Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/131

 *factorily proved. Among the Quapaws, I have been informed, that the husband, on the consummation of his marriage, presents his wife with the leg of a deer, and she, in return, offers him an ear of maize, both of which are so many symbols of that provision against the calls of necessity, which they are mutually accustomed to provide.[96]

The young and unmarried women of the Quapaws, according to a custom equally prevalent among many other tribes of Indians, wear their hair braided up into two parts, brought round to either ear in a cylindric form, and decorated with beads, wampum, or silver. After marriage these locks are all unfolded, the decorations laid aside for her daughters, and her hair, brought together behind in a single lock, becomes no longer an assiduous object of ornament. According to the History of the Costume of all Nations, this manner of braiding the hair appears to have been equally prevalent among the women of {88} Siberia, Tartary, Turkey, and China. As an expression of the greatest grief and misfortune, anciently practised by many other nations of the world, I have, amongst the aborigines of the Missouri, not unfrequently seen both men and women shave away their hair. It is not, however, I believe, practised by the Indians of the Mississippi, nor among the Quapaws and Osages.

The ideas of supernatural agency, entertained by the Arkansas, are very similar to those which prevail among the natives of the Missouri. Every family, for example, chooses its penates, or guardian spirit, from among those various objects of creation which are remarkable for their sagacity, their utility, or power. Some will perhaps choose a snake, a buffaloe, an owl, or a raven; and many of them