Courtship and Marriage. — Funeral Ceremonies. 381 



portatlon of European trinkets and luxuries of all sorts lias 

 greatly increased the spread of immorality among the native 

 women, who are actuated by an insatiate, irresistible craving 

 to possess articles of European manufacture. 



Wlien a native wishes to marry, he makes a present to the 

 father of the girl he wishes to marry ; if not returned, it is 

 understood his addresses are accepted. Thereupon invita- 

 tions are issued to a merry-making, with feast, and dance, 

 and revel, after which the bridegroom conducts his bride to 

 his dwelling. AVhen she dies the widower marries her sister, 

 the brother in like manner being required to marry his 

 widowed sister-in-law in the case of the death of the husband, 

 even though he may happen to be already married. Under 

 certain circumstances a man is at liberty to divorce his wife 

 and take another ; a woman, on the other hand, enjoys no 

 such privilege, unless she happen to be of higher ranlv. The 

 chiefs usually have several wives, polygamy, as among the 

 Mormons, being only limited by the means of providing sub- 

 sistence. The women are of an unusually gossiping, talkative 

 turn, they are quite incapable of keeping theii' own secrets, 

 and many a delinquency is generally kno^\^l at the very 

 moment of its commission. 



The funeral ceremonies seem to have undergone some 

 modification since the natives began to have intercom^se 

 with Europeans. In former times the dead were enveloped 

 in straw mats, and kept for a considerable time in the huts : 

 through the influence of the missionaries, apparently, they 



