The wind wafted her words and song
to her family, who had rushed to the foot of the rock.
They implored her to come down, promising at last that
she should not be forced to marry. Some tried to climb
the rock, but before they could reach her she threw
herself down the precipice and fell a corpse at the
feet of her friends.
Mrs. Eastman also relates the story of Winona's leap (65-70). "The
incident is well known," she writes. "Almost everyone has read it a
dozen times, _and always differently told_." It is needless to say
that a story told in a dozen different ways and embellished by
half-breed guides and white collectors of legends has no value as
scientific evidence.[235] But even if we grant that the incidents
happened just as related, there is nothing to indicate the presence of
exalted sentiments. The girl preferred the hunter because he would be
more frequently with her than the warrior (one of the versions says
she wanted to wed "the successful hunter")[236]--which leaves us in
doubt as to the utilitarian or sentimental quality of her attachment.
Apparently she was not very eager to marry the hunter, for had she
been, why did she refuse to live when they told her she would not be
forced to marry the warrior? But the most important consideration is
that she did not commit suicide for _love_ at all, but from
_aversion_--to escape being married to a man she disliked.
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