94 BUREAU OF AMEKICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



MARRIAGE 



Chastity in iiniiiarried girl.s Avas not valued and was nearly non- 

 existent. Looseness on the part of Natchez and Taensa women was 

 particular!}' noted and commented upon by the hrst missionaries," and 

 there was little in their dealing with the Frenchmen to improve them 

 in this respect. Far from being held in contempt, a girl was esteemed 

 in i^roportion to the dowry she could amass by the loan of her person, 

 and Penicaut even says, as cited below, that the Natchez realm of 

 future happiness was withheld from those who were niggardly 

 regarding it. 



The girls (says Diimont) let themselves out willingly to the Frenchmen in 

 the capacity of slaves and mistresses at the same time, and for an ell of Lim- 

 bourg, which in that country is worth sixteen pounds in notes, they remain 

 with them in these two relations during the space of a month. As among these 

 nations there are neither religion nor laws which forbid this libertinism they 

 abandon themselves to it without shame and without scruple, giving them- 

 selves sometimes to one and sometimes to another, their virtue never being 

 proof to a present made to them, be it only a tritie. It is not that among these 

 savage girls there is none who is wise, but it must be admitted that they are 

 A'ery rare.^ 



Says the Luxembourg memoir: 



Those [women] who are not married have great liberty in their pleasures; 

 no one can disturb them. Some are found whose chastity can not be shaken; 

 there are some also who desire neither lovers nor husbands, although chastity 

 among the savages is one of the least virtues. The greater number take good 

 advantage of the liberty which custom gives them.'' 



After describing the licentious dances of the Natchez, Penicaut 

 comments : 



I am not at all astonished that these girls are lewd and have no modesty, 

 since their fathers and mothers and their religion teach them that on leaving 

 this world there is a plank, very narrow and difficult to pass, to enter into the 

 grand villages, where they pretend they are going after death, and only tliose 

 who have disported themselves well with the boys will pass this plank easily. 

 One sees the consequences of these detestable lessons, which are instilled into 

 them from their earliest years, supported by the liberty and idleness in which 

 they are kept, since a girl up to the age of 20 or 25 does nothing else, the 

 father and mother being obliged to have her food provided, and yet in accord- 

 ance with her taste and what she asks for, until she is married. 



If through these infamous prostitutions one become pregnani and is delivered 

 of a child, her mother and father ask her if she wishes to have children; if 

 she replies no, and they are unable to nourish it, they immediately strangle 

 this poor little new-born child outside of the cabin and inter it. without its 

 making the least impression on them ; but if the girl wishes to keep her child, 

 they give it to her and she nourishes it.<* 



° See Gravier in .Tes. Rel., lxv^ 1.31-135. 



* Diimont, M6m. Hist, siir La Louisiane, i, 1.">.5. 



« M(5moire sur La Louisiane, 137. 



<* P<5nicaut in Margry, DC'COUvertes, v^ 447-448. 



