"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."