Native American Women :: American America History

Native American WomenOn few subjects has there been such continual misconception as on the position of women among Indians. Because she was active, always ready in the camp, oftentimes carried heavy burdens, attended to the household duties, made the clothes and the home, and prepared the family food, the woman has been depicted as the slave of her economise, a enduring beast of encumbrance whose labors were never done. The man, on the other hand, was said to be an loaf, who all day long sat in the shade of the hostel and smoked his pipe, while his overworked wives attended to his comfort. In actuality, the woman was the mans partner, who preformed her share of the obligations of heart and who employed an influence quite as important as his, and often more powerful.Native Americans established primary relationships either by means of a clan system, descent from a common ancestor, or through a friendship system, much like tribal societies in other split of the world. In the Choctaw nation, Moieties were subdivided into several nontotemic, exogamous, matrilineal kindred clans, called iksa. (Faiman-Silva, 1997, p.8) The Cheyenne tirbe also traced their ancestry through the womans lineage. Moore (1996, p. 154) shows this when he says Such marriages, where the groomcomes to live in the brides band, are called matrilocal. Leacock (1971, p. 21) reveals that ...prevailing opinion is that inquisition societies would be patrilocal.... Matrilineality, it is assumed, followed the emergence of agriculture.... Leacock (p. 21) then stated that she had found the Montagnais-Naskapi, a run society, had been matrilocal until Europeans stepped in. The Tanoan Pueblos kinship system is bilateral. The household either is of the nuclear type or is extended to include relatives of one or both parents.... (Dozier, 1971, p. 237) The statuses and roles for men and women vary considerably among Native Americans, depending on each tribes cultural orientations. In matrilineal and matrilocal societies, women had considerable power because property, housing, land, and tools, belonged to them. Because property usually passed from mother to daughter, and the husband joined his wifes family, he was more of a stranger and yielded authority to his wifes eldest brother. As a result, the husband was unlikely to become an authoritative, domineering figure. Moreover, among such peoples as the Cherokee, Iroquois, and Pueblo, a disgruntled wife, secure in her possessions, could simply divorce her husband by tossing his belongings out of their residence.