e among the whites, he is anything but
taciturn with his own people. And he often would declaim, or narrate at
length, as indeed it is obvious, that these tribes possess great power
that way, if only from the fables taken from their stores, by Mr.
Schoolcraft.

I liked very much to walk or sit among them. With the women I held much
communication by signs. They are almost invariably coarse and ugly, with
the exception of their eyes, with a peculiarly awkward gait, and forms
bent by burthens. This gait, so different from the steady and noble step
of the men, marks the inferior position they occupy. I had heard much
eloquent contradiction of this. Mrs. Schoolcraft had maintained to a
friend, that they were in fact as nearly on a par with their husbands as
the white woman with hers. "Although," said she, "on account of
inevitable causes, the Indian woman is subjected to many hardships of a
peculiar nature, yet her position, compared with that of the man, is
higher and freer than that of the white woman. Why will people look only
on one side? They either exalt the Red man into a Demigod or degrade him
into a beast. They say that he compels his wife to do all the drudgery,
while he does nothing but hunt and amuse himself; forgetting that, upon
his activity and power of endurance as a hunter, depends the support of
his family; that this is labor of the most fatiguing kind, and that it
is absolutely necessary that he should keep his frame unbent by burdens
and unworn by toil, that he may be able to obtain the means of
subsistence. I have witnessed scenes of conjugal and parental love in
the Indian's wigwam from which I have often, often thought the educated
white man, proud of his superior civilization, might learn an useful
lesson. When he returns from hunting, worn out with fatigue, having
tasted nothing since dawn, his wife, if she is a good wife, will take
off his moccasons and replace them with dry ones, and will prepare his
game for their repast, while his children will climb upon him, and he
will caress them with all the tenderness of a woman; and in the evening
the Indian wigwam is the scene of the purest domestic pleasures. The
father will relate for the amusement of the wife, and for the
instruction of the children, all the events of the day's hunt, while
they will treasure up every word that falls, and thus learn the theory
of the art, whose practice is to be the occupation of their lives.

Mrs. Grant speaks thus of