306 INDIANS. 



tion helps to keep the wife in proper subjection, though 

 neither her sale nor her voluntary abandonment of her 

 husband and children (by exchange of husbands) prevents 

 her visiting, when she pleases, the lodge of her first hus- 

 band, and seeing her children at her pleasure. 



In times gone by the Sioux had a very peculiar cere- 

 mony, which I have never heard of as practised in any 

 other tribe. At a certain season of the year the whole 

 band was assembled. All the males who had arrived at 

 the age of puberty were formed in two lines, about four 

 feet apart, facing inwards. All the females of and above 

 the same age were required to pass in single file between 

 the ranks. Any man in the ranks who had within the 

 year had sexual intimacy with any woman was obliged by 

 his honour and his religion to put his hand upon her as 

 she passed. So sacred was this obligation that, it is said, 

 if a man failed to touch a woman he should have touched 

 she turned upon him, slapped his face, and proclaimed 

 him a coward ; on which he was publicly disgraced and 

 forced to leave the band. The touch of the man bore no 

 ill consequences to him, nor was the woman punished nor 

 discarded by her husband. Though still living as before 

 with her husband and children, she became an outcast. 

 If found alone away from the camp, she could be ravished 

 with impunity by any man or men. This fate she could 

 avoid by never going away from her lodge unless accom- 

 panied by some one. When the next yearly ceremony 

 took place, if she passed through the lines without being 

 touched the curse went off, and she was restored to her 

 original purity and standing. 



Civilisation and Christianity, which punish one sin by 

 cursing a whole life, might take a lesson in charity from 

 these ignorant savages. White men came to live and 

 intermarry with the Sioux, and were placed in the lines ; 

 they not only did not touch, but they persuaded their 

 paramour beforehand that there was no honourable or 

 religious necessity for exposing themselves. These soon 



