Native American Women in History by Frederick Webb Hodge

Native American Women - Page 2

Salish women preparing meat, 1910, Edward S. Curtis.

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The duties of a woman of the Ottawa and Chippewa tribes were to bring into the lodge, of which she was the mistress, the meat which the husband left at the door; to dry, care and cook it; 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 various uses; to cut firewood in the surrounding forest; to clear land for planting 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 the men had killed; and to make robes of those which were used as furs.

She also made 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 was supplied by the sea, from which the women gather sea-grass, which was cut and pressed into square cakes and dried for winter use. Clams and mussels were eaten fresh, or strung on sticks or strands of bark and dried for winter consumption. Considerable quantities of berries and roots were also consumed. The dense forests along the coast furnished wood for building cabins, canoes, implements, and utensils. The Red Cedar was the most useful as it yielded the materials for a large part of their goods, its wood being utilized for building and carving, and its bark for the manufacture of clothing and ropes, in which the women performed the greater part of the work. The women had 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 killed. Berries and crab-apples were preserved by them for winter use; the food was stored in spacious boxes made from cedar wood suitably bent, having bottoms sewed to their sides. Women assisted in curing and tanning the skins designed for clothing. Dog's hair, mountain-goat's wool, and feathers were woven into fabrics suitable for wear or barter; soft cedar bark was also prepared for use as garments. The women made, in great quantity, a 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.

Frederick Webb Hodge, an authority on the Pueblo Indians, stated that monogamy was the rule among the Pueblos, and that the status of woman was much higher among them than some other tribes. Among most of the Pueblos, the descent of blood, and hence of membership in the clan and citizenship in the tribe, was traced through the mother, the children belonging to her, or rather to her clan; that the home belonged to her, and that her husband, whom she could dismiss upon the slightest provocation, came to live with her. If she had daughters who married, the sons-in-law resided with her; that it was not unusual to find men and women married dwelling together for life in perfect accord and contentment.

Labor was as equitably apportioned between the sexes as was possible under the conditions in which they lived; that the small gardens, which were cultivated exclusively by the women, belonged to the women. In addition to performing all domestic duties, the carrying of water and the manufacturing of pottery were tasks done only by women and some of the less irksome agricultural labor, especially at harvest time, was performed by the women; though the men assisted her in the heavier domestic work, such as house building and fuel-gathering. The men also wove blankets, made moccasins for their wives, and assisted in other tasks usually regarded as pertaining exclusively to women.

According to Matilda Coxe Stevenson, an American ethnologist, she stated in 1904, that in the Zuni tribe, an agricultural and pastoral people, the gardens were cultivated exclusively by the women and were inherited by the daughters. A married man carried the products of the fields to the house of his wife's parents, which would then be his home. The wife, likewise, would place the produce of the plots of land derived from her father or mother with those of her husband, and while these stored products were designed to be utilized by the entire household, only the wife or the husband could remove them. Stevenson also said that a woman was 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 Zuni; and that while the Zuni trace descent through the mother and have clans, these clans do not own the fields, as they do among the Iroquois.

Florida Indians share the task of planting the fields, drawing by

Theodore de Bry, 1591.

However, by cultivation, a male could make use of any unoccupied plot of ground, and thereafter, could dispose of it to anyone within the tribe. The daughters, and not the sons, inherited the landed property of the married Zuni man or woman. These few facts show plainly that the Zuni woman occupied a high status in the social and the political organizations of her tribe.

Among the Iroquois and similar tribes, women controlled many of the fundamental institutions of society, including:

Descent of blood or citizenship in the clan, and hence in the tribe, was traced through her;
the titles, distinguished by unchanging specific names, of the various chieftainships of the tribe belonged exclusively to her;
the lodge and all its furnishings and equipment belonged to her;
her offspring, if she possessed any, belonged to her;
the lands of the clan (including the burial grounds in which her sons and brothers were interred,) belonged to her.

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