This was pleasant—­for the bridegroom!  To work two years for a wife, undergo a severe course of willow sprouts at the close of his apprenticeship, and then have no security against a possible breach of promise on the part of the bride.  His faith in her constancy must be unlimited.  The intention of the whole ceremony was evidently to give the woman an opportunity to marry the man or not, as she chose, since it was obviously impossible for him to catch her under such circumstances, unless she voluntarily waited for him in one of the pologs.  The plan showed a more chivalrous regard and deference for the wishes and preferences of the gentler sex than is common in an unreconstructed state of society; but it seemed to me, as an unprejudiced observer, that the same result might have been obtained without so much abuse of the unfortunate bridegroom!  Some regard ought to have been paid to his feelings, if he was a man.  I could not ascertain the significance of the chastisement which was inflicted by the women upon the bridegroom with the willow switches.  Dodd suggested that it might be emblematical of married life—­a sort of foreshadowing of future domestic experience; but in view of the masculine Korak character, this hardly seemed to me probable.  No woman in her senses would try the experiment a second time upon one of the stern, resolute men who witnessed that ceremony, and who seemed to regard it then as perfectly proper.  Circumstances would undoubtedly alter cases.

Mr. A.S.  Bickmore, in the American Journal of Science for May, 1868, notices this curious custom of the Koraks, and says that the chastisement is intended to test the young man’s “ability to bear up against the ills of life”; but I would respectfully submit that the ills of life do not generally come in that shape, and that switching a man over the back with willow sprouts is a very singular way of preparing him for future misfortunes of any kind.

Whatever may be the motive, it is certainly an infringement upon the generally recognised prerogatives of the sterner sex, and should be discountenanced by all Koraks who favour masculine supremacy.  Before they know it, they will have a woman’s suffrage association on their hands, and female lecturers will be going about from band to band advocating the substitution of hickory clubs and slung-shots for the harmless willow switches, and protesting against the tyranny which will not permit them to indulge in this interesting diversion at least three times a week. [Footnote:  It is now well known that this ceremony is a form of “marriage by capture” which is widely prevalent among barbarous peoples.—­G.K. (1909).]