erring wives by cutting off their noses (the Comanches and other tribes, down to the Brazilian Botocudos, did the same thing), they eagerly offered their wives and daughters in exchange for a bottle of whiskey.  In this respect, too, this case is typical.  Sutherland found (I., 184) that in regard to twenty-one tribes of Indians out of thirty-eight there was express record of unlimited intercourse before marriage and the loaning or exchanging of wives.  In seventeen he could not get express information, and in only four was it stated that a chaste girl was more esteemed than an unchaste one.  In the chapter on Indifference to Chastity I cited testimony showing that in Australia, the Pacific Islands, and among aborigines in general, chastity is not valued as a virtue.  There are plenty of tribes that attempt to enforce it, but for commercial, sensual, or at best, genealogical reasons, not from a regard for personal purity; so that among all these lower races jealousy in our sense of the word is out of the question.

Care must be taken not to be imposed on by deceptive facts and inaccurate testimony.  Thus Westermarck says (119) that

“in the Pelew Islands it is forbidden even to speak about another man’s wife or mention her name.  In short, the South Sea Islanders are, as Mr. Macdonald remarks, generally jealous of the chastity of their wives.”

Nothing could be more misleading than these two sentences.  The men are not jealous of the women’s chastity, for they unhesitatingly lend them to other men; they are “jealous” of them simply as they are of their other movable property.  As for the Pelew Islanders in particular, what Westermarck cites from Ymer is quite true; it is also true that if a man beats or insults a woman he must pay a fine or suffer the death penalty; and that if he approaches a place where women are bathing he must put them on their guard by shouting.  But all these things are mere whimsicalities of barbarian custom, for the Pelew Islanders are notoriously unchaste even for Polynesians.  They have no real family life; they have club-houses in which men consort promiscuously with women; and no moral restraint of any sort is put upon boys and girls, nor have they any idea of modesty or decency.[17] (Ploss, II., 416; Kotzebue, III., 215.)

A century ago Alexander Mackenzie wrote (66) regarding the Knistenaux or Cree Indians of the Northwest: 

“It does not appear ... that chastity is considered by them as a virtue; or that fidelity is believed to be essential to the happiness of wedded life; though it sometimes happens that the infidelity of a wife is punished by the husband with the loss of her hair, nose, and perhaps life; such severity proceeds from its having been practised without his permission; for a temporary exchange of wives is not uncommon; and the offer of their persons is considered as a necessary part of the hospitality due to strangers.”

Of the Natchez Indians Charlevoix wrote (267):  “There is no such thing as jealousy in these marriages; on the contrary the Natchez, without any ceremony, lend one another their wives.”  Concerning the Eskimos we read in Bancroft: