Life was difficult and precarious for both sexes in nomadic Indian
tribes, and other commentators felt that the women did not question
their role which was essential for survival. However, it did not accord
with European notions of femininity for women for women to be strong.
The Hudson's Bay Company men found the unladylike strength of Chipewayan
women particularly astonishing. On one occasion David Thompson sent one
of his strongest men to help a Chipewyan woman who was hauling a heavy
sled; to the man's surprise, it took all his strength to budge the load.
The Chipewayan themselves took the superior strength of women for
granted. As a famous chief Matonabbee declared, "Women... were made
for labour; one of them can carry, or haul, as much as two men can do." Samuel Hearne perceived that the Chipewayan evaluated
women by different criteria than did the European. Physical prowess and
economic skill took precedence over delicate features:
Ask a Northern Indian, what is beauty? he will answer, a broad
flat face, small eyes, high cheek-bones.. a low forehead, a large
broad chin, a clumsy hook-nose, a tawny hide, and breasts hanging down
to the belt. Those beauties were greatly heightened, or at least
rendered more valuable, when the possessor is capable of dressing all
kinds of skins, converting them into the different parts of their
clothing, and all to carry eight or ten stone in Summer, or haul a
much greater weight in Winter.
The positions adopted by Indian women in labour, either squatting
or kneeling over a low object, seemed to lessen the length and pain of
parturition. Concerned at the lack of help and attention which "the
sex" received in childbirth, Samuel Hearne endeavoured to explain
to Indian women the benefits of the use of midwives as in Britain.. He
was met with the contemptuous response that such interference was
probably the cause of the humpbacks, bandy legs and other deformities
which the Indians observed among their English visitors. James Isham, on
the other hand, found Indian attitudes commendable. After observing how
soon Cree women resumed their heavy work, he was prompted to suggest
that Englishwomen were too often unnecessarily pampered. "I think
it's only pride and ambition, that takes in Keeping their bed a full
month, and putting a poor C'n to Charge and Experience for aught."
Isham also noticed that Indian women were not very prolific.
Children were generally spaced two or three years apart. In attempting
to account for this lack of fertility compared with European women,
prevented conception. Indian mothers suckled their children for several
years, never having recourse to wet nurses that was then common practice
amongst the wealthier classes in Europe. The traders considered that
such a long nursing period had a detrimental effect upon the women
because it resulted in premature aging, but the Indians had their own
reasons for supporting this practice. If children were weaned before the
age of three, the Indian women at Severn House informed William
Falconer, they would develop large bellies from having to drink too much
water and this would make them poor travelers unable to withstand fatigue.
Furthermore native women had to nurse their children until they were old
enough to eat solid, adult fare. As one observer succinctly wrote:
"They give babies nothing but milk or else present them with a leg
of goose."
The Europeans did comment favourably on the practicality of the
Indian cradle which allowed the children, encased in soft skins, to be
conveniently carried on its mother's back. A silky, dried, absorbent
moss, which frequently changed, took the place of diapers. Isham thought
this was such a "good Saving Method", dispensing with the
trouble and expense of washing, drying and buying cloth for clouts, that
it could be advantageously adopted by "the poor folks in our own
Nation".
