Indian women

“ It is difficult for the white men and women of this day to conceive of the Indian code of morals or to appreciate how perfectly it fitted their wandering life or to understand how trustfully and innocently the young Indian woman met the white strangers when they came. No exploring or hunting party, however difficult or arduous the journey, ever lacked Indian women to go with it, and no white man had any difficulty at any time in obtaining a companion for his camp or home, nor from the Indian point of view was there anything indelicate or immoral in this. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the matter of the social elevation of their sex, it appears to the writer that Anglo-Indian ladies fall far short of what they might do. A fair number do interest themselves in their Indian sisters through the lady missionaries and lady doctors, but first-hand knowledge of the lives of Indian women is very rare indeed. ”

“ It is commonly said that Indian women have a poise, quietness, and reserve different to that in Western women.
"Boldness in women is another fact connected with the above. Indian men and women should not try to follow Western manners. They have hereditary manners which should not be deserted. Indian women can keep their modesty and reserve even while mixing with men. If co-education is made a slow development this difficulty will not appear. ”

“ Side by side with these Indian women who guard jealously the customs and traditions of other days are the Westernized society women, who seem to share with their husbands in the spirit of imitation that has entered into the very soul of the Indian people who have come into contact with the English. ”

“ This pride dominates some Indian women. They look up to their husbands find serve them still, but the love that prompts it is wholly unlike the old slavish fear. They work as hard, but with a new motive.
The Indian woman now knows the children playing about her door will not be torn from her". In heathenism time if a woman had no children, or her children died, it was considered a sufficient reason for putting her away for a younger, stronger woman. This is not allowed by Christian Indians. The only living child of a Christian chief had no children. ”

“ The book of Indian womanhood has many pages, and each page is different, one from the other. Living in a wide continent, the speech of one group of women is not as the speech of another. And in faith they are not one, nor in blood nor habit. But though the leaves of the book are of various type, yet they are all of one shape, bound in one cloth and colour. For to all of them, above all else, is contentment with their own womanhood, faith in religion and the natural hope of love. An unremitting devotion and an unfailing tenderness, that is the Indian woman’s service in the world ”

“ Notwithstanding the homage paid to women, and the consequence allowed them 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.... ”

“ It was a constant pleasure to observe the movements of the younger Indian women, who in their appearance and demeanour, were far superior to the men. This difference arises from their habits and employment. The women have a certain kind of dignity in their manner, caused, in a great measure, by their usage of carrying water jars and pans of crockery poised upon their heads. They therefore walk slowly and hold themselves upright. ”

“ One thing respecting the Indian women is worthy of attention, and perhaps of imitation, although it is now a days considered beneath the dignity of the ladies, especially those who are the most refined ”

“ The Indian women are not in general so prolific as those of the white race. I imagine this defect is owing to the vicious and dissolute life they lead since the introduction of spirituous liquors. Among our Christian Indians, we have had a couple who had been converted for thirty years and had always led a regular life, and who had thirteen children. ”

“ The astonishing ease and success with which the Indian women pass through the most painful and most trying of all human difficulties, which fall exclusively to the lot of the gentler sex; is quite equal, I have found from continued enquiry, to the representations that have often been made to the world by other travellers, who have gone before me. ”

“ I should observe, that when an Indian woman gives herself to a white man, she considers herself as his wife to all intents and purposes. If forsaken by him, she considers herself as injured, not disgraced. There are great numbers of white settlers and traders along the borders living thus with Indian women. Some of these have been persuaded by the missionaries or magistrates to go through the ceremony of marriage ”

“ 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." ”

“ If the proceedings of this female council appear rather too episodical for direct historical narrative, they are nevertheless illustrations of Indian manners and character. It is, moreover, a satisfaction thus to secure from oblivion, and preserve, a document bearing beautiful testimony, that even in a barbarous state of society, women are still found foremost in the conservation of virtue, and as persevering peace-makers in the midst of anarchy and strife. And besides, the females of no other race have had so little justice done to their character as those of the American Indian. ”

“ With regard to the seclusion of women, at some points the custom seems to be slowly yielding to Western ideas, although it is still practically true that Indian ladies are never seen in society and in the streets of Indian cities. ”

“ INDIAN SOCIAL LIFE There is no woman in the world who is so bound down by custom, so tied to the wheel of conventionality, as is the Indian woman, both Hindu and Mohammedan. In the olden times the ancient law-makers realized the danger menacing a people surrounded by an inferior race, as were the natives of India compared to their Aryan invaders, and instituted that remarkable social system that peculiarly affects the women of the country, and is the cause of many of the evils that has made her life one not to be envied—caste. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Battling for very life,--and, in their bewilderment and lack of racial organization, often turning their weapons against each other instead of the common foe,--the Indians were soon reduced to the condition of mere wandering and militant tribes, their culture forgotten and indeed inapplicable to the changed conditions. In this state of affairs all that was not strictly military became worthless; and so woman, save as leader or Amazon, lost her rightful position in Indian society. She now became, indeed, a mere chattel, a slave, even a detriment, however necessarily tolerated. ”

“ CHRISTIANITY means everything to the Indian woman; not only life and light, but also love and hope. It found her chattel, it made her owner; it found her man's slave, it made her his companion.
An Indian who knew all the depths of woman's wretchedness among his people said: "The poorest white man makes a better husband than the best Indian." ”

“ The duties of the women, are to skin the game when brought home and prepare the skins for market, to cook, to make the camp, cut and carry wood, make moccasins, plant and gather the corn, beans and pumpkins, and do all the drudgery connected with the domestic affairs. It is the commonly received opinion among the whites that the female Indians are the slaves of their husbands. ”

“ But there are at least some essentials in which the womanhood of the Indian middle classes becomes congruous, differing therein from the women of other countries, Europe for instance, or America or China. ”

“ But she thought the position of woman was changing for the better. Even among the Indians a better feeling is beginning to prevail. It is Indian etiquette for the man to kill the deer or bear, and leave it on the spot where it is struck down for the woman to carry home. She must drag it over the ground or carry it on her back as best she may, while he quietly awaits her coming in the family wigwam. A certain Indian, after observing that white folks did differently by their women, once resolved to follow their example. ”

“ The Indian women, who, from motives of attachment to particular families, or for the purpose of carrying on the small traffic, already mentioned, were wont to pass their summers near the settlers, were of detached and wandering families, who preferred this mode of living to the labour of tilling the ground, which entirely devolved upon the women among the Five Nations. ”

“ At present, however, the result produced in this direction has been very small, and it is only by looking back and seeing how much has been accomplished for Indian women on other lines during the last few years that we can have courage to persevere in the face of the enormous difficulties still to be overcome. Of the scheme for helping young high-caste widows, which has been started by the Pundita Eamabai, we shall speak hereafter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As to the Indian women, they are far from complaining of their lot. On the contrary, they would despise their husbands could they stoop to any menial office, and would think it conveyed an imputation upon their own conduct. ”

“ They are, like all other Indian women, the slaves of their husbands: being obliged to perform all the domestic duties and drudgeries of the tribe, and not allowed to join in their religious rites or ceremonies, nor in the dance or other amusements. ”

“ Bearing these facts in mind, we shall be better able to understand the difficulties that lie in the way of Indian ladies, who wish to lay aside the restraints with which a thousand years of unbroken custom has bound their sex, and to accept the education and the social freedom and independence which we are so anxious to offer them, and we shall be better able to appreciate the courage and the force of character possessed by those who have succeeded in carrying such a design into execution. ”

“ Such a gathering as this must do a great deal towards the breaking down of the wall of seclusion and exclusiveness with which Indian women are surrounded, and there can be but little doubt that more frequent opportunities of social intercourse with cultivated Englishwomen would prove most helpful to them. ”

“ Sorabji and her daughters is no doubt exceptional, and it must not be supposed that every Indian woman to whom the same advantages may be offered would make as good a use of them. They have, however, proved beyond all possible doubt that Indian women are, under favourable circumstances, quite as capable as English women of high educational development, and moreover, that such development renders them all the better qualified to serve their generation, either in the domestic circle as wives, mothers, and daughters, or in the more extended sphere of teachers and workers. ”

“ The Indian women who are obliged to lead lives of severe toil and drudgery, become exceedingly healthy and robust, giving easy birth and strong constitutions to their children; which, in a measure, may account for the simplicity and fewness of their diseases, which in infancy and childhood are very seldom known to destroy life. ”

“ The book is a statement of the positions which are open to women in Western countries, and an urgent plea for the opening of these doors to the women of the East also. Although lacking in the realization of the difficulty of suddenly making so great a change in India, the book is well worthy of notice as indicating the stirrings of a new life among Indian women. ”

“ These dancing girls share with their sisters, the nautch girls, the only real freedom given to Indian women. The latter are taught to read and write, to play musical instruments, and to make themselves attractive and charming to men. ”