SOME REMARKABLE CUSTOMS. 285 



otlier kinds of connexion^ and so do not toucli the general 

 question. 



To consider now the third group of customs^ it is natural 

 enough that there should be found even among savage tribes 

 rules concerning respect, authority, precedence, and so forth, 

 between fathers- and mothers-in-law and their sons- and 

 daughters-in-law. But with these there are found, in the most 

 distant regions of the world, regulations which to a great ex- 

 tent coincide, but which lie so far out of the ordinary course of 

 social life as understood by the civilized world, that it is hard 

 even to guess what state of things can have brought them into 

 existence. 



Among the Arawaks of South America, it was not lawful for 

 the son-in-law to see the face of his mother-in-law. If they 

 lived in the same house, a partition must be set up between 

 them. If they went in the same boat, she had to get in first, 

 so as to keep her back turned towards him. Among the Ca- 

 ribs, Rochefort says, " all the women talk with whom they will, 

 but the husband dares not converse with his wife's relatives, 

 except on extraordinary occasions."* Further north, in the 

 account of the Floridan expedition of Alvar Nunez, commonly 

 known as Cabe9a de Vaca, or Cow's Head, it is mentioned that 

 the parents-in-law did not enter the son-in-law's house, nor he 

 theirs, nor his brothers' -in-law, and if they met by chance, 

 they went a bowshot out of their way, with their heads down 

 and eyes fixed on the ground, for they held it a bad thing to 

 see or speak to one another ; but the women were free to com- 

 municate and converse with their parents-in-law and relatives.^ 

 Higher up on the North American continent, customs of this 

 kind have often been described. In the account of Major 

 Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, it is observed that 

 among the Omahas the father- and mother-in-law do not speak 

 to their son-in-law, nor mention his name, nor look in his face, 

 and vice versa? Among the Sioux or Dacotas, Mr. Philander 



• ' .Klemm, C. G-., vol. ii. p. 77. Eochefort, Hist. Nat., etc., des lies Antilles; 

 Rotterdam, 1665, p. 545. 



Alvar Nufiez, in vol. i. of ' Historiadores Primitivos de Indias ;' Madrid, 1852, 

 etc., chap. xxv. ' Long's Exp., vol. i. p. 253. 



