The Importance of Women in the Colonial World

University Degree Media Studies

Women’s importance in the colonial world was an ever-changing process. They were seen as

equals in early Native society but over the years women’s roles have changed drastically. The books one

has studied have great influence on how people view women in the past but others have little. Women

have played a role from the earliest times even before written language, among the Natives, in their

stories and legends of women beings. Women once had a role in every aspect of human lives but as the

colonists and religious leaders from other countries started to migrate there role was changed and never

reestablished. Women have important roles to play in their own societies.

Eleanor Burke Leacock‘s, Myths of Male Dominance: Collective articles on Women Cross-

Culturally (Monthly Review Press New York and London, 1981), beautifully describes the importance

of native women and their roles. Leacock points out that “universal male dominance is myth not fact”

and because this book contains articles by different authors, one gets a wide variety of works that each

encourage and represent women in different areas. The authors illustrate native women before and

during colonial times by discussing gender roles, the evolution of society, and male dominance

ideology. Leacock gathered articles that directly represent women’s roles in an economic position as in

horticulture and land ownership, and their high status in their own tribe. She also goes through the

struggles and hardships some societies of native women had to go through.

In the book American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492, by

Russell Thornton (University of Oklahoma Press, 1987) native women are scarcely mentioned.

Thornton discusses women very briefly and is more interested in the native society as a whole. Women

are mentioned in areas of the book containing fertility declines, the Cheyenne flight in which women and children were brutally murdered, the 1870 Ghost Dance, health care, and intermarriage. Women’s

importance is irrelevant to their male counterparts, for both native and European settlers, of the time.

Thornton writes on their struggles but fails to mention any impact it may have had on the women

directly. This book is written from the male perspective and gives women little credit for the important

role they played in their own civilizations.

American Indian Mythology (Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, 1968) by authors Alice

Marriott and Carol K. Rachlin is a novel of collected myths and stories about native culture. The stories

explain how materials in the real and superficial world came to be and most revolve around the lives of

young men. Women are usually seen the foolish one’s who make mistakes as in the stories “How the

Half Boys Came to Be,” and “Male and Female Created He Them: The River of Separation.” In these

stories, women are seen begging for their husbands and even being killed for disobeying them. Morals

and teachings are mixed in with the new discoveries of the time but men are the victors and women are

the fools. Women are praised in the mentioning of the “Grandmother Spider” who can control men

through their thoughts. This ...

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young men. Women are usually seen the foolish one’s who make mistakes as in the stories “How the

Half Boys Came to Be,” and “Male and Female Created He Them: The River of Separation.” In these

stories, women are seen begging for their husbands and even being killed for disobeying them. Morals

and teachings are mixed in with the new discoveries of the time but men are the victors and women are

the fools. Women are praised in the mentioning of the “Grandmother Spider” who can control men

through their thoughts. This spider women, of course, is just a mythological being in their legends.

This book mixes the importance of women by using them as both leaders and consequential followers.

D’Arcy McNickle’s book entitled Native American Tribalism: Indian Survivals and Renewals

(Oxford University Press, 1993) gives the topic of native women a brief overview. He says that back in

1975 other writers give native women a “Pocahontas perplex” and that now only recently are native

women given credit for the roles they played in a community. The book reflects momentarily that

women are central in the history of native peoples. They were important in big events such as the fur

trade but also in small events as everyday life and this is what people need to accept and acknowledge.

Native feminists are now going back into history and finding the remaining pieces of influential native

women. The book also reflects the changes of the community over the years and how native peoples

have evolved in their lives.

Women and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives (J.F. Bergin Publishers, Inc, 1980) by

editors Mona Etienne and Eleanor Leacock is a great reference book for this topic. Native women are

mentioned thoroughly in the chapter Montagnais Women with the view that “men leave the

arrangement[s] of the household to the women, without interfering with them; they cut and decide and

give away as they please without making the husband angry.” The relationship between the men and

women in this society is straightforward, men do their work, women do theirs and each never interferes

with each other’s affairs. The Jesuits wanted to change the Montagnais people’s way of life and this

book describes the thoughts and ideas that the Jesuits had concerning these peoples. The realization that

women and men would have to be given the same amount of attention is mentioned early in the novel by

one Jesuit leader. Christianity had to be accepted by both sexes before converting could be arranged.

This novel, by Etienne and Leacock, looks at how different the French and Native views were especially

concerning men and women’s roles in society.

The book Words From New France: The Selected Letters of Marie De L’Incarnation (Oxford

University Press, Toronto, 1967) is translated and edited by Joyce Marshall. Marie’s interesting life is

documented by the letters she wrote. Claude Martin first published the letters she had written about five

years after her death and their was an estimated twenty thousand. The letters reflect the real life of a

women who had to overcome herself and change her life as she and God saw fit. Marie lived a

miraculous life with trails and conquests like many women for the time. She was strong and she did

what she could to help the people she encountered. Marie had connections with oversea powers and

loved, for the most part, what she did overseas in the new world, now named Canada.

American Indian Prose and Poetry: An Anthropology (Capricorn Books Edition, 1962) is edited

by Margot Astrov and is a collection of poems from different Aboriginal Nations. The poems and songs

reflect native people’s dreams, love, heaven, legends, and mythological beings. The collection of poetry

is based mostly on the male experiences and only a few reflect women but from a male point of view.

The poems “A Women’s Song” and “Love Song” describe women but they are contrasted with an

animal. Women are visualized as the ones who keep promises and are foolish when those promises are

broken. Men are written about more frequently and most of the poems are about male warriors and their

strengths, wisdom, and mental exasperations. Animals are given human abilities and they interact with

only males to give them words of wisdom or to teach them a valuable lesson. These collections of

poems needs to reflect the words and advice that women are taught and the stories and legends they hear

so they may pass it on to their children.

The Sacred Hoop: recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions by Paula Gunn Allen

(Beacon Press, 1986) is a book dominated by the women spirit and enlightenment. The book emphasizes

the importance of native women in their communities. They were the ones who kept the nation a

functioning partner but colonizers thought that “as long as women held unquestioned power of such

magnitude, attempts at total conquest of the continents were bound to fail.” Women proved that they

their as strong as their male counterparts. Women are seen as the beginning of thought and intellectual

beings like the female gods mentioned. Women are seen as warriors not like other books which focus

only on male warriors. White dominance is seen as a factor that lead to the defacing of native women in

their “mother-centered” communities. This book is a expression of women humanity and pride. They

are recognized from before contact as the strong ones and then demolished of their roles as the colonists

moved their way through changing native people’s forever with religion and force.

Thomas E. Sanders and Walter W. Peek arranged the book entitled Literature of the American

Indian (Glencore Press, 1973) which is a collection of stories and legends regarding Indian culture,

religion, and their common beliefs. Women are mentioned in many of the short stories and play a role in

developing the teachings and lessons. “The Women Who Fell From The Sky,” is a story of a young

women’s life with struggles and hardships but also of lessons and morals for young ones to learn from.

Creation stories all involve men, women, and children as equal parts or a family unit working together

to start a life together in harmony. They discover the new world and make their life mutually enjoyable

for one another. All of the stories of creation, even from other tribes, all share the same harmonious

beginning and discovery. Women make mistakes which lead to lessons and teachings but men are seen

making similar mistakes in their tales. Sander and Peek’s book is a wonderful book that captivates the

reader and harmonizes them all being together.

In the book entitled Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives by Natalie Zemon

Davis (Harvard University Press, 1995) we find a biographical-based book focused on three women’s

lives; Glikl Bas Judah Leib, Marie De L’Incarnation, and Maria Sibylla Merian. These women lived

extraordinary lives and Davis’s book documents their words, actions, struggles, and successes. Dialogue

the ladies had is conversed in the book along with dates, places, and times. Each women is written

precisely about with interesting facts about their lives. Davis’s book is well-written and researched and

the reader can get a real sense of the times these women shared with their own personal passions

exerted. Leib, De L’Incarnation, and Merian lived very different lives but are connected with their inner

ambitions pouring out of their hearts.

The novels one has studied concurs a variety of life roles of women. The changing cycle of life

brings with it a variety of responsibilities and importance for women. One has seen women as being the

center of their communities with decisions, rituals/ceremonies, and legends being based on the woman

being but through the colonists and other European peoples women’s role was almost obsolete. They

have had to struggle to reclaim the role they once had in the early times of history. Fur trade was a great

time for most women were in the middle of it with intermarriages. There role was vital through

communication and kinship ties yet some authors neglect to mention the importance of this. Women

have accomplished many great and difficult tasks to achieve what they have and much credit is needed

to restore the sense of dignity that once followed with them. Women have had such a great importance

in the colonial world and even within their own cultures yet male dominance expels them. Women are

now restoring the history of their elders and great legends to be equally harmonized with their male

counterparts which once relied on them for the basic necessities.

Bibliography

Myths of Male Dominance: Collected Articles on Women Cross-Culturally, Eleanor Burke Leacock, Monthly review Press, New York, U.S.A., 1981

American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492, Russell Thornton, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, U.S.A., 1987

American Indian Mythology, Alice Marriott and Carol K. Rachlin, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, U.S.A., 1968

Native American Tribalism: Indian Survivals and Renewals, D’Acry McNickle, Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.S.A., 1993

Women and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives, Mona Etienne and Eleanor Leacock, J.F. Bergin Publishers, Inc, New York, U.S.A., 1980

Word From New France: The Selected Letters of Marie De L’Incarnation, Joyce Marshall, Oxford University Press, Toronto, Canada, 1967

American Indian Prose and Poetry: An Anthropology, Margot Astrov, Capricorn Books, U.S.A., 1962

The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions, Paula Gunn Allen, Beacon Press Boston, U.S.A., 1986

Literature of the American Indian, Thomas E. Sanders and Walter W. Peek, Glencoe Press Inc., Beverly Hills, U.S.A., 1973

Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives, Natalie Zemon Davis, Harvard University Press, U.S.A., 1995

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Leacock, Myths of Male Dominance: Collected Articles on Women Cross-Culturally, Page 1.

Marriott and Rachlin, American Indian Mythology, Pages 78 - 89

Marriott and Rachlin, American Indian Mythology, Pages 90 - 95

Marriott and Rachlin, American Indian Mythology, Page 15, Grandmother Spider is an old women who directs men’s thoughts and destinies with advise and wisdom. Often she allures them to the underworld with cruel intentions.

McNickle, American Indian Tribalism, Pages XIV - XV, Introduction

Etienne and Leacock, Women and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives, Page 27, Chapter 1: Montagnais Women and the Jesuit Program for Colonization.

The Sacred Hoop, by Paula Gunn Allen, Page 3 of Introduction.

The Sacred Hoop, by Paula Gunn Allen , Page 33, Chapter “When Women Throw Down Bundles.”

Literature of the American Indian, Sanders and Peek, Short story, Pages 41 - 43.