72 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



the material and doing the heavy work. 1 When a Zufii 

 girl has come to an understanding with a young man, 

 and her parents are willing, she takes him home. 

 Bidden by her mother she offers him food. While he 

 eats it her parents sit on one side and talk to him about 

 the duties of a husband to his wife. When 

 he has finished the father calls him to them and 

 further admonishes him to work hard, watch the sheep, 

 help to cut the wood and to plant and cut the 

 grain for the household ; the mother adding a recom- 

 mendation to be kind and good to his wife. He 

 remains at the house for five nights, sleeping 

 alone outside the general living room where the 

 family sleep, and working for them during the day- 

 time. On the sixth morning he goes to his parents' 

 home and discloses to them where he has been and his 

 intended match. If they be pleased his mother gives 

 him a dress for the bride. The bride in return grinds 

 some flour and the following day accompanied by the 

 bridegroom takes it in a basket on her head as a 

 present to her mother-in-law. The latter offers food 

 to the girl, who eats ceremonially a few mouthfuls. 

 Her father-in-law gives her a deerskin for moccasins, 

 and her mother-in-law fills with wheat the basket she 

 has brought. The young pair then return to the girl's 

 house, which they make their permanent home ; but 

 they do not sleep inside the living room for a year, or 

 until the birth of the first child a relic, we may 

 conjecture, of secret cohabitation. The Zuni are 

 monogamists; but divorce is quite common. " They 

 would rather separate," says Mrs. Stevenson, " than 



1 Mindeleff, Rep. Bur. Ethn. xiii. 397; Gushing, Ibid. 368; 

 Hewett, Am, Anthr, N.S, vi. 634 ; Fewkes, Jd % i. 369, 



