according to all accounts, was not very common. Dawson, writing in 1878, noted that “[polygyny] was formerly more usual, but was always mainly or entirely confined to recognized chiefs. I could hear of but a single instance in which a man yet has two wives…. Three or four wives were not uncommon with a chief in former days …” (Dawson 1880:130B). There are no ethnographic data on the relationship between co-wives. Florence Davidson reports, however, that her “grandfather,” Albert Edward Edenshaw, had two wives, the elder of whom was the mother’s sister of the younger (see genealogy). His first wife encouraged him to take her sister’s daughter as a second wife. The relationship between these two women was evidently quite harmonious.
According to Curtis (1916:121), most marriages were of relatively short duration. The separation of spouses (Curtis mentions only husband leaving wife) was common, and if a man simply left his wife, there was no redress. If a man mistreated his wife or abandoned her for another woman, however, he was held liable to her parents (in particular to her mother; see below). If a woman committed adultery, neither she nor her lover were accountable to her husband, though the latter might seek revenge. Rather, the lover was accountable to the woman’s mother. Adultery was grounds for divorce among the Haida.
Large families were desired and it was expected that a woman would become pregnant within a few months following marriage. Florence Davidson noted that the inability to conceive was invariably blamed on the woman. When pregnant, a woman continued her routine daily activities, modified only by the observance of a number of taboos, almost all of which were designed to protect the developing fetus and assure an easy delivery. For the same reasons, the child’s father and other household members were also subject to certain restrictions.6 Parturition, according to Murdock (1934b:248), took place within the house, but according to Florence Davidson, women traditionally gave birth outside the house in a small hut specially constructed for the occasion. She noted, “They used to say they have the baby outside, not in the house because they have respect for their house keeping clean.”7 The afterbirth, soiled bedding, and clothing were later burned, and the mother remained in relative seclusion for ten days (Murdock 1934b:249).
Within the household, Murdock reports (1934b:252), a husband exerted but mild authority over his wife, which he was ashamed to show in the presence of others. Harrison, on the other hand, saw male authority as more decisive:
The father was beyond any question master in his own house. To the mother belonged a peculiar domestic importance but both she and her children always obeyed the will of the actual lord of the household. The father was a master without being a tyrant; the mother was a subject without being a slave; and the children did not act in opposition to their parents’ wishes…. [August 19, 1912]
Harrison does not expound on a woman’s “peculiar domestic importance,” and the other ethnographic accounts offer no clues. Regarding the status of wives, Dawson, more in line with Murdock, notes that “the women appear to be well-treated on the whole, are by no means looked upon as mere servants, and have a voice in most matters in which the men engage” (1880:130B).
In her narrative, Florence Davidson remarks that a woman should have respect for her husband and look up to the men of the community as the leaders of the people. With age, however, appeared to come a measure of authority for a woman. A mother-in-law, for example, exerted some influence over her son-in-law who was expected not only to provide her and her husband with food but was required to pay her a considerable amount of property should he commit adultery. A woman could exact a similar property settlement from the suitor of her adulterous daughter (Swanton 1909:51). Following menopause, which apparently had none of the negative connotations it has in Euro-American society, a woman had access to cultural domains that were previously endangered by her menstrual periods (see sections, “Economics and the Division of Labor” and “Cultural Specialists,” below). There was no Haida term specifically denoting the physiological experience of menopause; it was simply noted that when a woman reached a certain point in life, she ceased becoming pregnant. Florence observed that women who had had many children experienced no physical difficulties with menopause.
A married woman could hold property independently of her husband (Swanton 1909:54; Murdock 1934a: 371) and a woman often received property from her parents as endowerment for her marriage. At her death her property was passed on to a daughter. Though a woman might continue to reside in her natal home following her marriage, the house itself and its name were considered male property; this had a critical effect upon the status of those widows who did not remarry.
Both the levirate (marriage to deceased husband’s brother) and the sororate (marriage to deceased wife’s sister) were traditionally practiced by the Haida. A man, however, had considerably more freedom in remarrying than a woman. A widower was required to give the mortuary potlatch for his deceased wife, and until he did so, he was beholden to his wife’s family. It was preferred that a deceased woman’s sister “take her chair” (the sororate) and her family would try to hold onto a man who had married into their lineage. Once a widower had given the mortuary potlatch, however, he was technically free to do as he pleased. A widow, on the other hand, was expected to marry a man of her husband’s lineage, either a younger brother or a nephew. Late nineteenth-century church records and the recollections of Masset Haida indicate that the spouse was often quite junior to the widow. Florence’s “grandmother,” widow of Albert Edenshaw, is a case in point: two years following Edenshaw’s death in 1894, she was married to one of her husband’s nephews (Phillip White), who at age twenty-four was some twenty years younger than she. Although an older widow exerted considerable influence over her young husband, who “was just like a slave to his uncle’s wife,” she had little or no voice in the selection of her new husband. Florence Davidson recounted one such levirate marriage which dates from the mid-nineteenth century:
Tałanat married an old, old lady, his uncle’s wife. He was about ten or eleven and was out playing while they prepared for the wedding. His mother called him home, washed the mud off his feet, and put a shirt on him. “You’re going to stay with that old lady, your uncle’s wife.” But he didn’t understand. His mother took him inside to the top step [of the housepit] and sat him beside the old woman on a pillow. All the food—smoked dog salmon soaked in salt water—was served. “Eat, dear, eat,” the old lady said to him, but he didn’t want to eat. “I wonder why that old thing said that to me,” he asked. “Look at all my granddaughters, those pretty girls. I’ll die quick and you’ll marry one of them.” He looked at the girls and he hated them. The old lady was supposed to let her new husband sleep by her, but he didn’t want it. Maybe when it started to get cold out he started sleeping by the old woman.
The levirate was really the only security a widowed woman had, for a widow who did not remarry was often left destitute. She was not allowed to stay in her former husband’s home, and, if lucky, she escaped with a few personal belongings when her husband’s heir took over the house and its property. Masset people cited several instances when widows hurriedly left their former husbands’ houses and, with their children, sought sanctuary in the homes of matrilineal relatives. These women were pitied and high-ranking people were instructed to be kind to them and offer them food. Widowers, as noted above, did not suffer a symmetrical fate.
Mourning rituals were identical for widow or widower (Murdock 1934a: 373). The grieving spouse remained isolated for a period of time and ate very little because, in Florence Davidson’s words, “if they think nothing of it [death], there’s no luck. You have to deny yourself.” Mortuary potlatches were given for both men and women of high rank.
ECONOMICS AND THE DIVISION OF LABOR
Although some economic activities, such as collecting shellfish and cooking, were performed by both males and females, in general the Haida division of labor was marked. Men might beachcomb during the winter following onshore storms to collect clams and cockles that had washed ashore, but clam digging and the implement of procurement, the glɨgú (digging stick), were considered part of a woman’s domain. The sexual division of labor was summed up for me by one elderly Masset man who offered the following comment on the essential property of a newly married couple: “Every man’s got to have his fishing line and devilfish stick and every woman her digging stick.”
The gathering of