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Pre-Colonial North America (pre-1607)
Leleua Loupe
Overview
Many societies have creation stories that also tell of migrations to the lands they consider
their ancestral home, lands intended for their use, gifted by the creator. Most pre-Columbian
American societies told creation stories that began with the creation of the universe, earth, stars,
sun and moon. Creative earth spirits then made the first plants and animals, and sources of life
such as rivers and lakes and thunder and clouds. Some differ on their account of how humans
first came into being and became a part of the present world. For many people in the Eastern
Woodlands of North America, humans originated from the first woman who fell from the sky.
The animals that were already there, after unanimous agreement, labored and sacrificed to
include a place for Aetaentsic and her unborn child. With the help of the animals she then created
the earth and foods such as corn and medicines. Some people were created from clay by the first
woman; others emerged from the first woman of the ocean. Regardless of the tradition, women
occupy a central and honored place in the creation and continuation of the people.
Oral traditions across cultures recognized the active and complimentary role of female and male
characters. Women are remembered and honored for being creators and sustainers of life while
men and all life forms are honored for their reciprocal relationships and unique and necessary
place in giving and sustaining life. Aetaentsic, the Woman who fell from the sky birthed to twin
boys who represented the negative and positive, constructive and destructive forces constantly at
work in the world and the need to always seek life and balance. For many people in the
Americas, such as the Navajo and Wyandot, the first grandmothers were made out of maize, for
others in the southwest it was a woman from whose body corn was produced.
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Here in North America, most social scientists asserted that people migrated between 75,000 and
8,000 B.C. over the Bering land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska. In South America social
scientists agree that people reached the Americas multiple ways and times. Evidence suggests
people from Africa, Australia and Polynesia reached the coasts of South America prior to
European contact.
The societies that developed here were diverse and interconnected. They included
approximately seventeen major language groups, sixteen different major cultural regions,
hundreds of distinct tribes, Bands, Nations, communities or linguistic groups. Regions include
the Northwest coast, Plateau, Great basin, arctic, Subarctic, Great Plains, Northeast, Southeast
and Southwest United States, California, Mesoamerica, Amazonia, Gran Chaco, Andes, CircumCaribbean, Pampas and Patagonia and Tierra Del Fuego.
People of the Americas were advanced in math, physics, astronomy, art, literature and
philosophy. They build large agricultural complexes, pyramids and temples and water systems.
World belief systems were most often based on practical systems of knowledge that sought to
maintain balance or equilibrium within individuals, and between people, and the large
community of beings. Whether the economy was based on seasonal rounds or large agricultural
complexes, the people had learned how to intensively and sustainably manage their environment
and resources. Social scientists estimate the populations prior to contact from being as large as
65 – 100 million people dispersed in various types of civilizations throughout the Americas prior
to 1492. Women of pre-Columbian societies contributed significantly to the subsistence
economies, both plant and protein. Gender was a fluid concept and did not restrict women to
particular roles. Women occupied a variety of leadership roles, including military and civic, they
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were healers of various kinds and were often honored as the keepers of tradition as well as for
their power of creation.
The People of the far north, the Inuit and Aleuts of the Arctic (Aleutian Islands, Alaskan
coast, Canadian arctic, western Greenland) are believed to have inherited the culture of Siberian
and earlier arctic cultures. Many variations of cultural traditions developed over 18,000 years as
a result of successive migrations from Siberia and throughout the arctic. The Inuit and Aleut
cultures became distinct and the most widespread about 2000 -3000 years ago (Josephy, 57-64).
The people developed a largely hunting culture, and lived in small units of families or family
groups. They often lived along the coasts subsisting from seal, walrus, and whale. Those who
lived inland hunted caribou and other game. A seasonal round took them to the shores in spring,
the open water in summer and in the winter they fished through ice holes.
By 2,500 years ago the people invented the kayak, a one man canoe made of wood and
skins, and then the larger Umiak used to hunt whales and carry goods. For at least 2000 years,
people used harpoons, fishing gear, ice picks, floats of inflated bladders, bows and arrows, dog
drawn sleds, bone and ivory hobnails on boots to help walk on ice, goggles or sunglasses, lamps
of moss wicks and blubber or oil. Summer homes were made of skin and poles. Winter homes to
the east were built of stone, to the west of wood and sod, and to the north the ice domed igloo.
Igloos could hold up to sixty people and were insulated with furs. They admitted light at the top
by sealing openings with translucent gut (Josephy, 57-64).
Today’s people of the far north who have continued to foster their traditional hunting life
and culture have adopted outboard motors, rifles, and plastic equipment. (Josephy 1991, 57-64)
Several other cultures developed and migrated to todays northwest and to the east.
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People of the Northwest depended more on salmon and shell fishing than those of the far north.
In the Northwest (today’s eighteen tribes, included the Salish, Makah, Chinook and Tlingit), and
on the Columbia plateau (Chinook, Salish, Sahaptin), people have been harvesting and managing
the salmon runs for over 7000 years. “Men caught salmon with harpoons, dip-nets, weirs and
traps; women butchered, dried, and stored the catch. Fish were dried or smoked and packed for
eating and trading. Fishing stations became sites of social and ceremonial activity.” It is likely
women participated in setting weirs. Chinook and Sahaptin speaking people met to fish and
trade, and were part of a trade route that extended throughout North America (Calloway n.d.,
23). 10,000 to 8000 years ago people became more dependent on shell-fishing, characteristically
thought of as women’s work though men have been known to collect them and understand their
ecology. Some mollusk species were “semi-cultivated” indicating that women effectively
manipulated animal populations to enhance desirable traits. Salish women also kept white dogs,
evidencing manipulation of animal populations, and unlike surrounding groups, used looms.
(Claasen 1997, 76-77).
Like many societies, oral tradition constituted a common law and legal codes. Among the
Tsimshian, Gitskan and Nisga, adaawk, or house narratives document hereditary rights and
privileges over land and resources (Thom, 2003). People owned the right to gift songs and dances
associated privileges or goods. Among the Tlingit, “clan chiefs possessed the authority to supervise
the harvest, to recruit a militia, to receive a portion of the clan's harvest, to subsidize crafts
persons, to give names, and to redistribute wealth. Some of this wealth and production was used
in the potlatch to perpetuate the authority of the chief and the interests of the clan”. Hierarchy
was tenuous, leadership was based on influence garnered through the patshatl, or “giving,” in
which families competed for status and created alliances with other autonomous bands by giving
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away wealth to the community. “Tribes of the Northwest Coast Indians represent a blending of
elements of both egalitarian tribes and stratified chiefdoms" (Tollefson, 1995). As among the
Maya, higher rank was achieved through the mother’s family.
For at least 10,000 years the ancestors of today’s Paiute, Shoshone and Ute lived in the
Great Basin region, some 4000,000 square miles between the Rocky mountains and the Sierra
Nevada’s that included Utah, Eastern Nevada, Western Colorado and Southern Idaho. The
people lived in permanent communities subsisting of a rich and varied diet of fish, game and
plants available at different seasons. For over 7000 years they were incorporated into a vast trade
network in which they obtained shells from the pacific coast, and obsidian from southern Idaho.
Between 400 and 1300 AD archaeologists refer to new developments in this region as the
“Freemont Culture” characterized by the practice of corn horticulture and development of pottery
technology (Calloway n.d., 24).
The ecology and people of the California were diverse and plentiful prior to contact.
They spoke approximately 300 dialects, of 100 languages that originated from three major
language families; Penutian, Yukon, Uto-Aztecan. Later immigrants brought Algonquian
language speakers and Athapascan speakers such as the Hupa, Totowa’s and Mattoles. At
contact, forty-eight tribes existed, each consisting of 8-10,000 people divided into dozens of
villages (Josephy).
Over 10,000 years ago the ancestors of historic California nations harvested the marine
resources of the coast. Hunting, harvesting and gathering, they lived in permanent communities,
independent villages with a population of fifty to one-hundred people. As early as 7,000 years
ago, families harvested acorn, pinon, and mesquite. Homes varied and included the samat, a
circular domes structure of poles covered with brush or grass, sometimes chinked and plastered
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with mud or adobe (Coachella and Borrego valley); In the southern Inland valley homes were
made of tule or palm fronds. To the north large round, earth covered lodges, often semi
subterranean were used. Pit-houses were used for sweat baths.
Between 500 and 1500 AD growth of population, accommodation to different
environments, and independence of various groups led to variations of culture. Pottery was
introduced in the south from the lower great basin and southwest. Ceremonial life increased,
round council and dance houses were constructed. By 1300 AD, many distinct California groups
emerged.
While families often harvested food together, women processed and prepared these staple
foods, grinding and cooking them into bread meal or porridge. Claassen claimed that it was due
to women’s innovations and technological development that led to new subsistence patterns and
more sedentary communities. (Claasen 1997, 76) For the Chumash, it was sacred tobacco that
was the first cultivar. The Chumash, “followed an annual cycle of subsistence that allowed them
to harvest and store marine mammals, fish, shellfish, acorns, pine nuts and other” intensively
managed food resources. The Chumash traders were part of an extensive trade system and
subsistence economy in California that “supported a population of 300,000 people who spoke up
to 100 languages at Spanish contact. In 1542, Spanish Explorer, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo reached
present day Santa Barbara. At that time 15,000 Chumash inhabited the coastal area and islands of
the region and had mastered Ocean hunting first using tule canoes, and later plank Tomols.
(Calloway n.d., 21-22)
In the Southwest five agriculturally based cultural groups emerged between 3500 and
1500 BC; the Anasazi or ancient Puebloan Peoples, Mogollon, Hohokam, Sinagua and Salado.
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The Mogollon people of today’s northwest Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico border, grew corn
and squash and by 200 they were making pottery and became known for their black on whitemimbre style. Mogollon pit houses were made in eighteen different styles originally and
gradually became uniform in style until they began building masonry pueblos at least ninehundred years ago. The old style became a kiva, the ceremonial center and community center for
the family.
The Hohokam, ancestors of today’s Akimel, O’odham (Pima) and Tohono O’odham
(Papago) began reclaiming the desert floor and establishing an agricultural economy between
800 and 1400. They built over two-hundred miles of irrigation canals, largely along the Salt and
Gila Rivers of today’s Arizona. Sedentary villages accommodated up to six-hundred people and
were occupied for up to 1200 years before environmental changes led to decline and eventual
abandonment.
The Ancient Puebloan peoples of today’s Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico
developed a distinct agriculturally based culture that peaked between 900 and 1300 AD. In
addition to domesticating corn, beans and squash, and the American turkey, they also intensely
managed and harvested foods such as Portulaca Sp., Cheopodium and cacti. Women engaged in
agriculture and harvest, and sometimes hunted antelope and small game. Prior to 1492, men and
women enjoyed a high degree of mobility and engaged in relationships of reciprocity and
exchange between more distant communities (Claasen 1997, 108). With population growth
people built multi-storied complexes and committed more time to agriculture and subsistence
activities. Alison E. Rautman suggested that with economic specialization, or dependence on a
smaller variety of crops, like maize, led the household to become specialized and influenced the
definition and organization of gender roles to something closer to historic pueblo culture today;
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that the household is the realm of the women, and men belong outside for example. (Claasen
1997, 107-109.) Another historic example of changing roles is the production and trade of
pottery in which some women chose to abandon household production and management for
pottery production and trade. “Chaco Canyon, in New Mexico’s San Juan River Basin, they
constructed a dozen towns and perhaps two hundred outlying villages accommodating 5,00015,000 people.” (Calloway n.d., 27) Pueblo Bonita, a planned apartment complex, built over 150
years, was the largest one until one was built in New York in 1886. Chaco Canyon was the
center of trade in the region with 400 miles of straight roads linking them with other civilizations
all over America. The Volcanic eruption of Sunset Crater Volcano in 1064 led to diaspora of the
people of the southwest as a result of drastic environmental changes. Some scholars believe the
Kachina phenomenon of the Southwest is a development from these changes. (Calloway n.d., 27)
By 1300 Chaco Canyon had been abandoned.
By the 1400s, Athabascans from northwestern Canada had reached the southwest, the
ancestors of today’s Apache and Navajo. By the time the Spanish arrived in the southwest in
1582, the people of that region had been living there for thousands of years and intermarried
among the earlier peoples of the north and later migrants of the northwest. (Calloway n.d., 29)
The Mayan and Aztec civilizations of Mesoamerica developed from an earlier civilization
archaeologists refer to as the Olmec. 7,000 years ago, the farmers of Mesoamerica crossbred
wild grasses to create maize or corn, now a major crop of the world. The classic Maya (200-900
AD) and the Aztec (1200-1519 AD) developed written texts, stratified social, political and
religious complexes, water works, and sports arenas or ball courts. Maya buildings were covered
with stone sculptures depicting god masks, human figures, serpents and astronomic symbols.
“Despite an enormous degree of commonality, the political structure of decentralized states
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provided many opportunities for elite Maya women politically and religiously while the
aggressive colonial policies of the Aztec eroded women’s influence.” Maya city states were
governed by elite families who sometimes rules for generations and from where the priests were
also drawn. Commoners were artisans, peasants, merchants and slaves captured in battle.
Between 12000 and 8000 BC, Early people hunted mammoths, mastodons and bison, on foot, on
the Great Plains. They used projectile points and later drives and corrals as additional communal
hunting techniques. By 8500 BC, climactic changes led to mass extinction of ice age mammals
and most people were hunting bison. By 1000 AD people throughout the plains, and the arctic
were using the bow and arrow (replaced early spears and projectile points.) (Calloway n.d., 25)
7-5,000 years ago, plains culture was dependent primarily on plant products and women engaged
in a seasonal round that was necessary to maintain subsistence levels (Claasen 1997, 73).
Women, as well as men, hunted small game to supplement the diet. Habitation sites suggest
women rendered grease from bones while men manufactured lithic. As early as 4500 years in
some areas, Men tended to hunt bison by foot, while women and children assisted in the
processing of the kill. Between 500 BC and 1000 AD people were living in semi-permanent
farming villages tending corn, beans, squash and sunflowers. Although hunting contributed to
their economy, agriculture was the principal source of food. In addition to crops, women raised
the sacred tobacco plant. This evidenced their influence of Mississippian or mound building
cultures. Semi agricultural bands and hunter-gatherers pursued buffalo and used its products for
food, robes, utensils and tipi covers. The Spanish first made contact with the people of the plains
during the 1520s. They noted the extensive trade network they participated in by trading the
buffalo hides. Following European invasion, the horse culture plains culture is best known for
began to emerge.
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Midwest groups such as the Chippewa’s, Sauk, foxes, Miami’s, Potawatomi’s and others had
economies based on agriculture and were primarily sedentary though they moved about
periodically and hunted and fished.
Hudson Bay divided the subarctic tribes into two major families, the Algonquian
speakers to the east (Ahtena, Koyukon, Tanana, Tanaina, Ingalik, Han, Nabesna, Beaver, Carrier,
Chipewyan, Hare, Dogrib, Kaska or Nahani, Sekani, Slave, Tuchone and Yellowknife) and
Athapascan speakers to the west (Naskapi, Montagnais, Cree and Beothuks).
Originally, the people of various tribes lived in small, independent hunting and fishing groups
throughout the subarctic region. Some migrated south and are the ancestors of today’s
northeastern peoples of the United States and to the Midwest and California.
For at least four thousand years, the women of the eastern United States had been domesticating
native foods such as sunflowers, squash and marsh elder. The original people of today’s Illinois,
were growing squash as early as 5000 B.C. (Calloway n.d., 29). Cultivation of corn began in
Mesoamerica and reached today’s Tennessee about 350 BC, Ohio Valley 300 BC and Illinois
valley about 650 AD. (Calloway n.d., 29)
The Hopewell culture developed around 100-300AD at the same time the Hohokam were
developing irrigation complexes in the southwest. Hopewell culture included a trade network
that reached from Yellowstone, to the great lakes, to the Gulf of Mexico. As the Hopewell
civilization seemingly declined around 550AD, corn agriculture spread throughout the east and a
new culture developed in the lower Mississippi Valley around 700AD and spread throughout
what is today’s eastern half of the United states, peaking by 1300 AD.
About 700AD, middle Mississippian culture emerged in the lower Ohio, Illinois,
Tennessee and middle Mississippi river. The Mississippian culture derived from Hopewell
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culture was characterized by intensive agriculture based primarily on corn, beans and squash,
large ceremonial and administrative centers and a stratified political system. New important
strains of corn developed by women supported this cultural change after 1200BC. Male and
female leaders built temples, public buildings and houses for the elite atop earthen pyramids. The
pyramids surrounded earthen plazas where ceremonies and ball games were conducted.
(Calloway n.d., 32) They collected tribute, mobilized labor and distributed food, warred with
other chiefdoms and engaged in elaborate burials. Cahokia, located where the Missouri,
Mississippi and Illinois rivers meet, was founded around 700AD, was occupied for about 700
years and incorporated an urban and rural population of 10-30,00 0 people. Due to climactic
change, population pressure and perhaps pressure from external enemies led to its decline in the
mid-1400s.
To the north, the Iroquoian speaking Huron’s, Petuns and Neutrals moved from scattered
settlements, to fortified villages and then developed politically and socially into confederacies
that incorporated 1,000s of people. Prior to European contact, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga,
Cayuga and Seneca met to end inter-tribe conflict by establishing The Great League of Peace
that arrived at decisions through consensus and formed intertribal policies. Locally they
remained independent while forging an intertribal council. The villages were comprised of long
houses that incorporated the families related by clan through the maternal side. Women tended
the homes, cultivated and harvested the cornfields, gathered barriers, fruits, nuts, made clothing
and pottery, engaged in war and trade, as well as caring for the children. They engaged with
Algonquian speaking people of New York and Ontario of whom included the Ottawa’s,
Algonquin’s, Montagnais, Mahicans, Abenaki, Wampanoag’s, Delaware’s, Susquehannocks,
Shawnee, Potawatomi’s, Anishinaabeg, Illinois and Foxe. They subsisted on a seasonal round,
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exploiting the abundant resources by harvesting, hunting, fishing and limited agriculture.
(Calloway n.d., 34-35)
Jacque Cartier, French explorer, visited the town of Hochelaga, todays Montreal, in 1536
and noted several thousand inhabitants engaged in corn agriculture. They enjoyed fresh fish and
corn bread. Europeans noted that the Huron tried to keep a surplus of two to three years of food
supplies in preparation for crop failures or disasters. (Calloway n.d., 29-30)
Prehistoric coastal communities were also relatively sedentary towns by 600AD. Ethnographic
sources describe the coast of southern New England as populated by complex horticultural
societies where men usually hunted and fished and women farmed and collected protein and
intensely managed “wild” resources. Traditional crops were sunflower, chenopodium, cucrbits
and maize centuries earlier, but maize did not appear in southern New England 100AD off which
was incorporated into the seasonal round. (Claasen 1997, 140-142). The models of living varied
across place and time, inland groups maintaining a foraging and seasonal lifestyle before
becoming sedentary compared to coastal communities. Women produced common trade goods
such as dried shellfish, shell, wampum and pottery that linked communities from the coast into
the interior of New England (Claasen 1997, 84)
The southeast was homeland to several different language families who lived in farming
towns, formed a number of strong confederacies, and were matrilineal and hierarchal with a
complex culture, very similar to the northeastern woodlands tribes. For 4000 years, people of the
eastern woodlands also conducted earthen architecture, leaving 10,000 identified earthen mounds
to be studied through the 19th – 21st centuries. Near Watson Break, Louisiana, there are the
remains of eleven major earthen pyramids built between 3400 and 3000 B.C. The earliest
cultures in the eastern woodlands are referred to as the Adena (800-11 B.C.) known for their
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effigy mounds and Serpent Mound (400 B.C.) About 1000 B.C. the people began building burial
mounds at Poverty point, Louisiana. As early as 1200 B.C. different styles of pottery appeared in
the archaeological record. Populations in the southeast grew and with it towns and the trade
network.
Ancient peoples of Florida did not adopt the Mississippian culture, but instead continued
to depend on intensive resource management, hunting, fishing and harvesting. Based on a very
rich subsistence economy, 350,000 people lived there at contact. (Calloway n.d., 34)
Descendants today include the Muscogee speaking tribes such as the Creek, Hitchitis, Yamasee,
Seminoles and Apalachee, Alabama’s, Mobile’s, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Houma, Timucua,
Tunica’s, Chitimacha’s, Calusas, and Atakapas. Iroquoian Speaking tribes include the Cherokee.
Caddoan speaking tribes include the Caddos, Kichais, Wacos and Tawaconis. Siouan speaking
tribes include the Arkansas, Quapaws and Yuchis. Tonkawa speak a Coauiltecan language.
Pre-Colonial North America (pre-1607)
Leleua Loupe
Issues Essay
Fertility/Fertility Control
Women’s ability to create and sustain life was recognized, honored, and celebrated throughout
the Americas. Women’s phases of fertility, pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood and marriage
were valued in indigenous societies. While women were valued throughout their life cycle, these
phases were recognized as providing particular status and empowerment. In Pueblo society,
women and men’s spirituality was tied to their sexuality. Intercourse often held ritualistic and
religious meaning. It was the source of life and a means of taming bad spirits in nature and of
integrating outsiders into the tribe. It helped maintain the cosmic balance between male and
female, creative and destructive forces. Pueblo ideology recognized women’s sexual power, and
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like their role in food production, contributed to egalitarian relationships between the sexes.
(Dubois n.d., 7). Mayan rituals, performed by women recognized the essential role of goddesses
and the sacred power of women’s fertility. The existence of many goddesses, often referred to as
mother or grandmother, indicated a sacred reverence for female fertility and women as creative
agents. Earth mothers and corn goddesses ordered the world view and effigies, abundant in the
archaeological record throughout out the Americas, are believed to be associated with fertility
and fruitfulness. Figurines were common in Fremont, pueblo and Hohokam cultures of the
southwest (Claasen 1997, 77-79).
Oral tradition among the Creek, Hitchi, Alabama and Natchez of the Southeast
woodlands support the idea that women are more closely connected with nature and
transformation than men. During Menstruation and child birth, periods of great transformation,
women were perceived as being increasingly powerful. The Maya revered the moon and credited
it with governing women’s menstrual cycles and the planting of maize. The goddesses O or Ix
Chel, the moon weaver (waning of the moon), and I, the young goddess (Waxing of the
moon)held considerable power. The trinity of earth, mother, and moon was referred to as “our
mother.” Oral tradition tell of women who had the power to transform into different beings, such
as dear, copulated with different beings, such as panthers and earthworms, and delivered mixed
babies.
At contact, French colonists noted the practice of women being separated during menses
and child birth from the family house and that they practiced food taboos. People throughout
Eastern North America, such as Acadians and Malecite built separate cabins for the women
when they had their menses. The Narragansett’s called them weuomemese, or little house. It is
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likely that these houses were associated with female ritual and ceremony that was conducted on a
monthly basis and associated with pregnancy and child birth.
Patricia Galloway suggests the southeastern story about corn mother was associated with rituals
and ceremonies that celebrated women’s fertility. In the myth corn and beans come from the
body of the mother, and later when the boys in the kill her out of fear, it is from her blood that
corn springs (Claasen 1997, 46-62.) Separation of women in a “woman’s house” and associated
restrictions “may have signaled the recognition of women’s power and respect for her in the
times in her life that she is her most powerful personally.” The Timucua women were restricted
from eating fish and venison, from touching fire kindling and these restrictions were similar to
those imposed after child birth. Creek women were secluded for four days in a house by herself,
used special utensils for food preparation and consumption, could not eat large game animals or
visit the gardens. Women were also to bathe downstream from men and change their clothes as a
purification right at the end of their cycle. Anthropologists may have misinterpreted instruction
in good hygiene as prohibitive and misunderstood that food taboos may have been related to
knowledge or wisdom about the effect of certain foods upon the body when women are at a
particular point in their reproductive process. California women observed such taboos until the
early 1900s but understood that periodic food restrictions fostered a healthy reproductive system.
In addition to simple biological concerns or observances, postpartum and menstruating women
were recognized as conduits of change, for good or ill.
Galloway identified the BBB Motor site in Illinois as a seclusion site and observed a
large number of vulva symbols recorded in rock art in the St. Louis Area. These and other
symbols suggest that it is a corn mother image and perhaps a girl’s initiation site. Partricia
Galloway suggested that at any given time at least one-tenth of the population of women in a
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community would have been lived in separate houses while on their menses (Claasen 1997, 73).
Due to the phenomenon of Menstrual Synchrony, when females who live together synch their
menstrual cycle, it is likely that women of the same house spent time together doing ceremonial
or ritual activities. Like men, they probably spent time resting, talking, telling stories, gambling,
engaging in ritual purification at the end to burned blood stained supplies and bathed to practice
good hygiene. Contrary to the interpretations of women’s rituals and practices from early
Europeans at contact, studies suggest they were advantageous to women. Such practices were
also characteristic of pre-contact American societies where husbands and males were not
particularly dominant, especially in matrilineal and matrilocal societies. Yurok practices may
have been parallel to men’s purification activities aimed at the accumulation of spiritual power.
In addition, by living separately while on menses, at the boundaries between changes in land or
water formations, during a time of great power and change, positioned women on a threshold or
transition point between various worlds. “Passage across these zones allowed humans to come
into contact with natural manifestations of spiritual power, what one anthropologist termed, “the
Grandfathers or dragon man beings” who were sources of precious gifts, medicines and charms.”
Many practices governing women’s reproductive cycle were repressed or ended by Christian
intervention. In Natick communities by 1646, Europeans passed codes that prohibited menstrual
seclusion and was subject to a 20 shilling fine. (Plane 1999, 38-48.)
In addition to valuing women for their reproductive powers, women also had knowledge of how
to control them. According to the archaeological record, women in Semi-sedentary societies in
California spaced their births further apart and later as permanent villages replaced seasonal
rounds, (c. 1300 AD) birth spacing decreased. Comparatively, Native women had fewer children
than Europeans, nursing for three years and using herbs to induce abortion, or practicing abortion
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to space births. In Ohio, during the Hopewell culture, the archaeological record reveals an
increase on reliance on local seeds for weaning foods that shortened the nursing period and
eliminated it as a contraceptive (Claasen 1997, 72).
Mississippian women of the east in the 1300s had high life expectancy generally waited
until their twenties to bear children. They practiced birth control through abstinence or taboos, or
had knowledge of plants to control their fertility (Claasen 1997, 125-126). Lyle Khoeler found
that among the Alabamu of the southeast, women refrained from intercourse for three to four
years following the birth of a child. Men in this case sometimes had several wives who were
usually sisters, aunts or nieces (Claasen 1997, 221). Among the Cherokee, Datura Stramonium,
may have been used to induce abortion or treat difficult childbirth (Claasen 1997, 60). During
Spanish invasion into California, native women forced into the Mission System aborted
pregnancies that were the product of rape and practice infanticide. Women practiced abortion
and infanticide probably because they could not conceive raising their children in the society that
was being imposed upon them while they witnessed the partial destruction of their own.
Courtship/Marriage/Divorce
In the eastern woodlands the number of female figurines found in rock are suggests
sexuality was a widespread concern, early French ethnographic records relate that feasts were
times of searching out eligible mates, and also of considerable sexual activity. There are records
of nighttime ceremonies where women dance with men, sang suggestive songs and assumed
suggestive or erotic poses. The feasts may have celebrated springtime fertility and functioned as
a social occasion when non-kin related men were available for courtship.
Many societies engaged in match making or consulted genealogists before union, whether sexual
or otherwise. Matching making was often necessary to avoid intermarriage between cousins.
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Unions would be rejected or ill advised if couples were less than seven to ten generations
removed. Oral traditions warn against incest as well as marrying to close to kin and illustrated
adverse biological consequences. Clans or moieties were often named for animal, earth spirits or
elements. While those spirits were regarded as guides and guardians they also served the purpose
of quickly identifying kin during larger seasonal or annual gatherings.
The women of eastern cultures, such as the Natchez of the southeast, arranged marriages.
Illiniwek women carried kettles, animal skins, buffalo meat and clothing as gifts from the
prospective male spouse in their lineage to the cabin of the woman he wished to wed. In Mayan
marriage negotiations, the greater economic burden was placed upon the wife receiving groups
who were obligated to provide a considerable period of bride service and specific goods such as
clothing for the couple, chocolate beverage, precious stone beads used in necklaces. The
payment of stone beads was a part of a formal petition for the bride and a gift to her. Cloth was
associate with women while chocolate was associated with men. There was a reciprocal
obligation for the bride’s father to provide a dowry to the wife receivers, paid in cacao beans,
and the wedding feast. During the feast, the husband provided raw food to the woman for her
then to cook and present to him as a sign of their union. This exchange symbolized their
reciprocal obligations to each other for their life. The wife provider gave the gift of the woman,
who carried the blood and other life giving and sustaining liquids. The groom gave his labor as
his gift to her.
The earliest and most basic form of social organization was based on the family and clan,
of whom traced their ancestry through the mother or both parents. In the Southwest the
matrilineal system of tracing ancestry through the mother’s line, and therefore control of land,
ensured women’s economic agency and empowerment. Pueblos in the southwest were also
19
matrilocal, where the husband accompanied his wife to her family’s home. A woman’s identity
therefore rested with her family and not with her husband.
For many societies, women’s maturity was associated with marriage and creativity. In the east
this phase was marked partially by the wearing of a skirt, while unmarried women were nude.
Maturity was marked by marriage, and not necessarily by the start of the menstrual cycle
(Claassen, 1997, 215).
For the Mayan, marriage was essential for both men and women to fulfill their potential
for mutual independence. Both however could easily divorce and Mayan women retained
control over their home and agricultural fields. Like many leadership families, Mayan
aristocratic men could have wives and concubines, but the general population practiced
monogamy. Mayan women typically married between the ages of fourteen and fifteen while
men married around the age of eighteen. The parents arranged the marriage and once
arrangements were made the father gave the marriage banquet. Matrilocal marriage was
practiced, the son-in-law having to prove his abilities to his new father.
The economic systems that prevailed in the Americas were often not based on the accumulation
of wealth, but rather the communal use and distribution of land and resources, most often
managed by the woman’s family. Concepts of bastardy or illegitimacy did not exist due to the
nonexistent practice of wealth accumulation and male inheritance. In addition, due to prevalent
matrilineal and matrilocal practices, the woman’s identity was not tied to her spouse’s identity.
For these reasons divorce was equally a simple process for both men and women and there was
no stigma associated with breaking a union. For most women of Mesoamerica, the southwest and
eastern woodlands women would simply put the men’s belongings outside of her family’s house
to signify the end of the relationship. Because cultures tended to be matrilineal and matrilocal,
20
women maintained the home and economic agency. In this way, the children were always
provided for, whether form the divorcees union, or either spouse.
Child Birth/Child Rearing
Birthing practices were not widely studied or recorded at contact but must have varied
between groups and probably depended on the economy and structure of society, however, little
ethnographic evidence exists to make distinction. Northeastern women of the Narragansett,
Massachusetts, Nipmuc, Mohegan, Pequot, Nauset Indians of Southern New England, Abenaki,
Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Algonquin, Malecite, and Mic Mac preferred to be alone or be
attended only by a few people.
According to ethnographic records women followed diets, often interpreted as food
taboos and usually continued normal daily routines until the onset of active labor. As birth time
neared the mother often left her village alone, or in the care of one or two older women, destined
for a special house separate from the village. Other kin kept close tabs on their progress,
probably while preparing for their reception. Women sometimes remained in a vertical posture,
hanging, standing, kneeling or squatting to facilitate birth. In 1691, a description of a Micmac
woman who had a difficult labor was helped into a hanging position in hopes of hastening the
birth (Plane 1999). Some accounts report that in Canadian communities younger members aided
the mother in making startling noises to procure an immediate delivery. Among the Mic Macs
and Cherokee, women’s arms were sometimes attached above to a pole, with their nose, ears and
mouth stopped up while pressing on the belly of the mother to hasten delivery. Medicine people
were also called upon to provide external applications of herbs, roots and conducted sweat baths.
Tobacco may have been used as an offering to spirits during labor.
21
The belief that native women did not feel pain during child birth, or that it was easy, probably
varied as much with women then as it does now. However, Algonquian people “valued
emotional control, self-reliance and reticence” and recognized the value of decreasing fear and
discomfort to encourage a successful birth. Cree women and their attendants minimized the
moments in which fear or pain interfered with self-control. For the Mayan, and later Aztec, birth
was seen as a battle in which an infant could kill its mother and therefore pregnancy and labor
equated with sacred blood sacrifice. This view conferred great honor upon the mother. During
labor the Maya midwife placed an image or Ix Chel, goddess of childbirth, under a laboring
woman’s bed. Ix Chel was a wise midwife who supported the mother as she fought between life
and death. The Aztec midwives were renowned for their professional training.
Remedies that addressed pain also varied from group to group. A Micmac remedy included
taking a small bone in the heart of the moose, making a powder of it and drinking it in a broth.
Another was a remedy made from beaver “kidneys” or castor glands (Plane 1999, 40). Aztec
midwives began prenatal care in the seventh month. They checked the size and position of the
fetus, used massage and the sweat bath for cleansing, purification and to adjust the position of
the baby. The leaves of the zoapatle and opossum tail was used to bring on menstruation or speed
up labor (Olsen 1999, 158).
Oral tradition conveyed the power of water and its link to fecundity and fertility. In
addition, they reminded women of the importance of practicing good hygiene. The creation story
of the Massachusetts tell how all the people of the earth came from the first boy and girl
produced by two young women who were impregnated by the foam of the water as they washed
themselves. In most societies, once birthed, the baby was washed and then wrapped in soft
animal skins, often of beaver, and placed it on a cradleboard. Among some peoples the baby was
22
fed some oil, of seal, bear or other respected animals. Some kept the naval chord in a bag that
was kept around the baby’s neck to signify their desire the newborn develop as a balanced, or
centered, being. Some women returned to normal activities following recovery while others
stayed in the birth house for a month or more. The Chickasaw and Choctaw, in addition to
following the normal prescriptions abstained from work and avoided men immediately after
birth. “Among the Cheyenne of the northern plains, the belief that the spiritual power of the
parents was diminished by sexual activity and that this power was needed to successfully grow a
child resulted in periods of abstinence lasting over a decade” (Olsen 1999, 159).
Like during their menses, pregnant and postpartum women were perceived as being
especially powerful and special precautions were taken to maintain balance. In one account a
pregnant woman’s presence was required to make a certain root effective in removing an arrow
from a wounded man. European perceptions of taboos demeaned women rather than having
identified them a source of power that needed to be respected in order to maintain balance during
transformative life phases.
Just as women were valued in most American societies pre-contact, children also were
cherished. The birth of a child represented personal wealth and good fortune. For elite Mayan
women, “her social persona was determined by her role as a mother perpetuating the lineage of
her kin group.” Generally, the people of various pre-contact communities shared in the gathering
and sharing of resources, and the providing for, and raising of children. The caring for, and the
guiding of children to maturity and responsible citizenship was the most important obligation of
the family and community. Mothers and fathers shared in the responsibility of providing for
children while older children and elders assisted in their care and guidance. Elders instructed
youth in laws and traditions of the people designed to foster a balanced social, political,
23
economic and spiritual world. They taught them the morals and values of society, and their
rights, obligations and privileges that allowed for self-regulation as well as regulation of
relationships between human beings, the environment and all non-human beings. Children were
encouraged to seek the advice of elders and learn from their experience (Costo, 1995). Most
societies recognized land as being communal, their use was negotiated through various means,
and war was often preferred to be used as a last resort to resolve conflict.
Oral Tradition instructed parents on how to raise healthy and functional adults. The Eastern story
of Thunder Boy reminded parents to respect children and care for them dearly. If parents abused
their children they would be taken and returned to the world of the souls. Harm done to children
would eventually be learned and they would be punished. Stories that feature trickster characters
such as coyote as a father warn parents against negative consequences of sexual abuse and incest.
Wendot-Huron, George Sioui explained, “Children are perceived as being developing individuals
who do not see or hear themselves being told how to think and behave by people invested with
arbitrary powers or by a system. They have access to the abundant source of wisdom, available
to all, which comes from the ancient spirit of the people. Children can draw on it, how and when
they wish” (Sioui, 1999).
In Mayan Society the ritual, Hetzmek, occurred when a girl was three months old. During
the ceremony her family displayed a miniature loom and corn-grinding stone symbolizing her
future work. Later she would participate in a rite marking the beginning of adolescence. Older
women, assigned as godmother would help expel evil spirits from girls that often manifested
during this transformative and powerful time. In many societies, great celebrations and naming
ceremonies would be held a year after birth to receive and recognize the child formally into
society.
24
Rituals and ceremonies marked phases of maturity that honored the child for their
development and instructed them in their new responsibilities or obligations. Names were chosen
and conferred with great care, recognizing that people often grow to reflect the meaning and
significance of their name. New names would often be conferred to recognize accomplishments
or provide additional guidance in areas of needed development or growth.
Domestic Violence
High rates of female and child targeted aggression is most commonly found in patriarchal
and hierarchical societies where there is an imbalance of power across sex, gender and class. In
California Given the nature of California societies prior to contact, female or child targeted
aggression was likely uncommon. When it did happen, the perpetrator was usually killed. In
California the ultimate penalty was exacted in cases of murder, rape and adultery.
The Spanish Mission system, established, in 1769, imposed a patriarchal and hierarchical order
that allowed the Spanish soldiers and priests to systematically sexually and physically abuse
women and children. Violence occurred in pre-Columbian societies but at a lesser rate than in
patriarchal societies and usually in areas or periods that had developed a hierarchy, and/or
military conflict. Violence against women emerged in archaeological studies in the ancient
pueblo people of the La Plata River Valley in Northwestern New Mexico. Studies recovered a
high frequency of head injuries and women were five times more likely to show evidence of
infection and had a shorter life expectancy. Marin and Akins suggest the battered women’s
remains, found with no associated grave goods, or in the usual flexed position, were slaves likely
captured in warfare. (Claasen 1997, 76). Maya Royal women would be tortured and buried
ritually by their enemies in the course of a take-over while the male ruler would simply be
decapitated, denoting particular fear and respect of elite women, rather than having occupied an
25
inferior social position. In Mississippian culture burials there is little evidence for femaledirected violence, though skeletons recovered in Michigan during the earlier Hopewell period
exhibit female directed aggression (Claasen 1997, 71).
Ethnographic records among eastern tribes indicate some violence aimed at women,
usually as a result of extra-marital relations. Among the Cenis and Illiniwek adultery may have
been punished by cutting the wife’s nose. Among the Alabamu, the wife and lover were whipped
with a wooden switch on their back and stomach, had their hair cut off, and were exiled from the
village. The Husbands were often polygynous and their adultery was not similarly punished
suggesting a sexual double standard that may have not been the norm throughout the Americas.
Generally, domestic violence was discouraged and men and women were encouraged to find new
partners rather than continue abusive patterns. Ideally, families spent a great deal of time
conducting ritual and ceremony intended to keep relationships among each other in equilibrium.
Women often had a strong role in marriage negotiations throughout the Americas, possibly
limiting bad choices in husbands.
Education
A Way of Knowing, or of seeking knowledge and life is similar between the various
tribes and nations of the Americas. The belief in the sacred is a commonality among most
Native Communities, while their expression of the sacred varied, they shared several tenets.
Those who lived in a sacred manner and respected the tenets were often those who were the most
respected in the community and sought after for advice and guidance. American cultures were
rooted in and transmitted through oral tradition. Stories, songs, Chants, art, prayers and poems
conducted with social, ceremonial and ritual significance, detail specific cultures and languages
and are central to understanding the distinctiveness of each community.
26
Rituals and ceremonies were conducted to initiate people into different phases of their lives.
From birth children were given the knowledge that guided them to be successful contributors to
their partners, families and larger community. Generally people were taught to be responsible
citizens and to keep the world in balance by holding all forms of life in reverence and not
exploiting or taking for granted relationships between people and the non-human world.
Initiation rites were conducted at birth, when boys and girls reached puberty and later for those
deemed ready to enter adult societies. In central California, the Kuksu cult, served as teachers of
the young. Cults aided the young in contacting spirits and aiding in their acquisition of
supernatural power.
Two mythical figures, the culture hero and trickster are widespread in the Americas but
take different form or expression depending on the community. The culture hero was regarded as
the person who had taught the members of the tribe their way of life in a distant past. The
trickster, such as raven in the north, coyote in the southwest, rabbits, or Iktomi, the spider, taught
morals to people by behaving badly. They represented all human capacity and often took on
undesirable characteristics to illustrate to people why they should live morally.
Among several groups of the southwest, the Chemehuevi say “they went the way of the coyote,”
acknowledging they had followed a negative path while expressing that they are human by
nature and try to live in a good way (McMaster, 2008).
Some stories explained the rules of nature that governed the world and the people.
Monsters appear in many stories that encouraged people to confront and overcome their fears, or
to warn against allowing oneself to become selfish or greedy. Such characteristics create
imbalance and therefore chaos in one’s life and community. Among the people of the northwest,
many believe that there were once five giant women, Tah Tah Kleah, who defied the laws of
27
nature by damming the river and not allowing the salmon chief to lead the salmon people to the
spawning grounds. A representative council of all creatures, men and women, met to decide on
the best course of action. Coyote devised a plan to trick the women and broke the dam, making
the world right again, allowing the Salmon people to give birth and all the creatures who
depended on them for survival to live.
Many people encouraged their youth to embark on a vision quest, or perceiving quest.
Under hardship, meditation and prayer it was a journey to discover oneself. By learning how
you perceive yourself and others, you establish a healthy relationship with yourself and with the
world (Hyemeyohsts Storm, 1972).
A rich ceremonial life reminded the people what their proper relationship of reciprocity
was with each other and all beings. Some sought to restore balance when balance had been lost.
Through dance, song, music and theater, social relationships were renewed and all things were
maintained in the sacred way. Knowledge about the world around them, material and spiritual,
was transmitted through oral tradition, singing and dancing.
Through oral tradition knowledge was transmitted from one generation to the next. The
people learned about the right of land use and the responsibility of stewardship. The Inuit believe
that the great sea goddess, Sedna, could keep the sea creatures far from shore to punish hunters
who had sinned against her. It is likely that many of the hunting taboos were based on resource
management practices and respect for all creatures and forms of life.
Songs were often hereditary or gifted to the next generation that established ones responsibility
to sustainably managing particular resources. The Bird Songs of California tribes retell creation,
immigration, some are social songs, and others are sacred and mark certain phases in one’s life
28
including birth, coming of age and death. Salt Songs function similarly among the Chemehuevi
of California and Nevada.
Women were the keepers of tradition and played key roles in every aspect of society
including leadership and healing. People had great faith in Shamans, both women and men, to
cure the sick and restore balance and harmony to the world.
There were many types of healers as there is in today’s society. Some had great
knowledge of the body and used plants and minerals to treat illnesses, wounds and set bones.
Others treated psychological or emotional ailments and sometimes used visual and performing
arts to heal. Psychiatry or psychosomatic medicine, such as in the Navajo Medicine Way was
designed to restore a patient’s health by ministering to his mental state and bringing him back
into harmony or Hozo with his universe (McMaster, 2008). Midwives were especially important
given their sacred and learned roles of bringing babies safely into the world while ensuring the
mothers health and longevity. In agricultural complexes of the southeast and Mesoamerica,
healers became members of a hierarchy of trained priests. Medicine people often learn their
stories and songs by dreaming and being taught by spirits. The Quechan’s of Arizona and
California believe that some people learn the creation stories by experiencing it through dream.
The elders, after being retold the experience, confirm the version of the story. If he did not
experience it correctly, the elders would then correct him. Some learn of their destiny by dream
travel and learn particular methods of healing. Indian doctors received spiritual power and or
instruction to diagnose, locate illness in the body and remove the illness.
In Eastern Woodland cultures, a priesthood of three men and three women, “keepers of
the faith,” supervised religious ceremonies, and various secret societies that performed curing
and other ceremonies. Each society had its own officers, masks, songs, dances and rituals. When
29
a person died, the spirit of the tribe was reduced, to recover that spiritual power; prisoners were
adopted into the Ohwachira and tribes (Josephy 1991, 95) Women had a significant voice in
religious activities. Seneca women formed Chanters of the Dead group whom interpreted dreams
and participated in rituals(Dubois n.d., 9-11). Southeastern women were healers and conducted
spirit guardian ceremonies and rituals (Claasen 1997, 83).
Gender
In many societies, the creator or major aspects of the creator, was recognized as being a
woman, or as having both male and female qualities, necessary in creation and maintaining
equilibrium. In the Maya creation myth, the Popul Vuh, women are honored as the sources of
life. The female character’s name is “blood”, and she represents all subsequent wives and
mothers. The Tzotzil Maya word for mother, me’, carries a meaning that has to do with the
origins of things (Claasen 1997, 199). In the story, first woman begets twin brothers who created
a garden with the help of their grandmother, Xmucane. To make people of human flesh form she
ground maize and mixed the flour with water. Food processing was central to the ideal female
and to female identity and sacred in the Maya worldview. It was through food production by a
woman that humanity originated. Maya culture placed woman in high positions in religious
spheres, often equal to men. Among the Maya People received higher status depending on age,
but especially from their female line (Claasen 1997, 205-207). Some women were believed to
have been able to bring rain; they paid respect to the gods, prayed and burned copal, and like
men, consumed peyote and balche (alcoholic) for ceremonial purposes. When conducting
ceremonies, male and female aristocracy, often cross dressed to represent the other spiritual half.
The people believed the creator had made all beings and therefore all beings deserved respect
and had the right to exist without prejudice or mistreatment. Nisenan culture recognized a spirit
30
that is both male and female and the Kamia or Tipai culture heroine/hero was a transvestite and
admired for introducing many aspects of the culture including agriculture. In a Kamia origin
myth, the people were said to have dispersed from their ancestral Salton Sea territory because
they were afraid of him/her. Pre-Columbian societies throughout the Americas recognized and
accepted the existence of multiple genders and in some cases that gender identity was fluid,
changing under different circumstance or periods in one’s life. Among the Chukchi of Siberia,
seven gender categories were identified “including those that could be considered “intermediate”
between male/man and female/women in binary gender system…and any could be adopted at
any time during the individuals life, and transformation need not be permanent...” (Claasen 1997,
182).
Sandra Hollimon explained that Two-Spirits, have been associated with supernatural
power in native societies throughout North America and in many groups the intermediate gender
position they held was a reflection of their spiritual position between the earthly realm and the
supernatural. They acted as spiritual intermediaries during birth, marriage and death and their
purpose was to maintain order and continuity. (Claasen 1997, 183).
In California, Joyas (Spanish term meaning jewel) were men who dressed and lived as women
and were held in great esteem. The Chumash recognized at least three genders. Besides male and
female gender, the word, ‘aqi, meant “fancy ones,” and referred to homosexuals or transvestites.
The word was also used to describe a gravedigger or celibate medicine man and signified a
“status that encompassed occupational, religious and sexual elements.” The Yakut’s, Mono and
Tubatulaabal also shared this three-gendered system. Sandra E. Hollimon explained that one of
their specialized activities was that as an undertaker, they were paid for their services in the
baskets and were overpaid to insure good luck for the deceased journey to Similaqsa. They also
31
belonged to secret societies or guilds that conducted funeral activities. (Claasen 1997, 172-188).
For the North fork Mono, the two-spirit was the leader of the funeral singers and was
accompanied by male and female dancers who performed at the mourning ritual. Among the
Tubatulaabal, the two-spirit wore the women’s apron, prepared acorns and tobacco, and made
baskets and pottery with the other women. Yoruk two- spirits were considered to have
supernatural power enabling them to perform shamanistic duties though men and women could
be shamans.
There were also are female berdarche shamans, representing a fourth gender, among
many northern California groups. They were gender variant females who were allowed to
participate in the otherwise male Kuksu cult rituals among the Maidu. Hollimon explained that
two-spirits among the Lakota were perceived as having supernatural powers, Winkte, a two spirit
explained that if nature puts a burden on a man by making him different, it also gives him power
(Claasen 1997, 184).
In the Southwest gender attribution and the practice of matrilocal residence did not
become important until the seventh century (Claasen 1997, 77-79). Gender constructions among
pueblo descendants today is likely as a result of contact with western patriarchal societies, or as a
result of greater construction, population growth and intensified agriculture during the pueblo
period (1200-1500) in New Mexico. Alison E. Rautman suggested that with economic
specialization, or dependence on a smaller variety of crops, like maize, the household became
specialized. This specialization may have influenced the definition and organization of gender
roles to something closer to historic pueblo culture today where people believe the realm of the
women is inside the house while men belong outside (Claasen 1997, 107-109.)
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Societies in the Americas were at the very least gender-complimentary societies where men and
women were recognized and valued for their contributions, but often recognized multiple
genders that were tolerated if not respected for their unique roles.
Fashion
The people of the Arctic wore loose fitting pants and shirts of caribou hide, polar bear or
other fur. Hooded parkas were used during winter and women’s were cut larger to be able to
carry her baby inside the garment or within the hood. Stockings, boots and mittens were made
from fur and sinew was used for stitching. Aleut’s also wore carved hats.
In the Northwest people often wore clothing of shredded cedar bark as well as animal skins and
cone shaped basket hats. In California the favorable climate allowed men to go naked or with
skin loincloths while women wore short skirts, basketry hats and cloaks of rushes or skins. In
cold weather people wore moccasins, skin robes and leggings. Women and men wore shell
necklaces, earrings and hair nets with shells woven into them.
Fashion in the Plains Cultures was elaborate and fashioned from skins and ornamented with
quills. In some tribes, men shaved their hair but left center strips long the crown that they
heightened with the addition of a stiff, colored fringe of deer tail hair called roach topped with
feathers. In other tribes, hair was left uncut and was sometimes combed so that a straight lock
fell over the forehead.
In many cultures of the east clothing was made from skins, and men wore breechcloths,
shirts, leggings, and moccasins. Women’s garments included a skirt and jacket, and in cold
weather both sexes wore skin robes. Clothing and personal objects were ornamented with floral
designs, fashioned originally with porcupine quills and later with trade beads. Indian males
plucked out or shaved their hair except for a long strip that was allowed to grow and stand up
33
from the forehead to the back of the neck. Figurines in the Cahokia Site in Illinois show women
with elongated noses, flattened foreheads, prominent chins, and wrap-around skirts rolled and
fastened at the waist. Long straight hair was pulled back to expose the ears. Others indicated
women wore moccasins and a pelt or small animal skin over the right shoulder. Male figurines
showed men with ponytails or buns, often naked unless in the winter when they wore buffalo
robes and moccasins. Women wore skirts, bark blankets, feathered mantles, and tanned deerskins
covered in designs…. (Claasen 1997, 211-213).
Many men and women throughout the Americas tattooed permanently or decorated their
bodies with different colors. Cenis women tattooed with bone splinters and charcoal – a streak
down their faces and made figures on the corners of their eyes and bosoms. Cenis men placed
leaf, flower and creature tattoos on their shoulders, thighs and other places. Illiniwek, Natchez,
Tunica, Timucua and Houma women tattooed their cheeks, breasts and arms. Cahuilla women
tattooed dots and stripes on their faces, often to indicate their clan or moiety. Ideals of Mayan
elite female beauty were often shared with men and included sloping foreheads (newborns were
bound to wooden boards), crossed eyes ( a small bead was tied to children’s bangs) tattoos,
painted bodies red, hair ornaments resembled sprouting plants and with ear and neck jewelry of
jade, shell, or precious jewels. Some filed their teeth to points and inlaid them with iron, fool’s
gold, obsidian, jade or shell.
Legal and political power
In many societies pre-contact, political and economic power was shared between men
and women. Creation stories and oral tradition acknowledged the contributions of both men and
women and instructed people to share responsibilities and respect each other. The order of the
world depended on balance between the male and female, and constructive and destructive
34
forces. The idea of reciprocity governed most societies. Many socialist democracies existed all
over America, in which the opinions of all adults were considered, and leadership was
preoccupied about how to best meet the needs of the community. Even in the hierarchal societies
that developed in the East of North America, among the Maya and Aztec, the balance between
men and women continued to be honored even when a sexual division of labor developed. Diane
Wilson surmised that in matrilineal matrilocal society, women may have been the primary food
providers, plant and protein, and those responsible for their distribution. She found that men may
have provided for themselves protein products in addition to what was distributed by women.
Women’s economic agency throughout pre-history led to continuation of gender-complimentary
societies at contact.
In California the heads of families or clans and a principal leader, constituted the
recognized governing body of the tribe. Leadership was accorded to the best man or woman, the
better hunter, fisherman or fisherwoman, a more generous person, a wiser person in the laws and
traditions. While leadership could be considered hereditary, leaders would name someone else if
they did not think their offspring would make a good leader (Costco 1995, 43).
A strict universal moral code governed society with the people’s widespread support. Leader’s
governed by laws that guided marriage, birth, death, ceremonial and religious activities, social
obligation and resource stewardship. Children and elders were cared for and respected. Some
tribes were patrilineal, other matrilineal.
If someone violated the moral code, the involved parties would negotiate restitution or
be arbitrated. “To pay for violating the law, was to admit guilt, apologize, and make amends”
(Costoco). If the perpetrator could not pay in goods of some kind, he would enter into a contract
of indentured servitude, and fed and housed in the process. Offenders who did not provide
35
restitution became the target of gossip, ridicule, were refused consideration in events, feasts, and
ceremonies. Major crimes were trespass and use of land and resources without permission, and
would be considered an offense against the entire community affected. Stealing food in time of
famine would mean ostracism from the tribe (Costco 1995, 46). There were no institutions of
slavery or of warfare, and conflict was fairly rare prior to contact. Like those tribes of the
northwest, voluntary servitude was practiced due to the tribal law of compensation instead of
retribution for violations of tribal law.
Eastern North America societies were most often matrilineal (lineage established through
the mother’s line) and matrilocal (spouses moved to the wife’s community), women were
empowered politically and economically. Identity and land use was established through the
mother’s line. Among the Haudenosaunee, or the People of the Long House (Iroquois) several
families lived in longhouse, and were supervised by the clan’s elder woman or matrons. (Dubois
n.d., 13) Senior women selected and removed the hereditary peace chiefs of their lineage.
Women did not speak at the men’s councils, but could select an orator to speak on their behalf
and depose council members if they did not act in the interest of the community. They urged or
prohibited raids by providing or withholding supplies, or by controlling the actions of the young
warriors of their lineage. Women held their own council meetings, held power in the public
sphere, traveled extensively outside of the village and associated with men in all activities. Like
most American societies, there was not strict sexual division of labor, women might hunt or lead
war parties depending on where they were in their life-cycle.
During the 1000’s AD, warfare, population, village size, and agricultural subsistence
increased in the Eastern North America that led to the formation of several pan-tribal
confederacies and institutions, The most well known in the Iroquois League of Five Nations that
36
united the Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, Seneca and Mohawk (Claasen 1997, 92). Oral tradition
tells of a Huron refugee, Deganawidah, and his disciple, Hiawatha, a Mohawk chief or shaman
who founded the league to end bloodshed and war. It was likely founded by both men and
women. The foundation of Iroquois society was the “fireside”, comprised of a mother and all her
children. Each fireside was part of an Ohwachira, or a group of related families in which
relationships were traced through mothers. Two or more Ohwachira composed a clan and various
clans within a tribe constituted a nation. All authority stemmed from the Ohwachira and the
women were at their heads. They named the delegates and Ohwachira representatives in clan and
tribal council as well as the fifty sachems or peace chiefs who made up the ruling council of the
five nations. A sachem was appointed for life and was chosen from specific families, but could
be deposed by the clan mother and removed if he acted contrary to the communities best
interests. A second groups of sachems, chosen from among the warriors or for other special
qualifications were called the Pine Tree Chiefs and constituted an additional body in tribal
deliberations and could also speak in League meetings (Josephy 1991, 95).
A priesthood of three men and three women, “keepers of the faith,” supervised religious
ceremonies, and various secret societies that performed curing and other ceremonies. Each
society had its own officers, masks, songs, dances and rituals. When a person died, the spirit of
the tribe was reduced and prisoners were adopted into the Ohwachira to recover that spiritual
power (Josephy 1991, 95). Women in the eastern tribes were both high ranking warriors and
captives. During warfare, captives would be taken, and the women would often be absorbed into
the new group. Often they would be adopted and have the opportunity to become full citizens
within the nation. (Claasen 1997, 71, 97-98).
37
Two Sachems, or leaders of the Algonquian nations at contact included, Wetamo, of the
Wampanoag Confederacy and Cockacoeske, of the Pamunkey Confederacy (Dubois n.d., 13). In
the southeast, brother-sister ruler-ships were preferred to maintain the world in balance. French
ethnographic records tell of brother-sister chiefs in which women garnered considerable respect,
had a place in all the councils and several Houma women led war parties (Claasen 1997, 220).
Seneca Women controlled the food supply, provisioned warriors for raids and wars and
determined adoptions in the clans. Women of the eastern tribes were arbitrators of peace and of
war. Adoptions integrated captives and minimized losses due to disease and warfare (Dubois
n.d., 9-11). Southeastern women of the Catawba, Chickasaw, Tuscarora, Choctaw, Cherokee,
Timucua, and Creek nations shot arrows over their husband’s shoulders in battle, accompanied
husbands in warfare, carried military supplies into war along with male two spirits, carried
medicine bundles into battle, danced in victory celebrations with enemy scalps. Women also
participated in war, and decided the fate of captives.
Among the Maya daughters could inherit property of their families and the textile work
gave her an important position in her society and city-state. Her domain was often the home,
though both spouses occasionally worked together in the home or the fields. Women could also
be matchmakers, artists, craftspeople, or scribes. Noble Lady Scribe Sky of Yaxchilan and lady
Jaguar were both highly trained and educated. Elite family matchmakers had to consult historical
and tribute rolls and therefore had to be proficient in reading. Maya society created the
possibility of parallel sources of political and social power for men and women. Women
produced important textiles and their distribution may symbolize independent wealth and
therefore autonomy during the classic period (Claasen 1997, 45).
Waged and Unwaged Work
38
In most American societies pre-contact the economies were subsistence based and relied
on a combination of horticulture and agriculture, intensive management of uncultivated crops
such as cacti and pinon, the hunting of small and large game and the harvest of river and ocean
resources. Societies ranged from semi-sedentary seasonal rounds such as those in California, the
Plateau and plains cultures to sedentary agricultural societies such as those in the Northwest,
Eastern American and Southwest. In all cases women contributed significantly to the diet and
overall economy, often up to 60-80% of the resources of a family. Expectations of sex and
gender tended to be more pronounced in hierarchical societies such as the Maya and Aztec, but
women maintained their value. In most, women were not restricted to “female” activities; rather
they participated in “male” activities when they were not pregnant and with small children. For
most of American Pre-history sex did not determine those roles or hinder the other from
choosing their work. A tradition to more sexed roles took place with the rise of agricultural
societies, beginning with the development of more productive maize strains in Mexico 4,500
years ago, in the southwest 2,000 years ago and possibly with the Adena-Hopewell exchange or
of local domesticates and cultigens of the Mississippi-Ohio River drainages 2000 years ago, and
probably with the move to acorn dependence in California. The adoption of maize agriculture in
the eastern United States 900 years ago, may have exacerbated sex role differentiation in adults
and instruction in Mississippian period children. In the non-hierarchal and horticultural or
seasonal round communities, sexed roles may not have developed prior to European influence
(Claasen 1997, 83).
In California there was no formal division of labor, a person did what they did best or in
times of stress or catastrophe, what was needed. There were no classes and thus no exploitation
of men or women. Women’s roles varied from tribe to tribe but in most she was respected as
39
keeper of the culture and for its continuation. She could become head of a clan or tribe by
superior knowledge, ability and number of relatives (Costco 1995, 49). Men and women worked
together to procure subsistence; intensively manage the landscape and resources in a sustainable
way. Materials used for hunting, house building and basket making and various household tasks
were made from a variety of rock and mineral resources. 149 quarries are known to have been
mined throughout California. Weavers were botanists and naturalists and created a variety of
baskets for utilitarian as well as ceremonial or decorative purposes.
In the southwest, families often worked together in the agricultural fields and on a variety of
activities. Men tended to participate more heavily in trade, defense and the collection and
placement of timbers for construction of the home. Women plastered the walls, centered on what
went on within the walls and inside the community. Grinding dried corn was women’s work and
perceived as vital to their people and of spiritual significance (two sisters and Acoma origins).
Women also made moccasins, blankets and pottery, the latter being an important trade item.
Women produced abundant rabbit meat and skin clothing in the Mogollon highlands and
generally hunted small game throughout the southwest (Claasen 1997, 77). Among the Fremont,
Pueblo and Hohokam cultures material culture recovered suggests women hunted antelope as did
men (Claasen 1997, 77-79).
Hopi women commonly owned much personal property, including the house itself, and
controlled most of the activities in and around the home (food processing, storage, manufacture
of many goods) men commonly worked in the fields, hunted and participated in war and made
cloth. Women controlled the production of finished products such as ground maize and pottery
and traded things among villages Trade was often carried out in family groups, going to stay
40
with other families in which they had long established ties. Tewa families had long established
relationships of reciprocity and exchange with the Jicarilla Apache (Claasen 1997, 103-104).
In Mississippian cultures of the east archaeological studies suggest a hierarchal society, but not
one characterized as male dominant. Women engaged in agricultural activates, paddled boats
and engaged in trade (Claasen 1997, 71). In the eastern woodlands the entire family would turn
out to help in the fields, managed by an elder woman. Men prepared fields for planting while
women and children sowed and raised the crops. Women gathered mushrooms, berries and nuts,
prepared food and distributed game the men hunted. Women also made baskets, pottery and
other implements. A burial of three females and one child were found with “complete flintknapping kits, cores, and debitage…indicating women did much of the flint knapping in their
communities” (Claasen 1997, 67). Women in the coastal communities “contributed to large
quantities of animal protein” through ocean harvests (Claasen 1997, 67). Mary Beth Williams
and Jeffrey Bendremer…assert that women’s foraging activities determined the timing and
frequency of residential moves….and increasing sedentism….not to the adoption of maize but to
an increased focus by women on shell fishing for food, trade of meats, and wampum production”
(Claasen 1997, 68).
Women in Coastal Algonquian communities tended crops, fished, and constructed mats
and baskets. Among the Ojibwas of the Great Lakes and Apaches of the southern plains, men
hunted and women processed the kill. Women gathered feathers from birds, fashioned moccasins
and bartered in the fur trade (Dubois n.d., 11). In the Southeast Women and families traded with
the French and the Spanish and were mobile throughout the territory, using canoes to trade.
Women adopted and adapted pottery to both hot rock steaming and direct heat cooking and were
responsible for the diffusion of technology across north America. They bread new varieties of
41
maize, enhanced the food value of many native crops, developed horticultural and storage
techniques, manipulated the physics of pottery form to enhance food processing capabilities
(Claasen 1997, 69, 83).
In Meso-American societies spinning and weaving were stereotypically gender-female
tasks. When Mayan women wove, they were following the lead of the Moon Goddess, the
inventor of weaving, and the special patron of women. Commoner women wove cloth from
maguey while cotton cloth was made and worn by aristocrats. Women often worked communally
in public festivals that were also associated with community festivals and celebrations. Cotton
was used in ceremonial costumes, as offerings to gods, wrapped sacred objects, gifts of tribute,
for export in trade. Common women were central to food provision, associated with the
production of flour, tending of gardens (variety of foods and medicines), raising of deer for
venison, and processing corn into maize flour. Until 700 AD women, men and children worked
outdoors in the same space and in the fields until it intensified into terracing. Women assisted
men in producing pots and clay products, sculpting stucco and creating latticework on rooftops.
While the division of labor while seemingly sexual did not detract from women’s status or
acknowledged importance in society. Women were perceived as being the “creators of culturally
valued and economically significant products through the transformation of natural resources
into food and textiles necessary for subsistence and ritual” (Claasen 1997, 37). Women were not
restricted by sex, but were the compliment to men and often they worked together at various
tasks (Claasen 1997, 42).
Immigration
In California population determined when tribes would break apart to become separate
communities, and one would move away to establish a new city center. People of California have
42
their own creation stories and migration stories that place them here since the beginning of time.
Social scientists claim they share ancestry from both Meso-American and Northwestern
societies.
The Iroquois’s may have immigrated to the Eastern Woodlands beginning in about
800AD and merged with the Algonquian people to create a new syncretic society. At Contact,
captives were taken in warfare and absorbed into society, often with the opportunity to become
full citizens within the nation (Claasen 1997, 97-98).
From about 800 AD the woodland cultures who had possible blended with, replaced or
developed in the plains, were succeeded by a life way that placed more reliance on agriculture,
and a more settled way of life. In the north, woodland Siouan speakers with strong Mississippian
influences moved to the middle Missouri valley; from the southeast, Caddoan speakers moved
onto the central plains; further south, a third stream also advance west from the Caddoan Culture
area. For centuries these people blended with plains woodland groups already in the area and
developed an agricultural economy. By 1500 AD western farms were abandoned and people
returned to hunting and gathering seasonal rounds; Caddoan and Siouan speaking peoples led to
new cultural traditions in the central plains. Here agricultural communities persisted while on the
western plains remained hunting-gathering lifestyle. At contact two distinct subcultures existed.
One was semi agricultural and lived along the plains eastern fringe. In the lower Missouri river
basin there was the Osages, Missouri’s, Kansas, Otos, Omaha’s, Iowa’s and Ponca’s. Caddoan
speaking Arikaras and Siouan speaking Mandan’s and Hidatsa’s were north of them in the
middle of Missouri and farther west in Nebraska were the Pawnees, a confederation of Caddoan
peoples who had migrated up the west side of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and to the
south in Kansas were the Caddoan speaking Wichita’s. The Dakota federation halted their
43
westward migration in the seventh century in Minnesota and settled into a semi agricultural
society. The second subculture included the tribes who dwelt to the west and after the
introduction of horses during the mid-1600s became the plains horse culture who lived primarily
from buffalo products. Historic tribes include the Blackfoot confederacy who spoke Algonquian,
Athabasca speaking Sarci’s, Algonquian speaking Atsina’s or Gros Ventres and the Hidatsa’s of
the Missouri river (Josephy, 117).
By the 1400s Athabascan’s, ancestors of the Apache and Navajo had reached the
southwest, having migrated from northwestern Canada. By the time the Spanish arrived in the
southwest in 1582, the people of that region had been living there for thousands of years and
intermarried among the earlier migrants of the north and later migrants of the northwest
(Calloway n.d., 29)
Over the millennia that societies separated and joined together universal truths existed or
developed that helped govern intertribal relationships. In the east for example societies
recognizes the first social principle as being that of a circle of life, or that all beings are related
and interdependent on each other for survival. Every being is an expression of the great will of
the creator and society must find ways to establish and extend kinship beyond blood ties
(adoption, exchange of children, and recognition of special, ritually consecrated friendships as in
brotherhoods or sisterhoods).Clans link communities and nations in a form of kinship, even
when actual blood ties are absent. In time people forget that they were not blood related to begin
with.
By 1700 B.C, social scientists claim that migrants from Meso-America introduced a new
culture in Louisiana characterized by an agricultural and hierarchal economy, huge earthworks
with a stratified hierarchy and religious class, occupational and leadership specialists.
44
When the Spanish began invading the southeast, chiefdoms and earthen temples pyramids were
still common. Moundville in Alabama, Etowah in Georgia and Spiro in the Arkansas Valley of
eastern Oklahoma were centers of population, trade, artistic and ceremonial life. In Florida, the
nations of the Apalachee and Timucua lived in sedentary, agricultural communities. Due to
Spanish invasion and the subsequent theft of resources, war and introduction of European
disease, the Chiefdoms collapsed and from that emerged the historic peoples of the Caddo’s,
Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokees and Creek (Calloway n.d., 34).
Suggested Reading:
Beck, Peggy, The Sacred: Ways of Knowledge, Sources of Life (Tasaile, Arizona: Navajo
Community College Press) 1996.
Blackburn, Thomas C. and Anderson, Kat, Before the Wilderness: Environmental Management
by Native Californians (Menlo Park: Ballena Press, 1993).
Brown, Joseph, Understanding Native American Religious Traditions (Oxford) 2010
Calloway, Colin G. First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History (Boston:
Bedford St. Martin, 2008).
Claassen, Cheryl and Joyce A. Rosemary, eds. Women in Prehistory: North America and
Mesoamerica (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997).
Costo, Rupert and Costo, Jeannette Henry, Natives of the Golden State: The California Indians
(San Francisco: The Indian Historian Press, 1995).
Clay, Catherine; Paul, Chandrika; Senecal, Christine, Envisioning Women in World History, V. 1
(Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2009).
Josephy, Jr. Alvin M. The Indian Heritage of North America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991).
45
Hughes, Sarah Shaver and Hughes, Brady, Women in World History, V. 1 (London: M.E. Sharpe,
1995).
Klein, Laura F and Ackerman, Lillian A. Women and Power in Native North America. (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1995).
McMaster, Gerald and Trafzer, Clifford, Eds. Native Universe: Voices of Indian America
(National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian, 2008).
Plane, Anne Marie, “Child Birth Practices Among Native American Women,” Judit Walzer
Leavitt, ed. Women and Health in America of New England and Canada, 1600-1800 (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1999).
Olsen Bruhns, Karen and Stothert, Karen, Women in Ancient America, (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1999).
Sioui, Georges E. Huron Wendot: The Heritage of the Circle (East Lansing: Michigan State
Press, 1999).
Thom, Brian, “The Anthropology of Northwest Coast Oral Traditions,” Arctic Anthropology,
Vol. 40, No. 1 (2003), pp. 1-28.
Tollefson, Kenneth D. “Potlatching and Political Organization among the Northwest Coast
Indians, Ethnology, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Winter, 1995), pp. 53-73.
46