hips than is the
European peasant woman of the present day.

On the other hand, it would seem that at least in some instances the
husband had absolute rights of life and death over his wife. In the not
very edifying--and probably even less authentic--autobiography of James
Beckwourth, the white man who was long chief of the Crow tribe, there is
related an incident where, his Blackfoot wife having shown disregard to
his commands, he coolly took up his war club and struck her on the head,
stunning her, and, as was thought at the time, killing her. The blow
turned out not to be fatal; but this does not obscure the point of the
incident, which lies in the fact that the father of the woman, who was
present, told Beckwourth that he had done perfectly right and acted
entirely as befitted a great warrior. Beckwourth rather plumed himself
upon his conduct,--though it is difficult to see wherein the incident
called for the display of any very heroic qualities,--and in his
narration almost apologizes for the fact that he did not strike quite so
hard a blow as he had intended; but, while the story has its amusing
features, our concern in the matter lies in the fact that such conduct
seems to have been entirely conventional. This incident occurred in the
beginning of the last century; but it is evident that it must have been
a survival of custom, and not a novelty introduced by a fresh
civilization.

Yet we hear at times of women taking part in the most important councils
of their nations, of their even leading warriors to battle, of their
exercise of all the functions of a ruler. Women have been made head
chiefs; a very notable instance of a woman ruler was the "Queen of
Pamunkey," who was the widow of Totapotamoi, a great Indian chief in the
Virginias. She came to one of the councils of the Virginia Burgesses in
the time of Berkeley, and was the recipient of much attention. She was
described as a woman of majestic presence, who entered the council
chamber "with a comportment graceful to admiration, grave court-like
gestures, and a majestic air on her face"; and through the quaint old
verbiage we can descry a woman of carriage and powers of intellect
remarkable in her race. Her dress was picturesque; she wore a sort of
crown of black and white wampum plaited together, and her fine figure
was covered by a robe of buckskin, dressed with the hair outward and
decorated with fringes--not impossibly scalplocks--from the shoulders to
th