UNWRITTEN DAKOTA LAWS. 207 
If she pleases him not, he may throw her away (elipeya), for is she not his 
property? Nevertheless this was the honorable way for a girl to be taken. 
On many accounts it was better than to be stolen or taken unlawfully. 
And this custom of wife-purchase maintains its hold upon the Dakota people 
until they have made much progress in civilization. 
The difference in the pronouns used in my wife and my husband seems 
to mark the difference of the property idea. Two kinds of possession are 
indicated by the affixed possessive pronouns, one easily alienated, as in 
“mita-sujke,” my horse; and the other not transferable, as in ‘‘mi-nape,” 
my hand. The man uses the first form, where possession sits lightly, as 
“mitawiy ;’ ' But it must not 
be inferred from this that a Dakota woman does not often run away from 
b} 
while the woman uses the other, ‘mihihna.” 
her husband. In that case, unless he endeavors to win her back, the laws 
of his nation allow him to cut off her nose, or otherwise mutilate her for 
infidelity. 
; THE BABY. 
The young father is away on purpose. He has gone to his own 
father’s people, or perhaps on a hunt with his comrades. The mother is 
left with the older women, her own mother and other female relatives. 
Many of the middle-aged women become skillful mid-wives; and the Dakota 
women, who are healthy, have less labor at such times than women in 
more civilized communities. The baby is born, and, like the infant Saviour 
of the world, is wrapped in swaddling bands. ‘“ Hoksi” appears to be 
the root form of “ho-ksi-na,” boy;° and henee to the “hoksi” is added 
‘“Gyokopa,” the board to which the child is bound, and we have the long 
descriptive name for “baby,” “hoksiyokopa,” and sometimes ‘“‘hoksiyopa” 
and “hoksiéopa.” This board is shaved out nicely, and often ornamented 
in various ways, with beads and quills, having a stay board around the 
! This is another instance of the necessity of observing great caution in, the analysis of Indian 
words. Mitawin hardly falls in the category to which mitasunke belongs. It is better, for several 
reasons, not to lay too much stres; upon the derivation of mitawin from mita, my, and win, woman. 
(1) We should consider all the persons of each kinship term in any one language. (2) We should 
compare the Dakota terms with the corresponding ones in cognate languages. (3) We do not find 
any kinship terms which make their possessives in initial ta, but in final ku, éu, or tku (see what the 
author himself shows in § 69, b, p. 44). In Dakota we find, tahay, @ (not his) brother-in-law; tahan- 
ku, his ditto; tahansi, a man’s male cousin (or, my ditto); tahansi-tku, his male cousin; tawi-énu, his 
wife; tawiy, a wife. Tawin answers to the ypoiwere stem tami, in i-tami, his wife, where i-is the 
possessive fragment prononn, his or her. Other poiwere kinship terms in which ta- occurs are as 
follows: i-takwa, his or her grandson; i-takwa-mi, his or her granddaughter; i-taha", his brother-in- 
law, in all of which i-, not ta-, is the sign of the possessive.—J. 0. D. 
2 Hoksiday in Santee; hoksina in Yankton; hoksilain Teton. The initial ‘ho’ answers to ‘to,’ 
etc., of the cognate languages.—J. 0. D. 
