SOCIAL LIFE. 313 



son brings his young wife. There can be but little 

 romance about a bridal bed on which half a dozen pairs 

 of curious eyes are fixed, and half a dozen tongues 

 making comments. The Indians seem to think it all right, 

 and in their sexual and marital relations they are scarcely 

 above the brute. The husband of one wife brings home 

 another and another. They all sleep in the same bed if 

 it is big enough ; if not, the older wives are turned out for 

 the younger favourites. I have never heard of any diffi- 

 culties or trouble between the wives on this account, and 

 the sentiment of jealousy seems to be entirely wanting. 

 The devotion of a man to a new wife, or his infidelity to 

 them all, seems not to awaken the slightest feeling, and is 

 no more regarded than the infidelities of a cock by his 

 feathered harem. 



I have been told by many men, both white and Indian, 

 who had wives in the ' wild ' plains tribes, of several 

 curious social and physiological facts, which only want 

 clear confirmation to be both interesting and instruc- 

 tive, as bearing on the theories of unity of races. 

 That when ' the way of women is upon them,' they 

 are regarded as unclean, and retire in summer to the 

 woods, in winter to a lodge especially set aside for their 

 use, where they remain until entirely well ; that from 

 a period extending from one to three days after she is 

 well, the woman alone has any sexual desire ; that both 

 men and women regard cohabitation with a wife who is 

 enceinte, as ' bad medicine ' for the family, though the 

 husband's infidelity with another woman in that condition 

 would entail no bad consequences on him. 



Either from lack of suitable food or the constant 

 drudgery of her hard life, the Indian woman is not pro- 

 lific. I have never seen a mother of over four children, 

 and many women are barren. The average is scarcely 

 more than two children to each woman. Eed Bead, a 

 Sioux, used greatly to felicitate himself on his large and 

 fine family, his two wives having five children between 



