THE INDIAN WOMAN.
BY MRS. A. L. RIGGS.
To describe an Indian woman is no easy task for one who lives among them, for every peculiarity becomes so familiar, and so interwoven with our common everyday experience, that we forget how strange and unlike white women she appeared to us at first. But she is a woman, even though she wears her shawl over her head and carries her baby on her back.
How uninteresting, you must think, and she probably thinks the same of you. She does not know that you care for her. She feels that she is different in some way, and most likely if you smile upon her she will not know it, for she is too modest even to look at you; but speak to her in a pleasant tone and offer to shake hands with her and notice her baby, and she begins to think that you are a woman. In her no trace of dignity nor Pocahontas beauty are discernible, but she is untidy in person and attire, her movements are decidedly lackadaisical. An uninteresting object, indeed, to one who does not care to help her. But we believe that she has a woman's heart; and more than that—she has a soul.
Her aspirations for herself are limited, but she wants her child to grow up in the white people's way. Yet how small her conception of how this is to be accomplished!
She is a heathen—hemmed in on every side by fear and superstition. Her gods are gods of fear. She believes in witchcraft, is afraid of a world full of evil spirits. Under a pagan religion her place is next to the mere animals. She goes with her husband to the hunt, not as a companion, but as the drudge, the human pack-horse; she prepares the food, and her husband devours it regardless of her needs; he may boast of his "old woman" as being "nina mimi heca" (swift or good to work) for that is the only accomplishment required in his selfish, egotistical mind. "The Indian woman comes into the world under a species of protest—every Indian parent desiring to have boys, rather than girls, hence she grows up into a condition of servitude." "In the Indian nation to purchase a wife is the honorable way, all other ways are dishonorable, and the man having bought his wife, although the custom of the country does not allow him to dispose of her to another, yet he may put her away, or leave her, at his pleasure. He may also whip her and beat her, for she is his money." I never shall forget one poor woman who came to me soon after we went to the Indian country. She showed me her back covered with the marks where her husband had beaten her.
Now I have given you a brief description of the Indian woman as we find her. What can be done for her? What would you do for her? There is only one thing. Help her to become a Christian. This is not to be accomplished in a hurry, for she is in bondage to her husband—to her religion. But faith and prayer, together with a genuine interest in the Indian home, can accomplish much. Desolate and comfortless though that home may be, it can be transformed, and the husband even can be made to see that there is something more real, something that is more satisfying, something that is more comforting than this life of fear and bondage to his heathen gods. "The man has more to give up than the woman if he becomes a Christian. If a woman changes her gods and her religion, no one cares very much; it is 'only a woman.' But a man must abandon his ancestral faith, which binds him more strongly than the woman, for the very reason that he is a man, and has been inducted into manhood through the ceremonies of his religion."
He can be led to see that his wife is worth more to him than his horse or his dog; and he begins to see that he can do some of the work which she has been obliged to do, and thus she is enabled to make home more attractive. With the dawn of Christianity comes the first effort toward civilized ways. The husband now brings the wood and water, and little by little a few household conveniences appear, such as chairs, a table, a few dishes; also knives and forks are used instead of fingers; even lambrequins are sometimes seen—hung, however, in the most absurd way, outside the shades—and we are astonished to see in some of the houses white counterpanes and ruffled pillow-shams. Also a U. S. T. D. blanket is often spread down for a carpet, and the rude, rough walls are covered with pictures cut from illustrated newspapers.
We find them ready and anxious to be taught many simple and needful domestic arts, such as making light bread and preparing wholesome dishes of food for the sick. The teaching of making light bread became quite an important part of my duties as a missionary's wife, and for the Indian women to take lessons in bread-making became quite fashionable.