Note 37 — Chapter II · HUNTERS AND FISHERS.

So slaves cannot be employed in hunting. They might, however, be set to do women’s work, i.e. “erecting habitations, collecting fuel and water, carrying burdens, procuring roots and delicacies of various kinds, making baskets for cooking roots and other purposes, preparing food, and attending to the children”37. But, first, nomadic life and the requirements of the work would, in this case too, very much facilitate the escape of the slave, the more so, as the slaves, when the men are engaged in hunting, would be under the supervision of the women only. Moreover, the men are not likely to take the pains of procuring slaves for the sole benefit of their wives. We must also take into consideration, that these small tribes are very much in need of the forces of every man in hunting and still more in warfare; therefore an able-bodied boy will be brought up to be a hunter and warrior, rather than given to the women as a slave. And finally, where war is frequent, such slaves, not being able to fight, would soon be eliminated in the struggle for life, whereas women are often spared because they are women38. Therefore it is only among tribes which either live in peaceful surroundings, or are so powerful as not to have to fear their neighbours very much, that men performing women’s work are to be found. Crantz speaks of a young Greenlander who was unable to navigate, because when a child he had been taken too much care of by his mother. “This man was employed by other Greenlanders like a maid-servant, performing all female labour, in which he excelled”39. Among the Central Eskimos, according to Boas, “cripples who are unable to hunt do the same kind of work as women”40. Tanner tells us of an Ojibway, who behaved entirely as a woman, and was kept as a wife by another Ojibway. He excelled in female labour, which he had performed all his life. Such men, according to Tanner, are found among all Indian tribes; they are called agokwa41. But in all these cases the men who perform female labour are not slaves. Crantz’s young Greenlander probably was glad to earn his livelihood in this way. Domestic labour among the Greenlanders is not generally wanted. Widows and orphans are sometimes taken as servants; but this is done rather as a favour; for else they would have to starve42. Among the Central Eskimos only those who are unable to hunt do the same work as women; a man able to hunt will never be compelled to do female work. And the men of Tanner’s narrative are entirely treated as women and somehow perform the sexual functions of wives; the performing of domestic labour only would not probably be sufficient for them to get their subsistence43. Only where either peaceful surroundings or a fighting power much superior to that of the neighbours makes the existence of men performing female labour possible, and where at the same time female labour is so much valued that the more labourers can be got to do it the better, can there be male slaves performing women’s work44. Whether these requirements are fulfilled in any of our positive cases, will appear from our investigation of these cases.