( 3*9 ) 



In this ftate, the father retrains his 

 children by parental authority, until 

 they arrive at an age of maturity, in 

 which reafon is fufficient to withftand 

 the feeble temptations to which they 

 are expofed. At this time they marry; 

 and though polygamy is univerfally al- 

 lowed, it is not often praclifed ; and an 

 Indian is rarely feen to be the hufband 

 of more than one wife, unlefs the former 

 is become old and difagreeable. In 

 this cafe the hufband takes a fecond, at 

 the age of feven or eight years, who 

 lives and fubferves the former in all do- 

 me (He employments until the term of 

 puberty, which, in this climate, is ufu- 

 ally between ten and eleven years, at 

 which time (he cohabits with the huf- 

 band. The ceremony of marriage is 

 nothing more than a drunken feaft. 

 But notwithstanding they have no reli- 

 gious reftraints to conjugal fidelity, yet 

 adultery is lefs frequent than among ci- 

 vilized 



