All that follows concerning the Mandan was recorded by Prince Maximilian in 1833. Polygamy was everywhere practiced, the number of wives differing, there being seldom more than four, and in general only one. The Mandan marriage customs resemble those of the Dakota and other cognate peoples. When a child is born a person is paid to give it the name chosen by the parents and kindred. The child is held up, then turned to all sides of the heavens, in the direction of the course of the sun, and its name is proclaimed. A Mandan cradle consists of a leather bag suspended by a strap to a crossbeam in the hut. There are traces of descent in the female line; for example, sisters have great privileges; all the horses that a young man steals or captures in war are brought by him to his sister. He can demand from his sister any object in her possession, even the clothing which she is wearing, and he receives it immediately. The mother-in-law never speaks to her son-in-law, unless on his return from war he bring her the scalp and gun of a slain foe, in which event she is at liberty from that moment to converse with him. This custom is found, says Maximilian, among the Hidatsa, but not among the Crow and Arikara. While the Dakota, Omaha, and other tribes visited by the author have the custom of "bashfulness," which forbids the mother-in-law and son-in-law to speak to each other, no allowable relaxation of the prohibition has been recorded. THE HIDATSA Our chief authority for the names of the Hidatsa gentes is Morgan’s "Ancient Society." Dr Washington Matthews could have furnished a corrected list from his own notes had they not unfortunately been destroyed by fire. All that can now be done is to give Morgan’s list, using his system of spelling: 1. Knife, Mit-che-ro’-ka. 2. Water, Min-ne pä’-ta. 3. Lodge, Bä-ho-hä’-ta. 4. Prairie chicken, Scech-ka-be-ruh-pä’-ka (Tsi-tska’ do-ḣpa’-ka of Matthews; Tsi-tska’ d¢o-qpa’-ka in the Bureau alphabet). 5. Hill people, E-tish-sho’-ka. 6. Unknown animal, Aḣ-naḣ-ha-nä’-me-te. 7. Bonnet, E-ku’-pä-be-ka. The Hidatsa have been studied by Prince Maximilian (1833), Hayden, and Matthews, the work of the last writer(8) being the latest one treating of them; and from it the following is taken: