234 Expedition to the 



An inexorable man, thus circumstanced, has been known 

 to tie his frail partner firmly upon the earth, in the prairie, 

 and in this situation, compelled her to submit to the embra- 

 ces of twenty or thirty men successively ; she is then aban- 

 doned.* 



Mr. Dougherty, being in Ong-pa-ton-ga's lodge, heard the 

 loud voice of supplication, from an unhappy father, whose 

 daughter had been recently taken in adultery by her husband. 

 u O great Ong-pa-ton-ga", said he, " whose nose is like that 

 of a mule, and who art greater than the Wahconda himself, 

 condescend to intercede for my daughter, with her cruel hus- 

 band ; do not permit her face to be disfigured, her nose to be 

 cut off, or the disgrace of the punishment of the prairie, to 

 be inflicted upon her." 



A brave, who detected his wife in the commission of adul- 

 tery, offered her no indignity, but immediately transferred 

 her to the object of her preference, and accompanied the gift 

 with a horse, and sundry articles of merchandize. 



Even a very remote degree of consanguinity is an insu- 

 perable barrier to the marriage union. This state, on the 

 part of the man, seems to be the result of love for the wo- 

 man ; on that of the squaw, of convenience, or acquiescence in 

 the will of her parents. On some occasions, however, an In- 

 dian marries through ambitious motives ; he is, for instance, 

 aspiring to the acquisition of a particular dignity; he will 

 then endeavour to quiet the opposition of some powerful in- 

 dividual, by intermarrying in his family. 



Their connubial attachments are often very strong. An 

 Omawhaw and his squaw, on a solitary hunting expedition, 

 were discovered at a distance from their temporary lodge, 

 by a Sioux war-party. They endeavoured to escape from 



* Very similar was the punishment of adultery at Rome, under the au- 

 thority of the Emperors. The adultress was there subjected, by the pro- 

 cess of the law, to public prostitution in the streets, with any of the specta- 

 tors. 



