Gender Roles

In some tribes, such as the Iroquois nation, social and clan relationships were matrilineal and/or matriarchal, although several different systems were in use. One example is the Cherokee custom of wives owning the family property. Men hunted, traded and made war, while women cared for the young and the elderly, fashioned clothing and instruments and cured meat. 

The cradle board was used by mothers to carry their baby while working or traveling. However, in some (but not all) tribes a kind of transgender was permitted.

Apart from making home, women had many tasks that were essential for the survival of the tribes. They made weapons and tools, took care of the roofs of their homes and often helped their men hunt buffalos. By some tribes it was believed that women had greater healing powers than men. Therefore there were also many medicine women, who gathered herbs and cured the ill.

In many tribes girls were encouraged to learn how to ride and fight. Though fighting was mostly left to the men, there have been cases of women fighting alongside them. Sometimes as a last resource when the existence of the tribe was threatened, in other cases they regularly participated and some were recognized as great warriors.

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