the stream
and turned to leave when one of the young men jumped
across the creek and confronted one of the girls, her
companion walking away some distance. The lovers stood
three feet apart, she with downcast face, he evidently
pleading his cause to not unwilling ears. By and by she
drew from her belt a package containing a necklace,
which she gave to the young man, who took it shyly from
her hands. A moment later the girl had joined her
friend, and the man recrossed the brook, where he and
his friend flung themselves on the grass and examined
the necklace. Then they rose to go. Again the flute was
heard gradually dying away in the distance.

INDIAN LOVE-POEMS

As it is not customary for an Indian to call at the lodge where a girl
lives, about the only chance an Omaha has to woo is at the creek where
the girl fetches water, as in the above idyl. Hence courting is always
done in secret, the girls never telling the elders, though they may
compare notes with each other.

"Generally an honorable courtship ends in a more or less
speedy elopement and marriage, but there are men and women
who prefer dalliance, and it is this class that furnishes
the heroes and heroines of the Wa-oo-wa-an."

These Wa-oo-wa-an, or woman songs, are a sort of ballad relating the
experiences of young men and women. "They are sung by young men when
in each other's company, and are seldom overheard by women, almost
never by women of high character;" they "belong to that season in a
man's career when 'wild oats' are said to be sown." Some of them are
vulgar, others humorous.

"They are in no sense love-songs, they have nothing to
do with courtship, and are reserved for the exclusive
audience of men." "The true love-song, called by the
Omahas Bethae wa-an ... is sung generally in the early
morning, when the lover is keeping his tryst and
watching for the maiden to emerge from the tent and go
to the spring. They belong to the secret courtship, and
are sometimes called Me-the-g'thun wa-an--courting
songs." "The few words in these songs convey the one
poetic sentiment: 'With the day I come to you;' or
'Behold me as the day dawns.' Few unprejudiced
listeners," the writer adds, "will fail to recognize in
the Bethae wa-an, or love-songs, the emotion and the
sentiment that prompts a man to woo the w