Gender Interactions with Native Americans

Men tended to support the frontier and its native population as one piece, both to be subdued, controlled and made to serve him.  Men believed they had a mission to rescue the Indian women from a primitive culture, degraded status and low sexuality.  Women on the other hand, did not necessarily support the means used to achieve that success.  (Might doesn't always equal right). 

Since women were more welcome in Indian homes than men,  they formed closer relationships with the Indian women.  Hair styling, clothing, child care, domestic matters - all helped form a bond between the females cultures.

One Oklahoma woman recalled an extensive knowledge gained of "palatable, healthy greens and roots" shared by Indian women on the gathering expedition.  They learned how to use herb remedies to treat snake bites with raw turkey meat, for example.  Indian women assisted white women in childbirth as well.

This bond did not extend to the Indian men except in medicine where they were sought out and "cared for my people as a brother would treat a brother" as one frontier woman said of the medicine man who tended her family.

Women attended Indian weddings, funerals, stomp dances, war dances, mock battles and learned respect and empathy for the Indian culture first hand. White women grew more accepting of marriage between cultures than the men who tended to deny the existence or validity of a white female marrying an Indian man.

Next time...The Male Side of Things