As both Ian and AJ have commented, this book shocked my preconceived perception about Cherokee women. I, too, began this book with the notion that women maintained a submissive role to the men in Cherokee society as they did in European societies. A combination of menstrual power, farming techniques, and the ability to birth children, positioned women atop the gender ladder in Cherokee society. In conjunction with Ian’s claim, Perdue even goes so far as to say women were dangerous because they maintained the ability to bring about unknown change (34). Furthermore, Perdue discusses those Cherokees who crossed the traditional gender roles. As I read her description of the events, I came to the same conclusion as Perdue. Men who farmed were not taken seriously because they could neither fight nor bear a child, yet women who proved victorious on the battlefield showed their power to be proficient in nearly all aspects of life important to the Cherokees. Another aspect of the Cherokee society that Perdue brings up concerns the opposite of the classic Disney portrayal of Native Americans. Hunting was not nearly as important to the tribe as I anticipated it would be; however, farming various foods, especially corn, provided most of the tribe’s sustenance. This dependence on farming further elevated the status of women.<\/p>\n

The concept of marriages in Cherokee culture also varied significantly from European marriages. Although the two cultures were similar in the reverence for childbearing ability, Cherokee women were revered for this ability and they derived much of their power from it (55). Perdue’s description of infidelity astonished me. As she states, married women were not given complete<\/em> freedom to intermingle with other men; however, the attitude was drastically different than if a man cheated on a woman. Part of this attitude change derived from the lack of support men had to tell on their wives. In Cherokee culture, according to Perdue, it seemed in the man’s best interest to never speak of his wife’s infidelity. Additionally, when a man did decide to take action, an implausible experiment was the only way to punish his wife (reviving a dead fly and burrowing the fly in the woman’s body).<\/p>\n

I wasn’t a big fan of the rest of Perdue’s book. Once she got away from the initial information about Cherokees (maybe I liked it because it was new and unique), Perdue describes the Indian encounters with Americans in extreme detail. Because Cherokee women adopted much different roles and lost much of their power due to this American invasion, I think the book loses some of its mystique during the chronicles of Cherokee maltreatment. Cherokee women adopted many western characteristics, such as religious beliefs and domestic roles. Interestingly though, the United States initially sought to maintain somewhat peaceful relations with the Cherokees and \u00a0respected many of their customs, laws, and traditions. At least during Washington’s presidency, the overall American goal was to coexist with the Cherokees in a symbiotic relationship. As Perdue points out, Washington’s ideas severely hurt women because the American view of women was drastically different than the Cherokee. Washington didn’t even include women in his address to the Cherokee chief (112). Unfortunately for women, the American perception eventually became more of the norm within Cherokee culture and women’s power diminished severely as did the Cherokee nation itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As both Ian and AJ have commented, this book shocked my preconceived perception about Cherokee women. I, too, began this book with the notion that women maintained a submissive role to the men in Cherokee society as they did in European societies. A combination of menstrual power, farming techniques, and the ability to birth children, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “"Hear that, Ed? Bears. Now you're putting the whole station in jeopardy."”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[111,121,119,115],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cherokee","tag-ian","tag-perdue","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his342-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his342-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his342-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his342-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his342-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his342-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his342-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his342-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his342-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}