CHAPTER VIII
THE WOMEN OF CANADA
The Revolution marked an era in the social as in the political history of the United States, and the transition furnishes an opportunity to tell something of the women of Canada. For the sake of completeness, it is needful also to cast a fleeting glance at those strange hyperboreans, the Eskimo, and this chapter has seemed the most convenient and appropriate place for such consideration.
There is no necessity to give any detailed account of the dwellers of the ice-bound coast region. Ethnologists are not agreed on even the main points of their origin and history, and recessive statements could be but speculation. Of the actual conditions of Eskimo life,--these conditions being simple and few,--most people know all that is to be known. Yet it may be well to remark in the inception of this account that the name "Eskimo" is ungrateful to the people whom we thus designate; it was bestowed upon them by their enemies, the northern Indians, and in the Indian language signifies "eaters of fish," a term of disdain. The people term themselves, and should in common courtesy be termed, the Innuits, which means simply "Our Folks." Thus, therefore, shall they be called in this account.
The Innuits are a nomadic people, living during the winter in igloos, or ice huts, during the summer in skin tents called tupies, but moving from place to place as chance or the necessity of sustenance suggests. They have not attained a high degree of civilization and may indeed be termed semi-savages; yet they have some excellent traits, together with some contradictory ones. Thus, they will steal anything on which they can lay their hands; but they hold a lie in utter detestation, and to shay-va-loo (tell a lie) is to brand the teller as worthy of social ostracism. The first of these traits may arise from the existence among them of some of the socialistic theories of our own civilization; but the second is not a purely civilized trait, as civilization is known to us.
Living in a community of most primitive conditions of existence, even in the household, morals are not at a high standard among the Innuits. Yet there is to be found among them a high degree of domesticity in certain directions, and their women appear to be affectionately cared for and held in high esteem for semi-savages. The personal appearance of these ladies is far from captivating to a Caucasian eye, they being as a rule of a figure only to be described as "pudgy," while their features are coarse and unintelligent. Their dress is the same as that of the men: Long stockings of reindeer skin, with the hair next the person; socks of eider-duck skin, with feathers on both sides; socks of seal skin, with the hair outside; boots, the legs of reindeer skin, the hair outside, the soles of seal skin; and a jacket of reindeer skin, fitting to the form, though not tightly. In this latter article of apparel is to be found the sole difference between the male and female costume, the women attaching to their jackets long tails, which reach almost to the ground, while their jackets also have hoods, frequently used for carrying their children. The women also, as is natural, adorn their costumes to a degree not common among the men; one belle was described by Mr. Hall, who spent two winters among this curious race, as having a fringe of colored beads across the neck of her jacket, bowls of Britannia-metal teaspoons down the front flap, and a double row of copper cents, surmounted by a bell from an old-fashioned clock, down the tail, which was bordered by a beading of elongated lead shot. But such extravagance of adornment as this is rare and can be attained only by the most wealthy. The ladies also wear finger rings and headbands of polished brass.
Such is the normal winter dress of the Innuit women; and the summer costume, while less characteristic, varies but little in general form from that of the colder months. Their life is monotonous and absolutely tame, according to civilized ideas. They play at times upon the keeloun, a kind of tambourine; but as a rule their merrymaking is confined to feasting, and of the conduct at these feasts the less said the better. Monogamy is the rule among the Innuits, and the women are generally affectionate wives and mothers, especially the latter. When Tookoolito and her husband, Ebierbing, visited America in the middle of the late century, they lost their child, "Butterfly," an infant of about a year old, and poor little Tookoolito was inconsolable; she longed to die, that she might find again her lost "Butterfly," and she tended the little grave, made in the burial ground at Groton, Connecticut, with the tenderest care, placing thereon, according to the Innuit superstition, the favorite toys of the little one, that it might have them in its sojourn in the beyond. The love of parents for their children is indeed one of the most pronounced and most estimable traits of the Innuit character.
This brief sketch of the women of the hyperboreans must suffice, for there are more important matters of feminine history demanding attention, and indeed the Innuit culture, if so it may be termed, presents few salient features as to the condition of its women. In status and conditions they occupy a place about midway between the woman of the Indian tribes and her of the lower phases of our own civilization.
Southward now to the land of the mixed blood, where the two ancient enemies, France and England, have joined in a race that owes allegiance to the latter but retains many of the characteristics of the former. To write the history of Canadian women is largely to speak of individuals, since there has been but little alteration or development of conditions of a social nature. Yet some may be noted.
The first settlement of Canada, in which term is of course included Acadia, or, as it is now known, Nova Scotia, was touched by a strange romance. The Sieur de Roberval was on his voyage to join the great Jacques Cartier and with him to found a colony, when he discovered that his niece, Marguerite de Roberval, loved, more fondly than was consistent with the Sieur's conceptions of right, a young cavalier of his company. A lonely island, known as the Isle of Demons, was sighted soon after this discovery was made; and Roberval sternly condemned his niece to perpetual imprisonment on this barren rock. Her lover jumped overboard and swam after his beloved; and together they lived, forgotten of men, on the island, thus founding the first Canadian home. A child was born to them, but it died early, and Marguerite's lover, whose name has not come down to us, soon followed his infant. Marguerite with her own hands hollowed the graves of those she loved, and then she lived on, more lonely than even Alexander Selkirk, on this island which was for her full of terrors, real and imagined; the nature of the latter may be guessed from the name bestowed upon the place. She was clad in skins and learned to use the guns with which, in strange mercy, she had been provided by her uncle; and it was not until more than two years had passed that she was rescued by some Maloine fishermen and found her way to her native land. Here she lived in seclusion until her death, which did not come until she had passed the number of years allotted to man.