Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-06-29

hide and uppers of dressed skin. Prof.
Mason says that the woman who invented
side of Watt. The Eskimo woman is
bootmaker. She carries a part Of her
equipment of tools in her mouth using her
teeth to help various processes. The reti-
and packing trunk. all exist among saw
ages, and in North America are made by
women, chiefly from the pelts of animals.
Women were the first ceramic artisans;
they developed all the technique, the forms
and the uses of pottery.
All through Latin America women in
grinding grain rub one stone up and down
upon another. The stone that is used to do
the rubbing is the original of the familiar
rolling pin, regarded by every civilized
housewife as an indispensable possession.
OF course. as the food-bringer, it became
" oman's duty in the earliest times to pro-
cure salt. Many animals, before man, had
learned to look upon salt necessary to
happiness. In the aboriginal larder 1t serv-
ed for seasoning, but not for preserving.
No savage ever thought of curing meat
with salt; food so preserved is product of
civilization. The Indians dried their CLAIMS
and oysters. In Mexico, in ancient days,
the best salt was got by boiling water
from saline lakes in pots: 1t was kept in
cakes or balls The Aztec kings had
monopoly of salt, so that the Tlascalas,
who kept their Independence, were forced
during many years to eat their food I'M
sailed.
In savasery women are hair cutters and
sometimes shavers. Within few hours
after its birth an Andamanese baby has it's
head shaved, the operation being perform
ed by its mother with a sharp flint or piece
of bottle glass Women are the BARRIERS in
the Andaman Islands; they shave each
others heads, and also those of the men.
1t has been said that it was godSend that
the savage woman did not know how to
make light that would serve to work by
at night. But the Andaman woman makes
torches of resin wrapped in leaves, to be
Used in fishing and travelling.
Women were the discoveries of the valu-
able food plants of the world. They were
the first herbalists and doctors, gathering
the beginnings of the modern materia
medica.
Eskimo Women.
Lieut. Peary, on a trip across Greenland,
saw an Eskimo woman carrying a rough
stone for & house foundation that weighed
300 pounds. 1t was slung in a rope of wal
rus hide across her back. The Eskimo wo-
men of Point Barrow carry heavier loads
than white men can. In Africa women do
all the burden-bearing. acting as carriers of
food and baggage on every expedition.
Prof. Mason says that Atlas ought to have
been a woman. If the originator of the
myth had not been man, we should every
where now behold an idealiZed female car
rying the globe on her back in a basket.
Savage men. hunting and fishing, are
much alone and have to be quiet; hence
their taciturnity. But women are con-
stantly together and chatter all day long.
Thus. and through their training of the
young, they are the makers of language.
Single blessedness IS possible in savagery,
but far less happy than in civilization.
Pref. Mason defines civilization as 1.-The
eyer-increasing possibility of the number
of unmarried females that might exist in
a community"
He tells a story Of a young Eskimo wo-
man, OF remarkable physique and mental
capacity, who held herself aloof from the
young men. She said she was as strong
as any of them; she could shoot and set
snares and nets as well as they. She had
her own gun, bought from the proceeds
of her trapping. She did not desire to do
the work of a wife, preferring that which
custom aliots to the men,. When winter
came, having made a convert in a smaller,
less athletic damsel, the two erected their
own house and lived and traded in defiance
OF public sentiment. When on one occasion
they were off on deer hunt outraged pub
lie opinion combined IN mob which re-
duCed their winter quarters to a shapeless
ruin. The next year they gave up the I'M
equal contest and returned to the ways of
the world. RENE BACHE.