sonal effects* or valuables of any kind, personal
or real,, which were the wife’s before, remain so
after marriage, Should any of these be used by
the husband, he is bound to restore the property
or its worth, in the eVènt of separation. It is not
Uncommon at present to End a husband indebted
to a wife for moneys loaned of her, derived ftom
payments or property, which she owned, and
still owns, in her own right y*'ahd itiis a cause of
union in some cases where,, without this obliga*
tion,-a separation would^probahlyiensue. .■
Marriage is therefore a personal agreement,
requiring neither civil nor ecclesiastical sanction,
but not a union of the rights of. property. g De*-
scent being counted by the female, maybe either,
an original cause or effect óf this unique lawv 1
The idea of the vampyre, among, the Iroquois,
I first noticed, although it is hut half developed,
in'Cusick, who in his historical tract, | (p. 30,|
relates the incident of a man and his wife,> and
another person, taking shelter for the night, in
a struct fire called the home- of the deaefc^ This
scene is laid in the Oneida canton. .After the
light was extinguished, and thèy sought repose,
a noise as if of a person gnawing was heard.
The husband got up and rekindled the fire, and
found that the flesh of one of the dead persons
had been eaten by a ghost. This is Tuscarora
authority. To test the superstition, I made inquiries
on the subject, in some of the other
cantons. There was found to be a popular belief
§h the idea of certain carnivorous ghosts, who
eat the ?dead, among the Senecas, and it may be
found to exist, among the other tribes. It was
still doubtful whether living persons were attacked,
and if so, by sucking their blood in
nocturnal visits^ A well informed Seneca stated
to me, that his people had bps-stories on
this,general head* He related one, in which a
hunter and his wife; being belated and pushed
by Stress'®f Weathér, took shelter in a dead
hötósë* - (This dead house-appears to have been
an ancient custom») Having gone to repose, the
wife Was alarmed by sounds, resembling drinking
and mastication, as if proceeding from some
invisible sourfce, very-near her* | She stirred the
embersy and found the blood of her husband
streaming oyer the ground. He was dead. r He
had been imperceptibly devoured in part, by a
vain pyre; She fled, hut soon heard: behind her,
the war whoop of . the ghost. • The chase, the arts
she resorted to, and her final escape, by entering
a hollow log, and her deliverance thence, are
minutely,'detailed* The approach of daylight,
war club,
saved her. But the incidents :are of no particular
interest here, except as-serving to show the
existence of this ancient superstition of the h uman
mind.
,, Their belief on the subject is, that ghosts gorge
themselves onv the blood and flesh of both dead
and living bodies, if the latter he asleep. Whe