It is a common mistake, arising from insufficient knowledge, to suppose that savage women are specially subject to oppression. Their life is hard as we look at it, but not as they look at it. We have still much to learn on these matters. An even greater error is the view that these women are a source of weakness to the male members of their families. The very reverse is the truth. Primitive women are strong in body and capable in work. Fison and Howitt, in discussing this question, state of the Australian women, “In times of peace, they are the hardest workers and the most useful members of the community.” And in times of war, “they are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves at all times, and so far from being an encumbrance on the warriors, they will fight, if need be, as bravely as the men, and with even greater ferocity.”[162] This is no exceptional case. The strength of savage women is proved by reports from widely different races, of which all testify to their physical capability and aptness for labour. Schellong,[163] who has carefully studied the Papuans of the German protectorate of New Guinea, from the anthropological point of view, “considers that the women are more strongly built than the men.” Nor does heavy work appear to damage the health or beauty of the women, but the contrary. Thus among the Andombies on the Congo, to give one instance, the women, though working very hard as carriers, and as labourers in general, lead an entirely happy existence; they are often stronger than the men and more finely developed: some of them, we are told, have really splendid figures. And Parke, speaking of the Manyuema of the Arruwimi in the same region, says that “they are fine animals, and the women very handsome; they carry loads as heavy as those of the men and do it quite as well.”[164] Again, McGee[165] comments on the extraordinary capacity of quite aged women for heavy labour. He tells of “a withered crone, weighing apparently not more than 80 to 90 lb. who carried a _kilio_ containing a stone mortar 196 lb. in weight for more than half a mile on a sandy road without any perceptible exhaustion. The proportion of the active aged is much larger than among civilised people.” [162] _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 133, 147. [163] Cited by Ellis, _Man and Woman_, p. 4. [164] H. H. Johnston, _The Kilimanjaro Expedition_; Parke, _Experiences in Equatorial Africa_. These examples are cited by Ellis. [165] “The Beginnings of Agriculture,” _American Anthropologist_, Oct. 1895, p. 37.