THE INDIAN AND PHYSICAL LABOR FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN
In the preceding chapter I have given the Indian’s life, habit,
thought, towards physical labor for himself and his sons. He holds the
same attitude toward it for his daughter and his wife. And not only
does he so hold it, but the wife and daughter regard it in exactly the
same way. The out-door life of the Indian girl and woman makes her
healthy, vigorous, muscular, and strong. She glories in her physical
vigor and strength, and wonders why her white sister is not equal to
her in physical capacity. When I tell her that the white women pity her
because, forsooth, “she has to do so much hard work, while the lazy
men sit by, smoking, and doing nothing,” she looks at me in vacant
amazement. Once when I was talking in this way one of them said: “Are
your white women all fools? Tell them we not only don’t need their
pity, but we despise them for their habits of life that lead them to
pity us. The Creator made us with the capacity and power for work. He
knows that all beings must work if they would be healthy. We would
be healthy, and therefore we do His will in working at our appointed
tasks. We are glad and proud to do them. And as for the men: let them
dare to interfere in our work and they will soon see what they will
see. We brook no interference or help from them.”
[Illustration: HOPI WOMEN BUILDING A HOUSE AT ORAIBI, ARIZONA.]
So their children (girls as well as boys) are all brought up from
the earliest years to work, and to work hard. Boys are sent out to
herd sheep, horses, and cattle; to watch the corn and see that nothing
disturbs it. And the girls, as soon as they can toddle, become “little
mothers” to their younger brothers and sisters. As they grow older they
grind all the corn, gather all the wild grass and other seeds, make all
the basketry and pottery, and prepare all the food for the household.
To grind corn in the Indian fashion, with flat rock and metate, is
no easy task for a strong man of the white race, yet I have known a
girl of fifteen to keep at work at the metate for ten hours a day for
several days in succession, in order that there might be plenty of
flour when guests came to the Snake Dance.
On one of my visits to the Hopi village of Oraibi I found the women
at work building a house. This is their occupation. All labor among
Hopis is divided between the sexes in accordance with long-established
custom, and I think it is so divided in all aboriginal peoples. The
men undertook the protection of the home (were the warriors) and the
hunting of animals for food. They also make the robes and moccasins.
Those tribes that lost their nomad character and became sedentary added
care of the fields and the stock to the work of their men. The women
practically undertook all the rest. The building of the home, its care,
the general gathering of seeds, and the preparation of all foods belong
to them.
And as a rule, they do their chosen or appointed or hereditary work
cheerfully. They know nothing of the aches and pains of their weaker
white sisters; they are as strong as men, so they have no fear of
physical labor. Not only this, but they enjoy it; they go to it with
pleasure, as all healthy bodies do. How often have I stood and watched
a healthy, vigorous man swing a hammer at the forge, or in a mine
or a trench. How easily it was done, how gladly, how unconscious of
effort! To the healthy woman, with reasonable strength, labor is also a
pleasure. To feel one’s self accomplishing something, and able to do it
without undue fatigue or exhaustion, what a delight it is!
The woman who honors us by coming to our house weekly to do the heavy
work, often reminds me of a panther. She fairly “leaps” upon her work
with an exuberance of strength and spirit that is a perfect delight,
in this age of woman’s physical disability and disinclination to do
physical labor.
[Illustration: NAVAHO MAIDENS CARRYING WATER OVER THE DESERT].
So it is with Indian women. They sing in unison when a dozen of them
get together at the grinding-trough; though the work is hard enough,
when long continued, to exhaust any strong man. I have seen women kneel
and pound acorns all day, lifting a heavy pestle as high as their heads
at every stroke. In the case of these women builders at Oraibi: they
carried all the heavy rocks and put them in position, mixed their own
mortar, and were their own paddies, and in everything, save the placing
of the heavy crossbeams for the roof, to handle which they called upon
some of the men for aid, they did all the work from beginning to end.
[Illustration: INDIAN MAIDENS TAUGHT BY THEIR MOTHER TO BE BASKET
WEAVERS.]
Now, while I do not especially want to see white women building a
house, I do wish, with all my heart, that they had the physical
strength to do it or similar arduous labor. I do long for the whole of
my race that the women and girls shall have such vigorous health and
strength that no ordinary labor could tire them.
“But,” say my white friends,--women and girls,--“we don’t want to work
physically; there is no need for it; we are not strong enough to do
it; we exhaust ourselves, and then do not have energy enough for the
other duties of life; we engage servants to do our menial labor for us.”
[Illustration: COAHUILA BASKET WEAVER WORKING IN THE OPEN AIR.]
Indeed! In the first place I want to protest with all the power I have
against the word and idea “menial.” There is no menial service. All
service, rendered in willing helpfulness and love, is dignified, noble,
and ennobling. He or she who accepts service from another with the idea
that the service is “menial,” thereby degrades himself, herself, far
more than the person is “degraded” by the performance of the service.
I would rather have my son a good scavenger, working daily to keep the
city pure and clean, than be an “honored” lawyer, engaged in dishonest
cases; a “successful” politician, tangled up with graft; a “popular”
physician, selfishly deceiving his patients; or an “eloquent” and
“dear” minister, self-righteously lauding himself and pouring forth
inane platitudes in high-sounding phrases from the pulpit. “Menial
service” is divine compared with these occupations when they are
demoralized.
And the principle of all I have said applies to girls as well as
boys. I would rather that daughters of mine should be able to scrub
the floor, bake bread, do the family washing and mending, repair the
boys’ clothes, knit, sew, and take care of the kitchen garden and the
flowers, than strum “The Battle of Prague” or “The Maiden’s Prayer,”
without feeling or expression, on a half-tuned piano. The former
occupations are holy and dignified as compared with the sham exhibition
of the latter. I like to see a girl with an apron on, strong, healthy,
willing, useful, capable, engaged in useful household work, and if our
young men had one-tenth part of the sense they ought to have, they
would hunt for such girls to become their wives and the mothers of
their children, rather than for the dainty, white-faced, wasp-waisted,
finger-manicured dolls who are useful for no other purpose than to be
looked at.
I have no desire to make pack-horses or slaves of intelligent women
or girls, but I cannot help asking the question of them: “Which would
you rather be, strong enough to do any and all so-called menial and
laborious service, and endowed with perfect health, or be weakly
and puny and live the life of ease and luxury that most women and
girls seem to covet?” And upon the answer to that question should I
base my judgment as to the wisdom, intelligence, and fitness for the
duties of life of the answerer. There is no dignity in woman superior
to the dignity of being able personally (if necessary) to care for
all the physical needs of her household; there is no charm greater
than the charm of strength combined with gracious, womanly sweetness
exercised for the joy of others; there is no refinement greater than
the refinement of a gloriously healthy woman radiating physical,
mental, spiritual life upon all those who come within the sphere of her
influence.