_ 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 naivete, 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. _