She was a very
ancient woman, small in stature, and not much distinguished by her
dress from several young women that attended her. These, her attendants,
seemed greatly pleased whenever I showed any tokens of respect to their
queen, especially when I saluted her, which I frequently did to acquire
her favor."
The other was a woman, who being taken captive, found means to kill her
captor, and make her escape, and the tribe were so struck with
admiration at the courage and calmness she displayed on the occasion, as
to make her chieftainess in her own right.
Notwithstanding the homage paid to women, and the consequence allowed
her in some cases, it is impossible to look upon the Indian women,
without feeling that they _do_ occupy a lower place than women among the
nations of European civilization. The habits of drudgery expressed in
their form and gesture, the soft and wild but melancholy expression of
their eye, reminded me of the tribe mentioned by Mackenzie, where the
women destroy their female children, whenever they have a good
opportunity; and of the eloquent reproaches addressed by the Paraguay
woman to her mother, that she had not, in the same way, saved her from
the anguish and weariness of her lot.
More weariness than anguish, no doubt, falls to the lot of most of these
women. They inherit submission, and the minds of the generality
accommodate themselves more or less to any posture. Perhaps they suffer
less than their white sisters, who have more aspiration and refinement,
with little power of self-sustenance.
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