MARITAL JEALOUSY 235 



secret knowledge, was very general among the North 

 American tribes and has been noted by explorers and 

 other observers from the earliest period. 1 



Mention has been made of ceremonies in other parts 

 of the world in which more or less promiscuous ritual 

 coition is practised. Such festivals are by no means 

 wanting among the aborigines of North America. 

 While the expedition of Lewis and Clark sojourned 

 in one of the Mandan villages a buffalo dance was 

 performed. The object of this celebration was to 

 obtain the return of the buffaloes, which had become 

 scarce. At the appointed hour the old men seated 

 themselves cross-legged on skins round a fire in the 

 middle of the lodge with a doll dressed like a young 

 woman placed before them. Each young man brought 

 a platter of food a pipe of tobacco and his wife, who 

 was dressed only in a robe or mantle thrown loosely 

 around her body. Selecting the old man whom he 

 intended to honour he spread the food before him, 

 offered him the pipe and smoked with him. Imme- 

 diately the old man exhibiting the image threw it on 

 the ground and stepping out of the circle pretended 

 to attempt sexual intercourse with it as if with a 

 woman. The young man's wife at once casting herself 

 on the elder folded him in her arms, and her husband 

 humbly prayed that he would honour him by embracing 



1 Mooney, Rep. Bur. E'hn. xix. 456. Mr. Mooney's remark is 

 called forth by a Cherokee tale in which a husband changes shapes 

 with a buzzard to obtain success in hunting deer. While the 

 husband in the form of the buzzard flies to locate the game, the 

 buzzard in the husband's form goes home to entertain his wife. An 

 Ojibway tale (Journ. Am. F. L. xix. 229) relates this practice of 

 another tribe which cannot be identified, but implicitly repudiates it 

 for the Ojibway. The repudiation can hardly be relied on. 



