In cases of divorce, which was easily obtained, the advantage rested with the woman.  The reason given is indeed contemptuous toward her, but a chivalric direction is given to the contempt.

“The children of the Indians are always distinguished by the name of the mother, and, if a woman marries several husbands, and has issue by each of them, they are called after her.  The reason they give for this is, that, ’as their offspring are indebted to the father for the soul, the invisible part of their essence, and to the mother for their corporeal and apparent part, it is most rational that they should be distinguished by the name of the latter, from whom they indubitably derive their present being.’”

This is precisely the division of functions made by Ovid, as the father sees Hercules perishing on the funeral pyre.

      “Nec nisi materna Vulcanum parte potentem
      Sentiet.  Aeternum est a me quod traxit et expers
      Atque immune necis, nullaqe domabile flamma.”

He is not enough acquainted with natural history to make valuable observations.  He mentions, however, as did my friend, the Indian girl, that those splendid flowers, the Wickapee and the root of the Wake-Robin, afford valuable medicines.  Here, as in the case of the Lobelia, nature has blazoned her drug in higher colors than did ever quack doctor.

He observes some points of resemblance between the Indians and Tartars, but they are trivial, and not well considered.  He mentions that the Tartars have the same custom, with some of these tribes, of shaving all the head except a tuft on the crown.  Catlin says this is intended, to afford a convenient means by which to take away the scalp; for they consider it a great disgrace to have the foeman neglect this, as if he considered the conquest, of which the scalp is the certificate, no addition to his honors.

“The Tartars,” he says, “had a similar custom of sacrificing the dog; and among the Kamschatkans was a dance resembling the dog-dance of our Indians.”

My friend, who joined me at Mackinaw, happened, on the homeward journey, to see a little Chinese girl, who had been sent over by one of the missions, and observed that, in features, complexion, and gesture, she was a counterpart to the little Indian girls she had just seen playing about on the lake shore.

The parentage of these tribes is still an interesting subject of speculation, though, if they be not created for this region, they have become so assimilated to it as to retain little trace of any other.  To me it seems most probable, that a peculiar race was bestowed on each region, as the lion on one latitude and the white bear on another.  As man has two natures—­one, like that of the plants and animals, adapted to the uses and enjoyments of this planet, another, which presages and demands a higher sphere—­he is constantly breaking bounds, in proportion as the mental gets the better of the mere instinctive existence.  As yet, he loses in harmony of being what he gains in height and extension; the civilized man is a larger mind, but a more imperfect nature than the savage.