SPECIALIZATION AND DIVISION OF LABOUR. 343 



the world over, up from the earliest stages. Though by no 

 means uniform, and presenting remarkable exceptions, yet 

 they have usually a common character, determined partly 

 by the relative capacities and incapacities of the sexes, and 

 in rude societies determined partly by the ability of the 

 males to force on the females the least desirable occupations. 

 Without implying that savage men are morally inferior to 

 savage women (the last show just as much cruelty as the 

 first where opportunity allows) it is clear that among people 

 who are selfish in extreme degrees the stronger will ill-treat 

 the weaker; and that besides other forms of ill-treatment 

 will be that of imposing on them all the disagreeable tasks 

 they are able to perform. As typical of the division of 

 labour among the lowest races, may be taken that among 

 the Fuegians. While the men fight, hunt, and procure the 

 larger kinds of food, 



&quot; The women nurse their children, attend the fire, . . . make baskets 

 and water-buckets, fishing lines and necklaces, go out to catch small 

 fish in their canoes, gather shell-fish, dive for sea-eggs, take care of 

 the canoes, upon ordinary occasions paddle their masters about while 

 they sit idle. &quot; 



And a similar general contrast holds among the Andaman 

 Islanders, Tasmanians, Australians. 



Hunting tribes of higher types show us kindred appor 

 tionments of work: instance the Dakotas, Chippewayans, 

 Comanches, Chippewas. While the men fight, hunt, fish, 

 and undertake such occasional labour as requires strength 

 and skill building houses and making canoes to the 

 women is deputed all drudgery not beyond their strength; 

 and where, as among the Iroquois, a life partly agricultural 

 is led, women do all the farm-work. One striking contrast, 

 dependent on the modes of life, must be re-named. As 

 pointed out in 326, where, as among Chinooks, the occu 

 pations are such that sustentation is equally within the 

 powers of both sexes, women have a quite different status, 



and are treated with due consideration. 

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