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Wise Red Prairie Woman, part 2

© Mary Trotter Kion

Wise Red Prairie Woman has much work to do, enough to keep her busy from sun-up to sun-down, and beyond. Her responsibilities, and those of any females in her family, are numerous. She must always have food ready to eat when the men of her family are hungry. It is her job to gather fire wood or buffalo chips and keep the fire burning, make the clothing and decorate them with died porcupine quills and later with trade beads. If a new tipi cover is needed she makes that as well. But sewing clothing and tipi covers, as well as decorating both, can be a pleasant and fun task. Many of the other women in her band join her in these tasks, either to assist her or bringing their own sewing to be done. And a lot of gossip and ideas can be shared during these times.

When the new tipi cover is completed, or when relocating camp, it is the woman's job to raise and low the tipi. Here, again, many women gather together, raising or lowering a tipi, then moving on to do the next one.

She also digs editable roots for the stewpot, using only a special sharpened stick as a tool. Although this is a difficult job, extracting roots from the sun-baked prairie soil, it must be a pleasant break from the noisy and busy camp life. It is always good to get away for a while. As for providing other items for the family stew pot, many tribes raise some patches of corn, squash and beans. Gardening and harvesting is also one of a red prairie woman's many chores.

All of these many tasks, gathering wood and food, cooking, tanning hides and then sewing and decorating them, never seems to end. Especially when added too them are the responsibility of often acting as nursemaid or midwife, that is when she is not the woman actually giving birth.

When the camp moves it may seem like a welcome time to be relieved from the usual daily chores but before the horse was reintroduced to the plains the woman, with her dogs, was also her family's beast of burden. On her back, or that of her dogs, all of the families goods were transported.

But various tribes did provide a solution to the working situation of their women, Polygyny or plural marriage. One Blackfoot chief noted that his eight wives could dress 150 animal skins in one year whereas if he only had one wife he could count about ten dressed skins in the same amount of time.

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