164 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



rings spoken of — on the occasion of eveiy reciu'iing menstruation. 

 Sometimes it was protracted as long as ten clays at a time especially 

 during the first years of co-habitation. Even when she returned to 

 her mate, she was not permitted to sleep with him on the first nor 

 frequently on the second night, but would choose a distant corner of 

 the lodge, to spread her blanket, as if afraid to defile him with her 

 dread uncleanness. 



The birth of a child was also the occasion of temporary sei)eration 

 from her husband.' It is noticeable that this was more profci*acted 

 after the birth of a female than after that of a male child. ^ More- 

 over, after this seclusion, custom obliged the parents to make an 

 oflTering in the shape of a distribution of clothes, meant as a final 

 purification for the mother and a sort of redemption of the child.* 



Boys who attained the age of puberty had their wrists, ankles and 

 legs below the knee encircled with rings made of sinew twisted with 

 feather down. To neglect this rite would have been in their estima- 

 tion to call for precocious infirmities which would have hindered the 

 young man from performing the duties of a good hunter. 



The distinction between clean and unclean animals was as strictly 

 defined among them as it was among the Jews.^ In the same way, 

 until quite a recent date, no woman would partake of blood * and 

 both men and women abhorred the flesh of a beaver which had been 

 caught and died in a ti'ap, and of a bear strangled to death in a 

 snare, because the blood remained in the carcase. 



I think also that we may appropriately find in an ancient custom 

 of the Chilh;)(Otins, that of public flagellation, an unconscious fulfil- 

 ment of this precept of the Mosaic law : "They shall lay him down 

 and shall cause him to be beaten before them. " ^ 



1 Compare with the prescriptions of Leviticus xv., 19. 



2 Of. Leviticus xii., 2. 

 3Ibidxii., i, 5. 

 *Ibidxii., 6. 



6 Cf . Leviticus xi. 



•Ibid, passim. 



fCf. Deuteronomy XXV., 2. 



I 



