The first of the women we now call Native American were among the prehistoric nomads who crossed the land bridge between Asia and North America 20,000 years ago. Over centuries, these nomads formed larger groups, and eventually farming villages, the seeds of the many tribes and nations of Native Americans. In this volume John Demos looks at four Native American groups - the Puebloans of the North American Southwest, the Iroquois of the Northeast woodlands, the fur trading tribes of the central Great Lakes region, and the Cherokees of the interior Southeast. In the common view of early white (and usually male) observers, Native American women lived lives of drudgery, while men hunted and engaged in warfare. Demos offers a different view as he explores the life experiences of Native American women, their culture, and the ways that contacts between Native Americans and white Europeans forever changed their lives.