One
of the most erroneous beliefs relating to the status and condition of
the American Indian woman is that she was, both before and after
marriage, the abject slave and drudge of the men of her tribe in
general. This view, due largely to inaccurate observation and
misconception, was correct, perhaps, at times, as to a small percentage
of the tribes and peoples whose social organization was of the most
elementary kind, politically and ceremonially, and especially of such
tribes as were nonagricultural.
Among the other Indian tribes north of Mexico the status of
woman depended on complex conditions having their origin in climate,
habitat, mythology, and concepts arising there from, and especially in
the economic environment and in the character of the social and
political organization. It is one of the fundamental deductions of
modern mythological research that the prevailing social, ceremonial, and
governmental principles and institutions of a people are closely
reflected in the forms, structure, and kind of dominion exercised by the
gods of that people.
Where numerous goddesses sat on the tribal Olympus,
it is safe to say that woman was highly esteemed and exercised some
measure of authority. In tribes whose government was based on the clan
organization the gods were thought of as related one to another in
degrees required by such an institution in which woman is supreme,
exercising rights lying at the foundation of tribal society and
government.
Ethical teaching and observances find their explanation not
in the religious views and rites of a people but rather in the rules and
principles underlying those institutions which have proved most
conducive to the peace, harmony, and prosperity of the community.
In defining the status of woman, a broad distinction must be
made between women who are, and women who are not, members of the tribe
or community, for among most tribes life, liberty, and the pursuit of
well-being are rights belonging only to women who by birth or by the
rite of adoption (q. v.) are members or citizens thereof. Other women
receive no consideration or respect on account of their sex, although
after adoption they were spared, as possible mothers, indiscriminate
slaughter in the heat of battle, except while resisting the enemy as
valiantly as their brothers and husbands, when they suffered wounds or
death for their patriotism.
Among the North American aborigines here dealt with each sex
had its own peculiar sphere of duty and responsibility, and it is
essential to a proper understanding of the subject that both these
spheres of activity should be considered. To protect his family-his wife
or wives and their offspring and near kindred to support them with the
products of the chase, to manufacture weapons and wooden utensils, and
commonly to provide suitable timbers and bark for the building of the
lodge, constituted the duty and obligation which rested on the man.
These activities required health, strength, and skill.
The warrior was
usually absent from his fireside on the chase, on the warpath, or on the
fishing trip, weeks, months, and even years, during which he traveled
hundreds of miles and was subjected to the hardships and perils of
hunting and fighting, and to the inclemency of the weather, often
without adequate shelter or food. The labor required in the home and in
all that directly affected it fell naturally to the lot of the woman. In
addition to the activities which they shared in common with men, and the
care of children, women attended to the tanning of skins, the weaving of
suitable fibers into fabrics and other articles of necessity, the making
of mats and mattresses, baskets, pots of clay, and utensils of bark;
sewing, dyeing; gathering and storing of edible roots, seeds, berries,
and plants, for future use, and the drying and smoking of meats brought
by the hunters.
On the march the care of the camp equipage and of the
various family belongings constituted part of the woman's duties, in
which she was assisted by the children and by such men as were
incapacitated for active fighting or hunting.
The essential principle governing this division of labor and
responsibility between the sexes lies much deeper than apparently
heartless tyranny of the man. It is the best possible adjustment of the
available means of the family to secure the largest measure of welfare
and to protect and perpetuate the little community. No other division
was so well adapted to the conditions of life among the North American
Indians.
Fortified by the doctrine of signatures and by other
superstitious reasons and beliefs, custom emphasized by various rites
and observances the division of labor between the sexes. Thus, the
sowing of seeds by women was supposed to render such seeds more fertile
and the earth more productive than if planted by men, for it was held
that woman has and controls the faculty of reproduction and. increase.
Hence sowing and cultivating the crops became one of the exclusive
departments of woman's work.
According to Lewis and Clark (Travels, 307, 1806) the
Shoshoni husband was the absolute proprietor of his wives and daughters,
and might dispose of them by barter or otherwise at his pleasure; and
Harmon (Jour. Voy., 344, 1820) declares that the women of the tribes
visited by him were treated no better than the dogs. Writing of the
Kutchin, and of the Loucheux Indians in particular, Hardesty (Smithson.
Rep. 1866,312,1867) says that "the women are literally beasts of burden
to their lords and masters. All the heavy work is performed by them." A
similar statement is made by Powers (Cont. N. A. Ethnol., III, 23, 1877)
in regard to the Karok of California.
Schoolcraft (Ind. Tribes, v, 167, 1855) declares that the
Cree women are subjected to lives of heavy and exacting toil, and that
some mothers among them do not hesitate to kill their female infants to
save them from the miseries which they themselves have suffered.
Champlain, writing in 1615, states that the Huron and Algonquian women
were "expected to attend their husbands from place to place in the
fields, filling the office of pack-mule in carrying the baggage and in
doing a thousand other things."
Yet it would seem that this hard life
did not thwart their development, for he adds that among these tribes
there were a number of powerful women of extraordinary height, who had
almost sole care of the lodge and the work at home, tilling the land,
planting the corn, gathering a supply of fuel for winter use, beating
and spinning the hemp and the bark fibers, the product of which was
utilized in the manufacture of limes and nets for fishing and for other
purposes; the women also harvested and stored the corn and prepared it
for eating.
The duties of a woman of the Upper Lakes i. e. of the Ottawa
and the Chippewa were to bring into the lodge, of which she was the
mistress, the meat which the husband left at the door; to dry it; to
have the care of the cuisine; to get the fish at the landing or harbor
and to prepare it for immediate use or for storage; to fetch water; to
spin various fibers in order to secure thread for sundry uses; to cut
firewood in the surrounding forest; to clear land for plaiting and to
raise and harvest the several kinds of grain and vegetables; to
manufacture moccasins for the entire family; to make the sacks to hold
grain, and the long or round mats used for covering the lodge or for
mattresses; to tan the skins of the animals which her husband or
brothers or her own or her sister's sons had killed in the chase; and to
make robes of those which were used as furs.
She made also bark dishes
while her husband or other male members of the household made those of
wood; she designed many curious pieces of art work; when her infant,
swathed on a cradle-board, cried, she lulled it to sleep with song. When
on the move, the woman carried the coverings of the lodge, if not
conveyed by a canoe. In all her duties she was aided by her children and
by dependents or guests, not rarely by the old men and the crippled who
were still able to be of service.
While the tribes of the northwest coast are distinct in
language and in physical features and mental characteristics, they are
nevertheless one in culture; their arts, industries, customs, and
beliefs differ in so great a degree from those of all other Indian
tribes that they constitute a well defined cultural group. The staple
food of these Indians is supplied by the sea, whence the women gather
sea-grass, which after being cut, and pressed into square cakes, is
dried for winter use; clams and mussels are eaten fresh, or strung on
sticks or strands of bark are dried for winter consumption. Considerable
quantities of berries and roots are also consumed. The dense forests
along the coast furnish wood for building cabins, canoes, implements,
and utensils. The red cedar (Thuya gigantea) is the most useful as it
yields the materials for a large part of their manufactures, its wood
being utilized for building and carving, and its bark for the
manufacture of clothing and ropes, in which the women perform the
greater part of the work.
The women have their share also in the
preparation and curing of the flesh and furs of the various game and
fur-bearing animals which their husbands and brothers kill. Berries and
crab-apples are preserved by them for winter use; the food is stored in
spacious boxes made from cedar wood suitably bent, having bottoms sewed
to their sides. Women assist in curing and tanning the skins designed
for the manufacture of wearing apparel. Dog's hair, mountain-goat's
wool, and feathers are woven into fabrics suitable for wear or barter;
soft cedar bark is also prepared for use as garments. The women
manufacture in great variety baskets of rushes and cedar bark for
storage and carrying purposes; mats of cedar bark, and in the South, of
rushes, are made for bedding, packing, seats, dishes, and covers for
boxes.
Hodge (in article Pueblos) is authority for the following
statements: That monogamy is the rule among the Pueblos, and that the
status of woman is much higher among them than among some other tribes ;
that among most of the Pueblos the descent of blood, and hence of
membership in the clan and so citizenship in the tribe, is traced
through the mother, the children belonging to her, or rather to her clan
; that the home belongs to her, and that her husband whom she may
dismiss upon slight provocation, comes to live with her; that if she
have daughters who marry, the sons-in-law reside with her; that it is
not unusual to find men and women married dwelling together for life in
perfect accord and contentment; that labor is as equitably apportioned
between the sexes as is possible under the conditions in which they
live; that the small gardens, which are cultivated exclusively by the
women, belong to the women ; that in addition to performing all domestic
duties, the carrying of water and the manufacturing of pottery are tasks
devolving strictly on the women ; that some of the less irksome
agricultural labor, especially at harvest time, is performed, by the
women; that the men assist the women in the heavier domestic work, such
as house building and fuel-gathering; that the men also weave blankets,
make moccasins for their wives, and assist in other tasks usually
regarded as pertaining exclusively to women.
According to Mrs Stevenson (23d Rep. B. A. E., 1904), among
the Zuņi, who are an agricultural and pastoral people, the little
gardens around the villages, which are cultivated exclusively by the
women, are inherited by the daughters; a married man carries the
products of his fields to the house of his wife's parents, which is then
his home. The wife likewise places the produce of the plots of land
derived from her father or mother with those of her husband, and while
these stored products are designed to be utilized by the entire
household, only the wife or the husband may remove them thence.
Mrs
Stevenson says further that a woman is a member of the Ashiwanni or Rain
Priesthood, consisting of nine persons, and constituting one of the four
fundamental religious groups in the hierarchical government of the Zuņi;
and that while the Zuņi trace descent through the mother and have clans,
these clans do not own the fields, as they do among the Iroquois; that
by cultivation a mail may make use of any unoccupied plot of ground, and
thereafter he may dispose of it to anyone within the tribe. It is to be
noted that the daughters, and not the sons, inherit the landed property
of the married Zuņi man or woman. These few facts show plainly that the
Zuņi woman occupies a high status in the social and the political
organizations of her tribe.
Among the Iroquois and tribes similarly organized, woman
controlled many of the fundamental institutions of society:
(a) Descent of blood or citizenship in the
clan, and hence in the tribe, was traced through her;
(b) the titles, distinguished by unchanging specific names, of the
various chieftainships of the tribe belonged exclusively to her;
(c) the lodge and all its furnishings and equipment belonged to her;
(d) her offspring, if she possessed any, belonged to her;
(e) the lands of the clan (including the burial grounds in which her
sons and brothers were interred) and so of the tribe, as the source
of food, life, and shelter, belonged to her.
As a consequence of the
possession of these vested rights, the woman exercised the sovereign
right to select from her sons the candidates for the chieftainships of
her clan, and so of the tribe, and she likewise exercised the concurrent
right to initiate the procedure for their deposition for sufficient
cause. Being the source of the life of the clan, the woman possessed the
sole right to adopt aliens into it, and a man could adopt an alien as a
kinsman only with the tacit or expressed consent of the matron of his
clan.
A mother possessed the important authority to forbid her sons
going on the warpath, and frequently the chiefs took advantage of this
power of the woman to. avoid a rupture with another tribe. The woman had
the power of life or death over such alien prisoners as might become her
share of the spoils of war to replace some of her kindred who may have
been killed; she might demand from the clansmen of her husband or from
those of her daughters a captive or a scalp to replace a loss in her
family. Thus it is evident that not only the clan and the tribal
councils, but also the League council were composed of her
representatives, not those of the men.
There were chieftainesses who were the executive officers of
the women they represented; these female chiefs provided public levy or
contributions the food required at festivals, ceremonials, and general
assemblies, or for public charity. Part of their duty was to keep close
watch on the policies and the course of affairs affecting the welfare of
the tribe, to guard scrupulously the interests of the public treasury,
with power to maintain its resources, consisting of strings and belts of
wampum, quill and feather work, furs, corn, meal, fresh and dried or
smoked meats, and of any other thing which could serve for defraying the
various public expenses and obligations, and they had a voice in the
disposal of the contents of the treasury.
Every distinct and primordial family or ohwachira (see Clan)
had at least one of the female chiefs, who together constituted the clan
council; and sometimes one of them, by reason of extraordinary merit and
wisdom, was made regent in the event of a vacancy in the office of the
regular male chief. Hence, in various accounts mention is made of
"queens," who ruled their tribes. In view of the foregoing facts it is
not surprising to find that among the Iroquoian tribes, the Susquehanna,
the Hurons, and the Iroquois, the penalties for killing a woman of the
tribe were double those exacted for the killing of a man, because in the
death of a woman the Iroquoian lawgivers recognized the probable loss of
a long line of prospective offspring. According to Swanton, on the
northwest coast the penalty for the killing of a woman of the tribe was
only one-half that for the killing of a man. These instances show the
great difference in the value placed on the life of woman by tribes in
widely separated areas.
The statement of Powers in regard to the Yokuts of
California, that notwithstanding the fact that the husband took up his
abode in the lodge of his wife or of his father-in-law; he had the power
of life and death over his wife, can not be accepted without
qualification. This statement can mean apparently only that this power
might be exerted to punish some specific crime, and that it might not be
exercised with impunity to satisfy a whim of the husband.
In describing the character of the Muskhogean people, Bartram
(1773) says: " I have been weeks and months amongst them, and in their
towns, and never observed the least sign of contention or wrangling;
never saw an instance of an Indian beating his wife, or even reproving
her in anger. . . . for indeed their wives merit their esteem and the
most gentle treatment, they being industrious, frugal, careful, loving,
and affectionate."
According to Smith, among the Indians of Virginia, while the
men devoted their time and energy to fishing, hunting, warfare, and to
other manly exercises out of doors, within the lodge they were often
idle, for here the women and children performed the larger share of the
work. The women made mats for their own use as well as for trade and
exchange, also baskets, mortars, and pestles; planted and gathered the
corn and other vegetables; prepared and pounded the corn to obtain meal
for their bread, and did all the cooking; cut and brought all the wood
used for fuel, with the help of the children fetched the water used in
the lodge.
Thus, the women were obliged in performing their duties to
bear all kinds of burdens; but they willingly attended to their tasks at
their own time and convenience, and were not driven like slaves to do
their duty. The descent of blood was traced through the mother. The
class of women whom Smith calls "trading girls" affected a peculiar
tonsure that differed from that of all other women, to prevent mistakes,
as the Indians were as solicitous as Caucasians to keep their wives to
themselves.
Lawson (Hist. Car., 1866) says that a woman with a
large number of children and with no husband to help support her and
them, was assisted by the young men in planting, reaping, and in doing
whatever she was incapable of performing herself. He says also that they
eulogized a great man by citing the fact that he had "a great many
beautiful wives and children, esteemed the greatest blessings amongst
these savages." It would thus appear that the North Carolina native
woman was not the drudge and slave of her husband or men of her tribe.
Concerning people of the same general region, Bartram (Trans. Am. Ethnol.
Soc., III, pt. 1, 31, 1853) says that among the Cherokee and the Creeks
scarcely a third as many women as men were seen at work in their fields.
De Soto found in 1540 a woman whom he styled a queen ruling in royal
state a tribe on the Savannah River, indicating that woman at that early
period was held in high esteem among these people.
From what has been said it is evident that the authority
possessed by the Indian husband over his wife or wives was far from
being as absolute as represented by careless observers, and there is
certainly no ground for saying that the Indians generally kept their
women in a condition of absolute subjection. The available data show
that while the married woman, because of her status as such, became a
member of her husband's house hold and owed him certain important duties
and obligations, she enjoyed a large measure of independence and was
treated with great consideration and deference, and had a marked
influence over her husband.
Of course, various tribes had different
conditions to face and possessed different institutions, and so it
happens that in some tribes the wife was the equal of her husband, and
in others she was his superior in many things, as among the Iroquois and
tribes similarly organized.
In most, if not in all, the highly organized tribes,
the woman was the sole master of her own body. Her husband or lover, as
the case may be, acquired marital control over her person by her own
consent or by that of her family or clan elders. This respect for the
person of the native woman was equally shared by captive alien women.
Mrs Mary Rowlandson, the wife of a clergyman, and a captive in 1676 for
12 weeks among the fierce Narraganset, bears excellent witness to this
fact. She wrote: "I have been in the midst of those roaring lions, and
savage bears, that feared neither God, nor man, nor the devil, by day
and by night, alone, and in company; sleeping, all sorts together, and
not one of them ever offered the least abuse or unchastity to me in word
or in action." Roger Williams, with reference to another subject, brings
this same respect for woman to view; he wrote: "So did never the Lord
Jesus bring any unto his most pure worship, for he abhors, as all men,
yea, the very Indians, an unwilling spouse to enter into forced
relations" (R. I. Hist. Tract, 1st ser., 14, p. 15).
At a later day, and
in the face of circumstances adverse to the Indians, Gen. James Clinton,
who commanded the New York division in the Sullivan expedition in 1779
against the hostile Iroquois, paid his enemies the tribute of a soldier
by writing in April 1779, to Colonel Van Schaick, then leading the
troops against the Onondaga, the following terse compliment: "Bad as the
savages are, they never violate the chastity of any woman, their
prisoners." However, there were cases in various tribes of violation of
women, but the guilty men were regarded with horror and aversion. The
culprits, if apprehended, were punished by the kindred of the woman, if
single, and by her husband and his friends, if married.
Among the Sioux and the Yuchi, men who made a practice
of seduction were in grave bodily danger from the aggrieved women and
girls, and the resort by the latter to extreme measures was sanctioned
by public opinion as properly avenging a gross violation of woman's
inalienable right, the control of her own body. The dower or bride
price, when such was given, did not confer, it seems, on the husband,
absolute right over the life and liberty of the wife: it was rather
compensation to her kindred and household for the loss of her services.
Among the Navaho the husband possesses in reality but very
little authority over his wife, although he has obtained her by the
payment of a bride price or present (Westermarck, Human Marriage, 392 et
seq.)
Among all the tribes of Indians north of Mexico, woman,
during the catamenial period, and, among many of the tribes, during the
period of gestation and parturition, was regarded as abnormal,
extra-human, sacred, in the belief that her condition revealed the
functioning of orenda or magic power so potent that if not segregated
from the ordinary haunts of men it would disturb the usual course of
nature. The proper view point is that while in either condition the
woman involuntarily was the seat of processes which marred, if they did
not thwart, the normal exercise of human faculties, rather than that she
was merely "unclean," and so an object to be tabooed. Yet, it appears
that this species of temporary but recurrent taboo did not affect the
status of the woman in the social and political organization in any way
detrimental to her interests.
It appears also that in many instances woman aspired to excel
in some of the vocations which might be regarded as peculiar to the male
sex, hunting, fishing, fowling, and fighting beside the man. At times
also she was famed, even notorious, as a sorceress. Some of the weirdest
tales of sorcery and incantation are connected with the lives and deeds
of noted woman sorcerers, who delighted in torture and in destruction of
human life.
Some students maintain, on seemingly insufficient grounds,
that the institution of maternal descent tends to elevate the social
status of woman. Apart from the independence of woman, brought about by
purely economic activities arising from the cultivation of the soil, it
is doubtful whether woman ever attains any large degree of independence
and authority aside from this potent cause. Without a detailed and
carefully compiled body of facts concerning the activities and the
relations of the sexes, and the relation of each to the various
institutions of the community, this question can not be satisfactorily
decided.
The data concerning the rights of women as compared with those
of men to be found in historical accounts of various tribes are so
meager and indefinite that it is difficult, if not impossible, to define
accurately the effect of either female or male descent on the status of
the woman. It is apparent, however, that among the sedentary and
agricultural communities the woman enjoyed a large, if not a
preponderating, measure of independence and authority, greater or less
in proportion to the extent of the community's dependence for daily
sustenance on the product of the woman's activities.
Handbook of American Indians, Frederick W. Hodge,1906
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