Individual preliminaries settled, it remains for sanction to be obtained from the chief of the girl’s household—to whom, it must be remembered, all unattached women belong—with which end in view the would-be bridegroom presents him with a pot of tobacco and one of coca.[266] He need ask no one’s consent of his own account, as in marriage the man has an absolutely free hand, unless he goes against tribal law by marrying a girl of any hostile tribe who might prove to be a danger to the community. As proof that he is a man of substance and owns a house, or has a recognised right to quarters in one, he will bring a piece of palm shingle that has been left over after the thatching, to the father of the selected damsel. He also brings a small tree cut through, to show that he has cleared and made a plantation. In both cases the form would appear to be accepted without the actuality. The father then produces some coca and tobacco. North of the Japura they will chew pataca,[267] and they will lick tobacco ceremonially together. There is no further ceremony, and a fortnight later the marriage is consummated, the girl remaining with her own people during the interval.[268]
Robuchon and Hardenburg, in dealing with this formality of presenting wood, have taken the action to be that the suitor wishes to provide his future parents-in-law with a supply of firewood. Though in other details of marriage ceremonial they are exactly correct, both these authorities seem to have mixed the idea of firewood—a matter it is never the son-in-law’s business to prepare—with this symbolic offering, which is intended to signify that his patch of ground for cultivation is prepared and only waiting for the woman to plant and cultivate it.
If the information given me about tribes north of the Japura is correct, a more primitive marriage custom still maintains among their neighbours. The suitor, accompanied by his father and other relatives, visits the father of the chosen lady. Notice of the arrival having duly been sent, the object of such a formal visit is understood, though not definitely stated beforehand. If the suggestion meets with favour the visitors are welcomed with a feast. Two or three days later, in the middle of the festivities, the bridegroom’s party suddenly kidnap the bride, without any show of opposition on the part of her friends and family. She is carried off to the visitors’ canoes, and the pair thenceforward may consider themselves to be man and wife without further ceremony.[269] Though I never met with this custom in the districts near the middle Issa and Japura rivers, all the tribes told me of it, and among the Kuretu, so I was informed, the ceremony is even more suggestive of marriage by capture, as it is a point of honour for the bride to scream and protest while the groom carries her off with mock assistance from his friends.[270]
In every marriage the contracting parties are allowed complete freedom of choice. This is absolute on the part of the man, and, with the rare exception of young girls adopted into a family with a view to marriage, equally so on the part of the woman. The unmarried women are never objects of barter. The man neither pays for his wife, nor does he receive dowry with her. With marriage he assumes entire responsibility for wife and family. Girls rarely refuse an offer made to them. They occupy an inferior position in the family compared with that of the sons. By education and custom they are subservient to the wishes of the elders. As they grow older and have to take their share of the communal work they lose what independence they had as irresponsible children. By marriage alone can the native girl obtain a corner of her own in the maloka, a desirable sleeping-place beside the fire. A man is not forced upon her against her will. One bachelor is to all intents and purposes as eligible as any other. Personal appearance, where all who attain puberty are of necessity healthy and well formed, counts for little. The battle of Eugenics is fought at birth not at marriage. Whereas a boy becomes independent almost from the date of his first breech clout, the girl has her freedom curtailed with each succeeding year. Food tabus have schooled her appetite. She has suffered the restraints of the secret lodge. Marriage is her destiny, she neither knows nor desires an alternative. Such an upbringing does not make for capriciousness where choice of a husband is concerned. She can always run away if her husband prove displeasing, but in the majority of cases, unless subjected to very decided ill-usage, it never enters into the head of any wife so to behave. Peoples who will submit to the tyranny of a few blackguardly oppressors, and make hardly an effort in self-defence, do not rebel against the obvious in everyday life. Pia, “it is so,” makes as much for demoralising inertia as Kismet. In short, there is no coercion in an Indian girl’s wedding, and equally no opportunity for original selection.
This question of personal acquiescence rules throughout their matrimonial relations, for with these Indians the marriage contract is only binding so long as husband and wife desire to be bound. Divorce is simple. For good cause shown the husband can rid himself of his wife, and be free to try for better fortune with another. He has only to bring the matter up in tobacco palaver, and if he can make good his cause he need not trouble further: he is free.[271] Infidelity, bad temper, disease, laziness, disobedience, or childlessness, is deemed a sufficiently weighty objection in a wife to warrant such action. Tribal opinion is in every case the chief criterion in the business.
On the part of the wife the matter is simpler yet. She will run away. A woman is never blamed for deserting her husband, on the presumption that such unnatural procedure could alone be due to the fact that she had been not only ill-treated but grossly ill-treated by him. For an independent woman is unknown among the Indians: if she is not under the protection of some man she is left in the lurch, and if she does not speedily find a protector must very surely die. Moreover it is obvious that when a woman runs away she must leave her children, and only gross cruelty will drive her to that.
If, on the other hand, a man divorce his wife, that is to say if he drives her away from him and so forces her out of the household, he lays himself open to severe tribal censure should the consensus of opinion be that no good cause has been shown. If upon inquiry he fails to establish a satisfactory excuse, he promptly is held up to ridicule by his fellows; he is the butt of all the women; and he will certainly find it a most difficult thing to remarry, for no woman will ever consent to be his wife. In fact, tribal censure results in the practical banishment of the offender, for his life in the tribal family will be made unendurable till such time as his offence be forgotten. The end of this persecution, and his return to tribal rights and privileges, depends entirely on his ability to prove and persuade his fellows that after all he was not the one to be blamed.
When a woman quarrels with her man, or wishes to revenge any wrong she may have suffered at his hands, real or imaginary, she will dart at the loin-cloth of the offender in the presence of the tribe and attempt to tear it away so as to expose him to his fellows. No insult could be greater, for this is the worst disgrace that can happen to a man. Should this occur, the victim must run into the forest and hide himself; nor can he return until he has beaten out a new bark loin-cloth to replace the one that was torn, and so, once more decently attired, he may come back and apologise to the tribe. The pair will then go off together into the bush, and, according to circumstances, the wrong-doer undergoes, or perhaps they mutually undergo, a very painful penance. The wronged one takes one or more of the big black stinging ants, and places them on the most sensitive and private parts of the other’s body. The sting of the virulent insects not only gives intense pain, but results in fever within twenty-four hours, and there is much swelling of the parts affected.[272] This is the recognised mode of punishment after any conjugal infidelity, or any ordinary separation; and, repentance thus very practically expressed by submission to torture, forgiveness follows and good relations are again restored.
When a man dies the top ligatures of his widow are cut as a sign of mourning, and are only replaced if she marries again. There is no prohibition against remarriage, though this is not permitted till some months after the husband’s death. As a rule, on a man’s death his widow continues to live with his people, either under the protection of the chief, or under that of her dead husband’s brother. If her own people are not hostile to the tribe into which she married she may return to them, but the probability is that the tribes will have drifted apart, even if they have not become enemies. Very frequently widows become the tribal prostitutes, a custom that is not recognised, but is tolerated, and is never practised openly or immodestly.[273]