at times bore a prominent part in the service of the gods, in the ceremonial of the rites and even in the reading of omens. Conceding due consideration to the difficulty of formulating any general theory for the different tribes, even of the same scope of culture, it would yet seem certain that woman's place among the Western Amerinds was far inferior to that held by her in the East. Yet among the house dwellers, such as the Pueblos and Navajos, her lot must have been, in material matters, easier than that of her Eastern sister. In the agricultural nations we find the men doing the heavier portion of the labor incident to cultivation of the soil, though the women probably acted as sowers, gleaners, and the like, as do the peasant women of Europe to this day. On the whole, it is evident that the women of the advanced Western tribes were inferior in general status, but superior in ease of lot, to their sisters of the Atlantic slope. It is now time to turn from the picture of the aboriginal woman as she stood at the time of the coming of the first settlers, and trace, as far as possible by general rule, the influences exerted upon her status by contact with the incoming civilization of the East. It is in the consequences of this influence that we may find an explanation of the lowering of the status of the Amerind woman; for the effect of that inroad of civilization was for long distinctly inimical to the development of the Indian. How far the theory of our culture was applicable to the needs of the Amerind can be only a subject of speculation, for the errors of application of that theory debarred the Indians from participation in any benefits which they might have received thereunder. The imperfect generalization which has been applied to the study of the American Indian is most conspicuous in error in its failure to take account of the marked degradation which ensued in the Indian character after the settlement of the country by the whites. It is not necessary or practicable here to trace the witness of this degradation in full strength; but it can be seen evidenced in the failure of the Indian woman to maintain her status, either of position or of character. We may indeed find a Queen Esther after the establishment of the colonists as owners of the country; but we never again see a Pocahontas. Under the incursions of a civilization which assumed its most repugnant form in its dealing with the Indians, there ensued on the part of the latter a reversion to a more barbarous type than had before been prevalent. Nor was this strange; for the necessities under which he found himself drove the Indian backward into barbarism. The influence of "firewater" upon the character of the red man has been often expatiated upon; but this was in truth but a small factor in the sum of the general result. A conquered race, driven from its strongholds into the primitive life of savagery to find means of