Women s Influence On Women - 1167 Words

A notion of women have changed through encounter of various European people. Before that, they have their original culture, especially women role in the society was characteristic among mid-seventeenth centry to eighteen century. At the beginning of the book, the author Gunlong Fur shows that women had important role in the Native American society of Lenape. Firstly, they had responsibility of cultivating food, like corn and other vegetables. At this point, women knew when they should sow seeds by using the knowledge of regular variations in the sky. European encounters surprised to â€Å"the women there are the most skillful star-gazers† While men of Lenape had role of hunting animals all year around, women also helped them during beginning of†¦show more content†¦This is the characteristic point of this tribe. Secondly, women also played an important role in political situation like diplomacy. They made food in the ceremony with stranger like white people and distributed foods and goods. By those reception, they provide the harmony and prove the stability of the village. Moreover, â€Å"No ceremonies or negotiations between Indians and whites could be concluded without a meal, and these occasions particular women.†(pp21) This role of peacemaker only can be done by women. Therefore, women of the Lenape shouldered repressibilities both food providing and diplomatic role. In Delaware society, being a women was self- identification, rather than biological sex. This shows that both man and women were lived with helping each other, and keep subsistence. For those reasons, the society of Delaware was called as â€Å"a nation of Women.† White encounter, however, gradually changed the situation of â€Å"a nation of Women† According to Gunlong Fur, European missionaries first astonished that women had equal position as men in the Delaware society. They thought that â€Å"order and organic concept of human society meant that ideally everyone had a divinely ordained place according to gender and rank, and it was one’s duty to accept this situation and the obligations that followed. No matter what informal power a women might wield she almost always stood under the