source or st. peter's river.
133
called upon professionally, and with a fee.    In a suppression of menses they seldom apply any remedy; as they are apprehensive that this might be productive of sterility, which is by all Indian women considered as the greatest curse that can be entailed upon them.    During the period of the catamenia, women are not allowed to associate with the rest of the nation; they are completely laid aside, and are not permitted to touch any article of furniture or food which men have occasion to use.    If the Indians be stationary at the time, the women are placed outside of the camp; if on a march, they are not allowed to follow the trail, but must take a different path and keep at a distance from the main body.    This practice, which appears to prevail wherever man retains his primitive simplicity and purity of manners, has been very unphilosophically considered by Adair and other theoretic writers as a strong confirmation of the descent of the aborigines of America from the ten lost tribes of Israel.    But as Charlevoix observes, " one must have good eyes, or rather a very lively imagination to perceive in them all that some travellers have pretended to discover."*    The late  Mr.  Samuel Prince, of Boston, who  resided three or four years in Owhyhee, assured Mr. Colhoun that the natives of that island are equally scrupulous with regard to the catamenia, and during its continuance; the women being secluded in houses without the villages.    This custom of Owhyhee has not, we think, been noticed by any traveller that we have met with.
It has been often asserted that it was a common practice with Indian women to destroy the foetus. This may be correct as respects certain nations, but it ought
* Charlevoix's Journal Ilistorique, Letter 23d.