to this rule of Indian depravity among tribes untouched by missionary influences. Westermarck, indeed, refers (65) with satisfaction to Hearne's assertion (311) that the northern Indians he visited carefully guarded the young people. Had he consulted page 129 of the same writer he would have seen that this does not indicate a regard for chastity as a virtue, but is merely a result of their habit of regarding women as property, to which Franklin, speaking of these same Indians, refers (287); for as Hearne remarks in the place alluded to, "it is a very common custom among the men of this country to exchange a night's lodging with each other's wives." An equal lack of insight is shown by Westermarck, when he professes to find female chastity among the Apaches. For this assertion he relies on Bancroft, who does indeed say (I., 514) that "all authorities agree that the Apache women, both before and after marriage, are remarkably pure." Yet he himself adds that the Apaches will lend their wives to each other.[206] If the women are otherwise chaste, it is not from a regard for purity, but from fear of their cruel husbands and masters. United States Boundary Commissioner, Bartlett, has enlightened us on this point. "The atrocities inflicted upon an Apache woman taken in adultery baffle all description," he writes, "and the females whom they capture from their enemies are invariably doomed to the most infamous treatment." Thus they are like other Indians--the Comanches, for instance, concerning whom we read in Schoolcraft (V., 683) that "the men are grossly licentious, treating female captives in a most cruel and barbarous manner; but they enforce rigid chastity upon their women."

Among the Modocs a wife who violated her husband's property rights in her "chastity," was disembowelled in public, as Bancroft informs us (I., 350). No wonder, that, as he adds, "adultery, being attended with so much danger, is comparatively rare, but among the unmarried, who have nothing to fear, a gross licentiousness prevails."

The Peruvian sun virgins are often supposed to indicate a regard for purity; but in reality the temples in which these girls were reared and guarded were nothing but nurseries for providing a choice assortment of concubines for the licentious Incas and their friends. (Torquemada, IX., 16.)[207]

"In the earlier times of Peru the union of the sexes was voluntary, unregulated, and accompanied by barbarous usages: many of which even at the present day exist among the uncivilized nations of South America." (Tschudi's Antiquities, 184; McCulloh, 379.)

Of the Mexicans, too, it has been erroneously said that they valued purity; but Bandelier has collected facts from the old Spanish writers, in summing which up he says: "This almost establishes promiscuity among the ancient Mexicans, as a preliminary to formal marriage." Oddly enough, the crime of adultery with a married woman was considered one against a cluster of kindred, and not against the husband; for if he caught the culprits in flagrante delictu and killed the wife, he lost his own life!

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 superstition. 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 god;' though at the same time his pleasures were heightened in proportion to the shrieks and groans from prisoners of both sexes 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., XXXIV.) that the remarkable forbearance observed by some tribes was the result of superstition; 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 chastity in either sex 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 superstitious sanction and the direst threats of the great prophet are levelled at unchastity, 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 assistance 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 chastity, 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 passion' in their love-affairs." He admits, indeed, that "no expressions of endearment or tenderness ever escape the Indian sexes 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 naïveté, 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 circumstance 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 coarse 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 coarse, 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 attitude 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 sex;" 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 circumstances. "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 noble 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 assertions 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 assertion 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 passes. 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 shell-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 principal 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 sex of course do the hardest labor" (437), etc. With the Hupâ 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 circumstances;" 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, asses, 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 "emancipation" 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 assents 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 institution it would be useless to search for refined feeling toward any woman. Indeed, the Navajo women themselves rendered the growth of refined sexual 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 coarsest sensual passion. 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 naïve of the sentimentalists, Catlin, who perpetrated several books on the Indians and made many "fearless" assertions 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 Mitchell (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 illustration 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]

Burton attests (C.S., 125, 130, 60) that "the squaw is a mere slave, living a life of utter drudgery." The husbands "care little for their wives." "The drudgery of the tent and field renders the squaw cold and unimpassioned." "The son is taught to make his mother toil for him." "One can hardly expect a smiling countenance from the human biped trudging ten or twenty miles under a load fit for a mule." "Dacotah females," writes Neill (82, 85),

"deserve the sympathy of every tender heart. From early childhood they lead worse than a dog's life. Uncultivated and treated like brutes, they are prone to suicide, and, when desperate, they act more like infuriated beasts than creatures of reason."

Of the Crow branch of the Dakotas, Catlin wrote:[215] "They are, like all other Indian women, the slaves of their husbands ... and not allowed to join in their religious rites and ceremonies, nor in the dance or other amusements." All of which is delightfully consistent with this writer's assertion that the Indians are "not in the least behind us in conjugal affection."[216]

In his Travels Through the Northwest Regions of the United States Schoolcraft thus sums up (231) his observations:

"Of the state of female society among the Northern Indians I shall say little, because on a review of it I find very little to admire, either in their collective morality, or personal endowments.... Doomed to drudgery and hardships from infancy ... without either mental resources or personal beauty--what can be said in favor of the Indian women?"

A French author, Eugene A. Vail, writes an interesting summary (207-14) of the realistic descriptions given by older writers of the brutal treatment to which the women of the Northern Indians were subjected. He refers, among other things, to the efforts made by Governor Cass, of Michigan, to induce the Indians to treat their women more humanely; but all persuasion was in vain, and the governor finally had to resort to punishment. He also refers to the selfish ingenuity with which the men succeeded in persuading the foolish squaws that it would be a disgrace for their lords and masters to do any work, and that polygamy was a desirable thing. The men took as many wives as they pleased, and if one of them remonstrated against a new rival, she received a sound thrashing.

In Franklin's Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea we are informed (160) that the women are obliged to drag the heavily laden sledges:

"Nothing can more shock the feelings of a person accustomed to civilized life than to witness the state of their degradation. When a party is on a march the women have to drag the tent, the meat, and whatever the hunter possesses, whilst he only carries his gun and medicine case."

When the men have killed any large beast, says Hearne (90), the women are always sent to carry it to the tent. They have to prepare and cook it,

"and when it is done the wives and daughters of the greatest captains in the country are never served till all the males, even those who are in the capacity of servants, have eaten what they think proper."

Of the Chippewas, Keating says (II., 153), that "frequently ... their brutal conduct to their wives produces abortions."

A friend of the Blackfoot Indians, G.B. Grinnell, relates (184, 216) that, while boys play and do as they please, a girl's duties begin at an early age, and she soon does all a woman's "and so menial" work. Their fathers select husbands for them and, if they disobey, have a right to beat or even kill them. "As a consequence of this severity, suicide was quite common among the Blackfoot girls."

A passage in William Wood's New England Prospect, published in 1634,[217] throws light on the aboriginal condition of Indian women in that region. Wood refers to "the customarie churlishnesse and salvage inhumanitie" of the men. The Indian women, he says, are

"more loving, pittiful and modest, milde, provident, and laborious than their lazie husbands.... Since the English arrivall comparison hath made them miserable, for seeing the kind usage of the English to their wives, they doe as much condemne their husbands for unkindnesse and commend the English for love, as their husbands, commending themselves for their wit in keeping their wives industrious, doe condemn the English for their folly in spoiling good working creatures."

Concerning the intelligent, widely scattered, and numerous Iroquois, Morgan, who knew them more intimately than anyone else, wrote (322), that "the Indian regarded woman as the inferior, the dependent, and the servant of man, and, from nature and habit, she actually considered herself to be so." "Adultery was punished by whipping; but the punishment was inflicted on the woman alone, who was supposed to be the only offender" (331). "Female life among the Hurons had no bright side," wrote Parkman (J.C., XXXIII.). After marriage,

"the Huron woman from a wanton became a drudge ... in the words of Champlain, 'their women were their mules.' The natural result followed. In every Huron town were shrivelled hags, hideous and despised, who, in vindictiveness, ferocity, and cruelty, far exceeded the men."

The Jesuit Relations contain many references to the merciless treatment of their women by the Canadian Indians. "These poor women are real pack-mules, enduring all hardships." "In the winter, when they break camp, the women drag the heaviest loads over the snow; in short, the men seem to have as their share only hunting, war, and trading" (IV., 205). "The women here are mistresses and servants" (Hurons, XV.). In volume III. of the Jesuit Relations (101), Biard writes under date of 1616:

"These poor creatures endure all the misfortunes and hardships of life; they prepare and erect the houses, or cabins, furnishing them with fire, wood, and water; prepare the food, preserve the meat and other provisions, that is, dry them in the smoke to preserve them; go to bring the game from the place where it has been killed; sew and repair the canoes, mend and stitch the skins, curry them and make clothes and shoes of them for the whole family; they go fishing and do the rowing; in short, undertake all the work except that alone of the grand chase, besides having the care and so weakening nourishment of the children....

"Now these women, although they have so much trouble, as I have said, yet are not cherished any more for it. The husbands beat them unmercifully, and often for a very slight cause. One day a certain Frenchman undertook to rebuke a savage for this; the savage answered, angrily: 'How now, have you nothing to do but to see into my house, every time I strike my dog?'"

Surely Dr. Brinton erred grievously when he wrote, in his otherwise admirable book, The American Race (49), that the fatigues of the Indian women were scarce greater than those of their husbands, nor their life more onerous than that of the peasant women of Europe to-day. Peasants in Europe work quite as hard as their wives, whereas the Indian--except during the delightful hunting period, or in war-time, which, though frequent, was after all merely episodic--did nothing at all, and considered labor a disgrace to a man, fit only for women. The difference between the European peasant and the American red man can be inferred by anyone from what observers reported of the Creek Indians of our Southern States (Schoolcraft, V., 272-77):

"The summer season, with the men, is devoted to war, or their domestic amusements of riding, horse-hunting, ball-plays, and dancing, and by the women to their customary hard labor."

"The women perform all the labor, both in the house and field, and are, in fact, but slaves to the men, without any will of their own, except in the management of the children."

"A stranger going into the country must feel distressed when he sees naked women bringing in huge burdens of wood on their shoulders, or, bent under the scorching sun, at hard labor in the field, while the indolent, robust young men are riding about, or stretched at ease on some scaffold, amusing themselves with a pipe or a whistle."

The excesses to which bias and unintelligent philanthropy can lead a man are lamentably illustrated in the writings of the Moravian missionary, Heckewelder, regarding the Delaware Indians.[218] He argues that

"as women are not obliged to live with their husbands any longer than suits their pleasure or convenience, it cannot be supposed that they would submit to be loaded with unjust or unequal burdens" (!) "Were a man to take upon himself a part of his wife's duty, in addition to his own [hunting (!), for the Delawares were then a peaceful tribe], he must necessarily sink under the load, and of course his family must suffer with him."

The heartless sophistry of this reasoning--heartless because of its pitiless disregard of the burdens and sufferings of the poor women--is exposed in part by his own admissions regarding the selfish actions of the men. He does not deny that after the women have harvested their corn or maple sugar the men arrogate the right to dispose of it as they please. He relates that in case of a domestic quarrel the husband shoulders his gun and goes away a week or so. The neighbors naturally say that his wife is quarrelsome. All the odium consequently falls on her, and when he gets back she is only too willing to drudge for him more than ever. Heckewelder naïvely gives the Indian's recipe for getting a useful wife:

"Indian, when he see industrious squaw, which he like, he go to him [her], place his two forefingers close aside each other, make two look like one--see him [her] smile--which is all he [she] say, yes! so he take him [her] home. Squaw know too well what Indian do if he [she] cross! Throw him [her] away and take another! Squaw love to eat meat! no husband! no meat! Squaw do everything to please husband! he do same to please squaw [??]! live happy."

When that Indian said "he do the same to please the squaw," he must have chuckled at his own sarcasm. Heckewelder does, indeed, mention a few instances of kindness to a wife (e.g., going a great distance to get some berries which she, in a pregnant state, eagerly desired;) but these were obviously exceptional, as I have found nothing like them in other records of Indian life. It must be remembered that, as Roosevelt remarks (97) these Indians, under the influence of the Moravian missionaries, had been

"transformed in one generation from a restless, idle, blood-thirsty people of hunters arid fishers into an orderly, thrifty, industrious folk; believing with all their hearts the Christian religion."

It was impossible, however, to drive out the devil entirely, as the facts cited show, and as we may infer from what, according to Loskiel, was true a century ago of the Delawares as well as the Iroquois: "Often it happens that an Indian deserts his wife because she has a child to suckle, and marries another whom he presently abandons for the same reason." In this respect, however, the women are not much better than the men, for, as he adds, they often desert a husband who has no more presents to give them, and go with another who has. Truly Catlin was right when he said that the Indians (and these were the best of them) were "not in the least behind us in conjugal affection!"

Thus do even the apparent exceptions to Indian maltreatment of women--which exceptions are constantly cited as illustrations of the rule--melt away like mists when sunlight is brought to bear upon them. One more of these exceptions, of which sly sentimentalists have made improper use, must be referred to here. It is maintained, on the authority of Charlevoix, that the women of the Natchez Indians asserted their rights and privileges even above those of the men, for they were allowed to put unfaithful husbands to death while they themselves could have as many paramours as they pleased. Moreover, the husband had to stand in a respectful posture in the presence of his wife, was not allowed to eat with her, and had to salute her in the same way as the servants. This, truly, would be a remarkable sociological fact--if it were a fact. But upon referring to the pages of Charlevoix (264) we find that these statements, while perfectly true, do not refer to the Natchez women in general, but only to the princesses, or "female suns." These were allowed to marry none but private men; but by way of compensation they had the right to discard their husbands whenever they pleased and take another. The other women had no more privileges than the squaws of other tribes; whenever a chief saw a girl he liked he simply informed the relatives of the fact and enrolled her among the number of his wives. Charlevoix adds that he knew of no nation in America where the women were more unchaste. The privileges conferred on the princesses thus appear like a coarse, topsy-turvy joke, while affording one more instance of the lowest degradation of woman.

Summing up the most ancient and trustworthy evidence regarding Mexico, Bandelier writes (627):

"The position of women was so inferior, they were regarded as so far beneath the male, that the most degrading epithet that could be applied to any Mexican, aside from calling him a dog, was that of woman."

If a woman presumed to don a man's dress her death alone could wipe out the dishonor.

SOUTH AMERICAN GALLANTRY

So much for the Indians of North America. The tribes of the southern half of the continent would furnish quite as long and harrowing a tale of masculine selfishness and brutality, but considerations of space compel us to content ourselves with a few striking samples.

In the northern regions of South America historians say that "when a tribe was preparing poison in time of war, its efficacy was tried upon the old women of the tribe."[219]

"When we saw the Chaymas return in the evening from their gardens," writes Humboldt (I., 309),

"the man carried nothing but the knife or hatchet (machete) with which he clears his way among the underwood; whilst the woman, bending under a great load of plantains, carried one child in her arms, and, sometimes, two other children placed upon the load."

Schomburgk (II., 428) found that Caribbean women generally bore marks of the brutal treatment to which they were subjected by the men. Brett noted (27, 31) that among the Guiana tribes women had to do all the work in field and home as well as on the march, while the men made baskets, or lay indolently in hammocks until necessity compelled them to go hunting or fishing. The men had succeeded so thoroughly in creating a sentiment among the women that it was their duty to do all the work, that when Brett once induced an Indian to take a heavy bunch of plantains off his wife's head and carry it himself, the wife (slave to the backbone) seemed hurt at what she deemed a degradation of her husband. One of the most advanced races of South America were the Abipones of Paraguay. While addicted to infanticide they, contrary to the rule, were more apt to spare the female children; but their reason for this was purely commercial. A son, they said, would be obliged to purchase a wife, whereas daughters may be sold to a bridegroom (Dobrizhoffer, II., 97). The same missionary relates (214) that boys are laughed at, praised and rewarded for throwing bones, horns, etc., at their mothers.

"If their wives displease them, it is sufficient; they are ordered to decamp.... Should the husband cast his eyes upon any handsome woman the old wife must move merely on this account, her fading form and advancing age being her only accusers, though she may be universally commended for conjugal fidelity, regularity of conduct, diligent obedience, and the children she has borne."

In Chili, among the Mapuchés (Araucanians) the females, says Smith (214), "do all the labor, from ploughing and cooking to the saddling and unsaddling of a horse; for the 'lord and master' does nothing but eat, sleep, and ride about." Of the Peruvian Indians the Jesuit Pater W. Bayer (cited Reich, 444) wrote about the middle of the eighteenth century that wives are treated as slaves and are so accustomed to being regularly whipped that when the husband leaves them alone they fear he is paying attention to another woman and beg him to resume his beating. In Brazil, we are informed by Spix and Martins (I., 381),

"the women in general are slaves of the men, being compelled when on the march to carry everything needed, like beasts of burden; nay, they are even obliged to bring home from the forest the game killed by the men."

Tschndi (R.d.S.A., 284, 274) saw the marks of violence on many of the Botocudo women, and he says the men reserved for themselves the beautiful plumes of birds, leaving to the women such ornaments as pig's claws, berries, and monkey's teeth. A peculiar refinement of selfishness is alluded to by Burton (H.B., II., 49):

"The Brazilian natives, to warm their naked bodies, even in the wigwam, and to defend themselves against wild beasts, used to make their women keep wood burning all night."

Of the Patagonians Falkner says (125) that the women "are obliged to submit to every species of drudgery." He gives a long list of their duties (including even hunting) and adds:

"No excuse of sickness, or being big with child, will relieve them from their appointed labor; and so rigidly are they obliged to perform their duty, that their husbands cannot help them on any occasion, or in the greatest distress, without incurring the highest ignominy."

Even the wives of the chiefs were obliged to drudge unless they had slaves. At their marriages there is little ceremony, the bride being simply handed over to the man as his property. The Fuegians, according to Fitzroy, when reduced to a state of famine, became cannibals, eating their old women first, before they kill their dogs. A boy being asked why they did this, answered: "Doggie catch otters, old women no." (Darwin, V B., 214.)

Thus, from the extreme north to the extreme south of the American continent we find the "noble red man" consistent in at least one thing--his maltreatment of women. How, in the face of these facts, which might be multiplied indefinitely, a specialist like Horatio Hale could write that there was among the Indians "complete equality of the sexes in social estimation and influence," and that

"casual observers have been misled by the absence of those artificial expressions of courtesy which have descended to us from the time of chivalry, and which, however gracious and pleasing to witness, are, after all, merely signs of condescension and protection from the strong to the weak"[220]

--surpasses all understanding. It is a shameful perversion of the truth, as all the intelligent and unbiassed evidence of observers from the earliest time proves.

HOW INDIANS ADORE SQUAWS

Not content with maltreating their squaws, the Indians literally add insult to injury by the low estimation in which they hold them. A few sample illustrations must suffice to show how far that adoration which a modern lover feels for women and for his sweetheart in particular is beyond their mental horizon.

"The Indians," says Hunter (250), "regarding themselves as the lords of the earth, look down upon the squaws as an inferior order of beings," created to rear families and do all the drudgery; "and the squaws, accustomed to such usage, cheerfully acquiesce in it as a duty." The squaw is not esteemed for her own sake, but "in proportion to the number of children she raises, particularly if they are males, and prove brave warriors." Franklin says (287) that the Copper Indians "hold women in the same low estimation as the Chippewayans do, looking upon them as a kind of property which the stronger may take from the weaker." He also speaks (157) "of the office of nurse, so degrading in the eyes of a Chippewayan, as partaking of the duties of a woman." "The manner of the Indian boy toward his mother," writes Willoughby (274), "is almost uniformly disrespectful;" while the adults consider it a disgrace to do a woman's work--that is, practically any work at all; for hunting is not regarded as work, but is indulged in for the sport and excitement. In the preface to Mrs. Eastman's book on the Dakotas we read:

"The peculiar sorrows of the Sioux woman commence at her birth. Even as a child she is despised, in comparison with her brother beside her, who is one day to be a great warrior."

"Almost everything that a man owns is sacred," says Neill (86), "but nothing that the woman possesses is so esteemed." The most insulting epithets that can be bestowed on a Sioux are coward, dog, woman. Among the Creeks, "old woman" is the greatest term of reproach which can be used to those not distinguished by war names. You may call an Indian a liar without arousing his anger, but to call him a woman is to bring on a quarrel at once. (Schoolcraft, V., 280.) If the Natchez have a prisoner who winces under torture he is turned over to the women as being unworthy to die by the hands of men. (Charlevoix, 207.) In many cases boys are deliberately taught to despise their mothers as their inferiors. Blackfeet men mourn for the loss of a man by scarifying their legs; but if the deceased is only a woman, this is never done. (Grinnell, 194.) Among all the tribes the men look on manual work as a degradation, fit only for women. The Abipones think it beneath a man to take any part in female quarrels, and this too is a general trait. (Dobrizhoffer, II., 155.)[221] Mrs. Eastman relates (XVII.) that

"among the Dakotas the men think it undignified for them to steal, so they send their wives thus unlawfully to procure what they want--and woe be to them if they are found out."

Horse-stealing alone is considered worthy of superior man. But the most eloquent testimony to the Indian's utter contempt for woman is contributed in an unguarded moment by his most ardent champion. Catlin relates (N.A.I., I., 226) how he at one time undertook to paint the portraits of the chiefs and such of the warriors as the chiefs deemed worthy of such an honor. All was well until, after doing the men, he proposed also to paint the pictures of some of the squaws:

"I at once got myself into a serious perplexity, being heartily laughed at by the whole tribe, both by men and by women, for my exceeding and (to them) unaccountable condescension in seriously proposing to paint a woman, conferring on her the same honor that I had done the chiefs and braves. Those whom I had honored were laughed at by the hundreds of the jealous, who had been decided unworthy the distinction, and were now amusing themselves with the very enviable honor which the great white medicine man had conferred especially on them, and was now to confer equally upon the squaws!"

CHOOSING A HUSBAND

It might be inferred a priori that savages who despise and abuse their women as the Indians do would not allow girls to choose their own husbands except in cases where no selfish reason existed to force them to marry the choice of their parents. This inference is borne out by the facts. Westermarck, indeed, remarks (215) that "among the Indians of North America, numberless instances are given of woman's liberty to choose her husband." But of the dozen or so cases he cites, several rest on unreliable evidence, some have nothing to do with the question at issue,[222] and others prove exactly the contrary of what he asserts; while, more suo, he placidly ignores the mass of facts which disprove his assertion that "women are not, as a rule, married without having any voice of their own in the matter." There are, no doubt, some tribes who allow their women more or less freedom. Apache courtship appears to be carried on in two ways, in each of which the girl has the power to refuse. In both cases the proposal is made by pantomime, without a word being spoken. According to Cremony (245). the lover stakes his horse in front of the girl's "roost." Should she favor his suit, she takes his horse, gives it food and water, and secures it in front of his lodge. Four days comprise the term allowed for an answer. Dr. J.W. Hoffman relates[223] that a Coyotero Apache, having selected the girl he wants, watches to find out the trail she is apt to frequent when she goes to pick berries or grass seed. Having discovered it, he places a row of stones on both sides of it for a distance of ten or fifteen paces:

"He then allows himself to be seen by the maiden before she leaves camp, and running ahead, hides himself in the immediate vicinity of the row of stones. If she avoids them by passing to the outside, it is a refusal, but should she continue on her trail, and pass between the two rows, he immediately rushes out, catches her and ... carries her triumphantly to camp."

Lewis and Clarke relate (441) that among the Chinooks the women "have a rank and influence very rarely found among Indians." They are allowed to speak freely before the men, their advice is asked, and the men do not make drudges of them. The reason for this may be found in a sentence from Ross's book on Oregon (90): "Slaves do all the laborious work." Among such Indians one might expect that girls would have their inclinations consulted when it came to choosing a husband. In the twelfth chapter of his Wa-Kee-Nah, James C. Strong gives a graphic description of a bridal chase which he once witnessed among the Mountain Chinooks. A chief had an attractive daughter who was desired by four braves. The parents, having no special choice in the matter, decided that there should be a race on horseback, the girl being the winner's prize. But if the parents had no preference, the girl had; she indulged in various ingenious manoeuvres to make it possible for the Indian on the bay horse to overtake her first. He succeeded, put his arm round her waist, lifted her from her horse to his own, and married her the next day.

Here the girl had her way, and yet it was only by accident, for while she had a preference, she had no liberty of choice. It was the parents who ordered the bridal race, and, had another won it, she would have been his. It is indeed difficult to find real instances of liberty of choice where the daughter's desire conflicted with the wishes of the parents or other relatives. Westermarck claims that the Creeks endeavored to gain the girl's consent, but no such fact can be gathered from the passage he refers to (Schoolcraft, V., 269). Moreover, among the Creeks, unrestrained license prevailed before marriage, and marriage was considered only as a temporary convenience, not binding on the party more than a year; and finally, Creeks who wanted to marry had to gain the consent of the young woman's uncles, aunts, and brothers. Westermarck also says that among the Thlinkets the suitor had to consult the wishes of the "young lady;" yet on page 511 he tells us that among these Indians, "when a husband dies, his sister's son must marry the widow." It does not seem likely that where even widows are treated so unceremoniously, any deference is paid to the wishes of the "young ladies." From Keating Westermarck gathers the information that although with the Chippewas the mothers generally settle the preliminaries to marriage without consulting the children, the parties are not considered husband and wife till they have given their consent. A reference to the original passage gives, however, a different impression, showing that the parents always have their own way, unless the girl elopes. The suitor's mother arranges the matter with the parents of the girl he wants, and when the terms have been agreed upon her property is removed to his lodge. "The disappearance of the property is the first intimation which she receives of the contemplated change in her condition." If one or both are unwilling, "the parents, who have a great influence, generally succeed in bringing them to second their views."

COMPULSORY "FREE CHOICE"

A story related by C.G. Murr, a German missionary, warns us that assertions as to the girls being consulted must always be accepted with great caution. His remarks relate to several countries of Spanish America. He was often urged to find husbands for girls only thirteen years old, by their mothers, who were tired of watching them. "Much against my will," he writes,

"I married such young girls to Indians fifty or sixty years old. At first I was deceived, because the girls said it was their free choice, whereas, in truth, they had been persuaded by their parents with flatteries or threats. Afterwards I always asked the girls, and they confessed that their father and mother had threatened to beat them if they disobeyed."

In tribes where some freedom seems to be allowed the girls at present there are stories or traditions indicating that such a departure from the natural state of affairs is resented by the men. Sometimes, writes Dorsey (260) of the Omahas,

"when a youth sees a girl whom he loves, if she be willing, he says to her, 'I will stand in that place. Please go thither at night.' Then after her arrival he enjoys her, and subsequently asks her of her father in marriage. But it was different with a girl who had been petulant, one who had refused to listen to the suitor at first. He might be inclined to take his revenge. After lying with her, he might say, 'As you struck me and hurt me, I will not marry you. Though you think much of yourself, I despise you.' Then would she be sent away without winning him for her husband; and it was customary for the man to make songs about her. In these songs the woman's name was not mentioned unless she had been a 'minckeda,' or dissolute woman."[224]

A BRITISH COLUMBIA STORY

An odd story about a man who was so ugly that no girl would have him is related by Boas.[225] This man was so distasteful to the girls that if he accidentally touched the blanket of one of them she cut out the piece he had touched. Ten times this had happened, and each time he had gathered the piece that had been cut out, giving it to his mother to save. Besides being so ugly, he was also very poor, having gambled away everything he possessed, and being reduced to the necessity of swallowing pebbles to allay the pangs of hunger. A sorcerer, however, put a fine new head on him and told him where he would find two lovely girls who had refused every suitor, but who would accept him. He did so and the girls were so pleased with his beauty that they became his wives at once and went home with him. He resumed his gambling and lost again, but his wives helped him to win back his losses. They also said to him:

"All the girls who formerly would have nothing to do with you will now be eager to be yours. Pay no attention to them, however, but repel them if they touch you."

The girls did come to his mother, and they said they would like to be his wives. When the mother told him this, he replied: "I suppose they want to get back the pieces they cut out of their blankets." He took the pieces, gave them to the girls, with taunting words, and drove them away.

THE DANGER OF COQUETRY

The moral of this sarcastic conclusion obviously was intended to be that girls must not show independence and refuse a man, though he be a reckless gambler, so poor that he has to eat pebbles, and so ugly that he needs to have a new head put on him. Another story, the moral of which was "to teach girls the danger of coquetry," is told by Schoolcraft (Oneota, 381-84). There was a girl who refused all her suitors scornfully. In one case she went so far as to put together her thumb and three fingers, and, raising her hand gracefully toward the young man, deliberately open them in his face. This gesticulatory mode of rejection is an expression of the highest contempt, and it galled the young warrior so much that he was taken ill and took to his bed until he thought out a plan of revenge which cured him. He carried it out with the aid of a powerful spirit, or personal Manito. They made a man of rags and dirt, cemented it with snow and brought it to life. The girl fell in love with this man and followed him to the marshes, where the snow-cement melted away, leaving nothing but a pile of rags and dirt. The girl, unable to find her way back, perished in the wilderness.

THE GIRL MARKET

In the vast majority of instances the Indians did not simply try to curb woman's efforts to secure freedom of choice by intimidating her or inventing warning stories, but held the reins so tightly that a woman's having a will of her own was out of the question. It may be said that there are three principal stages in the evolution of the custom of choosing a wife. In the first and lowest stage a man casts his eyes on a woman and tries to get her, utterly regardless of her own wishes. In the second, an attempt is made to win at least her good-will, while in the third--which civilized nations are just entering--a lover would refuse to marry a girl at the expense of her happiness. A few Indian tribes have got as far as the second stage, but most of them belong to the first. Provided a warrior coveted a girl, and provided her parents were satisfied with the payment he offered, matters were settled without regard to the girl's wishes. To avoid needless friction it was sometimes deemed wise to first gain the girl's good-will; but this was a matter of secondary importance. "It is true," says Smith in his book on the Indians of Chili (214),

"that the Araucanian girl is not regularly put up for sale and bartered for, like the Oriental houris; but she is none the less an article of merchandise, to be paid for by him who would aspire to her hand. She has no more freedom in the choice of her husband than has the Circassian slave."

"Marriage with the North Californians," says Bancroft (I., 349),

"is essentially a matter of business. The young brave must not hope to win his bride by feats of arms or softer wooing, but must buy her of her father like any other chattel, and pay the price at once, or resign in favor of a richer man. The inclinations of the girl are in nowise consulted; no matter where her affections are placed, she goes to the highest bidder. The purchase effected, the successful suitor leads his blushing property to his hut and she becomes his wife without further ceremony. Wherever this system of wife-purchase obtains the rich old men almost absorb the youth and beauty of the tribe, while the younger and poorer men must content themselves with old and ugly wives. Hence their eagerness for that wealth which will enable them to throw away their old wives and buy new ones."[226]

A favorable soil for the growth of romantic and conjugal love! The Omahas have a proverb that an old man cannot win a girl, he can only win her parents; nevertheless if the old man has the ponies he gets the girl. The Indians insist on their rights, too. Powers tells (318) of a California (Nishinam) girl who loathed the man that had a claim on her. She took refuge with a kind old widow, who deceived the pursuers. When the deception was discovered, the noble warriors drew their arrows and shot the widow to death in the middle of the village amid general approval. I myself once saw a poor Arizona girl who had taken refuge with a white family. When I saw the man to whom she had been sold--a dirty old tramp whom a decent person would not want in the same tribe, much less in the same wigwam--I did not wonder she hated him; but he had paid for her and she was ultimately obliged to live with him.

Of the Mandans, Catlin says (I., 119) that wives "are mostly treated for with the father, as in all instances they are regularly bought and sold." Belden relates (32) how he married a Sioux girl. One evening his Indian friend Frombe came to his lodge and said he would take him to see his sweetheart.

"I followed him and we went out of the village to where some girls were watching the Indian boys play at ball. Pointing to a good-looking Indian girl, Frombe said: 'That is Washtella,'

"'Is she a good squaw?' I inquired.

"'Very,' he replied.

"'But perhaps she will not want to marry me,' I said.

"'She has no choice,' he answered, laughing.

"'But her parents,' I interposed, 'will they like this kind of proceeding?'

"'The presents you are expected to make them will be more acceptable than the girl,' he answered."

And when full moon came the two were married.

Blackfeet girls, according to Grinnell (316),

"had very little choice in the selection of a husband. If a girl was told she had to marry a certain man, she had to obey. She might cry, but her father's will was law, and she might be beaten or even killed by him if she did not do as she was ordered."

Concerning the Missasaguas of Ontario, Chamberlain writes (145), that in former times,

"when a chief desired to marry, he caused all the marriageable girls in the village to come together and dance before him. By a mark which he placed on the clothes of the one he had chosen her parents knew she had been the favored one."

Of the Nascopie girls, M'Lean says (127) that "their sentiments are never consulted."'

The Pueblos, who treat their women exceptionally well, nevertheless get their wives by purchase. With the Navajos "courtship is simple and brief; the wooer pays for his bride and takes her home." (Bancroft, L, 511.) Among the Columbia River Indians, "to give a wife away without a price is in the highest degree disgraceful to her family." (Bancroft, I., 276.) "The Pawnees," says Catlin,[227] "marry and unmarry at pleasure. Their daughters are held as legitimate merchandise.... The women, as a rule, accept the situation with the apathy of the race." Of the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and other Plains Indians, Dodge says (216) that girls are regarded as valuable property to be sold to the highest bidder, in later times by preference to a white man, though it is known that he will probably soon abandon his wife. In Oregon and Washington "wives, particularly the later ones, are often sold or traded off.... A man sends his wife away, or sells her, at his will." (Gibbs, 199.)

OTHER WAYS OF THWARTING FREE CHOICE

Besides this commercialism, which was so prevalent that, as Dr. Brinton says (A.R., 48), "in America marriage was usually by purchase," there were various other obstacles to free choice. "In a number of tribes," as the same champion of the Indian remarks, "the purchase of the eldest daughter gave a man a right to buy all the younger daughters as they reached nubile age." Concerning the Blackfeet--who were among the most advanced Indians--Grinnell says (217) that

"all the younger sisters of a man's wife were regarded as his potential wives. If he was not disposed to marry them, they could not be disposed of to any other man without his consent." "When a man dies his wives become the potential wives of his brother." "In the old days, it was a very poor man who did not have three wives. Many had six, eight, and some more than a dozen."

Morgan refers (A.S., 432) to forty tribes where sisters were disposed of in bunches; and in all such cases liberty of choice is of course out of the question. Indeed the wide prevalence of so utterly barbarous and selfish a custom shows us vividly how far from the Indian's mind in general was the thought of seriously consulting the choice of girls.

Furthermore, to continue Dr. Brinton's enumeration, "the selection of a wife was often regarded as a concern of the gens rather than of the individual. Among the Hurons, for instance, the old women of the gens selected the wives for the young men, and united them with painful uniformity to women several years their senior." "Thus," writes Morgan (L. of I., 320),

"it often happened that the young warrior at twenty-five was married to a woman of forty, and oftentimes a widow; while the widower at sixty was joined to a maiden of twenty."

Besides these obstacles to free choice there are several others not referred to by Dr. Brinton, the most important being the custom of wrestling for a wife, and of infant betrothal or very early marriage. According to a passage in Hearne (104) cited on a previous occasion, and corroborated by W.H. Hooper and J. Richardson, it has always been the custom of northern Indians to wrestle for the women they want, the strongest one carrying off the prize, and a weak man being "seldom permitted to keep a wife that a stronger man thinks worth his notice." It is needless to say that this custom, which "prevails throughout all their tribes," puts the woman's freedom of choice out of question as completely as if she were a slave sold in the market. Richardson says (II., 24) that

"the bereaved husband meets his loss with the resignation which custom prescribes in such a case, and seeks his revenge by taking the wife of another man weaker than himself."

Duels or fights for women also occurred in California, Mexico, Paraguay, Brazil and other countries.[228]

Among the Comanches "the parents exercise full control in giving their daughters in marriage," and they are frequently married before the age of puberty. (Schoolcraft, II., 132.) Concerning the customs of early betrothal and marriage enough has been said in preceding pages. It prevailed widely among the Indians and, of course, utterly frustrated all possibility of choice. In fact, apart from this custom, Indian marriage, being in the vast majority of cases with girls under fifteen,[229] made choice, in any rational sense of the word, entirely out of the question.

CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICAN EXAMPLES

It has long been fashionable among historians to attribute to certain Indians of Central and South America a very high degree of culture. This tendency has received a check in these critical days.[230] We have seen that morally the Mexicans, Central Americans, and Peruvians were hardly above other Indians. In the matter of allowing females to choose their mates we likewise find them on the same low level. In Guatemala even the men wore obliged to accept wives selected for them by their parents, and Nicaraguan parents usually arranged the matches. In Peru the Incas fixed the conditions under which matrimony might take place as follows:

"The bridegroom and bride must be of the same town or tribe, and of the same class or position; the former must be somewhat less than twenty-four years of age, the latter eighteen. The consent of the parents and chiefs of the tribes was indispensible." (Tschudi, 184.)

Unless the consent of the parents had been obtained the marriage was considered invalid and the children illegitimate. (Garcilasso de la Vega, I., 207.) As regards the Mexicans, Bandelier shows (612, 620) that the position of woman was "little better than that of a costly animal," and he cites evidence indicating that as late as 1555 it was ordained at a concile that since it is customary among the Indians "not to marry without permission of their principals ... and the marriage among free persons is not as free as it should be," etc.

As for the other Indians of the Southern Continent it is needless to add that they too are habitually guided by the thought that daughters exist for the purpose of enriching their parents. To the instances previously cited I may add what Schomburgk says in his book on Guiana--that if the girl to whom the parents betroth their son is too young to marry, they give him meanwhile a widow or an older unmarried woman to live with. This woman, after his marriage, becomes his servant. Musters declares (186) that among the Tehuelches (Patagonians) "marriages are always those of inclination." But Falkner's story is quite different (124):

"As many of these marriages are compulsive on the side of the woman, they are frequently frustrated. The contumacy of the woman sometimes tires out the patience of the man, who then turns her away, or sells her to the person on whom she has fixed her affections."

Westermarck fancies he has a case on his side in Tierra del Fuego, where, "according to Lieutenant Bove, the eagerness with which young women seek for husbands is surprising, but even more surprising is the fact that they nearly always attain their ends." More careful study of the pages of the writer referred to[231] and a moment's unbiassed reflection would have made it clear to Westermarck that there is no question here either of choice or of marriage in our sense of the words. The "husbands" the girls hunted for were boys of fourteen to sixteen, and the girls themselves began at twelve to thirteen years of age, or five years before they became mothers, and Fuegian marriage "is not regarded as complete until the woman has become a mother," as Westermarck knew (22, 138). In reality the conduct of these girls was nothing but wantonness, in which the men, as a matter of course, acquiesced. The missionaries were greatly scandalized at the state of affairs, but their efforts to improve it were strongly resented by the natives.[232]

WHY INDIANS ELOPE

With the Abipones of Paraguay "it frequently happens," according to Dobrizhoffer (207),

"that the girl rescinds what has been settled and agreed upon between the parents and the bridegroom, obstinately rejecting the very mention of marriage. Many girls, through fear of being compelled to marry, have concealed themselves in the recesses of the woods or lakes; seeming to dread the assaults of tigers less than the untried nuptials."

The italics are mine; they make it obvious that the choice of the girls is not taken into account and that they can escape parental tyranny only by running away. Among the Indians in general it often happens that merely to escape a hated suitor a girl elopes with another man. Such cases are usually referred to as love-matches, but all they indicate is a (comparative) preference, while proving that there was no liberty of choice. A girl whose parents try to force her on a much-married warrior four or five times her age must be only too glad to run away with any young man who comes along, love or no love.[233]

In the chapter on Australia I commented on Westermarck's topsy-turvy disposition to look upon elopements as indications of the liberty of choice. He repeats the same error in his references to Indians. "It is indeed," he says,

"common in America for a girl to run away from a bridegroom forced upon her by the parents, whilst, if they refuse to give their daughter to a suitor whom she loves, the couple elope. Thus, among the Dakotas, as we are told by Mr. Prescott, 'there are many matches made by elopement, much to the chagrin of the parents.'"

The italics again indicate that denial of choice is the custom, while the elopement indicates the same thing, for if there were liberty of choice there would be no need of eloping. Moreover, an Indian elopement does not at all indicate a romantic preference on the part of an eloping couple. If we examine the matter carefully we find that an Indian elopement is usually a very prosaic affair indeed. A young man likes a girl and wishes to marry her; but she has no choice, as her father insists on a number of ponies or blankets in payment for her which the suitor may not have; therefore the two ran away. In other words, an Indian elopement is a purely commercial transaction, and one of a very shady character too, being nothing less than a desire to avoid paying the usual price for a girl. It is in fact a kind of theft, an injustice to the parents; for while paying for a bride may be evidence of savagery, it is the custom among Indians, and parents naturally resent its violation, though ultimately they may forgive the elopers. Dodge relates (202) that among the Indians of the great plains parents prefer a rich suitor, though he may have several wives already. If the daughter prefers another man the only thing to do is to elope. This is not easy, for a careful watch is kept on suspicious cases. But the girl may manage to step out while the family is asleep. The lover has two ponies in readiness, and off they speed. If overtaken by the pursuers the man is liable to be killed. If not, the elopers return after a few weeks and all is forgiven. Such elopements, Dodge adds, are frequent in the reservations where young men are poor and cannot afford ponies. Moreover, the concentration of large numbers of Indians of different bands and tribes on the reservations has increased the opportunities of acquaintance and love-making among the young people.

In an article on Love-Songs among the Omaha Indians,[234] Miss Alice Fletcher calls attention to the fact that the individual is little considered in comparison with the tribal organization: "Marriage was therefore an affair of the gentes, and not the free union of a man and woman as we understand the relation." But side by side with the formal marriage sanctioned by the tribe grew up the custom of secret courtship and elopement; so the saying among the Omahas is: "An old man buys his wife; a young man steals his." Dorsey says (260):

"Should a man get angry because his single daughter, sister, or niece has eloped, the other Omahas would talk about him saying, 'That man is angry on account of the elopement of his daughter.' They would ridicule him for his behavior."

Other Indians take the matter much more seriously. When a Blackfoot girl elopes her parents feel very bitter against the man.

"The girl has been stolen. The union is no marriage at all. The old people are ashamed and disgraced for their daughter. Until the father has been pacified by satisfactory payments, there is no marriage." (Grinnell, 215.)

The Nez Percés so bitterly resent elopements that they consider the bride in such a case as a prostitute and her parents may seize upon the man's property. (Bancroft, I., 276.)

Indian elopements, I repeat, are nothing but attempts to dodge payment for a bride, and therefore do not afford the least evidence of exalted sentiments, i.e., of romantic love, however romantic they may be as incidents. Read, for instance, what Mrs. Eastman writes (103) regarding the Sioux:

"When a young man is unable to purchase the girl he loves best, or if her parents are unwilling she should marry him, if he have gained the heart of the maiden he is safe. They appoint a time and place to meet; take whatever will be necessary for their journey.... Sometimes they merely go to the next village to return the next day. But if they fancy a bridal tour, away they go several hundred miles, with the grass for their pillow, the canopy of heaven for their curtains, and the bright stars to watch over them. When they return home the bride goes at once to chopping wood, and the groom to smoking."

What does such a romantic incident tell us regarding the nature of the elopers' feelings--whether they are refined and sentimental or purely sensual and frivolous? Nothing whatever. But the last sentence of Mrs. Eastman's description--photographed from life--indicates the absence of at least four of the most elementary and important ingredients of romantic love. If he adored his bride, if he sympathized with her feelings, if he felt the faintest impulse toward gallantry or sacrifice of his selfish comforts, he would not allow her to chop wood while he loafed and smoked. Moreover, if he had an appreciation of personal beauty he would not permit his wife to sacrifice hers before she is out of her teens by making her do all the hard work. But why should he care? Since all his marriage customs are on a commercial basis, why should he not discard a wife of thirty and take two new ones of fifteen each?

SUICIDE AND LOVE

Having thus disposed of elopements, let us examine another phenomenon which has always been a mainstay of those who would fain make out that in matters of love there is no difference between us and savages. Waitz (III., 102) accepts stories of suicide as evidence of genuine romantic love, and Westermarck follows his example (358, 530), while Catlin (II., 143) mentions a rock called Lover's Leap,

"from the summit of which, it is said, a beautiful Indian girl, the daughter of a chief, threw herself off, in presence of her tribe, some fifty years ago, and dashed herself to pieces, to avoid being married to a man whom her father had decided to be her husband, and whom she would not marry."

Keating has a story which he tells with all the operatic embellishments indulged in by his guide (I., 280). Reduced to its simplest terms, the tale, as he gives it, is as follows:

In a village of the tribe of Wapasha there lived a girl named Winona. She became attached to a young hunter who wished to marry her, but her parents refused their consent, having intended her for a prominent warrior. Winona would not listen to the warrior's addresses and told her parents she preferred the hunter, who would always be with her, to the warrior, who would be constantly away on martial exploits. The parents paid no attention to her remonstrances and fixed the day for her wedding to the man of their choice. While all were busy with the preparations, she climbed the rock overhanging the river. Having reached the summit, she made a speech full of reproaches to her family, and then sang her dirge. The wind wafted her words and song to her family, who had rushed to the foot of the rock. They implored her to come down, promising at last that she should not be forced to marry. Some tried to climb the rock, but before they could reach her she threw herself down the precipice and fell a corpse at the feet of her friends.

Mrs. Eastman also relates the story of Winona's leap (65-70). "The incident is well known," she writes. "Almost everyone has read it a dozen times, and always differently told." It is needless to say that a story told in a dozen different ways and embellished by half-breed guides and white collectors of legends has no value as scientific evidence.[235] But even if we grant that the incidents happened just as related, there is nothing to indicate the presence of exalted sentiments. The girl preferred the hunter because he would be more frequently with her than the warrior (one of the versions says she wanted to wed "the successful hunter")[236]--which leaves us in doubt as to the utilitarian or sentimental quality of her attachment. Apparently she was not very eager to marry the hunter, for had she been, why did she refuse to live when they told her she would not be forced to marry the warrior? But the most important consideration is that she did not commit suicide for love at all, but from aversion--to escape being married to a man she disliked. Aversion is usually the motive which leads Indian women to what are called "suicides for love." As Griggs remarks (l.c.):

"Sometimes it happens that a young man wants a girl, and her friends are also quite willing, while she alone is unwilling. The purchase-bundle is desired by her friends, and hence compulsion is resorted to. The girl yields and goes to be his slave, or she holds out stoutly, sometimes taking her own life as the alternative. Several cases of the kind have come to the personal knowledge of the writer."

Not long ago I read in the Paris Figaro a learned article on suicide in which the assertion was made that, as is well known, savages never take their own lives. W.W. Westcott, in his otherwise excellent book on suicide, which is based on over a hundred works relating to his subject, makes the same astounding assertion. I have shown in preceding pages that many Africans and Polynesians commit suicide, and I may now add that Indians seem still more addicted to this idiotic practice. Sometimes, indeed, they have cause for it. I have already cited the words of Belden that suicide is very common among Indian women, and that "considering the treatment they receive, it is a wonder there is not more of it." Keating says (II., 172) that "among the women suicide is far more frequent [than among men], and is the result of jealousy, or of disappointments in love; sometimes extreme grief at the loss of a child will lead to it." "Not a season passes away," writes Mrs. Eastman (169),

"but we hear of some Dacotah girl who puts an end to her life in consequence of jealousy, or from the fear of being forced to marry some one she dislikes. A short time ago a very young girl hung herself rather than become the wife of a man who was already the husband of one of her sisters."

It cannot be denied that in some of these cases (which might be multiplied indefinitely) there is a strong provocation to self-murder. But as a rule suicide among Indians, as among other savages and barbarians, and among civilized races, is not proof of strong feeling, but of a weak intellect. The Chippewas themselves hold it to be a foolish thing (Keating, II., 168); and among the Indians in general it was usually resorted to for the most trivial causes.

"The very frequent suicides committed [by Creeks] in consequence of the most trifling disappointment or quarrel between men and women are not the result of grief, but of savage and unbounded revenge."

(Schoolcraft, V., 272.) Krauss (222) found that suicide was frequent among the Alaskan Thlinket Indians. Men sometimes resorted to it when they saw no other way of securing revenge, for a person who causes a suicide is fined and punished as if he were a murderer. One woman cut her throat because a shahman accused her of having by sorcery caused another one's illness. A favorite mode of committing suicide is to go out into the sea, cast away oar and rudder, and deliver themselves to wind and waves. Sometimes they change their mind. A man, whose face had been all scratched up by his angry wife, left home to end his life; but after spending the night with a trader he concluded to go home and make up the quarrel. Mrs. Eastman (48) tells of an old squaw who wanted to hang herself because she was angry with her son; but when, "after having doubled the strap four times to prevent its breaking, she found herself choking, her courage gave way--she yelled frightfully." They cut her down and in an hour or two she was quite well again. Another squaw, aged ninety, attempted to hang herself because the men would not allow her to go with a war-party. Her object in wanting to go was to have the pleasure of mutilating the corpses of enemies! Keating says that Sank men sometimes kill themselves because they are envious of the power of others. Neill (85) records the cases of a Dakota wife who hanged herself because her husband had flogged her for hiding his whiskey; of a woman who hanged herself because her son-in-law refused to give her whiskey; of an old woman who flew into a passion and committed suicide because her pet granddaughter had been whipped by her father.

If a storm in a tea-kettle is accepted as a true storm, then we may infer from these suicides the existence of deep feeling and profound despair. As a matter of fact, a savage's feelings are no deeper than a tea-kettle, and for that very reason they boil up and overflow more readily than if they were deeper. Loskiel tells us (74-75), that Delaware Indians, both men and women, have committed suicide on discovering that their spouse was unfaithful; these are the same Indians among whom husbands used to abandon their wives when they had babes, and wives their husbands when there were no more presents to receive. Yet even if we admitted such feelings to have been deep, suicide would not prove the existence of genuine affection. Heckewelder reports instances of Indians who took their own lives because the girls they loved and were engaged to jilted them and married other men. Was the love which led to these suicides mere sensual passion or was it refined sentiment, devoted affection? There is nothing to tell us, and the inference from everything we know about Indians is that it was purely sensual. Gibbs, who understood Indian nature thoroughly, took this view when he wrote (198) that among the Indians of Oregon and Washington "a strong sensual attachment" not rarely leads young women to destroy themselves on the death of a lover. And the writer who refers in Schoolcraft (V., 272) to the frequent suicides among the Creeks declares that genuine love is unknown to any of them. Had the young men referred to by Heckewelder lost their lives in trying to save the lives of the girls in question, it might be permissible to infer the existence of affection, but no Indian has ever been known to commit such an act. If a savage commits suicide he does it like everything else, for selfish reasons--as an antidote to distress--and selfishness is the very negation of love. The distinguished psychologist, Dr. Maudsley, has well said that

"any poor creature from the gutter can put an end to himself; there is no nobility in the act and no great amount of courage required for it. It is a deed rather of cowardice shirking duty, generated in a monstrous feeling of self, and accomplished in the most sinful, because wicked, ignorance."

In itself, no doubt, a suicide is apt to be extremely "romantic," A complete dime-novel is condensed in a few remarks which Squier makes[237] anent a quaint Nicaraguan custom.

Poor girls, he says, would often get their marriage portion by having amours with several young men. Having collected enough for a "dowry," the girl would assemble all her lovers and ask them to build a house for her and the one she intended to choose for a husband. She then selected the one she liked best, and the others had their pains and their past for their love. Sometimes it happened that one of the discarded lovers committed suicide from grief. In that case the special honor was in store for him of being eaten up by his former rivals and colleagues. The bride also, I presume, partook of the feast--at least after the men had had all they wanted.

LOVE-CHARMS

Indians indulge not only in elopements and suicide, but in the use of love-charms--powders, potions, and incantations. Inasmuch as the distinguished anthropologist Waitz mentions (III., 102) the use of such charms among the things which show that "genuine romantic love is not rare among Indians," it behooves us to investigate the matter.

The ancient Peruvians had, according to Tschudi,[238] a special class of medicine men whose business it was

"to bring lovers together. For this purpose they prepared talismans made from roots or feathers, which were introduced, secretly if possible, into the clothes or bed of those whose inclination was to be won. Sometimes hairs of the persons whose love was to be won were used, or else highly colored birds from the forest, or their feathers only. They also sold to the lovers a so-called Kuyanarumi (a stone to cause love) of which they said it could be found only in places that had been struck by lightning. They were mostly black agates with white veins and were called Sonko apatsinakux (mutual heart-carriers). These Runatsinkix (human-being-uniters) also prepared infallible and irresistible love-potions."

Among North American Indians the Ojibways or Chippawas appear to have been especially addicted to the use of love-powders. Keating writes (II., 163):

"There are but few young men or women among the Chippewas who have not compositions of this kind, to promote love in those in whom they feel an interest. These are generally powders of different colors; sometimes they insert them into punctures made in the heart of the little images which they procure for this purpose. They address the images by the names of those whom they suppose them to represent, bidding them to requite their affection. Married women are likewise provided with powders, which they rub over the heart of their husbands while asleep, in order to secure themselves against any infidelity."

Hoffman says[239] of these same powders that they are held in great honor, and that their composition is a deep secret which is revealed to others only in return for high compensation. Nootka maidens sometimes sprinkle love-powders into the food intended for their lovers, and await their coming. The Menomini[240] have a charm called takosáwos, "the powder that causes people to love one another." It is composed of vermilion and mica laminae, ground very fine and put into a thimble which is carried suspended from the neck or from some part of the wearing apparel. It is also necessary to secure from the one whose inclination is to be won a hair, a nail-paring, or a small scrap of clothing, which must also be put into the thimble.

The Rev. Peter Jones says (155) that the Ojibway Indians have a charm made of red ochre and other ingredients, with which they paint their faces, believing it to possess a power so irresistible as to cause the object of their desire to love them. But the moment this medicine is taken away, and the charm withdrawn, the person who before was almost frantic with love hates with a perfect hatred. The Sioux also have great faith in spells.

"A lover will take gum," says Mrs. Eastman, "and, after putting some medicine in it, will induce the girl of his choice to chew it, or put it in her way so that she will take it up of her own accord." Burton thought (160) that an Indian woman "will administer 'squaw medicine,' a love philter, to her husband, but rather for the purpose of retaining his protection than his love."

Quite romantic are all these things, no doubt; but I fail to see that they throw any light whatever on the problem whether Indians can love sentimentally. Waitz refers particularly to the Chippewa custom of putting powders into the images of coveted persons as a symptom of "romantic love," forgetting that a superstitious fool may resort to such a procedure to evoke any kind of love, sensual or sentimental, and that unless there are other and more specific symptoms there is nothing to indicate the quality of the lover's feelings or the ethical character of his desires.

CURIOSITIES OF COURTSHIP

Some of the Indian courtship customs are quite romantic; perhaps we may find evidence of romantic love in this direction. Those of the Apaches have been already referred to. Pawnee courtship is thus described by Grinnell.[241]

"The young man took his stand at some convenient point where he was likely to see the young woman and waited for her appearance. Favorite places for waiting were near the trail which led down to the river or to the spot usually resorted to for gathering wood. The lover, wrapped in his robe or blanket, which covered his whole person except his eyes, waited here for the girl, and as she made her appearance stepped up to her and threw his blanket about her, holding her in his arms. If she was favorably inclined to him she made no resistance, and they might stand there concealed by the blanket, which entirely covered them, talking to one another for hours. If she did not favor him she would at once free herself from his embrace and go away."

This blanket-courtship, as it might be called, also prevailed among the Indians of the great plains described by Colonel Dodge (193-223). The lover, wrapped in a blanket, approaches the girl's lodge and sits before it. Though in plain view of everybody, it is etiquette not to see a lover under such circumstances. After more or less delay the girl may give signs and come out, but not until she has taken certain precautions against the Indian's "romantic" love which have been already referred to. He seizes her and carries her off a little distance. At first they sit under two blankets, but later on one suffices. Thus they remain as long as they please, and no one disturbs them. If there is more than one suitor the girl cries out if seized by the wrong one, who at once lets go. In these cases it may seem as if the girl had her own choice. But it does not at all follow that because she favors a certain suitor she will be allowed to marry him. If her father prefers another she will have to take him, unless her lover is ready to risk an elopement.

The Piutes of the Pacific slope, like some eastern Indians, appear to have indulged in a form of nocturnal courtship strikingly resembling that of the Dyaks of Borneo. The Indian woman (Sarah W. Hopkins) who wrote Life Among the Piutes declares that the lover never speaks to his chosen one,

"but endeavors to attract her attention by showing his horsemanship, etc. As he knows that she sleeps next to her grandmother in the lodge, he enters in full dress after the family has retired for the night, and seats himself at her feet. If she is not awake, her grandmother wakes her. He does not even speak to the young woman or grandmother, but when the young woman wishes him to go away, she rises and goes and lies down by the side of her mother. He then leaves as silently as he came in. This goes on sometimes for a year or longer if the young woman has not made up her mind. She is never forced by her parents to marry against her wishes."

Courtship among the Nishinam Indians of California is thus described by Powers (317):

"The Nishinam may be said to set up and dissolve the conjugal estate almost as easily as do the brute beasts. No stipulated payment is made for the wife. A man seeking to become a son-in-law is bound to cater (yé-lin) or make presents to the family, which is to say, he will come along some day with a deer on his shoulder, perhaps fling it off on the ground before the wigwam, and go his way without a single word being spoken. Some days later he may bring along a brace of hare or a ham of grizzly-bear meat, or some fish, or a string of hâ-wok [shell money]. He continues to make these presents for awhile, and if he is not acceptable to the girl and her parents they return him an equivalent for each present (to return his gift would be grossly insulting); but if he finds favor in her eyes they are quietly appropriated, and in due course of time he comes and leads her away, or comes to live at her house."

Belden remarks (301) that a Sioux seldom gets the girl he wants to marry to love him. He simply buys her of her parents, and as for the girl, after being informed that she has been sold

"she immediately packs up her little keepsakes and trinkets, and without exhibiting any emotion, such as is common to white girls, leaves her home, and goes to the lodge of her master,"

where she is henceforth his wife and "willing slave." Among the Blackfoot Indians, too, there was apparently no form of courtship, and young men seldom spoke to girls unless they were relatives. (Grinnell, 216.) It was a common thing among these Indians for a youth and a girl not to know about each other until they were informed of their impending marriage.

The Araucanian maidens of Chili are disposed of with even less ceremony. In the choice of husbands, as we have seen, they have no more freedom than a Circassian slave. Our informant (E.R. Smith, 214) adds, however, that attachments do sometimes spring up, and, though the lovers have little opportunity to communicate freely, they resort occasionally to amatory songs, tender glances, and other tricks which lovers understand. "Matrimony may follow, but such a preliminary courtship is by no means considered necessary." When a man wants a girl he calls on her father with his friends. While the friends talk with the parent, he seizes the bride

"by the hair or by the heel, as may be most convenient, and drags her along the ground to the open door. Once fairly outside, he springs to the saddle, still firmly grasping his screaming captive, whom he pulls up over the horse's back, and yelling forth a whoop of triumph, he starts off at full gallop.... Gaining the woods, the lover dashes into the tangled thickets, while the friends considerately pause upon the outskirts until the screams of the bride have died away."

A day or two later the couple emerge from the forest and without further ceremony live as man and wife. This is the usual way; but sometimes

"a man meets a girl in the fields alone, and far away from home; a sudden desire to better his solitary condition seizes him, and without further ado he rides up, lays violent hands upon the damsel and carries her off. Again, at their feasts and merrymakings (in which the women are kept somewhat aloof from the men), a young man may be smitten with a sudden passion, or be emboldened by wine to express a long slumbering preference for a dusky maid; his sighs and amorous glances will perhaps be returned, and rushing among the unsuspecting females, he will bear away the object of his choice while yet she is in the melting mood. When such an attempt is foreseen the unmarried girls form a ring around their companion, and endeavor to shield her; but the lover and his friends, by well-directed attacks, at length succeed in breaking through the magic circle, and drag away the damsel in triumph; perhaps, in the excitement of the game, some of her defenders too may share her fate."

A Patagonian courtship is amusingly described by Bourne (91). The chief of the tribe that held him a captive several months would not allow anyone to marry without his consent. In his opinion

"no Indian who was not an accomplished rogue--particularly in the horse-stealing line--an expert hunter, able to provide plenty of meat and grease, was fit to have a wife on any conditions."

One day a suitor appeared for the hand of the chief's own daughter, a quasi-widow, but the chief repulsed him because he had no horses. As a last resort the suitor appealed to the young woman herself, promising, if she favored him, that he would give her plenty of grease. This grease argument she was unable to resist, so she entreated her father to give his consent. At this he broke out in a towering passion, threw cradle and other chattels out of the door and ordered her to follow at once. The girl's mother now interceded, whereupon "seizing her by the hair, he hurled her violently to the ground and beat her with his clenched fists till I thought he would break every bone in her body." The next morning, however, he went to the lodge of the newly married couple, made up, and they returned, bag and baggage, to his tent.

Grease appears to play a rôle in the courtship of northern Indians too. Leland relates (40) that the Algonquins make sausages from the entrails of bears by simply turning them inside out, the fat which clings to the outside of the entrails filling them when they are thus turned. These sausages, dried and smoked, are considered a great delicacy. The girls show their love by casting a string of them round the neck of the favored youth.

PANTOMIMIC LOVE-MAKING

It is noticeable in the foregoing accounts that courtship and even proposal are apt to be by pantomime, without any spoken words. The young Piute who visits his girl while she is in bed with her grandmother "does not speak to her." The Nishinam hunter leaves his presents and they are accepted "without a word being spoken;" and the Apaches, as we saw, "pop the question" with stones or ponies. Why this silent courtship? Obviously because the Indian is not used to playing so humble a rôle as that of suitor to so inferior a being as a woman. He feels awkward, and has nothing to say. As Burton has remarked (C.S., 144), "in savage and semi-barbarous societies the separation of the sexes is the general rule, because, as they have no ideas in common, each prefers the society of its own." "Between the sexes," wrote Morgan (322)

"there was but little sociality, as this term is understood in polished society. Such a thing as formal visiting was entirely unknown. When the unmarried of opposite sexes were casually brought together there was little or no conversation between them. No attempts by the unmarried to please or gratify each other by acts of personal attention were ever made. At the season of councils and religious festivals there was more of actual intercourse and sociality than at any other time; but this was confined to the dance and was in itself limited."

HONEYMOON

It is needless to say that where there is no mental intercourse there can be no choice and union of souls, but only of bodies; that is, there can be no sentimental love. The honeymoon, where there is one,[242] is in this respect no better than the period of courtship. Parkman gives this realistic sketch from life among the Ogallalla Indians (O.T., ch. XI.):

"The happy pair had just entered upon the honeymoon. They would stretch a buffalo robe upon poles, so as to protect them from the fierce rays of the sun, and, spreading beneath this rough canopy a luxuriant couch of furs, would sit affectionately side by side for half a day, though I could not discover that much conversation passed between them. Probably they had nothing to say; for an Indian's supply of topics is far from being copious."

MUSIC IN INDIAN COURTSHIP

Inasmuch as music is said to begin where words end, we might expect it to play a role in the taciturn courtship of Indians. One of the maidens described by Mrs. Eastman (85) "had many lovers, who wore themselves out playing the flute, to as little purpose as they braided their hair and painted their faces," Gila Indians court and pop the question with their flutes, according to the description by Bancroft (I., 549):

"When a young man sees a girl whom he desires for a wife he first endeavors to gain the good-will of the parents; this accomplished, he proceeds to serenade his lady-love, and will often sit for hours, day after day, near her house playing on his flute. Should the girl not appear, it is a sign that she rejects him; but if, on the other hand, she comes out to meet him, he knows that his suit is accepted, and he takes her to his house. No marriage ceremony is performed."

In Chili, among the Araucanians, every lover carries with him an amatory Jew's-harp, which is played almost entirely by inhaling. According to Smith

"they have ways of expressing various emotions by different modes of playing, all of which the Araucanian damsels seem fully to appreciate, although I must confess that I could not.

"The lover usually seats himself at a distance from the object of his passion, and gives vent to his feeling in doleful sounds, indicating the maiden of his choice by slyly gesturing, winking, and rolling his eyes toward her. This style of courtship is certainly sentimental and might be recommended to some more civilized lovers who always lose the use of their tongues at the very time it is most needed."

"Sentimental" in one sense of the word, but not in the sense in which it is used in this book. There is nothing in winking, rolling the eyes, and playing the Jew's-harp, either by inhalation or exhalation, to indicate whether the youth's feelings toward the girl are refined, sympathetic, and devoted, or whether he merely longs for an amorous intrigue. That these Indian lovers may convey definite ideas to the minds of the girls is quite possible. Even birds have their love-calls, and savages in all parts of the world use "leading motives" à la Wagner, i.e., musical phrases with a definite meaning.[243]

Chippewayan medicine men make use of music-boards adorned with drawings which recall special magic formulae to their minds. On one of these (Schoolcraft, V., 648) there is the figure of a young man in the frenzy of love. His head is adorned with feathers, and he has a drum in hand which he beats while crying to his absent love: "Hear my drum! Though you be at the uttermost parts of the earth, hear my drum!"

"The flageolet is the musical instrument of young men and is principally used in love-affairs to attract the attention of the maiden and reveal the presence of the lover," says Miss Alice Fletcher, who has written some entertaining and valuable treatises on Indian music and love-songs.[244] Mirrors, too, are used to attract the attention of girls, as appears from a charming idyl sketched by Miss Fletcher, which I will reproduce here, somewhat condensed.

One day, while dwelling with the Omahas, Miss Fletcher was wandering in quest of spring flowers near a creek when she was arrested by a sudden flash of light among the branches. "Some young man is near," she thought, "signalling with his mirror to a friend or sweetheart." She had hardly seen a young fellow who did not carry a looking-glass dangling at his side. The flashing signal was soon followed by the wild cadences of a flute. In a few moments the girls came in sight, with merry faces, chatting gayly. Each one carried a bucket. Down the hill, on the other side of the brook, advanced two young men, their gay blankets hanging from one shoulder. The girls dipped their pails in the stream and turned to leave when one of the young men jumped across the creek and confronted one of the girls, her companion walking away some distance. The lovers stood three feet apart, she with downcast face, he evidently pleading his cause to not unwilling ears. By and by she drew from her belt a package containing a necklace, which she gave to the young man, who took it shyly from her hands. A moment later the girl had joined her friend, and the man recrossed the brook, where he and his friend flung themselves on the grass and examined the necklace. Then they rose to go. Again the flute was heard gradually dying away in the distance.

INDIAN LOVE-POEMS

As it is not customary for an Indian to call at the lodge where a girl lives, about the only chance an Omaha has to woo is at the creek where the girl fetches water, as in the above idyl. Hence courting is always done in secret, the girls never telling the elders, though they may compare notes with each other.

"Generally an honorable courtship ends in a more or less speedy elopement and marriage, but there are men and women who prefer dalliance, and it is this class that furnishes the heroes and heroines of the Wa-oo-wa-an."

These Wa-oo-wa-an, or woman songs, are a sort of ballad relating the experiences of young men and women. "They are sung by young men when in each other's company, and are seldom overheard by women, almost never by women of high character;" they "belong to that season in a man's career when 'wild oats' are said to be sown." Some of them are vulgar, others humorous.

"They are in no sense love-songs, they have nothing to do with courtship, and are reserved for the exclusive audience of men." "The true love-song, called by the Omahas Bethae wa-an ... is sung generally in the early morning, when the lover is keeping his tryst and watching for the maiden to emerge from the tent and go to the spring. They belong to the secret courtship, and are sometimes called Me-the-g'thun wa-an--courting songs." "The few words in these songs convey the one poetic sentiment: 'With the day I come to you;' or 'Behold me as the day dawns.' Few unprejudiced listeners," the writer adds, "will fail to recognize in the Bethae wa-an, or love-songs, the emotion and the sentiment that prompts a man to woo the woman of his choice."

Miss Fletcher is easily satisfied. For my part I cannot see in a tune, however rapturously sung or fluted, or in the words "with the day I come to you" and the like any sign of real sentiment or the faintest symptom differentiating the two kinds of love. Moreover, as Miss Fletcher herself remarks:

"The Omahas as a tribe have ceased to exist. The young men and women are being educated in English speech, and imbued with English thought; their directive emotion will hereafter take the lines of our artistic forms."

Even if traces of sexual sentiment were to be found among Indians like the Ornahas, who have been subjected for some generations to civilizing influences, they would allow no inference as to the love-affairs of the real, wild Indian.

Miss Fletcher makes the same error as Professor Fillmore, who assisted her in writing A Study of Omaha Indian Music. He took the wild Indian tunes and harnessed them to modern German harmonies--a procedure as unscientific as it would be unhistoric to make Cicero record his speeches in a phonograph. Miss Fletcher takes simple Indian songs and reads into them the feelings of a New York or Boston woman. The following is an instance. A girl sings to a warrior (I give only Miss Fletcher's translation, omitting the Indian words): "War; when you returned; die; you caused me; go when you did; God; I appealed; standing," This literal version our author explains and translates freely, as follows:

"No. 82 is the confession of a woman to the man she loves, that he had conquered her heart before he had achieved a valorous reputation. The song opens upon the scene. The warrior had returned victorious and passed through the rites of the Tent of War, so he is entitled to wear his honors publicly; the woman tells him how, when he started on the war-path, she went up on the hill and standing there cried to Wa-kan-da to grant him success. He who had now won that success had even then vanquished her heart, 'had caused her to die' to all else but the thought of him"(!)

Another instance of this emotional embroidery may be found on pages 15-17 of the same treatise. What makes this procedure the more inexplicable is that both these songs are classed by Miss Fletcher among the Wa-oo-wa-an or "woman songs," concerning which she has told us that "they are in no sense love-songs," and that usually they are not even the effusions of a woman's own feelings, but the compositions of frivolous and vain young men put into the mouth of wanton women. The honorable secret courtships were never talked of or sung about.

Regarding the musical and poetic features of Dakota courtship, S.R. Riggs has this to say (209):

"A boy begins to feel the drawing of the other sex and, like the ancient Roman boys, he exercises his ingenuity in making a 'cotanke,' or rude pipe, from the bone of a swan's wing, or from some species of wood, and with that he begins to call to his lady-love, on the night air. Having gained attention by his flute, he may sing this:

Stealthily, secretly, see me, Stealthily, secretly, see me, Stealthily, secretly, see me, Lo! thee I tenderly regard; Stealthily, secretly, see me."

Or he may commend his good qualities as a hunter by singing this song:

Cling fast to me, and you'll ever have plenty, Cling fast to me, and you'll ever have plenty, Cling fast to me...."

"A Dacota girl soon learns to adorn her fingers with rings, her ears with tin dangles, her neck with beads. Perhaps an admirer gives her a ring, singing:

Wear this, I say; Wear this, I say; Wear this, I say; This little finger ring, Wear this, I say."

For traces of real amorous sentiment one would naturally look to the poems of the semi-civilized Mexicans and Peruvians of the South rather than to the savage and barbarous Indians of the North. Dr. Brinton (E. of A., 297) has found the Mexican songs the most delicate. He quotes two Aztec love-poems, the first being from the lips of an Indian girl:

I know not whether thou hast been absent: I lie down with thee, I rise up with thee, In my dreams thou art with me. If my ear-drop trembles in my ears, I know it is thou moving within my heart.

The second, from the same language, is thus rendered:

On a certain mountain side, Where they pluck flowers, I saw a pretty maiden, Who plucked from me my heart, Whither thou goest, There go I.

Dr. Brinton also quotes the following poem of the Northern Kioways as "a song of true love in the ordinary sense:"

I sat and wept on the hillside, I wept till the darkness fell; I wept for a maiden afar off, A maiden who loves me well.

The moons are passing, and some moon, I shall see my home long-lost, And of all the greetings that meet me, My maiden's will gladden me most.

"The poetry of the Indians is the poetry of naked thought. They have neither rhyme nor metre to adorn it," says Schoolcraft (Oneota, 14). The preceding poem has both; what guarantee is there that the translator has not embellished the substance of it as he did its form? Yet, granting he did not embroider the substance, we know that weeping and longing for an absent one are symptoms of sensual as well as of sentimental love, and cannot, therefore, be accepted as a criterion. As for the Mexican and other poems cited, they give evidence of a desire to be near the beloved, and of the all-absorbing power of passion (monopoly) which likewise are characteristic of both kinds of love. Of the true criteria of love, the altruistic sentiments of gallantry, self-sacrifice, sympathy, adoration, there is no sign in any of these poems. Dr. Brinton admits, too, that such poems as the above are rare among the North American Indians anywhere.

"Most of their chants in relation to the other sex are erotic, not emotional; and this holds equally true of those which in some tribes on certain occasions are addressed by the women to the men."

Powers says (235) that the Wintun of California have a special dance and celebration when a girl reaches the age of puberty. The songs sung on this occasion "sometimes are grossly licentious." Evidences of this sort might be supplied by the page.[245]

An interesting collection of erotic songs sung by the Klamath Indians of Southern Oregon has been made by A.S. Gatschet.[246] "With the Indians," he says,

"all these and many other erotic songs pass under the name of puberty songs. They include lines on courting, love-sentiments, disappointments in love, marriage fees paid to the parents, on marrying and on conjugal life."

From this collection I will cite those that are pertinent to our inquiry. Observe that usually it is the girl that sings or does the courting.

1. I have passed into womanhood.

3. Who comes there riding toward me?

4. My little pigeon, fly right into the dovecot!

5. This way follow me before it is full daylight.

9. I want to wed you for you are a chief's son.

7. Very much I covet you as a husband, for in times to come you will live in affluence.

8. She: And when will you pay for me a wedding gift? He: A canoe I'll give for you half filled with water.

9. He spends much money on women, thinking to obtain them easily.

11. It is not that black fellow that I am striving to secure.

14. That is a pretty female that follows me up.

16. That's because you love me that rattle around the lodge.

27. Why have you become so estranged to me?

37. I hold you to be an innocent girl, though I have not lived with you yet.

38. Over and over they tell me, That this scoundrel has insulted me.

52. Young chaps tramp around; They are on the lookout for women.

54. Girls: Young man, I will not love you, for you run around with no blanket on; I do not desire such a husband. Boys: And I do not like a frog-shaped woman with swollen eyes.[247]

Most of these poems, as I have said, were composed and sung by women. The same is true of a collection of Chinook songs (Northern Oregon and adjacent country) made by Dr. Boas.[248] The majority of his poems, he says, "are songs of love and jealousy, such as are made by Indian women living in the cities, or by rejected lovers." These songs are rather pointless, and do not tell us much about the subject of our inquiry. Here are a few samples:

1. Yaya, When you take a wife, Yaya, Don't become angry with me. I do not care.

2. Where is Charlie going now? Where is Charlie going now? He comes back to see me, I think.

3. Good-by, oh, my dear Charlie! When you take a wife Don't forget me.

4. I don't know how I feel Toward Johnny. That young man makes a foe of me.

5. My dear Annie, If you cast off Jimmy Star, Do not forget How much he likes You.

Of much greater interest are the "Songs of the Kwakiutl Indians," of Vancouver Island, collected by Dr. Boas.[249] One of them is too obscene to quote. The following lines evidence a pretty poetic fancy, suggesting New Zealand poetry:

1. Y[=i]! Yawa, wish I could----and make my true love happy, haigia, hay[=i]a.

Y[=i]! Yawa, wish I could arise from under the ground right next to my true love, haigia hay[=i]a.

Y[=i]! Yawa, wish I could alight from the heights, from the heights of the air right next to my true love, haigia, hay[=i]a.

Y[=i]! Yawa, wish I could sit among the clouds and fly with them to my true love.

Y[=i]! Yawa, I am downcast on account of my true love.

Y[=i]! Yawa, I cry for pain on account of my true love, my dear.

Dr. Boas confesses that this song is somewhat freely translated. The more's the pity. An expression like "my true love," surely is utterly un-Indian.

2. An[=a]ma! Indeed my strong-hearted, my dear. An[=a]ma! Indeed, my strong hearted, my dear. An[=a]ma! Indeed my truth toward my dear. Not pretend I I know having master my dear. Not pretend I I know for whom I am gathering property, my dear. Not pretend I I know for whom I am gathering blankets, my dear.

3. Like pain of fire runs down my body my love to you, my dear! Like pain runs down my body my love to you, my dear. Just as sickness is my love to you, my dear. Just as a boil pains me my love to you, my dear. Just as a fire burns me my love to you, my dear. I am thinking of what you said to me I am thinking of the love you bear me. 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-üh (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 grass-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 illustrated 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 shining stars. One of them said to the other, 'I wish that very large and bright shining star was my husband,' The other said, 'I wish that star that shines 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 superstition 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), illustrates 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 class 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 passion that only the noblest 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 assures us that she got her Sioux legends from the Indians themselves. One of these stories is entitled "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 passed 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 entitles the noble 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 circumstances, 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 assemblage, 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 passion or morality in the sexual 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 'noble 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 "coarse 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 passion 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 Washington, 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 destitute 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 courtships are much influenced by sentiments of love; in fact, the tender passion seems unknown to the savage breast."

From his observations of Canadian Indians Heriot came to the conclusion (324) that "The passion 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 passion 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 sex, 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 classical 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 passage:

"From the nature of the marriage institution among the Iroquois it follows that the passion of love was entirely unknown among them. Affections after marriage would naturally spring up between the parties from association, from habit, and from mutual dependence; but of that marvellous passion which originates in a higher development of the passions of the human heart and is founded upon the cultivation of the affections between the sexes they were entirely ignorant. In their temperaments they were below this passion 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 institution 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 gratitude 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 passion of love in its simplest forms." Thus we see once more that refinement of sexual 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 illustrate 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 aptitude 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 bestially 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]

Such utter lack of delicacy prepares us for the statement that the Eskimos are equally coarse in other respects, notably in their treatment of women and their sexual feelings. It would be a stigma upon an Eskimo's character, says Cranz (I., 154), "if he so much as drew a seal out of the water." Having performed the pleasantly exciting part of killing it, he leaves all the drudgery and hard work of hauling, butchering, cooking, tanning, shoe-making, etc., to the women. They build the houses, too, while the men look on with the greatest insensibility, not stirring a finger to assist them in carrying the heavy stones. Girls are often "engaged" as soon as born, nor are those who grow up free allowed to marry according to their own preference. "When friendly exhortations are unavailing she is compelled by force, and even blows, to receive her husband." (Cranz, I., 146.) They consider children troublesome, and the race is dying out. Women are not allowed to eat of the first seal of the season. The sick are left to take care of themselves. (Hall, II., 322, I., 103.) In years of scarcity widows "are rejected from the community, and hover about the encampments like starving wolves ... until hunger and cold terminate their wretched existence." (M'Lean, II., 143.) Men and women alike are without any sense of modesty; in their warm hovels both sexes divest themselves of nearly all their clothing. Nor, although they fight and punish jealousy, have they any regard for chastity per se. Lending a wife or daughter to a guest is a recognized duty of hospitality. Young couples live together on trial. When the husband is away hunting or fishing the wife has her intrigues, and often adultery is committed sans gêne on either side. Unnatural vices are indulged in without secrecy, and altogether the picture is one of utter depravity and coarseness.[257]

Under such circumstances we hardly needed the specific assurance of Rink, who collected and published a volume of Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, and who says that "never is much room given in this poetry to the almost universal feeling of love." He refers, of course, to any kind of love, and he puts it very mildly. Not only is there no trace of altruistic affection in any of these tales and traditions, but the few erotic stories recorded (e.g., pp. 236-37) are too coarse to be cited or summarized here. Hall, too, concluded that "love--if it come at all--comes after marriage." He also informs us (II., 313) that there "generally exists between husband and wife a steady but not very demonstrative affection;" but here he evidently wrongs the Eskimos; for, as he himself remarks (126), they

"always summarily punish their wives for any real or imaginary offence. They seize the first thing at hand--a stone, knife, hatchet, or spear--and throw it at the offending woman, just as they would at their dogs."

What could be more "demonstrative" than such "steady affection?"

INDIA--WILD TRIBES AND TEMPLE GIRLS

India, it has been aptly said, "forms a great museum of races in which we can study man from his lowest to his highest stages of culture." It is this multiplicity of races and their lack of patriotic co-operation that explains the conquest of the hundreds of millions of India by the tens of millions of England. Obviously it would be impossible to make any general assertion regarding love that would apply equally to the 10,000,000 educated Brahmans, who consider themselves little inferior to gods, the 9,000,000 outcasts who are esteemed and treated infinitely worse than animals, and the 17,000,000 of the aboriginal tribes who are comparable in position and culture to our American Indians. Nevertheless, we can get an approximately correct composite portrait of love in India by making two groups and studying first, the aboriginal tribes, and then the more or less civilized Hindoos (using this word in the most comprehensive sense), with their peculiar customs, laws, poetic literature, and bayadères, or temple girls.

In Bengal and Assam alone, which form but a small corner of this vast country, the aborigines are divided into nearly sixty distinct races, differing from each other in various ways, as American tribes do. They have not been described by as many and as careful observers as our American Indians have, but the writings of Lewin, Galton, Rowney, Man, Shortt, Watson and Kaye, and others supply sufficient data to enable us to understand the nature of their amorous feelings.

"WHOLE TRACTS OF FEELING UNKNOWN TO THEM"

Lewin gives us the interesting information (345-47) that with the Chittagong hill-tribes

"women enjoy perfect freedom of action; they go unveiled, they would seem to have equal rights of heritage with men, while their power of selecting their own husband is to the full as free as that of our own English maidens."

Moreover, "in these hills the crime of infidelity among wives is almost unknown; so also harlots and courtesans are held in abhorrence amongst them."

On reading these lines our hopes are raised that at last we may have come upon a soil favorable to the growth of true love. But Lewin's further remarks dispel that illusion:

"In marriage, with us, a perfect world springs up at the word, of tenderness, of fellowship, trust, and self-devotion. With them it is a mere animal and convenient connection for procreating their species and getting their dinner cooked. They have no idea of tenderness, nor of the chivalrous devotion that prompted the old Galilean fisherman when he said 'Give ye honor unto the woman as to the weaker vessel,' ... The best of them will refuse to carry a burden if there be a wife, mother, or sister near at hand to perform the task." "There are whole tracts of mind, and thought, and feeling, which are unknown to them."

PRACTICAL PROMISCUITY

One of the most important details of my theory is that while there can be no romantic love without opportunity for genuine courtship and free choice, nevertheless the existence of such opportunity and choice does not guarantee the presence of love unless the other conditions for its growth--general refinement and altruistic impulses--coexist with them. Among the Chittagong hill-tribes these conditions--constituting "whole tracts of mind, and thought, and feeling"--do not coexist with the liberty of choice, hence it is useless to look for love in our sense of the word. Moreover, when we further read in Lewin that the reason why there are no harlots is that they "are rendered unnecessary by the freedom of intercourse indulged in and allowed to both sexes before marriage," we see that what at first seemed a virtue is really a mark of lower degradation. Some of the oldest legislators, like Zoroaster and Solon, already recognized the truth that it was far better to sacrifice a few women to the demon of immorality than to expose them all to contamination. The wild tribes of India in general have not yet arrived at that point of view. In their indifference to chastity they rank with the lowest savages, and usually there is a great deal of promiscuous indulgence before a mate is chosen for a union of endurance. Among the Oráons, as Dalton tells us (248), "liaisons between boys and girls of the same village seldom end in marriage;" and he gives strange details regarding the conduct of the young people which may not be cited here, and in which the natives see "no impropriety." Regarding the Butias Rowney says (142):

"The marriage tie is so loose that chastity is quite unknown amongst them. The husbands are indifferent to the honor of their wives, and the wives do not care to preserve that which has no value attached to it. ... The intercourse of the sexes is, in fact, promiscuous."

Of the Lepchas Rowney says (139) that "chastity in adult girls previous to marriage is neither to be met with nor cared for." Of the Mishmees he says (163): "Wives are not expected to be chaste, and are not thought worse off when otherwise," and of the Kookies (186): "All the women of a village, married or unmarried, are available to the chief at his will, and no stigma attaches to those who are favored by him." In some tribes wives are freely exchanged. Dalton says of the Butan (98) that "the intercourse between the sexes is practically promiscuous." Rhyongtha girls indulge in promiscuous intercourse with several lovers before marriage. (Lewin, 121.) With the Kurmuba, "no such ceremony as marriage exists." They "live together like the brute creation." (W.R. King, 44.)

My theory that in practice, at any rate, if not in form, promiscuity was the original state of affairs among savages, in India as elsewhere, is supported by the foregoing facts, and also by what various writers have told us regarding the licentious festivals indulged in by these wild tribes of India. "It would appear," says Dalton (300),

"that most of the hill-tribes found it necessary to promote marriage by stimulating intercourse between the sexes at particular seasons of the year.... At one of the Kandh festivals held in November all the lads and lasses assemble for a spree, and a bachelor has then the privilege of making off with any unmarried girl whom he can induce to go with him, subject to a subsequent arrangement with the parents of the maiden."

Dalton gives a vivid description of these festivals as practised by the Hos in January, when the granaries are full of wheat and the natives "full of deviltry:"

"They have a strange notion that at this period men and women are so overcharged with vicious propensities, that it is absolutely necessary for the safety of the person to let off steam by allowing, for a time, full vent to the passions. The festival therefore becomes a saturnale, during which servants forget their duties to their masters, children their reverence for parents, even their respect for women, and women all notions of modesty, delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging bacchantes....

"The Ho population of the village forming the environs of Chaibasa are at other seasons quiet and reserved in manner, and in their demeanor toward women gentle and decorous; even in the flirtations I have spoken of they never transcend the bounds of decency. The girls, though full of spirits and somewhat saucy, have innate notions of propriety that make them modest in demeanor, though devoid of all prudery.... Since their adoption of clothing they are careful to drape themselves decently as well as gracefully, but they throw all this aside during the Mágh feast. Their natures appear to undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile their parents in gross language, and parents their children; men and women become almost like animals in the indulgence of their amorous propensities. They enact all that was ever portrayed by prurient artists in a bacchanalian festival or pandean orgy; and as the light of the sun they adore and the presence of numerous spectators seem to be no restraint on their indulgence, it cannot be expected that chastity is preserved when the shades of night fall on such a scene of licentiousness and debauchery."

"MARVELLOUSLY PRETTY AND ROMANTIC"

Nor are these festivals of rare occurrence. They last three or four days and are held at the different villages at different dates, so the inhabitants of each may take part in "a long succession of these orgies." When Dalton declares (206) regarding these coarse and dissolute Hos, who thus spend a part of each year in "a long succession of orgies," in which their own wives and daughters participate, that they are nevertheless capable of the higher emotions--though he admits they have no words for them--he merely proves that long intercourse with such savages blunted his own sensibilities, or what is more probable--that he himself never understood the real nature of the higher emotions--those "tracts of feeling" which Lewin found missing among the hill-tribes. We are confirmed in this suspicion by noticing Dalton's ecstatic delight over the immoral courtship customs of the Bhúiyas, which he found "marvellously pretty and romantic" and describes as follows:

"In each village there is, as with the Oráons, an open space for a dancing ground, called by the Bhúiyas the Darbár; and near it the bachelors' hall.... here the young men must all sleep at night, and here the drums are kept. Some villages have a 'Dhangarin bássa,' or house for maidens, which, strange to say, they are allowed to occupy without anyone to look after them. They appear to have very great liberty, and slips of morality, as long as they are confined to the tribe, are not much heeded. Whenever the young men of the village go to the Darbár and beat the drums the young girls join them there, and they spend their evenings dancing and enjoying themselves without any interference on the part of the elders.

"The more exciting and exhilarating occasions are when the young men of one village proceed to visit the maidens of another village, or when the maidens return the call. The young men provide themselves with presents for the girls, generally consisting of combs for the hair and sweets, and going straight to the Darbár of the village they visit, they proclaim their arrival loudly by beating their drums and tambourines. The girls of that village immediately join them. Their male relations and neighbors must keep entirely out of view, leaving the field clear for the guests. The offerings of the visitors are now gallantly presented and graciously accepted and the girls at once set to work to prepare a dinner for their beaux, and after the meal they dance and sing and flirt all night together, and the morning dawns on more than one pair of pledged lovers. Then the girls, if the young men have conducted themselves to their satisfaction, make ready the morning meal for themselves and their guests; after which the latter rise to depart, and still dancing and playing on the drums, move out of the village followed by the girls, who escort them to the boundary. This is generally a rock-broken stream with wooded banks; here they halt, the girls on one side, the lads on the other, and to the accompaniment of the babbling brook sing to each other in true bucolic style. The song on these occasions is to a certain extent improvised, and is a pleasant mixture of raillery and love-making....

"The song ended, the girls go down on their knees, and bowing to the ground respectfully salute the young men, who gravely and formally return the compliment, and they part.

"The visit is soon returned by the girls. They are received by the young men in their Darbár and entertained, and the girls of the receiving village must not be seen....

"They have certainly more wit, more romance, and more poetry in their composition than is usually found among the country folk in India."

LIBERTY OF CHOICE

All this may indeed be "marvellously pretty and romantic," but I fail to see the least indication of the "higher emotions." Nor can I find them in some further interesting remarks regarding the Hos made by the same author (192-93). Thirty years ago, he says, a girl of the better class cost forty or fifty head of cattle. Result--a decrease in the number of marriages and an increase of immoral intimacies. Sometimes a girl runs away with her lover, but the objection to this is that elopements are not considered respectable.

"It is certainly not from any yearning for celibacy that the marriage of Singbhum maidens is so long postponed. The girls will tell you frankly that they do all they can to please the young men, and I have often heard them pathetically bewailing their want of success. They make themselves as attractive as they can, flirt in the most demonstrative manner, and are not too coy to receive in public attentions from those they admire. They may be often seen in well-assorted pairs returning from market with arms interlaced, and looking at each other as lovingly as if they were so many groups of Cupids and Psyches, but with all this the 'men will not propose.' Tell a maiden you think her nice-looking, she is sure to reply 'Oh, yes! I am, but what is the use of it, the young men of my acquaintance don't see it.'"

Here we note a frankly commercial view of marriage, without any reference to "higher emotions." In this tribe, too, the girls are not allowed the liberty of choice. Indeed, when we examine this point we find that Westermarck is wrong, as usual, in assigning such a privilege to the girls of most of these tribes. He himself is obliged to admit (224) that

"in many of the uncivilized tribes of India parents are in the habit of betrothing their sons.... The paternal authority approaches the patria potestas of the ancient Aryan nations."

The Kisans, Mundas, Santals, Máriás, Mishmis, Bhils, and Yoonthalin Karens are tribes among whom fathers thus reserve the right of selecting wives for their sons; and it is obvious that in all such cases daughters have still less choice than sons. Colonel Macpherson throws light on this point when he says of the Kandhs:

"The parents obtain the wives of their sons during their boyhood, as very valuable domestic servants, and their selections are avowedly made with a view to utility in this character."[258]

Rowney reports (103) that the Khond boys are married at the age of ten and twelve to girls of fifteen to sixteen; and among the Reddies it is even customary to marry boys of five or six years to women of sixteen to twenty. The "wife," however, lives with an uncle or relation, who begets children for the boy-husband. When the boy grows up his "wife" is perhaps too old for him, so he in turn takes possession of some other boy's "wife".[259] The young folks are obviously in the habit of obeying implicitly, for as Dalton says (132) of the Kisans, "There is no instance on record of a youth or maiden objecting to the arrangement made for them." With the Savaras, Boad Kandhs, Hos, and Kaupuis, the prevalence of elopements shows that the girls are not allowed their own choice. Lepcha marriages are often made on credit, and are breakable if the payment bargained for is not made to the parent within the specified time. (Rowney, 139.)[260]

SCALPS AND FIELD-MICE

While among the Nagas, as already stated, the women must do all the hard work, they have one privilege: tribal custom allows them to refuse a suitor until he has put in their hands a human skull or scalp; and the gentle maidens make rigorous use of this privilege--so much so that in consequence of the difficulty of securing these "gory tokens of love" marriages are contracted late in life. The head need not be that of an enemy: "A skull may be acquired by the blackest treachery, but so long as the victim was not a member of the clan," says Dalton (39), "it is accepted as a chivalrous offering of a true knight to his lady," Dalton gives another and less grewsome instance of "chivalry" occurring among the Oráons (253).

"A young man shows his inclination for a girl thus: He sticks flowers in the mass of her back-hair, and if she subsequently return the compliment, it is concluded that she desires a continuance of his attention. The next step may be an offering to his lady-love of some nicely grilled field-mice, which the Oráons declare to be the most delicate of food. Tender looks and squeezes whilst both are engaged in the dance are not much thought of. They are regarded merely as the result of emotions naturally arising from pleasant contiguity and exciting strains; but when it comes to flowers and field-mice, matters look serious."

A TOPSY-TURVY CUSTOM

Coyness as well as primitive gallantry has its amusing phases among these wild tribes. The following description seems so much like an extravaganza that the reader may suspect it to be an abstract of a story by Frank Stockton or a libretto by Gilbert; but it is a serious page from Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (63-64). It relates to the Garos, who are thus described:

"The women are on the whole the most unlovely of the sex, but I was struck with the pretty, plump, nude figures, the merry musical voices and good-humored countenances of the Garos girls. Their sole garment is a piece of cloth less than a foot in breadth that just meets round the loins, and in order that it may not restrain the limbs it is only fastened where it meets under the hip at the upper corners."

But if they have not much to boast of in the way of dress, these girls enjoy a privilege rare in India or elsewhere of making the first advances.

"As there is no restriction on innocent intercourse, the boys and girls freely mixing together in the labors of the field and other pursuits, an amorous young lady has ample opportunity of declaring her partiality, and it is her privileged duty to speak first.... The maiden coyly tells the youth to whom she is about to surrender herself that she has prepared a spot in some quiet and secluded valley to which she invites him.... In two or three days they return to the village and their union is then publicly proclaimed and solemnized. Any infringement of the rule which declares that the initiative shall in such cases rest with the girl is summarily and severely punished."

For a man to make the advances would be an insult not only to the girl but to the whole tribe, resulting in fines. But let us hear the rest of the topsy-turvy story.

"The marriage ceremony chiefly consists of dancing, singing, and feasting. The bride is taken down to the nearest stream and bathed, and the party next proceeds to the house of the bridegroom, who pretends to be unwilling and runs away, but is caught and subjected to a similar ablution, and then taken, in spite of the resistance and the counterfeited grief and lamentation of his parents, to the bride's house."

It is true that this inversion of the usual process of proposing and acting a comedy of sham coyness occurs only in the case of the poor girls, the wealthy ones being betrothed by their parents in infancy; but it would be interesting to learn the origin of this quaint custom from someone who has had a chance to study this tribe. Probably the girl's poverty furnishes the key. The whole thing seems like a practical joke raised to the dignity of an institution. The perversion of all ordinary rules is consistently carried out in this, too, that "if the old people refuse they can be beaten into compliance!" That the loss of female coyness is not a gain to the cause of love or of virtue is self-evident.

PAHÁRIA LADS AND LASSES

Thus, once more, we are baffled in our attempts to find genuine romantic love. Of its fourteen ingredients the altruistic ones are missing entirely. What Dalton writes (248) regarding the Oráons,

"Dhúmkúria lads are no doubt great flirts, but each has a special favorite among the young girls of his acquaintance, and the girls well know to whose touch and pressure in the dance each maiden's heart is especially responsive," will not mislead any reader of this book, who will know that it indicates merely individual preference, which goes with all sorts of love, and is moreover, characteristically shallow here; for, as Dalton has told us, these village flirtations "seldom end in marriage."

The other ingredients that primitive love shares with romantic love--monopoly, jealousy, coyness, etc., are also, as we saw, weak among the wild tribes of India. Westermarck (503) indeed fancied he had discovered the occurrence among them of "the absorbing passion for one." "Colonel Dalton," he says, "represents the Pahária lads and lasses as forming very romantic attachments; 'if separated only for an hour,' he says, 'they are miserable.'" In reality Dalton does not "represent them" thus; he says "they are represented;" that is, he gives his information at second-hand, without naming his authority, who, to judge by some of his remarks, was apparently a facetious globe-trotter. It is of course possible that these young folks are much attached to each other. Even sheep are "miserable if separated only for an hour;" they bleat pathetically and are disconsolate, though there is no question of an "absorbing passion for one." What kind of love unites these Pahária lads and lasses may be inferred from the further information given in Dalton's book that "they work together, go to market together, eat together, and sleep together;" while indiscretions are atoned for by shedding the blood of an animal, whereupon all is forgiven! In other words, where Westermarck found "the absorbing passion for one," a critical student can see nothing but a vulgar case of reprehensible free lust.

And yet, though we have found no indications of true love, I can see reasons for Dalton's exclamation,

"It is singular that in matters of the affections the feelings of these semi-savages should be more in unison with the sentiments and customs of the highly organized western nations than with the methodical and unromantic heart-schooling of their Aryan fellow-countrymen."

Whether these wild tribes are really more like ourselves in their amorous customs than the more or less civilized Hindoos to whom we now turn our attention, the reader will be able to decide for himself after finishing this chapter.

CHILD MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE

Twenty years ago there were in India five million more men than women, and there has been no change in that respect. The chief cause of this disparity is the habitual slaughter of girl babies. The unwelcome babes are killed with opium pills or exposed to wild beasts. The Pundita Ramabai Sarasvati, in her agonizing book, The High Caste Hindu Woman, writes with bitter sarcasm, that

"even the wild animals are so intelligent and of such refined taste that they mock at British law and almost always steal girls to satisfy their hunger." "The census of 1870 revealed the curious fact that three hundred children were stolen in one year by wolves from within the city of Umritzar, all the children being girls."

Hindoo females who escape the opium pills and the wolves seldom have occasion to congratulate themselves therefor. Usually a fate worse than death awaits them. Long before they are old enough, physically or mentally, to marry, they are either delivered bodily or betrothed to men old enough to be their grandfathers. A great many girls are married literally in the cradle, says the authoress just quoted (31). "From five to eleven years is the usual period for this marriage among the Brahmans all over India." Manu made twenty-four the minimum age for men to marry, but "popular custom defies the law. Boys of ten and twelve are now doomed to be married to girls of seven to eight years of age." This early marriage system is "at least five hundred years older than the Christian era." As superstitious custom compels poor parents to marry off their daughters by a given age "it very frequently happens that girls of eight or nine are given to men of sixty or seventy, or to men utterly unworthy of the maidens."[261]

MONSTROUS PARENTAL SELFISHNESS

In an article on "Child Marriages in Bengal,"[262] D.N. Singha explains the superstition to which so many millions of poor girls are thus ruthlessly sacrificed. "It is," he says,

"a well-nigh universal conviction among Hindoos that every man's soul goes to a hell called Poot, no matter how good he may have been. Nothing but a son's fidelity can release or deliver him from it, hence all Hindoos are driven to seek marriage as early as possible to make sure of a son." "A son, the fruit of marriage, saves him from perdition, so that the one purpose of marriage is to leave a son behind him."[263] A daughter's son may take his son's place: hence the eagerness to marry off the girls young. In other words, in order to save themselves from a hell hereafter the brutal fathers drive their poor little daughters to a hell on earth. And what is worse, public opinion compels them to act in this cruel manner; for, as the same writer informs us, the man who suffers his daughter to remain unmarried till she is thirteen or fourteen years old is "subjected to endless annoyances, beset with stinging remarks, unpleasant whisperings and slanderous gossip. No orthodox Hindoo will allow his son to accept the hand of such a grown-up girl."

How preventive of all possibility of free choice or love such a custom is may be inferred from another brief extract from the same article:

"The superstitious notion of a Hindoo parent that it is a sin not to give his daughter in marriage before she ceases to to be a child impels him urgently to get her a husband before she has passed her ninth or tenth year. He sends out to match-makers and spares no pains to discover a bridegroom in some family of rank equal or superior to his own. Having found a boy ... he endeavors to secure him by entreaty or by large offers of money or jewels."

The Pundita Ramabai Sarasvati (22) gives some further grewsome details which would seem like the inventions of a burlesque writer were they not attested by such unbiassed authority. "Religions enjoin that every girl must be given in marriage; the neglect of this duty means for the father unpardonable sin, public ridicule, and caste excommunication."

But in the higher castes the cost of a marriage is at least $200, wherefore if a man has several daughters his ruin is almost certain. Female infanticide is often the result, but even if the girls are allowed to grow up there is a way for the father to escape. There is a special high class of Brahmans who make it their business to marry these girls. They go up and down the land marrying ten, twenty, sometimes as many as one hundred and fifty of them, receiving presents from the bride's parents and immediately thereafter bidding good-by to her, going home never to see their "wife" again. The parents have now done their duty; they have escaped religious and social ostracism at the expense, it is true, of their daughters, who remain at home to make themselves useful. These poor girls can never marry again, and whether or not they become moral outcasts, their life is ruined; but that, to a Hindoo, is a trifling matter; girls, in his opinion, were not created for their own sake, but for the pleasure, comfort, and salvation of man.

HOW HINDOO GIRLS ARE DISPOSED OF

In some parts of India the infant girls are merely subjected to an "irrevocable betrothal" for the time being, while in others they fall at once into the clutches of their degraded husbands.[264] In either case they have absolutely no choice in the selection of a life-partner. As Dubois remarks (I., 198):

"In negotiating marriage the inclinations of the future spouses are never attended to. Indeed, it would be ridiculous to consult girls of that age; and, accordingly, the choice devolves entirely upon the parents," "The ceremony of the 'bhánwar,' or circuit of the pole or branch, is," says Dalton (148), "observed in most Hindu marriages.... Its origin is curious.. As a Hindu bridegroom of the upper classes has no opportunity of trotting out his intended previous to marriage, and she is equally in the dark regarding the paces of her lord, the two are made to walk around the post a certain number of times to prove that they are sound in limb."

Even the accidental coincidence of the choice of a husband with the girl's own preference--should any such exist--is rendered impossible by a superstitious custom which demands that a horoscope must in all cases be taken to see if the signs are propitious, as Ramabai Sarasvati informs us (35), adding that if the signs are not propitious another girl is chosen. Sometimes a dozen are thus rejected, and the number may rise to three hundred before superstition is satisfied and a suitable match is found! The same writer gives the following pathetic instance of the frivolous way in which the girls are disposed of. A father is bathing in the river; a stranger comes in, the father asks him to what caste he belongs, and finding that all right, offers him his nine-year-old daughter. The stranger accepts, marries the child the next day, and carries her to his home nine hundred miles away. These poor child brides, she says, are often delighted to get married, because they are promised a ride on an elephant!

But the most extraordinary revelation made by this doctor is contained in the following paragraph which, I again beg the reader to remember, was not written by a humorous globetrotter or by the librettist of Pinafore, but by a native Hindoo woman who is bitterly in earnest, a woman who left her country to study the condition of women in England and America, and who then returned to devote her life to the attempt to better the dreadful fate of her country-women:

"As it is absurd to assume that girls should be allowed to choose their future husbands, in their infancy, this is done for them by their parents or guardians. In the northern part of this country the family barber is generally employed to select the boys and girls to be married, it being considered too humiliating and mean an act on the part of the parents and guardians to go out and seek their future daughters and sons-in-law."

HINDOOS FAR BELOW BRUTES

A more complete disregard of the real object of marriage and of the existence of love could hardly be found among clams and oysters. In their sexual relations the civilized Hindoos are, indeed, far beneath the lowest of animals. Young animals are never prevented by their parents from mating according to their choice; they never unite till they have reached maturity; they use their procreative instinct only for the purpose for which it was designed, whereas the Hindoos--like their wild neighbors--indulge in a perpetual carnival of lust; they never kill their offspring, and they never maltreat their females as the Hindoos do.[265] On this last point some more details must be given:

"The Hindu is supposed to be, of all creatures on earth, the most generous, the most kind-hearted, the most gentle, the most sympathetic, and the most unselfish. After living for nearly seven years in India, I must tell you that the reverse of this is true.... It has been said that among the many languages spoken by the people of Hindustan there is no such word as home, in the sense in which we understand it; that among the languages spoken there is no such word as love, in the sense in which we know it. I cannot vouch for the truth of this, as I am not acquainted with the languages of India, but I do know that among all the heathen people of that country there is no such place as home, as we understand it; there is no such sentiment as love, as we feel it."

The writer of the above is Dr. Salem Armstrong-Hopkins, who, during her long connection with the Woman's Hospital of Hyderabad, Sindh, had the best of opportunities for observing the natives of all classes, both at the hospital and in their homes, to which she was often summoned. In her book Within the Purdah she throws light on the popular delusion that Hindoos must be kind to each other since they are kind to animals. In Bombay there is even a hospital for diseased and aged animals: but that is a result of religious superstition, not of real sympathy, for the same Brahman who is afraid to bring a curse upon his soul by killing an animal "will beat his domestic animals most cruelly, and starve and torture them in many ways, thus exhibiting his lack of kindness." And the women fare infinitely worse than the animals. The wealthiest are perpetually confined in rooms without table or chairs, without a carpet on the mud floor or picture on the mud walls--and this in a country where fabulous sums are spent on fine architecture. All girl babies are neglected, or dosed with opium if they cry; the mother's milk--which an animal would give to them--being reserved for their brothers, though these brothers be already several years old. Unless a girl is married before her twelfth year she is considered a disgrace to the family, is stripped of all her finery and compelled to do the drudgery of her fathers household, receiving

"kicks and abuses from any and all its members, and often upon the slightest provocation. Should she fall ill, no physician is consulted and no effort is made to restore her health or to prolong life." "The expression of utter hopelessness, despair, and misery" on such a girl's face "beggars description."

Nor are matters any better for those who get married. Not only are they bestowed in infancy on any male--from an infant boy to an old man with many wives--whom the father can secure[266]--but the daughter-in-law becomes "a drudge and slave in her husband's home." One of her tasks is to grind wheat between two great stones. "This is very arduous labor, and the slight little women sometimes faint away while engaged in the task", yet by a satanic refinement of cruelty they are compelled to sing a grinding song while the work lasts and never stop, on penalty of being beaten. And though they prepare all the food for the family and serve the others, they get only what is left--which often is nothing at all, and many literally starve to death. No wonder these poor creatures--be they little girls or women--all wear "the same look of hopeless despair and wretchedness," making an impression on the mind more pitiable than any disease. The writer had among her patients some who tried by the most agonizing of deaths--voluntary starvation--to escape their misery.

CONTEMPT IN PLACE OF LOVE

No one can read these revelations without agreeing with the writer that "the Hindu is of all people the most cowardly and the most cruel," and that he cannot know what real love of any kind is. The Abbé Dubois, who lived many years among the Hindoos, wearing their clothes and adopting their customs so far as they did not conflict with his Christian conscience, wrote (I., 51) that

"the affection and attachment between brothers and sisters, never very ardent, almost entirely disappears as soon as they are married. After that event, they scarcely ever meet, unless it be to quarrel."

Ramabai Sarasvati thinks that loving couples can be found in India, but Dubois, applying the European standard, declared (I., 21, 302-303):

"During the long period of my observation of them and their habits, I am not sure that I have ever seen two Hindu marriages that closely united the hearts by a true and inviolable attachment."

The husband thinks his wife "entitled to no attentions, and never pays her any, even in familiar intercourse." He looks on her "merely as his servant, and never as his companion." "We have said enough of women in a country where they are considered as scarcely forming a part of the human species." And Ramabai herself confesses (44) that at home "men and women have almost nothing in common." "The women's court is situated at the back of the houses, where darkness reigns perpetually." Even after the second ceremony the young couple seldom meet and talk.

"Being cut off from the chief means of forming attachment, the young couple are almost strangers, and in many cases ... a feeling kindred to hatred takes root between them." There is "no such thing as the family having pleasant times together."

Dr. Ryder thinks that for "one kind husband there are one hundred thousand cruel ones," and she gives the following illustration among others:

"A rich husband (merchant caste) brought his wife to me for treatment. He said she was sixteen, and they had been married eight years. 'She was good wife, do everything he want, wait on him and eight brothers, carry water up three flights of stairs on her head; now, what will you cure her for? She suffer much. I not pay too much money. When it cost too much I let her die. I don't care. I got plenty wives. When you cure her for ten shilling I get her done, but I not pay more.' I explained to him that her medicines would cost more than that amount, and he left, saying, 'I don't care. Let her die. I can have plenty wives. I like better a new wife.'"[267]

Though the lawgiver Manu wrote "where women are honored there the gods are pleased," he was one of the hundreds of Sanscrit writers, who, as Ramabai Sarasvati relates, "have done their best to make woman a hateful being in the world's eye." Manu speaks of their "natural heartlessness," their "impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct." Though mothers are more honored than other women, yet even they are declared to be "as impure as falsehood itself."

"I have never read any sacred book in Sanscrit literature without meeting this kind of hateful sentiment about women.... Profane literature is by no means less severe or more respectful toward women."

The wife is the husband's property and classed by Manu with "cows, mares, female camels, slave girls, buffalo cows, she goats, and ewes." A man may abandon his wife if he finds her blemished or diseased, while she must not even show disrespect to a husband who is diseased, addicted to evil passions, or a drunkard. If she does she shall be deserted for three months and deprived of her ornaments and furniture.[268] Even British rule has not been able to improve the condition of woman, for the British Government is bound by treaties not to interfere with social and religious customs; hence many pathetic cases are witnessed in the courts of unwilling girls handed over, in accordance with national custom, to the loathed husbands selected for them. "The gods and justice always favor the men." "Many women put an end to their earthly sufferings by committing suicide."

WIDOWS AND THEIR TORMENTORS

If anything can cast a ray of comfort into the wretched life of a Hindoo maiden or wife it is the thought that, after all, she is much better off than if she were a widow--though, to be sure, she runs every risk of becoming one ere she is old enough to be considered marriageable in any country where women are regarded as human beings. In considering the treatment of Hindoo widows we reach the climax of inhuman cruelty--a cruelty far exceeding that practised by American Indians toward female prisoners, because more prolonged and involving mental as well as physical agonies.

In 1881 there were in British India alone 20,930,000 widows, 669,000 of whom were under nineteen, and 78,976 under nine years of age.[269] Now a widow's life is naturally apt to be one of hardship because she has lost her protector and bread-winner; but in India the tragedy of her fate is deepened a thousandfold by the diabolical ill-treatment of which she is made the innocent victim. A widow who has borne sons or who is aged is somewhat less despised than the child widow; on her falls the worst abuse and hatred of the community, though she be as innocent of any crime as an angel. In the eyes of a Hindoo the mere fact of being a widow is a crime--the crime of surviving her husband, though he may have been seventy and the wife seven.

All women love their soft glossy hair; and a Hindoo woman, says Ramabai Sarasvati (82), "thinks it worse than death to lose her hair"; yet "among the Brahmans of Deccan the heads of all widows must be shaved regularly every fortnight." "Shaved head" is a term of derision everywhere applied to the widows. All their ornaments are taken from them and they are excluded from every ceremony of joy. The name "rand" given to a widow "is the same that is borne by a Nautch girl or a harlot." One poor woman wrote to a missionary:

"O great Lord, our name is written with drunkards, with lunatics, with imbeciles, with the very animals; as they are not responsible, we are not. Criminals confined in jails for life are happier than we."

Another of these widows wrote:[270] "While our husbands live we are their slaves, when they die we are still worse off." The husband's funeral, she says, may last all day in a broiling sun, and while the others are refreshed, she alone is denied food and water. After returning she is reviled by her own relatives. Her mother says: "Unhappy creature! I can't bear the thought of anyone so vile. I wish she had never been born." Her mother-in-law says: "The horned viper! She has bitten my son and killed him, and now he is dead, and she, useless creature, is left behind." It is impossible for her to escape this fate by marrying again. The bare mention of remarriage by a widow, though she be only eight or nine years old, would be regarded, says Dubois (I., 191), "as the greatest of insults." Should she marry again "she would be hunted out of society, and no decent person would venture at any time to have the slightest intercourse with her."

Attempts have been made in recent times by liberal-minded men to marry widows; but they were subjected to so much odium and persecution therefor that they were driven to suicide.

When a widow dies her corpse is disposed of with hardly any ceremony. Should a widow try to escape her fate the only alternatives are suicide or a life of shame. To a Hindoo widow, says Ramabai Sarasvati, death is "a thousand times more welcome than her miserable existence." It is for this reason that the suttee or "voluntary" burning of widows on the husband's funeral pyre--the climax of inhuman atrocity--lost some of its horrors to the victims until the moment of agony arrived. I have already (p. 317) refuted the absurd whim that this voluntary death of Hindoo widows was a proof of their conjugal devotion. It was proof, on the contrary, of the unutterably cruel selfishness of the male Hindoos, who actually forged a text to make the suttee seem a religious duty--a forgery which during two thousand years caused the death of countless innocent women. Best was told that the real cause of widow-burning was a desire on the part of the men to put an end to the frequent murders of husbands by their cruelly treated wives (Reich, 212). However that may be, the suttee in all probability was due to the shrewd calculation that the fear of being burned alive, or being more despised and abused than the lowest outcasts, would make women more eager to follow obediently the code which makes of them abject slaves of their husbands, living only for them and never having a thought or a care for themselves.

HINDOO DEPRAVITY

Since, as Ward attests (116), the young widows "without exception, become abandoned women," it is obvious that one reason why the priests were so anxious to prevent them from marrying again was to insure an abundant supply of victims for their immoral purposes. The hypocritical Brahmans were not only themselves notorious libertines, but they shrewdly calculated that the simplest way to win the favor and secure control of the Indian populace was by pandering to their sensual appetites and supplying abundant opportunities and excuses for their gratification--making these opportunities, in fact, part and parcel of their religious ceremonies. Their temples and their sacred carts which traversed the streets were decorated with obscene pictures of a peculiarly disgusting kind,[271] which were freely exposed to the gaze of old and young of both sexes; their temples were little more than nurseries for the rearing of bayadères, a special class of "sacred prostitutes;" while scenes of promiscuous debauchery sometimes formed part of the religious ceremony, usually under some hypocritical pretext.

It would be unjust, however, to make the Brahman priests entirely responsible for Hindoo depravity. It has indeed been maintained that there was a time when the Hindoos were free from all the vices which now afflict them; but that is one of the silly myths of ignorant dreamers, on a level with the notion that savages were corrupted by whites. One of the oldest Hindoo documents, the Mahabharata, gives us the native traditions concerning these "good old times" in two sentences:

"Though in their youthful innocence the women abandoned their husbands, they were guilty of no offence; for such was the rule in early times." "Just as cattle are situated, so are human beings, too, within their respective castes"

which suggests a state of promiscuity as decided as that which prevailed in Australia. Civilization did not teach the Hindoos love--for that comes last--but merely the refinements of lust, such as even the Greeks and Romans hardly knew. Ovid's Ars Amandi is a model of purity compared with the Hindoo "Art of Love," the K[=a]mas[=u]tram (or Kama Soutra) of V[=a]tsy[=a]yana, which is nothing less than a handbook for libertines, of which it would be impossible even to print the table of contents. Whereas the translator of Ovid into a modern language need not omit more than a page of the text, the German translator of the K[=a]mas[=u]tram, Dr. Richard Schmidt, who did his work in behalf of the Kgl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, felt it incumbent on him to turn more than fifty pages out of four hundred and seventy into Latin. Yet the author of this book, who lived about two thousand years ago, recommends that every one, including young girls, should study it. In India, as his French translator, Lamairesse, writes, "everything is done to awaken carnal desires even in young children of both sexes." The natural result is that, as the same writer remarks (186):

"Les catégories des femmes faciles sont si nombreuses qu'elles doivent comprendre presque toutes les personnes du sexe. Aussi un ministre protestant écrivait-il au milieu de notre siècle qu'il n'existait presque point de femmes vertueuses dans l'Inde."

The Rev. William Ward wrote (162) in 1824:

"It is a fact which greatly perplexes many of the well-informed Hindus, that notwithstanding the wives of Europeans are seen in so many mixed companies, they remain chaste; while their wives, though continually secluded, watched, and veiled, are so notoriously corrupt. I recollect the observation of a gentleman who had lived nearly twenty years in Bengal, whose opinions on such a subject demanded the highest regard, that the infidelity of the Hindu women was so great that he scarcely thought there was a single instance of a wife who had been always faithful to her husband."[272]

TEMPLE GIRLS

The Brahman priests, who certainly knew their people well, had so little faith in their virtue that they would not accept a girl to be brought up for temple service if she was over five years old. She had to be not only pure but physically flawless and sound in health. Yet her purity was not valued as a virtue, but as an article of commerce. The Brahmans utilized the charms of these girls for the purpose of supporting the temples with their sinful lives, their gains being taken from them as "offerings to the gods." As soon as a girl was old enough she was put up at auction and sold to the highest bidder. If she was specially attractive the bids would sometimes reach fabulous sums, it being a point of honor and eager rivalry among Rajahs and other wealthy men, young and old, to become the possessors of bayadère débutantes. Temporarily only, of course, for these girls were never allowed to marry. While they were connected with the temple they could give themselves to anyone they chose, the only condition being that they must never refuse a Brahman (Jacolliot, 169-76). The bayadères, says Dubois, call themselves Deva-dasi, servants or slaves of the gods, "but they are known to the public by the coarser name of strumpets." They are, next to the sacrificers, the most important persons about the temples. While the poor widows who had been respectably married are deprived of all ornaments and joys of life, these wantons are decked with fine clothes, flowers, and jewelry; and gold is showered upon them. The bayadères Vasantasena is described by the poet Cûdraka as always wearing a hundred gold ornaments, living in her own palace, which has eight luxurious courts, and on one occasion refusing an unwelcome suitor though he sent 100,000 gold pieces.

Bayadères are supposed to be originally descendants of the apsaras, or dancing girls of the god Indra, the Hindoo Jupiter. In reality they are recruited from various castes, some parents making it a point to offer their third daughter to the Brahmans. Bands of the bayadères are engaged by the best families to provide dancing and music, especially at weddings. To have dealings with bayadères is not only in good form, but is a meritorious thing, since it helps to support the temples. And yet, when one of these girls dies she is not cremated in the same place as other women, and her ashes are scattered to the winds. In some provinces of Bengal, Jacolliot says, she is only half burnt, and the body then thrown to the jackals and vultures.

The temple of Sunnat had as many as five hundred of these priestesses of Venus, and a Rajah has been known to entertain as many as two thousand of them. Bayadères, or Nautch girls, as they are often called in a general way, are of many grades. The lowest go about the country in bands, while the highest may rise to the rank and dignity of an Aspasia. To the former class belong those referred to by Lowrie (148)--a band of twenty girls, all unveiled and dressed in their richest finery, who wanted to dance for his party and were greatly disappointed when refused. "Most of them were very young--about ten or eleven years old." Their course is brief; they soon lose their charms, are discarded, and end their lives as beggars.

AN INDIAN ASPASIA

A famous representative of the superior class of bayadères is the heroine of King Çûdraka's drama just referred to--Vasantasena. She has amassed immense wealth--the description of her palace takes up several pages--and is one of the best known personages in town, yet that does not prevent her from being spoken of repeatedly as "a noble woman, the jewel of the city."[273] She is, indeed, represented as differing in her love from other bayadères, and, as she herself remarks, "a bayadères is not reprehensible in the eyes of the world if she gives her heart to a poor man." She sees the Brahman Tscharudatta in the temple garden of Kama, the god of love, and forthwith falls in love with him, as he does with her, though he is married. One afternoon she is accosted in the street by a relative of the king, who annoys her with his unwelcome attentions. She takes refuge in her lover's house and, on the pretext that she has been pursued on account of her ornaments, leaves her jewelry in his charge. The jewels are stolen during the night, and this mishap leads to a series of others which finally culminate in Tscharudatta being led out to execution for the alleged murder of Vasantasena. At the last moment Vasantasena, who had been strangled by the king's relative, but has been revived, appears on the scene, and her lover's life is saved, as well as his honor.

The royal author of this drama, who has been called the Shakspere of India, probably lived in one of the first centuries of the Christian era. His play may in a certain sense be regarded as a predecessor of Manon Lescaut and Camille, inasmuch as an attempt is made in it to ascribe to the heroine a delicacy of feeling to which women of her class are naturally strangers. She hesitates to make advances to Tscharudatta, and at first wonders whether it would be proper to remain in his house. See informs her pursuer that "love is won by noble character, not by importunate advances." Tscharudatta says of her: "There is a proverb that 'money makes love--the treasurer has the treasure,' But no! she certainly cannot be won with treasures." She is in fact represented throughout as being different from the typical bayadères, who are thus described by one of the characters:

"For money they laugh or weep; they win a man's confidence but do not give him theirs. Therefore a respectable man ought to keep bayadères like flowers of a cemetery, three steps away from him. It is also said: changeable like waves of the sea, like clouds in a sunset, glowing only a moment--so are women. As soon as they have plundered a man they throw him away like a dye-rag that has been squeezed dry. This saying, too, is pertinent: just as no lotos grows on a mountain top, no mule draws a horse's loud, no scattered barley grows up as rice; so no wanton ever becomes a respectable woman."

Vasantasena, however, does become a respectable woman. In the last scene the king confers on her a veil, whereby the stain on her birth and life is wiped away and she becomes Tscharudatta's legitimate second wife.

But how about the first wife? Her actions show how widely in India conjugal love may differ from what we know as such, by the absence of monopoly and jealousy. When she first hears of the theft of Vasantasena's jewels in her husband's house she is greatly distressed at the impending loss of his good name, but is not in the least disturbed by the discovery that she has a rival. On the contrary, she takes a string of pearls that remains from her dowry, and sends it to her husband to be given to Vasantasena as an equivalent for her lost jewels. Vasantasena, on her part, is equally free from jealousy. Without knowing whence they came, she afterward sends the pearls to her lover's wife with these words addressed to her servants:

"Take these pearls and give them to my sister, Tscharudatta's wife, the honorable woman, and say to her: 'Conquered by Tscharudatta's excellence, I have become also your slave. Therefore use this string of pearls as a necklace.'"

The wife returned the pearls with the message:

"My master and husband has made you a present of these pearls. It would therefore be improper for me to accept them: my master and husband is my special jewel. This I beg you to consider."

And, in the final scenes, the wife shows her great love for her husband by hastening to get ready for the funeral pyre to be burnt alive with his corpse. And when, after expressing her joy at his rescue and kissing him, she turns and sees Vasantasena, she exclaims: "O this happiness! How do you do, my sister?" Vasantasena replies: "Now I am happy," and the two embrace!

The translator of Çûdraka's play notes in the preface that there is a curious lack of ardor in the expression of Tscharudatta's love for Vasantasena, and he naïvely--though quite in the Hindoo spirit--explains this as showing that this superior person (who is a model of altruistic self-sacrifice in every respect), "remains untouched by coarse outbursts of sensual passion." The only time he warms up is when he hears that the bayadères prefers him to her wealthy persecutor; he then exclaims, "Oh, how this girl deserves to be worshipped like a goddess." Vasantasena is much the more ardent of the two. It is she who goes forth to seek him, repeatedly, dressed in purple and pearls, as custom prescribes to a girl who goes to meet her lover. It is she who exclaims: "The clouds may rain, thunder, or send forth lightning: women who go to meet their lovers heed neither heat nor cold." And again: "may the clouds tower on high, may night come on, may the rain fall in torrents, I heed them not. Alas, my heart looks only toward the lover." It is she who is so absent-minded, thinking of him, that her maid suspects her passion; she who, when a royal suitor is suggested to her, exclaims, "'Tis love I crave to bestow, not homage."

SYMPTOMS OF FEMININE LOVE

This portrayal of the girl as the chief lover is quite the custom in Hindoo literature, and doubtless mirrors life as it was and is. Like a dog that fawns on an indifferent or cruel master, these women of India were sometimes attached to their selfish lovers and husbands. They had been trained from their childhood to be sympathetic, altruistic, devoted, self-sacrificing, and were thus much better prepared than the men for the germs of amorous sentiment, which can grow only in such a soil of self-denial. Hence it is that Hindoo love-poems are usually of the feminine gender. This is notably the case with the Saptacatakam of Hâla, an anthology of seven hundred Prakrit verses made from a countless number of love-poems that are intended to be sung--"songs," says Albrecht Weber, "such as the girls of India, especially perhaps the bayadères or temple girls may have been in the habit of singing."[274] Some of these indicate a strong individual preference and monopoly of attachment:

No. 40: "Her heart is dear to her as being your abode, her eyes because she saw you with them, her body because it has become thin owing to your absence."

No. 43: "The burning (grief) of separation is (said to be) made more endurable by hope. But, mother, if my beloved is away from me even in the same village, it is worse than death to me."

No. 57: "Heedless of the other youths, she roams about, transgressing the rules of propriety, casting her glances in (all) directions of the world for your sake, O child."

No. 92: "That momentary glimpse of him whom, oh, my aunt, I constantly long to see, has (touched) quenched my thirst (as little) as a drink taken in a dream."

No. 185: "She has not sent me. You have no relations with her. What concern of ours is it therefore? Well, she dies in her separation from you."

No. 202: "No matter how often I repeat to my mistress the message you confided to me, she replies 'I did not hear' (what you said), and thus makes me repeat it a hundred times."

No. 203: "As she looked at you, filled with the might of her self-betraying love, so she then, in order to conceal it, looked also at the other persons."

No. 234: "Although all (my) possessions were consumed in the village fire, yet is (my) heart rejoiced, (when it was put out) he took the bucket as it passed from hand to hand (from my hand)."

No. 299: "She stares, without having an object, gives vent to long sighs, laughs into vacant space, mutters unintelligible words--surely she must bear something in her heart."

No. 302: "'Do give her to the one she carries in her heart. Do you not see, aunt, that she is pining away?' 'No one rests in my heart' [literally; whence could come in my heart resting?]--thus speaking, the girl fell into a swoon."

No. 345: "If it is not your beloved, my friend, how is it that at the mention of his name your face glows like a lotos bud opened by the sun's rays?"

No. 368: "Like illness without a doctor--like living with relatives if one is poor, like the sight of an enemy's prosperity--so difficult is it to endure separation from you."

No. 378: "Whatever you do, whatever you say, and wherever you turn your eyes, the day is not long enough for her efforts to imitate you."

No. 440: "...She, whose every limb was bathed in perspiration, at the mere mention of his name."

No. 453: "My friend! tell me honestly, I ask you: do the bracelets of all women become larger when the lover is far away?"

No. 531: "In whichever direction I look I see you before me, as if painted there. The whole firmament brings before me as it were a series of pictures of you."

No. 650: "From him proceed all discourses, all are about him, end with him. Is there then, my aunt, but one young man in all this village?"

While these poems may have been sung mostly by bayadères, there are others which obviously give expression to the legitimate feelings of married women. This is especially true of the large number which voice the sorrows of women at the absence of their husbands after the rains have set in. The rainy season is in India looked on as the season of love, and separation from the lover at this time is particularly bewailed, all the more as the rains soon make the roads impassable.

No. 29: "To-day, when, alone, I recalled the joys we had formerly shared, the thunder of the new clouds sounded to me like the death-drum (that accompanies culprits to the place of execution)."

No. 47: "The young wife of the man who has got ready for his journey roams, after his departure, from house to house, trying to get the secret for preserving life from wives who have learned how to endure separation from their beloved."

No. 227: "In putting down the lamp the wife of the wanderer turns her face aside, fearing that the stream of tears that falls at the thought of the beloved might drop on it."

No. 501: "When the voyager, on taking leave, saw his wife turn pale, he was overcome by grief and unable to go."

No. 623: "The wanderer's wife does indeed protect her little son by interposing her head to catch the rain water dripping from the eaves, but fails to notice (in her grief over her absent one) that he is wetted by her tears."

These twenty-one poems are the best samples of everything contained in Hâla's anthology illustrating the serious side of love among the bayadères and married women of India. Careful perusal of them must convince the reader that there is nothing in them revealing the altruistic phases of love. There is much ardent longing for the selfish gratification which the presence of a lover would give; deep grief at his absence; indications that a certain man could afford her much more pleasure by his presence than others--and that is all. When a girl wails that she is dying because her lover is absent she is really thinking of her own pleasure rather than his. None of these poems expresses the sentiment, "Oh, that I could do something to make him happy!" These women are indeed taught and forced to sacrifice themselves for their husbands, but when it comes to spontaneous utterances, like these songs, we look in vain for evidence of pure, devoted, high-minded, romantic love. The more frivolous side of Oriental love is, on the other hand, abundantly illustrated in Hâla's poems, as the following samples show:

No. 40: "O you pitiless man! You who are afraid of your wife and difficult to catch sight of! You who resemble (in bitterness) a nimba worm--and yet who are the delight of the village women! For does not the (whole) village grow thin (longing) for you?"

No. 44: "The sweetheart will not fail to come back into his heart even though he caress another girl, whether he see in her the same charms or not."

No. 83: "This young farmer, O beautiful girl, though he already has a beautiful wife, has nevertheless become so reduced that his own jealous wife has consented to deliver this message to you."

The last two poems hint at the ease with which feminine jealousy is suppressed in India, of which we have had some instances before and shall have others presently. Coyness seems to be not much more developed, at least among those who need it most:

No. 465: "By being kind to him again at first sight you deprived yourself, you foolish girl, of many pleasures--his prostration at your feet and his eager robbing of a kiss."

No. 45: "Since youth (rolls on) like the rapids of a river, the days speed away and the nights cannot be checked--my daughter! what means this accursed, proud reserve?"

No. 139: "On the pretext that the descent to the Goda (river) is difficult, she threw herself in his arms. And he clasped her tightly without thereby incurring any reproach." (See also No. 108.)

No. 121: "Though disconsolate at the death of her relatives, the captive girl looked lovingly upon the young kidnapper, because he appeared to her to be a perfect (hero). Who can remain sulky in the face of virtues?"

Such love as these women felt is fickle and transient:

No. 240: "Through being out of sight, my child, in course of time the love dwindles away even of those who were firmly joined in tender union, as water runs from the hollow of the hand."

No. 106: "O heart that, like a long piece of wood which is being carried down the rapids of a small stream is caught at every place, your fate is nevertheless to be burnt by some one!"

No. 80: "By being out of sight love goes away; by seeing too often it goes away; also by the gossip of malicious persons it goes away; yes, it also goes away by itself."

"If the bee, eager to sip, always seeks the juices of new growths, this is the fault of the sapless flowers, not of the bee."

Where love is merely sensual and shallow lovers' quarrels do not fan the flame, but put it out:

"Love which, once dissolved, is united again, after unpleasant things have been revealed, tastes flat, like water that has been boiled."

The commercial element is conspicuous in this kind of love; it cannot persist without a succession of presents:

No. 67: "When the festival is over nothing gives pleasure. So also with the full moon late in the morning--and of love, which at last becomes insipid--and with gratification, that does not manifest itself in the form of presents."

The illicit, impure aspect of Oriental love is hinted at in many of the poems collected by Hâla. There are frequent allusions to rendezvous in temples, which are so quiet that the pigeons are scared by the footsteps of the lovers; or in the high grain of the harvest fields; or on the river banks, so deserted that the monkeys there fill their paunches with mustard leaves undisturbed.

No. 19: "When he comes what shall I do? What shall I say and what will come of this? Her heart beats as, with these thoughts, the girl goes out on her first rendezvous." (Cf. also Nos. 223 and 491.)

No. 628: "O summer time! you who give good opportunities for rendezvous by drying the small ditches and covering the trees with a dense abundance of leaves! you test-plate of the gold of love-happiness, you must not fade away yet for a long time."

No. 553: "Aunt, why don't you remove the parrot from this bed-chamber? He betrays all the caressing words to others."

Hindoo poets have the faculty, which they share with the Japanese, of bringing a whole scene or episode vividly before the eyes with a sentence or two, as all the foregoing selections show. Sometimes a whole story is thus condensed, as in the following:

"'Master! He came to implore our protection. Save him!' thus speaking, she very slyly hastened to turn over her paramour to her suddenly entering husband." (See also No. 305 and Hitopadesa, p. 88.)

SYMPTOMS OF MASCULINE LOVE

Since Hindoo women, in spite of their altruistic training, are prevented by their lack of culture or virtue (the domestic virtuous women have no culture and the cultured bayadères have no virtue) from rising to the heights of sentimental love, it would be hopeless to expect the amazingly selfish, unsympathetic and cruel men to do so, despite their intellectual culture. Among all the seven hundred poems culled by Hâla there are only two or three which even hint at the higher phases of love in masculine bosoms. Inasmuch as No. 383 tells us that even "the male elephant, though tormented by great hunger, thinking of his beloved wife, allows the juicy lotos-stalk to wither in his trunk," one could hardly expect of man less than the sentiment expressed in No. 576: "He who has a faithful love considers himself contented even in misfortune, whereas without his love he is unhappy though he possess the earth." Another poem indicating that Hindoo men may share with women a strong feeling of amorous monopolism is No. 498:

"He regards only her countenance, and she, too, is quite intoxicated at sight of him. Both of them, satisfied with one another, act as if in the whole world there were no other women or men."

But as a rule the men are depicted as being fickle, even more so than the women. A frequent complaint of the girls is that the men forget whom they happen to be caressing and call them by another girl's name. More frequent still are the complaints of neglect or desertion. One of these, No. 46, suggests the praises of night sung in the mediaeval legend of Tristan and Isolde:

"To-morrow morning, my beloved, the hard-hearted goes away--so people say. O sacred night! do lengthen so that there will be no morning for him."

At first sight the most surprising and important of Hâla's seven hundred poems seems to be No. 567:

"Only over me, the iron-hearted, thunder, O cloud, and with all your might; be sure that you do not kill my poor one with the hanging locks."

Here, for once, we have the idea of self-sacrifice--only the idea, it is true, and not the act; but it indicates a very exceptional and exalted state for a Hindoo even to think of such a thing. The self-reproach of "iron-hearted" tells us, however, that the man has been behaving selfishly and cruelly toward his sweetheart or wife, and is feeling sorry for a moment. In such moments a Hindoo not infrequently becomes human, especially if he expects new favors of the maltreated woman, which she is only too willing to grant:

No. 85: "While with the breath of his mouth he cooled one of my hands, swollen from the effect of his blow, I put the other one laughingly around his neck."

No. 191: "By untangling the hair of her prostrate lover from the notches of her spangles in which it had been caught, she shows him that her heart has ceased to be sulky."

References to such prostrations to secure forgiveness for inconstancy or cruelty are frequent in Hindoo poems and dramas, and it is needless to say that they are a very different thing from the disinterested prostrations and homage of modern gallantry. True gallantry being one of the altruistic ingredients of love, it would be useless to seek for it among the Hindoos. Not so with hyperbole, which being simply a magnifying of one's own sensations and an expression of extravagant feeling of any kind, forms, as we know, a phase of sensual as well as of sentimental love. The eager desire for a girl's favor makes her breath and all her attributes seem delicious not only to man but to inanimate things. The following, with the finishing touches applied by the German translator, approaches modern poetic sentiment more closely than any other of Hâla's songs:

No. 13: "O you who are skilled in cooking! Do not be angry (that the fire fails to burn). The fire does not burn, smokes only, in order to drink in (long) the breath of (your) mouth, perfumed like red pâtela blossoms."

In the use of hyperbole it is very difficult to avoid the step from the sublime to the ridiculous. The author of No. 153 had a happy thought when he sang that his beloved was so perfect a beauty that no one had ever been able to see her whole body because the eye refused to leave whatever part it first alighted on. This pretty notion is turned into unconscious burlesque by the author of No. 274, who complains,

"How can I describe her from whose limbs the eyes that see them cannot tear themselves away, like a weak cow from the mud she is sticking in."

Hardly less grotesque to our Western taste is the favorite boast (No. 211 et passim) that the moon is making vain efforts to shine as brightly as the beloved's face. It is easier for us to sympathize with the Hindoo poets when they express their raptures over the eyes or locks of their beloved:

No. 470: "Other beauties too have in their faces beautiful wide black eyes, with long lashes, but they cannot cast such glances as you do."

No. 77: "I think of her countenance with her locks floating loosely about it as she shook her head when I seized her lip--like unto a lotos flower surrounded by a swarm of (black) bees attracted by its fragrance."

Yet even these two references to personal beauty are not purely esthetic, and in all the others the sensual aspect is more emphasized:

No. 556: "The brown girl's hair, which had succeeded in touching her hips, weeps drops of water, as it were, now that she comes out of the bath, as if from fear of now being tied up again."

No. 128: "As by a miracle, as by a treasure, as in heaven, as a kingdom, as a drink of ambrosia, was I affected when I (first) saw her without any clothing."

No. 473: "For the sake of the dark-eyed girls whose hips and thighs are visible through their wet dresses when they bathe in the afternoon, does Kama [the god of love] wield his bow."

Again and again the poets express their raptures over exaggerated busts and hips, often in disgustingly coarse comparisons--lines which cannot be quoted here.[275]

LYRICS AND DRAMAS

In his History of Indian Literature (209), Weber says that

"the erotic lyric commences for us with certain of the poems attributed to Kalidasa." "The later Kavyas are to be ranked with the erotic poems rather than with the epic. In general this love-poetry is of the most unbridled and extravagantly sensual description; yet examples of deep and truly romantic tenderness are not wanting."

Inasmuch as he attributes the same qualities to some of the Hâla poems in which we have been unable to find them, it is obvious that his conception of "deep and truly romantic tenderness" is different from ours, and it is useless to quarrel about words. Hâla's collection, being an anthology of the best love-songs of many poets, is much more representative and valuable than if the verses were all by the same poet. If Hindoo bards and bayadères had a capacity for true altruistic love-sentiment, these seven hundred songs could hardly have failed to reveal it. But to make doubly sure that we are not misrepresenting a phase of the history of civilization, let us examine the Hindoo dramas most noted as love-stories, especially those of Kalidasa, whose Sakuntala in particular was triumphantly held up by some of my critics as a refutation of my theory that none of the ancient civilized nations knew romantic love. I shall first briefly summarize the love-stories told in these dramas, and then point out what they reveal in regard to the Hindoo conception of love as based, presumably, on their experiences.

I. THE STORY OF SAKUNTALA

Once upon a time there lived on the banks of the Gautami River a hermit named Kauçika. He was of royal blood and had made so much progress with his saintly exercises of penitence that he was on the point of being able to defy the laws of Nature, and the gods themselves began to fear his power. To deprive him of it they sent down a beautiful apsara (celestial bayadères) to tempt him. He could not resist her charms, and broke his vows. A daughter was born who received the name of Sakuntala, and was given in charge of another saint, named Kanva, who brought her up lovingly as if she had been his own daughter. She has grown up to be a maiden of more than human beauty, when one day she is seen by the king, who, while hunting, has strayed within the sacred precincts while the saint is away on a holy errand. He is at once fascinated by her beauty--a beauty, as he says to himself, such as is seldom found in royal chambers--a wild vine more lovely than any garden-plant--and she, too, confesses to her companions that since she has seen him she is overcome by a feeling which seems out of place in this abode of penitence.

The king cannot bear the idea of returning to his palace, but encamps near the grove of the penitents. He fears that he may not be able to win the girl's love, and she is tortured by the same doubt regarding him. "Did Brahma first paint her and then infuse life into her, or did he in his spirit fashion her out of a number of spirits?" he exclaims. He wonders what excuse he can have for lingering in the grove. His companion suggests gathering the tithe, but the king retorts: "What I get for protecting her is to be esteemed higher than piles of jewels." He now feels an aversion to hunting. "I would not be able to shoot this arrow at the gazelles who have lived with her, and who taught the beloved to gaze so innocently." He grows thin from loss of sleep. Unable to keep his feelings locked up in his bosom, he reveals them to his companion, the jester, but afterward, fearing he might tell his wives about this love-affair, he says to him:

"Of course there is no truth in the notion that I coveted this girl Sakuntala. Just think! how could we suit one another, a girl who knows nothing of love and has grown up perfectly wild with the young gazelles? No, my friend, you must not take a joke seriously."

But all the time he grows thinner from longing--so thin that his bracelet, whose jewels have lost all their lustre from his tears, falls constantly from his arm and has to be replaced.

In the meantime Sakuntala, without lacking the reserve and timidity proper to the girls of penitents, has done several things that encouraged the king to hope. While she avoided looking straight at him (as etiquette prescribed), there was a loving expression on her face, and once, when about to go away with her companions, she pretended that her foot had been cut by a blade of kusagrass--but it was merely an excuse for turning her face. Thus, while her love is not frankly discovered, it is not covered either. She doubts whether the king loves her, and her agony throws her into a feverish state which her companions try in vain to allay by fanning her with lotos leaves. The king is convinced that the sun's heat alone could not have affected her thus. He sees that she has grown emaciated and seems ill. "Her cheeks," he says,

"have grown thin, her bosom has lost its firm tension, her body has grown attenuated, her shoulders stoop, and pale is her face. Tortured by love, the girl presents an aspect as pitiable as it is lovable; she resembles the vine Mâdhavi when it is blighted by the hot breath of a leaf-desiccating wind."

He is watching her, unseen himself, as she reclines in an arbor with her friends, who are fanning her. He hears her say: "Since the hour when he came before my eyes ... the royal sage, ah, since that hour I have become as you see me--from longing for him;" and he wonders, "how could she fear to have any difficulty in winning her lover?" "The little hairs on her cheek reveal her passion by becoming erect," he adds as he sees her writing something with her nails on a lotos leaf. She reads to her companions what she has written: "Your heart I know not; me love burns day and night, you cruel one, because I think of you alone."[276] Encouraged by this confession, the king steps from his place of concealment and exclaims: "Slender girl, the glowing heat of love only burns you, but me it consumes, and incessant is the great torture." Sakuntala tries to rise, but is too weak, and the king bids her dispense with ceremony. While he expresses his happiness at having found his love reciprocated, one of the companions mutters something about "Kings having many loves," and Sakuntala herself exclaims: "Why do you detain the royal sage? He is quite unhappy because he is separated from his wives at court." But the king protests that though he has many women at court, his heart belongs to no other but her. Left alone with Sakuntala, he exclaims:

"Be not alarmed! For am not I, who brings you adoring homage, at your side? Shall I fan you with the cooling petals of these water-lilies? Or shall I place your lotos feet on my lap and fondle them to my heart's content, you round-hipped maiden?"

"God forbid that I should be so indiscreet with a man that commands respect," replies Sakuntala. She tries to escape, and when the king holds her, she says: "Son of Puru! Observe the laws of propriety and custom! I am, indeed, inflamed by love, but I cannot dispose of myself." The king urges her not to fear her foster father. Many girls, he says, have freely given themselves to kings without incurring parental disapproval; and he tries to kiss her. A voice warns them that night approaches, and, hearing her friends returning, Sakuntala urges the king to conceal himself in the bushes.

Sakuntala now belongs to the king; they are united according to one of the eight forms of Hindoo marriage known as that of free choice. After remaining with her a short time the king returns to his other wives at court. Before leaving he puts a seal ring on her finger and tells her how she can count the days till a messenger shall arrive to bring her to his palace. But month after month passes and no messenger arrives. "The king has acted abominably toward Sakuntala," says one of her friends; "he has deceived an inexperienced girl who put faith in him. He has not even written her a letter, and she will soon be a mother." She feels convinced, however, that the king's neglect is due to the action of a saint who had cursed Sakuntala because she had not waited on him promptly. "Like a drunkard, her lover shall forget what has happened," was his curse. Relenting somewhat, he added afterward that the force of the curse could be broken by bringing to the king some ornament that he might have left as a souvenir. Sakuntala has her ring, and relying on that she departs with a retinue for the royal abode. On the way, in crossing a river, she loses the ring, and when she confronts the king he fails to remember her and dismisses her ignominiously. A fisherman afterward finds the ring in the stomach of a fish, and it gets into the hands of the king, who, at sight of it, remembers Sakuntala and is heartbroken at his cruel conduct toward her. But he cannot at once make amends, as he has chased her away, and it is not till some years later, and with supernatural aid, that they are reunited.

II. THE STORY OF URVASI

The saint Narayana had spent so many years in solitude, addicted to prayers and ascetic practices, that the gods dreaded his growing power, which was making him like unto them, and to break it they sent down to him some of the seductive apsaras. But the saint held a flower-stalk to his loins, and Urvasi was born, a girl more beautiful than the celestial bayadères who had been sent to tempt him. He gave this girl to the apsaras to take as a present to the god Indra, whose entertainers they were. She soon became the special ornament of heaven and Indra used her to bring the saints to fall.

One day King Pururavas, while out driving, hears female voices calling for help. Five apsaras appear and implore him, if he can drive through the air, to come to the assistance of their companion Urvasi, who has been seized and carried away, northward, by a demon. The king forthwith orders his charioteer to steer in that direction, and erelong he returns victorious, with the captured maiden on his chariot. She is still overcome with terror, her eyes are closed, and as the king gazes at her he doubts that she can be the daughter of a cold and learned hermit; the moon must have created her, or the god of love himself. As the chariot descends, Urvasi, frightened, leans against the king's shoulder, and the little hairs on his body stand up straight, so much is he pleased thereat. He brings her back to the other apsaras, who are on a mountain-top awaiting their return. Urvasi, too much overcome to thank him for her rescue, begs one of her friends to do it for her, whereupon the apsaras, bidding him good-by, rise into the air. Urvasi lingers a moment on the pretence that her pearl necklace has got entangled in a vine, but in reality to get another peep at the king, who addresses fervent words of thanks to the bush for having thus given him another chance to look on her face. "Rising into the air," he exclaims, "this girl tears my heart from my body and carries it away with her."

The queen soon notices that his heart has gone away with another. She complains of this estrangement to her maid, to whom she sets the task of discovering the secret of it. The maid goes at it slyly. Addressing the king's viduschaka (confidential adviser), she informs him that the queen is very unhappy because the king addressed her by the name of the girl he longs for. "What?" retorts the viduschaka--"the king himself has revealed the secret? He called her Urvasi?" "And who, your honor, is Urvasi?" says the maid. "She is one of the apsaras," he says. "The sight of her has infatuated the king's senses so that he tortures not only the queen but me, the Brahman, too, for he no longer thinks of eating." But he expresses his conviction that the folly will not last long, and the maid departs.

Urvasi, tortured, like the king, by love and doubt, suppresses her bashfulness and asks one of her friends to go with her to get her pearl necklace which she had left entangled in the vine. "Then you are hurrying down, surely, to see Pururavas, the king?" says the friend; "and whom have you sent in advance?" "My heart," replied Urvasi. So they fly down to the earth, invisible to mortals, and when they see the king, Urvasi declares that he seems to her even more beautiful than at their first meeting. They listen to the conversation between him and the viduschaka. The latter advises his master to seek consolation by dreaming of a union with his love, or by painting her picture, but the king answers that dreams cannot come to a man who is unable to sleep, nor would a picture be able to stop his flood of tears. "The god of love has pierced my heart and now he tortures me by denying my wish." Encouraged by these words, but unwilling to make herself visible, Urvasi takes a piece of birch-bark, writes on it a message, and throws it down. The king sees it fall, picks it up and reads:

"I love you, O master; you did not know, nor I, that you burn with love for me. No longer do I find rest on my coral couch, and the air of the celestial grove burns me like fire."

"What will he say to that?" wonders Urvasi, and her friend replies, "Is there not an answer in his limbs, which have become like withered lotos stalks?" The king declares to his friend that the message on the leaf has made him as happy as if he had seen his beloved's face. Fearing that the perspiration on his hand (the sign of violent love) might wash away the message, he gives the birch-bark to the viduschaka. Urvasi's friend now makes herself visible to the king, who welcomes her, but adds that the sight of her delights him not as it did when Urvasi was with her. "Urvasi bows before you," the apsara answers, "and sends this message: 'You were my protector, O master, when a demon offered me violence. Since I saw you, god Kama has tortured me violently; therefore you must sometime take pity on me, great king!'" And the king retorts: "The ardor of love is here equally great on either side. It is proper that hot iron be welded with hot iron." After this Urvasi makes herself visible, too, but the king has hardly had time to greet her, when a celestial messenger arrives to summon her hastily back to heaven, to her own great distress and the king's.

Left alone, the king wants to seek consolation in the message written on the birch-bark. But to their consternation, they cannot find it. It had dropped from the viduschaka's hand and the wind had carried it off. "O wind of Malaya," laments the king,

"you are welcome to all the fragrance breathing from the flowers, but of what use to you is the love-letter you have stolen from me? Know you not that a hundred such consolers may save the life of a love-sick man who cannot hope soon to attain the goal of his desires?"

In the meantime the queen and her maid have appeared in the background. They come across the birch-bark, see the message on it, and the maid reads it aloud. "With this gift of the celestial girl let us now meet her lover," says the queen, and stepping forward, she confronts the king with the words: "Here is the bark, my husband. You need not search for it longer." Denial is useless; the king prostrates himself at her feet, confessing his guilt and begging her not to be angry at her slave. But she turns her back and leaves him. "I cannot blame her," says the king; "homage to a woman leaves her cold unless it is inspired by love, as an artificial jewel leaves an expert who knows the fire of genuine stones." "Though Urvasi has my heart," he adds, "yet I highly esteem the queen. Of course, I shall meet her with firmness, since she has disdained my prostration at her feet."

The reason why Urvasi had been summoned back to heaven so suddenly was that Indra wanted to hear a play which the celestial manager had rehearsed with the apsaras. Urvasi takes her part, but her thoughts are so incessantly with the king that she blunders repeatedly. She puts passion into lines which do not call for it, and once, when she is called on to answer the question, "To whom does her heart incline?" she utters the name of her own lover instead of the one of similar sound called for in the play. For these mistakes her teacher curses her and forbids her remaining in heaven any longer. Then Indra says to the abashed maiden: "I must do a favor to the king whom you love and who aids me in battle. Go and remain with him at your will, until you have borne him a son."

Ignorant of the happiness in store for him, the king meanwhile continues to give utterance to his longings and laments. "The day has not passed so very sadly; there was something to do, no time for longing. But how shall I spend the long night, for which there is no pastime?" The viduschaka counsels hope, and the king grants that even the tortures of love have their advantage; for, as the force of the torrent is increased a hundredfold if a rock is interposed, so is the power of love if obstacles retard the blissful union. The twitching of his right arm (a favorable sign) augments his hope. At the moment when he remarks: "The anguish of love increases at night," Urvasi and her friend came down from the air and hover about him. "Nothing can cool the flame of my love," he continues,

"neither a bed of fresh flowers, nor moonlight, nor strings of pearls, nor sandal ointment applied to the whole body. The only part of my body that has attained its goal is this shoulder, which touched her in the chariot."

At these words Urvasi boldly steps before the king, but he pays no attention to her. "The great king," she complains to her friend, "remains cold though I stand before him." "Impetuous girl," is the answer, "you are still wearing your magic veil; he cannot see you."

At this moment voices are heard and the queen appears with her retinue. She had already sent a message to the king to inform him that she was no longer angry and had made a vow to fast and wear no finery until the moon had entered the constellation of Rohini, in order to express her penitence and conciliate her husband. The king, greeting her, expresses sorrow that she should weaken her body, delicate as lotos root, by thus fasting. "What?" he adds, "you yourself conciliate the slave who ardently longs to be with you and who is anxious to win your indulgence!" "What great esteem he shows her!" exclaims Urvasi, with a confused smile; but her companion retorts: "You foolish girl, a man of the world is most polite when he loves another woman." "The power of my vow," says the queen, "is revealed in his solicitude for me." Then she folds her hands, and, bowing reverently, says:

"I call to witness these two gods, the Moon and his Rohini, that I beg my husband's pardon. Henceforth may he, unhindered, associate with the woman whom he loves and who is glad to be his companion."

"Is he indifferent to you?" asks the viduschaka. "Fool!" she replies; "I desire only my husband's happiness, and give up my own for that. Judge for yourself whether I love him."

When the queen has left, the king once more abandons himself to his yearning for his beloved. "Would that she came from behind and put her lotos hands over my eyes." Urvasi hears the words and fulfils his wish. He knows who it is, for every little hair on his body stands up straight. "Do not consider me forward if now I embrace his body," says Urvasi to her friend; "for the queen has given him to me." "You take my body as the queen's present," says the king; "but who, you thief, allowed you before that to steal my heart?" "It shall always be yours and I your slave alone," he continues. "When I took possession of the throne I did not feel so near my goal as now when I begin my service at your feet." "The moon's rays which formerly tortured me now refresh my body, and welcome are Kama's arrows which used to wound me." "Did my delaying do you harm?" asks Urvasi, and he replies: "Oh, no! Joy is sweeter when it follows distress. He who has been exposed to the sun is cooled by the tree's shade more than others;" and he ends the same with the words: "A night seemed to consist of a hundred nights ere my wish was fulfilled; may it be the same now that I am with you, O beauty! how glad I should be!"

Absorbed by his happy love, the king hands over the reins of government to his ministers and retires with Urvasi to a forest. One day he looks for a moment thoughtfully at another girl, whereat Urvasi gets so jealous that she refuses to accept his apology, and in her anger forgets that no woman must walk into the forest of the war-god. Hardly has she entered when she is changed into a vine. The king goes out of his mind from grief; he roams all over the forest, alternately fainting and raving, calling upon peacock and cuckoo, bee, swan, and elephant, antelope, mountain, and river to give him tidings of his beloved, her with the antelope eyes and the big breasts, and the hips so broad that she can only walk slowly. At last he sees in a cleft a large red jewel and picks it up. It is the stone of union which enables lovers to find one another. An impulse leads him to embrace the vine before him and it changes to Urvasi. A son is afterward born to her, but she sends him away before the king knows about it, and has him brought up secretly lest she be compelled to return at once to heaven. But Indra sends a messenger to bring her permission to remain with the king as long as he lives.

III. MALAVIKA AND AGNIMITRA

Queen Dharini, the head wife of King Agnimitra, has received from her brother a young girl named Malavika, whom he has rescued from robbers. The queen is just having a large painting made of herself and her retinue, and Malavika finds a place on it at her side. The king sees the picture and eagerly inquires: "Who is that beautiful maiden?" The suspicious queen does not answer his question, but takes measures to have the girl carefully concealed from him and kept busy with dancing lessons. But the king accidentally hears Malavika's name and makes up his mind that he must have her. "Arrange some stratagem," he says to his viduschaka, "so I may see her bodily whose picture I beheld accidentally." The viduschaka promptly stirs up a dispute between the two dancing-masters, which is to be settled by an exhibition of their pupils before the king. The queen sees through the trick too late to prevent its execution and the king's desire is gratified. He sees Malavika, and finds her more beautiful even than her picture--her face like the harvest moon, her bosom firm and swelling, her waist small enough to span with the hand, her hips big, her toes beautifully curved. She has never seen the king, yet loves him passionately. Her left eye twitches--a favorable sign--and she sings: "I must obey the will of others, but my heart desires you; I cannot conceal it." "She uses her song as a means of offering herself to you," says the viduschaka to the king, who replies: "In the presence of the queen her love saw no other way." "The Creator made her the poisoned arrow of the god of love," he continues to his friend after the performance is over and they are alone. "Apply your mind and think out other plans for meeting her." "You remind me," says the viduschaka, "of a vulture that hovers over a butcher's shop, filled with greed for meat but also with fear. I believe the eagerness to have your will has made you ill." "How were it possible to remain well?" the king retorts. "My heart no longer desires intimacies with any woman in all my harem. To her with the beautiful eyes, alone shall my love be devoted henceforth."

In the royal gardens stands an asoka tree whose bloom is retarded. To hasten it, the tree must be touched by the decorated foot of a beautiful woman. The queen was to have done this, but an accident has injured her foot and she has asked Malavika to take her place. While the king and his adviser are walking in the garden they see Malavika all alone. Her love has made her wither like a jasmine wreath blighted by frost. "How long," she laments, "will the god of love make me endure this anguish, from which there is no relief?" One of the queen's maids presently arrives with the paints and rings for decorating Malavika's feet. The king watches the proceeding, and after the maiden has touched the tree with her left foot he steps forward, to the confusion of the two women. He tells Malavika that he, like the tree, has long had no occasion to bloom, and begs her to make him also, who loves only her, happy with the nectar of her touch. Unluckily this whole scene has also been secretly witnessed by Iravati, the second of the king's wives, who steps forward at this moment and sarcastically tells Malavika to do his bidding. The viduschaka tries to help out his confused master by pretending that the meeting was accidental, and the king humbly calls himself her loving husband, her slave, asks her pardon, and prostrates himself; but she exclaims: "These are not the feet of Malavika whose touch you desire to still your longing," and departs. The king feels quite hurt by her action. "How unjust," he exclaims,

"is love! My heart belongs to the dear girl, therefore Iravati did me a service by not accepting my prostration. And yet it was love that led her to do that! Therefore I must not overlook her anger, but try to conciliate her."

Iravati goes straight to the first queen to report on their common husband's new escapade. When the king hears of this he is astonished at "such persistent anger," and dismayed on learning further that Malavika is now confined in a dungeon, under lock and key, which cannot be opened unless a messenger arrives with the queen's own seal ring. But once more the viduschaka devises a ruse which puts him in possession of the seal ring. The maiden is liberated and brought to the water-house, whither the king hastens to meet her with the viduschaka, who soon finds an excuse for going outside with the girl's companion, leaving the lovers alone. "Why do you still hesitate, O beauty, to unite yourself with one who has so long longed for your love?" exclaims the king; and Malavika answers: "What I should like to do I dare not; I fear the queen." "You need not fear her." "Did I not see the master himself seized with fear when he saw the queen?" "Oh, that," replies the king, "was only a matter of good breeding, as becomes princes. But you, with the long eyes, I love so much that my life depends on the hope that you love me too. Take me, take me, who long have loved you." With these words he embraces her, while she tries to resist. "How charming is the coyness of young girls!" he exclaims.

"Trembling, she tries to restrain my hand, which is busy with her girdle; while I embrace her ardently she puts up her own hands to protect her bosom; her countenance with the beautiful eyelashes she turns aside when I try to raise it for a kiss; by thus struggling she affords me the same delight as if I had attained what I desire."

Again the second queen and her maid appear unexpectedly and disturb the king's bliss. Her object is to go to the king's picture in the water-house and beg its pardon for having been disrespectful, this being better, in her opinion, than appearing before the king himself, since he has given his heart to another, while in that picture he has eyes for her alone (as Malavika, too, had noticed when she entered the water-house). The viduschaka has proved an unreliable sentinel; he has fallen asleep at the door of the house. The queen's maid perceives this and, to tease him, touches him with a crooked staff. He awakes crying that a snake has bitten him. The king runs out and is confronted again by Iravati. "Well, well!" she exclaims, "this couple meet in broad daylight and without hindrance to gratify their wishes!" "An unheard-of greeting is this, my dear," said the king. "You are mistaken; I see no cause for anger. I merely liberated the two girls because this is a holiday, on which servants must not be confined, and they came here to thank me." But he is glad to escape when a messenger arrives opportunely to announce that a yellow ape has frightened the princess.

"My heart trembles when I think of the queen," says Malavika, left alone with her companion. "What will become of me now?" But the queen knows her duty, according to Hindoo custom. She makes her maids array Malavika in marriage dress, and then sends a message to the king saying that she awaits him with Malavika and her attendants. The girl does not know why she has been so richly attired, and when the king beholds her he says to himself: "We are so near and yet apart. I seem to myself like the bird Tschakravaka;[277] and the name of the night which does not allow me to be united with my love is Dharini." At that moment two captive girls are brought before the assemblage, and to everyone's surprise they greet Malavika as "Princess." A princess she proves to be, on inquiry, and the queen now carries out the plan she had had in her mind, with the consent also of the second queen, who sends her apologies at the same time. "Take her," says Dharini to the king, and at a hint of the viduschaka she takes a veil and by putting it on the new bride makes her a queen and spouse of equal rank with herself. And the king answers:

"I am not surprised at your magnanimity. If women are faithful and kind to their husbands, they even bring, by way of serving him, new wives to him, like unto the rivers which provide that the water of other streams also is carried to the ocean. I have now but one more wish; be hereafter always, irascible queen, prepared to do me homage. I wish this for the sake of the other women."

IV. THE STORY OF SAVITRI

King Asvapati, though an honest, virtuous, pious man, was not blessed with offspring, and this made him unhappy.[278] He curbed all his appetites and for eighteen years lived a life of devotion to his religious duties. At the expiration of these years Savitri, the daughter of the sun-god, appeared to him and offered to reward him by granting a favor. "Sons I crave, many sons, O goddess, sons to preserve my family," he answered. But Savitri promised him a daughter; and she was born to him by his oldest wife and was named after the goddess Savitri. She grew up to be so beautiful, so broad-hipped, like a golden statue, that she seemed of divine origin, and, abashed, none of the men came to choose her as his wife. This saddened her father and he said:

"Daughter, it is time for you to marry, but no one comes to ask me for you. Go and seek your own husband, a man your equal in worth. And when you have chosen, you must let me know. Then I will consider him, and betroth you. For, according to the laws, a father who does not give his daughter in marriage is blameworthy."

And Savitri went on a golden chariot with a royal retinue, and she visited all the groves of the saints and at last found a man after her heart, whose name was Satyavant. Then she returned to her father--who was just conversing with the divine sage Nârada--and told him of her choice. But Nârada exclaimed: "Woe and alas, you have chosen one who is, indeed, endowed with all the virtues, but who is doomed to die a year from this day." Thereupon the king begged Savitri to choose another for her husband, but she replied: "May his life be long or short, may he have merits or no merits, I have selected him as my husband, and a second I shall not choose." Then the king and Nârada agreed not to oppose her, and she went with her father to the grove where she had seen Satyavant, the man of her choice. The king spoke to this man's father and said: "Here, O royal saint, is my lovely daughter, Savitri; take her as your daughter-in-law in accordance with your duty as friend." And the saint replied: "Long have I desired such a bond of relationship; but I have lost my royal dignity, and how could your daughter endure the hardships of life in the forest?" But the king replied that they heeded not such things and their mind was made up. So all the Brahmans were called together and the king gave his daughter to Satyavant, who was pleased to win a wife endowed with so many virtues.

When her father had departed, Savitri put away all her ornaments and assumed the plain garb of the saints. She was modest, self-contained, and strove to make herself useful and to fulfil the wishes of all. But she counted the days, and the time came when she had to say to herself, "In three days he must die." And she made a vow and stood in one place three days and nights; on the following day he was to die. In the afternoon her husband took his axe on his shoulder and went into the primeval forest to get some wood and fruits. For the first time she asked to go with him. "The way is too difficult for you," said he, but she persisted; and her heart was consumed by the flames of sadness. He called her attention, as they walked on, to the limpid rivers and noble trees decked with flowers of many colors, but she had eyes only for him, following his every movement; for she looked on him as a dead man from that hour. He was filling his basket with fruits when suddenly he was seized with violent headache and longing for sleep. She took his head on her lap and awaited his last moment.

All at once she saw a man, in red attire, of fearful aspect, with a rope in his hand. And she said: "Who are you?" "You," he replied, "are a woman faithful to your husband and of good deeds, therefore will I answer you. I am Yama, and I have come to take away your husband, whose life has reached its goal." And with a mighty jerk he drew from the husband's body his spirit, the size of a thumb, and forthwith the breath of life departed from the body. Having carefully tied the soul, Yama departed toward the south. Savitri, tortured by anguish, followed him. "Turn back, Savitri," he said; "you owe your husband nothing further, and you have gone as far as you can go." "Wherever my husband goes or is taken, there I must go; that is an eternal duty." Thereupon Yama offered to grant any favor she might ask--except the life of her husband. "Restore the sight of the blind king, my father-in-law," she said; and he answered: "It is done already." He offered a second favor and she said: "Restore his kingdom to my father-in-law;" and it was granted, as was also the third wish: "Grant one hundred sons to my father, who has none." Her fourth wish, too, he agreed to: that she herself might have a hundred sons; and as he made the fifth and last wish unconditional, she said:

"Let Satyavant return to life; for, bereft of him, I desire not happiness; bereft of him I desire not heaven; I desire not to live bereft of him. A hundred sons you have promised me, yet you take away my husband? I desire this as a favor; let Satyavant live!"

"So be it!" answered the god of death as he untied the string.

"Your husband is released to you, blessed one, pride of your race. Sound and well you shall take him home, live with him four hundred years, beget one hundred sons, and all of them shall be mighty kings."

With these words he went his way. Life returned to the body of Satyavant, and his first feeling was distress lest his parents grieve over his absence. Thinking him too weak to walk, Savitri wanted to sleep in the forest, surrounded by a fire to keep off wild beasts, but he replied:

"My father and mother are distressed even in the daytime when I am away. Without them I could not live. As long as they live I live only for them. Rather than let anything happen to them, I give up my own life, you woman with the beautiful hips; truly I shall kill myself sooner."

So she helped him to rise, and they returned that very night, to the great joy of their parents and friends; and all the promises of Yama were fulfilled.

V. NALA AND DAMAYANTI

Once upon a time there was a king by the name of Nala, a man handsome as the god of love, endowed with all the virtues, a favorite of men and women. There was also another king, named Bhima, the Terrible. He was renowned as a warrior and endowed with many virtues; yet he was discontented, for he had no offspring. But it happened that he was visited by a saint, whom he entertained so hospitably that the Brahman granted him in return a favor: a daughter and three sons were born to him. The daughter, who received the name of Damayanti, soon became famed for her beauty, her dignity, and her gracious manners. She seemed, amid her companions, like lightning born in a rain-cloud. Her beauty was so much vaunted in the hearing of King Nala, and his merits were so much extolled in her presence, that the two conceived an ardent passion for one another, though they had never met. Nala could hardly endure his yearnings of love; near the apartments of the women there was a forest; into that he retired, living in solitude. One day he came across some gold-decked geese. He caught one of them and she said to him: "Spare my life and I promise to praise you in Damayanti's presence in such a way that she shall never think of any other man." He did so, and the goose flew to Damayanti and said: "There is a man named Nala; he is like the celestial knights; no human being equals him. Yes, if you could become his wife, it would be worth while that you were born and became so beautiful. You are the pearl among women, but Nala, too, is the best of men." Damayanti begged the goose to go and speak to Nala similarly about her, and the goose said "Yes" and flew away.

From that moment Damayanti was always in spirit with Kala. Sunk in reverie, sad, with pale face, she visibly wasted away, and sighing was her only, her favorite, occupation. If anyone saw her gazing upward, absorbed in her thoughts, he might have almost fancied her intoxicated. Often of a sudden her whole face turned pale; in short, it was plain that love-longing held her senses captive. Lying in bed, sitting, eating, everything is distasteful to her; neither at night nor by day does sleep come to her. Ah and alas! thus her wails resound, and over and over again she begins to weep.

Her companions noted these symptoms and they said to the king: "Damayanti is not at all well." The king reflected, "Why is my daughter no longer well?" and it occurred to him that she had reached the marriageable age, and it became clear to him that he must without delay give her a chance to choose a husband. So he invited all the kings to assemble at his court for that purpose on a certain day. Soon the roads were filled with kings, princes, elephants, horses, wagons, and warriors, for she, the pearl of the world, was desired of men above all other women. King Nala also had received the message and set out on his journey hopefully. Like the god of love incarnate he looked. Even the ruling gods heard of the great event and went to join the worldly rulers. As they approached the earth's surface they beheld King Nala. Pleased with his looks, they accosted him and said: "We are immortals journeying on account of Darnayanti. As for you, go you and bring Damayanti this message: 'The four gods, Indra, Agni, Yama, Varuna, desire to have you for a wife. Choose one of these four gods as your wedded husband.'"

Folding his hands humbly, Nala replied:

"The very same affair has induced me to make this journey: therefore you must not send me on this errand. For how could a man who himself feels the longing of love woo the same woman for another?"

But the gods ordered him to go at once, because he had promised to serve them before he knew what they wanted. They endowed him with power to enter the carefully guarded apartments of the princess, and presently he found himself in her presence. Her lovely face, her charmingly moulded limbs, her slender body, her beautiful eyes, diffused a splendor that mocked the light of the moon and increased his pangs of love; but he resolved to keep his promise. When the young maidens beheld him they could not utter a word; they were dazed by the splendor of his appearance, and abashed, the beautiful virgins. At last the astonished Damayanti began to speak and said with a sweet smile:

"Who are you, you with the faultless form, who increase the yearnings of my love? Like an immortal you came here, O hero! I would like to know you better, noble, good man. Closely guarded is my house, however, and most strict in his orders is the king."

"My name, gracious maiden, is Nala," he replied.

"As messenger of the gods have I come. Four of them--Indra, Agni, Varuna, Yama--would like you as bride, therefore choose one of them as husband, O beauty! That I entered unseen is the result, too, of their power. Now you have heard all; act as seems proper to you."

As he spoke the names of the gods Damayanti bowed humbly; then she laughed merrily and said:

"Follow you the inclination of your heart and be kind to me. What can I do to please you? Myself and all that is mine belongs to you. Lay aside all diffidence, my master and husband! Alas, the entire speech of the gold-swans, my prince, was to me a real firebrand. It was for your sake, O hero, that all these kings were in reality called together so hastily. Should you ever, O my pride, be able to scorn me, who is so devoted to you, I shall resort on your account to poison, fire, water, rope."

"How can you," retorted Nala,

"when gods are present in person, direct your desires toward a mortal? Not so! Let your inclination dwell with them, the creators of the world. Remember, too, that a mortal who does something to displease the gods is doomed to death. Therefore, you with the faultless limbs, save me by choosing the most worthy of the gods. Hesitate no longer. Your husband must be one of the gods."

Then said Damayanti, while her eyes were diffused with anguish-born tears: "My reverence to the gods! As husband I choose you, mighty ruler on earth. What I say to you is immutable truth." "I am here now as messenger of the gods, and cannot, therefore, plead my own cause. Later I shall have a chance to speak for myself," said Nala; and Damayanti said, smiling, while tears choked her voice:

"I shall arrange that you as well as the gods are present on the day of my husband-choice. Then I shall choose you in the presence of the immortals. In that way no blame can fall on anyone."

Returning to the gods, Nala told them just what happened, not omitting her promise that she would choose him in presence of the gods. The day now was approaching when the kings, who, urged by love-longings, had assembled, were to appear before the maiden. With their beautiful hair, noses, eyes, and brows, these royal personages shone like the stars in heaven. They fixed their gaze on the maiden's limbs, and wherever the eyes first rested there they remained fixed immovably. But the four gods had all assumed the exact form and appearance of Nala, and when Damayanti was about to choose him she saw five men all alike. How could she tell which of them was the king, her beloved? After a moment's thought she uttered an invocation to the gods calling upon them to assume the characteristics by which they differ from mortals. The gods, moved by her anguish, her faith in the power of truth, her intelligence and passionate devotion, heard her prayer and forthwith they appeared to her free from perspiration, with fixed gaze, ever fresh wreath, free from dust; and none of them, while standing, touched the floor; whereas King Nala betrayed himself by throwing a shadow, by having dust and perspiration on his body, a withered wreath, and eyelids that winked.

Thereupon the big-eyed maiden timidly seized him by the hem of his garment and put a beautiful wreath on his shoulders. Thus did she choose him to be her husband; and the gods granted them special favors.[279]

According to Schroeder, the Hindoos are "the romantic nation" among the ancients, as the Germans are among the moderns; and Albrecht Weber says that when, a little more than a century ago, Europe first became acquainted with Sanscrit literature, it was noticed that in the amorous poetry of India in particular the sentimental qualities of modern verse were traced in a much higher degree than they had been found in Greek and Roman literature. All this is doubtless true. The Hindoos appear to have been the only ancient people that took delight in forests, rivers, and mountains as we do; in reading their descriptions of Nature we are sometimes affected by a mysterious feeling of awe, like a reminiscence of the time when our ancestors lived in India. Their amorous hyperbole, too, despite its frequent grotesqueness, affects us perhaps more sympathetically than that of the Greeks. And yet the essentials of what we call romantic love are so entirely absent from ancient Hindoo literature that such amorous symptoms as are noted therein can all be readily brought under the three heads of artificiality, sensuality, and selfishness.

ARTIFICIAL SYMPTOMS

Commenting on the directions for caressing given in the Kama Soutra, Lamairesse remarks (56):

"All these practices and caresses are conventional rather than natural, like everything the Hindoos do. A bayadères straying to Paris and making use of them would be a curiosity so extraordinary that she would certainly enjoy a succès de vogue pour rire."

Nail-marks on various parts of the body, blows, bites, meaningless exclamations are prescribed or described in the diverse love-scenes. In Hindoo dramas several of the artificial symptoms--pure figments of the poetic fancy--are incessantly referred to. One of the most ludicrous of them is the drops of perspiration on the cheeks or other parts of the body, which are regarded as an infallible and inevitable sign of love. Urvasi's royal lover is afraid to take her birch-bark message in his hand lest his perspiration wipe away the letters. In Bhavabhuti's drama, Malati and Madhava, the heroine's feet perspire so profusely from excess of longing, that the lacquer of her couch is melted; and one of the stage directions in the same drama is: "Perspiration appears on Madayantika, with other things indicating love."

Another of these grotesque symptoms is the notion that the touch or mere thought of the beloved makes the small hairs all over the body stand erect. No love-scene seems to be complete without this detail. The drama just referred to, in different scenes, makes the hairs on the cheeks, on the arms, all over the body, rise "splendidly," the author says in one line.[280] A Hindoo lover always has twitching of the right or left arm or eye to indicate what kind of luck he is going to have; and she is equally favored. Usually the love is mutual and at first sight--nay, preferably before first sight. The mere hearsay that a certain man or maiden is very beautiful suffices, as we saw in the story of Nala and Damayanti, to banish sleep and appetite, and to make the lover pale and wan and most wretched. Sakuntala's royal lover wastes away so rapidly that in a few days his bracelet falls from his attenuated arm, and Sakuntala herself becomes so weak that she cannot rise, and is supposed to have sunstroke! Malati dwindles until her form resembles the moon in its last quarter; her face is as pale as the moon at morning dawn. Always both the lovers, though he be a king--as he generally is--and she a goddess, are diffident at first, fearing failure, even after the most unmistakable signs of fondness, in the betrayal of which the girls are anything but coy. All these symptoms the poets prescribe as regularly as a physician makes out a prescription for an apothecary.

A peculiar stare--which must be sidelong, not direct at the beloved--is another conventional characteristic of Hindoo amorous fiction. The gait becomes languid, the breathing difficult, the heart stops beating or is paralyzed with joy; the limbs or the whole body wither like flower-stalks after a frost; the mind is lamed, the memory weakened; cold shivers run down the limbs and fever shakes the body; the arms hang limp at the side, the breast heaves, words stick in the throat; pastimes no longer entertain; the perfumed Malayan wind crazes the mind; the eyelids are motionless, sighs give vent to anguish, which may end in a swoon, and if things take an unfavorable turn the thought of suicide is not distant. Attempts to cure this ardent love are futile; Madhava tries snow, and moonlight, and camphor, and lotos roots, and pearls, and sandal oil rubbed on his skin, but all in vain.

THE HINDOO GOD OF LOVE

Quite as artificial and unsentimental as the notions of the Hindoos concerning the symptoms of love is their conception of their god of love, Kama, the husband of Lust. His bow is made of sugar-cane, its string a row of bees, and his arrow-tips are red flower-buds. Spring is his bosom friend, and he rides on a parrot or the sea-monster Makara. He is also called Ananga--the bodiless--because Siwa once burned him up with the fire that flashed from his third eye for disturbing him in his devotions by awakening in him love for Parwati. Sakuntala's lover wails that Kama's arrows are "not flowers, but hard as diamond." Agnimitra declares that the Creator made his beloved "the poison-steeped arrow of the God of Love;" and again, he says: "The softest and the sharpest things are united in you, O Kama." Urvasi's royal lover complains that his "heart is pierced by Kama's arrow," and in Malati and Madhava we are told that "a cruel god no doubt is Kama;" while No. 329 of Ilâla's love-poems declares:

"The arrows of Kama are most diverse in their effects--though made of flowers, very hard; though not coming into direct contact, insufferably hot; and though piercing, yet causing delight."

Our familiarity with Greek and Roman literature has made us so accustomed to the idea of a Cupid awakening love by shooting arrows that we fail to realize how entirely fanciful, not to say whimsical, this conceit is. It would be odd, indeed, if the Hindoo poets had happened on the same fancy as the Greeks of their own accord; but there is no reason to suppose that they did. Kama is one of the later gods of the Indian Pantheon, and there is every reason to believe that the Hindoos borrowed him from the Greeks, as the Romans did. In Sakuntala (27) there is a reference to the Greek women who form the king's body-guard; in Urvasi (70) to a slave of Greek descent; and there are many things in the Hindoo drama that betray Greek influence.

Besides being artificial and borrowed, Kama is entirely sensual. Kama means "gratification of the senses,"[281] and of all the epithets bestowed on their god of love by the Hindoos none rises distinctly above sensual ideas. Dowson (147) has collated these epithets; they are: "the beautiful," "the inflamer," "lustful," "desirous," "the happy," "the gay, or wanton," "deluder," "the lamp of honey, or of spring," "the bewilderer," "the crackling fire," "the stalk of passion," "the weapon of beauty," "the voluptuary," "remembrance," "fire," "the handsome."[282]

The same disregard of sentimental, devotional, and altruistic elements is shown in the Ten Stages of Love-Sickness as conceived by the Hindoos: (1) desire; (2) thinking of her (his) beauty; (3) reminiscent revery; (4) boasting of her (his) excellence; (5) excitement; (6) lamentations; (7) distraction; (8) illness; (9) insensibility; (10) death.[283]

DYING FOR LOVE

The notion that the fever of love may become so severe as to lead to death plays an important role in Hindoo amorous sophistry. "Hindoo casuists," says Lamairesse (151, 179), "always have a peremptory reason, in their own eyes, for dispensing with all scruples in love-affairs: the necessity of not dying for love." "It is permissible," says the author of Kama Soutra, "to seduce another man's wife if one is in danger of dying from love for her;" upon which Lamairesse comments:

"This principle, liberally interpreted by those interested, excuses all intrigues; in theory it is capable of accommodating itself to all cases, and in the practice of the Hindoos it does thus accommodate itself. It is based on the belief that the souls of men who die of ungratified desires flit about a long time as manes before transmigrating."

Thus did the wily priests invoke the aid even of superstition to foster that national licentiousness by which they themselves profited most. Small wonder that the Hitopadesa declared (92) that "there is perhaps in all the world not a man who covets not his neighbor's wife;" or that the same collection of wise stories and maxims should take an equally low view of feminine morals (39, 40, 41, 54, 88); e.g. (in substance): "Then only is a wife faithful to her husband, when no other man covets her." "Seek chastity in those women only who have no opportunity to meet a lover." "A woman's lust can no more be satisfied than a fire's greed for wood, the ocean's thirst for rivers, death's desire for victims." Another verse in the Hitopadesa (13) declares frankly that of the six good things in the world two of them are a caressing wife and a devoted sweetheart beside her--upon which the editor, Johannes Hertel, comments: "To a Hindoo there is nothing objectionable in such a sentiment."

WHAT HINDOO POETS ADMIRE IN WOMEN

The Hindoo's inability to rise above sensuality also manifests itself in his admiration of personal beauty, which is purely carnal. No. 217 of Hâla's anthology declares:

"Her face resembles the moon, the juice of her mouth nectar; but wherewith shall I compare (my delight) when I seize her, amid violent struggles, by the head and kiss her?"

Apart from such grotesque comparisons of the face to the moon, or of the teeth to the lotos, there is nothing in the amorous hyperbole of Hindoo poets that rises above the voluptuous into the neighborhood of esthetic admiration. Hindoo statues embodying the poets' ideal of women's waists so narrow that they can be spanned by the hand, show how infinitely inferior the Hindoos were to the Greeks in their appreciation of human beauty. The Hindoo poet's ideal of feminine beauty is a wasp-waist and grossly exaggerated bust and hips. Bhavabhuti allows his heroine Malati to be thus addressed (by a girl!):

"The wind, sandal-cool, refreshes your moon-face, in which nectar-like drops of perspiration appear from your walking, during which you lifted your feet but slowly, as they wavered under the weight of your thighs, which are strong as those of an elephant."

Usually, of course, these grotesquely coarse compliments are paid by the enamored men. Kalidasa makes King Pururavas, crazed by the loss of Urvasi, exclaim:

"Have you seen the divine beauty, who is compelled by the weight of her hips to walk slowly, and who never sees the flight of youth, whose bosom is high and swelling, whose gait is as the swan's?"

In another place he refers to her footsteps "pressed in deeper behind by the weight of the beloved's hips," Satyavant has no other epithet for Savitri than "beautiful-hipped." It is the same with Sakuntala's lover (who has been held up as an ancient embodiment of modern ethereal sentiment). What does he admire in Sakuntala? "Here," he says, "in the yellow sand are a number of fresh footsteps; they are higher in front, but depressed behind by the weight of her hips." "How slow was her gait--and naturally so, considering the weight of her hips." Compare also the poet's remarks on her bodily charms when the king first sees her.[284] Among all of the king's hyperbolic compliments and remarks there is not one that shows him to be fascinated by anything but the purely bodily charms of the young girl, charms of a coarse, voluptuous kind, calculated to increase his pleasure should he succeed in winning her, while there is not a trace of a desire on his part to make her happy. Nor is there anything in Sakuntala's symptoms rising above selfish distress at her uncertainty, or selfish longing to possess her lover. In a word, there is no romantic love, in our sense of the word, in the dramas of the most romantic poet of the most romantic nation of antiquity.[285]

THE OLD STORY OF SELFISHNESS

It might be maintained that the symptoms of true affection--altruistic devotion to the verge of self-sacrifice--are revealed, at any rate, in the conjugal love of Savitri and of Damayanti. Savitri follows the god of death as he carries away her husband's spirit, and by her devotion and entreaties persuades Yama to restore him to life; while Damayanti (whose story we did not finish) follows her husband, after he has gambled away all his kingdom, into the forest to suffer with him. One night, while she sleeps, he steals half of her only garment and deserts her. Left alone in the terrible forest with tigers and snakes, she sobs aloud and repeatedly faints away from fear. "Yet I do not weep for myself," she exclaims; "my only thought is, how will you fare, my royal master, being left thus all alone?" She is seized by a huge snake, which coils its body around her; yet "even in this situation she thinks not so much of herself as she bewails the fate of the king." A hunter saves her and proceeds to make improper advances, but she, faithful to her lord, curses the hunter and he falls dead before her. Then she resumes her solitary roaming in the gloomy forest, "distressed by grief for her husband's fate," unmindful of his cruelty, or of her own sad plight.

It is needless to continue the tale; the reader cannot be so obtuse as not to notice the moral of it. The stories of Savitri and of Damayanti, far from exemplifying Hindoo conjugal devotion, simply afford fresh proof of the hoggish selfishness of the male Hindoo. They are intended to be object-lessons to wives, teaching them--like the laws of Manu and the custom of widow burning--that they do not exist for their own sakes, but for their husbands. Reading the stories in the light of this remark, we cannot fail to note everywhere the subtle craft of the sly men who invented them. If further evidence were needed to sustain my view it would be found in the fact related by F. Reuleaux, that to this day the priests arrange an annual "prayer-festival" of Hindoo women at which the wife must in every way show her subjection to her husband and master. She must wash his feet, dry them, put a wreath around his neck, and bring offerings to the gods, praying that he may prosper and live long. Then follows a meal for which she has prepared all his favorite dishes. And as a climax, the story of Savitri is read, a story in which the wife lives only for the husband, while he, as he rudely tells her--after all her devotion--lives only for his parents!

If these stories were anything else than slyly planned object-lessons calculated to impress and subjugate the women, why is it that the husband is never chosen to act the self-sacrificing part? He does, indeed, sometimes indulge in frantic outbursts of grief and maudlin sentimentality, but that is because he has lost the young woman who pleased his senses. There is no sign of soul-love here; the husband never dreams of devoting his life to her, of sacrificing it for her sake, as she is constantly exhorted to do for his sake. In a word, masculine selfishness is the keynote of Hindoo life. "When in danger, never hesitate to sacrifice your goods and your wife to save your life," we read in the Hitopadesa (25); and No. 4112 of Boehtlingk's Hindu Maxims declares bluntly that a wife exists for the purpose of bearing sons, and a son for the purpose of offering sacrifices after his father's death. There we have masculine selfishness in a nutshell. Another maxim declares that a wife can atone for her lack or loss of beauty by faithful subjection to her husband. And in return for all the devotion expected of her she is utterly despised--considered unworthy of an education, unfit even to profess virginity--in a word, looked on "as scarcely forming a part of the human species." In the most important event in her life--marriage--her choice is never consulted. The matter is, as we have seen, left to the family barber, or to the parents, to whom questions of caste and wealth are of infinitely more importance than personal preferences. When those matters are arranged the man satisfies himself concerning the inclinations of the chosen girl's kindred, and when assured that he will not "suffer the affront of a refusal" from them he proceeds with the offer and the bargaining. "To marry or to buy a girl are synonymous terms in this country," says Dubois (I., 198); and he proceeds, to give an account of the bargaining and the disgraceful quarrels this leads to.

BAYADÈRES AND PRINCESSES AS HEROINES

Under such circumstances the Hindoo playwrights must have found themselves in a curious dilemma. They were sufficiently versed in the poetic art to build up a plot; but what chance for an amorous plot was there in a country where there was no courtship, where women were sold, ignored, maltreated, and despised? Perforce the poets had to neglect realism, give up all idea of mirroring respectable domestic life, and take refuge in the realms of tradition, fancy, or liaisons. It is interesting to note how they got around the difficulty. They either made their heroines bayadères, or princesses, or girls willing to be married in a way allowing them their own choice, but not reputed respectable. Bayadères, though not permitted to marry, were at liberty to choose their temporary companions. Cûdraka indulges in the poetic license of making Vasantasena superior to other bayadères and rewarding her in the end by a regular marriage as the hero's wife number two. By way of securing variety, apsaras, or celestial bayadères, were brought on the scene, as in Kalidasa's Urvasi, permitting the poet to indulge in still bolder flights of fancy. Princesses, again, were favorite heroines, for various reasons, one of which was the tradition concerning the custom called Svayamvara or "Maiden's Choice"--a princess being "permitted," after a tournament, to "choose" the victor. The story of Nala and Damayanti has made us familiar with a similar meeting of kings, at which the princess chooses the lover she has determined on beforehand, though she has never seen him. Apart from the fantasticality of this episode, it is obvious that even if the Svayamvara was once a custom in royal circles it did not really insure to the princesses free choice of a rational kind. Brought up in strict seclusion, a king's daughter could never have seen any of the men competing for her. The victor might be the least sympathetic to her of all, and even if she had a large number of suitors to choose from, her selection could not be based on anything but the momentary and superficial judgment; of the eye. But for dramatic purposes the Svayamvara was useful.

VOLUNTARY UNIONS NOT RESPECTABLE

In Sakuntala, Kalidasa resorts to the third of the expedients I have mentioned. The king weds the girl whom he finds in the grove of the saints in accordance with a form which was not regarded as respectable--marriage based on mutual inclination, without the knowledge of the parents. The laws of Mann (III., 20-134) recognized eight kinds of marriage:

(1) gift of a daughter to a man learned in the Vedas, (2) gift of a daughter to a priest; (3) gift of a daughter in return for presents of cows, etc.; (4) gift of a daughter, with a dress. In these four the father gives away his daughter as he chooses. In (5) the groom buys the girl with presents to her kinsmen or herself; (6) is voluntary union; (7) forcible abduction (in war); (8) rape of a girl asleep, or drunk, or imbecile.

In other words, of the eight kinds of marriage recognized by Hindoo law and custom only one is based on free choice, and of that Mann says: "The voluntary connection of a maiden and a man is to be known as a Gandharva union, which arises from lust." It is classed among the blamable marriages. Even this appears not to have been a legal form before Mann. It is blamable because contracted without the consent or knowledge of the parents, and because, unless the sacred fire has been obtained from a Brahman to sanctify it, such a marriage is merely a temporary union. Gandharvas, after whom it is named, are singers and other musicians in Indra's heaven, who, like the apsaras, enter into unions that are not intended to be enduring, but are dissoluble at will. Such marriages (liaisons we call them) are frequently mentioned in Hindoo literature (e.g., Hitopadesa, p. 85). Malati (30) chides her friend for advising her to make a secret marriage, and later on exclaims (75): "I am lost! What a girl must not do, my friend counsels me." The orthodox view is unfolded by the Buddhist nun Kamándaki(33): "We hear of Duschyanta loving Sakuntala, of Pururavas loving Urvasi ... but these cases look like arbitrary action and cannot be commended as models." In Sakuntala, too, the king feels it incumbent on him to apologize to the girl he covets, when she bids him not to transgress the laws of propriety, by exclaiming that many other girls have thus been taken by kings without incurring parental disapproval. The directions for this form of courtship given in the Kama Soutra indicate that Sakuntala had every reason to appeal to the rules of propriety, social and moral. Kalidasa spares us the details.

The king's desertion of Sakuntala after he had obtained his self-indulgent object was quite in accordance with the spirit of a Gandharva marriage. Kalidasa, for dramatic purposes, makes it a result of a saint's curse, which enables him to continue his story interestingly. A poet has a right to such license, even though it takes him out of the realm of realism. Hindoo poets, like others, know how to rise above sordid reality into a more ideal sphere, and for this reason, even if we had found in the dramas of India a portrayal of true love, it would not prove that it existed outside of a poet's glowing and prophetic fancy. There is a Hindoo saying, "Do not strike a woman, even with a flower;" but we have seen that these Hindoos often do physically abuse their wives most cruelly, besides subjecting them to indescribable mental anguish, and mental anguish is much more painful and more prolonged than bodily torture. Fine words do not make fine feelings. From this point of view Dalton was perhaps right when he asserted that the wild tribes of India come closer to us in their love-affairs than the more cultured Hindoos, with their "unromantic heart-schooling." We have seen that Albrecht Weber's high estimate of the Hindoo's romantic sentiment does not bear the test of a close psychological analysis.

The Hindoo may have fewer uncultivated traits of emotion than the wild tribesmen, but they are in the same field. Hindoo civilization rose to splendid heights, in some respects, and even the great moral principle of altruism was cultivated; but it was not applied to the relations between the sexes, and thus we see once more that the refinement of the affections--especially the sexual affections--comes last in the evolution of civilization. Masculine selfishness and sensuality have prevented the Hindoo from entering the Elysian fields of romantic love. He has always allowed, and still allows, the minds of women to lie fallow, being contented with their bodily charms, and unaware that the most delightful of all sexual differences are those of mind and character. To quote once more the Abbé Dubois (I., 271), the most minute and philosophic observer of Indian manners and morals:

"The Hindoos are nurtured in the belief that there can be nothing disinterested or innocent in the intercourse between a man and a woman; and however Platonic the attachment might be between two persons of different sex, it would be infallibly set down to sensual love."

DOES THE BIBLE IGNORE ROMANTIC LOVE?

My assertion that there are no cases of romantic love recorded in the Bible naturally aroused opposition, and not a few critics lifted up their voices in loud protest against such ignorant audacity. The case for the defence was well summed up in the Rochester Post-Express:

"The ordinary reader will find many love-stories in the Scriptures, What are we to think, for instance, of this passage from the twenty-ninth chapter of Genesis: 'And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender-eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well-favored. And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had for her,' It may be said that after marriage Jacob's love was not of the modern conjugal type; but certainly his pre-matrimonial passion was self-sacrificing, enduring, and hopeful enough for a mediaeval romance. The courtship of Ruth and Boaz is a bold and pretty love-story, which details the scheme of an old widow and a young widow for the capture of a wealthy kinsman. The Song of Solomon is, on the surface, a wonderful love-poem. But it is needless to multiply illustrations from this source."

A Chicago critic declared that it would be easy to show that from the moment when Adam said,

"This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh"

--from that moment unto this day "that which it pleases our author to call romantic love has been substantially one and the same thing.... Has this writer never heard of Isaac and Rebekah; of Jacob and Rachel?" A Philadelphia reviewer doubted whether I believed in my own theory because I ignored in my chapter on love among the Hebrews "the story of Jacob and Rachel and other similar instances of what deserves to be called romantic love among the Hebrews." Professor H.O. Trumbull emphatically repudiates my theory in his Studies in Oriental Social Life (62-63); proceeding:

"Yet in the very first book of the Old Testament narrative there appears the story of young Jacob's romantic love for Rachel, a love which was inspired by their first meeting [Gen. 29: 10-18] and which was afresh and tender memory in the patriarch Jacob's mind when long years after he had buried her in Canaan [Gen. 35: 16-20] he was on his deathbed in Egypt [Gen. 48: 1-7]. In all the literature of romantic love in all the ages there can be found no more touching exhibit of the true-hearted fidelity of a romantic lover than that which is given of Jacob in the words: 'And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her.' And the entire story confirms the abiding force of that sentiment. There are, certainly, gleams of romantic love from out of the clouds of degraded human passion in the ancient East, in the Bible stories of Shechem and Dinah [Gen. 34: 1-31], of Samson and the damsel of Timnath [Judg. 14: 1-3], of David and Abigail [I. Sam. 25: 1-42], of Adonijah and Abishag [I. Kings 2: 13-17], and other men and women of whom the Scriptures tell us."

Cénac Moncaut, who begins his Histoire de l'Amour dans l'Antiquité with Adam and Eve, declares (28-31) that the episode of Jacob and Rachel marks the birth of perfect love in the world, the beginning of its triumph, followed, however, by relapses in days of darkness and degradation. If all these writers are correct then my theory falls to the ground and romantic love must be conceded to be at least four thousand years old, instead of less than one thousand. But let us look at the facts in detail and see whether there is really no difference between ancient Hebrew and modern Christian love.

The Rev. Stopford Brooke has remarked:

"Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph may have existed as real men, and played their part in the founding of the Jewish race, but their stories, as we have them, are as entirely legendary as those of Arthur or Siegfried, of Agamemnon or Charlemagne."

This consideration would bring the date of the story from the time when Jacob is supposed to have lived down to the much later time when the legend was elaborated. I have no desire, however, to seek refuge behind such chronological uncertainties, nor to reassert that my theory is a question of evolution rather than of dates, and that, therefore, if Jacob and Rachel, during their prolonged courtship, had the qualities of mind and character to feel the exalted sentiment of romantic love, we might concede in their case an exception which, by its striking isolation, would only prove the rule. I need no such refuge, for I can see no reason whatever for accepting the story of Jacob and Rachel as an exceptional instance of romantic love.

THE STORY OF JACOB AND RACHEL

Nothing could be more charmingly poetic than this story as told by the old Hebrew chronicler. The language is so simple yet so pictorial that we fancy we can actually see Jacob as he accosts the shepherds at the well to ask after his uncle Laban, and they reply "Behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep." We see him as he rolls the stone from the well's mouth and waters his uncle's flocks; we see him as he kisses Rachel and lifts up his voice and weeps. He kisses her of course by right of being a relative, and not as a lover; for we cannot suppose that even an Oriental shepherd girl could have been so devoid of maidenly prudence and coyness as to give a love-kiss to a stranger at their first meeting. Though apparently her cousin (Gen. 28: 2; 29:10), Jacob tells her he is her uncle; "and Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's brother."[286] There was the less impropriety in his kissing her, as she was probably a girl of fifteen or sixteen and he old enough to be her grandfather, or even great-grandfather, his age at the time of meeting her being seventy-seven.[287] But as men are reported to have aged slowly in those days, this did not prevent him from desiring to marry Rachel, for whose sake he was willing to serve her father. Strange to say, the words "And Jacob served seven years for Rachel" have been accepted as proof of self-sacrifice by several writers, including Dr. Abel, who cites those words as indicating that the ancient Hebrews knew "the devotion of love, which gladly serves the beloved and shuns no toil in her behalf." In reality Jacob's seven years of service have nothing whatever to do with self-sacrifice. He did not "serve his beloved" but her father; did not toil "in her behalf" but on his own behalf. He was simply doing that very unromantic thing, paying for his wife by working a stipulated time for her father, in accordance with a custom prevalent among primitive peoples the world over. Our text is very explicit on the subject; after Jacob had been with his relative a month Laban had said unto him: "Because thou art my brother shouldst thou therefore serve me for naught? tell me what shall thy wages be?" And Jacob had chosen Rachel for his wages. Rachel and Leah themselves quite understood the commercial nature of the matrimonial arrangement; for when, years afterward, they are prepared to leave their father they say: "Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house? Are we not counted of him strangers? for he hath sold us, and hath also quite devoured the price paid for us."

Instead of the sentimental self-sacrifice of a devoted lover for his mistress we have here, therefore, simply an example of a prosaic, mercenary marriage custom familiar to all students of anthropology. But how about the second half of that sentence, which declares that Jacob's seven years of service "seemed to him but a few days for the love he had for her?" Is not this the language of an expert in love? Many of my critics, to my surprise, seemed to think so, but I am convinced that none of them can have ever been in love or they would have known that a lover is so impatient and eager to call his beloved irrevocably his own, so afraid that someone else might steal away her affection from him, that Jacob's seven years, instead of shrinking to a few days, would have seemed to him like seven times seven years.

A minute examination of the story of Jacob and Rachel thus reveals world-wide differences between the ancient Hebrew and the modern Christian conceptions of love, corresponding, we have no reason to doubt, to differences in actual feeling. And as we proceed, these differences become more and more striking:

"And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast. And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in unto her.... And it came to pass, in the morning that, behold, it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou has done unto me? Did not I serve with thee for Rachel? Wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It is not so done in our place, to give the younger before the first-born. Fulfil the week of this one, and we will give thee the other also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week; and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife."

Surely it would be difficult to condense into so few lines more facts and conditions abhorrent to the Christian conception of the sanctity of love than is done in this passage. Can anyone deny that in a modern Christian country Laban's breach of contract with Jacob, his fraudulent substitution of the wrong daughter, and Jacob's meek acceptance of two wives in eight days would not only arouse a storm of moral indignation, but would land both these men in a police court and in jail? I say this not in a flippant spirit, but merely to bring out as vividly as possible the difference between the ancient Hebrew and modern Christian ideals of love. Furthermore, what an utter ignorance or disregard of the rights of personal preference, sympathy, and all the higher ingredients of love, is revealed in Laban's remark that it was not customary to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older had been disposed of! And how utterly opposed to the modern conception of love is the sequel of the story, in which we are told that "because" Leah was hated by her husband "therefore" she was made fruitful, and she bore him four sons, while the beloved Rachel remained barren! Was personal preference thus not only to be repressed by marrying off girls according to their age, but even punished? No doubt it was, according to the Hebrew notion; in their patriarchal mode of life the father was the absolute tyrant in the household, who reserved the right to select spouses for both his sons and daughters, and felt aggrieved if his plans were interfered with. The object of marriage was not to make a happy, sympathetic couple, but to raise sons; wherefore the hated Leah naturally exclaims, after she has borne Reuben, her first son, "Now my husband will love me." That is not the kind of love we look for in our marriages. We expect a man to love his wife for her own sake.

This notion, that the birth of sons is the one object of marriage, and the source of conjugal love, is so preponderant in the minds of these women that it crowds out all traces of monopoly or jealousy. Leah and Rachel not only submit to Laban's fraudulent substitution on the wedding-night, but each one meekly accepts her half of Jacob's attentions. The utter absence of jealousy is strikingly revealed in this passage:

"And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and she said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; that she may bear upon my knees, and I also may obtain children by her. And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her. And Bilhah conceived and bare Jacob a son.... And Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid, conceived again, and bare Jacob a second son.... When Leah saw she had left bearing, she took Zilpah her handmaid, and gave her to Jacob to wife. And Zilpah Leah's handmaid bare Jacob a son.... And God hearkened unto Leah, and she conceived, and bare Jacob a fifth son. And Leah said, God hath given me my hire, because I gave my handmaid to my husband."

Thus polygamy and concubinage are treated not only as a matter of course, but as a cause for divine reward! It might be said that there does exist a sort of jealousy between Leah and Rachel: a rivalry as to which of the two shall bear their husband the more sons, either by herself or by proxy. But how utterly different this rivalry is from the jealousy of a modern Christian wife, the very essence of which lies in the imperative insistence on the exclusive affection and chaste fidelity of her husband! And as modern Christian jealousy differs from ancient Hebrew jealousy, so does modern romantic love in general differ from Hebrew love. There is not a line in the story of Jacob and Rachel indicating the existence of monopoly, jealousy, coyness, hyperbole, mixed moods, pride, sympathy, gallantry, self-sacrifice, adoration, purity. Of the thirteen essential ingredients of romantic love only two are implied--individual preference and admiration of personal beauty. Jacob preferred Rachel to Leah, and this preference was based on her bodily charms: she was "beautiful and well-favored." Of the higher mental phases of personal beauty not a word is said.

In the case of the women, not even their individual preference is hinted at, and this is eminently characteristic of the ancient Hebrew notions and practices in regard to marriage. Did Rachel and Leah marry Jacob because they preferred him to all other men they knew? To Laban and his contemporaries such a question would have seemed absurd. They knew nothing of marriage as a union of souls. The woman was not considered at all. The object of marriage, as in India, was to raise sons, in order that there might be someone to represent the departed father. Being chiefly for the father's benefit, the marriage was naturally arranged by him. As a matter of fact, even Jacob did not select his own wife!

"And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, Arise, go to Padan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, thy mothers father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother's brother."

And Jacob did as ordered. His choice was limited to the two sisters.

THE COURTING OF REBEKAH

Isaac himself had even less liberty of choice than Jacob. He courted Rebekah by proxy--or rather his father courted her through her father, for him, by proxy! When Abraham was stricken with age he said to his servant, the elder of his house, that ruled over all that he had, and enjoined on him, under oath,

"thou shalt not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I shall dwell; but thou shalt go into my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac."

And the servant did as he had been ordered. He journeyed to the city of Mesopotamia where Abraham's brother Nahor and his descendants dwelt. As he lingered at the well, Rebekah came out with her pitcher upon her shoulder. "And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her." And she filled her pitcher and gave him drink and then drew water and filled the trough for all his camels. And he gave her a ring and two bracelets of gold. And she ran and told her mother's house what had happened. And her brother Laban ran out to meet the servant of Abraham and brought him to the house. Then the servant delivered his message to him and to Rebekah's father, Bethuel; and they answered: "Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master's son's wife." And he wanted to take her next day, but they wished her to abide with them at the least ten days longer. "And they said, We will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth. And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go. And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men." And Isaac was in the field meditating when he saw their camels coming toward him. Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she lighted off her camel, and asked the servant who was the man coming to meet them; and when he said it was his master, she took her veil and covered herself. And Isaac brought her into her mother's tent and she became his wife, and he loved her.

Such is the story of the courting of Rebekah. It resembles a story of modern courtship and love about as much as the Hebrew language resembles the English, and calls for no further comment. But there is another story to consider; my critics accused me of ignoring the three R's of Hebrew love--Rachel, Rebekah, and Ruth. "The courtship of Ruth and Boaz is a bold and pretty love-story." Bold and pretty, no doubt; but let us see if it is a love-story. The following omits no essential point.

HOW RUTH COURTED BOAZ

It came to pass during a famine that a certain man went to sojourn in the country of Moab with his wife, whose name was Naomi, and two sons. The husband died there and the two sons also, having married, died after ten years, leaving Naomi a widow with two widowed daughters-in-law, whose names were Orpah and Ruth. She decided to return to the country whence she had come, but advised the younger widows to remain and go back to the families of their mothers. I am too old, she said, to bear again husbands for you, and even if I could do so, would you therefore tarry till they were grown? Orpah thereupon kissed her mother-in-law and went back to her people; but Ruth clave unto her and said "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.... Where thou diest, will I die." So the two went until they came to Bethlehem, in which place Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a mighty man of wealth, whose name was Boaz. They arrived in the beginning of the barley harvest, and Ruth went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. Her hap was to light on the portion of the field belonging to Boaz. When he saw her he asked the reapers "Whose damsel is this?" And they told him. Then Boaz spoke to Ruth and told her to glean in his field and abide with his maidens, and when athirst drink of that which the young men had drawn; and he told the young men not to touch her. At meal-time he gave her bread to eat and vinegar to dip it in, and he told his young men to let her glean even among the sheaves and also to pull out some for her from the bundles, and leave it, and let her glean and rebuke her not. And he did all this because, as he said to her,

"It hath been shewed me, all that them hast done to thy mother-in-law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore."

So Ruth gleaned in the field until even; then she beat out what she had gleaned and took it to Naomi and told her all that had happened. And Naomi said unto her,

"My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee? And now is there not Boaz our kinsman, with whose maidens thou wast? Behold, he winnoweth barley to-night in the threshing-floor. Wash thyself therefore, and anoint thee and put thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the threshing-floor; but make not thyself known unto the man, until he shall have done eating and drinking. And it shall be, when he lieth down, that thou shalt mark the place where he shall lie, and thou shalt go in, and uncover his feet, and lay thee down; and he will tell thee what thou wilt do."

And Ruth did as her mother-in-law bade her. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn; and she came softly and uncovered his feet, and laid her down. And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid [startled], and turned himself; and, behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, "who art thou?" And she answered, "I am Ruth thine handmaid; spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman." And he said,

"Blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter; thou hast shewed more kindness in the latter end, than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou sayest; for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman. And now it is true that I am a near kinsman: howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I. Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman's part; but if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the LORD liveth: lie down until the morning."

And she lay at his feet until the morning: and she rose up before one could discern another. For he said, "Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing-floor." Then he gave her six measures of barley and went into the city. He sat at the gate until the other kinsman he had spoken of came by, and Boaz said to him,

"Naomi selleth the parcel of land which was our brother Elimelech's. If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it; but if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me that I may know; for there is none to redeem it beside thee; and I am after thee. What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance."

And the near kinsman said, "I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance; take then my right of redemption on thee; for I cannot redeem it. Buy it for thyself." And he drew off his shoe. And Boaz called the elders to witness, saying,

"Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place."

So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife.

How anyone can read this charmingly told, frank, and realistic tale of ancient Hebrew life and call it a love-story, passeth all understanding. There is not the slightest suggestion of love, either sensual or sentimental, on the part of either Ruth or Boaz. Ruth, at the suggestion of her mother-in-law, spends a night in a way which would convict a Christian widow, to say the least, of an utter lack of that modesty and coy reserve which are a woman's great charm, and which, even among the pastoral Hebrews, cannot have been approved, inasmuch as Boaz did not want it to be known that she had come to the threshing-floor. He praises Ruth for following "not young men, whether rich or poor." She followed him, a wealthy old man. Would love have acted thus? What she wanted was not a lover but a protector ("rest for thee that it may be well for thee," as Naomi said frankly), and above all a son in order that her husband's name might not perish. Boaz understands this as a matter of course; but so far is he, on his part, from being in love with Ruth, that he offers her first to the other relative, and on his refusal, buys her for himself, without the least show of emotion indicating that he was doing anything but his duty. He was simply fulfilling the law of the Levirate, as written in Deuteronomy (25:5), ordaining that if a husband die without leaving a son his brother shall take the widow to him to wife and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her; that is, to beget a son (the first-born) who shall succeed in the name of his dead brother, "that his name be not blotted out of Israel." How very seriously the Hebrews took this law is shown by the further injunction that if a brother refuses thus to perform his duty,

"then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand and say, I like not to take her; then shall his brother's wife come into him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe off his foot, and spit in his face; and she shall answer and say, so shall it be done unto the man that doth not build up his brother's house. And his name shall be called in Israel, the house of him that hath his shoe loosed."

Onan was even slain for thus refusing to do his duty (Gen. 38:8-10).

NO SYMPATHY OR SENTIMENT

The three R's of Hebrew love thus show how these people arranged their marriages with reference to social and religious customs or utilitarian considerations, buying their wives by service or otherwise, without any thought of sentimental preferences and sympathies, such as underlie modern Christian marriages of the higher order. It might be argued that the ingredients of romantic love existed, but simply are not dwelt on in the old Hebrew stories. But it is impossible to believe that the Bible, that truly inspired and wonderfully realistic transcript of life, which records the minutest details, should have neglected in its thirty-nine books, making over seven hundred pages of fine print, to describe at least one case of sentimental infatuation, romantic adoration, and self-sacrificing devotion in pre-matrimonial love, had such love existed. Why should it have neglected to describe the manifestations of sentimental love, since it dwells so often on the symptoms and results of sensual passion? Stories of lust abound in the Hebrew Scriptures; Genesis alone has five. The Lord repented that he had made man on earth and destroyed even his chosen people, all but Noah, because every imagination in the thoughts of man's heart "was only evil continually." But the flood did not cure the evil, nor did the destruction of Sodom, as a warning example. It is after those events that the stories are related of Lot's incestuous daughters, the seduction of Dinah, the crime of Judah and Tamar, the lust of Potiphar's wife, of David and Bath-sheba, of Amnon and Tamar, of Absalom on the roof, with many other references to such crimes.[288]

A MASCULINE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD

There is every reason to conclude that these ancient Jews, unlike many of their modern descendants, knew only the coarser phases of the instinct which draws man to woman. They knew not romantic love for the simple reason that they had not discovered the charm of refined femininity, or even recognized woman's right to exist for her own sake, and not merely as man's domestic servant and the mother of his sons. "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee," Eve was told in Eden, and her male descendants administered that punishment zealously and persistently; whereas the same lack of gallantry which led Adam to put all the blame on Eve impelled his descendants to make the women share his part of the curse too--"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread"; for they were obliged to do not only all the work in the house, but most of that in the fields, seething under a tropical sun. From this point of view the last chapter of the Proverbs (31:10-31) is instructive. It is often referred to as a portrait of a perfect woman, but in reality it is little more than a picture of Hebrew masculine selfishness. Of the forty-five lines making up this chapter, nine are devoted to praise of the feminine virtues of fidelity to a husband, kindness to the needy, strength, dignity, wisdom, and fear of the Lord; while the rest of the chapter goes to show that the Hebrew woman indeed "eateth not the bread of idleness," and that the husband "shall have no lack of gain"--or spoil, as the alternative reading is:

"She seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands. She is like the merchant ships: she bringeth her food from afar. She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and their task to the maidens. She considereth a field and buyeth it; with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.... She perceiveth that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.... She maketh for herself carpets of tapestry.... She maketh linen garments and selleth them; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant."

As for the husband, he "is known in the gates, When he sitteth among the elders of the land," which is an easy and pleasant thing to do; hardly in accordance with the curse the Lord pronounced on Adam and his male descendants. The wife being thus the maid of all work, as among Indians and other primitive races, it is natural that the ancient Hebrew ideal of femininity should he masculine: "She girdeth her loins with strength, and maketh strong her arms;" while the feminine charms are sneered at: "Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain."

NOT THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL OF LOVE

Not only feminine charms, but the highest feminine virtues are sometimes strangely, nay, shockingly disregarded, as in the story of Lot (Gen. 19:1-12), who, when besieged by the mob clamoring for the two men who had taken refuge in his house, went out and said:

"I pray you, my brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing, forasmuch as they are come under the shadow of my roof."

And this man was saved, though his action was surely more villainous than the wickedness of the Sodomites who were destroyed with brimstone and fire. In Judges (19: 22-30) we read of a man offering his maiden daughter and his concubine to a mob to prevent an unnatural crime being committed against his guest: "Seeing that this man is come into my house, do not this folly." This case is of extreme sociological importance as showing that notwithstanding the strict laws of Moses (Levit. 20: 10; Deut. 22: 13-30) on sexual crimes, the law of hospitality seems to have been held more sacred than a father's regard for his daughter's honor. The story of Abraham shows, too, that he did not hold his wife's honor in the same esteem as a modern Christian does:

"And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, 'Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon; and it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife; and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, Thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy sake, and that my soul may live because of thee."

And it happened as he had arranged. She was taken into Pharaoh's house and he was treated well for her sake; and he had sheep, and oxen, and other presents. When he went to sojourn in Gerar (Gen. 20:1-15) Abraham tried to repeat the same stratagem, taking refuge, when found out, in the double excuse that he was afraid he would be slain for his wife's sake, and that she really was his sister, the daughter of his father, but not the daughter of his mother. Isaac followed his father's example in Gerar:

"The man of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, My wife; lest (said he) the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon."

Yet we were told that Isaac loved Rebekah. Such is not Christian love. The actions of Abraham and Isaac remind one of the Blackfoot Indian tale told on page 631 of this volume. An American army officer would not only lay down his own life, but shoot his wife with his own pistol before he would allow her to fall into the enemy's hands, because to him her honor is, of all things human, the most sacred.

UNCHIVALROUS SLAUGHTER OF WOMEN

Emotions are the product of actions or of ideas about actions. Inasmuch as Hebrew actions toward women and ideas about them were so radically different from ours it logically follows that they cannot have known the emotions of love as we know them. The only symptom of love referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures is Amnon's getting lean from day to day and feigning sickness (II. Sam. 13: 1-22); and the story shows what kind of love that was. It would be contrary to all reason and psychological consistency to suppose that modern tenderness of romantic feeling toward women could have existed among a people whose greatest and wisest man could, for any reason whatever, chide a returning victorious army, as Moses did (Numbers 31: 9-19), for saving all the women alive, and could issue this command:

"Now, therefore, kill every male among the living ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

The Arabs were the first Asiatics who spared women in war; the Hebrews had not risen to that chivalrous stage of civilization. Joshua (8:26) destroyed Ai and slew 12,000, "both of men and women:" and in Judges (21:10-12) we read how the congregation sent an army of 12,000 men and commanded them, saying,

"Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones. And this is the thing ye shall do; ye shall utterly destroy every male and every woman that hath lain by man."

And they did so, sparing only the four hundred virgins. These were given to the tribe of Benjamin, "that a tribe be not blotted out from Israel;" and when it was found that more were needed they lay in wait in the vineyards, and when the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance, they caught them and carried them off as their wives; whence we see that these Hebrews had not advanced beyond the low stage of evolution, when wives are secured by capture or killed after battle. Among such seek not for romantic love.

FOUR MORE BIBLE STORIES

Dr. Trumbull's opinion has already been cited that there are certainly "gleams of romantic love from out of the clouds of degraded human passions in the ancient East," in the stories of Shechem and Dinah, Samson and the damsel of Timnah, David and Abigail, Adonijah and Abishag. But I fail to find even "gleams" of romantic love in these stories. Shechem said he loved Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, but he humbled her and dealt with her "as with an harlot," as her brothers said after they had slain him for his conduct toward her. Concerning Samson and the Timnah girl we are simply told that he saw her and told his father, "Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well" (literally, "she is right in my eyes"). And this is evidence of romantic love! As for Abigail, after her husband has refused to feed David's shepherds, and David has made up his mind therefore to slay him and his offspring, she takes provisions and meets David and induces him not to commit that crime; she does this not from love for her husband, for when David has received her presents he says to her, "See, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person." Ten days later, Abigail's husband died, and when David heard of it he

"sent and spake concerning Abigail, to take her to him to wife.... And she rose and bowed herself with her face to the earth, and said, Behold, thine handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord. And Abigail, hasted, and arose, and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that followed her; and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife."

And as if to emphasize how utterly unsentimental and un-Christian a transaction this was, the next sentence tells us that "David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they became both of them his wives."

ABISHAG THE SHUNAMMITE

The last of the stories referred to by Dr. Trumbull, though as far from proving his point as the others, is of peculiar interest because it introduces us to the maiden who is believed by some commentators to be the same as the Shulamite, the heroine of the Song of Songs. After Solomon had become king his elder brother, Adonijah, went to the mother of Solomon, Bath-sheba, and said:

"Thou knowest thy kingdom was mine, and that all Israel set their faces on me, that I should reign: howbeit the kingdom is turned about, and is become my brother's: for it was his from the Lord. And now I ask one petition of thee, deny me not.... Speak, I pray thee, unto Solomon the king (for he will not say thee nay) that he give me Abishag the Shunammite to wife."

But when Solomon heard this request he declared that Adonijah had spoken that word against his own life; and he sent a man who fell on him and killed him.

Who was this Abishag, the Shunammite? The opening lines of the First Book of Kings tell us how she came to the court:

"Now King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king, a young virgin, and let her stand before the king and cherish him; and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat. So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. And the damsel was very fair; and she cherished the king, and ministered to him; but the king knew her not."

THE SONG OF SONGS

Now it is plausibly conjectured that this Abishag of Shunam or Shulam (a town north of Jerusalem) was the same as the Shulamite of the Song of Songs, and that in the lines 6:11-12 she tells how she was kidnapped and brought to court.

I went down into the garden of nuts, To see the green plants of the valley, To see whether the vine budded, And the pomegranates were in flower, Or ever I was aware, my soul [desire] set me Among the chariots of my princely people.

She also explains why her face is tanned like the dark tents of Kedar: "My mother's sons were incensed against me, They made me keeper of the vineyards." The added words "mine own vineyard have I not kept" are interpreted by some as an apology for her neglected personal appearance, but Renan (10) more plausibly refers them to her consciousness of some indiscretion, which led to her capture. We may suppose that, attracted by the glitter and the splendor of the royal cavalcade, she for a moment longed to enjoy it, and her desire was gratified. Brought to court to comfort the old king, she remained after his death at the palace, and Solomon, who wished to add her to his harem, killed his own brother when he found him coveting her. The maiden soon regrets her indiscretion in having exposed herself to capture. She is "a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley," and she feels like a wildflower transplanted to a palace hall. While Solomon in all his glory urges his suit, she, tormented by homesickness, thinks only of her vineyard, her orchards, and the young shepherd whose love she enjoyed in them. Absent-minded, as one in a revery, or dreaming aloud, she answers the addresses of the king and his women in words that ever refer to her shepherd lover:[289]

"Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest thy flock." "My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna flowers in the vineyards of En-gedi." "Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea pleasant: Also our couch is green." "As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste." "The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." "My beloved is mine, and I am his: He feedeth his flock among the lilies," "Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards.... There will I give thee my love."

The home-sick country girl, in a word, has found out that the splendors of the palace are not to her taste, and the thought of being a young shepherd's darling is pleasanter to her than that of being an old king's concubine. The polygamous rapture with which Solomon addresses her: "There are three-score queens and four-score concubines, and maidens without number," does not appeal to her rural taste. She has no desire to be the hundred and forty-first piece of mosaic inlaid in Solomon's palanquin (III., 9-10), and she stubbornly resists his advances until, impressed by her firmness, and unwilling to force her, the king allows her to return to her vineyard and her lover.

The view that the gist of the Song of Songs is the Shulamite's love of a shepherd and her persistent resistance to the advances of Solomon, was first advanced in 1771 by J.F. Jacobi, and is now universally accepted by the commentators, the overwhelming majority of whom have also given up the artificial and really blasphemous allegorical interpretation of this poem once in vogue, but ignored in the Revised Version, as well as the notion that Solomon wrote the poem. Apart from all other arguments, which are abundant, it is absurd to suppose that Solomon would have written a drama to proclaim his own failure to win the love of a simple country girl. In truth, it is very probable that, as Renan has eloquently set forth (91-100), the Song of Songs was written practically for the purpose of holding up Solomon to ridicule. In the northern part of his kingdom there was a strong feeling against him on account of his wicked ways and vicious innovations, especially his harem, and other expensive habits that impoverished the country. "Taken all in all," says the Rev. W.E. Griffis, of Solomon (44),

"he was probably one of the worst sinners described in the Old Testament. With its usual truth and fearlessness, the Scriptures expose his real character, and by the later prophets and by Jesus he is ignored or referred to only in rebuke."

The contempt and hatred inspired by his actions were especially vivid shortly after his death, when the Song of Songs is believed to have been written (Renan, 97); and, as this author remarks (100),

"the poet seems to have been animated by a real spite against the king; the establishment of a harem, in particular, appears to incense him greatly, and he takes evident pleasure in showing us a simple shepherd girl triumphing over the presumptuous sultan who thinks he can buy love, like everything else, with his gold."

That this is intended to be the moral of this Biblical drama is further shown by the famous lines near the close:

"For love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave [literally: passion is as inexorable (or hard) as sheol]: The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench it, nor can the floods drown it: If a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he [it] would utterly be contemned."

These lines constitute the last of the passages cited by my critics to prove that the ancient Hebrews knew romantic love and its power. They doubtless did know the power of love; all the ancient civilized nations knew it as a violent sensual impulse which blindly sacrifices life to attain its object. The ancient Hindoos embodied their idea of irresistible power in the force and fury of an amorous elephant. Among animals in general, love is even stronger than death. Male animals of most species engage in deadly combat for the females. "For most insects," says Letourneau, "to love and to die are almost synonymous terms, and yet they do not even try to resist the amorous frenzy that urges them on." Yet no one would dream of calling this romantic love; from that it differs as widely as the insect mind in general differs from the human mind. Waters cannot quench any kind of love or affection nor floods drown it. What we are seeking for are actions or words describing the specific symptoms of sentimental love, and these are not to be found in this passage any more than elsewhere in the Bible. An old man may buy a girl's body, but he cannot, with all his wealth and splendor, awaken her love, either sentimental or sensual; love, whatever its nature, will always prefer the apple-tree and the shepherd lover to the vain desires and a thousand times divided attentions of a decrepit king, though he be a Solomon.

It would be strange if this purely profane poem, which was added to the Scriptural collection only by an unusual stretch of liberality,[290] and in which there is not one mention of God or of religion, should give a higher conception of sexual love than the books which are accepted as inspired, and which paint manners, emotions, and morals as the writers found them. As a matter of fact the Song of Songs was long held to be so objectionable that the Talmudists did not allow young people to read it before their thirtieth year. Whiston denounced it as foolish, lascivious, and idolatrous. "The excessively amative character of some passages is designated as almost blasphemous when supposed to be addressed by Christ to his Church,"[291] as it was by the allegorists. On the other hand there is a class of commentators to whom this poem is the ideal of all that is pure and lovely. Herder went into ecstasies over it. Israel Abrahams refers to it (163) as "the noblest of love-poems;" as "this idealization of love." The Rev. W.E. Griffis declares rapturously (166, 63, 21, 16, 250) that "the purest-minded virgin may safely read the Song of Songs, in which is no trace of immoral thought." In it "sensuality is scorned and pure love glorified;" it "sets forth the eternal romance of true love," and is "chastely pure in word and delicate in idea throughout." "The poet of the Canticle shows us how to love." "An angel might envy such artless love dwelling in a human heart."

The truth, as usual in such cases, lies about half-way between these extreme views. There is only one passage which is objectionably coarse in the English version and in the Hebrew original obscene;[292] yet, on the other hand, I maintain that the whole poem is purely Oriental in its exclusively sensuous and often sensual character, and that there is not a trace of romantic sentiment such as would color a similar love-story if told by a modern poet. The Song of Songs is so confused in its arrangement, its plan so obscure, its repetitions and repeated dénouements so puzzling,[293] that commentators are not always agreed as to what character in the drama is to be held responsible for certain lines; but for our purpose this difficulty makes no difference. Taking the lines just as they stand, I find that the following:--1: 2-4, 13 (in one version), 17; 2: 6; 4: 16; 5: 1; 8: 2, 3--are indelicate in language or suggestion, as every student of Oriental amorous poetry knows, and no amount of specious argumentation can alter this. The descriptions of the beauty and charms of the beloved or the lover, are, moreover, invariably sensuous and often sensual. Again and again are their bodily charms dwelt on rapturously, as is customary in the poems of all Orientals with all sorts of quaint hyperbolic comparisons, some of which are poetic, others grotesque. No fewer than five times are the external charms thus enumerated, but not once in the whole poem is any allusion made to the spiritual attractions, the mental and moral charms of femininity which are the food of romantic love. Mr. Griffis, who cannot help commenting (223) on this frequent description of the human body, makes a desperate effort to come to the rescue. Referring to 4: 12-14, he says (212) that the lover now "adds a more delicate compliment to her modesty, her instinctive refinement, her chaste life, her purity amid court temptations. He praises her inward ornaments, her soul's charms." What are these ornaments? The possible reference to her chastity in the lines: "A garden shut up is my sister, my bride. A spring shut up, a fountain sealed"--a reference which, if so intended, would be regarded by a Christian maiden not as a compliment, but an insult; while every student of Eastern manners knows that an Oriental makes of his wife "a garden shut up," and "a fountain sealed" not by way of complimenting her chastity, but because he has no faith in it whatever, knowing that so far as it exists it is founded on fear, not on affection. Mr. Griffis knows this himself when he does not happen to be idealizing an impossible shepherd girl, for he says (161):

"To one familiar with the literature, customs, speech, and ideas of the women who live where idolatry prevails, and the rulers and chief men of the country keep harems, the amazing purity and modesty of maidens reared in Christian homes is like a revelation from heaven."[294]

Supersensual charms are not alluded to in the Song of Songs, for the simple reason that Orientals never did, and do not now, care for such charms in women or cultivate them. They know love only as an appetite, and in accordance with Oriental taste and custom the Song of Songs compares it always to things that are good to eat or drink or smell. Hence such ecstatic expressions as "How much better is thy love than wine! And the smell of thine ointments than all manner of spices!" Hence her declaration that her beloved is

"as the apple-tree among the trees of the wood.... I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.... Stay ye me with raisins, comfort me with apples: For I am sick of love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me."

Hence the shepherd's description of his love: "I am come into the garden, my sister, my bride: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice: I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk."

Modern love does not express itself in such terms; it is more mental and sentimental, more esthetic and sympathetic, more decorous and delicate, more refined and supersensual. While it is possible that, as Renan suggests (143), the author of the Canticles conceived his heroine as a saint of her time, rising above sordid reality, it is clear from all we have said that the author himself was not able to rise above Orientalism. The manners of the East, both ancient and modern, are incompatible with romantic love, because they suppress the evolution of feminine refinement and sexual mentality. The documents of the Hebrews, like those of the Hindoos and Persians, Greeks, and Romans, prove that tender, refined, and unselfish affection between the sexes, far from being one of the first shoots of civilization, is its last and most beautiful flower.

GREEK LOVE-STORIES AND POEMS

The most obstinate disbeliever in the doctrine that romantic love, instead of being one of the earliest products of civilization, is one of the latest, will have to capitulate if it can be shown that even the Greeks, the most cultivated and refined nation of antiquity, knew it only in its sensual and selfish side, which is not true love, but self-love. In reality I have already shown this to be the case incidentally in the sections in which I have traced the evolution of the fourteen ingredients of love. In the present chapter, therefore, we may confine ourselves chiefly to a consideration of the stories and poems which have fostered the belief I am combating. But first we must hear what the champions of the Greeks have to say in their behalf.

CHAMPIONS OF GREEK LOVE

Professor Rohde declares emphatically (70) that "no one would be so foolish as to doubt the existence of pure and strong love" among the ancient Greeks. Another eminent German scholar, Professor Ebers, sneers at the idea that the Greeks were not familiar with the love we know and celebrate. Having been criticised for making the lovers in his ancient historic romances act and talk and express their feelings precisely as modern lovers in Berlin or Leipsic do, he wrote for the second edition of his Egyptian Princess a preface in which he tries to defend his position. He admits that he did, perhaps, after all, put too warm colors on his canvas, and frankly confesses that when he examined in the sunshine what he had written by lamplight, he made up his mind to destroy his love-scenes, but was prevented by a friend. He admits, too, that Christianity refined the relations between the sexes; yet he thinks it "quite conceivable that a Greek heart should have felt as tenderly, as longingly as a Christian heart," and he refers to a number of romantic stories invented by the Greeks as proof that they knew love in our sense of the word--such stories as Apuleius's Cupid and Psyche, Homer's portrait of Penelope, Xenophon's tale of Panthea and Abradates.

"Can we assume even the gallantry of love to have been unknown in a country where the hair of a queen, Berenice, was transferred as a constellation to the skies; or can devotion to love be doubted in the case of peoples who, for the sake of a beautiful woman, wage terrible wars with bitter pertinacity?"

Hegel's episodic suggestion referred to in our first chapter regarding the absence of romantic love in ancient Greek literature having thus failed to convince even his own countrymen, it was natural that my revival of that suggestion, as a detail of my general theory of the evolution of love, should have aroused a chorus of critical dissent. Commenting on my assertion that there are no stories of romantic love in Greek literature, an editorial writer in the London Daily News exclaimed: "Why, it would be less wild to remark that the Greeks had nothing but love-stories." After referring to the stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, Meleager and Atalanta, Alcyone and Ceyx, Cephalus and Procris, the writer adds,

"It is no exaggeration to say that any school-girl could tell Mr. Finck a dozen others." "The Greeks were human beings, and had the sentiments of human beings, which really vary but little...."

The New York Mail and Express also devoted an editorial article to my book, in which it remarked that if romantic love is, as I claim, an exclusively modern sentiment,

"we must get rid of some old-fashioned fancies. How shall we hereafter classify our old friends Hero and Leander? Leander was a fine fellow, just like the handsomest boy you know. He fell in love with the lighthouse-keeper's daughter[!] and used to swim over the river[!] every night and make love to her. It was all told by an old Greek named Musaeus. How did he get such modern notions into his noddle? How, moreover, shall we classify Daphnis and Chloe? This fine old romance of Longus is as sweet and beautiful a love-story as ever skipped in prose."

"Daphnis and Chloe," wrote a New Haven critic, "is one of the most idyllic love-stories ever written." "The love story of Hero and Leander upsets this author's theory completely," said a Rochester reviewer, while a St. Louis critic declared boldly that "in the pages of Achilles Tatius and Theodorus, inventors of the modern novel, the young men and maidens loved as romantically as in Miss Evans's latest." A Boston censor pronounced my theory "simply absurd," adding:

"Mr. Finck's reading, wide as it is, is not wide enough; for had he read the Alexandrian poets, Theoeritus especially, or Behr A'Adin among the Arabs, to speak of no others, he could not possibly have had courage left to maintain his theory; and with him, really, it seems more a matter of courage than of facts, notwithstanding his evident training in a scientific atmosphere."

GLADSTONE ON THE WOMEN OF HOMER

The divers specifications of my ignorance and stupidity contained in the foregoing criticisms will be attended to in their proper place in the chronological order of the present chapter, which naturally begins with Homer's epics, as nothing definite is known of Greek literature before them. Homer is now recognized as the first poet of antiquity, not only in the order of time; but it took Europe many centuries to discover that fact. During the Middle Ages the second-rate Virgil was held to be a much greater genius than Homer, and it was in England, as Professor Christ notes (69), that the truer estimate originated. Pope's translation of the Homeric poems, with all its faults, helped to dispel the mists of ignorance, and in 1775 appeared Robert Wood's book, On the Original Genius and Writings of Homer, which combated the foolish prejudice against the poet, due to the coarseness of the manners he depicts. Wood admits (161) that "most of Homer's heroes would, in the present age, be capitally convicted, in any country in Europe, on the poet's evidence;" but this, he explains, does not detract from the greatness of Homer, who, upon an impartial view, "will appear to excel his own state of society, in point of decency and delicacy, as much as he has surpassed more polished ages in point of genius."

In this judicious discrimination between the genius of Homer and the realistic coarseness of his heroes, Wood forms an agreeable contrast to many modern Homeric scholars, notably the Rt. Hon. W.E. Gladstone, who, having made this poet his hobby, tried to persuade himself and his readers that nearly everything relating not only to Homer, but to the characters he depicts, was next door to perfection. Confining ourselves to the topic that concerns us here, we read, in his Studies on Homer (II., 502), that "we find throughout the poems those signs of the overpowering force of conjugal attachments which ... we might expect." And in his shorter treatise on Homer he thus sums up his views as to the position and estimate of woman in the heroic age, as revealed in Homer's female characters:

"The most notable of them compare advantageously with those commended to us in the Old Testament; while Achaiian Jezebels are nowhere found. There is a certain authority of the man over the woman; but it does not destroy freedom, or imply the absence either of respect, or of a close mental and moral fellowship. Not only the relation of Odysseus to Penelope and of Hector to Andromache, but those of Achilles to Briseis, and of Menelaus to the returned Helen, are full of dignity and attachment. Briseis was but a captive, yet Achilles viewed her as in expectation a wife, called her so, avowed his love for her, and laid it down that not he only, but every man must love his wife if he had sense and virtue. Among the Achaiian Greeks monogamy is invariable; divorce unknown; incest abhorred.... The sad institution which, in Saint Augustine's time, was viewed by him as saving the world from yet worse evil is unknown or unrecorded. Concubinage prevails in the camp before Troy, but only simple concubinage. Some of the women, attendants in the Ithacan palace, were corrupted by the evil-minded Suitors; but some were not. It should, perhaps, be noted as a token of the respect paid to the position of the woman, that these very bad men are not represented as ever having included in their plans the idea of offering violence to Penelope. The noblest note, however, of the Homeric woman remains this, that she shared the thought and heart of her husband: as in the fine utterance of Penelope she prays that rather she may be borne away by the Harpies than remain to 'glad the heart of a meaner man' (Od. XX., 82) than her husband, still away from her."

Only a careful student of Homer can quite realize the diplomatic astuteness which inspired this sketch of Homeric morals. Its amazing sophistry can, however, be made apparent even to one who has never read the Iliad and the Odyssey.

ACHILLES AS A LOVER

The Trojan War lasted ten years. Its object was to punish Paris, son of the King of Troy, for eloping with Helen, the wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta, and taking away a shipload of treasures to boot. The subject of Homer's Iliad is popularly supposed to be this Trojan War; in reality, however, it covers less than two months (fifty-two days) of those ten years, and its theme, as the first lines indicate, is the wrath of Achilles--the ruinous wrath, which in the tenth year, brought on the other Greek warriors woes innumerable. Achilles had spent much of the intervening time in ravaging twelve cities of Asia Minor, carrying away treasures and captive women, after the piratical Greek custom. One of these captives was Briseis, a high priest's daughter, whose husband and three brothers he had slain with his own hand, and who became his favorite concubine. King Agamemnon, the chief commander of the Greek forces, also had for his favorite concubine a high priest's daughter, named Chryseis. Her father came to ransom the captive girl, but Agamemnon refused to give her up because, as he confessed with brutal frankness, he preferred her to his wife.[295] For this refusal Apollo brings a pestilence on the Greek army, which can be abated only by restoring Chryseis to her father. Agamemnon at last consents, on condition that some other prize of honor be given to him--though, as Thersites taunts him (II, 226-228), his tents are already full of captive women, among whom he always has had first choice. Achilles, too, informs him that he shall have all the women he wants when Troy is taken; but what really hurts Agamemnon's feelings is not so much the loss of his favorite as the thought that the hated Achilles should enjoy Briseis, while his prize, Chryseis, must be returned to her father. So he threatens to retaliate on Achilles by taking Briseis from his tent and keeping her for himself. "I would deserve the name of coward," retorts Achilles

"were I to yield to you in everything.... But this let me say--Never shall I lift my arm to strive for the girl either with you or any other man; you gave her, you can take her. But of all else, by the dark ship, that belongs to me, thereof you shall not take anything against my will. Do that and all shall see your black blood trickle down my spear."

Having made this "uncowardly," chivalrous, and romantic distinction between his two kinds of property--yielding Briseis, but threatening murder if aught else belonging to him be touched--Achilles goes and orders his friend Patroclus to take the young woman from the tent and give her to the king. She leaves her paramour--her husband's and brothers' murderer--unwillingly, and he sits down and weeps--why? because, as he tells his mother, he has been insulted by Agamemnon, who has taken away his prize of honor. From that moment Achilles refuses to join the assemblies, or take a part in the battles, thus bringing "woes innumerable" on his countrymen. He refuses to yield even after Agamemnon, alarmed by his reverses, seeks to conciliate him by offering him gold and horses and women in abundance; telling him he shall have back his Briseis, whom the king swears he has never touched, and, besides her, seven Lesbian women of more than human beauty; also, the choice of twenty Trojan women as soon as the city capitulates; and, in addition to these, one of the three princesses, his own daughters--twenty-nine women in all!

Must not a hero who so stubbornly and wrathfully resented the seizure of his concubine have been deeply in love with her? He himself remarks to Odysseus, who comes to attempt a reconciliation (IX., 340-44):

"Do the sons of Atreus alone of mortal men love their bedfellows? Every man who is good and sensible loves his concubine and cares for her as I too love mine with all my heart, though but the captive of my spear."

Gladstone here translates the word [Greek: alochos] "wife," though, as far as Achilles is concerned, it means concubine. Of course it would have been awkward for England's Prime Minister to make Achilles say that "every man must love his concubine, if he has sense and virtue;" so he arbitrarily changes the meaning of the word and then begs us to notice the moral beauty of this sentiment and the "dignity" of the relation between Achilles and Briseis! Yet no one seems to have denounced him for this transgression against ethics, philology, and common sense. On the contrary, a host of translators and commentators have done the same thing, to the obscuration of the truth.

Nor is this all. When we examine what the Achilles of Homer means by the fine phrase "every man loves his bedfellow as I love mine," we come across a grotesque parody even of sensual infatuation, not to speak of romantic love. If Achilles had been animated by the strong individual preference which sometimes results even from animal passion, he would not have told Agamemnon, "take Briseis, but don't you dare to touch any of my other property or I will smash your skull." If he had been what we understand by a lover, he would not have been represented by the poet, after Briseis was taken away from him, as having "his heart consumed by grief" because "he yearned for the battle." He would, instead, have yearned for the girl. And when Agamemnon offered to give her back untouched, Achilles, had he been a real lover, would have thrown pride and wrath to the winds and accepted the offer with eagerness and alacrity.

But the most amazing part of the story is reached when we ask what Achilles means when he says that every good and sensible man [Greek: phileei kai kaedetai]--loves and cherishes--his concubine, as he professes to love his own. How does he love Briseis? Patroclus had promised her (XIX., 297-99), probably for reasons of his own (she is represented as being extremely fond of him), to see to it that Achilles would ultimately make her his legitimate wife, but Achilles himself never dreams of such a thing, as we see in lines 393-400, book IX. After refusing the offer of one of Agamemnon's daughters, he goes on to remark:

"If the gods preserve me and I return to my home, Peleus himself will seek a wife for me. There are many Achaian maidens in Hellas and Phthia, daughters of city-protecting princes. Among these I shall select the one I desire to be my dear wife. Very often is my manly heart moved with longing to be there to take a wedded wife [Greek: mnaestaen alochon], and enjoy the possessions Peleus has gathered."

And if any further detail were needed to prove how utterly shallow, selfish, and sensual was his "love" of Briseis, we should find it a few lines later (663) where the poet naïvely tells us, as a matter of course, that

"Achilles slept in the innermost part of the tent and by his side lay a beautiful-cheeked woman, whom he had brought from Lesbos. On the other side lay Patroclus with the fair Isis by his side, the gift of Achilles."

Obviously even individual preference was not a strong ingredient in the "love" of these "heroes," and we may well share the significant surprise of Ajax (638) that Achilles should persist in his wrath when seven girls were offered him for one. Evidently the tent of Achilles, like that of Agamemnon, was full of women (in line 366 he especially refers to his assortment of "fair-girdled women" whom he expects to take home when the war is over); yet Gladstone had the audacity to write that though concubinage prevailed in the camp before Troy, it was "only single concubinage." In his larger treatise he goes so far as to apologize for these ruffians--who captured and traded off women as they would horses or cows--on the ground that they were away from their wives and were indulging in the "mildest and least licentious" of all forms of adultery! Yet Gladstone was personally one of the purest and noblest of men. Strange what somersaults a hobby ridden too hard may induce a man to make in his ethical attitude!

ODYSSEUS, LIBERTINE AND RUFFIAN

If we now turn from the hero of the Iliad to the hero of the Odyssey, we find the same Gladstone declaring (II., 502) that "while admitting the superior beauty of Calypso as an immortal, Ulysses frankly owns to her that his heart is pining every day for Penelope;" and in the shorter treatise he goes so far as to say (131), that

"the subject of the Odyssey gives Homer the opportunity of setting forth the domestic character of Odysseus, in his profound attachment to wife, child, and home, in such a way as to adorn not only the hero, but his age and race."

The "profound attachment" of Odysseus to his wife may be gauged in the first place by the fact that he voluntarily remained away from her ten years, fighting to recover, for another king, a worthless, adulterous wench. Before leaving on this expedition, from which he feared he might never return, he spoke to his wife, as she herself relates (XVIII., 269), begging her to be mindful of his father and mother, "and when you see our son a bearded man, then marry whom you will, and leave the house now yours"--namely for the benefit of the son, for whose welfare he was thus more concerned than for a monopoly of his wife's love.

After the Trojan war was ended he embarked for home, but suffered a series of shipwrecks and misfortunes. On the island of Aeaea he spent a whole year sharing the hospitality and bed of the beautiful sorceress Circe, with no pangs of conscience for such conduct, nor thought of home, till his comrades, in spite of the "abundant meat and pleasant wine," longed to depart and admonished him in these words: "Unhappy man, it is time to think of your native land, if you are destined ever to be saved and to reach your home in the land of your fathers." Thus they spoke and "persuaded his manly heart." In view of the ease with which he thus abandoned himself for a whole year to a life of indulgence, till his comrades prodded his conscience, we may infer that he was not so very unwilling a prisoner afterward, of the beautiful nymph Calypso, who held him eight years by force on her island. We read, indeed, that, at the expiration of these years, Odysseus was always weeping, and his sweet life ebbed away in longing for his home. But all the sentiment is taken out of this by the words which follow: [Greek: epei ouketi aendane numphae] "because the nymph pleased him no more!" Even so Tannhäuser tired of the pleasures in the grotto of Venus, and begged to be allowed to leave.

While thus permitting himself the unrestrained indulgence of his passions, without a thought of his wife, Odysseus has the barbarian's stern notions regarding the duties of women who belong to him. There are fifty young women in his palace at home who ply their hard tasks and bear the servant's lot. Twelve of these, having no one to marry, yield to the temptations of the rich princes who sue for the hand of Penelope in the absence of her husband.

Ulysses, on his return, hears of this, and forthwith takes measures to ascertain who the guilty ones are. Then he tells his son Telemachus and the swineherd and neatherd to

"go and lead forth these serving-maids out of the stately hall to a spot between the roundhouse and the neat courtyard wall, and smite them with your long swords till you take life from all, so that they may forget their secret amours with the suitors."

The "discreet" Telemachus carried out these orders, leading the maids to a place whence there was no escape and exclaiming:

"'By no honorable death would I take away the lives of those who poured reproaches on my head and on my mother, and lay beside the suitors.'"

"He spoke and tied the cable of a dark-bowed ship to a great pillar, then lashed it to the roundhouse, stretching it high across, too high for one to touch the feet upon the ground. And as the wide-winged thrushes or the doves strike on a net set in the bushes; and when they think to go to roost a cruel bed receives them; even so the women held their heads in line, and around every neck a noose was laid that they might die most vilely. They twitched their feet a little, but not long."

A more dastardly, cowardly, unmanly deed is not on record in all human literature, yet the instigator of it, Odysseus, is always the "wise," "royal," "princely," "good," and "godlike," and there is not the slightest hint that the great poet views his assassination of the poor maidens as the act of a ruffian, an act the more monstrous and unpardonable because Homer (XXII., 37) makes Odysseus himself say to the suitors that they outraged his maids by force ([Greek: biaios]). What world-wide difference in this respect between the greatest poet of antiquity and Jesus of Nazareth who, when the Scribes and Pharisees brought before him a woman who had erred like the maids of Odysseus, and asked if she should be stoned as the law of Moses commanded, said unto them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her;" whereupon, being convicted by their own consciences, they went out one by one. And Jesus said, "Where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?" She said, "No man, Lord." And Jesus said unto her, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more." He is lenient to the sinner because of his sense of justice and mercy; yet at the same time his ethical ideal is infinitely higher than Homer's. He preaches that "whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart;" whereas Homer's ideas of sexual morality are, in the last analysis, hardly above those of a savage. The dalliance of Odysseus with the nymphs, and the licentious treatment of women captives by all the "heroes," do not, any more than the cowardly murder of the twelve maids, evoke a word of censure, disgust, or disapproval from his lips.

His gods are on the same low level as his heroes, if not lower. When the spouse of Zeus, king of the gods, wishes to beguile him, she knows no other way than borrowing the girdle of Aphrodite. But this scene (Iliad, XIV., 153 seq.) is innocuous compared with the shameless description of the adulterous amours of Ares and Aphrodite in the Odyssey (VIII., 266-365), in presence of the gods, who treat the matter as a great joke. For a parallel to this passage we would have to descend to the Botocudos or the most degraded Australians. All of which proves that the severity of the punishment inflicted on the twelve maids of Odysseus does not indicate a high regard for chastity, but is simply another illustration of typical barbarous fury against women for presuming to do anything without the consent of the man whose private property they are.

WAS PENELOPE A MODEL WIFE?

If the real Odysseus, unprincipled, unchivalrous, and cruel, is anything but a hero who "adorns his age and race," must it not be conceded, at any rate, that "the unwearied fidelity of Penelope, awaiting through the long revolving years the return of her storm-tossed husband," presents, as Lecky declares (II., 279), and as is commonly supposed, a picture of perennial beauty "which Rome and Christendom, chivalry and modern civilization, have neither eclipsed nor transcended?"

We have seen that the fine words of Achilles regarding his "love" of Briseis are, when confronted with his actions, reduced to empty verbiage. The same result is reached in the case of Penelope, if we subject her actions and motives to a searching critical analysis. Ostensibly, indeed, she is set up as a model of that feminine constancy which men at all times have insisted on while they themselves preferred to be models of inconstancy. As usual in such cases, the feminine model is painted with touches of almost grotesque exaggeration. After the return of Odysseus Penelope informed her nurse (XXIII., 18) that she has not slept soundly all this time--twenty years! Such phrases, too, are used as "longing for Odysseus, I waste my heart away," or "May I go to my dread grave seeing Odysseus still, and never gladden heart of meaner husband." But they are mere phrases. The truth about her attitude and her-feelings is told frankly in several places by three different persons--the goddess of wisdom, Telemachus, and Penelope herself. Athene urges Telemachus to make haste that he may find his blameless mother still at home instead of the bride of one of the suitors.

"But let her not against your will take treasure from your home. You know a woman's way; she strives to enrich his house who marries her, while of her former children and the husband of her youth, when he is dead she thinks not, and she talks of him no more" (XV., 15-23).

In the next book (73-77) Telemachus says to the swineherd:

"Moreover my mother's feeling wavers, whether to bide beside me here and keep the house, and thus revere her husband's bed and heed the public voice, or finally to follow some chief of the Achaians who woos her in the hall with largest gifts."

And a little later (126) he exclaims, "She neither declines the hated suit nor has she power to end it, while they with feasting impoverish my home."

These words of Telcinachus are endorsed in full by Penelope herself, whose remarks (XIX., 524-35) to the disguised Odysseus give us the key to the whole situation and explain why she lies abed so much weeping and not knowing what to do.

" ... so does my doubtful heart toss to and fro whether to bide beside my son and keep all here in safety--my goods, my maids, and my great high-roofed house--and thus revere my husband and heed the public voice, or finally to follow some chief of the Achaiians who woos me in my hall with countless gifts. My son, while but a child and slack of understanding, did not permit my marrying and departing from my husband's home; but now that he is grown and come to man's estate, he prays me to go home again and leave the hall, so troubled is he for that substance which the Achaiians waste."

If these words mean anything, they mean that what kept Penelope from marrying again was not affection for her husband but the desire to live up to the demands of "the public voice" and the fact that her son--who, according to Greek usage, was her master--would not permit her to do so. This, then, was the cause of that proverbial constancy! But a darker shadow still is cast on her much-vaunted affection by her cold and suspicious reception of her husband on his return. While the dog recognized him at once and the swineherd was overjoyed, she, the wife, held him aloof, fearing that he might be some man who had come to cheat her! At first Odysseus thought she scorned him because he "was foul and dressed in sorry clothes;" but even after he had bathed and put on his princely attire she refused to embrace him, because she wished to "prove her husband!" No wonder that her son declared that her "heart is always harder than a stone," and that Odysseus himself thus accosts her:

"Lady, a heart impenetrable beyond the sex of women the dwellers on Olympus gave you. There is no other woman of such stubborn spirit to stand off from the husband who, after many grievous toils, came in the twentieth year home to his native land. Come then, good nurse, and make my bed, that I may lie alone. For certainly of iron is the heart within her breast."

HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE

A much closer approximation to the modern ideal of conjugal love than the attachment between Odysseus and Penelope with the "heart of iron," may be found in the scene describing Hector's leave-taking of Andromache before he goes out to fight the Greeks, fearing he may never return. The serving-women inform him that his wife, hearing that the Trojans were hard pressed, had gone in haste to the wall, like unto one frenzied. He goes to find her and when he arrives at the Skaian gates, she comes running to meet him, together with the nurse, who holds his infant boy on her bosom. Andromache weeps, recalls to his mind that she had lost her father, mother, and seven brothers, wherefore he is to her a father, mother, brothers, as well as a husband. "Have pity and abide here upon the tower, lest thou make thy child an orphan and thy wife a widow." Though Hector cannot think of shrinking from battle like a coward, he declared that her fate, should the city fall and he be slain, troubles him more than that of his father, mother, and brothers--the fate of being led into captivity and slavery by a Greek, doomed to carry water and to be pointed at as the former wife of the brave Hector. He expresses the wish that his boy--who at first is frightened by the horse-hair crest on his helmet--may become greater than his father, bringing with him blood-stained spoils from the enemy he has slain, and gladdening his mother's heart; then caressing his wife with his hand, he begs her not to sorrow overmuch, but to go to her house and see to her own tasks, the loom and the distaff. Thus he spake, and she departed for her home, oft looking back and letting fall big tears.

This scene, which takes up four pages of the Iliad (VI., 370-502), is the most touching, the most inspired, the most sentimental and modern passage not only in the Homeric poems, but in all Greek literature. Benecke has aptly remarked (10) that the relation between Hector and Andromache is unparalleled in that literature; and he adds:

"At the same time, how little really sympathetic to the Greek of the period was this wonderful and unique passage is sufficiently shown by this very fact, that no attempt was ever made to imitate or develop it. It may sound strange to say so, but in all probability we to-day understand Andromache better than did the Greeks, for whom she was created; better, too, perhaps than did her creator himself."

Benecke should have written Hector in place of Andromache. There was no difficulty, even for a Greek, in understanding Andromache. She had every reason, even from a purely selfish point of view, to dread Hector's battling with the savage Greeks; for while he lived she was a princess, with all the comforts of life, whereas his fall and the fall of Troy meant her enslavement and a life of misery. What makes the scene in question so modern is the attitude of Hector--his dividing his caresses equally between his wife and his son, and assuring her that he is more troubled about her fate and anguish than about what may befall his father, mother, and brothers. That is an utterly un-Greek sentiment, and that is the reason why the passage was not imitated. It was not a realistic scene from life, but a mere product of Homer's imagination and glowing genius--like the pathetic scene in which Odysseus wipes away a tear on noting that his faithful dog Argos recognized him and wagged his tail. It is extremely improbable that a man who could behave so cruelly toward women as Odysseus did could have thus sympathized with a dog.

Certainly no one else did, not even his "faithful" Penelope. As long as Argos was useful in the chase, the poet tells us, he was well taken care of; but now that he was old, he "lay neglected upon a pile of dung," doomed to starve, for he had not strength to move. Homer alone, with the prophetic insight of a genius, could have conceived such a touch of modern sentiment toward animals, so utterly foreign to ancient ideas; and he alone could have put such a sentiment of wife-love into the mouth of the Trojan Hector--a barbarian whose ideal of manliness and greatness consisted in "bringing home blood-stained spoils of the enemy."

BARBAROUS TREATMENT OF GREEK WOMEN

It seems like a touch of sarcasm that Homer incarnates his isolated and un-Greek ideal of devotion to a wife in a Trojan, as if to indicate that it must not be accepted as a touch of Greek life. From our point of view it is a stroke of genius. On the other hand it is obvious that attributing such a sentiment to a Trojan likewise cannot be anything but a poetic license; for these Trojans were quite as piratical, coarse, licentious, and polygamous as the Greeks, Hector's own father having had fifty children, nineteen of whom were borne by his wife, thirty-one by various concubines. Many pages of the Iliad bear witness to the savage ferocity of Greeks and Trojans alike--a ferocity utterly incompatible with such tender emotions as Homer himself was able to conceive in his imagination. The ferocity of Achilles is typical of the feelings of these heroes. Not content with slaughtering an enemy who meets him in honorable battle, defending his wife and home, he thrust thongs of ox-hide through the prostrate Hector's feet, bound him to his chariot, lashed his horses to speed, and dragged him about in sight of the wailing wife and parents of his victim. This he repeated several times, aggravating the atrocity a hundredfold by his intention--in spite of the piteous entreaties of the dying Hector--to throw his corpse to be eaten by the dogs, thus depriving even his spirit of rest, and his family of religious consolation. Nay, Achilles expresses the savage wish that his rage might lead him so far as to carve and eat raw Hector's flesh. The Homeric "hero," in short, is almost on a level in cruelty with the red Indian.

But it is in their treatment of women--which Gladstone commends so highly--that the barbarous nature of the Greek "heroes" is revealed in all its hideous nakedness. The king of their gods set them the example when he punished his wife and queen by hanging her up amid the clouds with two anvils suspended from her feet; clutching and throwing to the earth any gods that came to her rescue. (Iliad, XV., 15-24.) Rank does not exempt the women of the heroic age from slavish toil. Nausicäa, though a princess, does the work of a washerwoman and drives her own chariot to the laundry on the banks of the river, her only advantage over her maids being that they have to walk.[296] Her mother, too, queen of the Phoeaceans, spends her time sitting among the waiting maids spinning yarn, while her husband sits idle and "sips his wine like an immortal." The women have to do all the work to make the men comfortable, even washing their feet, giving them their bath, anointing them, and putting their clothes on them again (Odyssey, XIX., 317; VIII., 454; XVII., 88, etc.),[297] even a princess like Polycaste, daughter of the divine Nestor, being called upon to perform such menial service (III., 464-67). As for the serving-maids, they grind corn, fetch water, and do other work, just like red squaws; and in the house of Odysseus we read of a poor girl, who, while the others were sleeping, was still toiling at her corn because her weakness had prevented her from finishing her task (XX., 110).

Penelope was a queen, but was very far from being treated like one. Gladstone found "the strongest evidence of the respect in which women were held" in the fact that the suitors stopped short of violence to her person! They did everything but that, making themselves at home in her house, unbidden and hated guests, debauching her maidservants, and consuming her provisions by wholesale. But her own son's attitude is hardly less disrespectful and insulting than that of the ungallant, impertinent suitors. He repeatedly tells his mother to mind her own business--the loom and the distaff--leaving words for men; and each time the poet recommends this rude, unfilial speech as a "wise saying" which the queen humbly "lays to heart." His love of property far exceeds his love of his mother, for as soon as he is grown up he begs her to go home and get married again, "so troubled is he for the substance which the suitors waste." He urges her at last to "marry whom she will," offering as an extra inducement "countless gifts" if she will only go.

To us it seems topsy-turvy that a mother should have to ask her son's consent to marry again, but to the Greeks that was a matter of course. There are many references to this custom in the Homeric poems. Girls, too, though they be princesses, are disposed of without the least regard to their wishes, as when Agamemnon offers Achilles the choice of one of his three daughters (IX., 145). Big sums are sometimes paid for a girl--by Iphidamas, for instance, who fell in battle, "far from his bride, of whom he had known no joy, and much had he given for her; first a hundred kine he gave, and thereafter promised a thousand, goats and sheep together." The idea, too, occurs over and over again that among the suitors the one who has the richest gifts to offer should take the bride. How much this mercenary, unceremonious, and often cruel treatment of women was a matter of course among these Greeks is indicated by Homer's naïve epithet for brides, [Greek: parthenoi alphesiboiai], "virgins who bring in oxen." And this is the state of affairs which Gladstone sums up by saying "there is a certain authority of the man over the woman; but it does not destroy freedom"!

The early Greeks were always fighting, and the object of their wars, as among the Australian savages, was usually woman, as Achilles frankly informs us when he speaks of having laid waste twelve cities and passed through many bloody days of battle, "warring with folk for their women's sake." (Iliad, IX., 327.) Nestor admonishes the Greeks to "let no man hasten to depart home till each have lain by some Trojan's wife" (354-55). The leader of the Greek forces issues this command regarding the Trojans:

"Of them let not one escape sheer estruction at our hands, not even the man-child that the mother beareth in her womb; let not even him escape, but all perish together out of Ilios, uncared for and unknown" (VI., 57);

while Homer, with consummate art, paints for us the terrors of a captured city, showing how the women--of all classes--were maltreated:

"As a woman wails and clings to her dear husband, who falls for town and people, seeking to shield his home and children from the ruthless day; seeing him dying, gasping, she flings herself on him with a piercing cry; while men behind, smiting her with the spears on back and shoulder, force her along to bondage to suffer toil and trouble; with pain most pitiful her cheeks are thin...." (Odyssey, VIII., 523-30.)[298]

LOVE IN SAPPHO'S POEMS

Having failed to find any traces of romantic love, and only one of conjugal affection, in the greatest poet of the Greeks, let us now subject their greatest poetess to a critical examination.

Sappho undoubtedly had the divine spark. She may have possibly deserved the epithet of the "tenth Muse," bestowed on her by ancient writers, or of "the Poetess," as Homer was "the Poet." Among the one hundred and seventy fragments preserved some are of great beauty--the following, for example, which is as delightful as a Japanese poem and in much the same style--suggesting a picture in a few words, with the distinctness of a painting:

"As the sweet apple blushes on the end of the bough, the very end of the bough, which the gatherers overlooked, nay overlooked not, but could not reach."[299] It is otherwise in her love-poems, or rather fragments of such, comprising the following:

"Now love masters my limbs, and shakes me, fatal creature, bitter-sweet." "Now Eros shakes my soul, a wind on the mountain falling on the oaks." "Sleep thou in the bosom of thy tender girl-friend." "Sweet Mother, I cannot weave my web, broken as I am by longing for a maiden, at soft Aphrodite's will." "For thee there was no other girl, bridegroom, like her."

"Bitter-sweet," "giver of pain," "the weaver of fictions," are some expressions of Sappho's preserved by Maximus Tyrius; and Libanius, the rhetorician, refers to Sappho, the Lesbian, as praying "that night might be doubled for her." But the most important of her love-poems, and the one on which her adulators chiefly base their praises, is the following fragment addressed [Greek: Pros Gunaíka Eromenaen] ("to a beloved woman"):

"That man seems to me peer of gods, who sits in thy presence, and hears close to him thy sweet speech and lovely laughter; that indeed makes my heart flutter in my bosom. For when I see thee but a little I have no utterance left, my tongue is broken down, and straightway a subtle fire has run under my skin, with my eyes I have no sight, my ears ring, sweat bathes me, and a trembling seizes all my body; I am paler than grass, and seem in my madness little better than one dead. But I must dare all, since one so poor ..."

The Platonist Longinus (third century) said that this ode was "not one passion, but a congress of passions," and declared it the most perfect expression in all ancient literature of the effects of love. A Greek physician is said to have copied it into his book of diagnoses "as a compendium of all the symptoms of corroding emotion." F.B. Jevons, in his history of Greek literature (139), speaks of the "marvellous fidelity in her representation of the passion of love." Long before him Addison had written in the Spectator (No. 223) that Sappho "felt the passion in all its warmth, and described it in all its symptoms." Theodore Watts wrote: "Never before these songs were sung, and never since, did the human soul, in the grip of a fiery passion, utter a cry like hers." That amazing prodigal of superlatives, the poet Swinburne, speaks of the

"dignity of divinity, which informs the most passionate and piteous notes of the unapproachable poetess with such grandeur as would seem impossible to such passion."

And J.A. Symonds assures us that "Nowhere, except, perhaps, in some Persian or Provençal love-songs, can be found more ardent expressions of overmastering passion."

I have read this poem a score of times, in Greek, in the Latin version of Catullus, and in English, German, and French translations. The more I read it and compare with it the eulogies just quoted, the more I marvel at the power of cant and conventionality in criticism and opinion, and at the amazing current ignorance in regard to the psychology of love and of the emotions in general. I have made a long and minute study of the symptoms of love, in myself and in others; I have found that the torments of doubt and the loss of sleep may make a lover "paler than grass"; that his heart is apt to "flutter in his bosom," and his tongue to be embarrassed in presence of the beloved; but when Sappho speaks of a lover bathed in sweat, of becoming blind, deaf, and dumb, trembling all over, and little better than one dead, she indulges in exaggeration which is neither true to life nor poetic.

An amusing experiment may be made with reference to this famous poem. Suppose you say to a friend:

"A woman was walking in the woods when she saw something that made her turn pale as a sheet; her heart fluttered, her ears rang, her tongue was paralyzed, a cold sweat covered her, she trembled all over and looked as if she would faint and die: what did she see?"

The chances are ten to one that your friend will answer "a bear!" In truth, Sappho's famous "symptoms of love" are laughably like the symptoms of fear which we find described in the books of Bain, Darwin, Mosso, and others--"a cold sweat," "deadly pallor," "voice becoming husky or failing altogether," "heart beating violently," "dizziness which will blind him," "trembling of all the muscles of the body," "a fainting fit." Nor is fear the only emotion that can produce these symptoms. Almost any strong passion, anger, extreme agony or joy, may cause them; so that what Sappho described was not love in particular, but the physiologic effects of violent emotions in general. I am glad that the Greek physician who copied her poem into his book of diagnoses is not my family doctor.

Sappho's love-poems are not psychologic but purely physiologic. Of the imaginative, sentimental, esthetic, moral, altruistic, sympathetic, affectional symptoms of what we know as romantic love they do not give us the faintest hint. Hegel remarked truly that "in the odes of Sappho the language of love rises indeed to the point of lyrical inspiration, yet what she reveals is rather the slow consuming flame of the blood than the inwardness of the subjective heart and soul." Nor was Byron deceived: "I don't think Sappho's ode a good example." The historian Bender had an inkling of the truth when he wrote (183):

"To us who are accustomed to spiritualized love-lyrics after the style of Geibel's this erotic song of Sappho may seem too glowing, too violent; but we must not forget that love was conceived by the Greeks altogether in a less spiritual manner than we demand that it should be."

That is it precisely. These Greek love-poems do not depict romantic love but sensual passion. Nor is this the worst of it. Sappho's absurdly overrated love-poems are not even good descriptions of normal sensual passion. I have just said that they are purely physiologic; but that is too much praise for them. The word physiologic implies something healthy and normal, but Sappho's poems are not healthy and normal; they are abnormal, they are pathologic. Had they been written by a man, this would not be the case; but Sappho was a woman, and her famous ode is addressed to a woman. A woman, too, is referred to in her famous hymn to Venus in these lines, as translated by Wharton:

"What beauty now wouldst thou draw to love thee? Who wrongs thee, Sappho? For even if she flies, she shall soon follow, and if she rejects gifts shall yet give, and if she loves not shall soon love, however loth."

In the five fragments above quoted there are also two at least which refer to girls. Now I have not the slightest desire to discuss the moral character of Sappho or the vices of her Lesbian countrywomen. She had a bad reputation among the Romans as well as the Greeks, and it is a fact that in the year 1073 her poems were burnt at Rome and Constantinople, "as being," in the words of Professor Gilbert Murray, "too much for the shaky morals of the time." Another recent writer, Professor Peck of Columbia University, says that

"it is difficult to read the fragments which remain of her verse without being forced to come to the conclusion that a woman who could write such poetry could not be the pure woman that her modern apologists would have her."

The following lament alone would prove this:

[Greek: Deduke men a Selana kai Plaeiades, mesai de nuktes, para d' erxet ora ego de mona katheudo.]

MASCULINE MINDS IN FEMALE BODIES

Several books and many articles have been written on this topic,[300] but the writers seem to have overlooked the fact that in the light of the researches of Krafft-Ebing and Moll it is possible to vindicate the character of Sappho without ignoring the fact that her passionate erotic poems are addressed to women. These alienists have shown that the abnormal state of a masculine mind inhabiting a female body, or vice versa, is surprisingly common in all parts of the world. They look on it, with the best of reasons, as a diseased condition, which does not necessarily, in persons of high principles, lead to vicious and unnatural practices. In every country there are thousands of girls who, from childhood, would rather climb trees and fences and play soldiers with the boys than fondle dolls or play with the other girls. When they get older they prefer tobacco to candy; they love to masquerade in men's clothes, and when they hear of a girl's love-affair they cannot understand what pleasure there can be in dancing with a man or kissing him, while they themselves may long to kiss a girl, nay, in numerous cases, to marry her.[301] Many such marriages are made between women whose brains and bodies are of different sexes, and their love-affairs are often characterized by violent jealousy and other symptoms of intersexual passion. Not a few prominent persons have been innocent victims of this distressing disease; it is well-known what strange masculine proclivities several eminent female novelists and artists have shown; and whenever a woman shows great creative power or polemic aggressiveness the chances are that her brain is of the masculine type. It is therefore quite possible that Sappho may have been personally a pure woman, her mental masculinity ("mascula Sappho" Horace calls her) being her misfortune, not her fault. But even if we give her the benefit of the doubt and take for granted that she had enough character to resist the abnormal impulses and passions which she describes in her poems, and which the Greeks easily pardoned and even praised, we cannot and must not overlook the fact that these poems are the result of a diseased brain-centre, and that what they describe is not love, but a phase of erotic pathology. Normal sexual appetite is as natural a passion as the hunger for food; it is simply a hunger to perpetuate the species, and without it the world would soon come to an end; but Sapphic passion is a disease which luckily cannot become epidemic because it cannot perpetuate itself, but must always remain a freak.[302]

ANACREON AND OTHERS

There is considerable uncertainty regarding the dates of the earliest Greek poets. By dint of ingenious conjectures and combinations philologists have reached the conclusion that the Homeric poems, with their interpolations, originated between the dates 850 and 720 B.C.--say 2700 years ago. Hesiod probably flourished near the end of the seventh century, to which Archilochus and Alcman belong, while in the sixth and fifth centuries a number of names appear--little more than names, it is true, since of most of them fragments only have come down to us--Alcaeus, Mimnermus, Theognis, Sappho, Stesichorus, Anacreon, Ibycus, Bacchylides, Pindar, and others. Best known of all these, as a poet of love, is Anacreon, though in his case no one has been so foolish as to claim that the love described in his poems (or those of his imitators) is ever supersensual. Professor Anthon has aptly characterized him as "an amusing voluptuary and an elegant profligate," and Hegel pointed out the superficiality of Anacreontic love, in which there is no conception of the tremendous importance to a lover of having this or that particular girl and no other, or what I have called individual preference. Benecke puts this graphically when he remarks (25) regarding Mimnermus: "'What is life without love?' he says; he does not say, 'What is life without your love?'" Even in Sappho, I may add here, in spite of the seeming violence of her passion, this quality of individual preference is really lacking or weak, for she is constantly transferring her attention from one girl to another. And as Sappho's poems are addressed to girls, so are Anacreon's and those of the other poets named, to boys, in most cases. The following, preserved by Athenaeus (XIII., 564D), is a good specimen:

[Greek: "O pai parthenion blepon, dixemai se, su d' ou koeis, ouk eidos hoti taes emaes psuchaes haeniocheueis."]

Such a poem, even if addressed properly, would indicate nothing more than simple admiration and a longing which is specified in the following:

[Greek: Alla propine radinous, o phile, maerous.]

It would hardly be worth while, even if the limitations of space permitted, to subject the fragments of the other poets of this period to analysis. The reader has the key in his hands now--the altruistic and supersensual ingredients of love pointed out in this volume; and if he can find those ingredients in any of these poems, he will be luckier than I have been. We may therefore pass on to the great tragic poets of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.

WOMAN AND LOVE IN AESCHYLUS

In the Frogs of Aristophanes, Aeschylus is made to declare that he had never introduced a woman in love into any of his plays--[Greek: ouk oid' oudeis haentin erosan popt' epoiaesa gunaika]. He certainly has not done so in any one of the seven plays which have survived of the ninety that he wrote, according to Suidas; and Aristophanes would not have put that expression in his mouth had it not been true of the others, too. To us it seems extraordinary that an author should boast of having kept out of his writings the element which constitutes the greatest fascination of modern literature; but after reading his seven surviving tragedies we do not wonder that Aeschylus should not have introduced a woman in love, or a man either, in plays wherewith he competed for the state prize on the solemn occasions of the great festivals at Athens; for love of an exalted kind, worthy of such an occasion, could not have existed in a community where such ideas prevailed about women as Aeschylus unfolds in the few places where he condescends to notice such inferior beings. The only kind of sexual love of which he shows any knowledge is that referred to in the remarks of Prometheus and Io regarding the designs of Zeus on the latter.

An apparent exception seems at first sight to exist in the cordial reception Clytaemnestra accords to her husband, King Agamemnon, when he returns from the Trojan war. She calls the day of his return the most joyous of her life, asserts her complete fidelity to him during his long absence, declares she is not ashamed to tell her fond feelings for her spouse in public, and adds that she has wept for him till the gushing fountains of her eyes have been exhausted. Indeed, she goes so far in her homage that Agamemnon protests and exclaims, "Pamper me not after the fashion of women, nor as though I were a barbaric monarch.... I bid thee reverence me as a man, not a god." But ere long we discover (as in the case of Achilles), that all this fine talk of Clytaemnestra is mere verbiage, and worse--deadly hypocrisy. In reality she has been living with a paramour, and the genuineness and intensity of her "fond feelings" for her husband may be inferred from the fact that hardly has he returned when she makes a murderous assault on him by throwing an artfully woven circular garment over him, while he is taking a bath, and smiting him till he falls dead. "And I glory in the deed" she afterwards declares, adding that it "has long since been meditated."

Agamemnon, for his part, not only brought back with him from Troy a new concubine, Cassandra, and installed her in his home with the usual Greek indifference to the feelings of his legitimate wife, but he really was no better than his murderous wife, since he had been willing to kill her daughter and his own, Iphigenia, to please his brother, curb a storm, and expedite the Trojan war. In the words of the Chorus,

"Thus he dared to become the sacrificer of his daughter to promote a war undertaken for the avenging of a woman, and as a first offering for the fleet: and the chieftains, eager for the fight, set at naught her supplications and her cries to her father, and her maiden age. But after prayer her father bade the ministering priests with all zeal, to lift, like a kid, high above the altar, her who lay prostrate wrapped in her robes, and to put a check upon her beauteous mouth, a voice of curses upon the house, by force of muzzles and strength which allowed no vent to her cry."

The barbarous sacrifice of an innocent maiden is of course a myth, but it is a myth which doubtless had many counterparts in Greek life. Aeschylus did not live so very long after Homer, and in his age it was still a favorite pastime of the Greeks to ravage cities, a process of which Aeschylus gives us a vivid picture in a few lines, in his Seven against Thebes:

"And for its women to be dragged away captives, alas! alas! both the young and the aged, like horses by their hair, while their vestments are rent about their persons. And the emptied city cries aloud, while its booty is wasted amid confused clamors.... And the cries of children at the breast all bloody resound, and there is rapine, sister of pell-mell confusion ... And young female slaves have new sorrows ... so that they hope for life's gloomy close to come, a guardian against these all-mournful sorrows."

For women of rank alone is there any consideration--so long as they are not among the captives; yet even queens are not honored as women, but only as queens, that is, as the mothers or wives of kings. In The Persians the Chorus salutes Atossa in terms every one of which emphasizes this point: "O queen, supreme of Persia's deep-waisted matrons, aged mother of Xerxes, hail to thee! spouse to Darius, consort of the Persians, god and mother of a god thou art," while Clytaemnestra is saluted by the chorus in Agamemnon in these words: "I have came revering thy majesty, Clytaemnestra; for it is right to honor the consort of a chieftain hero, when the monarch's throne has been left empty."

We read in these plays of such unsympathetic things as a "man-detesting host of Amazons;" of fifty virgins fleeing from incestuous wedlock and all but one of them cutting their husbands' throats at night with a sword; of the folly of marrying out of one's own rank. In all Aeschylus there is on the other hand only one noticeable reference to a genuine womanly quality--the injunction of Danaus to his daughters to honor modesty more than life while they are travelling among covetous men; an admonition much needed, since, as Danaus adds--characterizing the coarseness and lack of chivalry of the men--violence is sure to threaten them everywhere, "and on the fair-formed beauty of virgins everyone that passes by sends forth a melting dart from his eyes, overcome by desire." Masculine coarseness and lack of chivalry are also revealed in such abuse of woman as Aeschylus--in the favorite Greek manner, puts in the mouth of Eteocles:

"O ye abominations of the wise. Neither in woes nor in welcome prosperity may I be associated with woman-kind; for when woman prevails, her audacity is more than one can live with; and when affrighted she is still a greater mischief to her home and city."

WOMAN AND LOVE IN SOPHOCLES

Unlike his predecessor, Sophocles did not hesitate, it seems, to bring "a woman in love" on the stage. Not, it is true, in any one of the seven plays which alone remain of the one hundred and twenty-three he is said to have written. But there are in existence some fragments of his Phaedra, which Rohde (31) and others are inclined to look on as the "first tragedy of love." It has, however, nothing to do with what we know as either romantic or conjugal love, but is simply the story of the adulterous and incestuous infatuation of Phaedra for her stepson Hippolytus. It is at the same time one of the many stories illustrating the whimsical, hypocritical, and unchivalrous attitude of the early Greeks of always making woman the sinful aggressor and representing man as being coyly reserved (see Rohde, 34-35). The infatuation of Phaedra is correctly described (fr., 611, 607 Dind.) as a [Greek: Theaelatos nosos]--a maddening disease inflicted by an angry goddess.

Among the seven extant tragedies of Sophocles there are three which throw some light on the contemporary attitude toward women and the different kinds of domestic attachment--the Ajax, the Trachiniae and Antigone. When Ajax, having disgraced himself by slaughtering a flock of sheep and cattle in the mad delusion that they were his enemies, wishes he might die, Tecmessa, his concubine, declares, "Then pray for my death, too, for why should I live if you are dead?" She has, however, plenty of egotistic reasons for dreading his death, for she knows that her fate will be slavery. Moreover, instead of being edified by her expression of attachment, we are repelled when we bear in mind that Ajax slew her father when he made her his concubine. The Greeks were too indelicate in their ideas about concubines to be disturbed by such a reflection. Nor were they affected disagreeably by the utter indifference toward his concubine which Ajax displays. He tells her to attend to her own affairs and remember that silence is a woman's greatest charm, and before committing suicide he utters a monologue in which he says farewell to his parents and to his country, but has no last message for Tecmessa. She was only a woman, forsooth.

Only a woman, too, was Deianira, the heroine of the Trachiniae, and though of exalted rank she fully realized this fact. When Hercules first took her to Tiryns, he was still sufficiently interested in her to shoot a hydra-poisoned arrow into the centaur Nessus, who attempted to assault her while carrying her across the river Evenus. But after she had borne him several children he neglected her, going off on adventures to capture other women. She weeps because of his absence, complaining that for fifteen months she has had no message from him. At last information is brought to her that Hercules, inflamed with violent love for the Princess Iole, had demanded her for a secret union, and when the king refused, had ravaged his city and carried off Iole, to be unto him more than a slave, as the messenger gives her to understand distinctly. On receiving this message; Deianira is at first greatly agitated, but soon remembers what the duty of a Greek wife is. "I am well aware," she says in substance, "that we cannot expect a man to be always content with one woman. To antagonize the god of love, or to blame my husband for succumbing to him, would be foolish. After all, what does it amount to? Has not Hercules done this sort of thing many times before? Have I ever been angry with him for so often succumbing to this malady? His concubines, too, have never received an unkind word from me, nor shall Iole; for I freely confess, resentment does not become a woman. Yet I am distressed, for I am old and Iole is young, and she will hereafter be his actual wife in place of me." At this thought jealousy sharpens her wit and she remembers that the dying centaur had advised her to save some of his blood and, if ever occasion should come for her to wish to bring back her husband's love, to anoint his garment with it. She does so, and sends it to him, without knowing that its effect will be to slowly burn the flesh off his body. Hearing of the deadly effect of her gift, she commits suicide, while Hercules spends the few remaining hours of his life cursing her who murdered him, "the best of all men," and wishing she were suffering in his place or that he might mutilate her body. Nor was his latest and "violent love" for Iole more than a passing appetite quickly appeased; for at the end he asks his son to marry her!

This drama admirably illustrates the selfish view of the marital relation entertained by Greek men. Its moral may be summed up in this advice to a wife:

"If your husband falls in love with a younger woman and brings her home, let him, for he is a victim of Cupid and cannot help it. Display no jealousy, and do not even try to win back his love, for that might annoy him or cause mischief."

In other words, The Trachiniae is an object-lesson to Greek wives, telling us what the men thought they ought to be. Probably some of the wives tried to live up to that ideal; but that could hardly be accepted as genuine, spontaneous devotion deserving the name of affection. Most famous among all the tragedies of the Greeks, and deservedly so, is the Antigone. Its plot can be told in such a way as to make it seem a romantic love-story, if not a story of romantic love. Creon, King of Thebes, has ordered, under penalty of death, that no one shall bestow the rites of burial on Prince Polynices, who has fallen after bearing arms against his own country. Antigone, sister of Polynices, resolves to disobey this cruel order, and having failed to persuade her sister, Ismene, to aid her, carries out her plan alone. Boldly visiting the place where the body is exposed to the dogs and vultures, she sprinkles dust on it and pours out libations, repeating the process the next day on finding that the guards had meanwhile undone her work. This time she is apprehended in the act and brought before the king, who condemns her to be immured alive in a tomb, though she is betrothed to his son Haemon. "Would you murder the bride of your own son?" asks Ismene; but the king replies that there are many other women in the world. Haemon now appears and tries to move his father to mercy, but in vain, though he threatens to slay himself if his bride is killed. Antigone is immured, but at last, moved by the advice of the Chorus and the dire predictions of the seer Tiresias, Creon changes his mind and hastens with men and tools to liberate the virgin. When he arrives at the tomb he sees his son in it, clinging to the corpse of Antigone, who had hanged herself. Horrified, the king begs his son to come out of the tomb, but Haemon seizes his sword and rushes forward to slay his father. The king escapes the danger by flight, whereupon Haemon thrusts the sword into his own body, and expires, clasping the corpse of his bride.

If we thus make Haemon practically the central figure of the tragedy, it resembles a romantic love-story; but in reality Haemon is little more than an episode. He has a quarrel with his father (who goes so far as to threaten to kill his bride in his presence), rushes off in a rage, and the tomb scene is not enacted, but merely related by a messenger, in forty lines out of a total of thirteen hundred and fifty. Much less still have we here a story of romantic love. Not one of the fourteen ingredients of love can be found in it except self-sacrifice, and that not of the right kind. I need not explain once more that suicide from grief over a lost bride does not benefit that bride; that it is not altruistic, but selfish, unmanly, and cowardly, and is therefore no test whatever of love. Moreover, if we examine the dialogue in detail we see that the motive of Haemon's suicide is not even grief over his lost bride, but rage at his father. When on first confronting Creon, he is thus accosted: "Have you heard the sentence pronounced on your bride?" He answers meekly: "I have, my father, and I yield to your superior wisdom, which no marriage can equal in excellence;" and it is only gradually that his ire is aroused by his father's abusive attitude; while at the end his first intention was to slay his father, not himself. Had Sophocles understood love as we understand it, he would have represented Haemon as drawing his sword at once and moving heaven and earth to prevent his bride from being buried alive.

But it is in examining the attitude of Antigone that we realize most vividly how short this drama falls of being a love-story. She never even mentions Haemon, has no thought of him, but is entirely absorbed in the idea of benefiting the spirit of her dead brother by performing the forbidden funeral rites. As if to remove all doubt on that point, she furthermore tells us explicitly (lines 904-912) that she would have never done such a deed, in defiance of the law, to save a husband or a child, but only for a brother; and why? because she might easily find another husband, and have new children by him, but another brother she could never have, as her parents were dead.[303]

WOMAN AND LOVE IN EURIPIDES

Of Euripides it cannot be said, as of his two great predecessors, that woman plays an insignificant rôle in his dramas. Most of the nineteen plays which have come down to us of the ninety-two he wrote are named after women; and Bulwer-Lytton was quite right when he declared that "he is the first of the Hellenic poets who interests us intellectually in the antagonism and affinity between the sexes." But I cannot agree with him when he says that with Euripides commences "the distinction between love as a passion and love as a sentiment." There is true sentiment in Euripides, as there is in Sophocles, in the relations between parents and children, friends, brothers and sisters; but in the attitude of lovers, or of husband and wife, there is only sensuality or at most sentimentality; and this sentimentality, or sham sentiment, does not begin with Euripides, for we have found instances of it in the fond words of Clytaemnestra regarding the husband she intended to murder, and did murder, and even in the Homeric Achilles, whose fine words regarding conjugal love contrast so ludicrously with his unloving actions. These, however, are mere episodes, while Euripides has written a whole play which from beginning to end is an exposition of sentimentality.

The Fates had granted that when the Thessalian King Admetus approached the ordained end of his life it should be prolonged if another person voluntarily consented to die in his place. His aged parents had no heart to "plunge into the darkness of the tomb" for his sake. "It is not the custom in Greece for fathers to die for children," his father informs him; while Adinetus indulges in coarse abuse: "By heaven, thou art the very pattern of cowards, who at thy age, on the borderland of life, would'st not, nay, could'st not find the heart to die for thy own son; but ye, my parents, left to this stranger, whom henceforth I shall justly hold e'en as mother and as father too, and none but her." This "stranger" is his wife Alcestis, who has volunteered to die for him, exclaiming:

"Thee I set before myself, and instead of living have ensured thy life, and so I die, though I need not have died for thee, but might have taken for my husband whom I would of the Thessalians, and have had a home blest with royal power; reft of thee, with my children orphans, I cared not to live."

The world has naïvely accepted this speech and the sacrifice of Alcestis as belonging to the region of sentiment; but in reality it is nothing more than one of those stories shrewdly invented by selfish men to teach women that the object of their existence is to sacrifice themselves for their husbands. The king's father tells us this in so many words: "By the generous deed she dared, hath she made her life a noble example for all her sex;" adding that "such marriages I declare are gain to man, else to wed is not worth while." If these stories, like those manufactured by the Hindoos, were an indication of existing conjugal sentiment, would it be possible that the self-sacrifice was invariably on the woman's side? Adinetus would have never dreamt of sacrificing his life for his wife. He is not even ashamed to have her die for him. It is true that he has one moment when he fancies his foe deriding him thus:

"Behold him living in his shame, a wretch who quailed at death himself, but of his coward heart gave up his wedded wife instead, and escaped from Hades; doth he deem himself a man after that?"

It is true also that his father taunts him contemptuously,

"Dost thou then speak of cowardice in me, thou craven heart!... A clever scheme hast thou devised to stave off death forever, if thou canst persuade each new wife to die instead of thee."

Yet Admetus is constantly assuring everyone of his undying attachment to his wife. He holds her in his arms, imploring her not to leave him. "If thou die," he exclaims,

"I can no longer live; my life, my death, are in thy hands; thy love is what I worship.... Not a year only, but all my life will I mourn for thee.... In my bed thy figure shall be laid full length, by cunning artists fashioned; thereon will I throw myself and, folding my arms about thee, call upon thy name, and think I hold my dear wife in my embrace.... Take me, O take me, I beseech, with thee 'neath the earth;"

and so on, ad nauseam--a sickening display of sentimentality, i.e., fond words belied by cowardly, selfish actions.

The father-in-law of Alcestis, in his indignation at his son's impertinence and lack of filial pity, exclaims that what made Alcestis sacrifice herself was "want of sense;" which is quite true. But in painting such a character, Euripides's chief motive appears to have been to please his audience by enforcing a maxim which the Greeks shared with the Hindoos and barbarians that "a woman, though bestowed upon a worthless husband, must be content with him." These words are actually put by him into the mouth of Andromache in the play of that name. Andromache, once the wife of the Trojan Hector, now the concubine of Achilles's son, is made to declare to the Chorus that "it is not beauty but virtuous acts that win a husband's heart;" whereupon she proceeds to spoil this fine maxim by explaining what the Greeks understood by "virtuous acts" in a wife--namely, subordinating herself even to a "worthless husband." "Suppose," she continues, "thou hadst wedded a prince of Thrace... where one lord shares his affections with a host of wives, would'st thou have slain them? If so, thou would'st have set a stigma of insatiate lust on all our sex." And she proceeds to relate how she herself paid no heed in Troy to Hector's amours with other women: "Oft in days gone by I held thy bastard babes to my own breast, to spare thee any cause for grief. By this course I bound my husband to me by virtue's chains." To spare him annoyance, no matter how much his conduct might grieve her--that was the Greek idea of conjugal devotion--all on one side. And how like the Hindoos, and Orientals, and barbarians in general, is the Greek seen to be in the remarks made by Hermione, the legitimate wife, to Andromache, the concubine--accusing the latter of having by means of witchcraft made her barren and thus caused her husband to hate her.

With the subtle ingenuity of masculine selfishness the Greek dramatist doubles the force of all his fine talk about the "virtuous acts" of wives by representing the women themselves as uttering these maxims and admitting that their function is self-denial--that woman is altogether an inferior and contemptible being. "How strange it is," exclaims Andromache,

"that, though some god has devised cures for mortals against the venom of reptiles, no man ever yet hath discovered aught to cure a woman's venom, which is far worse than viper's sting or scorching flame; so terrible a curse are we to mankind."

Hermione declares:

"Oh! never, never--this truth will I repeat--should men of sense, who have wives, allow women-folks to visit them in their homes, for they teach them mischief; one, to gain some private end, helps to corrupt their honor; another having made a slip herself, wants a companion in misfortune, while many are wantons; and hence it is men's houses are tainted. Wherefore keep strict guard upon the portals of your houses with bolts and bars."

Bolts and bars were what the gallant Greek men kept their wives under, hence this custom too is here slyly justified out of a woman's mouth. And thus it goes on throughout the pages of Euripides. Iphigenia, in one of the two plays devoted to her, declares: "Not that I shrink from death, if die I must,--when I have saved thee; no, indeed! for a man's loss from his family is felt, while a woman's is of little moment." In the other she declares that one man is worth a myriad of Women--[Greek: heis g' anaer kreisson gunaikon murion]--wherefore, as soon as she realizes the situation at Aulis, she expresses her willingness to be immolated on the altar in order that the war against Troy may no longer be delayed by adverse minds. She had, however, come for a very different purpose, having been, with her queen mother, inveigled from home under the pretext that Achilles was to make her his wife. Achilles, however, knew as little of the plot as she did, and he is much surprised when the queen refers to his impending marriage. A modern poet would have seen here a splendid, seemingly inevitable, opportunity for a story of romantic love. He would have made Achilles fall in love at sight of Iphigenia and resolve to save her life, if need be at the cost of his own. What use does Euripides make of this opportunity? In his play Achilles does not see the girl till toward the close of the tragedy. He promises her unhappy mother that "never shall thy daughter, after being once called my bride, die by her father's hand;" But his reason for this is not love for a girl or a chivalrous attitude toward women in distress, but offended vanity. "It is not to secure a bride that I have spoken thus," he exclaims; "there be maids unnumbered, eager to have my love--no! but King Agamemnon has put an insult on me; he should have asked my leave to use my name as a means to catch the child." In that case he "would never have refused" to further his fellow-soldiers' common interest by allowing the maiden to be sacrificed.

It is true that after Iphigenia has made her brave speech declaring that a woman's life was of no account anyway, and that she had resolved to die voluntarily for the army's sake, Achilles assumes a different attitude, declaring,

"Some god was bent on blessing me, could I but have won thee for my wife.... But now that I have looked into thy noble nature, I feel still more a fond desire to win thee for my bride,"

and promising to protect her against the whole army. But what was it in Iphigenia that thus aroused his admiration? A feminine trait, such as would impress a modern romantic lover? Not in the least. He admired her because, like a man, she offered to lay down her life in behalf of the manly virtue of patriotism. Greek men admired women only in so far as they resembled men; a truth to which I shall recur on another page.

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