Women of America Part 3

One curious Araucanian custom, surviving to the present time among many of the tribes, is that of giving to each wife a separate fireplace, at which she did her own cooking. Of course this was not practicable where the house was small and the wives were many; but so well was the custom established, in theory at least, that the polite manner in which to inquire the number of wives a man had was to ask him, "How many fires do you burn?" The houses, by the way, were often shaped much like an inverted boat, and the interior was furnished with a row of cane part.i.tions which roughly carried out the maritime idea, as they had somewhat the appearance of staterooms. These were arranged on each side, and in the middle ran the row of fires around which squatted the ladies of the household. It must not, however, be imagined that only one family, as we understand the word, inhabited one house; on the contrary, each of the married sons had his portion of the paternal rooftree, and often there were as many as a dozen households under one roof. These matters varied with the geographical position of the tribe, the Indians of the north differing from their southern brothers much as the Indians of the eastern part of North America differed from those of the west; and the household which has just been described was typical rather of those of the south than those of the north, though some of the features were identical in both sections.

One of the most remarkable facts concerning the status of women among the Araucanians was that there were medicine women as well as medicine men, and that the former were generally held in higher repute than their male rivals. While this belief in women as peculiarly adapted to the pursuit of sorcery has been prevalent among many peoples, those of white blood as well as those of black, it is rare among Indian races.

The civilization of the Araucanians, both past and present, is among the most interesting of the social developments of American origin, and is, perhaps, the one which has survived in truest individuality. Little record is found of individuals; but two historical facts may be cited concerning the women of the great Indian race of the south facts ill.u.s.trative of the spirit which was inculcated into females as well as males and born of the indomitable love of liberty which was the fundamental characteristic of the Araucanians.

When Caupolican, one of the greatest of the Araucanian leaders in their long struggle against the Spaniards, was at last taken prisoner, his chief wife, on learning of his capture, hastened to his side; not, as might be expected by those of less Spartan culture, to alleviate his captivity with her tenderness, but to upbraid him for his pusillanimity in being taken alive. Coming into his presence, she threw at his feet their infant son, saying, pa.s.sionately and scornfully, _No quiero t.i.tulo de madre del hijo infame, del infame padre!_ [I do not wish to be called the mother of the infamous son of an infamous father!] At least, that is what she is reported to have said; but as the Spanish is in rhyme, and the chronicler was one rather given to romance, we may be permitted to doubt the implicitness of the narrative in this respect; yet it is most probable that the incident really occurred, since it would have been in entire conformity with the fierce pride of the Araucanians.

The other woman of whom Araucanian history tells us was called Janaqueo.

She was the head wife of a chief who was defeated and slain by the Spanish invaders. As soon as she learned of the death of her husband she organized a band of Puelche Indians, was chosen their chief, and sallied forth against the enemy. She proved herself a most skilful leader in the peculiar fighting which was appropriate to the terrain; she hung on the flanks of her foes as a hound on a clumsy boar, alternately fighting and disappearing, and even in pitched battle defeating more than one noted Spanish general. She was one of the most enterprising and dangerous foes ever encountered by the invaders; and when at last she was conquered through her affection for her brother,--who, having been taken captive and condemned to death, was enlarged on condition that his sister retired to her distant home,--the Spaniards felt that they had won a victory which was most important, even though the forces of the Amazon still held the field against them. There can be no doubt that Janaqueo was a most skilful and valiant general; and she relieves the Araucanian nation from the aspersion of being the only people that cannot claim a national Joan of Arc to play against the French heroine.

Before turning to a consideration of South American women as descended from Spanish civilization, it may be well to say a word concerning a most singular cla.s.s of natives of South America one which, happily, may be dismissed in a few words, but yet which must be mentioned for the sake of completeness, _the Gauchos_. There may be a question as to the right of the Gaucho women to occupy even a minor place in a history of the development of woman; for the feminine Gaucho has but one individual characteristic. She is dirty, she is slovenly, she is lazy, she is a mere animal, a slave, a beast of burden, but all these things may be found in other extant or past civilizations,--to give them a term of courtesy,--and it would seem hardly needful to bring to the reader's attention a peculiar people if the qualities mentioned were the only ones to be found among these women. But this is not so, for the Gaucho woman has a preeminence in one respect: she is absolutely the most unmoral woman upon the face of the earth, and she has been so ever since her singular cla.s.s came into recognized existence. This does not say she is immoral; her depravity is too open, too much a matter of course, too entirely a condition of her existence to be deemed immorality. It has been said that it is a wise child who knows his own father; but among the Gauchos it was a remarkable woman who had any a.s.sured ideas as to the father of any particular one of her children. Marriage existed as a form of possession; but as all Gaucho women who had reached maturity had families,--and maturity in that climate came at about the age of twelve,--whether they had gone through the ceremony of marriage or not, it will be understood that few Gauchos, male or female, ever thought of troubling to be formally wedded. Sir Francis Head, who, about the opening of the last century, wrote a most entertaining account of his travels across the Andes and Pampas, tells us that if one asked a young Gaucho senorita who might be the father of the child that she was carrying, the almost invariable and entirely artless reply would be, "_Quien sabe_?" and though Lieutenant Strain, who followed in the footsteps of Sir Francis some fifty years later, contradicted the latter's account of the surliness and fierceness of the male Gaucho, he did not find it lie in his mouth to defend the virtue of the women.

Such absolute, universal, and unblushing unmorality as this is worthy of chronicle and really is hardly shocking, since it is so perfectly matter of fact that it simply resolves itself into a rule of life alien from our ideas. Yet, on the other hand, it is not as the unmorality of the natives of the South Sea islands, for example, where in their primitive state the retention of that which among us is known as womanly virtue was considered a reproach; for the Gaucho women, though so frankly unmoral, yet were not thus by religion and custom. On the contrary, the Gauchos were usually profoundly superst.i.tious and were apt to be devout members of the Roman Communion. Had they been pagans, they would not have acquired any especial claim to renown for immorality by their customs; but as members, by courtesy, of a Christian civilization the women of the Gauchos deserve to be embalmed in the history of their s.e.x as superlative in their national unmorality.

Mention of the women of the South Sea islands leads to another digression from the main subject, for there are one or two interesting facts to be told about these women. The customs of the Taeehs, one of the most powerful of the tribes of the Pacific islanders, may be taken as typical of the others, though, of course, there are points of variance and even departure. When Porter, the captain of the famous Ess.e.x, visited the island of Nookahevah during his celebrated cruise in 1812, he found that island governed by a princess named Pittenee--a fact which shows that among the islanders women were held in some esteem. The lady, potentate though she was, was not above forming a scandalous connection with one of Porter's officers, though she displayed no fidelity to her temporary spouse; but nothing better could be expected of one of a race where the parents urged their daughters to sacrifice their virtue to strangers and even rewarded with presents those who did them the honor to accept that virtue in gift. Indeed, the claims of hospitality required the proffer of the person of wife or sister to the guest, while before reaching marriageable age--about nineteen, very late for such a climate--the young girls were given entire license. There was marriage among these people, though it is difficult to see why; and, strange to say, post-nuptial unfaithfulness was rare. The married women, as usual among primitive peoples, were rather chattels than slaves, being entirely at the disposition of their husbands; indeed, save in the matter of unmorality, the customs of the islanders in regard to their women differed but little from those conventional among barbarous tribes.

It is now time to turn to a consideration of the women of South America as we usually think of them, the product of a grafted Spanish civilization rather than a survival or result of primitive cultures. Yet when we turn to such consideration we find but little that is characteristic or even interesting. It is not to Spanish-founded countries that we must look for the greatest advances in the status or culture of women; in such lands there has ever been stagnation and even retrogression, while there has rarely been any marked individuality of personal or national trait. Nor must it be forgotten that the phrase "the Women of South America," even in the limited meaning of those of Spanish blood, covers an exceedingly broad field.

In noting the history of woman in South America, it is pleasant to relate that one of the first of the s.e.x of whom we have record is chronicled as having performed a vast service to posterity, even though it were one which would have been done by others had she not been the pioneer. It is recorded that the first wheat ever sown in South America was carried to Lima, in the year 1535, by Dona Maria de Escobar, though the quant.i.ty was only a few grains. When the crop came to ripeness, the lady called together all her friends to celebrate the first harvest of wheat ever gathered in the New World; and although she was in error as to this,--wheat having been produced in Mexico in 1528 by a negro slave belonging to Cortes, who accidentally found a few grains mingled with the rice supplied to the soldiers and sowed them,--she is none the less deserving of being held in honorable remembrance as the benefactor of generations yet to come. While speaking of benefactors among South American women, one may be mentioned who is remarkable both for her race and for the form of one of her bequests. This was Catalina Huanca, an Indian, who was so rich--being a cacique--that she left at her death much money to be expended in various charitable bequests, among them being the still existing hospital of Santa Ana at Lima; but the extraordinary bequest to which allusion is made was a sum to be used for forming and maintaining a body guard for the viceroy, the guard to comprise both infantry--halberdiers, as the foot then were in such a body and cavalry, and to consist of a hundred men. It is difficult to say whether this bequest was not a malicious. .h.i.t at the poverty of show among the high Spanish officials as compared with the state held by the Indians in their ceremonials; but the viceroy did not care to inquire too curiously into the donor's meaning, but preferred to accept with grat.i.tude the goods with which the G.o.ds had provided him.

It may be broadly said that the characteristics of the Spanish-American ladies of Chili, Peru, and the rest of the greater Spanish-American states were from the first, and continue until now, very like those of the Mexican women. Even physically there is a great resemblance in the races, as indeed there should be, considering the ident.i.ty of parent stock. Their complexions were and are rarely good; but their hair and eyes are generally fine and their figures excellent, while small feet form a national physical trait of which they, like their Mexican sisters, are exceedingly proud. There has never been any marked racial individuality among the women of South America, and what little there once was has entirely disappeared. Even early in the past century a traveller, in noting the influx of European manners, said: "This spirit of imitation is natural and praiseworthy, but it produces a cloying sameness; it is a leveller, destructive alike of national and personal individuality, and the traveller, tired of seeing continually reproduced the manners, customs, dress, and even ideas with which he has always been familiar, will tarry with pleasure in those spots presenting the freshness of originality. Such spots exist only where a continual jostling with the exterior world has not abraded the salient angles of the national character."

It may be added that such spots have become increasingly difficult to find, and that the romance of South America has entirely disappeared before the march of "progress." Yet few countries have known more of romance, and this in regard to her women, though the chronicle is scanty and must be pieced together from sc.r.a.ps of information. Perhaps the most romantic era of South American women was that of the buccaneers. It was a brief time and one that held much of peril to womanly honor and virtue; but it also held delightful possibilities for the daughters of Spain in their new home. These ladies, even some of n.o.ble birth, looked not unkindly upon the "hereticos" who came with fire and sword to gain wealth in the shape of booty and ransom. Do we not read in quaint old chronicle of that paladin of a filibuster, Revenau de Lussan, who, in 1685, put Panama to ransom and then occupied the town of Queaquilla? De Lussan was a freebooter, which is a polite way of writing "pirate," and he was a Frenchman in days when Gallic morals were not on the highest of planes even when judged by the usual standard of their country; but the gentlemanly filibuster was frankly shocked at the state of affairs existing in Queaquilla, where he found the most beautiful and wanton women he had ever encountered. The monks and priests with which the town swarmed took the lead in illicit intercourse with the entirely willing ladies, and there were few children who had the faintest idea concerning the ident.i.ty of their paternal parents. The people of this place had been told frightful stories about the pirates, and when De Lussan captured a pretty young woman, the maid to the wife of the governor, she begged him with tear-strewn cheeks, _Senor, por l'amor de Dios no mi coma!_ [Senor, for the love of G.o.d do not eat me!] It took but a short time, however, for the jovial buccaneers to prove to the ladies that they were not greatly to be feared by the fair s.e.x unless the latter proved unkind; and when the pirates retired to the island of Puna with their spoils they were accompanied by many of the ladies of Queaquilla, who went with them nominally as prisoners awaiting ransom but really as willing mistresses. There the freebooters spent many glorious weeks in high revelry, with music, wine, dancing, and all other amus.e.m.e.nts most dear to the pirate heart, the Spanish ladies entering most heartily into the spirit of the occasion. In the attack on the town De Lussan killed the Spanish treasurer, and the latter's disconsolate widow fell to the lot of the slayer of her husband. In a few days she developed for the gallant Frenchman a pa.s.sion that was absolutely embarra.s.sing, insisting that he should remain with her after the rest of the band had departed, should marry her, and should live with her at Queaquilla. She actually went so far as to obtain from the governor a signed pardon for De Lussan for offences committed against Spanish possessions, so that he could be a.s.sured that he might safely remain. De Lussan, however, though he tells us that he "was not a little perplexed herewith," could not resolve to settle down and abandon the career of a pirate for that of a private citizen; he may also have had doubts as to the intention of the governor of keeping his fair promises when once he had the famous freebooter in his power; so he further tells us: "Thus I rejected her proposals, but so as to a.s.sure her I should retain even long as I lived a lively remembrance of her affections and good inclinations toward me." Thus he extricated himself from his quandary with all the finesse and gallantry of his nation and went his way rejoicing in his liberty. We are not told of the future fate of the lady, of whose name we are indeed kept in ignorance, but it is probable that some Spaniard consoled her for the loss of her lover as readily as had that lover for the loss of her husband.

De Lussan's experience with the women of Central America--which for convenience is here considered as part of the southern continent--was so typical that it has been treated at greater length than it may have deserved. Indeed, there seems to be much light thrown on the impetuous, pa.s.sionate nature of the Spanish-American woman by her bearing toward the pirates who ravaged the sh.o.r.es of her country yet to whom she frequently gave her heart and virtue. Of course this bearing was not invariable; Morgan, a greater pirate, but not so gallant a gentleman as De Lussan, when he captured Panama against fearful odds, found within its walls a Spanish lady with whom he fell violently in love, but who resolutely refused to listen to his proposals. Finding flattery, pleading, and bribery in vain, he showed the true brutality of his nature by throwing her into afoul dungeon and keeping her there half-starved, until even his rough comrades who delighted in slaughter and made the name of England a stench in the nostrils of the civilized world by their treatment of the Spaniards, remonstrated, and the brutal buccaneer was compelled by motives of policy to release his captive from her cell. She was finally ransomed and allowed to return to the ruins of her home, and here we lose sight of her; but we can remember her as one who was worthy of the best traditions of the Spanish ladies and whose memory may redeem the repute of her lighter countrywomen from their shame.

It must not be thought from what has been said as to the morality of Spanish-American women in certain periods and places that it is designed to charge the race in general with immorality. That were to utter a slander which would be as baseless as it would be inexcusable. It is unfortunately true that in the history of any country or race it is the women most famous for immorality and wickedness who stand out most prominently; those who were merely good were tolerably sure to be forgotten as unnoteworthy. So it was with South America. We have the word of a keen observer "that any impartial person who shall reside long enough among South Americans to become acquainted with their domestic manners will declare that conjugal and paternal affection, filial piety, beneficence, generosity, good nature, and hospitality are the inmates of almost every house. I have no doubt, too, that these virtues will continue here, until civilization and refinement shall drive them from their abode in the New World, to make room for etiquette, formality, becoming pride, prudery, and hypocrisy from the Old. Then, the children of the first families in Lima (whom I have often seen rise from the table and carry a plateful of food to a poor protege beggar, seated in the patio or under the corridor, wait and chat with the little wretch until he had finished, and return to the table) will look on such objects with disdain, because mamma has subscribed a competent sum to a charitable inst.i.tution and made that sum known to the world through the medium of the newspapers! I cannot avoid fearing that this modern improvement will supersede their own pure but almost antiquated customs."

This, written about 1825, is a severe arraignment of the blessings of our civilization; but it is also a sincere compliment to the character of South American women and so is worth quoting. Fond of pleasures the South American senorita and even senora has always been; but such fondness, however indicative of volatility of temperament and lack of depth of nature, is not incompatible with many of the virtues which are held in high esteem among women. Another thing worthy of note in the words of our sarcastic critic is the reference to the disappearance, even at that date, of the more characteristic customs of South American ladies. A later visitor to Chile and Peru tells us that the young senoritas often denied that they practised smoking, whereas we know from other travellers that but a short time prior to that period it was considered the height of courtesy for the South American lady to transfer to the lips of her male companion the cigarette moist from her own. Eating sweetmeats from the same plate was also common at one time, in fact, down to the beginning of the last century, among South American ladies and gentlemen; they even sucked mate, the native tea, from a single tube. These characteristic customs have long since pa.s.sed away, and now the Spanish-American lady sedulously apes her European contemporaries in tastes, dress, and customs. She has retained but little of the individuality which once marked her national place among her s.e.x; yet in one respect she is still unique, and it is to be hoped will long remain so. That singularity is her influence and part in politics.

All of us know the constant political cataclysms that occur in South America. It is said that a Spanish-American lady who not long ago visited New York looked with some surprise upon the arrogance of one of the _grandes dames_ of the city and inquired the reason. "Why, my dear,"

replied her interlocutor, "she is a Daughter of the Revolution!" "Oh, _ca!_" replied the charming South American, with a shrug: "Is that all?

For me, I am the daughter of at least six!" The anecdote may be apocryphal, but it is none the less pointed; and the constant revolutions of the South American states have become fair matter for jest. In these turbulent ebullitions of racial spirit rather than national liberty the fair senoritas and senoras have had a most prominent part. Not only have they incited and encouraged the men who bore the brunt of the actual combat, but, if those who know most of the inner histories of these affairs of state are to be believed, the women have been the most efficient as well as the most ardent plotters. In fact, it may be said that of late years, say for the latter half of the past century, politics has become with South American women as much a fashion as literature was in France at the time of the great _salons_.

She who had never plotted was at one time--not yet entirely pa.s.sed away--beyond the social pale, while she who was fortunate enough to include among the visitors to her political _salon_ some especially virulent revolutionist was regarded with as much envy as, in circles of other nationality, is the exhibitor of some literary lion of particularly loud roar. We often hear the expression, "the game of politics"; but certainly it has never been so well applied as to the somewhat dangerous but entirely conventional pursuits of the female plotters and revolutionists of South America. That these women, of whom none has bequeathed to posterity a name worthy of record, have been of some influence in regulating the course of South American events it is impossible to deny; but their methods have not, as a rule, been such as to call forth high eulogium of feminine politics. They have been for the most part on a plane with the female Nihilists of Russia, save that the latter are in deadly earnest, while the South American ladies play at politics as their northern sisters at golf, with intent to win indeed, but after all merely as a diversion.

This aspect of the woman of South America, however, is the only one of characteristic form she has retained after her determined subduing of national individuality to European commonplaceness. The lady of Brazil, Peru, Chili, or the lesser South American states is not characteristic in appearance, in custom, or in thought; she stands simply as a modification of Latin civilization under variant conditions, and is hardly to be distinguished from her European sisters of similar stock.

There is of course some individuality left among the lower cla.s.s of women; but even this is fast disappearing before the inroads of the more insistent culture. As with the Mexican, so with the South American woman: she has ceased to possess racial uniqueness and so has ceased to be nationally interesting, however she may charm as an individual.

It is therefore rather in the individual than in the typical aspect that there may be presented to the notice of the reader the names of some of the more noted women of South American culture in later years. While it is true that during the last half of the nineteenth century, particularly in Chile and the Argentine Republic, the feminine status underwent a marked change, coming into closer touch with the standards of civilization in the more advanced civilizations, the woman of prominence, in anything save politics, is still the notable exception in South America. The most marked advance in this respect is to be found in Chile, where, in 1879, the University and its colleges were, by special statute, opened to women students, and where, in 1903, the Medical School contained thirty-eight women, not a few of whom were taking post-graduate courses after having pa.s.sed through the regular curriculum. The government of Chile actually sent as a special student to Austria and Germany a woman, Ernestina Perez, who has since taken high rank as a physician.

The advance in the status of women in Chile was doubtless largely due to the influence of Mercedes Marin del Solar, whose writings first extorted from Spanish masculinity a reluctant confession that a woman might achieve deserved fame in paths. .h.i.therto thought to be sacred to the feet of men. Born in 1804, when among her countrymen women were considered mere child-bearers, she devoted her life to proving that her s.e.x possessed the qualities requisite for high attainment in literary matters as well as in the graver concerns of life; and she won ample success. Even with the scant opportunities for obtaining an education which were then stingily meted out to women, Senora Solar managed to develop her natural culture; and while still a young woman she became an ardent public advocate for the higher education of her s.e.x. She did not live to see her efforts crowned with full fruition; but they were effectual at last. It is, however, chiefly for her literary accomplishments that she will live in memory; her ode on the death of Don Diego Portales remains a standard, and her _Ode to Washington_, inspired by the interest taken by its author in the American Civil War, which was then raging, shows breadth of thought and fine philosophical powers, while it is of especial interest to us because of its subject and aim.

Senora Solar was of the earlier age of Chilean feminine culture and was greatly hampered by the conditions existing in her period of largest activities; but a later writer, Rosario Orrego de Uribe, has carried on the work so admirably begun and has added to its range and effect. For years Senora Orrego de Uribe was at the head of a large journal, the _Revista de Valparaiso_, and thus found a suitable medium for the expression of her theories. Moreover, as a novelist she has attained high rank, and she has written poetry which is above the average. Her influence has been steadily for the emanc.i.p.ation and advancement of her s.e.x, and her work is not yet finished, though she has seen the cause she embraced with such enthusiasm prosper even beyond the highest hopes of its first advocates.

Among the notable women of Chile may also be mentioned the name of Juana Ross de Edwards. As the name implies, she is of Anglo-Saxon descent and has strengthened the blood by marriage. She is noted as a philanthropist, giving largely and wisely to worthy objects, and she is so admittedly a power in the land that she was one of the first to suffer banishment when Balmaceda came into power in 1891. The powerful dictator feared the influence of Senora Edwards more than the plots of the most virulent of his masculine foes.

The Argentine Republic has also some great names to boast among its women. Juana Manso de Noronha was a potent influence in the cause of education. She early came under the influence of Sarmiento, the greatest of South American educators, and she was actually appointed by the government of Argentina to edit the _Annales de la Education Comun_, a paper in the interests of public education, founded by Sarmiento himself. Both in theory and practice, for she conducted a large school at one time, she proved herself a woman of profound thought and eager energy in the subjects to which she devoted her life, and Argentina owes her no small debt for its advance in culture. Her work, since her death in 1890, has been to some extent carried on by Eduarda Mansilla de Garcia, though Senora Garcia is known rather as a writer than an educator. Her novels have won deservedly high repute and one of them found tribute from so absolute an authority as Victor Hugo. Another great influence in the cause of feminine culture was Juana M. Gorriti, an Argentine; but her activities were mainly exerted in Peru. This latter country has hardly kept apace of her South American sisters in the cause of feminine emanc.i.p.ation and culture; yet even Peru has some names of which she may boast, as those of Mercedes Cabello Cab.o.n.e.ro, a writer on philosophical and social questions, and Clorinda Matto de Turner, a novelist whose work is rather of the ultra-realistic school.

Both women are enthusiastic and influential, nor do they stand entirely alone in the circles of Lima. Yet in that old city the advance in the matter of feminine culture has been very slow; the doors of the University of San Marcos, in Lima, are still shut to women students, and there are no signs that there will soon be encouragement to women to take their modern place among men in the old land of the Incas.

What has been stated of South American women applies in general to the women of Brazil; nevertheless this country furnishes historic incidents that claim place in an account of the women of South America. Searching the early chronicles we find a few records of Indian women who have gained prominence, and whose descendants have taken high rank in their country. We learn of the romantic marriage of the daughter of the chief Teberyca to the Portuguese adventurer Joao Ramalho, in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, from which union sprang the "Mamelucos," the st.u.r.dy independent people who brought about the colonization of the State of San Paulo. But a still more interesting record is the story of a Brazilian "Pocahontas," which if not acceptable in its entirety, at least enjoys the credit of a deep-rooted tradition. It is told that Diogo Alvares Corriga was shipwrecked near Bahia in 1510, and, falling into the hands of the Tupinamba Indians, was doomed to furnish a cannibal feast. At the moment when his life was about to be taken, Paragua.s.su, the daughter of the chief, interposed and secured the victim's release. However much is fiction, however much is truth in this part of the story, it is certain that Diogo married the Indian maiden and that she became the mother of children whose descendants hold influential rank in Brazil to this day. Paragua.s.su was moreover an enlightened woman and a benefactress, and is greatly honored by Brazilians. In the Chapel of Graca, in the Cathedral at Bahia, the following epitaph perpetuates her memory: "Tomb of Dona Catharina Alvares Paragua.s.su, Lady that was of the Capitania of Bahia, which she and her husband Diogo Alvares Correa gave to the King of Portugal, having built this chapel of Nossa Senhora da Graca, which she gave, with the ground annexed, to the Patriarch So Bento, in the year 1582." To the influence of Paragua.s.su is to be attributed much of the power gained by her husband over the Indians, which enabled him to promote the early colonization of Bahia. Paragua.s.su may therefore be regarded as one of the great pioneers in the civilization of South America.

In any account of the women of Brazil the story of the Amazons should find place. The early explorers of the Amazon country have generally accepted, or at any rate given prominence to, the Indian narrative of these female-warriors. They are said to have formed a powerful body and to have ruled over a large territory and proved invincible in battle. In appearance tall, robust, and fair they wore their long hair twisted about their heads; their costume was simply a dress of animal skin which they tucked about their loins; their weapons were bows and arrows.

Humboldt relates the Indian account that these warrior women once a year admitted to their company for a limited time the men of the neighboring tribe, who at the expiration of their period of leave were sent away with presents. All the male children born to these women were killed in infancy, the female children being brought up by their mothers. The origin of this tribe of female-warriors is clouded with mystery. One explanation is that they abandoned the men of their tribe and sought to establish a settlement in the region of the Jamunda River, but being followed by their disconsolate husbands and despairing lovers, pity caused them to relent to the extent of making a pact with the discarded ones to admit them to their society on sufferance once a year. We have no sufficient data concerning the organization of government of the tribe or other information which would admit of treating this subject otherwise than as a curious historic phase of Brazilian womanhood.

Through the periods of settlement and the Portuguese rule we pa.s.s without notice of any woman of such prominence as to secure noteworthy mention, yet woman's influence must have been exerted and felt along each step of the path toward independence; they b.u.t.tressed with their ambition and patriotism the enlarging spirit of nationality. So in the crisis that followed the declaration of independence in 1822, we need not be surprised to find a woman mentioned for heroism and patriotism. A Bahian girl, Maria de Jesus Medeiros, touched by her father's lament that he had no son to fight in his country's cause, and fired to action, disguised herself as a soldier and fought through the war. Her signal service, however, was on the occasion of the attempted landing of a powerful force of Lusitanians at the mouth of the Paragua.s.su River. Here Maria stood to resist the invader; at the head of a troop of Bahian Amazons she charged the oncoming soldiers, and, in spite of superior numbers, discipline and equipment, her valor and that of her companions prevailed and the discomfited Portuguese were driven back ingloriously.

In the absence of more specific information we may, moreover, gather that woman's influence was of notable moment in Brazil at the period of the independence, for we find that in 1821, Viscount de Pedra Branca, a deputy from Bahia to the Cortes at Lisbon, a prominent leader of the Liberals and a man of world-wide fajne, advocated that political liberty should be granted to Portuguese women, and the fact that the Cortes ignored his plea does not lessen the force of the presumption that woman in Brazil had acquired p.r.o.nounced influence in politics at this time.

Among the women of the period of the empire the Crown Princess Isabel stands most prominent, and exception will hardly be taken to her inclusion in an account of Brazilian women. On her shoulders, as regent, devolved the government at intervals for many years. Remarkable for firmness of character, she was moreover imbued with lofty principles.

The conspicuous act of her regency was the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves, the decree for which she signed on July 10, 1888. In this act her courage and devotion were put to the severest test, yet realizing fully that her signing the decree would perhaps involve the overthrow of the empire and certainly lose her much popularity, or, at any rate, much influential support, she did not falter; nor did she content herself with a mere concurrence in the legislative course, but issued a declaration in which she exalted the act and glorified the emanc.i.p.ation.

Her strength of character and her fidelity to her trust rose above all personal or party considerations. Soon followed, in fact, the quiet revolution of a few hours and the empire had vanished; a great republic was installed, and in this crisis Isabel again stood dignified and lofty, in her farewell manifesto to the Brazilian people proving her patriotism and voicing her womanly sentiment and unfeigned sorrow.

The political, social, and economic changes effected by emanc.i.p.ation in Brazil were not attended with violent disturbance as was the case in the United States. Generally, the act was favorably received, although great hardship was caused to many individual slave owners. So far as this measure has affected Brazilian women, the result may safely be a.s.sumed as making for their uplifting. Woman has been stimulated to greater activity, intellectual, domestic, and social.

Of the emanc.i.p.ated race it can hardly be doubted that they are in better state. In the large cities where the negroes const.i.tute a large proportion of the population, as in Bahia, their condition betokens relative material prosperity and physical content. A most characteristic picture is presented on a holiday by a Bahian negress, when the occasion permits of the racial indulgence of lavish display. Her deckings are dazzling in color and bewildering in variety,--dress ornaments and air of self-satisfaction offer a moving picture that cannot well be forgotten. In the many industries of Brazil where manual labor still holds relatively great preponderance over mechanical, the negroes furnish a very considerable part of the labor, as also in the work of the great _haciendas_. What may almost be termed a general industry is the preparation of manioc or mandioca, the cultivation of which was considered of such importance in colonial days as to be obligatory. It is an article of almost universal use in Brazil, and the free negroes of to-day are no less skilful in cultivating and preparing it than were their forbears in slavery days.

Since the inauguration of the republic of Brazil there are but few women of whom notable mention has been made. It has been a period of transition and adjustment in which woman's activities, though constantly exercised in patriotic endeavor and toward social progress, have not found the record that they merit. Nevertheless, we get a glimpse of the character of the later womanhood of Brazil in the words of Senhora Campos-Salles,--the wife of a recent president,--addressed to her husband on the occasion of a political revolution in the State of San Paulo: "You must forget to-day that you have a wife and children and remember only your duty to your country."

The social and domestic life of woman in Brazil is still largely influenced by European customs. The senhorita's chaperon is still regarded as a conventional desideratum, and courtship, if not quite as much a "long distance" communication as among the Puritans of New England when the "courting-stick" was in vogue, is yet largely regulated according to the customs of the mother country, and generally involves the presence of the family. As in the political, so in the social world, however, the spirit of the New World has entered and the Brazilian woman is very gradually throwing off restraints which European convention has put upon her, and is partic.i.p.ating more generally and prominently in intellectual, social, and political affairs. In social progress and amelioration, in educational and charitable activities she is taking place as an accepted leader. In the elementary schools for girls the instruction is entrusted exclusively to women, who, on the other hand, are also found in charge of those for boys. There are special inst.i.tutions provided for the education of girls in "all womanly arts,"

and in addition to this the State provides them with a dot for the purchase of a wedding trousseau and a suitable housekeeping equipment.

In art and literature the names of Brazilian women have gained honor,--among painters, Senhoras de Andrade and Bertha Worms,--and among writers, Senhoras de Bivar, de Almeida, and de Azeredo. Senhora de Almeida has established and edited a paper devoted to the _feministe_ movement in Brazil.

While the list of notable and noted South American women is far from exhausted by these names, enough has been said to show that below the equator as well as above it there has been advance and change. Yet it must be confessed that in South America the march of feminine progress has thus far been very slow and is still confined, as already said, to individuals rather than manifested in national or racial movement. It may yet broaden into this; but the omens are hardly propitious. The restraining and clogging influence is rather of racial than masculine nature; it is less that the men look upon the advanced woman as a _lusus naturae_, though this also is broadly true, than that the women are not racially capable of working out their own salvation in this line. Thus far the movement has been almost entirely productive of leaders only; there is no rank and file to give it strength and continuity. There is ardent enthusiasm; but it is confined within narrow limits. Yet he would be a rash prophet who should foretell that these circ.u.mstances will continue to prevail, and it may well be that the signs may develop into conditions and South America prove a close follower, if not a pioneer, in the march of feminine advancement and culture.

CHAPTER IV

THE PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT

We have now reached the point in our consideration of the women of our own land where we are free to turn to the story of the American woman as she is generally known the woman of the United States. Of course scientific ethnology recognizes no such nomenclature, giving the t.i.tle of "American" only to the aborigines of this continent; but we who write and read this work are not concerned to be scientific but rather perspicacious on the one side and perspicuous on the other, and the generally accepted nomenclature will be adopted here and the woman of the United States and the mother-colonies spoken of as being, by right as well as acceptation, the American woman to all other lands and ages.

Before entering upon the history of the woman of our country, it seems needful to cast a glance upon some general conditions which must be reckoned with in our estimate and appreciation of the women of America and their history. As a preliminary, the story of the Blue Fairy will be related,--a story so old that it may be new to most of the readers of this volume and which, fairy story though it be, has yet a meaning in the study of the history of women, if we will but seek it out. Here is the story, as told by Stahl:

"One day the Blue Fairy descended to earth with the courteous intention of distributing to all the young girls of in the different nations the treasures of beauty that she brought with her.

"Her dwarf Amaranth sounded his horn, and instantly a young girl of every nation presented herself at the foot of the Blue Fairy's throne.

Then, after having made a short speech, she proceeded to distribute her gifts.

"She gave to the young girl who represented all the Castiles locks so black and long that she could make a mantilla of them.

"To the Italian she gave eyes as bright and burning as an eruption of Vesuvius in the middle of the night.

"To the Turkish girl, a figure as round as the moon and as soft as eider-down.

"To the English girl, an aurora borealis to tint her cheeks, her lips, and her shoulders.