She is a heathen--hemmed in on every side by fear and superstition. Her gods are gods of fear. She believes in witchcraft, is afraid of a world full of evil spirits. Under a pagan religion her place is next to the mere animals. She goes with her husband to the hunt, not as a companion, but as the drudge, the human pack-horse; she prepares the food, and her husband devours it regardless of her needs; he may boast of his "old woman" as being "nina mimi heca" (swift or good to work) for that is the only accomplishment required in his selfish, egotistical mind. "The Indian woman comes into the world under a species of protest--every Indian parent desiring to have boys, rather than girls, hence she grows up into a condition of servitude." "In the Indian nation to purchase a wife is the honorable way, all other ways are dishonorable, and the man having bought his wife, although the custom of the country does not allow him to dispose of her to another, yet he may put her away, or leave her, at his pleasure. He may also whip her and beat her, for she is his money." I never shall forget one poor woman who came to me soon after we went to the Indian country. She showed me her back covered with the marks where her husband had beaten her. Now I have given you a brief description of the Indian woman _as we find her_. What can be done for her? What would _you_ do for her? There is only one thing. _Help her to become a Christian._ This is not to be accomplished in a hurry, for she is in bondage to her husband--to her religion. But faith and prayer, together with a genuine interest in the Indian home, can accomplish much. Desolate and comfortless though that home may be, it can be transformed, and the husband even can be made to see that there is something more real, something that is more satisfying, something that is more comforting than this life of fear and bondage to his heathen gods. "The man has more to give up than the woman if he becomes a Christian. If a woman changes her gods and her religion, no one cares very much; it is 'only a woman.' But a man must abandon his ancestral faith, which binds him more strongly than the woman, for the very reason that he is a man, and has been inducted into manhood through the ceremonies of his religion."