Women of America: Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 10 (of 10)Larus, John Ruse
History
Women of America: Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 10 (of 10)
Larus, John Ruse
Women -- America -- History; Women -- United States -- History
Such is the normal winter dress of the Innuit women; and the summer
costume, while less characteristic, varies but little in general form
from that of the colder months. Their life is monotonous and absolutely
tame, according to civilized ideas. They play at times upon the
_keeloun_, a kind of tambourine; but as a rule their merrymaking is
confined to feasting, and of the conduct at these feasts the less said
the better. Monogamy is the rule among the Innuits, and the women are
generally affectionate wives and mothers, especially the latter. When
Tookoolito and her husband, Ebierbing, visited America in the middle of
the late century, they lost their child, "Butterfly," an infant of about
a year old, and poor little Tookoolito was inconsolable; she longed to
die, that she might find again her lost "Butterfly," and she tended the
little grave, made in the burial ground at Groton, Connecticut, with the
tenderest care, placing thereon, according to the Innuit superstition,
the favorite toys of the little one, that it might have them in its
sojourn in the beyond. The love of parents for their children is indeed
one of the most pronounced and most estimable traits of the Innuit
character.
This brief sketch of the women of the hyperboreans must suffice, for
there are more important matters of feminine history demanding
attention, and indeed the Innuit culture, if so it may be termed,
presents few salient features as to the condition of its women. In
status and conditions they occupy a place about midway between the woman
of the Indian tribes and her of the lower phases of our own
civilization.
Southward now to the land of the mixed blood, where the two ancient
enemies, France and England, have joined in a race that owes allegiance
to the latter but retains many of the characteristics of the former. To
write the history of Canadian women is largely to speak of individuals,
since there has been but little alteration or development of conditions
of a social nature. Yet some may be noted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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