https://github.com/benoitc/couchdbkit/commit/038ee178393f13c9a5c45548442d53c41ab16bca It seems like instead of forcing to a `str` it should do a check such as `assert isinstance(index, basestring)` or explicitly converting `int`s if that was the purpose. Alternatively, we could change `str` to `unicode` and call it a day.