Women of America / Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 10 (of 10)

by John Ruse Larus

The only reason that exists for believing the report of this interview, coming from the source it does, is the fact that it tells heavily against the recounter, though his invariable, smug self-conceit prevents him from seeing this aspect of the matter. The dignified reproach of Smith's neglect, the pathetic appeal to the courtesies which had been lavished upon him, she was too proud to allude to her rescue of his brains from the impending club,--and the proud anger which breaks forth in the determination that she will call him "father," as is her right, form a fine contrast to the petty and selfish attitude of her erstwhile friend, who would have "excused" her using the tender title of father, but that she was "a king's daughter" and so might by use of the word place him in a false position toward his patron, Prince Charles. Of course, this was the merest excuse; he knew perfectly well that such a thing was ridiculous; but he needed some excuse for his unmanly attitude toward the woman who had saved his life and whose father had called him friend. It is true that King James had objected to the "presumption" of Rolfe in marrying a "lady of royal birth "; but even that absurd attitude of the king gives no excuse for Smith, since between marriage with a "princess" and the mere use of the formal but affectionate title of "father" lay a broad gulf.

The contemptible captain met his savior no more; for the Lady Rebecca, as Pocahontas was now called, after being presented at court and winning universal admiration by her dignified bearing and lovable disposition, died of consumption just as she was about to set sail for her native land. She left one child, a son, by Rolfe, and through him her blood flows in the veins of some of the Virginia families of our own day. John Randolph of Roanoke made it his boast that he was one of the descendants of the Indian "princess"; but then John Randolph was very eccentric indeed in more ways than one.

If more than proportional space has been devoted to this history of Pocahontas, it is because in the narrative, and especially in the characteristic glimpse obtained through the excerpt from Smith's story of the interview, are to be found several very suggestive lessons as to the nature as well as status of the Indian woman in the time of the early colonists, before the new civilization had exerted any formative influence whatever upon the old. The dignity of bearing, the eloquence of speech, the modest and yet impressive demeanor of this child of the woods were of her nature and training, not grafted there by the environment in which she found herself during her residence in England. In the eyes of those who surrounded her she was but a savage; but to us she is far more, for she is representative of a race which has been greatly misunderstood. It was a typical Indian woman who stood in such splendid contrast to the time-serving and ungrateful Smith, who bore herself at court with all the native dignity of a princess of the blood royal, who showed herself in all essentials a better Christian and higher type of true civilization than the majority of those of Caucasian race with whom she came into contact. Such a woman as this was not the product of a state of unredeemed barbarism, neither could she have learned her dignity and self-possession among a people where her sex knew only degraded slavery. That she was the daughter of a chief was not of itself sufficient to rescue her from the usual lot of her sex, nor was her association with Englishmen--especially of the type of Smith, Argall, or even Rolfe himself--likely to change radically her modes of thought and lend to her any admirable qualities of nature or bearing that were not of her normal environment. So it is impossible to escape the conclusion that among the tribes of Virginia at least--and it is far from probable that these were peculiar in this respect--woman held a position far higher than is generally supposed. It is necessary to reconcile this theory with the known degradation of the Indian woman in after years, and this task is not impossible; but before so doing it is necessary that we retrace our steps to primitive conditions, in order to glance for a moment at the status of women among some of the Western tribes, which were in some respects more highly civilized than their brothers of the Eastern slope.

The red civilization of the East was fairly constant. Between the highest and the lowest of the tribes there was but little difference; the Delawares of the Lakes, the Hurons, the Senecas, the Potomacs, and all the rest of the innumerable tribes which inhabited the country east of the Alleghanies, as well as those dwelling in the Mississippi Valley, showed but little variation of civilization. In the West, however, it was widely different. It is true that there were on the plains many great tribes, such as the Sioux, the Pawnees, the Utahs, the Apaches, and others too numerous to specify, whose general status in the roll of civilization was of very slightly varying average; but there were also tribes which touched the highest and lowest points of Amerind culture. As an example of the latter, mention need be made only of the Pi-Utes, or "Digger" Indians, a tribe as degraded as the Australian aborigines themselves.

The Pi-Utes were the most abject and wretched of all American Indians; they lived chiefly on roots--whence their common name among the whites--and sometimes on offal. Yet even among these degraded people there existed, even up to a comparatively late period, a spirit of tribal devotion, at least if the story be true that is related of them, and which, as it deals with women, is here reproduced without pronouncement upon its entire credibility. It is--or was--said that, as the products of the chase were of great importance to this people, it was necessary that they should be armed with the most effective weapons in their reach, and so they contrived a peculiarly deadly poison with which to tip their small arrows. This poison was so noxious that its distillation from the plant which furnished it a plant of which the secret was known only to the "Diggers"--always resulted in the death of the person preparing the decoction. It would naturally be thought that the position of the individual who was to prepare the yearly stock of poison for the tribe was one that would be shunned; but, on the contrary, there was an annual contest between the oldest squaws for the honor of becoming the sacrifice for the welfare of the tribe, and the successful competitor proudly gave her life that the rest might live.

For this story, though cited from good authority, one may well decline to vouch; but it is probably not untrue, since it is essentially of the Indian spirit. Be this as it may, the Pi-Utes unquestionably represented the most degraded aspect of Indian existence and nature. On the other hand, there were the Yumas--often called the Apaches--and the Maricopas, both agricultural tribes and most probably at one time dwellers in adobe houses. They understood the principles of irrigation and attained a high degree of Indian culture. Yet more remarkable in this respect were the Navajos, whose name is said to signify "large cornfields" and to have arisen from the extensive agriculture practised by the tribe. When they were first discovered by the Spaniards in 1541 they lived in large dwellings, partly subterranean, tilled the soil, irrigated their fields by means of artificial watercourses, or acequias, and generally displayed all the signs of the highest type of primitive civilization. Again, there were the Pueblo Indians, as they are generally known--the term is really ambiguous and probably includes many different tribes and even stocks, being given indiscriminately to the inhabitants of the ruined towns which have been found throughout Arizona and the adjacent territory. While the civilization of these town dwellers was most probably local rather than racial, an accident of situation and propinquity, it was none the less decided.

Now, among such tribes, in the most advanced state of red civilization, the status of woman was of necessity somewhat different even from that which she enjoyed among the Sioux, Comanches, or other of the great tent-dwelling peoples. Among the Navajos, who are chosen for example as being in many respects typical, the son followed the gens of his mother, the matriarchal system being in full force; while among the Sarcees, a kindred tribe, the mother-in-law was held in such respect that the husband of her daughter could not sit at meat with her, or even touch her, without rendering himself amenable to a fine. Yet polygamy existed among the Navajos, and marriage by purchase was the rule. Moreover, if we are to believe the accounts of the early explorers of the West, among all the southern tribes marital affection was practically unknown; the wife was a mere slave, and in some of the tribes so lax was the marital tie that it was not uncommon for friends to exchange wives in token of amity. So it would seem that the status of woman, contrary to the general rule, was higher where the outer signs of civilization were less marked. Except in the case of the Nehaunies, a tribe of eastern Alaska, there is no known instance of a Western gens being ruled by a woman, though, on the other hand, there seems to be little doubt that among the Navajos--whose religion was somewhat of the nature of that practised by the Aztecs, with which race they were indeed associated in stock--women at times bore a prominent part in the service of the gods, in the ceremonial of the rites and even in the reading of omens.

Conceding due consideration to the difficulty of formulating any general theory for the different tribes, even of the same scope of culture, it would yet seem certain that woman's place among the Western Amerinds was far inferior to that held by her in the East. Yet among the house dwellers, such as the Pueblos and Navajos, her lot must have been, in material matters, easier than that of her Eastern sister. In the agricultural nations we find the men doing the heavier portion of the labor incident to cultivation of the soil, though the women probably acted as sowers, gleaners, and the like, as do the peasant women of Europe to this day. On the whole, it is evident that the women of the advanced Western tribes were inferior in general status, but superior in ease of lot, to their sisters of the Atlantic slope.

It is now time to turn from the picture of the aboriginal woman as she stood at the time of the coming of the first settlers, and trace, as far as possible by general rule, the influences exerted upon her status by contact with the incoming civilization of the East. It is in the consequences of this influence that we may find an explanation of the lowering of the status of the Amerind woman; for the effect of that inroad of civilization was for long distinctly inimical to the development of the Indian. How far the theory of our culture was applicable to the needs of the Amerind can be only a subject of speculation, for the errors of application of that theory debarred the Indians from participation in any benefits which they might have received thereunder. The imperfect generalization which has been applied to the study of the American Indian is most conspicuous in error in its failure to take account of the marked degradation which ensued in the Indian character after the settlement of the country by the whites. It is not necessary or practicable here to trace the witness of this degradation in full strength; but it can be seen evidenced in the failure of the Indian woman to maintain her status, either of position or of character. We may indeed find a Queen Esther after the establishment of the colonists as owners of the country; but we never again see a Pocahontas. Under the incursions of a civilization which assumed its most repugnant form in its dealing with the Indians, there ensued on the part of the latter a reversion to a more barbarous type than had before been prevalent. Nor was this strange; for the necessities under which he found himself drove the Indian backward into barbarism. The influence of "firewater" upon the character of the red man has been often expatiated upon; but this was in truth but a small factor in the sum of the general result. A conquered race, driven from its strongholds into the primitive life of savagery to find means of sustenance, will always relapse into a state of barbarism; history is not wanting in examples of this truth. It was thus with the Indians of North America. Though the process was gradual, it was none the less sure; they found themselves involved in an unending contest for actual existence, and such a state is highly inimical to development along upward-tending lines. As has been inevitably the case in similar instances, they retrograded.

It is to this cause--never perhaps sufficiently considered in studies of the Indian nature--that must be referred much that would otherwise appear inexplicable. Even though the early colonists were as a rule ill disposed toward the Indians, as was befitting those who desired a pretext for wholesale robbery of territory, yet their narratives stand in sharp contrast to the tales of Amerind nature as we have them of later date, and in still greater contrast to our present knowledge. Instead of the progress for which one might look, if he should be of those who are convinced of the admirable effects of the introduction of our civilization, there was steady retrogression. The early colonists found a species of civilization, however crude; but it did not advance, or even continue. The Indians of the East, of course, felt the effect of the influx of white men long before their brethren of the West; and we will first glance at the effect here upon the status of woman from the new conditions.