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.