at times bore a prominent part in the service of the gods, in the
ceremonial of the rites and even in the reading of omens.

Conceding due consideration to the difficulty of formulating any general
theory for the different tribes, even of the same scope of culture, it
would yet seem certain that woman's place among the Western Amerinds was
far inferior to that held by her in the East. Yet among the house
dwellers, such as the Pueblos and Navajos, her lot must have been, in
material matters, easier than that of her Eastern sister. In the
agricultural nations we find the men doing the heavier portion of the
labor incident to cultivation of the soil, though the women probably
acted as sowers, gleaners, and the like, as do the peasant women of
Europe to this day. On the whole, it is evident that the women of the
advanced Western tribes were inferior in general status, but superior in
ease of lot, to their sisters of the Atlantic slope.

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. How far the theory of our culture was
applicable to the needs of the Amerind can be only a subject of
speculation, for the errors of application of that theory debarred the
Indians from participation in any benefits which they might have
received thereunder. The imperfect generalization which has been applied
to the study of the American Indian is most conspicuous in error in its
failure to take account of the marked degradation which ensued in the
Indian character after the settlement of the country by the whites. It
is not necessary or practicable here to trace the witness of this
degradation in full strength; but it can be seen evidenced in the
failure of the Indian woman to maintain her status, either of position
or of character. We may indeed find a Queen Esther after the
establishment of the colonists as owners of the country; but we never
again see a Pocahontas. Under the incursions of a civilization which
assumed its most repugnant form in its dealing with the Indians, there
ensued on