^I>IN] SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 175 



If you ever get married, my son, do not make an idol of your wife. 

 The more you worship her, the more will she want to be worshipped. 

 Thus the old people said. They warned the young men against the 

 example of those men who always hearken to what the women say, 

 ■who are the slaves of women. Often they would speak in the fol- 

 lowing manner: "You have had many warnings, but it may hap- 

 pen that some day you will not pay any attention to them. Then, 

 when they call upon you to take part in the Winter Feast you may 

 perhaps refuse to go. When a war party is leaving you may listen 

 to the voice of your wife and not join them. Thus you will be as 

 one who has been brought up as a woman.^' Men of every descrip- 

 tion do what is demanded of them, you alone do not act as a man 

 should. You never perform a man's deed. If you were to go to a 

 Winter Feast, you would be handed a lean piece of meat." Why 

 should you subject yourself to the danger of being made fun of « A 

 real brave man, when he goes to a Winter Feast, will receive a deer's 

 head, while you will only receive a lean piece of meat. That is all 

 they will give you to eat. It will stick in your throat. ' ' -' 



My son, if you keep on listenmg to your wife, after a while she 

 will never let you go to any feast at all. All your relatives will 

 scold you and your own sisters will think little of you. They will 

 say to one another, ''Let us not ever go over to see him. He is of 

 no help to anyone." Finally, when you have become a real slave to 

 your wife, she might tell you to hit your own relatives, and you 

 would do it. For these reasons, my son, I warn you against the 

 words of women. Steel yourself against them. For if you do not 

 do so you will find yourself different from other men. It is not good 

 to be enslaved by a woman. 



My son, this also I will tell you. Women can never be watched. 

 If you try to watch them you will merely show your jealousy and 

 your female relatives will also be jealous. After a while you will 

 become so jealous of your wife that she will leave you and run away. 

 Fu-st, you worshipped her above everything else, then you became 

 jealous and watched her all the time, and the resiilt will be that she 

 will run away from you. You yourself will be to blame for this. 

 You thought too much of a woman and in worshipping her you 

 humbled yourself, and as a consequence she has been taken away 

 from you. You are making the woman suffer and making her feel 

 unhappy. All the other women will know of this, and no one will 

 want to marry you again. Everyone will consider you a very bad 

 man. 



»> He may mean a berdash, but it is far more probable that he merely means to call him a woman an 

 insult sufficiently great. ' 



"■ A man who has distinguished himsel f as a warrior is always in vited to eat the head of the animal, offered 

 at the Winter Feast. Those next in distinction are given the fat pieces of meat, and the lean pieces— to 

 the Winnebago, the poorest— are given to those who are of no importance. 



"I.e., the meat will stick in your throat, because you will feel so much ashamed of yoiu-self. 



