While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
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
Zuñi,
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
Zuñi; and that while the Zuñi 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 Zuñi man or woman. These few facts show plainly that the Zuñi
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.
