SOURCE OF ST. PETER S RIVER. 417 



ed a respectable inhabitant of the place, and having been 

 delivered of a child, she was confined to her room with the 

 precautions usual among white women ; her mother, who 

 was absent at the time, hearing of her situation, came 

 to see her, and finding her in bed, chided her severely, 

 asked her if she* was going to imitate all the nonsensical 

 tricks and fashions of white women, and then dragged her 

 out of bed to the astonishment of her husband and of all the 

 by-standers, and ducked her in the Mississippi, according 

 to the manners of her nation. We have not heard that any 

 accident resulted from this harsh treatment ; nor that any 

 evil arises from the practice which prevails among them of 

 breaking the ice in winter, in order that both mother and 

 child may bathe immediately after parturition. 



Among the Dacotas thei-e are professed midwives, but 

 the women are sometimes delivered by their husbands, 

 brothers, sisters, &c. ; the medicine man is generally pre- 

 sent but never operates, his only business is to sing, and 

 to assist by his prayers and incantations. They never bleed 

 during labour. Children are suckled for a long while; 

 from two to five years, generally until a new pregnancy in- 

 terrupts the secretion of milk. When the mother's milk 

 fails, the child is suckled by another. 



We have said that there exists among the Sioux no 

 marriage ceremony, properly speaking. When a white 

 man wishes a wife, as it is usual for all the traders to take 

 Indian women, he has only to express his wish to the pa- 

 rents and relations, who always consent to it, stipulating 

 the amount of the presents which he shall make to them. 

 One of the gentlemen of the Columbia Fur Company in- 

 formed us, that he had given for his wife, to her brother a 

 keg of rum, and to her mother a complete dress ; but he 

 calculated that the presents which he was obliged to make 



Vol. I. 53 



