em more intimately than anyone else, wrote (322),
that "the Indian regarded woman as the inferior, the dependent, and
the servant of man, and, from nature and habit, she actually
considered herself to be so." "Adultery was punished by whipping; but
the punishment was inflicted on the woman alone, who was supposed to
be the only offender" (331). "Female life among the Hurons had no
bright side," wrote Parkman (_J.C._, XXXIII.). After marriage,

"the Huron woman from a wanton became a drudge ... in
the words of Champlain, 'their women were their mules.'
The natural result followed. In every Huron town were
shrivelled hags, hideous and despised, who, in
vindictiveness, ferocity, and cruelty, far exceeded the
men."

The _Jesuit Relations_ contain many references to the merciless
treatment of their women by the Canadian Indians. "These poor women
are real pack-mules, enduring all hardships." "In the winter, when
they break camp, the women drag the heaviest loads over the snow; in
short, the men seem to have as their share only hunting, war, and
trading" (IV., 205). "The women here are mistresses and servants"
(Hurons, XV.). In volume III. of the _Jesuit Relations_ (101), Biard
writes under date of 1616:

"These poor creatures endure all the misfortunes and
hardships of life; they prepare and erect the houses,
or cabins, furnishing them with fire, wood, and water;
prepare the food, preserve the meat and other
provisions, that is, dry them in the smoke to preserve
them; go to bring the game from the place where it has
been killed; sew and repair the canoes, mend and stitch
the skins, curry them and make clothes and shoes of
them for the whole family; they go fishing and do the
rowing; in short, undertake all the work except that
alone of the grand chase, besides having the care and
so weakening nourishment of the children....

"Now these women, although they have so much trouble,
as I have said, yet are not cherished any more for it.
The husbands beat them unmercifully, and often for a
very slight cause. One day a certain Frenchman
undertook to rebuke a savage for this; the savage
answered, angrily: 'How now, have you nothing to do but
to see into my house, every time I strike my dog?'"

Surely Dr. Brinton erred grievously when he wrote, in his otherwise
admirable book, _The American Race_ (49),