Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 62

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 unimpa.s.sioned." "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 p.r.o.ne 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 amus.e.m.e.nts." All of which is delightfully consistent with this writer's a.s.sertion 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 Ca.s.s, 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 Sh.o.r.es 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 pa.s.sage 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._, x.x.xIII.). 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 st.i.tch 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 navely 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 a.s.serted 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 coa.r.s.e, 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.

SOUTH AMERICAN GALLANTRY

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 s.p.a.ce 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 Mapuches (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."