s wife, and it comes to the knowledge of her
husband, he takes his gun and goes to the forest where he finds a herd
of cattle belonging to the neighborhood; he shoots a good fat bullock
and calls on the neighbors to assist him to dress it and convey it home,
where he makes a great feast, inviting the man who committed the
offence, and all the neighbors to partake with him, when the offender,
who is bound by law, pays for the bullock and all is amicably settled.

If a man prevails on another man's wife to leave her husband and live
with him, the law compels him to pay a fine of four backs of
tortoise-shell, worth six dollars each, amounting to twenty-four
dollars, and a receipt in full is verbally acknowledged, without any
hard feelings between the parties.

I once witnessed a settlement between two men in a cause of this kind,
both parties appeared well satisfied, and parted on the most friendly
terms.

They have a singular law for the collection of debts. If I trust an
Indian goods, he belonging to another town or settlement, and he
neglects to pay me, and I find another Indian belonging to the same
town, having tortoise-shell or other produce in his canoe, I can take it
away from him for the debt, and he must look to the man who was indebted
to me, for remuneration.

Marriage contracts are made by parents while the children are infants.
Two families living in one neighborhood, one of them having a son and
the other a daughter, enter into a contract that they shall be
considered man and wife. When they are of a proper age to be joined
together, all the inhabitants of the place assemble together, build them
a house, help them to a hammock to sleep in, and a dinner-pot for
cooking, and they commence as house keepers. After living together for
some years as man and wife, the husband receives a present of a female
child from _its_ parents, which he carries home, and calls it his _young
wife_, the first wife taking the same care of it she would of her own
children until it becomes of proper age, when the husband builds a new
house for the first wife to live in, and takes the young wife for a
house-keeper. I have often been invited into Indian houses and
introduced to the family in this manner: "This is my old wife," pointing
to an elderly woman, and "This is my young wife," pointing to a girl
from six to ten years old. The old wife would smooth her hair and
appear to feel a great deal of pride in being presented to me.