The _jus primae noctis_ granted to the friends of the bridegroom may, however, be derived from another source. Touching the capture of wives, Mr. Brough Smyth states that, in New South Wales and about Riverina, “in any instance where the abduction has taken place by a party of men for the benefit of some one individual, each of the members of the party claims, as a right, a privilege which the intended husband has no power to refuse.”[395] A similar custom prevails, according to Mr. Johnston, among the Wa-taïta in Eastern Central Africa, though the capture here is a symbol only. After the girl has been bought by the bridegroom, she runs away and affects to hide. Then she is sought out by him and three or four of his friends. When she is found, the men seize her and carry her off to the hut of her future husband, where she is placed at the disposal of her captors.[396] In such cases the _jus primae noctis_ is a reward for a good turn done, or perhaps, as Mr. McLennan suggests,[397] a common war-right, exercised by the captors of the woman. If we knew all the circumstances, this explanation might prove to hold good also with regard to the right granted to the wedding-guests in the cases we have mentioned. At any rate, it must be admitted that these strange customs may be interpreted in a much simpler way than that suggested by Sir John Lubbock.
There are some instances of _jus primae noctis_ accorded to a particular person, a chief or a priest. Thus, among the Kinipetu-Eskimo, the Ankut, or high-priest has this right.[398] Among the Caribs, the bridegroom received his bride from the hand of the Piache, or medicine-man, and certainly not as a virgin.[399] A similar custom is met with among certain Brazilian tribes, though in some of these cases it is to the chief that the right in question belongs.[400] The Spanish nobleman Andagova states that, in Nicaragua, a priest living in the temple was with the bride during the night preceding her marriage.[401] And among the Tahus in Northern Mexico according to Castañeda, the _droit du seigneur_ was accorded to the cacique.[402]
In descriptions of travel in the fifteenth century, the aboriginal inhabitants of Teneriffe are represented as having married no woman who had not previously spent a night with the chief, which was considered a great honour.[403] The same right, according to Dr. Barth, was presumably granted to the chief of Bagele in Adamáua;[404] and, according to Herodotus, to the king of the ancient Adyrmachidae.[405] Navarette tells us that, on the coast of Malabar, the bridegroom brought the bride to the king, who kept her eight days in his palace; and the man took it “as a great honour and favour that his king would make use of her.”[406] Again, according to Hamilton, a Samorin could not take his bride home for three nights, during which the chief priest had a claim to her company.[407] Sugenheim believes even that, in certain parts of France, a similar right was accorded to the higher clergy during the Middle Ages.[408]