elopment
of the passions of the human heart and is founded upon the
cultivation of the affections between the sexes they were
entirely ignorant. In their temperaments they were below
this passion in its simplest forms. Attachments between
individuals, or the cultivation of each other's affections
before marriage, was entirely unknown; so also were promises
of marriage."

Morgan regrets that his remarks "may perhaps divest the mind of some
pleasing impressions" created by novelists and poets concerning the
attachments which spring up in the bosom of Indian society; but these,
he adds, are "entirely inconsistent with the marriage institution as
it existed among them, and with the facts of their social history." I
may add that another careful observer who had lived among the Indians,
Parkman, cites Morgan's remarks as to their incapacity for love with
approval.

There is one more important conclusion to be drawn from Morgan's
evidence. The Iroquois were among the most advanced of all Indians.
"In intelligence," says Brinton (_A.R._, 82), "their position must be
placed among the highest." As early as the middle of the fifteenth
century the great chief Hiawatha completed the famous political league
of the Iroquois. The women, though regarded as inferiors, had more
power and authority than among most other Indians. Morgan speaks of
the "unparallelled generosity" of the Iroquois, of their love of
truth, their strict adherence to the faith of treaties, their
ignorance of theft, their severe punishment for the infrequent crimes
and offences that occurred among them. The account he gives of their
various festivals, their eloquence, their devout religious feeling and
gratitude to the Great Spirit for favors received, the thanks
addressed to the earth, the rivers, the useful herbs, the moving wind
which banishes disease, the sun, moon, and stars for the light they
give, shows them to be far superior to most of the red men. And yet
they were "below the passion of love in its simplest forms." Thus we
see once more that refinement of sexual feeling, far from being, as
the sentimentalists would have us believe, shared with us by the
lowest savages, is in reality one of the latest products of
civilization--if not the very latest.

THE UNLOVING ESKIMO

Throughout this chapter no reference has been made to the Eskimos, who
are popularly considered a race apart from the Indians. The best
authorit