The Talth marriage is a long ceremony, where a great deal of wealth is exchanged between the two families of the bride and groom. This ceremony is principally performed by the Indian money, cheek, which is a long slender shell, conical in shape and is inclined to be curved. It is about one and a half to two and a quarter inches in length, and is valued according to its length, and longer the shell the more value it is. This money is measured by the rings of the joints of the middle finger from the inside of the left hand, and it takes twelve pieces of cheek to make one string, which is called cor-ton-a. In stringing the cheek they put the two large ends together and the two small ends together, this is done to prevent the shells from cupping inside. In estimating the value of a string of cheek, we hold one end of the string between the fore-finger and thumb-nail of the left hand, drawing it tightly up the arm towards the shoulder, keeping the arm extended straight. Ten of the cheek on the string are measured in this way, not measuring the two which makes twelve on the string, as the twelve only make ten, according to our numeration; we do not count the extra two cheek on the string as we wish to give full value, so that no one will be able to find any fault as to the value of the string. In measuring the cheek a tattoo is made on the arm where the end of the string comes, so they can easily detect if any of the cheek has been exchanged, should it happen to be handled by different persons. In marriage the young Talth gives twelve strings of this cheek to the parents of his bride, as it is the real Indian money that we brought from the old land of Cheek-cheek-alth, the parents give in exchange other valuable articles to their son-in-law. The elder Talth always attend these high marriages, bringing with them the herb, walth-pay, with which they give the benediction to the bridal couple, in wishing them peace, love, happiness and success.
The children born under these marriages are selected by the Talth and are given the opportunity to become a Talth. A Talth is very reserved and never advances to meet anyone who is a stranger that is inquiring into our traditions. Our traditions and religion are too sacred to be expounded before strangers of another race, therefore the white man has received most of his allegory from the lower classes of the Indians. This type of Indian readily gives the fairy tales of the tribe, such as mothers and grandmothers tell to the little children for their amusement, and these are the stories that the white man is made to believe as the true traditions and religion of the Indian. These stories are no more like the traditions and religion of the Indian than daylight is like night.
There is another marriage law that is termed among the Indians as, “half married.” The prospective husband gives but a small sum of articles, of little value, and receives in return a few articles of little value. In this marriage the husband is taken to the wife’s home to live, or in the same house with her parents, and the wife, in this marriage, is the head of the household and the husband is compelled to obey her in whatever she commands him to do. He is compelled to fish, hunt, work and support her folks just as much as he supports his wife, while the wife teaches the children and rules them absolutely, as the husband has no right to correct his own children or make them mind in any way. When these children become men and women they must marry according to their mother’s wishes, as the husband has nothing to say as to their conduct, or pursuits of happiness in life. However unpleasant it may seem to him, he must bear it all with patience and silence. If he refuses to obey his wife and children, she can make his surroundings in home life very unpleasant for him, and if he wishes to dissolve the marriage vows and she is willing, he has nothing to do but to walk out of the house, as his wife guides the children and rules the household, and owns everything that belongs to him, except his own individual life, even his own children acknowledge him as their father in flesh and blood, but no more.
There is a slave marriage where, they being absolute paupers, having no home of their own and no articles to exchange in the marriage ceremony, they are married by the exchange of food-stuffs, and this is considered to be the lowest marriage that could be called a marriage. When they have a divorce they do not have much trouble in separating as articles are given back by their masters and a settlement is usually made easy.
In some of the Indian marriages, they do not mate happily. After they have been married a short time, or even a number of years, serious trouble arises and results in a final separation, and when such a separation is agreed upon, and there are no children, all the valuables exchanged at the marriage alter are returned accordingly. If there are children and the father wants them to remain legitimate he must be very careful in counting out the valuables or the wealth that he wants returned from his wife’s people. He must divide a portion of the wealth that he gave to his wife’s people on his wedding day, to each child, the remaining portion is given back to him. If all the valuables of exchange between the contracting parties are returned to him or his people, this leaves the children as bastards, without a law to protect them from slanderous tongues and no rights to a legitimate birth. These children are forever looked down upon by the Indian society, as bastards without a marriage to legalize them as the off-spring of respectable parents. I can truthfully say that in the past twenty-five years, and more, since the advent of the white man among the Klamath Indians, that most of the white men have married under the half married system, until there are no Indian marriage laws. The “squaw” gives her “white buck” her home and supports his low born half breed children, while he idles his time away on the Indian ranches or lies about in a drunken stupor. Yet these same white men cry, is there no redress for the Indian, has he no soul to save? Oh, not a soul to save under these conditions. But why do these white men hang around the Indian ranches and reservations, living off the toils of the Indian? There is a pathetic story in this nefarious business of human lives. The Indian himself has followed pursuit after his white brethren in the half married system, or not marrying at all, until there is no sacred marriage tie. This shows positively, that the Indian laws are forever lost. Education is the only way out of these difficulties, for those who have had an opportunity to attend the schools have married under the laws of the United States, and these laws must be enforced, since all the Indian laws have been abolished by the degenerate white men. I trust the day is not far distant when the degenerate white man will no longer be tolerated to camp on the reservations and leave in his path the ruination of human lives.
Before the appearance of the white man, the marriage of the middle and wealthy classes were considered sacred, the most sacred ties that could bind a human being for the cause of the future generation. Divorces were considered a disgrace upon posterity and a shame upon moral society, therefore, divorces were few and far between. When a divorce cause was pleaded, usually trouble ensued that resulted in bloodshed before the case would be settled. These divorces sometimes left the birth of the children for slanderous tongues to assail, and when these children became of age they would resent bitterly the action of their father and mother, and the feud would be renewed, sometimes for several generations before a final settlement would be made. Divorces among the Indians were very difficult to obtain, as it was ruinous to posterity, and a menace upon society. Among the Talth divorces were unknown.
CHAPTER XX.
THE TWO FAMOUS ATHLETES.