Catharine perceived that the chief of the
laborious part of the work fell to the share of the females, who were very
much more industrious and active than their husbands; these, when not out
hunting or fishing, were to be seen reposing in easy indolence under the
shade of the trees, or before the tent fires, giving themselves little
concern about anything that was going on. The squaws were gentle, humble,
and submissive; they bore without a murmur pain, labour, hunger, and
fatigue, and seemed to perform every task with patience and good humour.
They made the canoes, in which the men sometimes assisted them, pitched the
tents, converted the skins of the animals which the men shot into clothes,
cooked the victuals, manufactured baskets of every kind, wove mats, dyed
the quills of the porcupine, sewed the mocassins, and in short performed a
thousand tasks which it would be difficult to enumerate.
Of the ordinary household work, such as is familiar to European females,
they of course knew nothing; they had no linen to wash or iron, no floors
to clean, no milking of cows, nor churning of butter.
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