Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/201

 The furvhing brother ralfes feed to the deceafed.

is the virtuous cuftom of the favage Americans, concerning female cha tity during the time of their widowhood?

The Indian women mourn three moons, for the death of any female of their own family or tribe. During that time, they are not to anoint, or tie up their hair ; neither is the hufband of the deceafed allowed, when the offices of nature do not call him, to go out of the houfe, much left to join any company : and in that time of mourning he often lies among the ames. The time being expired, the female mourners meet in the even ing of the beginning of the fourth moon, at the houfe where their female relation is ihtombed, and flay there till morning, when the neareft furviving old kinfwoman crops their fore-locks pretty fhort. This they call Eho Inta- ndah) " the women have mourned the appointed time."' Eho fignifies " a woman," Into, " finiflied by divine appointment," Aa " moving" or walk ing, and Ah\ " their note of grief, forrow, or mourning :" the name ex- prcflfes, and the cuftom is a vifible certificate of, their having mourned the appointed time for their dead. When they have eaten and drank together,, they return, home by fun-rife, and thus finifh their folemn Tah-ab,

��A -Rf G U M E N T XXL

��The furviving brother, by the Mbfaic law, was to RAISE SEED to a de ceafed brother who left a widow childlefs, to perpetuate his name and family,-, and inherit his goods and eft'ate, or be degraded : and, if the ifiue he begat was a male child, it afTumed the name of the deceafed. The Indian cuftom looks the very fame way, yet it is in this as in their law of blood the eldeft brother can redeem.

Although a widow is bound, by a ftricl: penal law, to mourn the death of her hufband for the fpace of three or four years ; yet, if me be known to lament her lofs with a fmcere heart, for the fpace of a year, and her cir- cumftances of living are fo ftrait as to need a change of her ftation and th elder brother of her deceafed hufband lies with her, fhe is thereby ex-

7 empted :

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