Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-02-14
FEMALE INDIAN SLAVES.
Tho Women of All Tribes Doomed to .
Hopeless Bondage.

Tho Women of All Tribes Doomed to q
Hopeless Bondage.
The women of all Indian tribes doomed TO q
hopeless bondage of slavery, the fate of their
sex in every savage race, have but few amuse-
ments, says a writer in the Kansas City Star.
They accept their condition stoieally. however,
by the unerring law Of heredity through ages
Of abuse and servile obedience The lower the
tribe in the scale of humanity the more de-
graded are the women. Among the Diggers Of
Oregon and Washington, with which savages
passed three or four years, the poor squaws are
to be pitied. Living on roots and insects.
which the women must furnish, their existence
as tribe may well be imagined to be q very
precarious one. II the camas, q bulb growing
deep in the ground and very sweet, should fail
or the acorn and ''black cricket crop be not
plentiful in any year. their winter is liable to
be one of pinching poverty and starvation.
have often looked with profound pity upon
troops of their old and young squaws under
the hot summer sun wandering day after day
over the prairies, the mothers with their little
ones strapped to their backs, armed with a
long iron, with which they dug the sometimes
hard soil for the roots, which furnish Q large
portion of their support, haggard, broken
down, but never complaining Of their weari-
some task.
Among many of the tribes. however, the
.
but it is generally when their lords are hall
drunk. The Dakotahs frequently permitted
their women to indulge in Q game of ball,
which, however, differed entirely from that
played by the men. When the men had worn
themselves out with their own games and
were in a maudlin state from too much whisky,
but wanted to have q little more fun, they
would notify every one that the squsws we're
going to have q game Of ball of their own.
Thea when the game began the bucks would
roll over on the ground and laugh at the
curious antics of their squaws in their awkward
playing.
Frequently, when the men had been very
lucky in their trapping or had been successful
in making good trades with the whites. they
would open their hearts and donate piles Of
gaudy goods, such as calicoes, ribbons and
strings of beads, besides many other bright
colored things known only to the Indian trade
and found only in the stores of the traders.
These things, which were to be the prizes con-
tended for, would be put on q stick, which it
self rested on two crotched poles upright in the
The old man was also umpire Of the game. The
women were then divided into two equal par
ties and the ball-or rather two, for they play
with two-fastened to the ends of q string
eighteen or twenty inches long. Every squaW
engaged in the game holds in each hand small
stick. on which she must try to catch the string
to which is attached the two balls, and when
she succeeds in doing this she throws them to
and over the goal of the side she il playing. 1t
is q remarkably comical sight to see the women
roll over in the dust and dirt in the frantic eff
forts to catch the string on their sticks, while
the men Lie fat on the ground and roar with
laughter at them.
Notwithstanding the women are kept % de-
graded there is as much affection among them
for their husbands and children as have ever
witnessed among the Caucasian race. ! will
relate one instance here which came under my
own observation, though could present hum
dreds.
During the campaign of 1s6S-6s was riding
with a party Of men and officers south of the
Arkansas. We had been watching some of the
cavalry unearth three or four dead warriors
who had been killed by some scouts in . terri
BILE fight some weeks before, and a. We rode
into a small ravine in the sand hills we came
to a rude lodge, inside of which. on Q rough
platform Oh bier, fashioned of green poles, re-
posed dead warrior in full war dress, his
shield Of buffalo hides, pipe ornamented with
eagle feathers, and his "medicine bag" lying
on the ground beside him. At his head, on
her knees, her hands clasped in the attitude Of
prayer, was o squaw frozen to death. Which
had first succumbed-the wounded chief, her
husband, or the devoted wife-to the awful
cold of that winter prairie will never be
known, but it shows her love for the man who
had, perhaps, beaten her hundred times.