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AMERICA [anthropology hunted their enemies as they hunted animals. In their Pefiafiel, Herrera, and Cicero. Otto Stoll’s studies in war dances, which were only rehearsals, they d.sgu.sed Guatemala, Berendt’s in Central America, Ernst’s, in Venezuela, Im Tliurn’s in Guiana, those of .Ehrenreich, themselves as an.mals, and the pantomime was a m.mic von den Steinen, Meyer in Brazil, or of Bandelier, Bastian, hunt. They had str.k.ng, slashing, and p.erc.ng weapons Bruhl, Mlddendorf, von Tschudi in Peru, afford the held in the hand, fastened to a shaft or thong, hurled historian of comparative sociology ample groundwork for from the hand, from a shng, from an atlatl or tnrowmga comprehensive grasp of South American tribes. In all stick, or shot from a bow. Their weapons were all indiparts of the western hemisphere society was organized on vidual, not one co-operative device of offence being known cognate kinship, real or artificial, the unit being the clan. among them, although they understood fortification. The term “ slavery ” is often applied to the aboriginal There were tribes where the basis of kinship was agnate, American tribes. The truth of this depends upon the but these were the exceptions. The headship of the clan was sometimes hereditary, sometimes elective, but each definition of the word “ slave.” If it means the capture clan had a totemic name, and the clans together constituted of men, and especially of women, and adoption into the the tribe, the bond being not land, but blood. Women could tribe, this existed everywhere; but if subjection to a adopt prisoners of war, in which case the latter became personal owner, who may compel service or sell the inditheir younger sons. When a confederacy was organized vidual, slavery was far from universal. Nieboer finds it under a council, intermarriage between tribes sometimes only on the North Pacific coast as far south as Oregon, occurred; an artificial kinship thus arose, in which event among the Navajo and the Cibola pueblos, and in a few the council established the rank of the tribes as elder and tribes of Middle and South America. The thought life of the American aborigines is expressed younger brother; grandfather, father, and sons, rendering the relationship and its vocabulary most intricate, but in their practical knowledge and their lore. The fascinanecessary in a social system in which age was the predomi- tion which hangs around the latter has wellnigh obscured the former. As in medicine nant consideration and etiquette most exacting. The Eskimo have a regular system of animal totem theory is one thing and practice another, so among these marks and corresponding gentes. Powell sets forth the savages must the two be carefully discriminated. Dorsey, laws of real and artificial kinship among the North again, draws a distinction between lore narratives, which American tribes, as well as tribal organization and govern- can be rehearsed without fasting or prayer, and rituals ment, the formation of confederacies, and the intricate which require the most rigid preparation. In each culture rules of artificial kinship by which rank and courtesy were province the Indians studied the heavenly bodies. The established. Bandelier declares that in Mexico existed Arctic peoples regulated their lives by the long day and neither state nor nation, nor political society of any kind, night in the year; among the tribes in the arid region but tribes representing dialects, and autonomous in matters the place of sunrise was marked on the horizon for each of government, and forming confederacies for the purposes day; the tropical Indians were not so observant,, but they of self-defence and conquest. The ancient Mexican tribe worshipped the sun god above all. The Mayas had a was composed of twenty autonomous kins. According to calendar of 360 days, with intercalary days; this solar Brinton the social organization of ancient Peru was a year was intersected by their sacred year of twenty weeks government by a council of the gentes. The Inca was a of thirteen days each, and these assembled in bewildering war chief elected by the council to carry out its commands. cycles. Their knowledge of the air and its properties Among the Caribs a like social order prevailed; indeed, was no less profound. Heat and cold, rain and drought, their family system is identical with the totem system of the winds in relation to the points of the compass, were North American Indians. Dominated by the rule of nearest their wants and supplies, and were never out of blood relationship, the Indians regulated all co-operative their thoughts. In each province they had found the activities on this basis. Not only marriage, but speech best springs, beds of clay, paint, soapstone, flinty rock, and common industries, such as rowing a boat or chasing friable stone for sculpture, and hard, tenacious stone for a buffalo, were under its sway. It obtrudes itself in fine tools, and used ashes for salt. The vegetal kingdom was art, behaviour, law-making, lore, and religion. In larger no less familiar to them. Edible plants, and those for or smaller numbers of cognate kindred, for shorter or dyes and medicines, were on their lists, as well as wood longer periods of time, near or far from home, the abori- for tools, utensils, and weapons, and fibres for textiles. gines developed their legislatures, courts, armies, secret They knew poisonous plants, and could eliminate noxious societies, and priesthoods. properties. The universal reliance on animal life stimuIn organization, engineering, strategy, offence, and lated the study of the animal kingdom. Everywhere there defence, the art of war was in the barbarous and the were names for a large number of species; industries and savage status or grade. One competent to judge fine arts were developed through animal substances. Society war. asserts that peace, not war, was the normal was organized in most cases on animal clans, and religion intertribal habit. They held frequent inter- was largely zoomorphic. The hunting tribes knew well course, gave feasts and presents, and practised unbounded the nature and habits of animals, their anatomy, their hospitality. Through this traffic objects travelled far migrations, and could interpret their voices. Out of this from home, and now come forth out of the tombs to practical knowledge, coupled with the belief in personeity, perplex archaeologists. Remembering the organization of grew a folk-lore so vast that if it were written down the the tribe everywhere prevalent, it is not difficult to under- world would not contain the books. stand that the army, or horde, that stands for the idea, The religion of the American aborigines, so far as it can was assembled on the clan basis. The number of men be made a subject of investigation, consisted (1) in what arrayed under one banner, the time during which they the tribes believed about spirits, or shades, and ReI!gloa might cohere, the distances from home they could the spirit world—its organization, place, activimarch, their ability to hold permanently what they had ties, and relation to our world ; and (2) in what they did gained, together form an excellent metric scale of the in response to these beliefs. The former was their creeds, culture grade in the several American provinces, and the latter their cults or worships. In these worships, nowhere, even in the most favoured, is this mark high. social organization, religious dramas and paraphernalia, With the Mexicans war was a passion, but warfare amusement and gambling, and private religion or fetichism, was little above the raid (Bandelier). The lower tribes found place. In order to obtain an intelligent grasp of
