“They have no idea of morality, and the marriage relation sits so loosely as to hardly excite jealousy in its abuse.  Female chastity is held a thing of value only as men hold property in it.”  “A stranger is always provided with a female companion for the night, and during the husband’s absence he gets another man to take his place” (I., 81, 80).

The evidence collected by him also shows that the Thlinkeets and Aleuts freely exchanged or lent their wives.  Of the coast Indians of Southern Alaska and British Columbia, A.P.  Niblack says (Smithson.  Rep., 1888, 347): 

“Jealousy being unknown amongst the Indians, and sanctioned prostitution a common evil, the woman who can earn the greatest number of blankets or the largest sum of money wins the admiration of others for herself and a high position for her husband by her wealth.”

In the same government reports (1886, Pt.  I.) C. Willoughby writes of the Quinault Agency Washington Indians:  “In their domestic relations chastity seems to be almost unknown.”  Of the Chippewayans Hearne relates (129) that it is a very common custom among the men to exchange a night’s lodging with each other’s wives.  But this is so far from being considered as an act which is criminal, that it is esteemed by them as one of the strongest ties of friendship between two families.[18] The Hurons and many other tribes from north to south had licentious festivals at which promiscuous intercourse prevailed betraying the absence of jealousy.  Of the Tupis of Brazil Southey says (I., 241):  “The wives who found themselves neglected, consoled themselves by initiating the boys in debauchery.  The husbands seem to have known nothing of jealousy.”  The ancient inhabitants of Venezuela lived in houses big enough to hold one hundred and sixty persons, and Herrera says of them: 

“They observed no law or rule in matrimony, but took as many wives as they would, and they as many husbands, quitting one another at pleasure, without reckoning any harm done on either part.  There was no such thing as jealousy among them, all living as best pleased them, without taking offence at one another.”

The most painstaking research has failed to reveal to me a single Indian tribe in North or South America that showed a capacity for real jealousy, that is, anguish based on a sense of violated wifely chastity and alienated affection.  The actions represented as due to jealousy are always inspired by the desire for revenge, never by the anguish of disappointed affection; they are done in hate, not in love.  A chief who kills or mutilates one of his ten wives for consorting with another man without his consent, acts no more from jealousy, properly so called, than does a father who shoots the seducer of his daughter, or a Western mob that lynches a horse-thief.  Among the Australian aborigines killing an intriguing wife is an every-day occurrence, though “chastity