Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/60

 48 The Indians of the Issd-fapicrd District.

girl's Chief by the present of a pot of coca and a pot of tobacco ; and take to his future parents-in-law a piece of ■ palm shingle, such as the roof is thatched with, and a section of a small tree, — symbolic proof respectively that he has either built his own house or obtained quarters in one, and has cleared a plantation. The father will produce coca and tobacco, and when they have licked this together the preliminaries are done. Two weeks later the marriage is consummated.

A man is practically free to marry according to his fancy, so long as the bride selected is not a member of his own household, nor one of a hostile tribe. Indians choose, as a rule, girls considerably younger than tliemselves, and the child-wife is brought up by the women of her husband's tribe until she arrives at maturity.

Unmarried women, and girl-slaves capture'd in war, belong to the Chief, but they are his wards, not his wives. If a man desires to marry a slave-girl, he must give a present to the Chief's wife. After marriage the girl is free. Life is a strenuous business for all, and especially the women, for their work is continual, but the men's inter- mittent. Women are the cooks and the agriculturalists. Woman, the Indian says, can produce children, so it follows that she can produce manioc. Therefore no man will ever plant the manioc slips, nor prepare the cassava. His task is to fish, to hunt, and to fight.

The great event in Indian existence, the one social function, the sole outlet for all there may be of art in the Indian nature, is the dance. Anything will serve as an excuse for such festivity, and all the energies of the tribe for days beforehand will be concentrated on- the prepara- tions. From childhood they have practised the steps, and learnt the tribal melodies. Dress on ordinary occasions is almost non-existent ; the men wear only a strip of beaten barkcloth, and the women not even this ; but they paint the most elaborate and brilliant designs upon their naked skins,