tin, the Young Mink,[1] or the Muskrat's Paw. In the north there have been men with as many as seven wives, all "Martins." The Prairie Indians form the names of the women like those of men, adding the feminine suffix, as Cloud-woman, Red-earth-woman, Black-day-woman. The white stranger is ever offending Indian etiquette by asking the savage "What's your name?" The person asked looks aside for a friend to assist him; he has learned in boyhood that some misfortune will happen to him if he discloses his name. Even husbands and wives never mention each other's names. The same practice prevails in many parts of Asia.
Marriage is a simple affair with them. In some tribes the bride, as among the Australians, is carried off by force. In others the man who wants a wife courts her with a little present, and pickets near the father's lodge the number of horses which he supposes to be her equivalent. As among all savage tribes, the daughter is a chattel, an item of her father's goods, and he will not part with her except for a consideration. The men are of course polygamists; they prefer to marry sisters, because the tent is more quiet, and much upon the principle with which marriage with a deceased wife's sister is advocated in England. The women, like the Africans, are not a little addicted to suicide. Before espousal the conduct of the weaker sex in many tribes is far from irreproachable. The "bundling" of Wales and of New England in a former day[2] is not unknown to them, and many think little of that prægustatio matrimonii which, in the eastern parts of the New World, goes by the name of Fanny Wrightism and Free-loveism. Several tribes make trial, like the Highlanders before the reign of James the Fifth, of their wives for a certain time—a kind of "hand-fasting," which is to morality what fetichism is to faith. There are few nations in the world among whom this practice, originating in a natural desire not to "make a leap in the dark," can not be traced. Yet after marriage they will live, like the Spartan matrons, a life of austerity in relation to the other sex. In cases of divorce, the children, being property, are divided, and in most tribes the wife claims the odd one. If the mother takes any care to preserve her daughter's virtue, it is only out of regard
- ↑ Putorius vison, a pretty dark-chestnut-colored animal of the weasel kind, which burrows in the banks of streams near mills and farm-houses, where it preys upon the poultry like the rest of the family. It swims well, and can dive for a long time. Its food is small fish, mussels, and insects, but it will also devour rats and mice.
- ↑ Traces of this ancient practice may be found in the four quarters of the globe. Mr. Bartlett, in his instructive volume, quotes the Rev. Samuel Pike ("General History of Connecticut," London, 1781), who quaintly remarks: "Notwithstanding the great modesty of the females is such that it would be accounted the greatest rudeness for a gentleman to speak before a lady of a garter or a leg, yet it is thought but a piece of civility to ask her to bundle." The learned and pious historian endeavored to prove that bundling was not only a Christian, but a very polite and prudent practice. So the Rev. Andrew Barnaby, who traveled in New England in 1759–60, thinks that though bundling may "at first appear the effect of grossness of character, it will, upon deeper research, be found to proceed from simplicity and innocence."
