People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1894 — SIOUX FAMILIES. [ARTICLE]

SIOUX FAMILIES.

The Good Nature Which Exists In the Domestic Relations. A writer in Outing gives an amusing account of “Sketching Among the Sioux.” He says thatthc kindness and patience of these people in their domestic relations are very noticeable. The women have certain duties to perform, as among other races; but th® men do not disdain to help them on occasion any more than does a white man of good disposition. We never saw, during our whole residence in the Sioux villages, a single family quarrel, and the children were if ever punished. One example to illustrate this characteristic pleased and amused us not a little One day Flying-by’s wife came to our tent, and asked us to lend her a small hand-mirror which we possessed. We gave it to her, and then watched her to see what she would do with it. About a mile and a-half or two miles away a horse-race was in progress, watched by three or four hundred •mounted Indians. The squaw took the mirror and stood in front of the tent, and reflected.» beam of sunlight from the glass along the ground in line with the group of Indians. It was only two or three minutes before a solitary horseman left the band and came tearing over the prairie toward us. It was Flying-by, who sprang off his horse at our door and looked inquiringly around. His wife had gone back to her cooking, and was apparently quite heedless of his coming. To his question whether some one had not sent for him, we could only reply that we had seen his wife playing beliostat with our mirror, whereupon he went over and spoke to her. In a moment he returned and, with a grin, told us that, knowing he had money, his wife had called him home for fear he might be tempted to gamble it away. He chuckled over her prudence, and told us that he might have made a lot of money if he had stayed; and not a cross word was spoken.