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Harder than the lot of a Frontier woman? Patently not true in the case of tbe Eastern Tribes (see the Heckewelder reference), as fer Comanches FWIW...

...one of them struggling Comanches on the Plains, one of the most famous fat Indians in history... Mountain of Rocks... circa 1834, courtesy of George Catlin...



And Smithwick on family life, his being an account of someone who spent considerable time in their company...

http://www.oldcardboard.com/lsj/olbooks/smithwic/otd12.htm

There were six prisoners in camp: one white woman and two white boys, and one Mexican woman and two Mexican boys. The Mexican woman was the only one of the lot that evinced any desire to return to her people. She was not permitted to talk to me in private, and policy prevented her giving vent to her feelings in the presence of her captors.

After I had been some time among them, they relaxed their espionage somewhat, and she managed to tell me that she was very homesick, having been captured after she was grown. The poor woman cried bitterly over her situation, she having been appropriated by one of the bucks.

The white woman said she was very small when taken, and remembered nothing of the circumstances. She had an Indian husband and several children.

None of the boys remembered anything of their homes. One of the white boys, a youth of eighteen or thereabouts, I recognized as a prisoner we had twice recaptured, once at Gonzales and again at Victoria. Each time he stayed a few days, apparently quite satisfied with his surroundings, but, when he got a good chance, decamped, taking several of the best horses along.

The other white child was a bright little fellow, five or six years old. Loath to leave him to grow up a savage, I tried to buy him, offering a fine horse in exchange, but the squaw who had adopted him gathered him close to her bosom with every show of affection. "No," said she, "he is mine; my own child." That was plainly a falsehood, but the love she manifested toward the hapless boy was some palliation therefor....

The utmost harmony prevailed among the various divisions of the polygamous families. The oldest wife seemed to be the mistress of the harem. There was one large central lodge used in common by all the families, each squaw having a smaller one for herself and children, the latter never numerous....

But taking them all around they were the most peaceable community I ever lived in. Their criminal laws were as inexorable as those of the Medes and Persians, and the code was so simply worded there was no excuse for ignorance. It was simply the old Mosaic law, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."

In cases of dispute, a council of the old men decided it, and from their decision there was no appeal. And when one died, all his belongings were destroyed, precluding all possibility of a family quarrel over the estate.

During the whole period of my sojourn among the tribe -- three months -- I did not hear a single wrangle among the adult members. The youngsters had an occasional scrimmage, which they were allowed to fight out to the amusement of the onlookers.

Notwithstanding their inhuman treatment of the helpless prisoners that fell into their hands, I never saw a woman or child abused. The women, as in all savage tribes, were abject slaves, but their inferiority was their protection from the chastisement which "civilized" husbands sometimes visit on their wives.

An Indian brave would have felt it a burning disgrace to strike a woman. I don't think they ever resorted to corporal punishment within the tribe. Like the ancient Jews, however, tribal law didn't apply to "the stranger Without the gates," nor within, either, when the stranger was a captive.

The women, of course, performed all the labor, aside from killing and bringing in the game; stripping the skins from the animals, dressing and ornamenting them with beads or paint, a process which interested me very much. The skins were first staked down to the ground, flesh side up. With a sharp bone the squaw then scraped off every particle of flesh; next the scraped surface was spread with lime to absorb the grease, after which the surface was spread with the brains of the animal, rubbing it in and working it over till the skin became soft and pliable, the process requiring days and days of hard work.

Then with paint, which they manufactured from colored chalks, and brushes made of tufts of hair, the artist, with the earth for an easel, beginning in the center, drew symbolic designs, the most conspicuous of which was the sun, executed with a skill truly remarkable.

A multitude of different colored rays commingling in a common center and radiating out in finely drawn lines, the spaces made by the divergence again and again filled in, taking as much time as a work by the old masters. Time was no object, life leaving nothing to offer beyond the gratification of this single vanity.

These painted robes were worn over the shoulders like shawls, the fur side underneath.

The old people of both sexes were treated with deference, another sign of their benighted state. Little notice was taken of the female children by either parent, all their pride and affection being centered on the embryo warriors, fitting them out with bows and lances, with which they fought imaginary foes and "mimic frays,"....

The little Indian girls, brought up in the way they should go, played at dressing skills, setting up lodges, etc. Yes, and they played with dolls, too. I was never allowed to inspect those Indian doll babies, so I can't tell how they were made; but the little Indian maids bound them on pieces of bark, setting them up against trees, swinging them in hammocks or carrying them on their backs just as their mothers had done with them....

Birdwatcher