An old gin who worked about the station had a pierced nose, and often wore a mouyerh, or bone, through it. A white laundress wore earrings. She said one day to the old gin:
'Why you have hole made in your nose and put that bone there? No good that. White women don't do that.'
The black woman looked the laundress up and down, and finally anchored her eyes on the earrings.
'Why you make hole in your ears? No good that. Black gin no do that, pull 'em down your ears like dogs. Plenty good bone in your nose make you sing good. Sposin' cuggil—bad—smell you put bone longa nose no smell 'im. Plenty good make hole longa nose, no good make hole longa ears, make 'em hang down all same dogs.' And off she went laughing, and pulling down the lobes of her ears, began to imitate the barking of a dog.
There is often a baby betrothal called Bahnmul.
For some reason or another it has been decided that a baby girl is to be given to a man, perhaps because he has been kind to her mother, perhaps she is owed to his kin by her own; any way the granny of the baby girl puts feathers, white swansdown, on the baby's head, and takes her over to the man when she is about a month old. Granny says to the baby:
'Look at him, and remember him, because you are promised to him.'
Then she takes some feathers off the baby's head and puts them on to his; that makes it a formal betrothal, binding to both sides.
I have heard great camp rows because girls made a struggle for independence, having found out they had only been promised, not formally betrothed, to some old chap whom they did not wish to marry. Perhaps the old fellow will already have a wife or so, a man can have as many as he pleases. I have heard of one with three; I have known some with two; but the generality of them seem content with one.
Should a young girl marry a man with an old wife, the
