I may pause to note some of the numerous industries of which women were the originators. First of all, woman is the food-giver; all the labours relating to the preparation of food, and to the utilisation of the side products of foodstuffs are usually found in the hands of women. Women are everywhere the primitive agriculturists. They beat out the seeds from plants; dig for roots and tubers, strain the poisonous juices from the cassava and make bread from the residue; and it was under their attention that a southern grass was first developed into what we know as Indian corn.[166] The removal of poisonous matter from tapioca by means of hot water is also the discovery of savage women.[167] All the evolution of primitive agriculture may be traced to women’s industry. Power tells of the Yokia women in Central California who employ neither plough nor hoe, but cultivate the ground by digging the earth deep and rubbing it fine with their hands, and by this means they get an excellent yield.[168] Women have everywhere been the first potters; vessels were needed for use in cooking, to carry and to hold water, and to store the supplies of food. For the same reason baskets were woven. Women invented and exercised in common multifarious household occupations and industries. Curing food, tanning the hides of animals, spinning, weaving, dyeing--all are carried on by women. The domestication of animals is usually in women’s hands. They are also the primitive architects; the hut, in widely different parts of the world--among Kaffirs, Fuegians, Polynesians, Kamtschatdals--is built by women. We have seen that the communal houses of the American Indians are mainly erected by the women. Women were frequently, though not always, the primitive doctors. Among the Kurds, for instance, all the medical knowledge is in the hands of the women, who are the hereditary _hakims_.[169] Women seem to have prepared the first intoxicating liquors. The Quissama women in Angola climb the gigantic palm trees to obtain palm-beer.[170] In the ancient legends of the North, women are clearly represented as the discoverers of ale.[171] [166] Thomas, _Sex and Society_, p. 136. [167] Mason, _op. cit._ p. 24. [168] _Cont. North American Ethnology_, Vol. III, p. 167. [169] Mrs. Bishop, _Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan_, cited by H. Ellis, _op. cit._, p. 6. [170] _Jour. Anthrop. Inst._, Vol. I, p. 190. [171] “Magic Songs of the Finns,” _Folk-lore_, Mar. 1892.