She herself has
still a negative; and if she disapprove the match, the presents from the
friends of the young man are returned, and this is considered as a
refusal. Many of the more northern nations, as the Dacotas, for example,
have a custom, that, when the husband deceases, his widow immediately
manifests the deepest mourning, by putting off all her finery, and
dresses herself in the coarsest Indian attire, the sackcloth of Indian
lamentation. Meanwhile she makes up a respectable sized bundle of her
clothes into the form of a kind of doll-man, which represents her
husband. With this she sleeps. To this she converses and relates the
sorrows of her desolate heart. It would be indecorous for any warrior,
while she is in this predicament, to show her any attentions of
gallantry. She never puts on any habiliments but those of sadness and
disfigurement. The only comfort she is permitted in this desolate state
is, that her budgetted husband is permitted, when drams are passing, to
be considered as a living one, and she is allowed to cheer her depressed
spirits with a double dram, that of her budget-husband and her own.
After a full year of this penance with the budget-husband, she is
allowed to exchange it for a living one, if she can find him.
When an Indian party forms for private revenge the object is
accomplished in the following manner. The Indian who seeks revenge,
proposes his project to obtain it to some of his more intimate
associates, and requests them to accompany him.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132