From the Province of New Brunswick.
I was told that because shutter speeds were slower in the early days of photography that photographers required their subjects to stand still for long periods of time to expose the image to the film negative, hence so many photos from the 1800's to 1900's without smiles in them! Women were well respected in traditional Native American tribe culture, and although they generally had different roles from men, the Native American women often had the same rights as their male counterparts.