Women
Plains Indian women are often portrayed as "beasts of burden," a view that has been challenged by some scholars. Women tanned hides, gathered wild foods, cooked, made clothing, and took down and erected tipis during the frequent movements of the band or tribe. Women had different roles than men. Their social life was primarily with other women in various societies and clubs in which they participated, not engaging in political life except indirectly. That Indian women were not always subservient and suppressed is illustrated by the experiences of frontiersman Kit Carson. In 1841, Carson married a Cheyenne woman named Making Out Road. The marriage was turbulent and ended when Making Out Road threw Carson and his belongings out of her tipi. She later went on to marry, and divorce, several additional men, both white and Indian.
Read more about this topic: Plains Indians
Famous quotes containing the word women:
“Modern women are squeezed between the devil and the deep blue sea, and there are no lifeboats out there in the form of public policies designed to help these women combine their roles as mothers and as workers.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)
“... men need women more than women need men; and so, aware of this fact, man has sought to keep woman dependent upon him economically as the only method open to him of making himself necessary to her.”
—Elizabeth Gould Davis (b. 1910)
“Many women are reluctant to allow men to enter their domain. They don’t want men to acquire skills in what has traditionally been their area of competence and one of their main sources of self-esteem. So while they complain about the male’s unwillingness to share in domestic duties, they continually push the male out when he moves too confidently into what has previously been their exclusive world.”
—Bettina Arndt (20th century)