folks are obviously in the habit of obeying implicitly, for as Dalton says (132) of the Kisans, “There is no instance on record of a youth or maiden objecting to the arrangement made for them.”  With the Savaras, Boad Kandhs, Hos, and Kaupuis, the prevalence of elopements shows that the girls are not allowed their own choice.  Lepcha marriages are often made on credit, and are breakable if the payment bargained for is not made to the parent within the specified time. (Rowney, 139.)[260]

SCALPS AND FIELD-MICE

While among the Nagas, as already stated, the women must do all the hard work, they have one privilege:  tribal custom allows them to refuse a suitor until he has put in their hands a human skull or scalp; and the gentle maidens make rigorous use of this privilege—­so much so that in consequence of the difficulty of securing these “gory tokens of love” marriages are contracted late in life.  The head need not be that of an enemy:  “A skull may be acquired by the blackest treachery, but so long as the victim was not a member of the clan,” says Dalton (39), “it is accepted as a chivalrous offering of a true knight to his lady,” Dalton gives another and less grewsome instance of “chivalry” occurring among the Oraons (253).

“A young man shows his inclination for a girl thus:  He sticks flowers in the mass of her back-hair, and if she subsequently return the compliment, it is concluded that she desires a continuance of his attention.  The next step may be an offering to his lady-love of some nicely grilled field-mice, which the Oraons declare to be the most delicate of food.  Tender looks and squeezes whilst both are engaged in the dance are not much thought of.  They are regarded merely as the result of emotions naturally arising from pleasant contiguity and exciting strains; but when it comes to flowers and field-mice, matters look serious.”

A TOPSY-TURVY CUSTOM

Coyness as well as primitive gallantry has its amusing phases among these wild tribes.  The following description seems so much like an extravaganza that the reader may suspect it to be an abstract of a story by Frank Stockton or a libretto by Gilbert; but it is a serious page from Dalton’s Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (63-64).  It relates to the Garos, who are thus described: 

“The women are on the whole the most unlovely of the sex, but I was struck with the pretty, plump, nude figures, the merry musical voices and good-humored countenances of the Garos girls.  Their sole garment is a piece of cloth less than a foot in breadth that just meets round the loins, and in order that it may not restrain the limbs it is only fastened where it meets under the hip at the upper corners.”

But if they have not much to boast of in the way of dress, these girls enjoy a privilege rare in India or elsewhere of making the first advances.