[At Home And Abroad by Margaret Fuller Ossoli]@TWC D-Link bookAt Home And Abroad CHAPTER VI 14/37
These, her attendants, seemed greatly pleased whenever I showed any tokens of respect to their queen, especially when I saluted her, which I frequently did to acquire her favor." The other was a woman, who, being taken captive, found means to kill her captor, and make her escape; and the tribe were so struck with admiration at the courage and calmness she displayed on the occasion, as to make her chieftainess in her own light. Notwithstanding the homage paid to women, and the consequence allowed them in some cases, it is impossible to look upon the Indian women without feeling that they _do_ occupy a lower place than women among the nations of European civilization.
The habits of drudgery expressed in their form and gesture, the soft and wild but melancholy expression of their eye, reminded me of the tribe mentioned by Mackenzie, where the women destroy their female children, whenever they have a good opportunity; and of the eloquent reproaches addressed by the Paraguay woman to her mother, that she had not, in the same way, saved her from the anguish and weariness of her lot. More weariness than anguish, no doubt, falls to the lot of most of these women.
They inherit submission, and the minds of the generality accommodate themselves more or less to any posture.
Perhaps they suffer less than their white sisters, who have more aspiration and refinement, with little power of self-sustenance.
But their place is certainly lower, and their share of the human inheritance less. Their decorum and delicacy are striking, and show that, when these are native to the mind, no habits of life make any difference.
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