{Indian Marriage.}
When Any Young Indian Has A Mind For Such A Girl To His Wife,
He, Or Some One For Him, Goes To The Young Woman's Parents, If Living;
If Not, To Her Nearest Relations; Where They Make Offers Of The Match
Betwixt The Couple.
The Relations reply, they will consider of it,
which serves for a sufficient Answer, till there be a second
Meeting
about the Marriage, which is generally brought into Debate
before all the Relations (that are old People) on both Sides;
and sometimes the King, with all his great Men, give their Opinions therein.
If it be agreed on, and the young Woman approve thereof, (for these Savages
never give their Children in Marriage, without their own Consent)
{Indians buy their Wives.} the Man pays so much for his Wife;
and the handsomer she is, the greater Price she bears. Now, it often happens,
that the Man has not so much of their Money ready, as he is to pay
for his Wife; but if they know him to be a good Hunter, and that he can raise
the Sum agreed for, in some few Moons, or any little time, they agree,
she shall go along with him, as betroth'd, but he is not to have
any Knowledge of her, till the utmost Payment is discharg'd;
all which is punctually observ'd. Thus, they lie together under one Covering
for several Months, and the Woman remains the same as she was
when she first came to him. I doubt, our Europeans would be apt
to break this Custom, {Indian Men not vigorous.} but the Indian Men
are not so vigorous and impatient in their Love as we are.
Yet the Women are quite contrary, and those Indian Girls
that have convers'd with the English and other Europeans,
never care for the Conversation of their own Countrymen afterwards.
They never marry so near as a first Cousin; and although there is nothing
more coveted amongst them, than to marry a Woman of their own Nation,
yet when the Nation consists of a very few People (as now adays
it often happens) so that they are all of them related to one another,
then they look out for Husbands and Wives amongst Strangers.
For if an Indian lies with his Sister, or any very near Relation,
his Body is burnt, and his Ashes thrown into the River, as unworthy
to remain on Earth; yet an Indian is allow'd to marry two Sisters,
or his Brothers Wife. Although these People are call'd Savages,
yet Sodomy is never heard of amongst them, and they are so far
from the Practice of that beastly and loathsome Sin, that they have
no Name for it in all their Language.
The Marriages of these Indians are no farther binding,
than the Man and Woman agree together. Either of them has Liberty
to leave the other, upon any frivolous Excuse they can make;
yet whosoever takes the Woman that was another Man's before,
and bought by him, as they all are, must certainly pay to her former Husband,
whatsoever he gave for her.
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