Iroquois Women, S3
There are terms for various dishes and their preparation, and the men were cooks when occasion required. The probability is that they often lent a hand in household work.
Women dressed sumptuously when they could afford it, and they naturally had the first choice of materials. Our early chronicles often speak of the beauty and costly nature of their apparel. Colonel Thomas Proctor visited the Onondagas at Buffalo, in 1791, and said that some of the women were " dressed so richly with silken stroud, etc., and ornamented with so many silver trappings, that one suit must have been of the value of at least thirty pounds. Quite as costly were their earlier dresses, though made of native materials. One is tempted to enlarge on this ; so curious and beautiful was their holiday attire.
It must be remembered that all were not equally rich, nor did all women rank alike. Some were brought up delicately. In the Rela- tion for 1670 we have an account of the recent death of a voun^ Seneca woman of high rank who had been baptized. To the com- forting word; of the missionary the mother replied, "Thou wast not acquainted with her ; she was mistress here, and commanded more than twenty slaves who are still with me. She knew not what it was to go to the foreot to bring in wood, or to the river there to draw up water. She was not able to trouble hersek with all that which con- cerns housekeeping-. Now I doubt not but that being now the only one of our family in Paradise, she may have much trouble to accus- tom herself to it , for she will be obliged to do her cooking herself, to go tc the wood and the water, and to prepare all with her own hands for eating and drinking." If cniy one of her slaves could go to the same place it would be all right.
Colden said the Iroquois had no f.iaveSj but they not only fre- quently appear but are classified in the Relation for 1657. There were three kinds. The first were admitted into families, and some- times became chief;, though still considered slaves. The second v/ere given to the richer Indians, and had food and shelter, but nothing more. The third were young women and girls, continually exposed to every danger. Often, however, they were saved from death to become wives As slaves the treatment of these girls depended on the temper of their mistress, and this was often cruel. In 1656 an Erie girl displeased her Onondaga mistress, who hired a yonng man to kili her. The life of the slave was absolutely in the power of the owner.
Mr. Horatio Hale rither strangely says in his " Iroquois Book of Riter.," page 9;, -'The Iroquois never burnt women at the stake," and considers this but an occasional death for their male prisoners. He looked at their character through his own benevolent eves. The
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