4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 8/ 



afraid to venture outside after dark. I would always ask my mother 

 to accompany me before I would go out. My mother furnished me 

 rawhide twine and a piece of hide to use as a diaper which was se- 

 curely tied around my hips and pudendum. This was done to preserve 

 my virtue against the attacks of an overanxious young man.* 



My aunt (father's sister) had heard that a certain young man had 

 begun to look upon me seriously. She came over and began to tell me 

 what to say and how to act in the presence of this young man. She 

 said : 



I hear you are beginning to have admirers. Your father and mother have 

 reared you with great care. Your father especially has seen to it that you have 

 had good things to wear such as other girls of your age do not have. And your 

 mother has taught you with great patience the art of things that each woman 

 is supposed to know so that she might make a good and successful wife. As 

 you go through life all these things and what I am now telling you will be of 

 great benefit to you. You will be in a position to teach your children if you 

 have any. It is silly to exchange too many glances and smiles with this young 

 man, especially in the presence of people. He will think j^ou are too easy and 

 immoral. When he comes to see you at night you must never run away from 

 him. If you do so this indicates that you are silly and not sufficiently taught 

 and educated to respect the attentions of a suitor. You must never consent to 

 marry your suitor the first time he asks you to marry him, no matter how good 

 looking he may be. Tell him you would like to associate with him for some time 

 yet to come. And if he really thinks anything of you he will not be discouraged, 

 but will continue his visits and come to see you. When he comes at night do 

 not let him stay too long, but ask him please to go. If you let him stay till he 

 is ready to go he will think you are in love with him and will surely think less 

 of you. You must always be sure to take great care to tie the hide under your 

 dress, covering your pudendum, with strong raw hide string. You must remem- 



^ Compare Grinnell, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 131. Though not exploited by modern 

 ethnologists " roping " was common enough among Indians of the Great Plains ; 

 for the Sioux see Beckwith, M. W., Journ. Amer. Folk-Lore, 43, p. 361, foot- 

 note 2; for the Assiniboin see Denig, 46th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., p. 590; 

 for the Arapaho, cf. Vestal, S., Kit Carson, p. 122; for the Cheyenne and Arapaho 

 see also Dodge, Col. R. I., Our Wild Indians, pp. 195, 196, 203, 212, 213. For 

 the benefit of those who are not specialists I am constrained to say that Colonel 

 Dodge's book can be used only with discrimination. I pass over such absurdities 

 as the statement (p. 204) that an unmarried girl is never sent out to cut and 

 bring wood, etc., for these are easily controlled by general factual knowledge 

 as well as numerous documentary sources of information. Much more subtle 

 than this are various statements regarding sex mores which are scattered 

 throughout the book. The trained ethnologist will see that they are incompatible 

 (see for example, pp. 195, 196, 203, 208, 211, 213 as opposed to pp. 210, 213) ; 

 the casual reader will not. It is largely owing to the uncritical use of such 

 sources that the main thesis of Briffault's The Mothers cannot be sustained. I 

 lay stress on this because zoologists will pounce upon this work to bolster their 

 own theories regarding human social origins (see now Aliller, G. S., jr.. The 

 primate basis of human behavior. Quart. Rev. Biol., vol. 6, pp. 379-410). 



