the necessity of swallowing pebbles to allay the pangs of hunger.  A sorcerer, however, put a fine new head on him and told him where he would find two lovely girls who had refused every suitor, but who would accept him.  He did so and the girls were so pleased with his beauty that they became his wives at once and went home with him.  He resumed his gambling and lost again, but his wives helped him to win back his losses.  They also said to him: 

“All the girls who formerly would have nothing to do with you will now be eager to be yours.  Pay no attention to them, however, but repel them if they touch you.”

The girls did come to his mother, and they said they would like to be his wives.  When the mother told him this, he replied:  “I suppose they want to get back the pieces they cut out of their blankets.”  He took the pieces, gave them to the girls, with taunting words, and drove them away.

THE DANGER OF COQUETRY

The moral of this sarcastic conclusion obviously was intended to be that girls must not show independence and refuse a man, though he be a reckless gambler, so poor that he has to eat pebbles, and so ugly that he needs to have a new head put on him.  Another story, the moral of which was “to teach girls the danger of coquetry,” is told by Schoolcraft (Oneota, 381-84).  There was a girl who refused all her suitors scornfully.  In one case she went so far as to put together her thumb and three fingers, and, raising her hand gracefully toward the young man, deliberately open them in his face.  This gesticulatory mode of rejection is an expression of the highest contempt, and it galled the young warrior so much that he was taken ill and took to his bed until he thought out a plan of revenge which cured him.  He carried it out with the aid of a powerful spirit, or personal Manito.  They made a man of rags and dirt, cemented it with snow and brought it to life.  The girl fell in love with this man and followed him to the marshes, where the snow-cement melted away, leaving nothing but a pile of rags and dirt.  The girl, unable to find her way back, perished in the wilderness.

THE GIRL MARKET

In the vast majority of instances the Indians did not simply try to curb woman’s efforts to secure freedom of choice by intimidating her or inventing warning stories, but held the reins so tightly that a woman’s having a will of her own was out of the question.  It may be said that there are three principal stages in the evolution of the custom of choosing a wife.  In the first and lowest stage a man casts his eyes on a woman and tries to get her, utterly regardless of her own wishes.  In the second, an attempt is made to win at least her good-will, while in the third—­which civilized nations are just entering—­a lover would refuse to marry a girl at the expense of her happiness.