The lodge itself, with all its arrangements, is the precinct of the rule and government of the wife. She assigns to each member, his or her ordinary place to sleep and put their effects. These places are permanent, and only changed at her will, as when there is a guest by day or night. In a space so small as a lodge this system preserves order, and being at all times under her own eye, is enforced by personal supervision. The husband has no voice in this matter, and I have never heard of an instance in which he would so far deviate from his position, as to interfere in these minor particulars. The lodge is her precinct, the forest his.
There is no law, nor force, to prevent an Indian from decreeing his own divorce, that is to say, leaving one wife and taking another whenever he sees cause. Yet it often occurs that there is some plausible pretext for such a step, such as if true, would form some justification of the measure. The best protection to married females arises from the ties of children, which by bringing into play the strong natural affections of the heart, and appeals at once to that principle in man's original organization, which is the strongest. The average number of children borne by the women, and which reach the adult period is small, and will scarcely exceed two. On the pay rolls it did not exceed this. Much of this extraordinary result is owing to their erratic mode of life, and their cramped means of subsistence. Another cause is to be found in the accidents and exposure to which young children are liable, but still more to their shocking ignorance of medicine. I once knew a child at three years of age to be killed by an attempt to restore a deranged state of the bowels, by a strong overdose of an astringent tincture of hemlock bark administered by her father. This man, who was called Attuck, had strong natural affections, but he was very ignorant even in the eyes of the Indian race, being one of that people living N.E. of lake Superior, who are called variously Gens de Terres, Mountaineers, and Muskeegoes. Wherever the laws of reproduction are relieved from these depressing circumstances, the number of children is seen to be increased.
The chief Iaba-Waddick, who lived on a small bay at the foot of lake Superior, and had abundance of means of subsistence, had fourteen children by one wife. He was an excellent hunter, and of habits for the most part of his life, strictly temperate; he had married young, and had always had the means of providing his family with adequate clothing and food. Not one of these children died in infancy. He lived himself to be old, and died rather from a complaint induced by constitutional structure, than from a natural decay of vital power.
The duties and labours of Indian life, are believed to be equally, and not, as has been generally thought, unequally divided between the male and female. This division is also the most natural possible, and such as must ever result from the condition of man, as a mere hunter. It is the duty of the male to provide food, and of the female to prepare it. This arrangement carries with it to the share of the male, all that relates to external concerns, and all that pertains to the internal to the care of the female as completely as is done in civilized life. To the man belongs not only the business of hunting, for this is an employment and not a pastime, but the care of the territory, and keeping off intruders and enemies, and the preparation of canoes for travel, and of arms and implements of war. The duties of cooking and dressing meats and fowl, and whatever else the chase affords, carries on the other hand, to the share of the hunter's wife, the entire care and controul of the lodge, with its structure and removal, and the keeping it in order, with all its utensils and apparatus. A good and frugal hunter's wife, makes all this a point of ambitious interest, and takes a pride in keeping it neat and proper for the reception of her husband's guests. She sweeps the earth clean around the fire, with a broom of branches of the cedar constructed for this purpose. This lodge it is to be remembered, is made not of beams and posts, and heavy carpentry, but out of thin poles, such as a child can lift, set in the ground in a circle, bent over and tied at the top, and sheathed with long sheets of the white birch bark. A rim of cedar wood at the bottom, assimilates these birch bark sheets to the roller of a map, to which in stormy weather a stone is attached to hold it firm. This stick has also the precise use of a map-roller, for when the lodge is to be removed, the bark is rolled on it, and in this shape carried to the canoe, to be set up elsewhere. The circle of sticks or frame, is always left standing, as it would be useless to encumber the canoe with what can easily be had at any position in a forest country.
Such at least is the hunting lodge, and indeed, the lodge generally used by the tribes north of latitude 42°. It is, in its figure, a half globe, and by its lightness and wicker-like structure, may be said to resemble an inverted bird's nest. The whole amount of the transportable materials of it, is often comprehended in some half a dozen good rolls of bark, and as many of rush mats which the merest girl can easily lift. The mats which are the substitute for floor cloths, and also the under stratum of the sleeping couch, are made out of the common lacustris or bullrush, or the flag, cut at the proper season, and woven in a warp of fine hemp net thread, such as is furnished by traders in the present state of the Indian trade. A portion of this soft vegetable woof, is dyed, and woven in various colours. Lodges thus constructed are to be still abundantly seen, by the summer visitor, in the upper lakes, at all the principal points, to which the Indians resort, during the height of summer. Such are the posts of Michilimackinac, Sault Ste. Marie, and Green Bay. At Michilimackinac, where it is now difficult to get fresh lodge poles, without going some distance, or trespassing on private rights, the natives who resort thither, of late years, have adopted an ingenious change, by which two objects are accomplished at the same time, and the labour of the females dispensed with in getting new poles. It is known, that the bark canoe, being itself but an enlarged species of wicker work, has not sufficient strength to be freighted, without previously having a number of poles laid longitudinally, in the bottom, as a kind of vertebral support. These poles on landing upon the gravelly shores of that island, are set up, or stacked to use a military phrase, that is tying the tops together and then drawing out the other ends so as to describe a circle, and thus making a perfect cone. The bark tapestry is hung around these poles very much as it would be around the globular close lodges; and by this arrangement, an Indian lodge is raised, and ready for occupation, in as many minutes, after landing, as the most expert soldiers could pitch a tent in.
Before we can affirm that the labour of preparing these barks and mats and setting up, and taking down, the lodge, is disproportionately great, or heavy on the females, it will be necessary to inquire into other particulars, both on the side of the male and female. Much of the time of an Indian female, is passed in idleness. This is true not only of a part of every day, but is emphatically so, of certain seasons of the year. She has not like the farmer's wife, her cows to milk, her butter and cheese to make, and her flax to spin. She has not to wash and comb and prepare her children every morning, to go to school. She has no extensive or fine wardrobe to take care of. She has no books to read. She sets little value on time, which is characteristic of all the race. What she does, is either very plain sewing, or some very pains taking ornamental thing. When the sheathing and flooring of the lodges are once made, they are permanent pieces of property, and do not require frequent renewal. When a skin has been dressed, and a garment made of it, it is worn, till it is worn out. Frequent ablution and change of dress, are eminently the traits of high civilization, and not of the hunter's lodge. The articles which enter into the mysteries of the laundry, add but little to the cares of a forest housekeeper. With every industrial effort, and such is, sometimes the case, there is much unoccupied time, while her husband is compelled by their necessities, to traverse large tracts, and endure great fatigues, in all weathers in quest of food. He must defend his hunting grounds, in peace and war, and has his life daily in his hands. Long absences are often necessary, on these accounts. It is at such times, during the open season, that the Indian female exerts her industry. In the fall season, she takes her children in a canoe, or if she have none, invites a female companion to go with her, along the streams, to cut the rush, to be manufactured into mats, at her leisure,