marriage. The father may be seen
sitting among his friends, when the young Indian comes in with
presents, to induce him to give him his daughter for a wife. If the
presents are not liked, they are not accepted; if they are approved,
the father takes the hand of his daughter, and the hand of the young
Indian, and slaps them together; after which a little feasting takes
place.

_Austin._ Why, that is like buying a wife.

_Hunter._ It is; but the young Indian has already gained the good will
of his intended wife: not by his fine clothes and his wealth, for he
has neither the one nor the other, but by showing her the skins of the
bears he has killed, and the scalps and scalp-locks of the foes he has
slaughtered; and by telling her that he will hunt for her, that she
may be kept from want, and fight for her, that she may be protected
from the enemies of her tribe. Indians have strange customs: some
flatten the heads of their young children, by laying them in a cradle,
with a pillow for the back of the head, and then pressing the
forehead, day after day, with a board, that comes down upon it, till
the nose and forehead form a straight line.

_Brian._ I should not like my head to be flattened in that manner.

_Hunter._ Children are carried about in their cradles on the backs of
their mothers, wherever they go; and when children die, they are often
left, in their cradles, floating on the water of a brook or pool,
which their superstition teaches them to regard as sacred. A cluster
of these little arks or cradles, or coffins as they may be called, of
different forms, in a lone pool, is a very picturesque and affecting
sight.

_Basil._ I shall often think of the pool, and the little cradles
swimming on it. It would remind me of Moses in the bulrushes.

_Hunter._ There are other singular customs among the Indians. The
Kowyas, the Pawnees, the Sacs and Foxes, the Osages, and the Iowas,
all shave their heads, leaving a tuft on the crown two or three inches
in length, and a small lock in the middle of it, as long as they can
make it grow. By means of this small lock of hair braided, they
ornament the tuft with a crest of the deer's tail dyed scarlet, and
sometimes add to it a war-eagle's feather.

_Austin._ How different from the Crow Indians! They do not shave off
their hair; but let it grow till it hangs down to the very ground.

_Hunter._ You have not forgotten that, I see. There is a cruel custom
among the Indians, of