The Indians, like the Hottentots, Negroes, and monkeys, eat the lice which they detect in each others heads. The squaws search for these parasites; and we have often seen them thus occupied with activity, earnestness, and much success. One of them, who was engaged in combing the head of a white man, was asked why she did not eat the vermin; she replied, that "white men's lice are not good."
Although the bison cow produces a rich milk, yet the Indians make no use of that of the individuals they kill in hunting.
During these active employments, which the squaws cheerfully and even emulously engage in, the occupations of the men are chiefly those of amusement or recreation.
Numbers of the young warriors are very officious in offering their services to the squaws, as protectors during their field labours; and from the opportunities they enjoy of making love to their charge in the privacy of high weeds, it is extremely common for them to form permanent attachments to the wives {197} of their neighbours, and an elopement to another nation is the consequence.
The men devote a portion of their time to card-playing. Various are the games which they practise, of which one is called Matrimony; but others are peculiar to themselves: the following is one, to which they seem to be particularly devoted.
The players seat themselves around a bison robe spread on the ground, and each individual deposits in the middle[pg306] the articles he intends to stake, such as vermilion, beads, knives, blankets, &c., without any attention to the circumstance of equalizing its value with the deposits made by his companions.
Four small sticks are then laid upon the robe, and the cards are shuffled, cut, and two are given to each player, after which the trump is turned. The hands are then played, and whoever gains two tricks takes one of the sticks. If two persons make each a trick, they play together until one loses his trick, when the other takes a stick. The cards are again dealt, and the process is continued until all the sticks are taken, If four persons have each a stick, they continue to play, to the exclusion of the unsuccessful gamesters. When a player wins two sticks, four cards are dealt to him, that he may take his choice of them. If a player wins three sticks, six cards are dealt to him, and should he take the fourth stick he wins the stake.
They are so inveterately attached to the heinous vice of gambling, that they are known to squander in this way every thing they possess, with the solitary exception of their habitation, which, however, is regarded more as the property of the woman than of the man.
A game, to which the squaws are very much devoted, is called by the Omawhaws Kon-se-ke-da, or plumstone-shooting. It bears some resemblance to that of dice. Five plumstones are provided, three of which are marked on one side only with a greater {198} or smaller number of black dots or lines, and two of them are marked on both sides. They are, however, sometimes made of bone, of a rounded and flattened form, somewhat like an orbicular button-mould; the dots in this case being impressed. A wide dish, and a certain number of small sticks, by the way of[pg307] counters, are also provided. Any number of persons may play at this game, and agreeably to the number engaged in it, is the quantity of sticks or counters. The plumstones or bones are placed in the dish, and a throw is made by simply jolting the vessel against the ground to cause the dice to rebound, and they are counted as they lie when they fall. The party plays round for the first throw. Whoever gains all the sticks in the course of the game, wins the stake. The throws succeed each other with so much rapidity, that we vainly endeavoured to observe their laws of computation, which it was the sole business of an assistant to attend to.
The squaws sometimes become so highly interested in this game as to neglect their food and ordinary occupations, sitting for a whole day, and perhaps night also, solely intent upon it, until the losers have nothing more to stake.