82:3.5

Many early tribes required feats of stealing as a qualification for marriage; later peoples substituted for such raiding forays, athletic contests and competitive games. The winners in these contests were awarded the first prize—choice of the season’s brides. Among the head-hunters a youth might not marry until he possessed at least one head, although such skulls were sometimes purchasable. As the buying of wives declined, they were won by riddle contests, a practice that still survives among many groups of the black man.