George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 3, 15th edition.

[268] was the unwritten law of the red man that she should

Chap. XXII.}

herself retain those whom she had borne or nursed. The sorrows of child-bearing were mitigated to the Indian mother, and her travail was comparatively easy and speedy. ‘In one quarter of an hour, a woman would be merry in the house, and delivered, and merry againe; and within two days, abroad; and after four or five dayes, at worke.’ Energy of will surmounted the pangs of child-birth. The woman who uttered complaints or groans was esteemed worthy to be but the mother of cowards. Yet death sometimes followed. The pregnant woman continued her usual toils, bore her wonted burdens, followed her family even in its winter rambles. How helpless the Indian infant, born, without shelter, amidst storms and ice! But fear nothing for him: God has placed near him a guardian angel, that can triumph over the severities of nature; the sentiment of maternity is by his side; and, so long as his mother breathes, he is safe. The squaw loves her child with instinctive passion; and, if she does not manifest it by lively caresses, her tenderness is real, wakeful, and constant. No savage mother ever trusted her babe to a hireling nurse; no savage mother ever put away her own child to suckle that of another. To the cradle, consisting of thin pieces of light wood, and gayly ornamented with quills of the porcupine, and beads, and rattles, the nursling is firmly attached, and carefully wrapped in furs; and the infant, thus swathed, its back to the mother's back, is borne as the topmost burden,—its dark eyes now cheerfully flashing light, now accompanying with tears the wailings which the plaintive melodies of the carrier cannot hush. Or, while the squaw toils in the field, she hangs her child, as spring does its blossoms, on the boughs of a tree,