Polygamy generally prevailed among the Amerinds, and modern civilization is accustomed to regard this as an evil from the standpoint of the woman. It may, however, be questioned whether in this instance, as in so many others, our pity has not been misplaced. The work of the fields was universally performed by women, their lords and masters confining their contribution to the household work to furnishing the table with fish and game. Had monogamy prevailed, the lot of the wife would necessarily have been hard; the work which she would have found to her hand would have been more than she could accomplish, and she must have sunk under it. But the custom of polygamy obviated such necessity, for it brought into the household other servants who should perform the requisite tasks. It is at least probable, though it is not an established fact, that each household had a chief wife, to whom the rest were subservient; in fact, there is reason to believe that the constitution of the Indian household was not unlike that of the Israelites, wherein the added "wives" were little else than concubines, having a legal status but not full rights of wifeship. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt that polygamy, apart from its moral aspect, was an institution for which the Indian wife had cause to be profoundly grateful. It ameliorated her lot in such wise that she was really subject to no more hardships than is the European peasant woman of the present day. On the other hand, it would seem that at least in some instances the husband had absolute rights of life and death over his wife. In the not very edifying--and probably even less authentic--autobiography of James Beckwourth, the white man who was long chief of the Crow tribe, there is related an incident where, his Blackfoot wife having shown disregard to his commands, he coolly took up his war club and struck her on the head, stunning her, and, as was thought at the time, killing her. The blow turned out not to be fatal; but this does not obscure the point of the incident, which lies in the fact that the father of the woman, who was present, told Beckwourth that he had done perfectly right and acted entirely as befitted a great warrior. Beckwourth rather plumed himself upon his conduct,--though it is difficult to see wherein the incident called for the display of any very heroic qualities,--and in his narration almost apologizes for the fact that he did not strike quite so hard a blow as he had intended; but, while the story has its amusing features, our concern in the matter lies in the fact that such conduct seems to have been entirely conventional. This incident occurred in the beginning of the last century; but it is evident that it must have been a survival of custom, and not a novelty introduced by a fresh civilization.