Native American Women Essay

As people arrived to America from Europe, the new settlers discovered that there were people already living on the land that they found. Native Americans were on this land long before the Europeans arrived. To themselves, The Native Americans are ingenious, witty, cunning, and deceitful, but to the Europeans they were seen as privately dishonest and mischievous. These Native American tribes differed from the European people in many ways. Native Americans had their own culture, appearance, and religion. Each member in the tribe played a role- especially women. Native American women have been overlooked in their accomplishments and contributions that they added to the society. Despite all the struggles that Native Americans faced, Native Americans …show more content…
It was important that women also received their free time and social life, though it may seem like with all their work they had very limited time to do that. Scholars argue that at the time of contact with Europeans, Native American women had more authority than the European women and more freedom to do what they wanted. Just as today, Native American women during colonial time enjoyed sports, games, and crafts. As young girls, it was common to play with dolls. Most tribes all played a kind of stickball, such as lacrosse. Women were known to play this game which showed how aggressive and rough the women could be. They would also enjoy playing a game known as snow snake. This game was played when frozen conditions occurred. This game could be played by both men and women and involved sliding a polished rock along ice or snow. The person who was able to slide the rock the farthest was said to be the winner. Another common game was a handgame. It consisted of hiding bones or sticks under their hands and the other player would have to guess what hand it was in. Though today we play a similar game for fun, they would use this game to gain something such as land and or horses. It also was not unknown for a man to gain a wife over this game. Women also enjoyed playing music during their free time. They would create rattles from dried gourds and fill them with small rocks or seeds. They would also make rattles to wear on their ankles or wrist that would make noise when they