137 
standing; but tlie majority seem to have possessed little influence, 
and the female sex as a whole was considered definitely inferior to 
the male. Such, indeed, was the opinion of every Indian tribe in 
the Dominion.^ If women among the Irocjuois enjoyed more privileges 
and possessed greater freedom than the women of other tribes, this 
was due, not so much to their matrilinear organization and the 
influence of the juaternal families, as to the important place that 
agriculture held in their economic life, and the distribution of labour 
whereby the men confined their activities to hunting, fishing, trade, 
and war, leaving the entire cultivation of the fields and the acquisition 
of the greater part of the food supjfly to the women. The League of 
the Iroquois seems really to have been a male oligarchy in which 
each member of the governing council of fifty had to submit to more 
or less supervision by the women of his maternal family, principally 
to the supervision of one woman, its head. 
Quite apart from this supervision by the women, however, the 
council suffered from another and more serious limitation. Its 
members obtained their position by birthright, not by military 
prowess or ability in other ways; and while they might declare peace 
or war in the name of the whole league, they could not control 
ambitious individuals who sought profit, revenge, or renown through 
sudden attacks on neighbouring peojfles. Many of the so-called wars 
of the Iroquois seem to have been irresponsible affairs, organized and 
conducted without the consent and often without the knowledge of 
the council ; for since the sachems were civil chieftains, not necessarily 
leaders in warfare or gifted with military talents, it was easy for 
a warrior who had gained a reputation for skill or valour to muster 
a band of hunters and start out on tlie warpath without notice. 
Iroquoian boys were trained to warfare almost from infancy, and 
the division of labour that left agriculture in the hands of the women 
gave the men ample leisure for raids and forays. There arose in 
consequence a group of warrior chiefs who attained considerable 
influence and sometimes rivalled the sachems themselves. It was 
these warrior chiefs iiuleed. not the sachems, who won most fame 
and honour during the Revolutionary War. 
Even if the council had not been subject to these limitations, 
it was clearly impossible for so large a governing unit, that met for 
1 r/. p. 52. 
86959—101 
