"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."