What the White Race May Learn from the Indian

by George Wharton James

So their children (girls as well as boys) are all brought up from the earliest years to work, and to work hard. Boys are sent out to herd sheep, horses, and cattle; to watch the corn and see that nothing disturbs it. And the girls, as soon as they can toddle, become “little mothers” to their younger brothers and sisters. As they grow older they grind all the corn, gather all the wild grass and other seeds, make all the basketry and pottery, and prepare all the food for the household. To grind corn in the Indian fashion, with flat rock and metate, is no easy task for a strong man of the white race, yet I have known a girl of fifteen to keep at work at the metate for ten hours a day for several days in succession, in order that there might be plenty of flour when guests came to the Snake Dance.

On one of my visits to the Hopi village of Oraibi I found the women at work building a house. This is their occupation. All labor among Hopis is divided between the sexes in accordance with long-established custom, and I think it is so divided in all aboriginal peoples. The men undertook the protection of the home (were the warriors) and the hunting of animals for food. They also make the robes and moccasins. Those tribes that lost their nomad character and became sedentary added care of the fields and the stock to the work of their men. The women practically undertook all the rest. The building of the home, its care, the general gathering of seeds, and the preparation of all foods belong to them.

And as a rule, they do their chosen or appointed or hereditary work cheerfully. They know nothing of the aches and pains of their weaker white sisters; they are as strong as men, so they have no fear of physical labor. Not only this, but they enjoy it; they go to it with pleasure, as all healthy bodies do. How often have I stood and watched a healthy, vigorous man swing a hammer at the forge, or in a mine or a trench. How easily it was done, how gladly, how unconscious of effort! To the healthy woman, with reasonable strength, labor is also a pleasure. To feel one’s self accomplishing something, and able to do it without undue fatigue or exhaustion, what a delight it is!

The woman who honors us by coming to our house weekly to do the heavy work, often reminds me of a panther. She fairly “leaps” upon her work with an exuberance of strength and spirit that is a perfect delight, in this age of woman’s physical disability and disinclination to do physical labor.

NAVAHO MAIDENS CARRYING WATER OVER THE DESERT.

So it is with Indian women. They sing in unison when a dozen of them get together at the grinding-trough; though the work is hard enough, when long continued, to exhaust any strong man. I have seen women kneel and pound acorns all day, lifting a heavy pestle as high as their heads at every stroke. In the case of these women builders at Oraibi: they carried all the heavy rocks and put them in position, mixed their own mortar, and were their own paddies, and in everything, save the placing of the heavy crossbeams for the roof, to handle which they called upon some of the men for aid, they did all the work from beginning to end.

INDIAN MAIDENS TAUGHT BY THEIR MOTHER TO BE BASKET WEAVERS.

Now, while I do not especially want to see white women building a house, I do wish, with all my heart, that they had the physical strength to do it or similar arduous labor. I do long for the whole of my race that the women and girls shall have such vigorous health and strength that no ordinary labor could tire them.