Among the Shuswap Indians of British Columbia, who are neighbours of the Thompsons and Lillooets, “a girl on reaching maturity has to go through a great number of ceremonies.  She must leave the village and live alone in a small hut on the mountains.  She cooks her own food, and must not eat anything that bleeds.  She is forbidden to touch her head, for which purpose she uses a comb with three points.  Neither is she allowed to scratch her body, except with a painted deer-bone.  She wears the bone and the comb suspended from her belt.  She drinks out of a painted cup of birch-bark, and neither more nor less than the quantity it holds.  Every night she walks about her hut, and plants willow twigs, which she has painted, and to the ends of which she has attached pieces of cloth, into the ground.  It is believed that thus she will become rich in later life.  In order to become strong she should climb trees and try to break off their points.  She plays with lehal sticks that her future husbands might have good luck when gambling."[126] During the day the girl stays in her hut and occupies herself in making miniature bags, mats, and baskets, in sewing and embroidery, in manufacturing thread, twine, and so forth; in short she makes a beginning of all kinds of woman’s work, in order that she may be a good housewife in after life.  By night she roams the mountains and practises running, climbing, carrying burdens, and digging trenches, so that she may be expert at digging roots.  If she has wandered far and daylight overtakes her, she hides herself behind a veil of fir branches; for no one, except her instructor or nearest relatives, should see her face during her period of seclusion.  She wore a large robe painted red on the breast and sides, and her hair was done up in a knot at each ear.[127]

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Delaware and Cheyenne Indians.]

Ceremonies of the same general type were probably observed by girls at puberty among all the Indian tribes of North America.  But the record of them is far less full for the Central and Eastern tribes, perhaps because the settlers who first came into contact with the Red Man in these regions were too busy fighting him to find leisure, even if they had the desire, to study his manners and customs.  However, among the Delaware Indians, a tribe in the extreme east of the continent, we read that “when a Delaware girl has her first monthly period, she must withdraw into a hut at some distance from the village.  Her head is wrapped up for twelve days, so that she can see nobody, and she must submit to frequent vomits and fasting, and abstain from all labor.  After this she is washed and new clothed, but confined to a solitary life for two months, at the close of which she is declared marriageable."[128] Again, among the Cheyennes, an Indian tribe of the Missouri valley, a girl at her first menstruation is painted red all over her body and secluded in a special little lodge