SOCIAL LIFE. 303 



though he be an intimate friend. When the husband is 

 absent from home at night, the wife, before retiring, ties 

 a lariat, or rope, about her waist, and wraps it tightly 

 around her legs to the ankles. Custom has made this a 

 perfect protection. With it she may sleep alone in a 

 lodge unmolested ; without it half the bucks in the band 

 would visit her before morning, even though her children 

 and other persons were in the lodge with her. 



The woman is required to be virtuous, and to protect 

 herself. Custom gives her certain means and assistants 

 to that preservation. If she conforms to these she is 

 safe ; if not, it is her own fault, and she is likely to be 

 punished as for a wilful crime. Thus, a man forcing a 

 woman who had tied her legs would be killed. The 

 woman neglecting that precaution can be violated by all 

 the bucks, and she alone has the blame. 



There are other customs equally arbitrary and equally 

 to the disadvantage of the women. Imagine a village of 

 500 people, in which there are 100 bucks of all ages, 

 from thirteen to sixty, entirely irresponsible to any power, 

 human or divine, and restrained from the indiscriminate 

 gratification of their passions only by certain customs 

 which from long usage have attained the force of laws ; 

 imagine 100 females of all ages above puberty, required 

 to keep themselves virtuous, yet protected from violence 

 at any time and place only by their observance of certain 

 arbitrary rules, unnatural and uncomfortable ; imagine 

 these bucks constantly on the alert for some neglect of 

 these rules, with the right to enter any lodge when the 

 husband is absent at night to see if the wife has tied 

 herself, and the absolute right to force her if she has not ; 

 imagine all this and more, and some idea may be formed 

 of the morals of a Cheyenne Indian village. 



The plains tribes vary greatly in the punishment 

 meted out to unfaithful wives. By unfaithful wives is 

 meant not only those who willingly enter into a liaison, 

 but those who, by neglect of some rule, have subjected 



