MATRIMONIAL CUSTOMS. 247 
present home on the frontier of Missouri, he 
had visited the ‘Old Nation’ in Michigan, 
poisoned an enemy there, received the fatal 
stab, and returned and died, all in one day. 
If you tell an Indian that such things are 
absurd and impossible, he is apt to answer, 
“It may be so with the white man, but how 
do you know it to be impossible with the In- 
dian? You tell us many strange things which 
happened to your fathers—we don’t contra- 
dict them, though we believe such things 
never could have happened to the red man.’ 
Or, they will replys Laem as they did to 
Father Hennepin a similar case: “ Fie, 
thou knowest not abet thou sayest; thou 
may’st know what has passed in thy own 
Country, for thy Ancestors have told thee of 
them; but thou canst not know what has 
assed in ours before the Spirits (that is to say 
the Europeans) came hither.” 
their matrimonial customs ceese is also 
a similarity among most of the American 
savages. Polygamy seems once to have been 
universal; and I believe still is so among the 
uncivilized tribes. Every man takes as many 
wives as he can obtain, or is able to support. 
The squaws, however, the more willingly 
consent to this multiplicity, as it affords ad- 
ditional helpmates in their labors. Polygamy 
among these savages would appear, indeed, 
not altogether an unwise provision. At least 
it seems palliated with such a belligerent peo- 
ple, who lose so many males in their continual 
wars, leaving a great surplus of females; and 
