Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines/Chapter 3

by Lewis Henry Morgan

 

CHAPTER III.

COMMUNISM IN LIVING.

We are now to consider the remaining usages and customs named in the last chapter.

 

THEIR COMMUNISM IN LIVING.

Communism in living had its origin in the necessities of the family, which, prior to the Later Period of barbarism, was too weak an organization to face alone the struggle of life. In savagery and in the Older and the Middle Period of barbarism the family was in the syndyasmian or pairing form, into which it had passed from a previous lower form.^[1] Wherever the gentile organization prevailed, several families, related by kin, united as a rule in a common household and made a common stock of the provisions acquired by fishing and hunting, and by the cultivation of maize and plants. They erected joint tenement houses large enough to accommodate several families, so that, instead of a single family in the exclusive occupation of a single the house, large households as a rule existed in all parts of America in the aboriginal period. This community of provisions was limited to the household; but a final equalization of the means of subsistence was in some measure affected by the law of hospitality. To a very great extent communism in living was a necessary result of the condition of the Indian tribes. It entered into their plan of life and determined the character of their houses. In effect it was a union of effort to procure subsistence, which was the vital and commanding-concern of life. The desire for individual accumulation had not been aroused in their minds to any sensible extent. It is made evident by a comparison of the conditions of barbarous tribes on different continents that communism has widely prevailed among them, and that the influence of this ancient practice had not entirely disappeared among the more advanced tribes when civilization finally appeared. The common meal-bin of the ancient and the common tables of the later Greeks seem to be survivals of an older communism in living. This practice, though never investigated as a specialty, may be shown by the known customs of a number of Indian tribes, and may be confirmed by an examination of the plans of their houses.

Our first illustration will be taken from the usages of the Iroquois. In their villages they constructed houses, consisting of frames of poles covered with bark, thirty, fifty, eighty, and a hundred feet in length, with a passage-way through the center, a door at each end, and with the interior partitioned off at intervals of about seven feet. Each apartment or stall thus formed was open for its entire width upon the passage-way. These houses would accommodate five, ten, and twenty families, according to the number of apartments, one being usually allotted to a family. Each household was made up on the principle of kin. The married women, usually sisters, own or collateral, were of the same gens or clan, the symbol or totem of which was often painted upon the house, while their husbands and the wives of their sons belong to several other gentes. The children were of the gens of their mother. While husband and wife belonged to different gentes, the preponderating number in each household would be of the same gens, namely, that of their mothers. As a rule the sons brought home their wives, and in some cases the husbands of the daughters were admitted to the maternal house. Thus each household was composed of a mixture of persons of different gentes; but this would not prevent the numerical ascendency of the particular gens to whom the house belonged. In a village of one hundred and twenty houses, as the Seneca village of Tiotohatton described by Mr. Greenbalgh in 1677,^[2] there would be several such houses belonging to each gens. It presented a general picture of Indian life in all parts of America at the epoch of European discovery. Whatever was gained by any member of the household on hunting or fishing expeditions, or was raised by cultivation, was made a common stock. Within the house they lived from common stores. Each house had several fires, usually one for each four apartments, which was placed in the middle of the passageway and without a chimney. Every household was organized under a matron who supervised its domestic economy. After the single daily meal was cooked at the several fires the matron was summoned, and it was her duty to divide the food, from the kettle, to the several families according to their respective needs. What remained was placed in the custody of another person until it was required by the matron The Iroquois lived in houses of this description as late as A. D. 1700, and in occasional instances a hundred years later. An elderly Seneca woman^[3] informed the writer, thirty years ago, that when she was a girl she lived in one of these joint tenement houses (called by them long-houses), which contained eight families and two fires, and that her mother and her grandmother, in their day, had acted as matrons over one of these large households. This mere glimpse at the ancient Iroquois plan of life, now entirely passed away, and of which remembrance is nearly lost, is highly suggestive. It shows that their domestic economy was not without method, and it displays the care and management of woman, low down in barbarism, for husbanding their resources and for improving their condition A knowledge of these houses, and how to build them, is not even yet lost among the Senecas. Some years ago Mr William Parker, a Seneca chief, constructed for the writer a model of one of these long-houses, showing in detail its external and internal mechanism.

The late Rev. Ashur Wright, D. D., for many years a missionary among the Senecas, and familiar with their language and customs, wrote to the author in 1873 on the subject of these households, as follows: "As to their family system, when occupying the old long-houses, it is probable that some one clan predominated, the women taking in husbands, however, from the other clans; and sometimes, for a novelty, some of their sons bringing in their young wives until they felt brave enough to leave their mothers. Usually, the female portion ruled the house, and were doubtless clannish enough about it. The stores were in common; but woe to the luckless husband or lover who was too shiftless to do his share of the providing. No matter how many children, or whatever goods he might have in the house, he might at any time be ordered to pick up his blanket and budge; and after such orders it would not be healthful for him to attempt to disobey; the house would be too hot for him; and unless saved by the inter. cession of some aunt or grandmother, he must retreat to his own clan, or as was often done, go and start a new matrimonial alliance in some other. The women were the great power among the clans, as everywhere else They did not hesitate, when occasion required, to 'knock off the horns,' as it was technically called, from the head of a chief and send him back to the ranks of the warriors The original nomination of the chiefs also always rested with them."

The mother-right and gyneocracy among the Iroquois here plainly indicated is not overdrawn. The mothers and their children, as we have seen, were of the same gens, and to them the house belonged. It was a gentile house. In case of the death of father or mother, the apartments they occupied could not be detached from the kinship, but remained to its members. The position of the mother was eminently favorable to her influence in the household, and tended to strengthen the maternal bond. We may see in this an ancient phase of human life which has had a wide prevalence in the tribes of mankind, Asiatic, European, African, American, and Australian. Not until after civilization had begun among the Greeks, and gentile society was superseded by political society, was the influence of this old order of society overthrown. It left behind, at least among the Grecian tribes, deep traces of its previous existence.^[4]

Among the Iroquois, those who formed a household and cultivated gardens gathered the harvest and stored it in their dwelling as a common stock. There was more or less of individual ownership of these products, and of their possession by different families. For example, the corn, after stripping back the husk, was braided by the husk in bunches and hung up in the different apartments; but when one family had exhausted its supply, their wants were supplied by other families so long as any remained. Each hunting" and fishing party made a common stock of the capture, of which the surplus, on their return, was divided among the several families of each household, and, having been cured, was reserved for winter use. The village did not make a common stock of their provisions, and thus offer a bounty to imprudence. It was confined to the household. But the principle of hospitality then came in to relieve the consequences of destitution. We can speak with some confidence of the ancient usages and customs of the Iroquois; and when any usage is found among them in a definite and positive form, it renders probable the existence of the same usage in other tribes in the same condition, because their necessities were the same.

In the History of Virginia, by Capt. John Smith, the houses of the Powhatan Indians are partially described, and are found to be much the same as those of the Iroquois We have already quoted from this work the description of a house on Roanoke Island containing five chambers. Speaking of the houses in the vicinity of James River in 1606-1608, he remarks, "Their houses are built like our arbors, of small young sprigs bowed and tied, and so close covered with mats, or the bark of trees, very handsomely, that notwithstanding either wind, rain, or weather, they are as warm as stoves but very smoky; yet at the top of the house there is a hole made for the smoke to go into right over the fire Against the fire they lie on little hurdles of reeds covered with a mat, borne from the ground a foot and more by a hurdle of wood. On these, round about the house, they lie, heads and points, one by the other, against the fire, some covered with mats, some with skins, and some stark naked lie on the ground, from six to twenty in a house * * * In some places are from two to fifty of these houses together, or but little separated by groves of trees."^[5] The noticeable fact in this statement is the number of persons in the house, which shows a household consisting of several families. Their communism in living may be inferred. Elsewhere he speaks of "houses built after their manner, some thirty, some forty yards long;"^[6] and speaking of one of the houses of Powhatan he says, "This house is fifty or sixty yards in length;"^[7] and again, at Pamunky, "A great fire was made in a long-house, a mat was spread on one side as on the other; and on one side they caused him to sit."^[8] "We here find among the Virginia Indians at the epoch of their discovery long-houses very similar to the long-houses of the Iroquois, with the same evidence of a large household. It may safely be taken as a rule that every Indian household in the aboriginal period, whether large or small, lived from common stores.

Mr. Caleb Swan, who visited the Creek Indians of Georgia in 1790, found the people living in small houses or cabins, but in clusters, each cluster being occupied by a part of a gens or clan. He remarks that "the smallest of their towns have from ten to forty houses, and some of the largest from fifty to two hundred, that are tolerably compact. These houses stand in clusters of four, five, six, seven, and eight together. * * * Each cluster of houses contains a clan or family of relations who eat and live in common.^[9] Here the fact of several families uniting on the principle of kin, living in a cluster of houses, and practicing communism, is expressly stated.

James Adair, writing still earlier of the southern Indians of the United States generally, remarks in a passage before quoted, as follows: "I have observed, with much inward satisfaction, the community of goods that prevailed among them. * * * And though they do not keep one promiscuous common stock, yet it is to the very same effect, for every one has his own family, or tribe, and when any one is speaking either of the individuals or habitations of his own tribe, he says, 'He is of my house,' or, 'It is my house.'"^[10] It is singular that this industrious investigator did not notice, what is now known to be the fact, that all these tribes were organized in gentes and phratries. It would have rendered his observations upon their usages and customs more definite. Elsewhere he remarks further that "formerly the Indian law obliged every town to work together in one body, in sowing or planting their crops, though their fields were divided by proper marks, and their harvest is gathered separately. The Cherokees and Muscogees [Creeks] still observe that old custom, which is very necessary for such idle people."^[11] They cultivated, like the Iroquois, three kinds of maize, an "early variety," the "hominy corn," and the "bread corn,"^[12] also beans, squashes, pumpkins, and tobacco. Chestnuts, a tuberous root something like the potato but gathered in the marshes, berries, fish, and game, entered into their subsistence. Like the Iroquois, they made unleavened bread of maize flour, which was boiled in earthen vessels,^[13] in the form of cakes, about six inches in diameter and an inch thick.

Among the tribes of the plains, who subsist almost exclusively upon animal food, their usages in the hunt indicate the same tendency to communism in food. The Blackfeet, during the buffalo hunt, follow the herds on horseback in large parties, composed of men, women, and children. When the active pursuit of the herd commences, the hunters leave the dead animals in the track of the chase to be appropriated by the first persons who come up behind. This method of distribution is continued until all are supplied. All the Indian tribes who hunt upon the plains, with the exception of the half-blood Crees, observe the same custom of making a common stock of the capture. It tended to equalize, at the outset, the means of subsistence obtained. They cut the beef into strings, and either dried it in the air or in the smoke of a fire. Some of the tribes made a part of the capture into pemmican, which consists of dried and pulverized meat mixed with melted buffalo fat, which is baled in the hide of the animal.

During the fishing season in the Columbia River, where fish are more abundant than in an}" other river on the earth, all the members of the tribe encamp together, and make a common stock of the fish obtained. They are divided each day according to the number of women, giving to each an equal share. At the Kootenay Falls, for example, they are taken by spearing, and in huge baskets submerged in the water below the falls. The salmon, during the spring run, weigh from six to forty pounds, and are taken in the greatest abundance, three thousand a day not being an unusual number. Father De Smet, the late Oregon missionary, informed the writer, in 1862, that he once spent several days with the Kootenays at these falls, and that the share which fell to him, as one of the party, loaded, when dried, thirty pack mules. The fish are split open, scarified, and dried on scaffolds, after which they are packed in baskets and then removed to their villages. This custom makes a general distribution of the capture, and leaves each household in possession of its share.^[14]

Their communism in living is involved in the size of the household, which ranged from ten to forty persons. "The houses of the Sokulks are made of large mats of rushes, and are generally of a square or oblong form, varying in length from fifteen to sixty feet; the top is covered with mats, leaving a space of twelve or fifteen inches, the whole length of the house, for the purpose of admitting the light and suffering the smoke to pass through; the roof is nearly flat, * * * and the house is not divided into apartments, the fire being in the middle of the large room, and immediately under the hole in the roof. * * * On entering one of these houses he [Captain Clarke] found it crowded with men, women, and children, who immediately provided a mat for him to sit on, and one of the party immediately undertook to prepare something to eat."^[15] Again: "He landed before five houses close to each other, but no one appeared, and the doors, which were of mats, were closed. He went towards one of them with a pipe in his hand, and pushing aside the mat entered the lodge, where he found thirty-two persons, chiefly men and women, with a few children, all in the greatest consternation."^[16] And again: "This village being part of the same nation with the village we passed above, the language of the two being the same, and their houses being of the same form and materials, and calculated to contain about thirty souls."^[17] In enumerating the people Lewis and Clarke often state the number of inhabitants with the number of houses, thus:

"The Killamucks, who number fifty houses and a thousand souls."^[18]
"The Chilts, who * * * are estimated at seven hundred souls and thirty-eight houses."
"The Clamoitomish, of twelve houses and two hundred and sixty souls."
"The Potoashees, often houses and two hundred souls."
"The Pailsk, of ten houses and two hundred souls."
"The Quinults, of sixty houses and one thousand souls."

Speaking generally of the usages and customs of the tribes of the "Columbia plains," they make the following statements: "Their large houses usually contain several families, consisting of the parents, their sons and daughters-in-law and grandchildren, among whom the provisions are common, and whose harmony is scarcely ever interrupted by disputes. Although polygamy is permitted by their customs, very few have more than a single wife, and she is brought immediately after the marriage into the husband's family, where she resides until increasing numbers oblige them to seek another house In this state the old man is not considered the head of the family, since the active duties, as well as the responsibility, fall on some of the younger members. As these families gradually expand into bands, or tribes, or nations, the paternal authority is represented by the chief of each association. This chieftain, however, is not hereditary."^[19] Here we find among the Columbian tribes, as elsewhere, communism in living, but restricted to large households composed of several families.

A writer in Harper's Magazine, speaking of the Aleutians, remarks: "When first discovered this people were living in large yourts, or dirt houses, partially underground, * * * having the entrances through a hole in the top or centre, going in and out on a rude ladder. Several of these ancient yourts were very large, as shown by the ruins, being from thirty to eighty yards long and twenty to forty in width. * * * In these large yourts the primitive Aleuts lived by fifties and hundreds for the double object of protection and warmth."^[20] Whether these tribes at this time were organized in gentes and phratries is not known. At the time of the Wilkes expedition (1838-1842) the gentile organization did not exist among them; neither does it now exist; but it is still found among the tribes of the Northwest Coast, and among the Indian tribes generally. The composition of the household, as here described, is precisely like the household of the Iroquois prior to A. D. 1700.

The Mandan village contained at the time of Catlin's visit (1832), as elsewhere stated, about fifty houses and about fifteen hundred people. "These cabins are so spacious," Catlin remarks, "that they hold from twenty to forty persons—a family and all their connections. * * * From the great numbers of the inmates in these lodges they are necessarily very spacious, and the number of beds considerable. It is no uncommon thing to see these lodges fifty feet in diameter inside (which is an immense room), with a row of these curtained beds extending quite around their sides, being some ten or twelve of them, placed four or five feet apart, and the space between them occupied by a large post, fixed quite firmly in the ground, and six or seven feet high, with large wooden pegs or bolts in it, on which are hung or grouped, with a wild and startling taste, the arms and armor of the respective proprietors."^[21] The household, according to the cutsom of the Indians, was a large one. The number of inhabitants divided among the number of houses would give an average of thirty persons to each house. It is evident from several statements of Catlin before given that the household practiced communism in living, and that it was formed of related families, on the principle of gentile kin, as among the Iroquois. Elsewhere he intimates that the Mandans kept a public store or granary as a refuge for the whole community in a time of scarcity.^[22]

In like manner Carver, speaking generally of the usages and customs of the Dakota tribes and of the tribes of Wisconsin, remarks that "they will readily share with any of their own tribe the last part of their provisions, and even with those of a different nation, if they chance to come in when they are eating. Though they do not keep one common store, yet that community of goods which is so prevalent among them, and their generous disposition, render it nearly of the same effect."^[23] What this author seems to state is that community of goods existed in the household, and that it was lengthened out to the tribe by the law of hospitality. Elsewhere, speaking of the large village of the Sauks, he says: "This is the largest Indian town I ever saw. It contains about ninety houses, each large enough for several families."^[24] In a previous chapter (supra p. 49.) Heckewelder's observations upon hospitality among the Delawares and Munsees, implying the principle of communism, have been given He remarks further that "there is nothing in an Indian's house or family without its particular owner. Every individual knows what belongs to him, from the horse or cow down to the dog, cat, kitten, and little chicken. * * * For a litter of kittens or a brood of chickens there are often as many different owners as there are individual animals. In purchasing a hen with her brood one frequently has to deal for it with several children. Thus, while the principle of community of goods prevails in the State, the rights of property are acknowledged among the members of the family. This is attended with a very good effect, for by this means every living creature is properly taken care of"^[25] I do not understand what Hecke welder means by the remark that "the principle of community of goods prevails in the state," unless it be that the rule of hospitality was so all-pervading that it was tantamount to a community of goods, while individual property was everywhere recognized until it was freely surrendered. This may be the just view of the result of their communism and hospitality, but it is a higher one than I have been able to take.

The household of the Mandans consisting of from twenty to forty persons, the households of the Columbian tribes of about the same number, the Shoshonee household of seven families, the households of the Sauks, of the Iroquois, and of the Creeks each composed of several families, are fair types of the households of the Northern Indians at the epoch of their discovery. The fact is also established that these tribes constructed as a rule large joint tenement houses, each of which was occupied by a large household composed of several families, among whom provisions were in common, and who practiced communism in living in the household.

Among the Village Indians of New Mexico a more advanced form of house architecture appears, and their joint tenement character is even more pronounced. They live in large houses, two, three, and four stories high, constructed of adobe brick, and of stone imbedded in adobe mortar, and containing fifty, a hundred, two hundred, and in some cases five hundred apartments in a house. They are built in the terraced form, with fireplaces and chimneys added since their discovery, the first story closed up solid, and is entered by ladders, which ascend to the platform-roof of the first story. These houses are fortresses, and were erected as strongholds to resist the attacks of the more barbarous tribes by whom they were perpetually assailed. Each house was probably occupied by a number of household groups, whose apartments were doubtless separated from each other by partition walls. In a subsequent chapter the character of these houses will be more fully shown.

Our knowledge of the plan of life in these houses in the aboriginal period is still very imperfect. They still practice the old hospitality, own their lands in common, but with allotments to individuals and to families, and are governed by a cacique or sachem and certain other officers annually elected. An American missionary to the Laguna Village Indians, Rev. Samuel Gorman, in an address before the Historical Society of New Mexico in 1869, remarks as follows: "They generally marry very young, and the son-in-law becomes the servant of the father-in-law, and very often they all live together in one family for years, even if there be several sons-in-law; and this clannish mode of living is often, if not generally, a fruitful source of evil among this people. Their women generally have control over the granary, and they are more provident than their Spanish neighbors about the future. Ordinarily they try to have one year's provisions on hand. It is only when they have two years of scarcity succeeding each other that pueblos as a community suffer hunger."^[26] The usages of these Indians have doubtless modified in the last two hundred years under Spanish influence; they have decreased in numbers, and the family group is probably smaller than formerly. But it is not too late to recover the aboriginal plan of life among them if the subject were intelligently investigated. It is to be hoped that some one will undertake this work.

The Spanish writers do not mention the practice of communism in living as existing among the Village Indians of Mexico or Central America. They are barren of practical information concerning their mode of life; but we have the same picture of large households composed of several families, whose communism in the household may reasonably be inferred.

We have also the striking illustration of "Montezuma's Dinner," hereafter to be noticed, which was plainly a dinner in common by a communal household. Beside these facts we have the ownership of lands in common by communities of persons. Moreover, the ruins of ancient houses in Central and South America, and in parts of Mexico, show very plainly their joint tenement character. From the plans of these houses the communism of the people by households may be deduced theoretically with reasonable certainty.

Yucatan, when discovered, was occupied by a number of tribes of Maya Indians. The Maya language spread beyond the limits of Yucatan. This region, with Chiapas, Guatemala, and a part of Honduras, contained and still contains evidence, in the ruins of ancient structures, of a higher advancement in the arts of life than any other part of North America The present Maya Indians of Yucatan are the descendants of the people who occupied the country at the period of the Spanish conquest, and who occupied the massive stone houses now in ruins, from which they were forced by Spanish oppression.

We have a notable illustration of communism in living among the present Maya Indians, as late as the year 1840, through the work of John L. Stephens. At Nohcacab, a few miles east of the ruins of Uxmal, Mr Stephens, having occasion to employ laborers, went to a settlement of Maya Indians, of whom he gives the following account: "Their community consists of a hundred labradores, or working men; their lands are held and wrought in common, and the products are shared by all. Their food is prepared at one hut, and every family sends for its portion, which explains a singular spectacle we had seen on our arrival, a procession of women and children, each carrying an earthen bowl containing a quantity of smoking hot broth, all coming down the same road, and disappearing-among the different huts. Every member belonging to the community, down to the smallest pappoose, contributing in turn a hog. From our ignorance of the language, and the number of other and more pressing matters claiming our attention, we could not learn all the details of their internal economy, but it seemed to approximate that improved state of association which is sometimes heard of among us; and as theirs has existed for an unknown length of time, and can no longer be considered merely experimental, Owen or Fourier might perhaps take lessons from them with advantage."^[27] A hundred working men indicate a total of five hundred persons, who were then depending for their daily food upon a single fire, the provisions being supplied from common stores, and divided from the caldron. It is, not unlikely, a truthful picture of the mode of life of their forefathers in the "House of the Nuns," and in the "Governor's House" at Uxmal, at the epoch of the Spanish conquest.

It is well known that Spanish adventurers captured these pueblos, one after the other, and attempted to enforce the labor of the Indians for personal ends, and that the Indians abandoned their pueblos and retreated into the inaccessible forests to escape enslavement, after which their houses of stone fell into decay, the ruins of which, and all there ever was of them, still remain in all parts of these countries

It is hardly supposable that the communism here described by Mr. Stephens was a new thing to the Mayas; but far more probable that it was a part of their ancient mode of life, to which these ruined houses were eminently adapted. The subject of the adaptation of the old pueblo houses in Yucatan and Central America to communism in living will be elsewhere considered.

When Columbus first landed on the island of Cuba, he sent two men into the interior, who reported that "they travelled twenty-two leagues, and found a village of fifty houses, built like those before spoken of, and they contained about one thousand persons, because a whole generation lived in a house; and the prime men came out to meet them, led them by the arms, and lodged them in one of these new houses, causing them to sit down on seats; * * * and they gave them boiled roots to eat, which tasted like chestnuts."^[28] One of the first expeditions which touched the main land on the coast of Venezuela in South America found much larger houses than these last described. "The houses they dwelt in were common to all, and so spacious that they contained one hundred and sixty persons, strongly built, though covered with palm-tree leaves, and shaped like a bell.^[29]-Herrera further remarks of the same tribe, that "they observed no law or rule in matrimony, but took as many wives as they would, and they as many husbands, quitting one another at pleasure, without reckoning any wrong done on either part. There was no such thing as jealousy among them, all living as best pleased them, without taking offense at one another."^[30] This shows communism in husbands as well as wives, and rendered communism in food a necessity of their condition. Elsewhere the same author speaks of the habitations of the tribes on the coast of Carthagena. "Their houses were like long arbors, with several apartments, and they had no beds but hammocks."^[31] Many similar statements are scattered through his work.

Among the more advanced tribes of Peru the lands were divided, and allotted to different uses; one part was for the support of the government, another for the support of religion, and another for the support of individuals. The first two parts were cultivated by the people under established regulations, and the crops were placed in public storehouses. This is the statement of Garcilasso.^[32] Herrera, however, says generally that the people lived from common stores "The Spaniards drawing near to Caxamalca begun to have a view of the Inca army lying near the bottom of a mountain. * * * They were pleased to see the beauty of the fields, most regularly cultivated, for it was an ancient law among these people that all should be fed from common stores, and none should touch the standing corn."^[33] The discrepancy between Herrera and Garcilasso may perhaps be explained by the reservation of the crops grown on lands set apart for the government and for religion.

The reason for presenting the foregoing observations of different authors concerning the households, the houses, and the practice of communism in food, has been to show, firstly, that the household of the Indian tribes was a large one, composed of several families; secondly, that their houses were constructed to accommodate several families; and thirdly, that the household practiced communism in living. These are the material facts, and they have been sufficiently illustrated. The single family of civilized society live from common stores, yet it is not communism; but where several families coalesce in one common household and make a common stock of their provisions, and this is found to be a general rule in entire tribes, it is a form of communism important to be noticed. It is seen to belong to a society in a low stage of development, where it springs from the necessities of their condition. These usages and customs exhibit their plan of life, and reveal the wide difference between their condition and that of civilized society; between the Indian family, without individuality, and the highly individualized family of civilization.

 

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1. Ancient Society, p. 459.
2. Documentary History of New York, i, 13.
3. The late Mrs. William Parker, of Tonawanda.
4. These statements illustrate the gyneocracy and mother-right among the ancient Grecian tribes discussed by Bachofen in "Das Mutterrecht." The phenomena discovered by Bachofen owes its origin, probably, to descent in the female line, and to the junction of several families in one house, on the principle of kin, as among the Iroquois.
5. Smith's History of Virginia, Richmond ed., 1819, i, 130.
6. Ib., i; 143.
7. Ib., i, 142.
8. Smith's Hist. Va., Richmond ed., 1819, i, 160.
9. Schoolcraft's Hist. Cond. and Pros, of Indian Tribes, vol. v. 262
10. History of the American Indians, p. 17
11. Ib., p. 430.
12. History of the American Indians, p. 430.
13. Ib., pp. 406, 408.
14. Alfred W. Howitt, F. G. S., of Bariusdale, Australia, mentions, in a letter to the author, the following singular custom of an Australian tribe concerning the distribution of food in the family group:   "A man catches seven river eels; they are divided thus (it is supposed that his family consists only of these named):

    "1st eel. Front half himself; hind half his wife.
    "2d eel. Front half his wife's mother; hind half his wife's sister.
    "3d eel. Front half his elder sons; hind half his younger sons.
    "4th eel. Front half his elder daughters; hind half his younger daughters.
    "5th eel. Front half his brother's sons; hind half his brother's daughters.
    "6th eel. One whole eel to his married daughter's husband.
    "7th eel. One whole eel to his married daughter."

    This custom may be supposed to show the ordinary household group, and the order of their relative nearness to Ego. It foots up himself and wife, wife's mother and sister, his sons and daughters, his brother's sons and daughter's, and his daughter's husband. It implies also other members of the household, who are obliged to take care of themselves; viz, his brothers and sisters.

15. Lewis and Clarke's Travels, pp. 351-353.
16. Ib., p. 357.
17. Ib., p. 376.
18. Lewis and Clarke's Travels, pp. 426-428.
19. Ib., p. 443.
20. Harper's Magazine, vol. 55, p. 806.
21. North American Indians, Philadelphia ed., 1857, i, 139.
22. Ib.,i, 210.
23. Travels, etc., p. 171.
24. Travels, etc., Phila. ed. 1796, p. 29.
25. Indian Nations, p. 158.
26. Address, p. 14.
27. Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, ii, 14.
28. Herrera, i, 55.
29. Ib., 216.
30. Ib.,i, 216.
31. Ib., 348.
32. Royal Com. 1. c., pp. 154, 157.
33. Herrera, iv, 249.