714 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bulu 137 



He says that as soon as a woman discovered she was pregnant she 

 informed her husband and the news was quickly communicated to 

 the whole settlement. She was subjected to many taboos, the most 

 important of which was that she was taken to water to pray and 

 bathe every new moon, for at least 3 months before the delivery. 

 A priest and her husband, mother, or some other near relative ac- 

 companied her, and the priest dipped some water out and placed 

 it upon the crown of her head, her breast, and sometimes her face, 

 and prognosticated the future fate of the child by conjuring with 

 certain white and red beads. Anciently, a separate house was built 

 for the woman during that period. The placenta was buried on 

 the farther side of two ridges of mountains by the father or nearest 

 relative. There is now no cradle, but when the child is 3 or 4 

 weeks old it is carried about astride of its mother's back. At the 

 age of 4 or 5, boys come under the supervision of their fathers or 

 elder brothers and learn to handle bows and arrows, while girls 

 help their mothers and older sisters. They learn their own culture 

 rapidly and play games in which the activities of their elders are 

 imitated. A child may be raised to become a wizard and such a 

 career is particularly marked out for twins. Such a child is kept 

 secluded during the first 24 days of its life something after the 

 manner of the seclusion of the Iroquois child. Meanwhile it is not 

 allowed to taste its mother's milk but given instead the liquid por- 

 tion of corn hominy. While such children are growing up they are 

 often supposed to go away and talk with the "Little People," a 

 race of dwarfs believed in by nearly all southern Indians (Timber- 

 lake, Williams ed., 1927, p. 90; Mooney, 1932, pp. 116-130). 



At the time of her monthly periods and after the birth of a 

 child a Creek woman lived in a house by herself for 4 days. She 

 had separate dishes and other utensils which were kept for these 

 occasions. Afterward she must bathe and change her clothes. 

 Speck was told that she could not prepare her husband's meals for 

 a month. Swan says that the woman was entirely alone at child- 

 birth, but this was certainly unusual. She was generally assisted 

 by her mother or some other old woman or women. The newborn 

 child was immediately plunged into cold water, and thereafter every 

 morning during the rest of its life it was supposed to take a bath in 

 running water before eating, though in cold weather women and 

 children were let off with a slight sprinkling. Infants of unmtir- 

 ried mothers were sometimes killed, and a woman is known to have 

 killed her child for spite, but generally speaking children were de- 

 sired by both sexes. A child was sometimes kept from nursing 

 for 4 days and not taken out of the house for 4 months, so that it 

 might live long. It was believed that the younger of twin brothers 



