SWANTON] CHILDBIRTH AND EDUCATION OF CHILDREN 223 
and if the mother be indisposed by sickness, her nearest female relation suckles 
the child, but only until she recovers.” 
According to my own notes, when a woman was about to be con- 
fined, she entered a special house of a more permanent character than 
the one used by menstruant women. This house, called aniinka, 
seems, from the description, to have been identical with the ancient 
winter house. It is described as “ like an Indian potato house,” made 
of logs and daubed inside and out with clay. It was larger than the 
common dwelling house and was often used for dances. The door 
was the only opening and a fire in the center kept it warm day and 
night. During the woman’s confinement she was waited upon by 
women, not even her husband being allowed to approach her. The 
men merely brought firewood as far as the door. The woman could 
eat only venison, chicken, and bacon, but no vegetables. She could 
not leave this house until she had been purified, about a month after 
her child was born. 
Children were nursed for a very long time. They would not let 
them sleep with old people; probably from the same fear as that 
experienced by the Creeks that they would be bewitched. 
Cushman enlarges as follows on the education of Chickasaw 
children : 
The greatest care was bestowed upon their children by the Chickasaw 
mothers, whom they never allowed to be placed upon their feet before the 
strength of their limbs would safely permit; and the child had free access to 
the maternal breast as long as it desired, unless the mother’s health forbade its 
continuance. Children were never whipped by the parents, but, if guilty of any 
misdemeanor, were sent to their uncle for punishment (the same as the 
Choctaws), who only inflicted a severe rebuke or imposed upon them some 
little penance, or, what was more frequent, made appeals to their feelings of 
honor or shame. When the boys arrived at the age of proper discrimination—so 
considered when arrived at the age of 12 or 15 years—they were committed to 
the instructions of the old and wise men of the village, who, at various inter- 
vals, instructed them in all the necessary knowledge and desired qualifications 
to constitute them successful hunters and accomplished warriors. As introduc- 
tory lessons they were instructed in the arts of swimming, running, jumping, 
wrestling, using the bow and arrow; also, receiving from these venerable tutors 
those precepts of morality which should regulate their conduct when arrived at 
manhood. 'The most profound respect (a noted characteristic of the North 
American Indians) was paid everywhere to the oldest person in every family, 
whether male or female, whose decisions upon all disputed points were 
supreme and final, and were received with cheerful and implicit obedience. No 
matter how distant their blood relations might be, all the members of a family 
addressed its head as father or mother, as the case might be; and whenever 
they meant to speak of him (their natural father), they said, ‘“ My real father,” 
in contradistinction to that of father applied to the chief or head of the family.” 
In this narrative the paternal and maternal uncles have been con- 
founded. The leading man of a person’s own clan was called uncle, 
® Adair, Hist. Am. Inds., pp. 420-421. 
* Cushman, Hist. Choc., Chick., and Natchez Inds., pp. 488-489. 
