The inclinations of the girl are in nowise consulted; no
matter where her affections are placed, she goes to the
highest bidder. The purchase effected, the successful suitor
leads his blushing property to his hut and she becomes his
wife without further ceremony. Wherever this system of
wife-purchase obtains the rich old men almost absorb the
youth and beauty of the tribe, while the younger and poorer
men must content themselves with old and ugly wives. Hence
their eagerness for that wealth which will enable them to
throw away their old wives and buy new ones."[226]
A favorable soil for the growth of romantic and conjugal love! The
Omahas have a proverb that an old man cannot win a girl, he can only
win her parents; nevertheless if the old man has the ponies he gets
the girl. The Indians insist on their rights, too. Powers tells (318)
of a California (Nishinam) girl who loathed the man that had a claim
on her. She took refuge with a kind old widow, who deceived the
pursuers. When the deception was discovered, the noble warriors drew
their arrows and shot the widow to death in the middle of the village
amid general approval. I myself once saw a poor Arizona girl who had
taken refuge with a white family. When I saw the man to whom she had
been sold--a dirty old tramp whom a decent person would not want in
the same tribe, much less in the same wigwam--I did not wonder she
hated him; but he had paid for her and she was ultimately obliged to
live with him.
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