wigwam all day, enjoying himself, warm and comfortable. If he gets hungry, he goes out and catches a rabbit, for there are a plenty of rabbits everywhere. So he finds far more enjoyment in his life than he would in the toiling, slaving life of the white man.

INDUSTRY OF THE WOMEN; THEIR SERVILE POSITION.

The Ojibway woman, on the other hand, is industrious, especially the middle-aged and old woman. Besides fishing for the family, the women usually raise all the corn and potatoes raised, put away the produce of the gardens, gather the wild rice, and, generally speaking, do all the work. The women every afternoon, as was before stated, take their axes, chop the wood, and carry it to the lodge door with their packing straps. It may be a short or a long distance. If the woods have all been cut away near the village, and if there are ponies as at White Earth, Leech lake, and other places, then ponies are used to bring it; but when the logs have been deposited at the door, the woman always takes her ax and chops it. No family ever thinks of keeping a day's wood ahead; so if there is a blizzard and excessive cold, say at Leech lake, every pony and sled that can be mustered has to be out in the midst of the blizzard on the ice going for wood. It is that or freeze.

The women, though far superior to the men in point of usefulness, and it seems to me their equals in bodily strength, are made to occupy a position of great inferiority. The woman always walks behind the man; and she turns out of the path for a man when she meets him. At a feast women never sit with the men; even the young boys have to be served first; and then, last of all, the women, who have had all the labor of preparing the feast, can sit down and consume the fragments. Even the exclamations of the language are not common to both sexes as with us; the woman has her own, exclusively for women, and must not use those a man does. The Indians look on our deference for women as foolish, affected, a fad.

The heathen man thinks it his undoubted right to whip his wife, and he exercises his privilege freely. That is one objection that even some Christian Indians find against the Christion religion; namely, that the wives, knowing they will no

longer be whipped, since their husbands have become Christians, presume upon that and are not nearly so good and submissive as they formerly were, or as they ought to be. Generally the wife yields to the argument of the ax helve on her scalp, and, like a spoiled child, seems to feel better after she has been whipped. But that is not always the case. An Ojibway whose name is, in translation, The one with the far sounding and penetrating voice, undertook to whip his wife, but she turned on him and broke his arm, then tenderly nursed him till he was well, and they have been a most loving couple ever since. And it is true that among the Ojibways there is about the same proportion of women as among the white people, who, being stronger mentally and with more energy and sense, rule and govern their husbands, to the good of all. Especially in middle and later life the intellectuality and masculine powers of the wife are apt to come to the front.

MARRIAGE, AND ABANDONING WIFE AND CHILDREN. Many of the heathen Ojibways have two wives, and some three. It is considered perfectly proper to have as many wives as one can, and as there are government annuities for each woman and each child, which the man as head of the house draws, it is an inducement to add more. Sometimes the two wives are sisters. Usually they live in far better peace with each other than white women would under such circumstances. The man usually has two separate homes or wigwams for his two families; but sometimes they live in one house. Often the first wife feels aggrieved at the taking of a second, but does not actively object.

There is no marriage ceremony among the Ojibways. Usually all the girls (I am speaking here as everywhere else in this paper, unless the contrary is expressly stated, of the heathen Ojibways) begin to bear children as soon as nature will permit, and keep on bearing as long as nature will allow. I have never known an Indian girl to live as an unmarried woman,— I am speaking of the heathen. But I have known Christian Ojibway young women who lived single always, and whose characters were as spotless as any woman's could be. Among the heathen a girl usually lives a while with one man, and then with another, and there is a great deal of changing

around. Usually, though, the elderly and old people are faithful to each other and continue to live together. But any heathen woman, one will find on inquiry, has lived with a good many different husbands. There was only one man among the Ojibways who never married. He was in consequence called "The everlasting young unmarried man." He lived to the age of seventy years.

It is quite common for a husband, after having lived with a woman for a long time and raised quite a family, to abandon her and his children without any cause, and to take another woman and begin to rear a new family. A man, for instance, will abandon his wife and children at Leech lake, and go to Red lake, seventy-five miles distant, and take a new wife there. Or he may do so in the same village. In such circumstances he never does anything to support the wife and children he has abandoned. I have never known a man in such a case to do the slightest thing for the children. But when the time of the annual payment comes round, he always tries to get the annuities coming to the children and to his abandoned wife, and generally succeeds. If he be opposed, he makes a bitter fight before the Indian agent, to that end. And when he gets hold of the money, he never gives any of them one cent. One can constantly hear the poor woman lamenting that not only has all the money of the children, whom she is supporting, been taken, but that he has got hers also. The woman always supports the children. The man only helps his children, even when they are members of the family in which he is living. He does not seem to lose caste in the slightest degree by such desertion or non-support of his children. It is so common that it is looked on as the regular thing.

Let no one think from this that the Ojibway man does not love his children. He seems to love them dearly. In his wigwam or log cabin he fondles them and plays with them by the hour, just like a white father. When they are sick he seems just as much distressed as a white father would be. He will not let them go away to school, if it be any long distance away, for fear that something may befall them, and he far away. When they sicken and die, he shows the greatest dejection and the most bitter grief. I have seen him burst into tears.

Often I have thought, and still think, that the Ojibway loves his children more than the white man; and I have accounted for it to my own mind by the fact that they lose so many of their children, making those who remain doubly precious. And yet so often he abandons them, apparently without a cause, and apparently without ever giving them a thought again. It is a much more rare thing for an Indian woman to abandon her children. Like her white sister, she clings to them and manages to support them somehow. It is understood that it devolves on the woman to support her children.

I have never seen the slightest endearment pass between husband and wife, not the slightest outward tokens of affection. Yet there is no doubt that they are as much attached to each other, especially in middle and later life, as those of

our own race.

BABYHOOD AND CHILDHOOD.

For the first year of its life, the Ojibway baby is taken most excellent care of in its well known cradle. It is wrapped in a great many thicknesses of flannel and soft material, which effectually exclude all cold, and it is perfectly warm and comfortable in any weather. Its head is protected from injury by the wooden piece surrounding it. It likes the firm feeling of being bound and swathed in this frame, and will cry to be put into it. The frame can be leaned against the wall at any angle, and so it can be relieved by change of position; or, best of all, the mother carries it suspended on her back, by a strap passed round her forehead, while she goes about her work. I have seen a mother at Red lake, while waiting all day out of doors for the annual payment, take out in the open air and nurse her baby in a temperature of about thirty degrees below zero, and the baby was not over six weeks old. An intelligent United States Indian agent, observing them, remarked, "An Indian woman can doubly discount a white woman in taking care of her baby."

But with the emancipation of the baby from its cradle, a surprising change in its treatment occurs. It goes naked, or almost so, winter and summer, having only a shirt and moccasins until five or six years. The parents seem to think that it needs no clothes. One will see it outdoors playing in the

snow, when it is very cold, clad only with the cotton shirt, flying loose, and moccasins. Then the parents go on long winter journeys, or they very frequently travel miles in the night to some heathen dance, the mother carrying the young child on her back when the mercury stands thirty or forty degrees below zero. The dance house may be hot, and then there is the home journey in the middle of the night. These carryings to dances cause the death of great numbers of children. Their life is hard in every way, the constant moving about in winter, the insufficient food, the exposure, the insufficient clothing, the one blanket in which the little child sleeps. The wonder is that any children survive it, and only the strongest constitutions do. And when the child becomes sick, the only idea they have of doing anything for it is to drum over it night and day, or to perform the "grand medicine" rites for its recovery.

Whatever is good for them, the parents think must be good for their children also. So they give them the strongest tea to drink as soon as they are able to drink anything; and all the flesh they can eat, or anything they happen to have. From the same idea, the little children very early get to using tobacCo. I have seen a boy of four beating his mother with his tiny fists, to make her give him more tobacco. Every boy and girl thinks he or she must have tobacco, and plenty of it.

The parents have no government whatever over their children. They are absolute masters from the first dawn of intelligence, and they very quickly find it out and rule. Sometimes the mother gives the child a push or a cuff, saying to it, "You are spoiled;" but lets it take its own way. They never correct them, nor try to bend them to their will. I suppose the reason is that they lose so, many children and therefore cannot bear to correct nor cross in any way those that survive.

When a child is crying, the mother tries to quiet it by saying, "Hush, that Frenchman will strike you," pointing to the white stranger who is there. Frenchman is the common name for any white man, as the French were the first white men they saw. When that is not enough, she tells it the owl will come and carry it off; and when that from long use has lost its terrors, she shows it a piece of the owl's ear, into which it will be put. As fast as one lie is worn out, another is in