Spirit of the Mountain- Paty Jager

Anna Kathryn, Thank you for having me here today to talk about Spirit of the Mountain, my first historical paranormal release.

This is the first book of a trilogy set among the Nez Perce of the Wallowa Valley in NE Oregon. I have sibling spirits and each one has their own story and how they fall in love with a mortal. I kept the day to day life of the Nimiipuu factual and inserted all the fun spirit stuff, which is only a figment of my imagination. While the Nez Perce did believe in spirits and the Creator, I have made up my own sense of how the Creator and the spirits in my books influenced the band and my characters.

Nez Perce were animists; They believed that everything in creation- animals, birds, fish, rocks, trees, stars, plants and all natural phenomena- had spirits or a supernatural side that appeared to humans in visions and could influence them for good or harm. I took this notion and brought good and bad spirits to life in my book. With this ingrained belief in their society it was easy to make my heroine believe in the hero when she sees him for the first time as a man and realizes he is the wolf she has been talking to about her fears.

Blurb for Spirit of the Mountain
Wren, the daughter of a Nimiipuu chief, has been fated to save her people ever since her vision quest. When a warrior from the enemy Blackleg tribe asks for her hand in marriage to bring peace between the tribes, her world is torn apart.

Himiin is the spirit of the mountain, custodian to all creatures including the Nimiipuu. As a white wolf he listens to Wren’s secret fears and loses his heart to the mortal maiden. Respecting her people’s beliefs, he cannot prevent her leaving the mountain with the Blackleg warrior.

When an evil spirit threatens Wren’s life, Himiin must leave the mountain to save her. But to leave the mountain means he’ll turn to smoke…

Excerpt
She knew not of this man. He was not from any of the Nimiipuu tribes. He would not have gone unnoticed. She had heard stories of a band with flaxen hair who lived before the coming of the horse in the area far beyond the River of Many Bends.
Could he be of that band? If so, why was he here, on this mountain?
“Come, Wren,” he bid in a deep, soothing voice.
She started forward at his command then stopped. How did he know her name?
Wren moved a foot backward to step into the trees and run if necessary. “How do you know me?”
“Your friend called you that.” His gaze never left her face. She stared into his eyes, recognition flashed, warming her to her toes.
His presence didn’t threaten her. It puzzled her. Why did he stand in the clearing where she met the wolf? She took a step forward.
“You are called?”
“Himiin,” he said with a slight tip of his head.
Wolf. She stared in disbelief. Was he the wolf?
She gazed into his eyes. The recognition she saw within the depths set her heart racing. How could he be? It was not possible.
“You have received bad news?” His light blue eyes turned a deep blue, showing her he was the wolf she sought.
But how could this be?
She took a step back, unsure of this man and the turmoil within. Her mind grasped at all the tales told by the elders around the winter campfires.
Many stories told of shape shifters and how they showed themselves to only a few. Could her wolf be a shape shifter? If so, could this be a sign about her future? Her heart thudded in her chest. If he truly was the wolf, he knew everything about her, and she knew nothing of him.
“How do you come to be both man and wolf?” Her father always told her she asked too many questions, but this seemed a very good time to ask many.
“I am the spirit of the mountain.” He shrugged.
“The creator has given me the ability to take many forms.”
“How is it you have come to me?” She took a step forward. The warmth of his voice and unguarded stance drew her.
“You came to me. I merely tended my wounds, when you came upon me.”
She gulped in air and choked.
He was truly the wolf.

You can visit my website and enter my monthly contest or stop by my blog and learn more about me and my writing life. You can purchase my books in e-book of print from The Wild Rose Press or Amazon.com.

The Friday Record - Colonial and Native American Women , part 4

This is the fourth and last installment of my honor's essay comparing how Native American and Colonial women were treated in their respective societies, as well as each others. To read all four parts, just click on the link 'colonial and native american women' below. It will help find all of the parts. Thanks for stopping by.

A Woman’s Place is in the House:
The Affect of Colonization on
Native American and Colonial Women’s
Place in Society



Before the Europeans arrived, it was not unusual for Algonquin and Huron, as well as other tribes to capture women from enemy tribes and make them their wives. Though they spent the rest of their lives in a foreign village, the women never forgot they were daughters of other tribes. Interestingly, many white hostages brought into Native American villages were often reluctant to return to the colonies.1

During the first century of Euro-American relations, the Canadian Indians took captives mostly for ransom. When the peace collapsed in 1753, however, the Natives started capturing English settlers to replace their members who had died in battle or as a result of the diseases the Europeans had brought with them. 2 Most of the captured people were women and children.

By choosing children, who were then adopted and treated as their own, Native Americans ensured hostages an easier transition into tribal life. Women taken captive were also treated with respect as wives, equal to that of Native women. The respect and acceptance shown to the captives worked all too well. Report after report tells how reluctant the captives were to leave the tribes. “[She] cried and roared when asked to come and begged to stay longer [and] children cried as if they would die when they were presented to us.”3 Captives often spoke of the kindness of their Indian captors. Mary Jamison said of her life among the Seneca, “I was ever considered and treated by them as a real sister, the same as though I had been born of their mother.”4

Once accepted into their fold, Native Americans never again saw non-tribal members as outsiders. Adopted children and white wives were Indian and their families mourned their return to “civilization,” some even going periodically to visit those who did not return to the tribe.5 Once incorporated into the tribe, the women were given the same rights and power as that of other tribal women. They owned the children, the land, and the household belongings. When returned to the white man’s world, they lost that power.6 Not surprising, “several women eloped in the night, and ran off to join their Indian friends.”7

The white captives had learned what the Native American women had already known— they held tremendous power within their societies. It was a power that the European interlopers misunderstood and, at times, underestimated. The native women, though appearing to be forced-laborers, were in reality the controllers of the society, including marriages, children, home, and land. The women were the driving force behind the tribe and in some instances decided who became chief or if a chief should remain in power. Though not obvious to the untrained observer the women of Native American tribes had the right to “vote” long before the women of European descent did.

After five hundred years of European-influenced rule, women are rising back to the once familiar status Native American women took for granted. Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, was the first woman ever elected to Congress and entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1917, three years before women could vote nationally.8 Statistics show that “women have voted at an increasingly higher rate than men [and] that about 7.8 million more women than men voted in the 2000 election.”9 Now, a woman stands to be two heartbeats away from the most powerful office in the world. As Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi will be third in line to the Presidency of the United States of America. Furthermore, like Native American women in the past who were chiefs, the times appear to be shaping up that soon a woman will hold that very office.


1 James Axtell, “The White Indians of Colonial America,” American Encounters, 330.
2 James Axtell, “The White Indians of Colonial America,”, 330.
3 James Axtell, “The White Indians of Colonial America,” 330.
4 James Axtell, “The White Indians of Colonial America,” 336.
5 James Axtell, “The White Indians of Colonial America,” 327.
6 James Axtell, “The White Indians of Colonial America,” 329.
7 James Axtell, “The White Indians of Colonial America,” 329.
8 “Firsts for Women in U.S. Politics,” Center for American Women and Politics
9 “Women Voters and the Gender Gap,” The American Political Science Association

The Friday Record: Colonial and Native American Women, Part Three

Yesterday, I had a lot going on in my household. My daugher, son-in-law and grandchildren arrived for my daughter's birthday, but on the way, their car had engine trouble. So we needed to figure out how to fix the car, while enteraining 3 kids. Anyway, I forgot to post The Friday Record. So here it is, part three of

A Woman’s Place is in the House:
The Affect of Colonization on
Native American and Colonial Women’s
Place in Society

The first permanent European colony in the New World was established in 1607. Those seeking a new life in the virgin land brought with them old beliefs and laws, including the idea that “all of them (European women) are understood either married or to bee married,” anonymous lawyer T.E. wrote in his 1632 treatise on the legal status of women.1

All of the New England colonies recognized that in a marriage, a wife’s “personality (identity) come absolutely to her husband when they wed.”2 All property became his, she could not make her own will or contract and she very seldom filed her own lawsuits.3 Any income a wife earned was her husband’s as well. And in difference to the Native American culture, the children were not hers, but his.

Divorce was mostly unheard of in the colonies. Absolute divorce, which allowed the parties to remarry, was only available in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Other colonies allowed for separation, which did not allow for remarriage. Even with divorce on the law books, it was uncommon and usually granted only on the grounds of desertion for more than six years. In a fifty-two year period, (1639-1692) Massachusetts granted only twenty-seven divorces.4

Even more so than with Native American women, British colonial women had a place in society and they were expected to stay in it. It should not be surprising to learn that not all women conformed to expectation. Anne Hutchinson, a Puritan and daughter of an Anglican minister was outspoken in her belief that women had as much right to testify on the Gospel as men. She held very popular prayer meetings in her home, which were acceptable in the eyes of the church, until she started interpreting the bible herself and claiming people could communicate directly to God without ministers interceding. In doing that, she crossed the line. When she was brought before the council, she out spoke the men with her knowledge of the bible, turning their words back on them. Their decision made before the trial even started, they found her guilty of sedition and banished her from the colony for life.5

As a result of her heresy, a college was established to educate theologians with common knowledge so they could protect the church and government against future seditious citizens such as Anne Hutchinson. Peter G. Gomes, in an article for Harvard Magazine, proclaims Mrs. Hutchinson the “midwife to what would become Harvard College.”6 He goes on to say that it is ironic that in the present day, Mrs. Hutchinson would find herself and her thoughts more acceptable at Harvard than the men who had started the college.7

Anne Hutchinson is not the only colonial woman who stepped out of place. Mary Dyer, a follower of Anne, walked out of the church with her when Anne was excommunicated. When Mary returned to Boston many years later, she wore Quaker clothing and was immediately arrested and banished again. The Boston General Court determined that Quaker doctrine ran counter to Puritan dogma and was an assault on the fundamental truths of religion. Undeterred and wishing to “look the bloody laws in the face,”8 she returned several more times, escaping the hangman’s noose by mere seconds with an entreaty made by her son. Ever the zealot, she returned yet again and was sentenced to death a second time. Mary Dyer was hanged by the neck until dead in 1660 for, as she stated at the time of her final trial, coming “to keep bloodguiltiness from you, desireing you to repeal the unrighteous and unjust law made against the innocent servants of the Lord.”9

Following Mary Dyer’s execution, Mary, Hannah and Lydia Wright, three Quaker sisters, stood against the status quo and questioned the authority of ministers and magistrates in defense of their religion. They protested the treatment of Quakers, including the hanging of Mary Dyer. The Wright sisters were all three admonished, jailed, and banished from Boston for their affronts to authority. Lydia was stripped to the waist and whipped as she was driven out of town. 10 In all these cases, the first punishment for crossing the line was banishment, which women usually followed through with, Dyer being an exception. Her punishment exceeded that of many women because she pushed the status quo with her outspoken refusal to stay in her place.

* * *

The relationship between Indians and Europeans was rocky from the start. The Europeans had come to conquer a people they thought were uncivilized. The natives, however, liked their lives as they were and thought the white man’s ways strange. By looking at how they treated one another, it is easy to see which group was civilized and which group was not.

With free interaction between Native Americans and Europeans and the shortage of women in the white settlements, it should come as no surprise that European men took up with Native American women. As fur traders moved through the new land, they came to realize the value of the Native women, “who provided the knowledge, skills and labor that made it possible to survive in the unfamiliar environment.”11 The comment made by the Jesuit priest about women being pack-mules is a more accurate description for the way native women were treated by European men than in the context in which it was made.

Though some relationships between traders and native women led to long and happy marriages, more often, Native American women were exploited. They were frequently subjected to racial prejudices and European laws, which gave husbands the right to their property and children. Often times, the women and their mixed-blood children would be abandoned when the men returned to Europe.

Realizing they were being unjustly treated within the European society, several Native American women sought to establish power in the white man’s world such as they had in their tribes. Coosaponakesa, raised as a Creek and known by the English as Mary Musgrove, was the daughter of an English father and Creek mother and the niece of a powerful Creek chief named Brims. She married three Englishmen during her life. The first marriage was arranged between her uncle and John Musgrove to end the Yamassee War, a conflict between Carolina traders and the Creek Indians due to trade abuses. John Musgrove, a member of the Carolina Commission of Indian Trade, offered his son, also named John and thought to be a mixed-blood Creek, as groom to Coosaponakesa. Her second marriage seems to be based on circumstances more than love. After John’s death, she married an indentured servant in order to maintain control of her property. Though it appears her husbands treated her well, the same cannot be said about the English government. She spent from 1732 until 1759 acting as interpreter between the Creeks and the English government, often preventing war and simultaneously fighting the English in their courts to gain title for land the Creeks had given her. William Stephens, president of the Savannah court, disliked Mary, calling her “dangerous, overbearing, unstable, disloyal and unruly.”12 He refused to allow Indian testimony in the courts, testimony which would support Mary’s claim that the Creeks had given her use of the land.

She went so far as to travel to England and petition the courts there, but to no avail. The government finally settled with Mary to prevent an impending Creek uprising and to open up disputed land for English settlement. Five years before her death, Mary finally had title to the land that was hers not only by birthright, but as a loyal citizen of the English crown. 13

The European government did not seem to understand the behind-the-scenes influence of Native American women concerning policies. Nor did they know how to handle a female chief, as they were unfamiliar in dealing with women who held power. When Cockacoeske, weronsqua of the Pamunkey was summoned before the General Assembly of Virginia, the chairman spoke to her with little respect and turned aside her grievances with coldness and little thought. Only after her village was attacked during Bacon’s Rebellion and she demanded a return of her lands and compensation for her lost goods, did officials realize they could not afford to have such a powerful chief as an enemy and insisted the assembly appease her.14

1 Mary Beth Norton, “‘Either Married or to Bee Married:’ Women’s Legal Inequality in Early America.,” Inequality in Early America 25
2 Mary Beth Norton, “‘Either Married or to Bee Married:’ Women’s Legal Inequality in Early America.,” 26.
3 Mary Beth Norton, “‘Either Married or to Bee Married:’ Women’s Legal Inequality in Early America,” 26.
4 Nancy Woloch, Early American Women, 92
5 “The Trail of Anne Hutchinson”
6 Peter G. Gomes, “Anne Hutchinson: Brief life of Harvard’s ‘midwife:’ 1595-1643” ¶ 2.
7 Peter G. Gomes, “Anne Hutchinson: Brief life of Harvard’s ‘midwife:’ 1595-1643” ¶ 11.
8 “Mary Dyer: A Quaker Martyr,” Mayflower Families ¶ 6.
9 “Mary Dyer: A Quaker Martyr” Mayflower Families ¶ 19.
10 “The Sisterhood of Friends.” Newsday.com
11 Sara Evans, “The First American Women,” Women’s America: Refocusing the Past 33
12 Michael D. Green. “Mary Musgrove: Creating a New World.” Sifters: Native American Women’s Lives 38
13 Michael D. Green. “Mary Musgrove: Creating a New World.” Sifters: Native American Women’s Lives 45.
14 Liz Sonneborn, “Cockacoseke, Queen of the Pamunkey,” A to Z of Native American Women, 32.

Anna Kathryn Lanier
http://www.aklanier.com/

The Friday Record - Colonial and Native American Women, Part Two

This is part of my continuing series on the honor's paper I wrote for a World History class in college in 2006. Due to the response from part one, posted on March 13, I've decided to post the rest of the paper until it's completed. Thanks for all the comments I've received.


While the chief of a tribe was typically male, there are several occasions where a woman was the tribal leader, providing women with the opportunity to advance and participate politically in the Native American society. Two of the more well-known female chiefs are Cockacoeske, Queen of Pamunkey and Weetamoo of the Wampanoag. Cockacoeske became werowance,1 when her husband was killed fighting for the colonists. During her twenty year reign2 she sided with England through Bacon’s Rebellion.3 Cockacoeske signed the Treaty of Middle Plantation of 1677, which prescribed hunting, fishing and gathering rights to the tribe, made her the suzerain4 of the other chiefs who signed the treaty, and disallowed colonists from settling within three miles of any Indian village.5 This treaty is still in effect and a law suit was filed in the State of Virginia a few years ago claiming the treaty was being violated by plans to build a reservoir within the three mile range set in the treaty.6

Weetamoo, sister-in-law of Metacom (King Philip), became sachem7 of her family’s tribe when her father died. When her husband, and Metacom’s brother, died unexpectedly after a visit with the English, she vowed revenge, believing her husband had been poisoned. She controlled three hundred warriors, divorced her second husband because of his friendliness with the English and married the nephew of the sachem of the Narraganset tribe. This marriage was seen as a political match. Her new husband purchased Mary Rowlandson after she was captured and Mary was a servant for Weetamoo during her captivity. Weetamoo was an ally of Metacom and participated in his war against the English. Weetamoo’s former father-in-law, Massasoit had cultivated friendship and peace with the colonists. However, by the time Weetamoo and Meatcom were sachems, a bitter resentment had developed between the natives and English over the loss of land by the Native Americans. In 1675 Metacom’s tribe, the Wampanoag, rose up in a bloody revolt, killing up to one third of the people in New England. 8 Weetamoo aligned her tribe and her third husband’s tribe, the Narraganset, with Metacom and fought with him. She was killed trying to escape the English.9

***

While Native American tribes seemed more ready to accept the power of women, they still expected them to remain in their places. Tekakwitha, the daughter of a captured Christian Algonquin mother and a Mohawk father, was one woman who stepped out of line. Orphaned at four when small pox swept through her village, killing her family and leaving her severely scared and nearly blind, she was adopted by her mother’s brother-in-law, an important Mohawk chief. He hated Christians in general and Roman Catholics in particular.

When she was eleven, Tekakwitha became familiar with Jesuits’ teachings and declared she wished to become a convert, much to her uncle’s dislike. After her baptism, at which time she took the name Katherine, she was “ridiculed…mocked and jeered. When she refused to work in the fields [on the Sabbath] she was pelted with stones.”10 After she learned of the vow of chastity nuns took, she stated she would remain unmarried. The Mohawks were angered at her refusal to marry, to have children or to do the work expected of a Mohawk woman.

After receiving death threats, Tekakwitha left her village for another where Christians were more welcomed. Soon after arriving, she approached the priests about starting a convent. Feeling she was too newly converted, they refused her, but finally allowed her take the vow of chastity.

This chastity request by Tekakwitha may have come from her Mohawk upbringing. The Mohawks allowed women to declare themselves virgins for life and to live cloistered with other such women. Unfortunately, “several cloistered women became drunk from alcohol given them…[and] their behavior was so embarrassing to Mohawk leaders that the virgin enclaves were disbanded.”11 It is possible the memory of this incident contributed to the Mohawk’s anger at Tekakwitha when she vowed to remain a virgin.
She plunged into her new life by embracing self-sacrificing habits. Her abuse of eating little, flogging herself and praying in the snow took its toil on her and she died at the age of twenty-four. It was claimed that upon her death, her pock-marks disappeared and she became beautiful.12

Reports of her conversion and pious life lead to her grave being visited by many people who prayed to her and soon miracles were attributed to her. In 1943, the Catholic Church declared her venerable and in 1980 she was blessed, the two steps before Sainthood. Though ridiculed by her own tribe, Tekakwitha may well become the first Native American saint of the Roman Catholic Church.13

1 Queen.
2 Liz Sonneborn, “Cockacoeske, Queen of the Pamunkey ,” A to Z of Native American Women, 31.
3 Bacon’s Rebellion – a power struggle between Virginia Gov. Sir William Berkeley, and Nathaniel Bacon, Jr. in 1676.
4 A feudal lord over other kings or leaders.
5 “What was the Treaty of Middle Plantation?,” The Mariners’ Museum: Chesapeake Bay, Native Americans website.
6 “How a 1677 treaty could snag reservoir in court”, Virginia Indians.
7 Chieftain.
8 “King Philips’s War” ¶ 3.
9 Liz Sonnebon, “Weetamoo, Wampanoag Tribal Leader”Liz Sonneborn,” A to Z of Native American Women, 193.
10 Liz Sonneborn, “Tekakwitha, Kateri (Catherine, Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks)” A to Z of Native American Women, 173.
11 Liz Sonneborn,“Tekakwitha, Kateri (Catherine, Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks),” 174.
12 Liz Sonneborn, “Tekckwitha, Katreri (Catharine, Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks),” 174.
13 Liz Sonnebon, “Tekakwitha, Kateri (Catherine, Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks), A to Z of Native American Women, 175

The Friday Record - Colonial and Native American Women's Roles in Society

In May, 2008 I graduated from a junior college with an A.A. in history/education. I earned 18 hours of honors classes. The following is part of an essay I did for World Civilization. The entire essay is 12 pages long, so no, I didn't post it all here. Since it's a college essay, it's a bit dry, but I hope you like it. I did remove the first paragraph, which really explains why it's called "A Woman's Place is the House." I wrote it in 2006, when we held the mid-term elections and Nancy Pelosi was about to be voted into the highest elected office any woman has held in the United States.

My apologies that the footnote numbers have been messed up, so just overlook the huge numbers in the middle of sentences.

Please make a comment on your thoughts about what I've written here. March is National Women's History month. Sometimes I think we forget that women did have a role in shaping our history....but as I say below, history is written by the victors, and those in charge. Those in charge were usually the men. They tended to overlook the role women played.....

A Woman’s Place is in the House:
The Affect of Colonization on
Native American and Colonial Women’s
Place in Society

In the past few decades, women are re-opening doors that were closed with European expansion and going back to the time when they owned the property, the children and were tribal chiefs. The British colonization of the North America Atlantic seaboard is often historically identified in terms of western European conquest, advancement and imperialist destiny, leading to the decline of the Native American civilizations. Because the conquerors wrote the history, the power of Native American women was misidentified or overlooked. Whether on purpose or because of ingrained biases toward women European observers of the American Indian tribes did not recognize the high status of the native women. However, when exploring these powers, it should not be ignored that though native women had much more freedom than the European women, both groups had boundaries that women were expected to stay in and both groups paid the consequences for crossing the line and breaking the rules.

The idea that Native American women were, as a Jesuit priest observed, slaves and “pack-mules”1 to husbands and fathers is a misconception many of the early Europeans to the New World conveyed in their observations and writings. The priest based his argument on the fact that women worked in the field while the men appeared to frolic and play in the woods. His interpretation of women’s work demonstrated his bias and failure to understand the true power and prestige Native American women held within their family and tribe.

Throughout their history, Native American women have had an esteemed position in their tribe’s society. Both the Huron and Iroquois tribes believed in the myth of the Turtle Woman,2 the mother of creation. In this myth, women are sacred creatures, rather than the fallen women of Judo-Christian belief who were vilified for leading men into sin.3 St. Jerome, a 4th-century Latin father, claimed, "Woman is the gate of the devil, the path of wickedness, the sting of the serpent, in a word a perilous object."4 Furthermore, Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century Christian theologian, expressed the view that a woman’s only worth was to birth children, because “for other purposes men would be better assisted by other men."5 The Christian church did not feel child birth was enough to raise the status of women above the original sin. However, the reverence of forming the world and birthing human-kind raised the standing of Native women within their societies.

In the European society of the time, women were very seldom owners of property. Even today, when a couple buys a home the primary ownership will be listed in the husband’s name. This is contrary to Native American societies where women tended to be the primary property owners. In her essay “The Changing Status of Seneca Women,” Joy Bilharz explains that Iroquois women held high status because of the “female ownership of the land [and] control over horticultural production….”6 Since women were the ones who toiled in the field the land belonged to them, as well as the harvest they reaped from it. Thus, Native American women were in control of the food and could give or deny it as they saw fit. Though it was the Chief who saw to the redistribution of the harvest, it was the women who had the final say in the matter, as the foodstuff belonged to them.7 As the property owners, Native American women held an elevated status within Native American societies.

In addition, since women ran the household, did the cooking and cared for the children, they owned the home, the possessions and the children. Women in Western Europe held all the same duties, yet did not own or control anything. Therefore, the early explorers did not seem to fully understand the role of Native American women. For similar reasons, the explorers did not understand the power Native women had in arranging marriages for their children. In both Europe and the Colonies it was the father who did the arranging, which were usually based on alliances or filling the family’s coffers. However, in some tribes, such as the Iroquois, mothers oversaw this task, looking for unions that would be most advantageous to not only the family, but the community.8

Native women also held a favorable position in marriage. Unlike a European union, either party within a Native American marriage could easily obtain a divorce. Anthony Wallace’s “The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca” explains that since men were hunters, often gone for months or years at a time, “marriages were apt to fray when a husband traveled too far, too frequently or for too long.”9 He might take up a temporary marriage with a woman in another village whose husband was gone, while his wife was doing the same in her village. Upon the husband’s return, he could try to win her back, but it was frowned upon for him to punish his wife or her lover should she choose to stay with the new man.10 In the event of a divorce, the belongings, household and children generally stayed with the woman while the man moved out of the house.

1. Natalie Zemon Davis, “Iroquois Women, European Women.” American Encounters 99.
2. “Native American Myths: Creation By Women,” Cystalinks.
3. “Women’s History in America.”
4. John Demos, “Husbands and Wives, Parents and Children in Plymouth Colony,” The Way We Lived: Essays and Documents in American Social History 64.
5. “Women’s History in America.”
6. Joy Bilharz, “First Among Equals: The Changing Status of Seneca Women,” Women and Power in Native North America 103.
7. James Taylor Carson, “Molly Brant: From Clan mother to Loyalist Chief” Sifters: Native American Women’s Lives 49.
8. Natalie Zemon Davis “Iroquois Women, European Women,” American Encounters 99.
9.Anthony Wallace, “The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca,” The Way We Lived: Essays and Documents in American Social History 12.
10. Anthony Wallace, “The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca,” 12.

Anna Kathyrn Lanier
http://www.aklanier.com/