If a girl was told she must marry a certain man, she had to obey. She might cry, but her father’s will was law, and she might be beaten or even killed by him, if she did not do as she was ordered. As a consequence of this severity, suicide was quite common among the Blackfoot girls. A girl ordered to marry a man whom she did not like would often watch her chance, and go out in the brush and hang herself. The girl who could not marry the man she wanted to was likely to do the same thing.
[#21] Blackfoot: “Suicide to Avoid Marriage,” George Bird Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge Tales [c.1888]. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1962, p. 216.