stance the decision is left to the
Elder who pronounces a sentence without the possibility of appeal.

The immediate consequence of an annulled matrimony is the return of the
presents given by the husband to the family of the wife. The latter at
once abandons the tribe to which she belonged after her marriage and
becomes a stranger to those who, a short time before, were her closest
relations.

This is not the end of a love-dream but the calm and reasonable decision
of two beings who, finding that their characters do not agree and that
they no longer feel pleasure in each other's company, are not
sufficiently cruel towards themselves and their better or worse halves
(as the case may be) as to simulate and continue a union which renders
them unhappy.

In our parts the question of divorced people's children serves as a
weighty argument to the opposers of divorce and gives to its partisans a
difficult problem to study. To the Sakais the solution is easy enough.
The age of the children decides with whom they have to remain, and those
left to the father's charge are taken care of by the womenfolk around,
who from a pure impulse of maternity and without any hope of reward,
treat them with motherly tenderness. It is as though their mother was
dead and their natural female guardians become the sisters or mother of
the father. In default of these close relations the man is free to
contract a second marriage at once, his term of mourning being condoned.

Any way, the little ones always become the object of affectionate
interest to all the women of the village.

* * * * *

The Sakai people do not kiss each other. They know neither the kiss of
Judas nor that of Romeo. They express their sympathy and love by some
rough fondling or the scratching of each other's nose, neck or chin.

Yonder, in the jungle, there are no poets, novelists, dramatists or
painters; a new (and original) field would here be opened to the
excellence of their arts. Can you not imagine, kind reader, how
irresistible the effect would be if, at the most passionate point of
their love scenes, instead of "their trembling lips meeting in a
thrilling kiss" the hero and heroine were to furiously scratch each
other's noses?

Although, now and then, in the interest of true Art, it might be a good
thing for some of our pseudo artists to go to that distant land in
search of strong inspirations that would, at least, increase the glor