Indian maiden

“ To the tales of her beloved father would the fair maiden listen with great delight, for they accorded with the belief in wonderful events and supernatural appearances, which is early impressed on the mind of every Indian, and never leaves him but with life. ”

“ The Indian braves should carry bows, arrows, and tomahawks.
THE INDIAN MAIDENS. The Indian maidens should wear tan fringed dresses, of the same length and fashion as that of Pocahontas. Necklaces and bracelets of shells. The necks of the dresses embroidered in beads and shells. They wear their long black hair in two braids, the ends of the braids bound either with scarlet, corn-yellow, or vivid blue. They have moccasins and tan-colored stockings. Their bead' embroidered footgear should be in striking color on a tan background. But their chief glory is their blankets. ”

“ Among friends she sparkles, and laughs and gossips with her neighbors over a figurative back fence just as you do in Virginia or Vermont. Just living, loving, joyous, or sorrowing women are these brown-skinned sisters of ours.
Were I looking for inspiration to paint a Madonna I would turn my steps toward the Painted Desert, and there among the Indian people I would find my model. Indian mothers are real mothers. Their greatest passion is mother-love. ”

“ In her youth she hunted, and was accounted the surest eye and fleetest foot among the women of her tribe. Her talents, energy, activity, and strength of mind, and her skill in all the domestic avocations of the Indian women, have maintained comfort and plenty within her dwelling in spite of the losses sustained by her husband, while her descent from the blood of their ancient chiefs renders her an object of great veneration among the Indians around, who, in all their miseries, maladies, and difficulties, apply to her for aid or for counsel. ”

“ How unlike the attitude of the Indian is to the westerner’s silly notions of beauty, fine shape, and grace wherein pregnancy is made an object of more or less open ridicule. Would that the women of America and other western countries would forsake their restlessness and nervousness and learn from their humbler eastern sisters the art of possessing poise, composure, and serenity! Would that they would imitate the eastern mother’s delicate benevolence, generosity of heart, loftiness of mind, and independence and pride of character! ”

“ And, for a Hindu woman, “the best is yet to be.” When she arrives at the dignity of Grandmother, ruling a household of daughters-in-law, she has indeed entered upon her kingdom. The son, who as infant first added to her stature, lavishes upon her in old age respect and affection which any woman might envy. Indeed, the relation of mother and son, even of widowed mother and son in India now, when her life is near its close, is the most beautiful perhaps of all Indian family relationships. ”

“ The Indian woman is the true and faithful companion of her husband's fortunes. She works incessantly at her appropriate tasks. She grinds the corn for the tortillias and atolé of the family, and carries them to her husband wherever he is at work ”

“ The Indian woman has, so far, been only a beast of burden. The girl, when arrived at maturity, was disposed of like an article of trade. The Indian wife was treated by her husband alternately with animal fondness, and with the cruel brutality of the slave-driver. Nothing will be more apt to raise the Indians in the scale of civilization than to stimulate their attachment to permanent homes, and it is woman that must make the atmosphere and form the attraction of the home. She must be recognized, with affection and respect, as the center of domestic life. ”

“ Long centuries of oppression made the Indian woman thankful for even a poor specimen of a man. Thrice happy was her lot when she was taken for wife by a decent white man. In her inarticulate way she greatly rejoiced and sacrificed herself for him gladly. There are many people in Oregon and Washington who have Indian blood in their veins, and few, very few, of them have ever had reason to blush for their Indian mothers. ”

“ If they grew up they were to become the burden-bearers of their masters of the other sex. An Indian mother has been known to take her little baby girl out into the woods and stuff its mouth with grass and leaves and leave it to die. ”

“ That a wife may not take her husband’s name is a very general rule throughout India.
Out of all this knot of etiquette, born, it [Pg 120] seems to me, of some distorted view of danger to modesty, as well as of a becoming respect and reverence, it is hard to disentangle the Indian conception of the love of a maid for a man. But this is certain, it is unlike what is the ideal in the West. There is worship; he is her God; he has brought God close to her. She is created to serve him with all her powers of mind and body, to serve and never criticize or question. ”

“ Enraged at their foe for his daring and at the girl for deserting her people, the pursuing warriors killed them both on the spot and left their bodies where they fell—the great braids of the maiden's hair encircling her lover's neck.
From this spot sprang the violets; and the winds and birds carried the seeds of the little flowers over all the world, into all countries where men dare and maidens love, so that the Indians of all ages might know that the Great Spirit would always raise a monument to true love and bravery. ”

“ Under the tribal government of the Indians, the rights of women were respected and clearly defined. She was the head of the house, and all property, save an insignificant amount, descended at death to her. She was in many tribes personified as the principal object of worship, prayer and adoration, in the tutelary goddess of the tribe. Now all is changed. The Indian of to-day is not the Indian of fifty years ago, and cannot be studied in the same light. His manners, customs and habits are all changed, and polygamy, more and more, creeps in with all its appalling degradations. ”

“ Missionaries, philanthropists, educational and social reformers, have all made the condition of Indian women their theme, and have painted in dark and forcible colours the picture of their degradation, their helplessness, their ignorance, the cruel treatment and dreadful sufferings to which millions of them are exposed, and the dull, empty, colourless lives of even the happiest among them. ”

“ This reply seemed to arouse an irrational anger in the Briton.
“'Winona, Sweet Indian Maid'—sweet Indian Maid!” he snorted. “Did an Indian write such a nightmare? Is it a war song? Do they murder each other by it, or with it?” ”

“ Marriages among the Indians are not, as with us, contracted for life; it is understood on both sides that the parties are not to live together any longer than they shall be pleased with each other. The husband may put away his wife whenever he pleases, and the woman may in like manner abandon her husband. Therefore the connexion is not attended with any vows, promises, or ceremonies of any kind. An Indian takes a wife as it were on trial, determined, however, in his own mind not to forsake her if she behaves well, and particularly if he has children by her. ”

“ Far away, in North America, where the Red Indians dwell, there lived a long time ago a beautiful maiden, who was lovelier than any other girl in the whole tribe. Many of the young braves sought her in marriage, but she would listen to one only—a handsome chief, who had taken her fancy some years before. So they were to be married, and great rejoicings were made, and the two looked forward to a long life of happiness together, when the very night before the wedding feast a sudden illness seized the girl, and, without a word to her friends who were weeping round her, she passed silently away. ”

“ It was astonishing what good women the native women were, and how patiently and honestly they toiled and suffered for their worthless husbands. Afterwards when the white men came, the chance to marry one of the King George men or Bostons was to an Indian woman a chance to enter paradise. No white husband was ever as bad as an Indian, and however drunken and worthless the white man might be considered to be by his own people, he was a marvel of husbandly virtues in the eyes of his native wife. ”

“ Falling into communion with this happy philosophy of life, the glory of Indian motherhood crosses our path—and there are few things more beautiful. When the day of expectation dawns upon her, she seeks the solitude of all the majesty in which from childhood she has seen the footprints of God—revels, communes, rehearses to herself the heroism of the greatest hero of her tribe, and all that the impress of it may be felt upon the master man, the miracle of whose life has been entrusted to her to work out. ”

“ It is to be hoped, however, that as more liberal views respecting women gain ground generally in India, their influence may spread to the Mahometan section of the community.
It would be impossible to close this brief survey of the woman question in India without alluding to the very great sympathy and help shown to Indian women in America, and by American ladies in India. American missionaries and lady doctors are working hard in India itself, and the United States have become a second home to more than one brave Indian woman. ”

“ If the condition of the wife under Hinduism is inferior to that of married women under Christianity, which has been questioned by some English writers, her status as a mother is one of supreme authority. Throughout the Indian Empire, the mother is the practical, actual head of the family. ”

“ Nor would I intimate that woman purposely stoops to degrade herself. The Indian loves his dusky maid with a deep sincerity of heart; but that love does not prevent him from acquiescing in the common custom of his people, and making her his drudge, and regarding her as his inferior and his life-bound slave. ”

“ To this secluded place the woman, with some elderly female relatives, goes at the time the child is to be born, and there, in a sitting posture, her hands grasping a strong stick driven into the ground before her, she is delivered of her babe, which is received and cared for by her companions. Rarely is the Indian mother’s labor difficult or followed by a prolonged sickness. ”

“ In Calcutta, in Bombay, in Madras, and indeed in all the principal cities of India, one may already meet native ladies, both Hindu and Mahomedan, of education and refinement, who, however few their numbers, are shining examples of what Indian womanhood can rise to when once it is emancipated from the trammels of antiquated custom. ”

“ The woman who has cast in her lot with an Indian, whose savagery is only veneered with civilized manners, will repent of her act, as all her sisters in misery have done before her. As a husband the American Indian is not a model, for even long training among white people fails to uproot his native idea that a woman is simply provided to bear him children and to do hard work which is beneath his dignity.— N. Y. Press. ”

“ The other was a woman, who being taken captive, found means to kill her captor, and make her escape, and the tribe were so struck with admiration at the courage and calmness she displayed on the occasion, as to make her chieftainess in her own right.
Notwithstanding the homage paid to women, and the consequence allowed her in some cases, it is impossible to look upon the Indian women, without feeling that they do occupy a lower place than women among the nations of European civilization. ”

“ Already men and women are proud of the Indian blood in their veins, and more and more this feeling will grow, but at this early time the Indian wife could only be happy in her native land, and was unfitted for any other ”

“ Their bearing is dignified; their faces are earnest and solemn; and each one treads the earth as a king.
Indian women are sometimes very handsome when young; but the quantity of colored earth they use as paint does not hide half the dirt upon their faces. ”

“ The treatment of them by the Indian men was brutal to a degree that white women can hardly realize. Nevertheless they had a great deal of influence, and while an Indian in a fit of bad temper might in the evening knock down his tired squaw and leave her lying in the ashes by the fire, the next morning she would be his mistress of the household as usual. ”

“ The mother bathes herself and the newcomer in cold water, wraps him in his swaddling clothes of calico, straps him on his board cradle, suspends it on a limb, and goes on with the spinning or weaving that had occupied her a few minutes before. All Indian babies are direct gifts from the Powers That Be, and a token of said Powers' favor. A childless Indian wife is pitied and scoffed at by her tribe. ”

“ His presence added to his wife's difficulties in every way, and his conduct and conversation were calculated to strengthen the belief already held by many people, that the average Hindu is not likely to be benefited by visiting Europe or America, and that it will take years of education and experience to counteract the effects, on the minds of Indian men, of the belief in their absolute superiority to women, in which they have been trained for so many generations. ”

“ If we want the Indians to respect their women we must teach the women to respect themselves. I commend this object mainly to your consideration. The time will come when we will speak no more of Sioux and Apaches, but of good and orderly American citizens of Indian descent. ”

“ On the contrary, it may be doubted whether the females of the white people, even among nations of the most refinement, exercise a higher or more salutary degree of influence, than do the Indian women. Nor, when dead, are they treated with less respect than the warriors. "The greatest honors are paid to the remains of the wives of renowned warriors and veteran chiefs, particularly if they were descended themselves of a high family, which is by no means an indifferent thing among the Indians, who love to honor the merit of their great men in the persons of their relatives." ”

“ 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. ”