TAKING THE WHOLE FAMILY. 303 
parties be without horses some other valuables 
are employed in lieu. er this the marriage 
is solemnized with a joyous féte and their 
primitive ceremonies. 
But now the son-in-law is fully indemni- 
fied for his heavy ‘disbursement’ in the pur- 
chase of his bride; for he at once becomes 
possessor of the entire wealth of his father-in- 
law—master of the family-lodge and all the 
household: if there be a dozen younger 
daughters, they are all his de droit—his wives 
or slaves as we may choose to consider them: 
in fact, the ‘heiress’ herself seems in the same 
predicament, and the wife among them 
who may have the tact to gain the some 
affections, generally becomes mistress of 
‘harem.’ From the refuse of this estate of 
‘fair ones’ the indigent warriors and inferior 
Indians who are not able to purchase an ‘heir- 
ess’ are apt to waif themselves with wives 
upon a cheaper scale.* 
The Osages bury their dead according to 
the usual Indian mode; and, though it seems 
always to have been the custom among most 
* The custom of pee the sisters of a family is also said to 
Kansas, Omahas and other kindred tribes; 
indeed it appears to hate srerasiel from the earliest ages sca all 
the Dal amily as well as many Algonguins and most other 
tribes about the great Lakes. Mons. La Salle, in his trip from these 
to oe ae ri , 
can, thinking they agree better in their Family.” powreyins Char- 
levoix and rien speak of the same custom. urray also men- 
Ss 
to cea same in California. But I am uninformed, whether, in these 
