ot always been the neglected and unconsidered creature that the
popular mind has accepted. Instead, she has held among many tribes a
higher place of power than man, and that by custom and in fact she was
held in high consideration. The condition of the aboriginal woman before
the advent of the white race was not that to which she fell as the
consequence of that advent. In the present work notable instances in
support of this view will be found. In considering the moral status and
the customs of the aborigines it should be borne in mind that morality
is standardized by nations or peoples for themselves, and the morality
of individuals must be measured by its relation to convention to this
respect. In this connection the author concludes that the morality of
the Indian woman is of at least average excellence. That contact with
the white man arrested--or as the author maintains "degraded"--the
progress of civilization, slow as that progress may have been among the
aborigines, cannot be doubted, nor that there was "a reversion to a more
barbarous type than had before been prevalent."

As we consider the principles of government among the North American
tribes we find that the matriarchal system prevailed. The Salic Law,
whether in its general or its restricted meaning, was little favored
among them. If in the history of these people a Queen Esther stands
forth as a cruel monster, did not proud Rome produce a Messalina? Or
need we go beyond the records of a later date of the people of one of
the most cultured nations of Europe? And yet Esther was among the foes,
the despoilers of her people, while Messalina found her victims among
her own people. It may not be amiss to recall the incident of Frances
Slocum as an evidence that the life of woman among the Indians was not
necessarily distasteful. Altogether, the author of this volume writes
sympathetically of the vanishing Amerinds,--which in no way lessens the
value of his study,--and furnishes many little known or hardly
remembered anecdotes of their women, while his succinct descriptions of
their polity and of the lot and place of woman among them is both highly
entertaining and instructive.

The women of Mexico and South America furnish scanty material for the
study of woman. Nevertheless, from the records of the Aztec civilization
the author has abstracted the salient features of the life of their
women. It will be seen that the Aztec woman enjoyed a higher status than
wa