The Araucanian maidens of Chili are disposed of with even less ceremony.  In the choice of husbands, as we have seen, they have no more freedom than a Circassian slave.  Our informant (E.R.  Smith, 214) adds, however, that attachments do sometimes spring up, and, though the lovers have little opportunity to communicate freely, they resort occasionally to amatory songs, tender glances, and other tricks which lovers understand.  “Matrimony may follow, but such a preliminary courtship is by no means considered necessary.”  When a man wants a girl he calls on her father with his friends.  While the friends talk with the parent, he seizes the bride

“by the hair or by the heel, as may be most convenient, and drags her along the ground to the open door.  Once fairly outside, he springs to the saddle, still firmly grasping his screaming captive, whom he pulls up over the horse’s back, and yelling forth a whoop of triumph, he starts off at full gallop....  Gaining the woods, the lover dashes into the tangled thickets, while the friends considerately pause upon the outskirts until the screams of the bride have died away.”

A day or two later the couple emerge from the forest and without further ceremony live as man and wife.  This is the usual way; but sometimes

“a man meets a girl in the fields alone, and far away from home; a sudden desire to better his solitary condition seizes him, and without further ado he rides up, lays violent hands upon the damsel and carries her off.  Again, at their feasts and merrymakings (in which the women are kept somewhat aloof from the men), a young man may be smitten with a sudden passion, or be emboldened by wine to express a long slumbering preference for a dusky maid; his sighs and amorous glances will perhaps be returned, and rushing among the unsuspecting females, he will bear away the object of his choice while yet she is in the melting mood.  When such an attempt is foreseen the unmarried girls form a ring around their companion, and endeavor to shield her; but the lover and his friends, by well-directed attacks, at length succeed in breaking through the magic circle, and drag away the damsel in triumph; perhaps, in the excitement of the game, some of her defenders too may share her fate.”

A Patagonian courtship is amusingly described by Bourne (91).  The chief of the tribe that held him a captive several months would not allow anyone to marry without his consent.  In his opinion

“no Indian who was not an accomplished rogue—­particularly in the horse-stealing line—­an expert hunter, able to provide plenty of meat and grease, was fit to have a wife on any conditions.”

One day a suitor appeared for the hand of the chief’s own daughter, a quasi-widow, but the chief repulsed him because he had no horses.  As a last resort the suitor appealed to the young woman herself, promising, if she favored him, that he would give her plenty of