Dorset.] DOMESTIC ETIQUETTE— BASHFULNESS— PREGNANCY. 263 



seated there, be turned around very quickly, threw his blanket over 

 his head, and went into another part of the house. 



Another custom prevails, which Dougherty described thus: "If a 

 person enters a dwelling in which his son-in-law is seated, the latter 

 turns his back, and avails himself of the first opportunity to leave the 

 premises. If a person visits his wife during her residence at the lodge 

 of her father, the latter averts himself, and conceals his head with his 

 robe, and his hospitality is extended circuitously by means of his daugh- 

 ter, by whom the pipe is transferred to her husband to smoke." He also 

 said that if the mother-in-law wished to present her son-in-law with 

 food, it was invariably handed to the daughter for him; and if the 

 daughter should be absent, the mother-in-law placed the food on the 

 ground, and retired from the lodge that he might take it up and eat it." 

 (Long's Expedition to the Roclcy Mountains, Vol. I, pp. 253, 254.) The 

 Dakotas have this custom and call it "wistenkiyapi." 



PREGNANCY. 



§ 88. The woman, when she perceives that the catamenia does not 

 recur at the expected period, begins to reckon her pregnancy from the 

 last time that she "dwelt alone." As the months pass, she says, " Mi"' 

 gana ty i n '," I am that number of months (with child). If she cannot tell 

 the exact number of months, she asks her husband or some old man to 

 count for her. At other times, it is the husband who asks the old man. 

 They calculate from the last time that the woman "dwelt alone." 



Dougherty says that he did not hear of any case of "longing, or of 

 nausea of the stomach, during pregnancy." 



§ 89. Couvade, Foeticide, and Infanticide.— Couvade is not practiced 

 among the (fegiha. Foeticide is uncommon. About twenty-two years 

 ago, Standing Hawk's wife became enctiute. He said to her, "It is bad 

 for you to have a child. Kill it." She asked her mother for medicine. 

 The mother made it, and gave it to her. The child was still-born. The 

 daughter of Wacka^-ma^i" used to be very dissolute, and whenever 

 she was pregnant she killed the child before birth. These are excep- 

 tional cases ; for they are very fond of their children, and are anxious 

 to have them. Infanticide is not known among them. 



§ 90. Accouchement— The husband and his children go to another 

 lodge, as no man must witness the birth. Only two or three old women 

 attend to the patient. In some cases, if the patient be strong, she 

 " takes" the child herself, but requires assistance subsequently. Should 

 the woman continue in pain for two or three days without delivery, a 

 doctor is sent for, and he comes with a medicine that is very bitter. 

 He departs as soon as he has caused the patient to drink the medicine. 

 There are about two or three Omahas who know this medicine, which 

 is called Niaci-ga rnaka", Human-being medicine. The writer saw one 



u 



