SOURCE OF ST. PETEr's RIVER. 133 



called upou professionally, and with a fee. In a suppres- 

 sion of menses they seldom apply any remedy ; as they 

 are apprehensive that this might be productive of sterility, 

 which is by all Indian women considered as the greatest 

 curse that can be entailed upon them. During the period 

 of the catamenia, women are not allowed to associate with 

 the rest of the nation ; they are completely laid aside, and 

 are not permitted to touch any article of furniture or food 

 which men have occasion to use. If the Indians be sta- 

 tionary at the time, the women are placed outside of the 

 camp; if on a march, they are not allowed to follow the 

 trail, but must take a different path and keep at a distance 

 from the main body. This practice, which appears to pre- 

 vail wherever man retains his primitive simplicity and 

 purity of manners, has been very unphilosophically con- 

 sidered by Adair and other theoretic writers as a strong 

 confirmation of the descent of the aborigines of America 

 from the ten lost tribes of Israel. But as Charlevoix ob- 

 serves, " one must have good eyes, or rather a very lively 

 imagination to perceive in them all that some travellers 

 have pretended to discover."* The late Mr. Samuel 

 Prince, of Boston, who resided thi'ee or four years in 

 Owhyhee, assured Mr. Colhoun that the natives of that 

 island are equally scrupulous with regard to the catamenia, 

 and during its continuance ; the women being secluded in 

 houses without the villages. This custom of Owhyhee 

 has not, we think, been noticed by any traveller that we 

 have met with. 



It has been often asserted that it was a common prac- 

 tice with Indian women to destroy the foetus. This 

 may be correct as respects certain nations, but it ought 



* Charlevoix's Journal Historique, Letter 23i. 



