Note 138 — Chapter II · HUNTERS AND FISHERS.

It might be, that female labour is valued by the men, because articles of trade are prepared by the women. Unfortunately the ethnographers most often content themselves with remarking that a brisk trade is carried on, or that some tribe is commercial rather than warlike, without specifying the articles of commerce. Yet a few statements tend to verify our hypothesis. The articles of trade of the Chinooks before the arrival of the Europeans were: fish, oil, shells, and Wapato. “The Wapato, a bulbous root, compared by some to the potato and turnip, was the aboriginal staple, and was gathered by women”138. Lewis and Clark also state that this bulb, which “is the great article of food, and almost the staple article of commerce on the Columbia”, is collected chiefly by the women139. The Tlinkits export to the interior basket-work, dancing clothes, train-oil prepared from the ssag (a kind of fish), a sort of cakes made of Alaria Esculenta (a sea-weed). The women manufacture basket-work, dancing clothes, mocassins and other clothes. In the fishing season they are from morning to night engaged in preparing the fish. In the autumn they gather berries, bark, leaves and other vegetable by-meat; in other seasons they gather shells and sea-urchins on the beach140. Here all articles of trade are products of female labour. Among the Ahts baskets and mats, manufactured by the women, are sold; the women may keep the proceeds, and also get a little portion of their husbands’ earnings. Our informant, speaking of the several divisions of the Ahts mutually exchanging the fish that each of them catches, probably also means fish prepared by the women141. In W. Washington and N. W. Oregon the kamas, a root which was “formerly a great article of trade with the interior”, is dug by the women142. What articles are exported by the other tribes we do not know.