Question

1.Describe how Native American women collaborated and worked with men to survive. How did women exert power and authority within their societies?

2. Explain the important role that Native American women held within spiritual/religious areas of life.

Answer 1

Women played a very important role in the life of the Native American. They were more than just mothers of the tribes’ children. They were builders, warriors, farmers, and craftswomen. Their strength was essential to the survival of the tribes.

In most cases, the women were actually in charge of gathering materials and then building the homes for everyone. They maintained their homes’ roof, and created new houses for tribes to live in. This is an astonishing achievement, particularly for the women of their time. The men knew that women were the source of life, and provided a feeling of strength and consistency to their lives. The women in Native American tribes often helped their men to hunt down buffalo. Then, when the buffalo were harvested, the women were responsible for skinning, cutting, and cooking the animal. They also gathered firewood, cooked, and repaired clothing and shoes.

But Native American women were not simply homemakers. In fact, they served a great deal of important purposes and were essential to the tribe in other ways as well. Women made tools and weapons out of animal bone, which were absolutely necessary for everyone’s’ survival. Not only was there medicine men in the tribes but there were medicine women as well. In fact, many Native American tribes believed that the women had more healing power and were able to soothe ill souls with their chants and connection to the spirit world. Medicine women gathered herbs to create healing medicines for those who fell sick within the tribe. Additionally, most Native American women were master craftsman who made beautiful blankets, baskets, and pottery. Jewelry was another favorite. There was a feeling of mutual respect between the men and women of the tribes. They cared for their children and husbands, just like the modern woman does today. Without their help, it would have been very difficult for the Native Americans to survive.

Life in society

Native American tribes believed that they originated from a woman and many of their legends and creation stories depict a "mother earth." Agriculture was put under the women of the tribe's trust, and they saw to the fields, both harvesting and cultivating the vegetables and plants for their people. Tribal women like the Algonquians planted their fields meticulously and in a way that kept the land sustainable for future use. After planting seeds and piling on earth to protect it from the birds and harvesting until the soil lacked nutrients to continue on, women decided when to clear new fields and allow the used ones to regenerate. Women in the Iroquois tribes often controlled the distribution of food among their people. Their perceived position as beings of spiritual power gave women in some tribes the opportunity to be healers for minor injuries, as men were more commonly shamans, midwives, and herbalists.

2. Apache tribe, girls are not recognized as a woman until they have gone through the Sunrise Ceremony. The Apache Sunrise Ceremony is an ancient coming of age four day celebration that Apache girls experience soon after their first menstruation. Throughout the four day sacred ceremony they dance to songs and prayers to fill themselves with the physical and spiritual power of White Painted Woman in order to embrace their role as a woman of the Apache nation.

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