Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/270

 relatives of the deceased husband; and in order to contract afresh, they had to pay to these relatives what was called "widow money." Inversely, with the Kliketats, if a woman happened to die very soon after her marriage, the husband who had bought her could claim her price back from the parents; he had been deceived in the quality of the merchandise.

This was not all; as long as the mourning lasted, the widow was always considered, in certain districts, as having duties to fulfil towards her dead husband, or rather towards his shade. Thus, with the Sambos of Central America, she had to furnish a sufficient quantity of food during a year to the tomb of the deceased; and it was the same in Mexico.

In many of the Redskin tribes second marriages are not tolerated by custom till after a very long delay, exacted for reasons that have nothing savage in them; it is simply that the children of the first marriage may be grown out of their early infancy, and the custom is obligatory for the man as well as for the woman. The Selish widow only marries after two years; but the delay is sometimes from two to three years for the widower as well as for the widow. With the Nez-Percés of Columbia, the widower can marry again at the end of one year. With the Omahas the delay was much longer, from four to seven years for the man and the woman. This rule was very strict, and in case of its infraction, the parents of the dead husband had the right to strike and wound, but without killing, the widow who might be too hasty in marrying again. In a parallel case, they confined themselves to taking a pony from the man; this was because a man could defend himself. On the contrary, if the widower waited much beyond the legal time before marrying again, the parents or relatives of the dead wife thought themselves obliged to intervene. "This man," said they, "has no one to sew his mocassins; let us