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Kayla Cannon
April 4, 2018
Cherokee Women: Gender and Cultural Change
During the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, in the Native American culture, men and women lived as completely separate people. Even though they lived separately, the jobs they withheld were perfect stability due to what men were accomplishing women couldn’t and vice versa. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change by Theda Perdue is a book that communicates and portrays how gender affected the Native American culture and the relations throughout the culture. Although the title of the book can lead you to believe it is solely about women, this book strongly suggests how Cherokee men and Cherokee women were not only separate in ways of gender but how they in fact differ throughout the time period and the impact that had on the culture. Theda Perdue argues how the appearance of Europeans completely shaped and molded the traditions held by the Cherokee tribe. She does an impeccable job describing and analyzing the way things prevailed in the seventeen hundreds through the eighteen forties. She goes above
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and beyond in describing the gender and cultural changes and shows how Native American society was as a whole. Her insight on culture changes and gender and how they affected life, family and religion really show the shift in roles in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. Perdue allows for a deeper understanding of how men and women in the cherokee tribe clashed and how the difficulties and struggles they faced shaped and helped them adapt to new ways of learning, living and continuing to grow.
Women in the Cherokee society were given a high amount of power, considering agriculture had a huge role and importance in everyday life and they had control over this work. Men had the role of being the hunters and acting as warriors. Men and women seemed to have worked hand in hand when it came to important things such as economics, politics and things that were requirements for their lives, but in doing this they did remain separate. As there was a major cultural change in this time, the ideology of gender didn’t change much. This resulted in women losing their power and men were gaining it. Agriculture started to decline, and this was where women held most of their
power. The new found relationship that was gained between the Europeans and the Cherokee was one that caused dramatic changes. As it began with a trade relationship it quickly turned to more. Slavery was introduced to the Cherokee through the Europeans. Many of the European tactics were actually gained from the Native American culture, which I was unaware of. Another aspect that was molded with the interconnection of the two cultures was religion. Prior to this relationship, the Cherokee were not associated with Christianity. The most fascinating or eye-opening thing that Perdue communicated in her book was her focus on gender. Some of her points and conclusions, I had never even thought of or would have associated with this time period and culture. There were many aspects of the Cherokee tribe, and men and women that I didn’t even know, so it was refreshing to read and learn more. I wouldn’t criticize her book at all. In the beginning of Cherokee Women, I feel that the topic of politics could be of more discussion and maybe a more brief overview, but it is nothing less without it. Cherokee Women is an outstanding book. It covers all aspects of the Native American culture and goes further by digging deeper into the culture and gender part of society. Perdue proves that gender did have a role in what or how Native Americans lived in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds.
Native Americans have been fighting till this day for freedom. Millions of Native Americans have lost their lives fighting for freedoms and their lands. So far, not much have been done to the Native Americans and they have not achieved everything they had hoped for. Most Native Americans are still living on reservations and government are doing little to help them. A book titled “Lakota Women” by Mary Crow Dog takes us into the lives of the Native Americans, her childhood, adulthood, and her experiences of being an Indian woman.
Owen, Narcissa, and Karen L. Kilcup. A Cherokee woman's America memoirs of Narcissa Owen, 1831-1907. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005.
In “Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership”, Tecumseh and the many Indian tribes in west America spent years fighting for their land and trying to keep their culture alive. The story illustrates cultural aspects of the period through elucidating the important figure The Shawnees were a patrilineal tribe meaning they are traced through the males of the family. Although men were a main part of the culture, each village had an informal group of women who governed certain tribal rituals and set dates for many activities. Women were also allowed to save captives and prisoners.
The role of the longhouse in Iroquois society goes beyond the physical structure of the household. To understand the affects and underlying causes of longhouse structural change, one must understand the societal and cultural significance of the built environment in Iroquois everyday life. The longhouse was a category of material culture with which one’s role in the society was produced (Birch 2012). The structure of everyday life, including kin relationships, inheritance, prestige, and even political power were symbolically embodied in the longhouse (O’Gorman 2010). Some postulate that the significance of the longhouse was so integral to structuring Iroquois society that it was essential to the interactions and boundary-forming practices that
Jamestown, Virginia, is a crucial source of legends about the United States. Pocahontas, a daughter of an Indian werowance married an Englishman named John Rolfe and changed her name to Rebecca. In her article, “Gender Frontier”, Kathleen Brown underscores gender role and responsibility in both Native American and English settlers. Gender frontier is the meeting of two or more culturally specific system of knowledge about gender and nature. She also stresses the duties that they played in their societies prior to the arrival of the English people in the early colony in Virginia. Brown describes the difference values between Europeans and Native Americans in regards to what women and men should and should not do and the complex progression of
Indian women had played roles in the beginning of American history. The two famous women were La Malinche and Pocahontas. Both of them were not educated, that’s why their stories were written by others. Bernal Diaz, Spanish conquistador and Cortez’s companion, wrote about Malinche. Whereas, John Smith, English soldier wrote about Pocahontas. Malinche played the role of translator, advisor and lover of Cortez, while, Pocahontas played the role of peacemaker. There are also some contradictions in Smith writings about Pocahontas saving his life. Malinche and Pocahontas made the link between colonist and native population, they married to Europeans; but Malinche was from South America (Mexico) and she had contacted with the Spanish, whereas, Pocahontas lived in North America (Virginia) and related to English. Both of them very intelligent women, Malinche had the skill of speaking multicultural languages and Pocahontas was the peace creator between Indians and English.
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Significantly, Welch deconstructs the myth that Plains Indian women were just slaves and beasts of burden and presents them as fully rounded women, women who were crucial to the survival of the tribal community. In fact, it is the women who perform the day-to-day duties and rituals that enable cultural survival for the tribes of...
Gender relations in the Dakota tribe were very specific and there were no crossing of the sexes. To begin, I think it is important to analyze the difference between “sex” and “gender”. Up until researching for this paper, I though that the two terms were interchangeable in meaning, rather, they are separate ideas that are connected. According to Mary K. Whelan, a Doctor of Anthropology focusing on gender studies, sex and gender are different. She states, “Western conflation of sex and gender can lead to the impression that biology, and not culture, is responsible for defining gender roles.
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together for the better of the shared children. The women had a say in how they would help
Perdue stated that prior to America 's involvement in Cherokee society, Cherokee women had a voice in Cherokee government and they were respected. She mentioned that it was a Cherokee woman who wrote to Benjamin Franklin in contemplation of negotiating peace with the new American nations. This anecdote indicated traditional Cherokee women’s political status in Cherokee society and their involvement in deciding major decisions of the nation, and women were the leading roles in resisting American’s potential invasion. Perdue went on explaining that the political influence come from “their maternal biological role in procreation and their maternal role in Cherokee society, …” in which women were the major economic sources that support families and they were women who represented their kins in negotiating with American
The Cherokee Indians were the largest of the five tribes. They are unique group of people that had a great understanding between sex. The men were the chiefs; they were in charge of hunting, war and peacekeeping and they made all the political decisions for the tribe. The women were the landowners; that were in charge of farming, property and social decision for the clans. Both genders took part in storytelling, artwork, music, and traditional medicine. For clothing, the men wore breechcloths and leggings, and the women wore wraparound skirts and poncho-style blouses made out of woven fiber or deerskin.
The Cheyenne Indians had quite an interesting life and many different customs that even live on today. The daily life of a Cheyenne always began before the sun rose. Women and men each had their own separate duties for the day. The women would prepare the meals while the men and boys would herd up the horses back to their camp. Each day, also, there were daily activities announced to everyone in the tribe. These activities included the children to go out and play for most of the day, the women would clean and have their time to converse with the other women, and the men would go out and play w...
Prior to 15th century colonization, indigenous peoples of North America enjoyed a gender system that included not only women and men, but also a third gender known as Two-Spirit. In Native American culture, individuals who identified as Two-Spirit were revered by society and held important roles among tribes. In their article “The Way of the Two-Spirited Pe...