Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1885 — A Sioux Custom. [ARTICLE]

A Sioux Custom.

Miss Alice Fletcher, the student of Indian household customs, says that among the Sioux, when one famfly borrows a kettle from another it is expected that when the kettle is returned a small portion of the food that has been cooked in it will be left in the bottom. The language has a particular word to designate this remnant “Should this custom be disregarded by any one, that person would never be able to borrow again, as the owner must always know what was cooked in her kettle” A white woman, on one occasion, returned • scoured kettle, intending to teach a lesson in cleanliness; but her act became the talk of the camp as a fresh example of the meanness of whites.