y with their husbands they ... and they slay
an infinite number of creatures by that means.... The greatest sign of
friendship which they can show you is that they give you their wives
and their daughters" and feel "highly honored" if they are accepted.
"They eat all their enemies whom they kill or capture, as well females
as males." "Their other barbarous customs are such that expression is
too weak for the reality."

The ineradicable perverseness of some minds is amusingly illustrated
by Southey, in his _History of Brazil_. After referring to Amerigo
Vespucci's statements regarding the lascivious practices of the
aboriginals, he exclaims, in a footnote: "This is false! Man has never
yet been discovered in such a state of depravity!" What the navigators
wrote regarding the cannibalism and cruelty of these savages he
accepts as a matter of course; but to doubt their immaculate purity is
high treason! The attitude of the sentimentalists in this matter is
not only silly and ridiculous, but positively pathological. As their
number is great, and seems to be growing (under the influence of such
writers as Catlin, Helen Hunt Jackson, Brinton, Westermarck, etc.), it
is necessary, in the interest of the truth, to paint the Indian as he
really was until contact with the whites (missionaries and others)
improved him somewhat.[204]

THE NOBLE RED MAN

Beginning with the Californians, their utter lack of moral sense has
already been described. They were no worse than the other Pacific
coast tribes in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska.
George Gibbs, the leading authority on the Indians of Western Oregon
and Washington, says regarding them (I., 197-200):

"Prostitution is almost universal. An Indian, perhaps,
will not let his favorite wife, but he looks upon his
others, his sisters, daughters, female relatives, and
slaves, as a legitimate source of profit....
Cohabitation of unmarried females among their own
people brings no disgrace if unaccompanied with
child-birth, which they take care to prevent. This
commences at a very early age, perhaps ten or twelve
years."

"Chastity is not considered a virtue by the Chinook women," says Ross
(92),

"and their amorous propensities know no bounds. All classes,
from the highest to the lowest, indulge in coarse sensuality
and shameless profligacy. Even the chief would boast of
obtaining a paltry toy or t