Having failed to find mental purity and admiration of personal beauty
in the Indian's love-affairs, let us now see how he stands in regard
to the altruistic impulses which differentiate love from self-love. Do
Indians behave gallantly toward their women? Do they habitually
sacrifice their comfort and, in case of need, their lives for their
wives?
Dr. Brinton declares (_Am. R._, 48) that "the position of women in the
social scheme of the American tribes has often been portrayed in
darker colors than the truth admits." Another eminent American
anthropologist, Horatio Hale, wrote[209] that women among the Indians
and other savages are not treated with harshness or regarded as
inferiors except under special circumstances. "It is entirely a
question of physical comfort, and mainly of the abundance or lack of
food," he maintains. For instance, among the sub-arctic Tinneh, women
are "slaves," while among the Tinneh (Navajos) of sunny Arizona they
are "queens." Heckewelder declares (_T.A.P.S._, 142) that the labors
of the squaws "are no more than their fair share, under every
consideration and due allowance, of the hardships attendant on savage
life." This benevolent and oft-cited old writer shows indeed such an
eager desire to whitewash the Indian warrior that an ignorant reader
of his book might find some difficulty in restraining his indignation
at the horrid, lazy squaws for not also relieving the poor,
unprotected men of the only two duties which they have retained for
themselves--murdering men or animals. But the most "fearless" champion
of the noble red man is a woman--Rose Yawger--who writes (in _The
Indian and the Pioneer_, 42) that "the position of the Indian woman in
her nation was not greatly inferior to that enjoyed by the American
woman of to-day." ... "They were treated with great respect." Let us
confront these assertions with facts.
Beginning with the Pacific Coast, we are told by Powers (405) that, on
the whole, California Indians did not make such slaves of women as the
Indians of the Atlantic side of the continent. This, however, is
merely comparative, and does not mean that they treat them kindly,
for, as he himself says (23), "while on a journey the man lays far the
greatest burdens on his wife." On another page (406) he remarks that
while a California boy is not "taught to pierce his mother's flesh
with an arrow to show him his superiority over her, as among the
Apaches and Iroquois," he nevertheless afterward "slays his wife or
mother-in-law, if angry, with very little compunction." Colonel McKee,
in describing an expedition among California Indians (Schoolcraft,
III., 127), writes:
"One of the whites here, in breaking in his squaw to
her household duties, had occasion to beat her several
times. She complained of this to her tribe and they
informed him that he must not do so; if he was
dissatisfied, _let him kill her and take another_!"
"The men," he adds, "allow themselves the privilege of
shooting any woman they are tired of."
The Pomo Indians make it a special point to slaughter the women of
their enemies during or after battle. "They do this because, as they
argue with the greatest sincerity, one woman destroyed is tantamount
to five men killed" (Bancroft, I., 160), for without women the tribe
cannot multiply. A Modoc explained why he needed several wives--one to
take care of his house, a second to hunt for him, a third to dig roots
(259). Bancroft cites half a dozen authorities for the assertion that
among the Indians of Northern California "boys are disgraced by work"
and "women work while men gamble or sleep" (I., 351). John Muir, in
his recent work on _The Mountains of California_ (80), says it is
truly astonishing to see what immense loads the haggard old Pah Ute
squaws make out to carry bare-footed over the rugged passes. The men,
who are always with them, stride on erect and unburdened, but when
they come to a difficult place they "kindly" pile stepping-stones for
their patient pack-animal wives, "just as they would prepare the way
for their ponies."
Among some of the Klamath and other California tribes certain women
are allowed to attain the rank of priestesses. To be "supposed to have
communication with the devil" and be alone "potent over cases of
witchcraft and witch poisoning" (67) is, however, an honor which women
elsewhere would hardly covet. Among the Yurok, Powers relates (56),
when a young man cannot afford to pay the amount of shell-money
without which marriage is not considered legal, he is sometimes
allowed to pay half the sum and become what is termed "half-married."
"Instead of bringing her to his cabin and making her his slave, he
goes to live in her cabin and becomes her slave." This, however,
"occurs only in case of soft uxorious fellows." Sometimes, too, a
squaw will take the law in her own hands, as in a case mentioned by
the same writer (199). A Wappo Indian abandoned his wife and went down
the river to a ranch where he took another woman. But the lawful
spouse soon discovered his whereabouts, followed him up, confronted
him before his paramour, upbraided him fiercely, and then seized him
by the hair and led him away triumphantly to her bed and basket. It is
to check such unseemly "new-womanish" tendencies in their squaws that
the Californians resorted to the bugaboo performances already referred
to. The Central Californian women, says Bancroft (391), are more apt
than the others to rebel against the tyranny of their masters; but the
men usually manage to keep them in subjection. The Tatu and Pomo
tribes intimidate them in this way:
"A man is stripped naked, painted with red and black
stripes, and then at night takes a sprig of poison oak,
dips it in water, and sprinkles it on the squaws, who,
from its effects on their skins, are convinced of the
man's satanic power, so that his object is attained."
(Powers, 141.)
The pages of Bancroft contain many references besides those already
quoted, showing how far the Indians of California were from treating
their women with chivalrous, self-sacrificing devotion. "The principal
labor falls to the lot of the women" (I., 351). Among the
Gallinomeros,
"_as usual_, the women are treated with great contempt
by the men, and forced to do all the hard and menial
work; they are not even allowed to sit at the same fire
or eat at the same repast with their lords" (390).
Among the Shoshones "the weaker sex _of course_ do the hardest labor"
(437), etc. With the Hupâ a girl will bring in the market $15 to
$50--"about half the valuation of a man." (Powers, 85.)
Nor do matters mend if we proceed northward on the Pacific coast.
Thus, Gibbs says (198) of the Indians of Western Oregon and
Washington, "the condition of the woman is that of slavery under any
circumstances;" and similar testimony might be adduced regarding the
Indians of British Columbia and Alaska.
Among the eastern neighbors of the Californians there is one Indian
people--the Navajos of Arizona and New Mexico--that calls for special
attention, as its women, according to Horatio Hale, are not slaves but
"queens." The Navajos have lived for centuries in a rich and fertile
country; their name is said to mean "large cornfields" and the
Spaniards found, about the middle of the sixteenth century, that they
practised irrigation. A more recent writer, E.A. Graves,[210] says
that the Navajos "possess more wealth than all the wild tribes in New
Mexico combined. They are rich in horses, mules, asses, goats, and
sheep." Bancroft cites evidence (I., 513) that the women were the
owners of the sheep; that they were allowed to take their meals with
the men, and admitted to their councils; and that they were relieved
of the drudgery of menial work. Major E. Backus also noted
(Schoolcraft, IV., 214) that Navajo women "are treated more kindly
than the squaws of the northern tribes, and perform far less of
laborious work than the Sioux or Chippewa women." But when we examine
the facts more closely we find that this comparative "emancipation" of
the Navajo women was not a chivalrous concession on the part of the
men, but proceeded simply from the lack of occasion for the exercise
of their selfish propensities. No one would be so foolish as to say
that even the most savage Indian would put his squaw into the
treadmill merely for the fun of seeing her toil. He makes a drudge of
her in order to save himself the trouble of working. Now the Navajos
were rich enough to employ slaves; their labor, says Major Backus, was
"mostly performed by the poor dependants, both male and female." Hence
there was no reason for making slaves of their wives. Backus gives
another reason why these women were treated more kindly than other
squaws. After marriage they became free, for sufficient cause, to
leave their husbands, who were thus put on their good behavior. Before
marriage, however, they had no free choice, but were the property of
their fathers. "The consent of the father is absolute, and the one so
purchased assents or is taken away by force."[211]
A total disregard of these women's feelings was also shown in the
"very extensive prevalence of polygamy," and in the custom that the
wife last chosen was always mistress of her predecessors. (Bancroft,
I., 512.) But the utter incapacity of Navajo men for sympathetic,
gallant, chivalrous sentiment is most glaringly revealed by the
barbarous treatment of their female captives, who, as before stated,
were often shot or delivered up for indiscriminate violence. Where
such a custom prevails as a national institution it would be useless
to search for refined feeling toward any woman. Indeed, the Navajo
women themselves rendered the growth of refined sexual feeling
impossible by their conduct. They were notorious, even among Indians,
for their immodesty and lewd conduct, and were consequently incapable
of either feeling or inspiring any but the coarsest sensual passion.
They were not queens, as the astonishing Hale would have it, but they
certainly were queans.
Concerning other Indians of the Southwest--Yumas, Mojaves, Pueblos,
etc.--M.A. Dorchester writes:[212]
"The native Indian is naturally polite, but until
touched by civilization, it never occurred to him to be
polite to his wife." "If there is one drawback to
Indian civilization more difficult to overcome than any
other, it is to convince the Indian that he ought not
to put the hardest work upon the Indian women."
The ferocious Apaches make slaves of their women. (Bancroft, I., 512.)
Among the Comanches "the women do all the menial work." The husband
has the pleasant excitement of killing the game, while the women do
the hard work even here: "they butcher and transport the meat, dress
the skins, etc." "The females are abused and often beaten
unmercifully." (Schoolcraft, I., 236, V., 684.) The Moquis squaws were
exempt from field labor not from chivalrous feelings but because the
men feared amorous intrigues. (Waitz, IV., 209.) A Snake, Lewis and
Clarke found (308),
"would consider himself degraded by being compelled to
walk any distance; and were he so poor as to possess
only two horses, he would ride the best of them, and
leave the other for his wives and children and their
baggage; and if he has too many wives or too much
baggage for the horse, the wives have no alternative
but to follow him on foot."
Turning to the great Dakota or Sioux stock, we run against one of the
most naïve of the sentimentalists, Catlin, who perpetrated several
books on the Indians and made many "fearless" assertions about the red
men in general and the Mandans in particular. G.E. Ellis, in his book,
_The Red Man and the While Man_ (101), justly observes of Catlin that
"he writes more like a child than a well-balanced man," and Mitchell
(in Schoolcraft, III., 254) declares that much of what Catlin wrote
regarding the Mandans existed "entirely in the fertile imagination of
that gentleman," Yet this does not prevent eminent anthropologists
like Westermarck (359) from soberly quoting Catlin's declaration that
"it would be untrue and doing injustice to the Indians, to say that
they were in the least behind us in conjugal, in filial, and in
paternal affection" (_L.N.N.A.I._, I., 121). There is only one way of
gauging a man's affection, and that is by his actions. Now how,
according to Catlin himself, does an Indian act toward his wife? Even
among the Mandans, so superior to the other Indians he visited, he
found that the women, however attractive or hungry they might be,
"are not allowed to sit in the same group with the men
while at their meals. So far as I have yet travelled in
the Indian country I have never seen an Indian woman
eating with her husband. Men form the first group at
the banquet, and _women and children and dogs_ all come
together at the next."
Men first, women and dogs next--yet they are "not in the least behind
us in conjugal affection!" With his childish disregard of logic and
lack of a sense of humor Catlin goes on to tell us that Mandan women
lose their beauty soon because of their early marriages and "the
slavish life they lead." In many cases, he adds, the inclinations of
the girl are not considered in marriage, _the father selling her to
the highest bidder_.
Mandan conjugal affection, "just like ours," is further manifested by
the custom, previously referred to, which obliges mourning women to
crop off all their hair, while of a man's locks, which "are of much
greater importance," only one or two can be spared. (Catlin, _l.c._,
I., 95, 119, 121; II., 123.) An amusing illustration of the Mandan's
supercilious contempt for women, also by Catlin, will be given
later.[213]
The Sioux tribes in general have always been notorious for the brutal
treatment of their women. Mrs. Eastman, who wrote a book on their
customs, once received an offer of marriage from a chief who had a
habit of expending all his surplus bad temper upon his wives. He had
three of them, but was willing to give them all up if she would live
with him. She refused, as she "did not fancy having her head split
open every few days with a stick of wood." G.P. Belden, who also knew
the Sioux thoroughly, having lived among them twelve years, wrote
(270, 303-5) that "the days of her childhood are the only happy or
pleasant days the Indian girl ever knows." "From the day of her
marriage [in which she has no choice] until her death she leads a most
wretched life." The women are "the servants of servants." "On a winter
day the Sioux mother is often obliged to travel eight or ten miles and
carry her lodge, camp-kettle, ax, child, and several small dogs on her
back and head." She has to build the camp, cook, take care of the
children, and even of the pony on which her lazy and selfish husband
has ridden while she tramped along with all those burdens. "So severe
is their treatment of women, a happy female face is hardly ever seen
in the Sioux nation." Many become callous, and take a beating much as
a horse or ox does. "Suicide is very common among Indian women, and,
considering the treatment they receive, it is a wonder there is not
more of it."[214]
Burton attests (_C.S._, 125, 130, 60) that "the squaw is a mere slave,
living a life of utter drudgery." The husbands "care little for their
wives." "The drudgery of the tent and field renders the squaw cold and
unimpassioned." "The son is taught to make his mother toil for him."
"One can hardly expect a smiling countenance from the human biped
trudging ten or twenty miles under a load fit for a mule." "Dacotah
females," writes Neill (82, 85),
"deserve the sympathy of every tender heart. From early
childhood they lead worse than a dog's life.
Uncultivated and treated like brutes, they are prone to
suicide, and, when desperate, they act more like
infuriated beasts than creatures of reason."
Of the Crow branch of the Dakotas, Catlin wrote:[215] "They are,
_like all other Indian women, the slaves of their husbands_ ... and
not allowed to join in their religious rites and ceremonies, nor in
the dance or other amusements." All of which is delightfully
consistent with this writer's assertion that the Indians are "not in
the least behind us in conjugal affection."[216]
In his _Travels Through the Northwest Regions of the United States_
Schoolcraft thus sums up (231) his observations:
"Of the state of female society among the Northern Indians I
shall say little, because on a review of it I find very
little to admire, either in their collective morality, or
personal endowments.... Doomed to drudgery and hardships
from infancy ... without either mental resources or personal
beauty--what can be said in favor of the Indian women?"
A French author, Eugene A. Vail, writes an interesting summary
(207-14) of the realistic descriptions given by older writers of the
brutal treatment to which the women of the Northern Indians were
subjected. He refers, among other things, to the efforts made by
Governor Cass, of Michigan, to induce the Indians to treat their women
more humanely; but all persuasion was in vain, and the governor
finally had to resort to punishment. He also refers to the selfish
ingenuity with which the men succeeded in persuading the foolish
squaws that it would be a disgrace for their lords and masters to do
any work, and that polygamy was a desirable thing. The men took as
many wives as they pleased, and if one of them remonstrated against a
new rival, she received a sound thrashing.
In Franklin's _Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea_ we are informed
(160) that the women are obliged to drag the heavily laden sledges:
"Nothing can more shock the feelings of a person
accustomed to civilized life than to witness the state
of their degradation. When a party is on a march the
women have to drag the tent, the meat, and whatever the
hunter possesses, whilst he only carries his gun and
medicine case."
When the men have killed any large beast, says Hearne (90), the women
are always sent to carry it to the tent. They have to prepare and cook
it,
"and when it is done the wives and daughters of the
greatest captains in the country are never served till
all the males, even those who are in the capacity of
servants, have eaten what they think proper."
Of the Chippewas, Keating says (II., 153), that "frequently ... their
brutal conduct to their wives produces abortions."
A friend of the Blackfoot Indians, G.B. Grinnell, relates (184, 216)
that, while boys play and do as they please, a girl's duties begin at
an early age, and she soon does all a woman's "and so menial" work.
Their fathers select husbands for them and, if they disobey, have a
right to beat or even kill them. "As a consequence of this severity,
suicide was quite common among the Blackfoot girls."
A passage in William Wood's _New England Prospect_, published in
1634,[217] throws light on the aboriginal condition of Indian women in
that region. Wood refers to "the customarie churlishnesse and salvage
inhumanitie" of the men. The Indian women, he says, are
"more loving, pittiful and modest, milde, provident,
and laborious than their lazie husbands.... Since the
_English_ arrivall comparison hath made them miserable,
for seeing the kind usage of the _English_ to their
wives, they doe as much condemne their husbands for
unkindnesse and commend the _English_ for love, as
their husbands, commending themselves for their wit in
keeping their wives industrious, doe condemn the
_English_ for their folly in spoiling good working
creatures."
Concerning the intelligent, widely scattered, and numerous Iroquois,
Morgan, who knew them more intimately than anyone else, wrote (322),
that "the Indian regarded woman as the inferior, the dependent, and
the servant of man, and, from nature and habit, she actually
considered herself to be so." "Adultery was punished by whipping; but
the punishment was inflicted on the woman alone, who was supposed to
be the only offender" (331). "Female life among the Hurons had no
bright side," wrote Parkman (_J.C._, XXXIII.). After marriage,
"the Huron woman from a wanton became a drudge ... in
the words of Champlain, 'their women were their mules.'
The natural result followed. In every Huron town were
shrivelled hags, hideous and despised, who, in
vindictiveness, ferocity, and cruelty, far exceeded the
men."
The _Jesuit Relations_ contain many references to the merciless
treatment of their women by the Canadian Indians. "These poor women
are real pack-mules, enduring all hardships." "In the winter, when
they break camp, the women drag the heaviest loads over the snow; in
short, the men seem to have as their share only hunting, war, and
trading" (IV., 205). "The women here are mistresses and servants"
(Hurons, XV.). In volume III. of the _Jesuit Relations_ (101), Biard
writes under date of 1616:
"These poor creatures endure all the misfortunes and
hardships of life; they prepare and erect the houses,
or cabins, furnishing them with fire, wood, and water;
prepare the food, preserve the meat and other
provisions, that is, dry them in the smoke to preserve
them; go to bring the game from the place where it has
been killed; sew and repair the canoes, mend and stitch
the skins, curry them and make clothes and shoes of
them for the whole family; they go fishing and do the
rowing; in short, undertake all the work except that
alone of the grand chase, besides having the care and
so weakening nourishment of the children....
"Now these women, although they have so much trouble,
as I have said, yet are not cherished any more for it.
The husbands beat them unmercifully, and often for a
very slight cause. One day a certain Frenchman
undertook to rebuke a savage for this; the savage
answered, angrily: 'How now, have you nothing to do but
to see into my house, every time I strike my dog?'"
Surely Dr. Brinton erred grievously when he wrote, in his otherwise
admirable book, _The American Race_ (49), that the fatigues of the
Indian women were scarce greater than those of their husbands, nor
their life more onerous than that of the peasant women of Europe
to-day. Peasants in Europe work quite as hard as their wives, whereas
the Indian--except during the delightful hunting period, or in
war-time, which, though frequent, was after all merely episodic--did
nothing at all, and considered labor a disgrace to a man, fit only for
women. The difference between the European peasant and the American
red man can be inferred by anyone from what observers reported of the
Creek Indians of our Southern States (Schoolcraft, V., 272-77):
"The summer season, with the men, is devoted to war, or
their domestic amusements of riding, horse-hunting,
ball-plays, and dancing, and by the women to their
customary hard labor."
"The women perform all the labor, both in the house and
field, and are, in fact, but slaves to the men, without
any will of their own, except in the management of the
children."
"A stranger going into the country must feel distressed
when he sees naked women bringing in huge burdens of
wood on their shoulders, or, bent under the scorching
sun, at hard labor in the field, while the indolent,
robust young men are riding about, or stretched at ease
on some scaffold, amusing themselves with a pipe or a
whistle."
The excesses to which bias and unintelligent philanthropy can lead a
man are lamentably illustrated in the writings of the Moravian
missionary, Heckewelder, regarding the Delaware Indians.[218] He
argues that
"as women are not obliged to live with their husbands
any longer than suits their pleasure or convenience, it
cannot be supposed that they would submit to be loaded
with unjust or unequal burdens" (!) "Were a man to take
upon himself a part of his wife's duty, in addition to
his own [hunting (!), for the Delawares were then a
peaceful tribe], he must necessarily sink under the
load, and of course his family must suffer with him."
The heartless sophistry of this reasoning--heartless because of its
pitiless disregard of the burdens and sufferings of the poor women--is
exposed in part by his own admissions regarding the selfish actions of
the men. He does not deny that after the women have harvested their
corn or maple sugar the men arrogate the right to dispose of it as
they please. He relates that in case of a domestic quarrel the husband
shoulders his gun and goes away a week or so. The neighbors naturally
say that his wife is quarrelsome. All the odium consequently falls on
her, and when he gets back she is only too willing to drudge for him
more than ever. Heckewelder naïvely gives the Indian's recipe for
getting a useful wife:
"Indian, when he see industrious squaw, which he like,
he go to _him_ [her], place his two forefingers close
aside each other, make two look like one--see _him_
[her] smile--which is all _he_ [she] say, _yes!_ so he
take _him_ [her] home. Squaw know too well what Indian
do if _he_ [she] cross! Throw _him_ [her] away and take
another! Squaw love to eat meat! no husband! no meat!
Squaw do everything to please husband! he do same to
please squaw [??]! live happy."
When that Indian said "he do the same to please the squaw," he must
have chuckled at his own sarcasm. Heckewelder does, indeed, mention a
few instances of kindness to a wife _(e.g._, going a great distance to
get some berries which she, in a pregnant state, eagerly desired;) but
these were obviously exceptional, as I have found nothing like them in
other records of Indian life. It must be remembered that, as Roosevelt
remarks (97) these Indians, under the influence of the Moravian
missionaries, had been
"transformed in one generation from a restless, idle,
blood-thirsty people of hunters arid fishers into an
orderly, thrifty, industrious folk; believing with all their
hearts the Christian religion."
It was impossible, however, to drive out the devil entirely, as the
facts cited show, and as we may infer from what, according to Loskiel,
was true a century ago of the Delawares as well as the Iroquois:
"Often it happens that an Indian deserts his wife because she has a
child to suckle, and marries another whom he presently abandons for
the same reason." In this respect, however, the women are not much
better than the men, for, as he adds, they often desert a husband who
has no more presents to give them, and go with another who has. Truly
Catlin was right when he said that the Indians (and these were the
best of them) were "not in the least behind us in conjugal affection!"
Thus do even the apparent exceptions to Indian maltreatment of
women--which exceptions are constantly cited as illustrations of the
rule--melt away like mists when sunlight is brought to bear upon them.
One more of these exceptions, of which sly sentimentalists have made
improper use, must be referred to here. It is maintained, on the
authority of Charlevoix, that the women of the Natchez Indians
asserted their rights and privileges even above those of the men, for
they were allowed to put unfaithful husbands to death while they
themselves could have as many paramours as they pleased. Moreover, the
husband had to stand in a respectful posture in the presence of his
wife, was not allowed to eat with her, and had to salute her in the
same way as the servants. This, truly, would be a remarkable
sociological fact--if it were a fact. But upon referring to the pages
of Charlevoix (264) we find that these statements, while perfectly
true, do not refer to the Natchez women in general, but only to the
princesses, or "female suns." These were allowed to marry none but
private men; but by way of compensation they had the right to discard
their husbands whenever they pleased and take another. The other women
had no more privileges than the squaws of other tribes; whenever a
chief saw a girl he liked he simply informed the relatives of the fact
and enrolled her among the number of his wives. Charlevoix adds that
he knew of no nation in America where the women were more unchaste.
The privileges conferred on the princesses thus appear like a coarse,
topsy-turvy joke, while affording one more instance of the lowest
degradation of woman.
Summing up the most ancient and trustworthy evidence regarding Mexico,
Bandelier writes (627):
"The position of women was so inferior, they were
regarded as so far beneath the male, that the most
degrading epithet that could be applied to any Mexican,
aside from calling him a dog, was that of woman."
If a woman presumed to don a man's dress her death alone could wipe
out the dishonor.