on her head in a pot. A man often had more time on his hands and would
spend hours in the village center, making clothes from skins and attending
to the business of village government. Women's work was neither so te-
dious nor so inequitable as white commentators have tended to assume,
however. The women of a village or several neighboring hamlets would
work together, taking each woman's field in turn; men assisted their wives
when there was heavy work to be done; and from time to time a woman
would make a special brew of beer and convene a working group, when up
to two hundred people, men as well as women, might come together for a
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