women? Do they habitually
sacrifice their comfort and, in case of need, their lives for their
wives?

Dr. Brinton declares (_Am. R._, 48) that "the position of women in the
social scheme of the American tribes has often been portrayed in
darker colors than the truth admits." Another eminent American
anthropologist, Horatio Hale, wrote[209] that women among the Indians
and other savages are not treated with harshness or regarded as
inferiors except under special circumstances. "It is entirely a
question of physical comfort, and mainly of the abundance or lack of
food," he maintains. For instance, among the sub-arctic Tinneh, women
are "slaves," while among the Tinneh (Navajos) of sunny Arizona they
are "queens." Heckewelder declares (_T.A.P.S._, 142) that the labors
of the squaws "are no more than their fair share, under every
consideration and due allowance, of the hardships attendant on savage
life." This benevolent and oft-cited old writer shows indeed such an
eager desire to whitewash the Indian warrior that an ignorant reader
of his book might find some difficulty in restraining his indignation
at the horrid, lazy squaws for not also relieving the poor,
unprotected men of the only two duties which they have retained for
themselves--murdering men or animals. But the most "fearless" champion
of the noble red man is a woman--Rose Yawger--who writes (in _The
Indian and the Pioneer_, 42) that "the position of the Indian woman in
her nation was not greatly inferior to that enjoyed by the American
woman of to-day." ... "They were treated with great respect." Let us
confront these assertions with facts.

Beginning with the Pacific Coast, we are told by Powers (405) that, on
the whole, California Indians did not make such slaves of women as the
Indians of the Atlantic side of the continent. This, however, is
merely comparative, and does not mean that they treat them kindly,
for, as he himself says (23), "while on a journey the man lays far the
greatest burdens on his wife." On another page (406) he remarks that
while a California boy is not "taught to pierce his mother's flesh
with an arrow to show him his superiority over her, as among the
Apaches and Iroquois," he nevertheless afterward "slays his wife or
mother-in-law, if angry, with very little compunction." Colonel McKee,
in describing an expedition among California Indians (Schoolcraft,
III., 127), writes:

"One of the whites here, in breaking in his squaw to