and on this point the women of the Redskins of North America think and feel like the Guarani women of Brazil. Thus, with the Omahas, the man hardly ever takes a second wife but with the consent of the first.[1] Often the initiative even comes from her; she goes to find her husband, and says to him, "Marry the daughter of my brother. She and I are of the same flesh." It must be admitted that America is the promised land of the matriarchate, or rather, of maternal filiation; polygamy easily takes an incestuous colour there; the wives of the same man are often relatives, habitually sisters. In about forty of the Redskin tribes, and surely they are not the only ones, when a man marries the eldest daughter of a family, he acquires, by express privilege, the right of taking afterwards for wives all the sisters of the first as soon as they become marriageable.[2] This was the custom of the Omahas, the Cheyennes, the Crees, the Osages, the Black-feet, the Crows, the Spokans of Columbia,[3] the Chawanons of Louisiana, etc.
The custom was not, however, obligatory. The wives were not necessarily relatives, or, at least, not necessarily sisters. Thus, with the Omahas, a man sometimes took as wives an aunt and a niece of his first wife.[4] Among the Californians a man sometimes married not only a group of sisters, but also their mother,[5] and in this respect the Greenlanders imitated their hereditary enemies, the Redskins.[6] But, consanguine or not, polygamy was general among the savage tribes of North America. The possession of a numerous flock of wives placed a man above the common as surely as that of a large fortune does in Europe;[7] religion even sanctified this polygamy, for in all countries it can accommodate itself to the dominant morals. Thus, the Chippeways believe that polygamy is agreeable to the Great Spirit; for it is a means of having a numerous posterity.[8]
- ↑ J. Owen Dorsey, Omaha Sociology, p. 260 (Smithsonian Institution, 1885).
- ↑ L. Morgan, Ancient Societies, p. 432.
- ↑ Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i. p. 277.
- ↑ J. Owen Dorsey, loc. cit., p. 260.
- ↑ Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i. p. 388.
- ↑ Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol. i. p. 255.
- ↑ H. Spencer, Sociology, vol. i. p. 283.
- ↑ Id., ibid. vol. ii. p. 285.
