Dakota's Description Of Gender Roles In Even Though Waterlily

Even though Waterlily is a novel that is written through the perspective of women of the time; there is a clear description of what living together in a community involves. As every other tribe, the Dakotas find their own “life-ways” to survive and be in harmony around each other. For this purpose, there are roles; rules and ways of behaving that everyone is supposed to follow without any exceptions. The Dakotas have certain parameters and expectations for their members according to their gender. Therefore, there are certain actions that are punished and others that are rewarded and seen as positive among the society. Like most communities, the Dakotas try to build a system to create a good and positive society. The Dakotas live in a

For this purpose each gender is expected to behave in different ways. Somehow, the Dakotas have standards and models that each gender has to follow accordingly. The system tries to impose certain habits for men and others for women. The expected behaviors for women start to be promoted since they are very young. The Dakotas believe that women should dress in specific ways. They expect that women shouldn’t wear short skirts. This can be evidenced when Leaping Fawn is told to keep [her] skirts pulled well down over [her]

In the case of the Dakotas, rules are extremely important to live peacefully. Without a set of rules it is impossible to have a society that separates what is right from what is wrong. It is impossible to define what success really is and there would never be a model of what a good society is. The kinship rules provided them with certain models to guide their daily lives with. In fact they also provide the Dakotas with goals that gives meaning to their lives. The main goal is to follow Kinship rules and therefore be honored during and after their period of life. For example: Gloku was a very successful woman that followed her kinship rules and roles during her lifetime. Therefore she was honored by all of the members of the camp circle during her lifetime and when she died as well. On the other hand, having roles for each person was important for the success of the community in general. This happened because by being organized they could know how to act in emergencies. For example: If a foreign tribe attacked their camp circle each person knew their role and what to do. As a consequence their long-term success would be very likely to happen and a happiest live with less casualties would take place. The philosophy behind Generosity is really important as it makes everyone feel valued and happy. By receiving and giving the relations