Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/495

 SEX IN PRIM I TI VE INDUSTRY 475

were made, woman would be found doing five things while man does one. An Australian of the Kurnai tribe once said to Fison : "A man hunts, spears fish, fights, and sits about;"' and this is a very good general statement of the male activities of primitive society the world over, if we add one other activity — the manu- facture of weapons. On the other hand, Bonwick's statement of the labors of Tasmanian women is a typical one :

" In addition to the necessary duty of looking after the chil- dren, they had to provide all the food for the household, except- ing that derived from the chase of the kangaroo. They climbed up trees for the opossum, delved in the ground with their sticks for yams, native bread, and nutritive roots, groped about the rocks for shellfish, dived beneath the sea surface for oysters, and fished for the finny tribe. In addition to this, they carried, on their frequent tramps, the household stuff in native baskets of their own manufacture. Their affectionate partners would even pile upon their burdens sundry spears and waddies not required for present service, and would command their help to rear the breakwind, and to raise the fire. They acted, moreover, as cooks to the establishment, and were occasionally regaled, at the ter- mination of a feast, with the leavings of their gorged masters."' Among the Andamanese, while the men go into the jungle to hunt pigs, the women fetch drinking water and firewood, catch shellfish, make fishing nets and baskets, spin thread, and cook the food ready for the return of the men.' In New Caledonia "girls work in the plantations, boys learn to fight."* In Africa the case is similar. Among the Bushmen (to take only one example from this continent) the woman " weaves the frail mats and rushes under which her family finds a little shelter from the wind and from the heat of the sun," constructs a fireplace of three round stones, fashions and bakes a few earthenware pots. When her household labors are done, she gathers roots, locusts, etc., from the fields. On the march she frequently carries a child, a mat, an earthen pot, some ostrich eggshells, and "a few ragged

'Fison and Howett, Kamilaroi and JCumai, p. 206.

' BoNWICK, Daily Life of the Tasmanians, p. 55.

3 Owen, Transactions of the Ethnological Society^ New Series, Vol. II, p. 36.

'Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 424.