266 Singing Valleys 



The Zunis, who maintained a large population in their pueblos 

 by their irrigated and carefully cultivated maize fields, had 

 elaborate rituals connected with corn-growing. At the head of 

 their college of priests was a woman, called the Priestess of 

 Fertility. Other tribes had woman shamans, and even the male 

 shamans dressed in women's attire for their ceremonies. The 

 good brothers of St. Francis felt it necessary to burn alive a 

 number of these priests and priestesses of the earth before they 

 could establish Christianity in San Francisco. It is interesting 

 that the monks who were so horrified at the Indian shamans 

 also had set aside their masculine breeches, and wore skirts 

 like women. 



In all the North American tribes women exercised a re- 

 markable power. At marriage, the woman did not leave her 

 home for her husband's. Instead, the husband came to live 

 with her and her parents. The children belonged to the 

 mother. In the Senecas' Long House as many as twenty 

 families lived together. But the women owned the house and 

 all that was in it. A man who made trouble, or who refused 

 to do his share of the work, was promptly ordered out. Father 

 Charlevoix reported of the Algonquins: "The woman never 

 leaves her home, of which she is regarded as the mistress and 

 heiress." About a century before the coming of white settlers, 

 the Cayugas were threatened with extinction in the tribal 

 wars. They sent to the Mohawks and asked for a supply of 

 husbands for the Cayuga women to raise up a new and vigor- 

 ous generation. 



The high prestige held by Indian women could not fail to 

 impress the white colonists. Practically all the early land deeds 

 carry the signatures of Indian women. When the Iroquois met 

 the American representatives to settle the question of their 

 lands, Good Peter spoke to Governor Clinton on behalf of 

 the women of the tribe: 



Brothers! Our ancestors considered it a great offense to reject 

 the counsels of their women, particularly of the Female Gov- 



