M'Keevor's Voyage to Hudson's Say. 65 



this fond mother gave her little babe while she was giving it 

 this nourishment, or, as they very beautifully express it, 

 tootooshonarto, the sap of the human breast. The day follow- 

 ing that of which I have been speaking, Mrs. B. and her hus- 

 band set out on a journey of two hundred miles. 



Long, in his account of the North American Indians, relates 

 the following anecdote : " About an hour before sun-set, on the 

 fourth day, we stopped at a small creek, which was too deep 

 to be forded, and wnilst the Indian was assisting me in mak- 

 ing a raft to cross over, rather than swim through in such cold 

 weather against a strong current, I looked round and missed 

 his wife ; I was rather displeased, as the sun was near setting, 

 and I was anxious to gain the opposite shore to encamp before 

 dark. I asked the Indian where his wife was gone ; he smiled, 

 and told me* he supposed into the woods to set a collar for a 

 partridge. In about an hour she returned with a new-born 

 infant in her arms, and coming up to me said in Chippeway, 

 ' Oway Sagonnash Payshik Skomagonish,' or, here English- 

 man is a young warrior." Mr. Hearne informs us, that when 

 a northern Indian woman is taken in labour, a small tent is 

 erected for her, at such a distance from the other tents that 

 her cries cannot easily be heard, and the other women and 

 young girls are her constant attendants. No male, except 

 children in arms, are ever allowed to approach her. It is a 

 circumstance, perhaps, to be lamented, that these people never 

 attempt to assist each other on these occasions, even in the 

 most critical cases. This is in some measure owing to deli- 

 cacy, but more probably to an opinion they entertain, that 

 nature is abundantly sufficient to perform every thing required 

 without any external helps whatever. Mr. Hearne tells us, 

 that when he informed them of the assistance which .European 

 women derive from the skill and attention of practitioners in 

 midwifery, they treated it with the utmost contempt, ironically 

 observing, " that th,e many hump-backs, bandy-legs, and 

 other deformities, so frequent among the Eng-lish, were un- 

 doubtedly owing to the great skill of the persons who assisted 

 in bringing them into the world, and to the extraordinary care 

 of the nurses afterwasds." 



After childbirth an Indian woman is reckoned unclean for a 

 month or five weeks, during which time she always remains 

 in a small tent placed at a little distance from the others, with 

 only a female acquaintance or two ; and during the whole time 

 the father never sees the child. The reason which they assign 

 for this practice is, that children when first born are sometimes 

 not very sightly, having in general large heads and but little 

 hair, and are, moreover, often discoloured by the force of 



