Romantic Love — Wintu, Nisenan, Maidu, Nomlaki

Debussy and Brahms; why not us? Lord Byron and Rimbaud; why not us? Remember Romeo and Juliet? Why do human beings think others cannot fall in love or feel the joy of love, silly or comical longing, or the tragedy of loss? Even when marriages are arranged by the families, we can laugh about it and suffer from it, as much as anyone. Once there was a young man, handsome and equally secretive, whom the women in the area wanted as much as he wanted to avoid them. . . . Once in a village men and women played a ball game where men played with their feet and women played with their hands so that in the confusion, rolling on the ground, liberties could be taken. . . . Once a woman left her child to chase a butterfly. Although she caught him, she could not hold him for there were so many more butterflies to chase. . . .