BDLL. 30] 



WOMEN 



971 



her husband, and while these stored prod- 

 ucts are designed to be utilized by the en- 

 tire household, only the wife or the hus- 

 band may remove them thence. Mrs 

 Stevenson says further that a woman is a 

 member of the Ashiwanni or Rain Priest- 

 hood, consisting of nine persons, and con- 

 stituting one of the four fundamental reli- 

 gious groups in the hierarchical govern- 

 ment of the Zuni; and that while the 

 Zuiii trace descent through the mother 

 and have clans, these clans do not own 

 the fields, as they do among the Iroquois; 

 that by cultivation a man may make use 

 of any unoccupied plot of ground, and 

 thereafter he may dispose of it to anyone 

 within the tribe. It is to be noted that the 

 daughters, and not the sons, inherit the 

 landed property of the married Zufii man 

 or woman. These few facts show plainly 

 that the Znfii woman occupies a high 

 status in the social and the political or- 

 ganizations of her tribe. 



Among the Iroquois and tribes simi- 

 larly organized, woman controlled many 

 of the fundamental institutionsof society: 

 (a) Descent of blood or citizenship in the 

 clan, and hence in the tribe, was traced 

 through her; (6) the titles, distinguished 

 by unchanging specific names, of the va- 

 rious chieftainships of the tribe belonged 

 exclusively to her; (c) the lodge and all 

 its furnishings and equipment belonged 

 to her; (rf) her offspring, if she possessed 

 any, belonged to her; (e) the lands of the 

 clan (including the burial grounds in 

 which her sons and brothers were in- 

 terred) and so of the tribe, as the source 

 of food, life, and shelter, belonged to her. 

 As a consequence of the possession of 

 these vested rights, the woman exercised 

 the sovereign right to select from her sons 

 the candidates for the chieftainships of 

 her clan, and so of the tribe, and she like- 

 wise exercised the concurrent right to 

 initiate the procedure for their deposition 

 for sufficient cause. Being the source of 

 the life of the clan, the woman possessed 

 the sole right to adopt aliens into it, and 

 a man could adopt an alien as a kinsman 

 only with the tacit or expressed consent 

 of the matron of his clan. A mother pos- 

 sessed the important authority to forbid 

 her sons going on the warpath, and fre- 

 quently the chiefs took advantage of this 

 power of the woman to avoid a rupture 

 with another tribe. The woman had the 

 power of life or death over such alien 

 prisoners as might become her share of 

 the spoils of war to replace some of her 

 kindred who may have been killed; she 

 might demand from the clansmen of her 

 husband or from those of her daughters a 

 captive or a scalp to replace a loss in her 

 family. Thus it is evident that not only 

 the clan and the tribal councils, but also 

 the League council were composed of 



her representatives, not those of the 

 men. There were chief tainesses who 

 were the executive officers of the women 

 they represented; these female chiefs 

 provided by public levy or contributions 

 the food required at festivals, ceremo- 

 nials, and general assemblies, or for pub- 

 lic charity. Part of their duty was to 

 keep close watch on the policies and the 

 course of affairs affecting the welfare of 

 the tribe, to guard scrupulously the in- 

 terests of the public treasury, with power 

 to maintain its resources, consisting of 

 strings and belts of wampum, quill and 

 feather work, furs, corn, meal, fresh and 

 dried or smoked meats, and of any other 

 thing which could serve for defraying the 

 various public expenses and obligations, 

 and they had a voice in the disposal of the 

 contents of the treasury. Every distinct 

 and primordial family or ohwachira (see 

 Clan) had at least one of the female 

 chiefs, who together constituted the clan 

 council; and sometimes one of them, by 

 reason of extraordinary merit and wis- 

 dom, was made regent in the event of a 

 vacancy in the office of the regular male 

 chief. Hence, in various accounts men- 

 tion is made of "queens," who ruled 

 their tribes. In view of the foregoing 

 facts it is not surprising to find that 

 among the Iroquoian tribes — the Susque- 

 hanna, the Hurons, and the Iroquois — the 

 penalties for killing a woman of the tribe 

 were double those exacted for the killing 

 of a man, because in the death of a wom- 

 an the Iroquoian lawgivers recognized 

 the probable loss of a long line of pros- 

 pective offspring. According to Swanton, 

 on the N. W. coast the penalty for the 

 killing of a woman of the tribe was only 

 one-half that for the killing of a man. 

 These instances show the great differ- 

 ence in the value placed on the life of 

 woman by tribes in widely separated 

 areas. 



The statement of Powers in regard 

 to the Yokuts of California, that not- 

 withstanding the fact that the husband 

 took up his abode in the lodge of 

 his wife or of his father-in-law, he had 

 the power of life and death over his wife, 

 can not be accepted without qualification. 

 This statement can mean apparently only 

 that this power might be exerted to pun- 

 ish some specific crime, and that it might 

 not be exercised with impunity to satisfy 

 a whim of the husband. 



In describing the character of the Mus- 

 khogean people, Bartram (1773) says: " I 

 have been weeks and months amongst 

 them, and in their towns, and never ob- 

 served the least sign of contention or 

 wrangling; never saw an instance of an 

 Indian beating his wife, or even reproving 

 herinanger. . . . for indeed their wives 

 merit their esteem and the most gentle 



