368 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



they enter and sit down at one end of the room, the girl and her rela- 

 tives being at the other. The young man's friends make a speech in 

 his favor, and the girl's relatives sing a song, after which the bride 

 goes over and sits down beside her to-be-husband and takes his hand. 

 Dall thus describes the further custom amongst the Tlingit: 



All the guests dance and sing ; when tired, diversifying the entertainment by eat- 

 ing. The pair do not join in any of the ceremonies. That their future life may be 

 happy they fast for two days. Then taking a little food to sustain life, they fast for 

 two days more. Four weeks afterwards they come together and are then recognized 

 as man and wife.* 



When the ceremony is complete the father of the girl gives her a 

 dowry equal in value to that received from the husband, and she goes 

 to live with her father-in-law. If they afterwards separate through 

 dissatisfaction the presents are all returned ; but if a wife is unfaithful, 

 the husband can send her back with nothing and get his own jiroperty 

 from the father. In any case the children go with the mother. The 

 husband may claim indemnity from his wife's seducer. When the mar- 

 riage festival is all over, the fact is marked by the removal from the 

 bride's lower lip of the button or pin, and the substitution of the plug 

 or labret. 



Child-Mrth. — It appears that only amongst the Tlingit are peculiar 

 customs in vogue in the treatment of women at child-birth. Petrofif 

 says in his report : 



The special suffering imposed upon ail womankind by nature is increased here a 

 hundredfold by ancient custom and superstition. At the time of child-birth, when 

 women more than at any other time are in need of assistance, the Tlingit females 

 are driven out of the house and left to their fate, shunned by everybody as unclean- 

 The child is born in the open air, no matter at what season, and only some time after 

 the birth is the mother allowed to enter a rude shed erected for the purpose, where 

 she is confined for ten days. * * * Anew-born child is not allowed to taste its 

 natural food until it has vomited, and if this does not occur naturally its little 

 stomach is pressed and squeezed until the desired effect is secured. At the age of a 

 few weeks the babe is wrapped in furs and strapped upon a board, and is always car- 

 ried about by the mother. The infants are given the breast from ten to thirty months, 

 but they are accustomed to other food after they are a year old. The first strong- 

 nourishment givfen them is generally the raw blubber of marine animals, except 

 that of the whale. As soon as the child begins to walk it is bathed daily in the sea, 

 without regard to the season, which accounts to some extent for tlie robustness of 

 the body of the Tlingit after he has once passed the tender age.t 



This custom relating to women at child-birth is much less rigorously 

 carried out now than formerly, and diligent inquiry by the writer has 

 failed to discover that such practice was ever in vogue amongst the 

 Haida or Tsimshian. The cradle-board has been very generally aban- 

 doned in this whole region, the child being slung in a blanket or carried 

 in the arms, as with us. When used formerly the board was padded 

 witli moss, which was renewed daily. Children are treated with great 

 kindness and leniency and rarely chastised. ^ 



* i)all, Alaska, p. 416. 

 t r Jtroff, Report, p. 169, 



