Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/194

 *diately attended the interment, or touched the corpse, refrained from the company of their wives and families, for the space of seven days and nights.

In no part of North America have we ever met with that kind of irrational adoration called idolatry. All the natives acknowledged the existence of a great, good, and indivisible Spirit, the author of all created being. Believing also in the immortality of the soul, and in the existence of invisible agencies, they were often subjected to superstitious fears, and the observance of omens and dreams, the workings of perturbed fancy. By these imaginary admonitions, they sometimes suffered themselves to be controlled in their most important undertakings, relinquishing every {133} thing which was accidentally attended by any inauspicious presage of misfortune.

As among the Asiatics, and other imperfectly civilized nations, the condition of the female sex bordered upon degradation. Considered rather as objects of pleasure and necessity, than as rational companions, several of them often lived together in the house of the same husband. However custom might have tolerated this habit, we are happy to find that civilization tends to its abolition. Polygamy among the Cherokees, without any legal restraint, will, in time, be spontaneously abandoned, as their conjugal attachment appears to be strong and sincere.

Marriage among the Cherokees, as with most of the natives, was formerly consummated with very little ceremony. When a young man became enamoured, it was the custom modestly to declare his desire to marry through the medium of some female relative, who exclusively conferred with the mother, the father never interfering. If the mother agreed, and thought well of the proposal, it