class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="15"/> side, would, I have no doubt, kindly accede to the opportune solicitations of a young, handsome, and brave suitor." His squaw laughed heartily, but did not affect to repel the imputation.

Many husbands will take no cognizance whatever of the breach of conjugal fidelity on the part of the wife; and the offer of one of their wives for company during the night, though it might call upon our politeness for a return of thanks, was no cause of surprise to us during our stay at their villages.3

A husband of a different temperament of mind, on detecting his wife in an adulterous act, will rarely endeavour to maim her paramour, or otherwise seriously injure him by killing his horses or dogs; but {213} his attention will be chiefly or exclusively directed to his wife, whom he punishes by cutting off her hair, rarely her ears or nose; sometimes he resorts to a different punishment, and scarifies her face and head with his knife, after which she is repudiated, and becomes a common prostitute.

An inexorable man, thus circumstanced, has been known to abandon his frail partner, after subjecting her to a punishment very similar to that inflicted on the incontinent Roman matron, under the authority of the Emperors.4

Mr. Dougherty, being in Ong-pa-ton-ga's lodge, heard the loud voice of supplication from an unhappy father, whose daughter had been recently taken in adultery by her husband. "O, great Ong-pa-ton-ga!" said he, "whose nose is like that of a mule, and who art greater than the Wahconda himself, condescend to intercede for my daughter with her cruel husband; do not permit her face to be disfigured, her nose to be cut off, or the disgrace of the punishment of the prairie to be inflicted upon her."

A brave, who detected his wife in the commission of adultery, offered her no indignity, but immediately transferred her to the object of her preference, and accompanied the gift with a horse, and sundry articles of merchandize.

Even a very remote degree of consanguinity is an insuperable barrier to the marriage union. This state on the part of the man, seems to be the result of love for the woman; on that of the squaw, of convenience, or acquiescence in the will of her parents. On some occasions, however, an Indian marries through ambitious motives; he is, for instance, aspiring to the acquisition of a particular dignity; he will then endeavour to quiet the opposition of some powerful individual, by intermarrying in his family.

Their connubial attachments are often very strong. {214} An Omawhaw and his squaw, on a solitary hunting expedition, were discovered at a distance from their temporary lodge, by a Sioux war-party. They endeavoured to escape from the enemy, but the squaw was soon overtaken, struck to the ground, and subjected to the terrible operation of scalping. The husband, although at this time beyond the reach of the balls and arrows of the Sioux, seeing his squaw in their hands, immediately turned upon them, and drawing his knife, the only weapon he had, furiously rushed amongst them, in order to revenge the death of his squaw, even with the inevitable sacrifice of his own life; but he was almost immediately despatched, without having accomplished his heroic purpose.

In the young squaw, the catamenia, and consequent capability for child-bearing, we were informed, takes place about the twelfth or thirteenth year, and the capacity to bear children seems to cease about the fortieth year; but as superstitious notions prevent these Indians from taking any note of their ages, these periods are stated with some hesitation.

When the married squaw perceives that the catamenia does not recur at the expected period, she attaches a small leathern string to her girdle, and ties a knot in it, to note the incipient state of pregnancy, and another knot is added at termination of each successive moon, as a register of its progress.

When the squaw perceives the approach of this depurating process, she retires from her family, and erects a little shelter of bark or grass, supported by sticks, properly arranged, where she makes a fire, and cooks her victuals alone. She is thus compelled by custom to absent herself until the expiration of four days, when she returns to her lodge. During this time she must not approach or touch a horse, as the {215} Indians believe that such contamination would impoverish that animal. They sometimes retire, and build their little shelter under a false pretext, when the real object is to favour the approach of some esteemed lover, to whom the vigilance of the husband has denied any other means of obtaining a stolen interview.

The squaw has no need of propitiating the goddess Manageneta,5 but during pregnancy continues her usual avocations, and even in its most advanced stage, she neither bears a lighter burden on her back, nor walks a shorter distance in a day, than she otherwise would; neither does she expose herself the less on that account to the inclemencies of the weather.

If, on a march, a pregnant woman feels the pains of parturition, she retires to the bushes, throws the burden from her back, and, without any aid, brings her infant into the world. After washing in water, if at hand, or in melted snow, both herself and the infant, she immediately replaces the burden upon her back, weighing, perhaps, between sixty and an hundred pounds, secures her child upon the top of it, protected from the cold by an envelop of bison robe, and then hurries on to overtake her companions.

It is only at the delivery of the first child that any difficulty is ever anticipated; and, on this occasion, as there are no professed midwives, the young wife calls in some friendly matron to assist in case of need. The aid which these temporary midwives afford, seems to be limited to the practice of tying a belt firmly about the waist of the patient, and shaking her, generally in a vertical direction, with considerable violence. In order to facilitate the birth, a vegetable decoction is sometimes administered; and the rattle of the rattle-snake is also given with, it is said, considerable effect. The singular appendages of this animal are bruised by pounding, or comminuted by {216} friction between the hands, mixed with warm water; and about the quantity of two segments constitutes a dose.

The art of turning does not appear to be known, neither is blood-letting practised in their obstetrics. We heard of no case of retention of the placenta after parturition, nor of the affection of longing, or of nausea of the stomach during pregnancy.

On the delivery of her first child, the young mother, who appears to be but little enfeebled by the process, arises almost immediately, and attends to the ordinary housework; but she does not, in general, undergo any laborious occupation, such as cutting and carrying wood, until the lapse of two or three days. The second child is brought forth without difficulty, and the parent, after bathing, ties it to a board, after their usual manner, then proceeds with her daily work, as if nothing extraordinary had occurred.

Mammary abscess is very rare; a squaw of the Sioux nation died with this complaint.

Sterility, although it does occur, is not frequent, and seems to be mostly attributable to the husband, as is