BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY


 MARRIAGE

 Chastity in unmarried girls was not valued and was nearly non-
existent. Looseness on the part of Natchez and Taknsa women was
particularly noted and commented upon by the first 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 proportion to the dowry she could amass by the loan of her person,
and P6nicaut even says, as cited below, that the Natchez realm of
future happiness was withheld from those who were niggardly
regarding it.
 The girls (says Dumont) 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 l)ounds 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 libertinisni they
abandon themselves to it without samine land without scruple, giving them-
selves sometimes to one land sometimes to another, their virtue never being
proof to a present made to then, be it only a trifle. It is not that among these
savage girls there is none who is wise, but it must be admiitted that they are
very rare.h

 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 he 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.c
 After describing the licentious dances of the Natchez, P6nicaut
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 then lliat on leaving
this world there is a plink, very narrow and difficult to pass, to enter into the
grand villages, where they pretend they are going after death and only those
who have disported themselves well with Ile boys will pass this plank easily.
One sees the consequences of these detestable lessons, which are instilled into
then from their earliest years, supported by the liberty and illness 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 wili lier taste and wliat she asks for, until she is married.
 If through these infamous prostitution one become pregnant and is delivered
of a child, her mother llnd 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-horn 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.r

 SS'ee ravier in Jes. Rel., LXV, 131-135.
 Dnumont, 1Mdmm. Hist. snr ,T L ouisiane 1, 155.
 Mdlminoire sur La Louisiane, 137.
 Penicaut in Margry, Decouvertes, v, 447-448.


[BULL. 43