262 OMAHA SOCIOLOGY. 



and give her to another man. Among the (pegiha, if the husband is 

 kind, the mother-in-law never interferes. But when the husband is 

 unkind the wife takes herself back, saying to him, " I have had you 

 for my husband long enough ; depart." Sometimes the father or elder 

 brother of the woman says to the husband, " You have made her suffer; 

 you shall not have her for a wife any longer." This they do when he 

 has beaten her several times, or has been cruel in other ways. But 

 sometimes the woman has married the man in spite of the warnings of 

 her kindred, who have said to her, " He is maleficent ; do not take him 

 for your husband." When such a woman repents, and wishes to aban- 

 don her husband, her male kindred say to her, " Not so ; still have him 

 for your husband ; remain with him always." Thus do they punish her 

 for not having heeded their previous warnings. When they are satis- 

 fied with each other they always stay together ; but should either one 

 turn out bad, the other one always wishes to abandon the unworthy 

 consort. 



When parents separate, the children are sometimes taken by their 

 mother, and sometimes by her mother or their father's mother. Should 

 the husband be unwilling, the wife cannot take the children with her. 

 Each consort can remarry. Sometimes one consort does not care whether 

 the other one marries again or not ; but occasionally the divorced wife 

 or husband gets angry on hearing of the remarriage of the other. 



DOMESTIC ETIQUETTE BASHFULNESS. 



§ S7. A man does not speak to his wife's mother or grandmother ; he 

 and she are ashamed to speak to each other. But should his wife be 

 absent he sometimes asks her mother for information, if there be no 

 one present through whom he can inquire. 



Iu former days it was always the rule for a man not to speak to his 

 ■wife's parents or grandparents. He was obliged to converse with them 

 through his wife or child, by addressing the latter and requesting him 

 or her to ask the grandparent for the desired information. Then the 

 grandparent used to tell the man's wife or child to say so and so to the 

 man. In like manner a woman cannot speak directly to her husband's 

 father under ordinary circumstances. They must resort to the medium 

 of a third party, the woman's husband or child. But if the husband 

 and child be absent, the woman or her father-in-law is obliged to make 

 the necessary inquiry. 



A woman never passes in front of her daughter's husband if she can 

 avoid it. The son-in-law tries to avoid entering a place where there is 

 no one but his mother-in-law. When at the Ponka mission, in Dakota, 

 the writer noticed the Ponka chief, Standing Buffalo,one day when he 

 entered the school-room. When he saw that his mother-in-law was 



