The historical record and the general conventional wisdom about the role and place of women in indigenous society has been largely determined by white historians, clergymen, and others who viewed women from a western, colonial point of view. Most primary records speak of women in highly derogatory terms, often casting them as nothing more than beasts of burden and nearly slaves to men. This is especially the case of Indian women who were attached to European men, whereby they were viewed by settler society as something less than human at times – with terms like ‘sauvage’ or ‘sauvagesse’ being used to describe them. While the Europeans maintained a generally negative view of the Indian women they sometimes took as ‘country brides’ – perhaps leading to the desire of mixed-blood children to often attach themselves to their native communities, or later to become an independent ‘Metis” nation in the Red River region – the status of women in the traditional Indigenous cultures was much different and one that was (more or less) egalitarian. In most indigenous cultures, labor was a process wherein each person played a role that, while not the same, was equally important and valued. For instance, while hunting and trapping were tasks carried out by men, the processing of the food and the tanning of hides was a female domain. This did not mean that the women were performing as workhorses for the men, but rather that they were doing what they did best and making sure that the hides were processed correctly in order to gain the highest prices at the trading posts. Even more so, women had an ownership stake in these furs and hides and it was reported by many fur trade journals that Indian women were very shrewd negotiators – often better than the men. Women were the experts at gathering wild plant foods and medicines; during canoe building, while the men fashioned the frame of the birch-bark canoe and made the paddles, the women were the experts at sewing the bark and sealing the seams to create a watertight boat. During large-scale hunts, women were an essential part of the action. As soon as the men killed a large number of buffalo, they were quickly relegated to a subservient role to the women who led the effort in skinning, tanning, making pemmican, and more, with men acting as ‘fetchers’ and general laborers for the women. Women knew how to best build lodges; they were valued for their skill at fashioning beautiful clothing for their families; they were the artists of the people, making beautiful beadwork, quillwork, and decorations; and they were the on-the-ground leaders at the annual maple and wild rice gathering efforts of the people.
If we are to decolonize as Indigenous people, we need to cast off the European ideas that women were nothing more than chattel and draft animals. While this might have been true for some of the early Indian women who had the misfortune of being selected as wives by voyageurs and traders, that was not their actual role in traditional society.
12 Comments
connie Neault
12/30/2018 08:32:41 pm
excellent artic le, women were educated in the Metis
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Rosette Moerangi Falaoa
1/5/2019 09:35:36 pm
Only white women had the same value as chattel. Indigenous women the world over were viewed as vital to the quality of life and the continuation of the future generations.
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MaryAnn Hardy
2/6/2019 07:42:49 pm
he color of skin, white or brown had nothing to do with how women were treated. All early cultures and societies depended on division of labor in order to survive. White women also did their jobs--"women's work." They were thought of as "chattel" so far as the law applied to them. But indigenous women also were held in to their roles and could not break out of them, nor were they more "appreciated" before European colonization. There was no word for "thank you" in the northern Canadian languages until "Merci" became "Mahsi." That interesting fact should indicate a cultural attitude. Try to understand WHO the first colonizers were: tough, unsentimental men who would not have said "thank you" if their lives depended on it. They would have treated their white wives as harshly as their "country wives." Their lives depended on their women (white or indigenous) doing the "women's work" and doing it well enough for survival. Indigenous men required the same from their mates. There was no room for romantic notions, because life depending on geography, for early societies was hard, hard work. Today, there are government subsidies, government welfare, support systems of all kinds. No one starves and there is a TV and video games in every home...denoting plenty of leisure time. Hunter-gatherers did have leisure time, but not much, and early colonists were in the same boat. Try to imagine the daily life of anyone living in say... 1600. If women were ill-treated (and by many accounts and by today's standards they WERE), it was because that kind of life hardly allows gentility.
Fern
12/30/2018 10:25:01 pm
Your page is a great resource. It describes my family history accurately and confirms the knowledge I have discovered. Thank you for your ongoing contribution to truth.
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Heather Morigeau
1/1/2019 10:50:11 am
My great aunt Sophie Morigeau was one of those shrewd businesswomen mentioned above
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Mark
1/2/2020 01:39:23 am
If Sophie was your great Aunt you must be quite old as I believe she was perhaps in her early 80s when she died here in Eureka Montana in 1916
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Mikki
1/2/2019 08:16:07 am
Thank you for sharing many are aware
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Tracey Henare
1/5/2019 06:15:30 pm
Wahine TOA
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Jacqueline Clarissa
1/5/2019 11:12:11 pm
When one researches and grasp the difference between Legal/Law term definitions of commerce... over the poetic English language. Anyone can easily realize it is a game of language definition. A savage in English is someone who is degraded, less than human.
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MaryAnn Hardy
2/6/2019 08:10:01 pm
Re: "that prevented them from rapping the land for their colonial parasitical commercial profits..."
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MaryAnn Hardy
2/6/2019 08:20:12 pm
Would you be so kind as to point out where in the Canadian Civilization Act that "all must partake in booze and bread when offered, or they are legally shot dead..." I would be grateful for some help in finding it.
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Jordan thoms
3/20/2019 01:33:31 am
The role of anyone who couldnt write was seen as "savage" and those that could write were few, given that notion I never saw indigenous women as being workers for the man. In fact I would say if anything much of what I was taught glorifed indigenious cultures of Canada for their eglatrain socieites and respect for peoples. For example on netflix show frointer (not that i see a whole lot of historical accurary), the lake walker tribe shows that in cree society women and male were chefs and leaders in their soceity. I can only imagine the amount of historical texts that speak of indian women poorly, but those texts are massively bias of upper class beliefs, ex. I doubt David Thompson saw his wife as some sort of servant.
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AuthorA collaborative effort of members of the Ojibwe and Metis communities Archives
May 2019
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