Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/199

 The women's time and manntr of mourning for their htijlands. 187

terefs ; and likewife to go with flowing hair, without the privilege of oil to anoint it. The neareft kinfmen of the dcceafed hufband, keep a very watchful eye over her conduct, in this refpect. The place of interment is alfo calculated to wake the widow's grief, for he is intombed in the houfe under her bed. And if he was a war-leader, fhe is obliged for the firft moon, to fit in the day-time under his mourning war-pole *, which is decked with all his martial trophies, and muft be heard to cry with bewailing notes. But none of them are fond of that month's fuppofed religious duty, it chills, or fweats, and waftes them fo exceedingly ; for they are allowed no made, or flicker. This fharp rigid cuftom excites the women to honour the marriage-ftate, and keeps them obliging to their hufbands, by anticipating the vifible fharp difficulties which they muft undergo for fo great a lofs. The three or four years monaitic life, which (he lives after his death, makes it her intereft to ftrive by every means, to keep in his lamp of life, be it ever fo dull and worthlefs ; if fhe is able to fhed tears on fuch an occafion, they often proceed from felf-love. We can generally diflinguifh between the widow's natural mourning *voice, and her tuneful laboured ftrain. She doth not fo much bewail his death, as her own re- clufe life, and hateful ftate of celibacy, which to many of them, is as uneligible, as it was to the Hebrew ladies, who preferred death before the unmarried ftate, and reckoned their virginity a bewailable condition, like the ftate of the dead.

The Choktah Indians hire mourners to magnify the merit an$l lofs of their dead, and if their tears cannot be feen to flow, their fhrill voices will be heard to cry, which anfwers the folemn chorus a great deal better f. However, they are no way churlifh of their tears, for I have feen them, on the occafion, pour them out, like fountains of water : but after having

fixt in the ground oppofite to his door, and all his implements of war, are hung on the fhort boughs of it, till they rot.
 * The war-pole is a fmall peeled tree painted red, the top and boughs cut off fhort : it is

f Jer. ix. 17. 19. Thus faith the Lord of hofts : confider ye, and call for the mourning- women, that they may come ; and fend for cunning women, that they may .come. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, how are we fpoiled ? we are greatly confounded, be- caufe we have forfaken the land, becaufe our dwellings have caft us out,

B b 2 thus

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