of menial work.  Major E. Backus also noted (Schoolcraft, IV., 214) that Navajo women “are treated more kindly than the squaws of the northern tribes, and perform far less of laborious work than the Sioux or Chippewa women.”  But when we examine the facts more closely we find that this comparative “emancipation” of the Navajo women was not a chivalrous concession on the part of the men, but proceeded simply from the lack of occasion for the exercise of their selfish propensities.  No one would be so foolish as to say that even the most savage Indian would put his squaw into the treadmill merely for the fun of seeing her toil.  He makes a drudge of her in order to save himself the trouble of working.  Now the Navajos were rich enough to employ slaves; their labor, says Major Backus, was “mostly performed by the poor dependants, both male and female.”  Hence there was no reason for making slaves of their wives.  Backus gives another reason why these women were treated more kindly than other squaws.  After marriage they became free, for sufficient cause, to leave their husbands, who were thus put on their good behavior.  Before marriage, however, they had no free choice, but were the property of their fathers.  “The consent of the father is absolute, and the one so purchased assents or is taken away by force."[211]

A total disregard of these women’s feelings was also shown in the “very extensive prevalence of polygamy,” and in the custom that the wife last chosen was always mistress of her predecessors. (Bancroft, I., 512.) But the utter incapacity of Navajo men for sympathetic, gallant, chivalrous sentiment is most glaringly revealed by the barbarous treatment of their female captives, who, as before stated, were often shot or delivered up for indiscriminate violence.  Where such a custom prevails as a national institution it would be useless to search for refined feeling toward any woman.  Indeed, the Navajo women themselves rendered the growth of refined sexual feeling impossible by their conduct.  They were notorious, even among Indians, for their immodesty and lewd conduct, and were consequently incapable of either feeling or inspiring any but the coarsest sensual passion.  They were not queens, as the astonishing Hale would have it, but they certainly were queans.

Concerning other Indians of the Southwest—­Yumas, Mojaves, Pueblos, etc.—­M.A.  Dorchester writes:[212]

“The native Indian is naturally polite, but until touched by civilization, it never occurred to him to be polite to his wife.”  “If there is one drawback to Indian civilization more difficult to overcome than any other, it is to convince the Indian that he ought not to put the hardest work upon the Indian women.”

The ferocious Apaches make slaves of their women. (Bancroft, I., 512.) Among the Comanches “the women do all the menial work.”  The husband has the pleasant excitement of killing the game, while the women do the hard work even here:  “they butcher and transport the meat, dress the skins, etc.”  “The females are abused and often beaten unmercifully.” (Schoolcraft, I., 236, V., 684.) The Moquis squaws were exempt from field labor not from chivalrous feelings but because the men feared amorous intrigues. (Waitz, IV., 209.) A Snake, Lewis and Clarke found (308),