SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 711 



There are notes to be taken by which may be discerned a niarryed woman 

 from a mayd: the maydes have the forepart of their heads and sides shaven 

 close, the hinder part very long, which they wyud very prettely and ymbroyder 

 in playtes, letting yt hang so to the full length: rhe marryed women weare 

 their haire all of a length, shaven as the Irish by a dish. 



The women have a great care to maynteyne and keepe tier light still within 

 their bowses, and at any time it go out, tliey take yt for an evil sign, but if yt 

 be out they kindle yt againe presently. (Strachey, 1849, pp. 111-112.) 



Spelman says: 



They sett on matts round about y* howse y* men by them selues and y* weomen 

 by ther selues y* weomen brings to euery one a dish of meat for the better sort 

 neuer eates togither in one dish, when he hath eaten what he will, or that which 

 was giuen him, for he looks for no second corse he setts doune his dish by him and 

 mumbleth ceartayne words to himself in maner of giuinge thankes, if any leaft 

 y* weomen gather it up & ether keeps it till y^ next meall, or gives it to y* porer 

 sort, if any be ther. (Smith, John, Arber ed., 1884, p. cxiii.) 



One of White's noted drawings entitled "their sitting at meate" 

 would thus be erroneous unless we suppose, as is probably the case, 

 that it represents an Indian in the inner privacy of his family life. 



Lawson states of the Siouan Indians and their neighbors that he 

 never heard of a barren woman among them, that childbirth was easy, 

 and that women sometimes brought their children into the world 

 alone, though it is evident that that was unusual, there being a class 

 of midwives among them. As soon as the child was born, its mother 

 washed it in a stream and daubed it with bear grease from which 

 it appears not to have escaped during its natural life. The mother 

 remained away from men for 40 days and, unless she became pregnant 

 again, nursed her child until it was well grown. The husband made 

 a cradle out of a single piece of board on which the child was tied flat, 

 and the deformation of the head was produced at that time. Children 

 were rarely corrected, and Lawson tells us that he knew of but one 

 exception to this rule. In cases of divorce, the custodianship of the 

 children devolved entirely upon their mother. During menstrual 

 periods women quit all company and did not even dress their own 

 food. Women beat corn in mortars, cooked, made mats, baskets, 

 girdles of opossum hair, and pots, and carried along grain and other 

 provisions on a hunt besides providing firewood. They evidently 

 did most of the cultivation of the soil, but Lawson says that they never 

 planted corn "like the Iroquois women." Men pursued about the 

 same occupations as they did among the Algonquians and other tribes. 

 The poorer hunters among them made wooden bowls, dishes, spoons 

 and clay pipes, and they and the slaves dressed skins in summer 

 (Lawson, 1860, pp. 308-310, 326). 



Lawson notes two, Machapunga families which had the custom of 

 circumcision (Lawson, 1860, p. 341). 



