MACCAULEY.} FAMILY LIFE. 497 
There is no embarrassment growing out of problems respecting the 
woman’s future support, the division of property, or the adjustment of 
claims for the possession of the children. The independent self-support 
of every adult, healthy Indian, female as well as male, and the gentile re- 
lationship, which is more wide reaching and authoritative than that of 
marriage, have already disposed of these questions, which are usually 
so perplexing for the white man. So far as personal maintenance is 
concerned, a woman is, as a rule, just as well off without a husband as 
with one. What is hers, in the shape of property, remains her own 
whether she is married or not. In fact, marriage among these Indians 
seems to be but the natural mating of the sexes, to cease at the option 
of either of the interested parties. Although I do not know that the 
wife may lawfully desert her husband, as well as the husband his wife, 
from some facts learned I think it probable that she may. 
CHILDBIRTH. 
According to information received a prospective mother, as the hour 
of her confinement approaches, selects a place for the birth of her child 
not far from the main house of the family, and there, with some friends, 
builds a small lodge, covering the top and sides of the structure gener- 
ally with the large leaves of the cabbage palmetto. To this secluded 
place the woman, with some elderly female relatives, goes at the time 
the child is to be born, and there, in a sitting posture, her hands grasp- 
ing a strong stick driven into the ground before her, she is delivered of 
her babe, which is received and cared for by her companions. Rarely is 
the Indian mother’s labor difficult or followed by a prolonged sickness. 
Usually she returns to her home with her little one within four days 
after its birth. 
INFANCY. 
The baby, well into the world, learns very quickly that he isto make 
his own way through it as best he may. His mother is prompt to 
nourish him and solicitous in her care for him if he falls ill, but, as far 

Fic. 66. Baby cradle or hammock. 
From the first she gives her child the perfectly free use of his body 
and, within a limited area, of the camp ground. She does not bundle him 
into a motionless thing or bind him helplessly on a board; on the con- 
trary, she does not trouble her child even with clothing. The Florida 
Indian baby, when very young, spends his time, naked, in a hammock, 
or on a deer skin, or on the warm earth. (Fig. 66.) 
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