Native American Women On few subjects have there been such constant misunderstandings as on the position of women among the Indians. Because she was active, always busy in the camp, often carrying heavy burdens, taking care of housework, packing clothes and the house, and preparing food for the family, the woman was depicted as her husband's slave, a patient beast of encumbrance whose labors were never completed. The man, on the other hand, was said to be a loaf of bread, who sat all day in the shade of the lodge and smoked his pipe, while his overworked wives took care of his comfort. In reality, woman was man's companion, fulfilling her share of life's obligations, and exercising an influence as important as his, and often more powerful. Native Americans established primary relationships through a clan system, descending from a common ancestor, or through a friendship system, much like tribal societies in other parts of the world. In the Choctaw Nation, "hamlets were divided into several non-totemic, exogamous, matrilineal 'kin' clans called iksas." (Faiman-Silva, 1997, p.8) The Tirbe Cheyenne also traced their ancestry through the female lineage. Moore (1996, p. 154) demonstrates this when he says, "Such marriages, in which the groom comes to live in the bride's gang, are called 'matrilocal'." Leacock (1971, p. 21) reveals that "...the prevailing view is that hunting societies were patrilocal....Matrilineality, it is assumed, followed the emergence of agriculture...." Leacock ( p. 21) then stated that he had discovered that the Montagnais-Naskapi, a hunting society, had been matrilocal until the intervention of the Europeans. "The Tanoan Pueblos kinship system is bilateral. The family is either nuclear or is extended to include relatives of one or both parents...." (Dozier, 1971, p. 237) The statuses and roles of men and of women varied considerably among Native Americans, depending on the cultural orientations of each tribe. In matrilineal and matrilocal societies, women had considerable power because property, housing, land, and tools belonged to them. Since property usually passed from mother to daughter and the husband joined the wife's family, he was more of an outsider and handed over authority to his wife's older brother. As a result, the husband was unlikely to become a domineering authority figure. Furthermore, among peoples such as the Cherokee, Iroquois, and Pueblo, a disgruntled wife, secure in her possessions, could simply divorce her husband by throwing his possessions outside their residence..