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4

something of the business in hand, were made fully acquainted with the position and extent of the land which was to become their own by patent. In connection with this close personal superintendence in allotting the lands, the laws of property and of legal descent were explained to the people, a matter difficult for them to fully comprehend, owing to their previous customs and modes of thought. This difficulty was marked in regard to the rights of children to their deceased parents property, such claim being secondary to those of lateral relationships in Indian society; and also the absorbing of the wife's right to land in that of her husband's, it seeming unjust to the Indian that the wife should not possess land distinctive from her husband, she