MICHELSON.] WIDOWS UNRELEASED FROM DEATH-CEREMONY. 489 
brother or an elder brother, if he (they) are not married, you are not 
your own master. For four years you are controlled. If they love 
their man, that will happen to you. 
‘At last you are to remain (here)’’ is what she is told. If she has 
no man, she should do so. Only in the fourth year do they (the 
women) get out of it easier. That is what would happen to them 
if she and her husband * in no way treated each other badly. If 
they treated each other badly, if the woman acted badly, she would 
suffer (for it) in the fourth year. She would be badly treated by 
her parents-in-law. ‘‘ Why, she treated him wretchedly,” she would 
be told. ‘In the fourth year if (your husband) has been released 
(by an adoption-feast being held) then for the first time you will be 
your own master. Later on I shall tell you why I tell you everything. 
You will know it,’”’ she would be told by her father. 
Later on he soon hunted and fetched one deer which he butchered. 
“Well, now you will know why I scold you,” she was told. As soon as 
they cut the deer up they boiled it. Probably when it was cooked 
many were fed. As she bit it, that deer bawled out. She threw it 
away. Then she thought, ‘It’s true.’ “Now you have seen one 
thing which I told you,’ she was told by her father. ‘Corn laid 
aside for one year is the only thing you should eat,” she was told. 
“And fresh meat, just that—squirrels, partridges, just these. You 
must fast always. You must be busy with bark, you must make 
sacks all the time for those (parents-in-law of yours).”’ 
She fasts always. She will desire life and she loved her husband. 
If she listened and believed she would do that. And she should not 
_ ery, she should only fast. If she had a little child she should go 
around and cry with the little child. And if the manitou likes to 
hear her (wail) that baby would be blessed by the manitou. 
If you think, “How, pray, does she (the narrator) know that?” 
I shall tell you how it is and how I know it. They, the very people 
who first had a death in their family, and the first widower unreleased 
from death ceremonies, and one who had a still-born child, and 
(a girl) who menstruated for the first time, and it seems one man 
were told by the manitou. ‘Well, you must see how bad the body 
of these (people) is,’ he * was told. ‘‘You must go and make them 
stand against these trees which are standing here. You must lead 
all the people there,’ he was told. Then, it is said, he told the 
people exactly that. First he led the one who first had a death in 
his family and stood him against (a tree). At the time when he 
stood him against it, the tree cried out. And also the widower 
3 Literally, those who live together. 
4 The text does not tell precisely which one of the above is intended. 
3599°—25T 32 
