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THOMAS FORSYTH
[Vol.
and to do all the drudgery. They will scold their husbands for getting drunk or parting with a favorite horse or wasting any property to purchase spiritous liquor, will scold their children for wasting or destroying any property. It is a maxim among the Indians that every thing belong to the woman or women except the Indian's hunting and war implements, even the game, the Indians bring home on his back. As soon as it enters the lodge, the man ceases to have anything to say in its disposal, properly speaking, the husband is master, the wife the slave, but it is in most cases voluntary slavery as the Indians seldom make their wives feel their authority, by words or deeds, they generally live very happy together, they on both sides make due allowances.
Medicines
The Sauk and Fox Indians are much troubled with the pleuricy and sore eyes, one proceeds from their fatigue and exposure in hunting and war, the other I suppose from smoke in their lodges. They understand the use of medicine8S nece'fsary for the cure of the most
8S"Many erroneous ideas of the practice of medicine among the Indians are current, often fostered by quacks who claim to have received herbs and methods of practice from noted Indian doctors. The medical art among all Indians was rooted in sorcery; and the prevailing idea that diseases were caused by the presence or acts of evil spirits, which could be removed only by sorcery and incantation, controlled diagnosis and treatment This conception gave rise to both priest and physician. Combined with it there grew up a certain knowledge of and dependence upon simples, one important development of which was what we know as the doctrine of signatures, according to which, in some cases, the color, shape, and markings of plants are supposed to indicate the organs for which in disease they are supposed to be specifics. There was current in many tribes, especially among the old women, a rude knowledge of the therapeutic use of a considerable number of plants and roots, and of the sweating process, which was employed with little discrimination." — Henry W. Henshaw, in Handbook Amer. Indians.
Many of the medicinal roots of eastern and southern United States were adopted by the whites from the Indian pharmacopeia; some of these are still known by their native names, and about forty are quoted in current price lists of crude drugs.   Indians formerly gathered medicinal roots to supply the trade