416 RELIGION. MARRIAGE. 



and is now universally abandoned. It is very remarkable 

 that this unnatural process does not appear to have any 

 prejudicial effect on the mind of the sufferers. * 



The Indian tribe3 generally believed in the existence of a 

 Great Spirit, and the immortality of the soul, but they seem 

 to have had scarcely any religious observance, still less any 

 edifices for sacred purposes. Burnet f never found any sem- 

 blance of worship among the Comanches. The Dacotahs 

 never pray to the Creator ; if they wish for fine weather 

 they pray to the weather itself. They believe that the 

 Great Spirit made all things except thunder and rice, but we 

 are not told the reason for these two curious exceptions. 



The social position of the women seems to have been very 

 degraded among the aboriginal tribes of North America. 

 " Their wives, or dogs, as some of the Indians term them," 

 are indeed well treated as long as they do all the work, and 

 there is plenty to eat; but throughout the continent, as 

 indeed among all savages, the drudgery falls to their lot, and 

 the men do nothing but hunt and make war ; though in 

 justice to them we must remember that the former at least 

 of these two occupations was of the greatest possible im- 

 portance, and that upon it depended their principal means 

 of subsistence. Polygamy generally prevailed ; the hus- 

 band had absolute power over his wives, and the marriage 

 lasted only as long as he pleased. Among some of the 

 North Californian Indians it is not thought right to beat 

 the wives, but the men "allow themselves the privilege of 

 shooting such as they are tired of." J Among the Dogribs 

 and other northern tribes, the women are the property of the 

 strongest. Every one is considered to have both a legal and 



* Beecher's Voyage Round the World, yol. i., p. 308 ; "Wilson, Smithsonian 

 Report, 1862, p. 287. 



t Schoolcraft, vol. i., p. 237. See also Richardson's Arctic Expedition, vol. ii., 

 p. 21. 



J Col. M'Kee in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, vol. iii., p. 127. 



