OF THE MARRIAGES AMONGST THE INDIANS, AND MANAGEMENT OF THEIR CHILDREN.

§ 6. The Indians have their solemnities of marriage, and esteem the vows made at that time as most sacred and inviolable. Notwithstanding they allow both the man and the wife to part upon disagreement, yet so great is the disreputation of a divorce, that married people, to avoid the character of inconstant and ungenerous, very rarely let their quarrels proceed to a separation. However, when it does so happen, they reckon all the ties of matrimony dissolved, and each hath the liberty of marrying another. But infidelity is accounted the most unpardonable of all crimes in either of the parties as long as the contract continues.

In these separations, the children go, according to the affection of the parent, with the one or the other; for children are not reckoned a charge among them, but rather riches, according to the blessing of the Old Testament; and if they happen to differ about dividing their children, their method is then to part them equally, allowing the man the first choice.

§ 7. Though the young Indian women are said to prostitute their bodies for wampom peak, runtees, beads, and other such like fineries; yet I never could find any ground for the accusation, and believe it only to be an unjust scandal upon them. This I know, that if ever they have a child while they are single, it is such a disgrace to them that they never after get husbands. Besides, I must do them the justice to say, I never heard of a child any of them had before marriage, and the Indians themselves disown any such custom; though they acknowledge, at the same time, that the maidens are entirely at their own disposal, and may manage their persons as they think fit.

§ 8. The manner of the Indians treating their young children is very strange; for instead of keeping them warm, at their first entry into the world, and wrapping them up, with I don't know how many clothes, according to our fond custom, the first thing they do is to dip the child over head and ears in cold water, and then to bind it naked to a convenient board, having a hole fitly placed for evacuation; but they always put cotton, wool, fur, or other soft things, for the body to rest easy on, between the child and the board. In this posture they keep it several months, till the bones begin to harden, the joints to knit, and the limbs to grow strong; and then they let it loose from the board, suffering it to crawl about, except when they are feeding or playing with it.

While the child is thus at the board, they either lay it flat on its back, or set it leaning on one end, or else hang it up by a string fastened to the upper end of the board for that purpose; the child and board being all this while carried about together. As our women undress their children to clean and shift their linen, so they do theirs to wash and grease them.

The method the women have of carrying their children after they are suffered to crawl about, is very particular; they carry them at their backs in summer, taking one leg of the child under their arm, and the counter-arm of the child in their hand over their shoulder; the other leg hanging down, and the child all the while holding fast with its other hand; but in winter they carry them in the hollow of their match-coat at their back, leaving nothing but the child's head out, as appears by the figure.