Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/158

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146 On the defcenl of the American Indians from the Jews.

have been a confiderable while under petticoat-government, and allow their women full liberty to plant their brows with horns as oft as they pleafe,, ^without fear of punifhment. On this account their marriages are ill ob- ferved, and of a fhort continuance ; like the Amazons, they divorce their fighing bed-fellows, at their pleafure, and fail not to execute their autho rity, when their fancy directs them to a more agreeable choice. However, once in my time a number of warriors, belonging to the family of the huf- band of the adulterefs, revenged the injury committed by her, in her own way ; for they faid, as me loved a great many men, inftead of a hufband,, ijuftice told them to gratify her longing defire wherefore, by the infor mation of their fpies, they followed her into the woods a little way from the town, (as decency required) and then ftretched her on the ground, with-. her hands tied to a flake, and her feet alfo extended, where upwards of fifty of them lay with her, having a blanket for a covering. The Choktah. ebferve the fame favage cuftom with adultereiTes. They term their female delinquents, Ahowwe Ifhto -, the firft is a Cheerake word, fignifying, " & deer." -And through contempt of the Chikkafah, they altered their penal, law of adultery.

The Mufkohge Indians, either through the view of mitigating their law againft adultery, that it might be adapted to their patriarchal-like government ; or by mifunderftanding the Mofaic precept, from length of time, and uncertainty cf oral tradition, oblige the adulterefs under the penalty of the fevereft law not to be free with any man, (unlefs me is inclined to favour her fellow fufferer) during the fpace of four moons, after the broken moon in which they fuffered for each other, according to the cuftom of the Maldivians. But her hufband expofes himfelf to the utmoft feverity of the marriage law, if he is known to hold a liar intercourfe with her after the time of her punimment.

��ARGUMENT XIV..

��Many other of the INDIAN PUNISHMENTS, referable thofe of the Jews... "Whofoever attentively views the features of the Indian, and his eye, and

reflets

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