Among many peoples the hardest drudgeries of life are said to be imposed on the women. Among the Kutchin “the women are literally beasts of burden to their lords and masters. All the heavy work is performed by them.”[28] The Californian Karok, while on a journey, lays by far the greatest burdens on his wife, whom he regards as a drudge.[29] Among the Kenistenos the life of the women is an uninterrupted succession of toil and pain, hence “they are sometimes known to destroy their female children, to save them from the miseries which they themselves have suffered.”[30] “The condition of the women among the Chaymas,” says von Humboldt, “like that in all semi-barbarous nations, is a state of privation and suffering. The hardest labour is their share.”[31] Among the Australian aborigines “wives have to undergo all the drudgery of the camp and the march, have the poorest food and the hardest work.”[32] In Eastern Central Africa “the women hold an inferior position. They are viewed as beasts of burden, which do all the harder work.”[33] Among the Kakhyens “the men are averse to labour, but the lot of all women, irrespective of rank, is one of drudgery”;[34] and so forth.[35] But it seems that these and similar statements, however correct they be, hardly express the whole truth. In early society each sex has its own pursuits. The man is responsible for the protection of the family, and, ultimately, for its support. His occupations are such as require strength and agility—fighting, hunting, fishing, the construction of implements for the chase and war, and, frequently, the cutting of trees and the building of lodges.[36] The woman may accompany him as a helpmate on his expeditions, sometimes even participating in the battle,[37] and when they travel she generally carries the baggage. But her principal occupations are universally of a domestic kind: she procures wood and water, prepares the food, dresses skins, makes clothes, takes care of the children. She, moreover, supplies the household with vegetable food, gathers roots, berries, acorns, and so forth, and among agricultural peoples very frequently cultivates the soil. Whilst cattle-rearing, having developed out of the chase, is largely a masculine pursuit,[38] agriculture, having developed out of collecting seeds and plants, originally devolves on the women.[39]
[28] Hardisty, ‘Loucheux Indians,’ in Smithsonian Report, 1866, p. 312.
[29] Powers, op. cit. p. 23 sq.
[30] Schoolcraft, Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, v. 167.
[31] von Humboldt, Personal Narrative of Travels, iii. 238.
[32] Curr, The Australian Race, i. 110.
[33] Macdonald, Africana, i. 35.
[34] Anderson, Mandalay to Momien, p. 137.
[35] For other instances, see Mackenzie, Voyages to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, p. 147 (Rocky Mountain Indians); Parker, in Schoolcraft, Archives, v. 684 (Comanches); Im Thurn, op. cit. p. 215 (Guiana Indians); Keane, ‘Botocudos,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xiii. 206; Weddell, Voyage towards the South Pole, p. 156, Darwin, Journal of Researches, p. 216, and Bove, Patagonia, p. 131 (Fuegians); Nieboer, op. cit. p. 13 sqq. (Australian aborigines); Williams and Calvert, Fiji, p. 145; Forster, Voyage round the World, ii. 324 (natives of Tana, of the New Hebrides); Zimmermann, Inseln des indischen und stillen Meeres, ii. 17 (New Caledonians), 105 (New Irelanders); Lewin, Wild Races of South-Eastern India, pp. 192 (Toungtha), 254 sq. (Kukis); Rowney, Wild Tribes of India, p. 214 (most of the wild tribes of India); Reade, op. cit. pp. 51, 259, 545 (various African peoples); Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, ii. 117 (Negroes); Valdau, ‘Om Ba-Kwileh folket,’ in Ymer, v. 167, 169.
[36] See Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 750 sqq.