La femme cheyenne au XIXe siècle

Abstract

The Cheyenne Woman in the Nineteenth Century. The Cheyennes were a hunting and gathering nomadic people, who moved from the Great Lakes region to the Northern Great Plains, where they became equestrian bujfalo hunters at the end of the XVIIIth century. Their social organization was strictly divided between the men, hunting and protecting the tribe, and the women, in charge of the welfare of the household. Even after they turned to the buffalo culture, the Cheyennes remained a matrilineal and matrilocal tribe, which held women in high regard for they were the mothers of the people. That status was degraded when the Whites introduced new goods, and therefore new needs, to the Cheyennes : the demand for industrial items grew so much during the XIXth century that the women worked most of their time producing goods for trade, becoming therefore more and more considered as a labor force. The wars with the US Army also influenced tribal organization through the growing influence of the warriors. But the process which was transforming a uterine society into an agnatic one was stopped by the surrender of the tribe and the reservation system.