d chastity upon their
women."

Among the Modocs a wife who violated her husband's property rights in
her "chastity," was disembowelled in public, as Bancroft informs us
(I., 350). No wonder, that, as he adds, "adultery, being attended with
so much danger, is comparatively rare, but among the unmarried, who
have nothing to fear, a gross licentiousness prevails."

The Peruvian sun virgins are often supposed to indicate a regard for
purity; but in reality the temples in which these girls were reared
and guarded were nothing but nurseries for providing a choice
assortment of concubines for the licentious Incas and their friends.
(Torquemada, IX., 16.)[207]

"In the earlier times of Peru the union of the sexes was
voluntary, unregulated, and accompanied by barbarous usages:
many of which even at the present day exist among the
uncivilized nations of South America." (Tschudi's
_Antiquities_, 184; McCulloh, 379.)

Of the Mexicans, too, it has been erroneously said
that they valued purity; but Bandelier has collected facts from the
old Spanish writers, in summing which up he says: "This almost
establishes promiscuity among the ancient Mexicans, as a preliminary
to formal marriage." Oddly enough, the crime of adultery with a
married woman was considered one against a cluster of kindred, and not
against the husband; for if he caught the culprits _in flagrante
delictu_ and killed the wife, he lost his own life!

Another source of error regarding exceptional virtue in an Indian
tribe lies in the fact that in some few cases female captives were
spared. This was due, however, not to a chivalrous regard for female
virtue, but to superstition. James Adair relates of the Choktah (164)
that even a certain chief noted for his cruelty

"did not attempt the virtue of his female captives lest
(as he told one of them) 'it should offend the Indian's
god;' though at the same time his pleasures were
heightened in proportion to the shrieks and groans from
prisoners of both sexes while they were under his
torture. Although the Choktah are libidinous, yet I
have known them to take several female prisoners
without offering the least violence to their virtue,
till the time of purgation was expired; then some of
them forced their captives, notwithstanding their
pressing entreaties and tears."

Parkman, too, was convinced (_Jes. in Can._, XXXIV.) that the
remar