Journeys of Survival: The Exigency of Movement and Migration
It seems to be generally accepted now that Athabaskan peoples such as the Eskimos and Inuits moved west around 1,700 years ago, perhaps as the boreal forest around Hudson Bay began to retreat due to climatic changes, bringing them into the more fertile and temperate regions beyond the Arctic Circle, and giving rise to such peoples as the Shawnee, Illinois, Foxes, Kickapoo, Miami and Menominee tribes, and later the Blackfoot and Cheyenne peoples. Those who had settled across what is now the border with Canada also migrated south, bringing them into our history, as they introduced the bow and arrow to America. These then would have been the historic ancestors of two of the bigger and more famous tribes of the Plains, the Apache and the Navajo.
As they moved across the continent, bigger tribes began to split and form newer ones, for various reasons, leading to the huge variety of Native American peoples who ended up inhabiting America, many of whom survive today, in one form or another. Western Sioux fragmented into Mandans, Hidastas and Crows, Eastern Sioux gave birth to Ioways, Missouris, Otos and Winnebagos. Given the tradition of storytelling and mythology that surrounds Native American history, and their lack of any written accounts, it’s hard to pin down exactly what happened (though the theory is pretty much discounted among archaeologists and scholars that some of them were, for instance, dropped onto the land by a huge eagle, or dreamed into life by a creator god). It is clear though, that the early history of these peoples involved much movement, transition, resettlement and migration as they progressed deeper across the continent, seeking the best farmland or hunting grounds or the most clement weather or abundant fishing. One thing is certain however: these peoples moved into a land unpopulated by other human beings, and displaced no other living civilisation. To paraphrase Woody somewhat, this land was most certainly their land.
However, lest it be somehow misinterpreted that these were all peace-loving,
mi casa su casa kind of people, consider the village at Crow Creek, on the Missouri in North Dakota, where evidence exists that 486 men, women and indeed children were killed, mutilated and scalped around 1325, in an apparent attempt at a land-grab.
A Woman’s Place: Gender Roles Among Native Americans
When the first explorers encountered their first, as they called them, Indians, they were shocked and often revolted at how backward and savage they were, in their eyes. These were no civilised people, and though they used them initially to gain knowledge of the New World and often tricked them into believing the Spanish conquerors friendly, in the minds of Europeans there were only two things that could be done for these heathen: convert them, or exterminate them. It’s of course an example of the massive hubris of the white man that he believed - and still believes, mostly - himself to be the shining star in the human cosmos, the very pinnacle of evolution, the arbiter of class and the decider as to who should, and does, live or die. There’s an old saying that men fear the unknown, and men in fear often resort to violence to assuage that terror; if you can’t convert it, kill it, might be an appropriate axiom for early European settlers, and to be fair, we as a race haven’t really advanced all that far from that idea.
But the truth of it is, the Native American peoples were far more civilised than the Europeans, far cleverer and far more in tune with nature, and in terms of gender politics and sexual equality they were centuries ahead of the luddites who eventually claimed the title of Americans. Based on a rigid class system that had held for thousands of years, Europeans could see little use for or value in women, other than for the obvious. Women could not vote, could not own property, could not own businesses or have any sort of independent wealth of their own. In the eyes of class and gender-conscious Europe (and this includes England of course, and Ireland) women were created to serve men; they were to stay at home, bring up the children, look after the house. They were to be courted, protected, defended and bullied, they were to be devalued and overlooked, condescended to and thought little of beyond marriage and breeding children. Their interests were totally separate to those of men, their ideas not worth the time it took to listen to, their endurance all but absent from their frail bodies and minds believed equally fragile and empty.
It took until the late nineteenth century for women to achieve any sort of proper standing in society, and the twentieth before their voice would be heard in decisions that affected them, before they could start speaking for themselves instead of having men speak for them. In Native American culture though, which had been around for, as we noted above, in the region of fourteen thousand years, and possibly longer, women were not only highly valued but were often given not only an equal, but a superior standing in society. We’ve spoken before of the matrilineal nature of some tribes, and the idea of matrilocation. But we’ve only sort of nodded to them in passing before moving on. Let’s take a proper look at those concepts, and how they were implemented in the society of early Native American man.
Here’s how Wiki defines the term:
Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's lineage – and which can involve the inheritance of property and/or titles. A matriline is a line of descent from a female ancestor to a descendant (of either sex) in which the individuals in all intervening generations are mothers – in other words, a "mother line". In a matrilineal descent system, an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as their mother. This ancient matrilineal descent pattern is in contrast to the currently more popular pattern of patrilineal descent from which a family name is usually derived. The matriline of historical nobility was also called their enatic or uterine ancestry, corresponding to the patrilineal or "agnatic" ancestry.
So essentially here, the woman has all the power. All lineal descent goes through her family, not that of her husband, and it’s her female children who stand to inherit any land, property or other bequest. In Native American terms, some of this has to do with many of their spirits and gods being female, such as Sky Woman and Bright Shining Woman, Owl Woman and even Mother Corn or Corn Mother (depending on tribe), one of the most vital staples upon which the peoples of early America subsisted. Martilienal progression also led to the clan mothers, who, though not actual leaders or chiefs, were in effect the power behind the throne in many Native American tribes, being the ones who chose the leaders and who could, if they were seen not to live up to their responsibilities or to fail the people, be replaced at the clan mothers’ command.
There’s no need for surprise that such a “savage” people should value women more than the so-called civilised Europeans. The wonder is that women were trod upon for so long in the western nations. After all, if there is one great power in this universe, mightier than all, it is life. Without life, nothing exists. And women are the only ones who can give life, bring life into the world. Native Americans recognised and celebrated that fact; they knew that without their women they would be doomed to die out as a race, and being a highly spiritual people, the cycle of life and death was very important to them, possibly a reason why older people too were revered and respected, perhaps believed to be closer to communing with the spirits of their ancestors, whom they would soon join, than the younger in the tribe.
We’ve touched on the role of women in the creation of the world, too, in Native American myths. We’ve met Corn Mother, Mother Corn or in some versions First Mother, but there’s also Big Turtle, who created and carried the world on her back, Star Woman, Hard Being Woman and Spider Woman (no, seriously). In the myths of the Arctic Athabaskan peoples, Sedna is the daughter of the creator, Anguta, and it is she who creates the world. There are plenty more examples, but we don’t want to get too bogged down in legends and myth. The fact is that Native Americans recognised and valued the role women played in their society; they prepared the kill so that it could be eaten and preserved, they made the clothes the people wore, they made baskets and decorations. They were in charge of sowing crops and gathering herbs and other plants for use in medicine, and for ritual ceremonies too.
And of course, women took care of the children they had brought into the world. While it was the man’s duty to instruct and train the males, the females would be taught by their mothers and her sisters how to cook, clean, prepare meat and so forth. An interesting effect of the matrilineal society was that it was not the father, or husband, who was the most important male member of the family, but the uncle or brother-in-law, usually the eldest brother of the wife. This was because the clan the mother belonged to was the one through which the line of succession passed, and since, as in most Native American tribes, the husband was generally of another clan, he (or his clan) had a much weaker claim upon his children.
In other words, the line of female succession decided who would be mentor and almost father figure to her children (even if they already had a father); as mentioned previously, the father - and most likely the uncle too - would often be away hunting or raiding, so many times the task of training the boys fell to the grandfather, the father of the wife, who would be too old to join any such party. Land was managed, and in some tribes actually seen to be owned, by the women, and parcelled out as they thought fit among their family and extended family.
Clan mothers were generally not elected or chosen, but descended as a hereditary right through the female line, so the title would be passed from mother to her sisters and then to her daughters and on to their daughters, and so on. Clan mothers were often responsible for giving every clan member its name, and Faithkeepers were charged with arranging weddings, funerals and other ceremonial rites. Legend, at least Iroquois legend has it that the Great Peacemaker, the greatest prophet in their mythology/history, who brought together the Five Nations during the twelfth century, first converted a woman, Jigonhsasee, and thereby she became the first clan mother. The legend goes on to explain that before the formation of the Five Nations there was war between the Hunters, a cannibal tribe made up exclusively of men, and the Cultivators, all women, who knew the secret of farming. When some of the men joined the women and the Hunters were defeated, the Great Prophet decreed that from that day forth, men and women should be equal, and that the clan mother should not lead the clan, but should choose its leaders, in a sort of perhaps very early power-sharing arrangement.
The Great Prophet put it thus:
The lineal descent of the People of the Five Nations shall run in the female line. Women shall be considered proprietors of the nation. They shall own the land and the soil. Men and women shall the status of the mother. (I’m assuming the missing word after “shall” is maybe “honour” or something like that).
The clan mothers also conduct what is known as the “cross-over ceremony”, which I guess is a coming of age/rite of passage/bar mitzvah thing, marking the end of childhood and the onset of adolescence. These involve fasting, meditation, teaching and a period of seclusion lasting twenty days. During this time, the clan mothers are on hand to provide advice and encouragement to the fasters. Once the ceremony reaches its end there is a big dance and festival to welcome the ex-children into the world of adolescence. We’ve heard of the “mourning wars” the Iroquois and other tribes would launch when a member of a clan died and they wished to find a replacement, or alternatively find someone to torture to death so as to assuage the clan’s grief. Well, those were apparently also under the control of the clan mothers, showing further the power of women to urge the men on to violent action by calling them cowards if they did not obey the order.
In his
Iroquois Culture and Commentary , Doug George-Kanentilio writes
“In our society, women are the center of all things. Nature, we believe, has given women the ability to create; therefore it is only natural that women be in positions of power to protect this function. ... We traced our clans through women; a child born into the world assumed the clan membership of its mother. Our young women were expected to be physically strong. ... The young women received formal instruction in traditional planting. ... Since the Iroquois were absolutely dependent upon the crops they grew, whoever controlled this vital activity wielded great power within our communities.
It was our belief that since women were the givers of life they naturally regulated the feeding of our people. ... In all countries, real wealth stems from the control of land and its resources. Our Iroquois philosophers knew this as well as we knew natural law. To us it made sense for women to control the land since they were far more sensitive to the rhythms of the Mother Earth. We did not own the land but were custodians of it. Our women decided any and all issues involving territory, including where a community was to be built and how land was to be used. ...
In our political system, we mandated full equality. Our leaders were selected by a caucus of women before the appointments were subject to popular review....Our traditional governments are composed of an equal number of men and women. The men are chiefs and the women clan-mothers. ... As leaders, the women closely monitor the actions of the men and retain the right to veto any law they deem inappropriate. ... Our women not only hold the reigns of political and economic power, they also have the right to determine all issues involving the taking of human life. Declarations of war had to be approved by the women, while treaties of peace were subject to their deliberations.”
The Omnipresent Mother-in-Law: Matrilocal Tradition in Native American tribes
Oh yes, there was no escaping the dreaded mother-in-law if you were part of, or married into a matrilineal society. You were expected to move in with your new bride’s mother, and she and her sisters and aunts would be at you night and day, pointing out all your little inadequacies (hey, it’s cold out, you know?) to your wife. You’d probably kill - literally - for the chance to get away from the jabbering women on a hunt or raiding party. Hell, you might even hope you didn’t make it back!
But seriously, this was the tradition. The couple either lived in or near the wife’s mother’s house, and she, the mother, would be very involved in the raising of the children, who would always be brought up as part of her clan, not his. If a man misbehaved or brought shame upon his wife, he had no right to be in the house (whether they lived with or close to the mother) and could be ordered by law to leave the gaffe. Any children from the marriage remained, of course, the property or at least the responsibility of the woman, and the husband might never see them again if he strayed.
Finally, and linked to both the above, there is matrifocality, which occurs when the power of the household is centred in the hands of the mother; she makes all the big decisions, keeps the family together and is the main voice in the family. The husband may not even be very much involved in the family, almost seen as a visitor at times, and certainly would not be able to override any orders or edicts put down by the mother (who would be his mother-in-law): a fate worse than death for many men, especially on our side of the divide! But despite hysteria that such a “topsy-turvy” way of doing things would result in disaster, giving the women so much power that the men would become little more than subservient sperm donors, this method worked for tens of thousands of years for the Native Americans (not all, but many) and even then, the men remained proud and noble warriors, and any outsider coming into their society would view them as being the ones in charge. Further proof, perhaps, of the cunning way the clan mothers manipulated their power, or maybe just proof that women could be in charge without it going to their heads.