HURON WOMEN. 



XXXV 



of wampum with which to adorn herself for the village 

 dances.^ This provisional matrimony was no bar to a 

 license boundless and apparently universal, unattended 

 with loss of reputation on either side. Every instinct 

 of native delicacy quickly vanished under the influence 

 of Huron domestic life ; eight or ten families, and often 

 more, crowded into one undivided house, where privacy 

 was impossible, and where strangers were free to enter 

 at all hours of the day or night. 



Once a mother, and married with a reasonable per- 

 manency, the Huron woman from a wanton became a 

 drudge. In March and April she gathered the year's 

 supply of firewood. Then came sowing, tilling, and 

 harvesting, smoking fish, dressing skins, making cordage 

 and clothing, preparing food. On the march it was she 

 who bore the burden ; for, in the words of Champlain, 

 " their women were their mules." The natural effect 

 followed. In every Huron town were shrivelled hags, 

 hideous and despised, who, in vindictiveness, ferocity, 

 and cruelty, far exceeded the men. 



To the men fell the task of building the houses, and 

 making weapons, pipes, and canoes. For the rest, their 

 home-life was a life of leisure and amusement. The 

 summer and autumn were their seasons of serious em- 



1 " II s'en trouue telle qui passe ainsi sa ieunesse, qui aura eu plus de 

 vingt maris, lesquels Yingt maris ne sont pas seuls en la jouyssance de la 

 beste, quelques mariez qu'ils soient : car la nuict venue, les ieunes femmes 

 courent d'une cabane en une autre, come font les ieunes hommes de leur 

 coste, qui en prennent par ou bon leur semble, toutesfois sans violence 

 aucune, et n^en re9oiuent aucune infamie, ny injure, la coustume du pays 

 estant telle." — Champlain (1627), 90. Compare Sagard, Voyage dea 

 Hurons, 176. Both were personal observers. 



The ceremony, even of the most serious marriage, consisted merely 

 in the bride's bringing a dish of boiled maize to the bridegroom, together 

 with an armful of fuel. There was often a feast of the relatives, or of 

 the whole village. 



