siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

118 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bdij;..103
the saddle and bid ride for liimself ; and soon did the young horseman prove
himself a true scion of the parent tree, as a fearless and skillful rider.*^
From Simpson Tubby I obtained the following interesting notes
regarding customs within his own remembrance
They would not let a pregnant woman drive a wagon or cross a running
stream. In the latter case it was because they thought she would leave the
spirit of the child upon the other side and his life would be short. They would
not allow her to get off of the ground and thought that it was well for her to
walk a great deal. They were terribly afraid to have her cough for they
believed that the straining on her stomach would displace the child and make
the birth hard. Before the child was born the father had to abstain from work
and keep quiet. The prospective mother was tended by an old woman skilled in
midwifery. They used to send everybody away at such a time except the midwife
and the woman's husband.
They believed that if a child was not tempered like a piece of metal it was
likely to die and so they plunged infants into water just after their birth. Then
they took them back to the house, put them in out of the wind, and let their
clothing dry on them.
An eelskin was tied around an infant at the level of the navel to prevent the
stomach from protruding too much, and to make it high chested, supple in the
back and straight.
Claiborne is the only writer to speak specifically of adoption,
which was probably confined in ancient times to individuals of the
same iksa as the deceased mother. He says
The custom of adopting relatives or orphan children is very common. Even
married people, who have children, occasionally adopt one or more. They take
an equal part with the other heirs, and are sometimes even allotted the best
share.'"
The custom of head deformation, alluded to by Bossii, is mentioned
by several other writers, and on account of it the traders sometimes
spoke of the Choctaw as " flat heads." Adair speaks as follows
regarding it:
The Choktah Indians flatten their fore-heads, from the top of the head to the
eyebrows with a small bag of sand ; which gives them a hideous appearance
as the forehead naturally shoots upward, according as it is flattened : thus, the
rising of the nose, instead of being equidistant from the beginning of the cliin,
to that of the hair, is, by their wild mechanism, placed a great deal nearer to
the one, and farther from the other. The Indian nations, round South-
Carolina, and all the way to New Mexico, .... to effect this, fix the tender
infant on a kind of cradle, where his feet are tilted, above a foot higher than
a horizontal position,—his head bends back into a hole, made on purpose to
receive it, where he bears the chief part of his weight on the crown of the head,
upon a small bag of sand, without being in the least able to move himself.
The skull resembling a fine cartilaginous substance, in its infant state, is
capable of taking any impression. By this pressure, and their thus flattening
the crown of the head, they consequently make their heads thick, and their
*2Cushman, Hist. Inds., pp. 282-233. "Claiborne, Miss., i, p. 523.