254 Expedition to the 



opportunity to leave the presence. If a person visit his 

 wife, during her residence at. the lodge of her father, the lat- 

 ter averts himself and conceals his head with his robe, and 

 his hospitality is extended circuitously by means of his 

 daughter, by whom the pipe is transfered to her husband to 

 smoke. Communications or queries intended for the son-in- 

 law are addressed aloud to the daughter, who receives the 

 replies of her husband. The same formality is observed by 

 the mother-in-law ; if she wishes to present him with food, 

 it is invariably handed to the daughter for him, or if she 

 happens to be absent for the moment, it is placed on the 

 ground, and she retires from the lodge, that he may take it 

 up and eat it. A ten years' separation will not change this 

 custom. The Pawnees have no such formality, and on that 

 account, are said to be great fools. 



A Frenchman married and resident with the Omawhaws, 

 one day, inadvertently mentioned the name of his father-in- 

 law, in presence of several people, who immediately decla- 

 red him to be as great a fool as a Pawnee, thus to have so 

 little respect for his father-in-law, as to treat him with as 

 little ceremony as he would a dog. 



The more distinguished and respectable the parties are, 

 the more rigidly is this rule observed ; and if either of the par- 

 ties should be treated otherwise, the departure from the ob- 

 servance would be regarded as a mark of disrepect for a tri- 

 fling fellow. 



Fraternal affection is very strong and permanent. The 

 chief and almost exclusive sources of infraction ol this na- 

 tural bias, are adultery with each others' wives, and conflict- 

 ing intrigues for the attainment of the honour of a chief- 

 tain. 



Two Omawhaw brothers had stolen a squaw from an in- 

 dividual of their nation, and were on their journey to seek a 

 refuge in the Puncaw village. But they had the misfortune, 

 in a large prairie, to meet with a war party of Sioux, their 



