Primitive customs among our North American Indians
are rapidly disappearing. As the war-bonnet of
eagle plumes has given way to the unromantic felt hat—
the tomahawk and bow and arrow to the revolver and
breech-loading rifle—so are the original obstetric customs,
traditionary among the red people for ages, yielding to the
influence of civilization: the few warlike tribes, who still
retain the ways of their ancestors, are rapidly dying out;
those who have quietly settled down upon the reservation
are accepting the habits of the whites, and their parturient
squaws are delivered as they have been taught by
the agency-physician or the army-surgeon; in fact, primitive
obstetric customs are so speedily passing away that
more than one of the agency-physicians answered with
some surprise to the circular, kindly sent among them, for
me, by the Smithsonian Institute, that he had observed
nothing peculiar; that the squaws of the tribe were delivered
on the back, and their habits were the same as those
of their white sisters. Many of the tribes, nevertheless,
still retain their peculiar customs, but all of my informants
unite in the statement that it is very difficult to obtain any
information from them upon these points. It is rare that
men are permitted to witness, or even be near a labor
scene; and white physicians are not called in unless it be
a desperate case. Indians are moreover very reticent upon
this point and very unwilling to impart any information
regarding their women or the functions peculiar to them;
this is strange, too, as they are by no means a modest
people.
There are many points of resemblance in the obstetric
customs of the various Indian tribes, and in many features
they differ. The kneeling posture, for instance, is the one
most commonly assumed by the squaw in labor, and yet
among certain tribes almost all the other positions can be
found, though rarely that upon the lap of the husband;
this is a trouble and indignity which the laziness and pride
of the Indian-brave will not submit to.
As I cannot detail the customs of the various tribes,
will confine myself to the obstetric practice of the Indians
of the northwest, and of the more easterly prairie tribes.
As regards the former I shall accept the statement of Dr.
John Field, of Sheridan, Oregon, who has given the following
very interesting account of his long stay among the
tribes, especially while physician to the Grand Ronde
Agency in Oregon; he says:
