"Let not the strong-minded Anglo-Saxon woman plume herself upon the discovery of the equality of the sexes. While our own female suffragists were yet unborn, the Pueblo wife had been accorded the inalienable right to lord it over her mankind.
"Among the Mexican cliff-dwellers, 'woman's rights' seem to have been as indigenous to the soil as the piñon and the prickly pear.
"In the primitive Pueblo domicile, the wife appears, by tribal consent, to have been absolutely 'cock of the walk.' The husband had no rights as owner or proprietor of the family mansion, and, as an inmate, was scarcely more than tolerated.
"The wife, in those ever-to-be-regretted days, not only built and furnished the house,—contributed to the kitchen the soup pot, water jars, and other primitive domestic appliances,—but figured as sole proprietor of the entire establishment.
"The Pueblo woman, though married, still had, with her children, her holding in her own clan. In case of her death, the man's home being properly with his clan, he must return to it.
"The wife was not allowed to work in the fields. Each man tilled the plot allotted him by his clan. The crops, once housed, were controlled by the woman, as were the proceeds of communal hunts and fisheries.
"The Pueblos had their system of divorce. It goes without saying that it was not attended by the red-tape complications of our time. As the husband's continuance under the family roof-tree depended absolutely on his acceptability to the wife, at any flagrant marital breach of good behavior she simply refused to recognize him as her lord. In vain he protested, stormed, and menaced; the outraged better half bade him go, and he went! Thus easily and informally were Pueblo marriages dissolved; and, this summary transaction once well concluded, each party had the right to contract a second marriage.
"The Pueblo Indian is historically known as a Catholic; that is to say, he told his beads, crossed his brow with holy water, and duly and devoutly knelt at the confessional. This done, he tacitly reserved to himself the privilege of surreptitiously clinging to the Paganism of his forbears, and zealously paid his tithe of observances at the ancient shrine of 'the Sun Father' and 'the Moon Mother.'
"Some of the Pueblo tribes are said still to retain the use of that ancient supplicating convenience, 'the prayer-stick.'
"'Prayer-sticks, or plumes,'" explained the Antiquary, "are but painted sticks tufted with down, or feathers, and, by the simple-minded Indian, supposed especially to commend him to the good graces and kindly offices of 'Those Above.' In a certain way, the aboriginal prayer-stick seems to have been a substitute for an oral supplication.