men and boys of ten years old and upwards are obliged
to sleep in their own portion of the encampment, where they themselves,
or more generally, some of their mothers, build for them two or three
huts, in which those related within certain degrees of consanguinity
sleep together.

SOCIAL CUSTOMS.

When strangers are with a party upon a visit, if attended by their wives,
they sleep in their own huts, which are placed among those of the married
people; but if their wives are not with them, or if they are unmarried,
they sleep at the fire of the young men.

MODE OF CONVERSATIONAL INTERCOURSE. MODE OF RECITING EVENTS.

Under no circumstances is a strange native allowed to approach the fire
of a married man; in the daytime they hunt or occupy themselves with the
men, and at night they either sit at their own fire, or that of the young
men. Their huts being placed at a little distance from one another, such
an arrangement would appear to put an end to anything like social
intercourse or conversation; but they have invented a means of overcoming
this difficulty by making a species of chant, or recitative, their
customary mode of address to each other. In an encampment at night the
young men recount to one another their love adventures and stories; and
the old men quarrel with their wives or play with their children;
suddenly a deep wild chant rises on the ear, in which some newly-arrived
native relates the incidents of his journey, or an old man calls to their
remembrance scenes of other days, or reminds them that some death remains
unavenged: this is done in a loud recitative, and the instant it is
commenced every other sound is hushed. A native, while thus chanting, is
rarely or never interrupted, and when he has concluded another replies in
the same tone until the conversation, still conducted in this manner,
becomes general.

CONSEQUENCES OF JEALOUSY.

In the meantime individuals both male and female move about from fire to
fire, paying visits, and whispering scandal to one another; but these
visits are so arranged that none can approach a fire to which, by the
established usages of society, they have not a right to go; the younger
females however, who are much addicted to intrigue, find at times
opportunity to exchange a word or a glance with some favoured lover, but
woe to her if her watchful husband should detect her in the act. A spear
through the calf of the leg is the least punishment that awaits her; and
if