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."