So much for the Indians of North America. The tribes of the southern
half of the continent would furnish quite as long and harrowing a tale
of masculine selfishness and brutality, but considerations of space
compel us to content ourselves with a few striking samples.
In the northern regions of South America historians say that "when a
tribe was preparing poison in time of war, its efficacy was tried upon
the old women of the tribe."[219]
"When we saw the Chaymas return in the evening from their gardens,"
writes Humboldt (I., 309),
"the man carried nothing but the knife or hatchet
(machete) with which he clears his way among the
underwood; whilst the woman, bending under a great load
of plantains, carried one child in her arms, and,
sometimes, two other children placed upon the load."
Schomburgk (II., 428) found that Caribbean women generally bore marks
of the brutal treatment to which they were subjected by the men. Brett
noted (27, 31) that among the Guiana tribes women had to do all the
work in field and home as well as on the march, while the men made
baskets, or lay indolently in hammocks until necessity compelled them
to go hunting or fishing. The men had succeeded so thoroughly in
creating a sentiment among the women that it was their duty to do all
the work, that when Brett once induced an Indian to take a heavy bunch
of plantains off his wife's head and carry it himself, the wife (slave
to the backbone) seemed hurt at what she deemed a degradation of her
husband. One of the most advanced races of South America were the
Abipones of Paraguay. While addicted to infanticide they, contrary to
the rule, were more apt to spare the female children; but their reason
for this was purely commercial. A son, they said, would be obliged to
purchase a wife, whereas daughters may be sold to a bridegroom
(Dobrizhoffer, II., 97). The same missionary relates (214) that boys
are laughed at, praised and rewarded for throwing bones, horns, etc.,
at their mothers.
"If their wives displease them, it is sufficient; they
are ordered to decamp.... Should the husband cast his
eyes upon any handsome woman the old wife must move
merely on this account, her fading form and advancing
age being her only accusers, though she may be
universally commended for conjugal fidelity, regularity
of conduct, diligent obedience, and the children she
has borne."
In Chili, among the Mapuchés (Araucanians) the females, says Smith
(214), "do all the labor, from ploughing and cooking to the saddling
and unsaddling of a horse; for the 'lord and master' does nothing but
eat, sleep, and ride about." Of the Peruvian Indians the Jesuit Pater
W. Bayer (cited Reich, 444) wrote about the middle of the eighteenth
century that wives are treated as slaves and are so accustomed to
being regularly whipped that when the husband leaves them alone they
fear he is paying attention to another woman and beg him to resume his
beating. In Brazil, we are informed by Spix and Martins (I., 381),
"the women in general are slaves of the men, being
compelled when on the march to carry everything needed,
like beasts of burden; nay, they are even obliged to
bring home from the forest the game killed by the men."
Tschndi (_R.d.S.A._, 284, 274) saw the marks of violence on many of
the Botocudo women, and he says the men reserved for themselves the
beautiful plumes of birds, leaving to the women such ornaments as
pig's claws, berries, and monkey's teeth. A peculiar refinement of
selfishness is alluded to by Burton (_H.B._, II., 49):
"The Brazilian natives, to warm their naked bodies,
even in the wigwam, and to defend themselves against
wild beasts, used to make their women keep wood burning
all night."
Of the Patagonians Falkner says (125) that the women "are obliged
to submit to every species of drudgery." He gives a long list of their
duties (including even hunting) and adds:
"No excuse of sickness, or being big with child, will
relieve them from their appointed labor; and so rigidly
are they obliged to perform their duty, that their
husbands cannot help them on any occasion, or in the
greatest distress, without incurring the highest
ignominy."
Even the wives of the chiefs were obliged to drudge unless they had
slaves. At their marriages there is little ceremony, the bride being
simply handed over to the man as his property. The Fuegians, according
to Fitzroy, when reduced to a state of famine, became cannibals,
eating their old women first, before they kill their dogs. A boy being
asked why they did this, answered: "Doggie catch otters, old women
no." (Darwin, _V B._, 214.)
Thus, from the extreme north to the extreme south of the American
continent we find the "noble red man" consistent in at least one
thing--his maltreatment of women. How, in the face of these facts,
which might be multiplied indefinitely, a specialist like Horatio Hale
could write that there was among the Indians "complete equality of the
sexes in social estimation and influence," and that
"casual observers have been misled by the absence of
those artificial expressions of courtesy which have
descended to us from the time of chivalry, and which,
however gracious and pleasing to witness, are, after
all, merely signs of condescension and protection from
the strong to the weak"[220]
--surpasses all understanding. It is a shameful perversion of the
truth, as all the intelligent and unbiassed evidence of observers from
the earliest time proves.