all to contamination.  The wild tribes of India in general have not yet arrived at that point of view.  In their indifference to chastity they rank with the lowest savages, and usually there is a great deal of promiscuous indulgence before a mate is chosen for a union of endurance.  Among the Oraons, as Dalton tells us (248), “liaisons between boys and girls of the same village seldom end in marriage;” and he gives strange details regarding the conduct of the young people which may not be cited here, and in which the natives see “no impropriety.”  Regarding the Butias Rowney says (142): 

“The marriage tie is so loose that chastity is quite unknown amongst them.  The husbands are indifferent to the honor of their wives, and the wives do not care to preserve that which has no value attached to it. ...  The intercourse of the sexes is, in fact, promiscuous.”

Of the Lepchas Rowney says (139) that “chastity in adult girls previous to marriage is neither to be met with nor cared for.”  Of the Mishmees he says (163):  “Wives are not expected to be chaste, and are not thought worse off when otherwise,” and of the Kookies (186):  “All the women of a village, married or unmarried, are available to the chief at his will, and no stigma attaches to those who are favored by him.”  In some tribes wives are freely exchanged.  Dalton says of the Butan (98) that “the intercourse between the sexes is practically promiscuous.”  Rhyongtha girls indulge in promiscuous intercourse with several lovers before marriage. (Lewin, 121.) With the Kurmuba, “no such ceremony as marriage exists.”  They “live together like the brute creation.” (W.R.  King, 44.)

My theory that in practice, at any rate, if not in form, promiscuity was the original state of affairs among savages, in India as elsewhere, is supported by the foregoing facts, and also by what various writers have told us regarding the licentious festivals indulged in by these wild tribes of India.  “It would appear,” says Dalton (300),

“that most of the hill-tribes found it necessary to promote marriage by stimulating intercourse between the sexes at particular seasons of the year....  At one of the Kandh festivals held in November all the lads and lasses assemble for a spree, and a bachelor has then the privilege of making off with any unmarried girl whom he can induce to go with him, subject to a subsequent arrangement with the parents of the maiden.”

Dalton gives a vivid description of these festivals as practised by the Hos in January, when the granaries are full of wheat and the natives “full of deviltry:”