The Position of Woman in Primitive Society Part 12

"Women were made for labour; one of them can carry or haul as much as two men can do. They also pitch our tents, make and mend our clothing, keep us warm at night, and, in fact, there is no such thing as travelling any considerable distance, or any length of time, in this country without their a.s.sistance."[158]

[158] _A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort to the Northern Ocean_, p. 55.

Numerous other examples might be added which ill.u.s.trate how women take part in the destructive work of men; conversely we find not a few cases of the co-operation of men in the women's activities. The world over, women are usually the weavers and spinners; but with the Navajo and in some of the Pueblos the men are among the best weavers.[159]

Among the Indians of Guiana the men are specially skilful in basket-weaving, and here also they as well as the women spin and weave.[160] More curious is the custom in East Africa where all the sewing for their own and the women's garments is done by the men, and very well done. Sewing is here so entirely recognised as men's work that a wife may obtain a divorce if she "can show a neglected rend in her petticoat."[161]

[159] Mason, _op. cit._, p. 10.

[160] Im Thurn, _Among the Indians of British Guiana_.

[161] Macdonald, _Journal Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, Aug.

1892.

It is a common mistake, arising from insufficient knowledge, to suppose that savage women are specially subject to oppression. Their life is hard as we look at it, but not as they look at it. We have still much to learn on these matters. An even greater error is the view that these women are a source of weakness to the male members of their families. The very reverse is the truth. Primitive women are strong in body and capable in work. Fison and Howitt, in discussing this question, state of the Australian women, "In times of peace, they are the hardest workers and the most useful members of the community."

And in times of war, "they are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves at all times, and so far from being an enc.u.mbrance on the warriors, they will fight, if need be, as bravely as the men, and with even greater ferocity."[162] This is no exceptional case. The strength of savage women is proved by reports from widely different races, of which all testify to their physical capability and aptness for labour.

Sch.e.l.long,[163] who has carefully studied the Papuans of the German protectorate of New Guinea, from the anthropological point of view, "considers that the women are more strongly built than the men." Nor does heavy work appear to damage the health or beauty of the women, but the contrary. Thus among the Andombies on the Congo, to give one instance, the women, though working very hard as carriers, and as labourers in general, lead an entirely happy existence; they are often stronger than the men and more finely developed: some of them, we are told, have really splendid figures. And Parke, speaking of the Manyuema of the Arruwimi in the same region, says that "they are fine animals, and the women very handsome; they carry loads as heavy as those of the men and do it quite as well."[164] Again, McGee[165]

comments on the extraordinary capacity of quite aged women for heavy labour. He tells of "a withered crone, weighing apparently not more than 80 to 90 lb. who carried a _kilio_ containing a stone mortar 196 lb. in weight for more than half a mile on a sandy road without any perceptible exhaustion. The proportion of the active aged is much larger than among civilised people."

[162] _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 133, 147.

[163] Cited by Ellis, _Man and Woman_, p. 4.

[164] H. H. Johnston, _The Kilimanjaro Expedition_; Parke, _Experiences in Equatorial Africa_. These examples are cited by Ellis.

[165] "The Beginnings of Agriculture," _American Anthropologist_, Oct. 1895, p. 37.

I may pause to note some of the numerous industries of which women were the originators. First of all, woman is the food-giver; all the labours relating to the preparation of food, and to the utilisation of the side products of foodstuffs are usually found in the hands of women. Women are everywhere the primitive agriculturists. They beat out the seeds from plants; dig for roots and tubers, strain the poisonous juices from the ca.s.sava and make bread from the residue; and it was under their attention that a southern gra.s.s was first developed into what we know as Indian corn.[166] The removal of poisonous matter from tapioca by means of hot water is also the discovery of savage women.[167] All the evolution of primitive agriculture may be traced to women's industry. Power tells of the Yokia women in Central California who employ neither plough nor hoe, but cultivate the ground by digging the earth deep and rubbing it fine with their hands, and by this means they get an excellent yield.[168] Women have everywhere been the first potters; vessels were needed for use in cooking, to carry and to hold water, and to store the supplies of food. For the same reason baskets were woven. Women invented and exercised in common multifarious household occupations and industries. Curing food, tanning the hides of animals, spinning, weaving, dyeing--all are carried on by women. The domestication of animals is usually in women's hands. They are also the primitive architects; the hut, in widely different parts of the world--among Kaffirs, Fuegians, Polynesians, Kamtschatdals--is built by women. We have seen that the communal houses of the American Indians are mainly erected by the women. Women were frequently, though not always, the primitive doctors. Among the Kurds, for instance, all the medical knowledge is in the hands of the women, who are the hereditary _hakims_.[169] Women seem to have prepared the first intoxicating liquors. The Quissama women in Angola climb the gigantic palm trees to obtain palm-beer.[170] In the ancient legends of the North, women are clearly represented as the discoverers of ale.[171]

[166] Thomas, _s.e.x and Society_, p. 136.

[167] Mason, _op. cit._ p. 24.

[168] _Cont. North American Ethnology_, Vol. III, p. 167.

[169] Mrs. Bishop, _Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan_, cited by H. Ellis, _op. cit._, p. 6.

[170] _Jour. Anthrop. Inst._, Vol. I, p. 190.

[171] "Magic Songs of the Finns," _Folk-lore_, Mar. 1892.

It would be easy to go on almost indefinitely multiplying examples of the industries of primitive women. There can be no doubt at all that their work is exacting and incessant; it is also inventive in its variety and its ready application to the practical needs of life. If a catalogue of the primitive forms of labour were made, each woman would be found doing at least half-a-dozen things while a man did one. We may accept the statement of Prof. Mason that in the early history of mankind "women were the industrial, elaborative, conservative half of society. All the peaceful arts of to-day were once women's peculiar province. Along the lines of industrialism she was pioneer, inventor, author, originator."[172]

[172] _American Antiquarian_, Jan. 1899.

There is another matter that must be noted. The primitive division of labour between the s.e.xes was not in any sense an arrangement dictated by men, nor did they impose the women's tasks upon them. The view that the women are forced to work by the laziness of the men, and that their heavy and incessant labour is a proof of their degraded position is entirely out of focus. Quite the reverse is the truth. Evidence is not wanting of the great advantage arising to women from their close connection with labour. It was largely their control over the food supply and their position as actual producers which gave them so much influence, and even authority in the mother-age. In this connection I may quote the statement of Miss Werner about the African women as representing the true conditions--

"I cannot say that, so far as my own observations went, the women's lot seemed to be a specially hard one. In fact, they are too important an element in the community not to be treated with consideration. The fact that they do most of the heavy field-work does not imply that they are a down-trodden s.e.x. On the contrary, it gives them a considerable pull, as a man will think twice before endangering his food supply."[173]

[173] "Our Subject Races," _The Reformer_, April 1897, p. 43.

Mr. Horatio Hale, a well-known American anthropologist likewise observes--

"The common opinion that women among savage tribes in general are treated with harshness, and regarded as slaves, or at least as inferiors, is, like many common opinions, based on error, originating in too large and indiscriminate deduction from narrow premises.... The wife of a Samoan landowner or Navajo shepherd has no occasion, so far as her position in her family or among her people, to envy the wife of a German peasant."[174]

[174] _Journal Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, May 1892, p. 427, cited by H. Ellis.

Certainly savage women do not count their work as any degradation.

There is really an equal division of labour between the s.e.xes, though the work of the men is accomplished more fitfully than that of the women. The militant activities of fighting and hunting are essential in primitive life. The women know this, and they do their share--the industrial share, willingly, without question, and without compulsion.

It is entirely absurd in this work-connection to regard men as the oppressors of women. Rather the advantage is on the women's side. For one thing, just because they are accustomed to hard labour all their lives, they are little, if any, weaker than men. Primitive women are strong in body, and capable in work. The powers they enjoy as well as their manifold activities are the result of their position as mothers, this function being to them a source of strength and not a plea of weakness.

"They who are accustomed to the ways of civilised women only," remarks Mr. Fison, "can hardly believe what savage women are capable of, even when they may well be supposed to be at their weakest. For instance, an Australian tribe on the march scarcely take the trouble to halt for so slight a performance as childbirth. The newly born infant is wrapped in skins, the march is resumed, and the mother trudges on with the rest. Moreover, as is well known, among many tribes elsewhere it is the father who is put to bed, while the mother goes about her work as if nothing had happened."[175]

[175] _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 358.

Another important advantage arising to women, through their identification with the early industrial process, was their position as the first property owners. They were almost the sole creators of ownership in land, and held in this respect a position of great power.

This explains the fact that in the transactions of the North American tribes with the Colonial Government many deeds of a.s.signment bear female signatures.[176] A form of divorce used by a husband in ancient Arabia was: "Begone, for I will no longer drive thy flocks to pasture."[177] In almost all cases the household goods belonged to the woman. The stores of roots and berries laid up for a time of scarcity were the property of the wife, and the husband would not touch them without her permission. In many cases such property was very extensive. Among the Menomini Indians, for instance, a woman of good circ.u.mstances would own as many as 1200 to 1500 birch-bark vessels.[178] In the New Mexico Pueblos what comes from the outside of the house as soon as it is inside is put under the immediate control of the women. Bandelier, in his report of his tour in Mexico, tells us that "his host at Cochiti, New Mexico, could not sell an ear of corn or a string of chili without the consent of his fourteen-year-old daughter, Ignacia, who kept house for her widowed father."[179]

[176] Ratzel, _History of Mankind_, Vol. II, p. 130.

[177] Robertson Smith, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, p. 65.

[178] Hoffman, "The Menomini Indians," _Fourteenth Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, p. 288.

[179] Papers of the _Archaeological Inst.i.tute of America_, Vol. II, p. 138.

I must now bring this brief chapter to a close. But first I would give one further example. It is an account of the Pelew matrons' work in the taro fields. Here the richest and most influential women count it their privilege to labour, and it will be remembered that these women are called "mothers of the land." They are politically and socially superior to the men; and their position is dependent largely on their close connection with the staple industry of the island.

"The richest woman in the village looks with pride on her taro patch, and although she has female followers enough to allow her merely to superintend the work without taking part in it, she nevertheless prefers to lay aside her fine ap.r.o.n, and to betake herself to the field, merely clad in a small ap.r.o.n that barely hides her nakedness, with a little mat on her back to protect her from the burning heat of the sun, and with a shade of banana leaves for her eyes. There, dripping with sweat in the burning sun, and coated with mud to the hips and over the elbows, she toils to set the younger women a good example. Moreover, as in every other occupation, the _Kalitho_, the G.o.ds must be invoked, and who could be better fitted for the discharge of so important a duty than 'the Mother of the House.'"

Here is a picture of labour that may well make women pause to think.

CHAPTER X

TRACES OF MOTHER-RIGHT CUSTOMS IN ANCIENT AND MODERN CIVILISATIONS

I propose in this chapter to examine, as fully as I can, the traces that mother-right customs have left among some of the great races of antiquity, as also in the early records of western civilisations. It is the more necessary to do this because there is so marked a tendency to minimise the importance of the mother-age, and to regard the patriarchal family as primeval and universal. So much interesting material is available, and so wide a field of inquiry must be covered, that I shall be able to give a mere outline sketch, for the purpose of suggesting, rather than proving, the widespread prevalence of the communal clan and the maternal family.

As to whether this maternal-stage, with kinship and inheritance pa.s.sing through the mother, has everywhere preceded the second patriarchal period, it is difficult to be at all certain. Dr.

Westermarck, Mr. Crawley and others have argued against this view. But (as I have before had occasion to point out) their chief motive has been to discredit the theory of promiscuity, with which mother-descent has been so commonly, and so mistakenly, connected. It does not seem to have been held as possible that the mother-age was a much later development, whose social customs were made for the regulation of the family relationships. A number of very primitive races exhibit no traces, that have yet been discovered, of such a system, and have descent in the male line. This has been thought to be a further proof against a maternal stage. But here again is an error; we are not ent.i.tled to regard mother-descent as necessarily the primitive custom. I believe and have tried to show, from the examples of the Australian tribes and elsewhere, that in many cases the stage of the maternal clan has not been reached. If I am right here, we have the way cleared from much confusion. I would suggest, as also possible, that there may among some people, have been retrogressions, customs and habits found out as beneficial, and perhaps for long practised, have by some tribes been forgotten. There can be no hard and fast rule of progress for any race. The whole subject is th.o.r.n.y and obscure, and the evidence on the question is often contradictory.

Still I hold the claim I make is not without foundation. I have tried to show how the causes which led to the maternal system were perfectly simple and natural causes, arising out of needs that must have operated universally in the past history of mankind. And this indicates a maternal stage at some period for all branches of the human family. Again the widespread prevalence of mother-right survivals among races where the patriarchal system has been for long firmly established lends support to such a view, which will be strengthened by the evidence now to be brought forward. It will be necessary to go step by step, from one race to another, and to many different countries, and I would ask my readers not to shrink from the trouble of following me.

Let us turn first to ancient Egypt, where women held a position more free and more honourable than they have in any country to-day.

Herodotus, who was a keen observer, records his astonishment at this freedom, and writes--