Three of the gentes—namely, the Wolf, Bear, and Turtle—were common to the five tribes; these and three others were common to three tribes. In effect, the Wolf gens, through the division of an original tribe into five, was now in five divisions, one of which was in each tribe. It was the same with the Bear and the Turtle gentes. The Deer, Snipe, and Hawk gentes were common to the Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas. Between the separated parts of each gens, although its members spoke different dialects of the same language, there existed a fraternal connection which linked the nations together with indissoluble bonds. When the Mohawk of the Wolf gens recognized an Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, or Seneca of the same gens as a brother, and when the members of the other divided gentes did the same, the relationship was not ideal, but a fact founded upon consanguinity, and upon faith in an assured lineage older than their dialects and coeval with their unity as one people. In the estimation of an Iroquois every member of his gens, in whatever tribe, was as certainly a kinsman as an own brother. This cross relationship between persons of the same gens in the different tribes is still preserved and recognized among them in all its original force. It explains the tenacity with which the fragments of the old confederacy still cling together. If either of the five tribes had seceded from the confederacy it would have severed the bond of kin, although this would have been felt but slightly. But had they fallen into collision it would have turned the gens of the Wolf against their gentile kindred, Bear against Bear; in a word, brother against brother. The history of the Iroquois demonstrates the reality as well as persistency of the bond kin, and the fidelity with which it was respected. During the long period through which the confederacy endured they never fell into anarchy nor ruptured the organization.

The "Long House" (Ho-de'-no-sote) was made the symbol of the confederacy, and they styled themselves the "People of the Long House" (Ho-e'-no-sau-nee). [Footnote: The Long House was not peculiar to the Iroquois, but used by many other tribes, as the Powhattan Indians of Virginia, the Nyacks of Long Island, and other tribes.]

This was the name, and the only name, with which they distinguished themselves. The confederacy produced a gentile society more complex than that of a single tribe, but it was still distinctively a gentile society. It was, however, a stage of progress in the direction of a nation, for nationality is reached under gentile institutions. Coalescence is the last stage in this process. The four Athenian tribes coalesced in Attica into a nation by the intermingling of the tribes in the same area, and by the gradual disappearance of geographical lines between them. The tribal names and organizations remained in full vitality as before, but without the basis of an independent territory. When political society was instituted on the basis of the deme or township, and all the residents of the deme became a body politic, irrespective of their gens or tribe, the coalescence became complete.

The coalescence of the Latin and Sabrae gentes into the Roman people and nation was a result of the same processes. In all alike the gens, phratry and tribe were the first three stages of organization. The confederacy followed as the fourth. But it does not appear, either among the Grecian or Latin tribes in the Later Period of barbarism, that it became more than a loose league for offensive and defensive purposes. Of the nature and details of organization of the Grecian and Latin confederacies our knowledge is limited and imperfect, because the facts are buried in the obscurity of the traditionary period. The process of coalescence arises later than the confederacy in gentile society; but it was a necessary as well as a vital stage of progress by means of which the nation, the state, and political society were at last attained. Among the Iroquois tribes it had not manifested itself.

The valley of Onondaga, as the seat of the central tribe, and the place where the Council Brand was supposed to be perpetually burning, was the usual though not the exclusive place for holding the councils of the confederacy. In ancient times it was summoned to convene in the autumn of each year but public exigencies often rendered its meetings more frequent. Each tribe had power to summon the council, and to appoint the time and place of meeting at the council house of either tribe, when circumstances rendered a change from the usual place at Onondaga desirable. But the council had no power to convene itself.

Originally the principal object of the council was to raise up sachems to fill vacancies in the ranks of the ruling body occasioned by death or deposition; but it transacted all other business which concerned the common welfare. In course of time, as they multiplied in numbers and their intercourse with foreign tribes became more extended, the council fell into three distinct kinds, which may be distinguished as Civil, Mourning, and Religious. The first declared war and made peace, sent and received embassies, entered into treaties with foreign tribes, regulated the affairs of subjugated tribes, and took all needful measures to promote the general welfare. The second raised up sachems and invested them with office. It received the name of Mourning Council because the first of its ceremonies was the lament for the deceased ruler whose vacant place was to be filled. The third was held for the observance of a general religious festival. It was made an occasion for the confederated tribes to unite under the auspices of a general council in the observance of common religions rites; but as the Mourning Council was attended with many of the same ceremonies it came in time to answer for both. It is now the only council they hold, as the civil powers of the confederacy terminated with the supremacy over them of the state.

When the sachems met in council at the time and place appointed, and the usual reception ceremony had been performed, they arranged themselves in two divisions and seated themselves upon opposite sides of the council-fire. Upon one side were the Mohawk, Onondaga, and Seneca sachems. The tribes they represented were, when in council, brother tribes to each other and father tribes to the other two. In like manner their sachems were brothers to each other and fathers to those opposite. They constituted a phratry of tribes and of sachems, by an extension of the principle which united gentes in a phratry. On the opposite side of the fire were the Oneida and Cayuga and at a later day the Tuscarora sachems. The tribes they represented were brother tribes to each other and son tribes to the opposite three. Their sachems also were brothers to each other, and sons of those in the opposite division. They formed a second tribal phratry. As the Oneidas were a subdivision of the Mohawks, and the Cayugas a subdivision of the Onondagas or Senecas, they were in reality junior tribes; whence their relation of seniors and juniors, and the application of the phratric principle. When the tribes are named in council the Mohawks, by precedence, are mentioned first. Their tribal epithet was "The Shield" (Da-go-e-o'-do). The Onondagas came next, under the epithet of "Name-Bearer" (Ho-de-san-no'-ge-to), because they had been appointed to select and name the fifty original sachems. Next in the order of precedence were the Senecas, under the epithet of "Door-Keeper" (Ho-nan-ne-ho'-ont). They were made perpetual keepers of the western door of the Long House. The Oneidas, under the epithet of "Great Tree" (Ne-ar'-de-on dar'-go-war), and the Cayugas, under that of "Great Pipe" (So-nus'-ho-gwar-to-war), were named fourth and fifth. The Tuscaroras, who came late into the confederacy, were named last, and had no distinguishing epithet. Forms, such as these, were more important in ancient society than we would be apt to suppose.

Unanimity among the sachems was required upon all public questions, and essential to the validity of every public act. It was a fundamental law of the confederacy. They adopted a method for ascertaining the opinions of the members of the council which dispensed with the necessity of casting votes. Moreover, they were entirely unacquainted with the principle of majorities and minorities in the action of councils. They voted in council by tribes, and the sachems of each tribe were required to be of one mind to form a decision. Recognizing unanimity as a necessary principle, the founders of the confederacy divided the sachems of each tribe into classes as a means for its attainment. This will be seen by consulting the table (supra, p 30). No sachem was allowed to express an opinion in council in the nature of a vote until he had first agreed with the sachem or sachems of his class upon the opinion to be expressed, and had been appointed to act as speaker for the class. Thus the eight Seneca sachems being in four classes, could have but four opinions, and the ten Cayuga sachems, being in the same number of classes, could have but four. In this manner the sachems in each class were first brought to unanimity among themselves. A cross-consultation was then held between the four sachems appointed to speak for the four classes; and when they had agreed they designated one of their number to express their resulting opinion, which was the answer of their tribe. When the sachems of the several tribes had, by this ingenious method, become of one mind separately, it remained to compare their several opinions, and if they agreed the decision of the council was made. If they failed of agreement the measure was defeated and the council was at an end. The five persons appointed to express the decision of the five tribes may possibly explain the appointment and the functions of the six electors, so called, in the Aztec confederacy.

By this method of gaining assent the equality and independence of the several tribes were recognized and preserved. If any sachem was obdurate or unreasonable, influences were brought to bear upon him, through the preponderating sentiment, which he could not well resist, so that it seldom happened that inconvenience or detriment resulted from their adherence to the rule. Whenever all efforts to procure unanimity had failed, the whole matter was laid aside because further action had become impossible.

Under a confederacy of tribes the office of general, "Great War Soldier," (Hos-go-o-geh'-da-go-wo), makes its first appearance. Cases would now arise when the several tribes in their confederate capacity would be engaged in war, and the necessity for a general commander to direct the movements of the united bands would be felt. The introduction of this office as a permanent feature in the government was a great event in the history of human progress. It was the beginning of a differentiation of the military from the civil power, which, when completed, changed essentially the external manifestation of the government; but even in later stages of progress, when the military spirit predominated, the essential character of the government was not changed. Gentilism arrested usurpation. With the rise of the office of general, the government was gradually changed from a government of one power into a government of two powers. The functions of government became, in course of time, co-ordinated between the two. This new office was the germ of that of a chief executive magistrate for out of the general came the king, the emperor, and the president, as elsewhere suggested. The office sprang from the military necessities of society and had a logical development.

When the Iroquois confederacy was formed, or soon after that event two permanent war-chiefships were created and named, and both were assigned to the Seneca tribe. One of them (Ta-wan'-ne-ars, signifying needle-breaker) was made hereditary in the Wolf, and the other (So-no'-so-wo, signifying great oyster shell) in the Turtle gens. The reason assigned for giving them both to the Senecas was the greater danger of attack at the west end of their territories. They were elected in the same manner as the sachems, were raised up by a general council, and were equal in rank and power. Another account states that they were created later. They discovered immediately after the confederacy was formed that the structure of the Long House was incomplete, because there were no officers to execute the military commands of the confederacy. A council was convened to remedy the omission, which established the two perpetual war-chiefs named. As general commanders they had charge of the military affairs of the confederacy and the command of its joint forces when united in a general expedition. Governor Blacksnake, recently deceased, held the office first named, thus showing that the succession has been regularly maintained. The creation of two principal war-chiefs instead of one, and with equal powers, argues a subtle and calculating policy to prevent the domination of a single man even in their military affairs. They did without experience precisely as the Romans did in creating two consuls instead of one, after they had abolished the office of rex. Two consuls would balance the military power between them, and prevent either from becoming supreme. Among the Iroquois this office never became influential.

In Indian ethnography the subjects of primary importance are the gens, phratry, tribe, and confederacy. They exhibit the organization of society. Next to these are the tenure and functions of the office of sachem and chief, the functions of the council of chiefs, and the tenure and functions of the office of principal war-chief. When these are ascertained the structure and principles of their governmental system will be known. A knowledge of their usages and customs, of their arts and inventions, and of their plan of life will then fill out the picture. In the work of American investigators too little attention has been given to the former. They still afford a rich field in which much information may be gathered. Our knowledge, which is now general, should be made minute and comparative. The Indian tribes in the Lower and in the Middle Status of barbarism represent two of the great stages of progress from savagery to civilization. Our own remote forefathers passed through the same conditions, one after the other, and possessed, there can scarcely be a doubt, the same, or very similar institutions, with many of the same usages and customs. However little we may be interested in the American Indians personally, their experience touches us more nearly, as an exemplification of the experience of our own ancestors. Our primary institutions root themselves in a prior gentile society in which the gens, phratry, and tribe were the organic series, and in which the council of chiefs was the instrument of government. The phenomena of their ancient society must have presented many points in common with that of the Iroquois and other Indian tribes. This view of the matter lends an additional interest to the study of comparative institutions of mankind.

The Iroquois confederacy is an excellent exemplification of a gentile society under this form of organization. It seems to realize all the capabilities of gentile institutions in the Lower Status of barbarism, leaving an opportunity for further development, but no subsequent plan of government until the institutions of political society, founded upon territory and upon property, with the establishment of which the gentile organization would be overthrown. The intermediate stages were transitional, remaining military democracies to the end, except where tyrannies founded upon usurpation were temporarily established in their places. The confederacy of the Iroquois was essentially democratic, because it was composed of gentes each of which was organized upon the common principles of democracy, not of the highest but of the primitive type; and because the tribes reserved the right of local self-government. They conquered other tribes and held them in subjection, as for example the Delawares; but the latter remained under the government of their own chiefs, and added nothing to the strength of the confederacy. It was impossible in this state of society to unite tribes under one government who spoke different languages, or to hold conquered tribes under tribute with any benefit but the tribute.

This exposition of the Iroquois confederacy is far from exhaustive of the facts, but it has been carried far enough to answer my present object. The Iroquois were a vigorous and intelligent people, with a brain approaching in volume the Aryan average. Eloquent in oratory, vindictive in war, and indomitable in perseverance, they have gained a place in history. If their military achievements are dreary with the atrocities of savage warfare, they have illustrated some of the highest virtues of mankind in their relations with each other. The confederacy which they organized must be regarded as a remarkable production of wisdom and sagacity. One of its avowed objects was peace—to remove the cause of strife by uniting their tribes under one government, and then extending it by incorporating other tribes of the same name and lineage. They urged the Eries and the Neutral Nation to become members of the confederacy, and for their refusal expelled them from their borders. Such an insight into the highest objects of government is creditable to their intelligence. Their numbers were small, but they counted in their ranks a large number of able men. This proves the high grade of the stock.

[Footnote: For the prevalence of the organization into gentes or clans among the Indian tribes, see Ancient Society, ch. vi. Since the publication of that work the same organization has been found by Mr. Bandelier by personal exploration among the Pueblo tribes in New Mexico, who speak the Queris language, among whom his work thus far has been confined. Descent is in the female line. The same indefatigable student has found very satisfactory evidence of the same organization among the ancient Mexicans. (See article on "The Social Organization and Mode of Government of the Ancient Mexicans," Peabody Museum, Twelfth Annual Report, p. 576.) He has also found additional evidence of the same organization among the Sedentary Tribes in Central America. It seems highly probable that this organization was anciently universal among the tribes in the Ganowanian family.]



CHAPTER II.

THE LAW OF HOSPITALITY AND ITS GENERAL PRACTICE.

When America was discovered in its several parts the Indian tribes were found in dissimilar conditions. The least advanced tribes were without the art of pottery, and without horticulture, and were, therefore, in savagery. But in the arts of life they were advanced as far as is implied by its Upper Status, which found them in possession of the bow and arrow. Such were the tribes in the Valley of the Columbia, in the Hudson Bay Territory, in parts of Canada, California, and Mexico, and some of the coast tribes of South America. The use of pottery, and the cultivation of maize and plants, were unknown among them. They depended for subsistence upon fish, bread, roots, and game. The second class were intermediate between them and the Village Indians. They subsisted upon fish and game and the products of a limited horticulture, and were in the Lower Status of barbarism. Such were the Iroquois, the New England and Virginia Indians, the Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws, the Shawnees, Miamis, Mandans, Minmtarees, and other tribes of the United States east of the Missouri River, together with certain tribes of Mexico and South America in the same condition of advancement. Many of them lived in villages, some of which were stockaded, but village life was not as distinctive and common among them as it was among the most advanced tribes. The third class were the Village Indians proper, who depended almost exclusively upon horticulture for subsistence, cultivating maize and plants by irrigation. They constructed joint tenement houses of adobe bricks and of stone, usually more than one story high. Such were the tribes of New Mexico, Mexico, Central America, and upon the plateau of the Andes. These tribes were in the Middle Status of barbarism.

The weapons, arts, usages, and customs, inventions, architecture, institutions, and form of government of all alike bear the impress of a common mind, and reveal, in their wide range, the successive stages of development of the same original conceptions. Our first mistake consisted in overrating the degree of advancement of the Village Indians, in comparison with that of the other tribes; our second in underrating that of the latter; from which resulted a third, that of separating one from the other, and regarding them as different races. The evidence of their unity of origin has now accumulated to such a degree as to leave no reasonable doubt upon the question. The first two classes of tribes always held the preponderating power, at least in North America, and furnished the migrating bands which replenished the ranks of the Village Indians, as well as the continent, with inhabitants. It remained for the Village Indians to invent the process of smelting iron ore to attain to the Upper Status of barbarism, and, beyond that, to invent a phonetic alphabet to reach the first stage of civilization. One entire ethnical period intervened between the highest class of Indians and the beginning of civilization.

[Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to chapter end.]

It seems singular that the Village Indians, who first became possessed of maize, the great American cereal, and of the art of cultivation, did not rise to supremacy over the continent. With their increased numbers and more stable subsistence they might have been expected to extend their power and spread their migrating bands over the most valuable areas to the gradual displacement of the ruder tribes. But in this respect they signally failed. The means of sustaining life among the latter were remarkably persistent. The higher culture of the Village Indians, such as it was, did not enable them to advance, either in their weapons or in the art of war, beyond the more barbarous tribes, except as a superior house architecture tended to render their villages and their habitations impregnable to Indian assault. Moreover, in the art of government they had not been able to rise above gentile institutions and establish political society. This fact demonstrates the impossibility of privileged classes and of potentates, under their institutions, with power to enforce the labor of the people for the erection of palaces for their use, and explains the absence of such structures.

Horticulture and other domestic arts spread from the Village Indians to the tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism, and thus advanced them materially in their onward progress toward the higher condition of the Village Indians. Numerous tribes were thus raised out of savagery into barbarism by appropriating the arts of life of tribes above them. This process has been a constant phenomenon in the history of the human race. It is well illustrated in America, where the Red Race, one in origin and possessed of homogeneous institutions, were in three different ethnical conditions or stages of culture.

There are certain usages and customs of the Indian tribes generally which tend to explain their plan of life—their large households, their houses, and their house architecture. They deserve a careful consideration and even further investigation beyond the bounds of our present knowledge. The influence of American civilization has very generally broken up their old plan of life, and introduced a new one more analogous to our own. It has been much the same in Spanish America. The old usages and customs, in the particulars about to be stated, have now so far disappeared in their pure forms that their recovery is not free from difficulty. Those to be considered are the following:

I. The law of hospitality.

II. Communism in living.

III. The ownership of lands in common.

IV. The practice of having but one prepared meal each day—a dinner.

V. Their separation at meals, the men eating first and by themselves, and the women and children afterwards.

The discussion will be confined to the period of European discovery and to later periods while these practices remained. The object will be to show that these usages and customs existed among them when America was discovered in its several parts, and that they remained in practice for some time after these several periods.



THE LAW OF HOSPITALITY.

Among the Iroquois hospitality was an established usage. If a man entered an Indian house in any of their villages, whether a villager, a tribesman, or a stranger, it was the duty of the women therein to set food before him. An omission to do this would have been a discourtesy amounting to an affront. If hungry, he ate; if not hungry, courtesy required that he should taste the food and thank the giver. This would be repeated at every house he entered, and at whatever hour in the day. As a custom it was upheld by a rigorous public sentiment. The same hospitality was extended to strangers from their own and from other tribes. Upon the advent of the European race among them it was also extended to them. This characteristic of barbarous society, wherein food was the principal concern of life, is a remarkable fact. The law of hospitality, as administered by the American aborigines, tended to the final equalization of subsistence. Hunger and destitution could not exist at one end of an Indian village or in one section of an encampment while plenty prevailed elsewhere in the same village or encampment. It reveals a plan of life among them at the period of European discovery which has not been sufficiently considered.

A singular illustration of the powerful influence of the custom upon the Indian mind came to my notice some years ago at the Seneca Reservation in New York. A Seneca chief, well to do in the world, with farm lands and domestic animals which afforded him a comfortable subsistence, had lost his wife by death, and his daughter, educated in the usages of civilized life, took the position of housekeeper. The old man, referring to the ancient custom, requested his daughter to keep the usual food constantly prepared ready to offer to any person who entered their house, saying that he did not wish to see this custom of their forefathers laid aside. Their changed condition, and particularly the adoption of the regular meals of civilized society, for the time of which the visitor might reasonably be expected to wait, did not in his mind outweigh the sanctity of the custom. [Footnote: William Parker was the chief named, a noble specimen of a Seneca Iroquois.]

In July, 1743, John Bartram made a journey from Philadelphia to Onondaga to attend, with Conrad Weisar, a council of the Onondaga, Mohawk, Oneida, and Cayuga chiefs. At Shamokin he quartered with a trader who had an Indian wife, and at a village of the Delawares. "As soon as we alighted," he remarks, "they showed us where to lay our luggage, and then brought us a bowl of boiled squashes, cold. This I then thought poor entertainment, but before I came back I had learned not to despise good Indian food. This hospitality is agreeable to the honest simplicity of ancient times, and is so persistently adhered to that not only what is already dressed is immediately set before a traveler, but the most pressing business is postponed to prepare the best they can get for him, keeping it as a maxim that he must always be hungry. Of this we found the good effects in the flesh and bread they got ready for us." [Footnote: Bartram's Observations, &c, London edition, 1751, p. 16.] We have here a perfect illustration among the Delawares of the Iroquois rule to set food before a person when he first entered the house. Although they had in this case nothing better than boiled squash to offer, it was done immediately, after which they commenced preparing a more substantial repast. Delaware and Iroquois usages were the same.

The council at Onondaga lasted two days, at the close of which they had each day a dinner in common. "This council [first day] was followed by a feast. After four o'clock we all dined together upon four great kettles of Indian-corn soup, which we emptied, and then every chief retired to his home.... The conference [second day] held till three, after which we dined. The repast consisted of three great kettles of Indian-corn soup, or thin hominy, with dried eels and other fish boiled in it, and one kettle full of young squashes and their flowers boiled in water, and a little meal mixed. This dish was but weak food. Last of all was served a great bowl-full of Indian dumplings made of new soft corn cut or scraped off the ear, with the addition of some boiled beans, lapped well in Indian-corn leaves. This is good hearty provision." [Footnote: Bartram's Journal p. 59.]

"Again," he remarks, "we prepared for setting forward, and many of the chiefs came once more to make their farewells. Some of them brought us provisions for our journey. We shook hands again and set out at nine." [Footnote: ib. p. 63]

One of the earliest notices of the hospitality of the Indian tribes of the United States was by the expedition of Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow, under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, which visited the Algonkin tribes of North Carolina in the summer of 1584. They landed at the Island of Wocoken, off Albemarle Sound, when "there came down from all parts great store of people," whose chief was Granganimeo. "He was very just of his promises, for oft we trusted him, and would come within his day to keep his word. He sent us commonly every day a brace of ducks, conies, hares, and fish, sometimes melons, walnuts, cucumbers, pease, and divers roots.... After this acquaintance, myself, with seven more, went thirty miles into the river Occam, that runneth toward the city Skicoack, and the evening following we came to an isle called Roanoak, from the harbor where we entered seven leagues: At the north end were nine houses, builded with cedar, fortified round with sharp trees [palisaded] and the entrance like a turnpike [turnspit]. When we came towards it, the wife of Granganimeo came running out to meet us (her husband was absent) commanding her people to draw our boat ashore for beating on the billows. Others she appointed to carry us on their backs aland, others to bring our oars into the house for stealing. When we came into the other room (for there were five in the house) she caused us to sit down by a great fire; and after took off our clothes and washed them, of some our stockins, and some our feet in warm water, and she herself took much pains to see all things well ordered and to provide us victuals. After we had thus dried ourselves she brought us into an inner room, where she sat on the board standing along the house, somewhat like frumenty, sodden venison and roasted fish; in like manner melons raw, boiled roots, and fruits of divers kinds. Their drink is commonly water boiled with ginger, sometimes with sassafras, and wholesome herbs.... A more kind, loving people cannot be. Beyond this isle is the main land, and the great river Occam, on which standeth a town called Pomeiok." [Footnote: Smith's History of Virginia, &c. Reprint from London edition of 1627. Richmond edition, 1819, i, 83, 84. Amidas and Barlow's account is also in Hakluyt's Coll. of Voyages, iii, 301-7.]

This is about the first, if not the first, English picture we have of Indian life and of English and Indian intercourse in America. It is highly creditable to both parties; to the Indians for their unaffected kindness and hospitality, and to the English for their appreciation of both, and for the absence of any act of injustice. At the same time it was simply an application by the natives of their rules of hospitality among themselves to their foreign visitors, and not a new thing in their experience.

In the narrative of the expedition of Hernando de Soto to Florida in 1539, by a gentleman of Elvas, there are references to the customs of the Indian tribes of South Carolina, the Cherokees, Choctas, and Chickasas, and of some of the tribes west of the Mississippi, whom the expedition visited one after another. They are brief and incomplete, but sufficiently indicate the point we are attempting to illustrate. It was a hostile rather than a friendly visitation, and the naturally free hospitality of the natives was frequently checked and turned into enmity, but many instances of friendly intercourse are mentioned in this narrative. "The fourth of April the governor passed by a town called Altamaca, and the tenth of the month he came to Ocute. The cacique sent him two thousand Indians with a present, to wit, many conies and partridges, bread of maize, two hens and many dogs." [Footnote: Historical Collections of Louisiana, part ii. A Narrative of the Expedition of Hernando de Soto into Florida, by a Gentleman of Elvas, p. 139.]

Again: "Two leagues before he came to Chiaha, there met him fifteen Indians loaded with maize which the cacique had sent; and they told him on his behalf that he waited his coming with twenty barns full of it." [Footnote: 3 ib. p. 147.] "At Cora the chief commanded his Indians to void their houses, wherein the governor and his men were lodged. There was in the barns and in the fields great store of maize and French beans. The country was greatly inhabited with many great towns and many sown fields which reached from one to the other". [Footnote: ib. p 152.]

After crossing the Mississippi, of which De Soto was the first discoverer, he "rested in Pacaha forty days, in all which time the two caciques served him with great store of fish, mantles, and skins, and strove who should do him greatest service". [Footnote: ib. p. 175.]

The justly celebrated Moravian missionary, John Heckewelder, obtained, through a long experience, an intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of the Indian tribes. He was engaged in direct missionary labor, among the Delawares and Munsees chiefly, for fifteen years (1771-1786) on the Muskingum and Cuyahoga in Ohio, where, besides the Delawares and Munsees, he came in contact with Tuscaroras and other tribes of Iroquois lineage. He was conversant with the usages and customs of the Indian tribes of Pennsylvania and New York. His general knowledge justifies the title of his work, "History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations, who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the neighboring States," and gives the highest credibility to his statements.

In discussing the general character of the Indians, he remarks as follows: "They think that he [the Great Spirit] made the earth and all that it contains for the common good of mankind; when he stocked the country that he gave them with plenty of game, it was not for the benefit of a few, but of all. Everything was given in common to the sons of men. Whatever liveth on the land, whatsoever groweth out of the earth, and all that is in the rivers and waters flowing through the same, was given jointly to all, and ever one is entitled to his share. From this principle hospitality flows as from its source. With them it is not a virtue, but a strict duty; hence they are never in search of excuses to avoid giving, but freely supply their neighbors' wants from the stock prepared for their own use. They give and are hospitable to all without exception, and will always share with each other and often with the stranger to the last morsel. They rather would lie down themselves on an empty stomach than have it laid to their charge that they had neglected their duty by not satisfying the wants of the stranger, the sick, or the needy. The stranger has a claim to their hospitality, partly on account of his being at a distance from his family and friends, and partly because he has honored them with his visit and ought to leave them with a good impression on his mind; the sick and the poor because they have a right to be helped out of the common stock, for if the meat they have been served with was taken from the woods it was common to all before the hunter took it; if corn or vegetables, it had grown out of the common ground, yet not by the power of man, but by that of the Great Spirit." [Footnote: Heckewelder, Indian Nations, Philadelphia ed., 1876, p. 101]

This is a clear and definite statement of the principle of hospitality as it was observed by the Indian tribes at the epoch of their discovery, with the Indians' reasons on which the obligations rested. We recognize in this law of hospitality a conspicuous virtue of mankind in barbarism.

Lewis and Clarke refer to the usages of the tribes of the Missouri, which were precisely the same as those of the Iroquois. "It is the custom of all the nations on the Missouri," they remark, "to offer every white man food and refreshments when he first enters their tents". [Footnote: Travels, etc., London edition, 1814, p. 649.]

This was simply applying their rules of hospitality among themselves to their white visitors.

About 1837-1838 George Catlin wintered at the Mandan Village, on the Upper Missouri. He was an accurate and intelligent observer, and his work on the "Manners and Customs of the North American Indians" is a valuable contribution to American ethnography. The principal Mandan village, which then contained fifty houses and fifteen hundred people, was surrounded with a palisade. It was well situated for game, but they did not depend exclusively upon this source of subsistence. They cultivated maize, squashes, pumpkins, and tobacco in garden beds, and gathered wild berries and a species of turnip on the prairies. "Buffalo meat, however," says Mr. Catlin, "is the great staple and staff of life in this country, and seldom, if ever, fails to afford them an abundant means of subsistence."

* * * * *

"During the summer and fall months they use the meat fresh, and cook it in a great variety of ways—by roasting, broiling, boiling, stewing, smoking, &c., and, by boiling the ribs and joints with the marrow in them, make a delicious soup, which is universally used and in vast quantities. The Mandans, I find, have no regular or stated times for their meals, but generally eat about twice in the twenty-four hours. The pot is always boiling over the fire, and any one who is hungry, either from the household or from any other part of the village, has a right to order it taken off and to fall too, eating as he pleases. Such is an unvarying custom among the North American Indians, and I very much doubt whether the civilized world have in their institutions any system which can properly be called more humane and charitable. Every man, woman, or child in Indian communities is allowed to enter any one's lodge, and even that of the chief of the nation, and eat when they are hungry, provided misfortune or necessity has drawn them to it. Even so can the poorest and most worthless drone of the nation, if he is too lazy to hunt or to supply himself; he can walk into any lodge, and every one will share with him as long as there is anything to eat. He, however, who thus begs when he is able to hunt, pays dear for his meat, for he is stigmatized with the disgraceful epithet of poltroon and beggar." [Footnote: Manners and Customs of the North American Indians, Hazard's edition, 1857, i, 200.] Mr. Catlin puts the case rather strongly when he turns the free hospitality of the household into a right of the guest to entertainment independently of their consent. It serves to show that the provisions of the household, which as he elsewhere states, consisted of from twenty to forty persons, were used in common, and that each household shared their provisions in the exercise of hospitality with any inhabitant of the village who came to the house hungry, and with strangers from other tribes as well. Moreover, he speaks of this hospitality as universal amongst the Indian tribes. It is an important statement, because few men in the early period of intercourse with the western tribes have traveled so extensively among them.

The tribes of the Columbia Valley lived upon fish, bread-roots, and game. Food was abundant at certain seasons, but there were times of scarcity even in this favored area. Whatever provisions they had were shared freely with each other, with guests, and with strangers. Lewis and Clarke, in 1804-1806, visited in their celebrated expedition the tribes of the Missouri and of the Valley of the Columbia. They experienced the same generous hospitality whenever the Indians possessed any food to offer, and their account is the first we have at all special of these numerous tribes. Frequent references are made to their hospitality. The Nez Perces "set before them a small piece of buffalo meat, some dried salmon, berries, and several kinds of roots. Among these last is one which is round and much like an onion in appearance and sweet to the taste. It is called quamash, and is eaten either in its natural state or boiled into a kind of soup or made into a cake, which is then called pasheco. After the long abstinence, this was a sumptuous treat; and we returned the kindness of the people by a few small presents, and then went on in company with one of the chiefs to a second village, in the same plain at a distance of two miles. Here the party was treated with great kindness and passed the night." [Footnote: Travels, etc., p. 330.]

Of another tribe they remark, "As we approached the village most of the women, though apprised of our being expected, fled with their children into the neighboring woods. The men, however, received us without any apprehension, and gave us a plentiful supply of provisions. The plains were now crowded with Indians who came to see the persons of the whites, and the strange things they brought with them; but as our guide was perfectly a stranger to their language we could converse by signs only." [Footnote: Travels, etc., p. 334.]

The Indians of the Columbia, unlike the tribes previously named, boiled their food in wooden vessels, or in ground cavities lined with skins, by means of heated stones. They were ignorant of pottery. "On entering one of their 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 undertook to prepare something to eat. He began by bringing in a piece of pine wood that had drifted down the river, which he split into small pieces with a wedge made of the elk's horn by means of a mallet of stone curiously carved. The pieces were then laid on the fire, and several round stones placed upon them. One of the squaws now brought a bucket of water, in which was a large salmon about half dried, and as the stones became heated they were put into the bucket till the salmon was sufficiently boiled for use. It was then taken out, put on a platter of rushes neatly made, and laid before Captain Clarke, and another was boiled for each of his men." [Footnote: Travels, p. 353.]

One or two additional cases of which a large number are mentioned by these authors will sufficiently illustrate the practice of hospitality of these tribes and its universality. They went to a village of seven houses of the Chilluckittequaw tube and to the house of the chief. "He received us kindly," they remark, "and set before us pounded fish, filberts, nuts, the berries of the sacacommis, and white bread made of roots.... The village is a part of the same nation with the village we passed above, the language of the two being the same, and their houses of similar form and materials, and calculated to contain about thirty souls. The inhabitants were unusually hospitable and good humored." [Footnote: Travels, etc., p. 375-376.]

While among the Shoshones, and before arriving at the Columbia they "reached an Indian lodge of brush inhabited by seven families of the Shoshones. They behaved with great civility, and gave the whole party as much boiled salmon as they could eat, and added a present of several dried salmon and a considerable quantity of chokechinies;" [Footnote: ib. p. 288.] and Captain Lewis remarks of the same people, that "an Indian invited him into his bower, and gave him a small morsel of boiled antelope, and a piece of fresh salmon roasted. This was the first salmon he had seen, and perfectly satisfied him that he was now on the waters of the Pacific." [Footnote: ib. p. 268.]

Thus far among the tribes we find a literal repetition of the rule of hospitality as practiced by the Iroquois. Mr. Dall, speaking of the Aleuts, says, "hospitality was one of their prominent traits," [Footnote: On the Remains of Later Prehistoric Man, Alaska Ter. Smithsonian Cont., No. 318, p. 3. Travels, etc., Phila. ed., 1796, p. 171.] and Powers, of the Pomo Indians of California remarks, that "they would always divide the last morsel of dried salmon with genuine savage thriftlessness," and of the Mi-oal'-a-wa-gun, that, "like all California Indians they are very hospitable." [Footnote: Powell's Contributions to North American Ethnology, Power's Tribes of California, vol. iii. p. 153.]

Father Marquette and Lieutenant Joliet, who first discovered the Upper Mississippi in 1673, had friendly intercourse with some of the tribes on its eastern bank, and were hospitably entertained by them. "The council being over, we were invited to a feast, which consisted of four dishes. The first was a dish of sagamite—that is, some Indian meal boiled in water and seasoned with grease—the master of ceremonies holding a spoonful of it, which he put thrice into my mouth and then did the like to M. Joliet. The second dish consisted of three fish, whereof he took a piece, and having taken out the bones and blown upon it to cool it, he put it into my mouth. The third dish was a large dog, which they had killed on purpose, but understanding that we did not eat this animal they sent it away. The fourth was a piece of buffalo meat, of which they put the fattest pieces into our mouths." [Footnote: Historical Collections of Louisiana. part ii. An Account of the Discovery of some New Countries and Nations of North America in 1673, by Pere Marquette and Sieur Joliet, p. 287.]

Lower down the river, below the mouth of the Ohio, they fell in with another tribe, of whom they speak as follows. "We therefore disembarked and went to their village. They entertained us with buffalo and bear's meat and white plums, which were excellent. We observed they had guns, knives, axes, shovels, glass beads, and bottles in which they put their powder. They wear their hair long as the Iroquois, and their women are dressed as the Hurons." [Footnote: ib,. p. 293]

In 1766 Jonathan Carver visited the Dakota tribes of the Mississippi, the Sauks and Foxes, and Winnebagos of Wisconsin, and the Ojibwas of Upper Michigan. He speaks generally of the hospitality of these tribes as follows: "No people are more hospitable, kind, and free than the Indians. 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 stock, yet that community of goods which is so prevalent among them, and their generous disposition, render it nearly of the same effect." [Footnote: Carver's Travels, etc. Phila. ed. 1796, p. 171.]

The "community of goods, which is so prevalent among them," is explained by their large households formed of related families, who shared their provisions in common. The "seven families of Shoshones" in one house, and also the houses "crowded with men, women, and children," mentioned by Lewis and Clarke, are fair samples of Indian households in the early period.

We turn again to the southern tribes of the United States, the Cherokees, Choctas, Chickasas, and Confederated Creek tribes. James Adair, whose work was published in 1775, remarks generally upon their usages in the following language. "They are so hospitable, kind-hearted, and free, that they would share with those of their own tribe the last part of their own provisions, even to a single ear of corn; and to others, if they called when they were eating; for they have no stated meal time. An open generous temper is a standing virtue among them; to be narrow-hearted, especially to those in want, or to any of their own family, is accounted a great crime, and to reflect scandal on the rest of the tribe. Such wretched misers they brand with bad characters.... The Cherokee Indians have a pointed proverbial expression to the same effect— simtaweh ne wara, the great hawk is at home. However, it is a very rare thing to find any of them of a narrow temper; 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 one of them is speaking, either of the individuals or habitations of any of his tribe, he says, 'he is of my house,' or 'it is my house'.... When the Indians are traveling in their own country, they inquire for a house of their own tribe [gens]; and if there be any, they go to it, and are kindly received, though they never saw the persons before—they eat, drink, and regale themselves with as much freedom as at their own table, which is the solid ground covered with a bear-skin.... Every town has a state-house or synedrion, as the Jewish sanhedrim, where, almost every night, the head men convene about public business; or the town's people to feast, sing, dance, and rejoice in the divine presence, as will fully be described hereafter. And if a stranger calls there, he is treated with the greatest civility and hearty kindness—he is sure to find plenty of their simple home fare, and a large cane-bed covered with the softened skins of bears or buffaloes to sleep on. But, when his lineage is known to the people (by a stated custom, they are slow in greeting one another), his relations, if he has any there, address him in a familiar way, invite him home, and treat him as a kinsman." [Footnote: History of the American Indians, London ed., 1775, p. 17.]

All these tribes were organized in gentes or clans, and the gentes of each tribe were usually reintegrated in two or more phratries. It is the gens to which Mr. Adair refers when he speaks of the "family," "relations," and "lineage." We find among them the same rule of hospitality, substantially, as prevailed among the Iroquois.

It is a reasonable conclusion, therefore, that among all the tribes, north of New Mexico, the law of hospitality, as practiced by the Iroquois, was universally recognized; and that in all Indian villages and encampments without distinction the hungry were fed through the open hospitality of those who possessed a surplus. Notwithstanding this generous custom, it is well known that the Northern Indians were often fearfully pressed for the means of subsistence during a portion of each year. A bad season for their limited productions, and the absence of accumulated stores, not unfrequently engendered famine over large districts. From the severity of the struggle for subsistence, it is not surprising that immense areas were entirely uninhabited, that other large areas were thinly peopled, and that dense population nowhere existed.

Among the Village Indians of New Mexico the same hospitality is now extended to Americans visiting their pueblos, and which presumptively is simply a reflection of their usage among themselves and toward other tribes. In 1852 Dr. Tenbroeck, assistant surgeon United States Army, accompanied his command to the Moki pueblos. In his journal he remarks: "Between eleven and twelve to-day we arrived at the first towns of Moki. All the inhabitants turned out, crowding the streets and house-tops to have a view of the white men. All the old men pressed forward to shake hands with us, and we were most hospitably received and conducted to the governor's house, where we were at once feasted upon guavas and a leg of mutton broiled upon the coals. After the feast we smoked with them, and they then said that we should move our camp in, and that they would give us a room and plenty of wood for the men, and sell us corn for the animals." [Footnote: Schoolcraft's History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes, iv. 81.]

In 1858 Lieut. Joseph C. Ives was at the Moki Pueblo of Mooskahneh [Mi-shong-i-ni-vi]. "The town is nearly square," he remarks, "and surrounded by a stone wall fifteen feet high, the top of which forms a landing extending around the whole. Flights of stone steps lead from the first to a second landing, upon which the doors of the houses open. Mounting the stairway opposite to the ladder, the chief crossed to the nearest door and ushered us into a low apartment, from which two or three others opened towards the interior of the dwelling. Our host courteously asked us to be seated upon some skins spread along the floor against the wall and presently his wife brought in a vase of water and a tray filled with a singular substance that looked more like sheets of thin blue wrapping paper rolled up into bundles than anything else that I have ever seen. I learned afterwards that it was made of corn meal, ground very fine, made into a gruel, and poured over a heated stone to be baked. When dry it has a surface slightly polished like paper. The sheets are folded and rolled together, and form the staple article of food with the Moki Indians. As the dish was intended for our entertainment, and looked clean, we all partook of it. It had a delicate fresh-bread flavor, and was not at all unpalatable, particularly when eaten with salt." [Footnote: Report upon Colorado River of the West, Lieut. Ives, p. 121.]

Lieutenant-Colonel (now General) Emory visited the Pima villages on the Gila River in 1846. "I rode leisurely in the rear through the thatched huts of the Pimas. Each abode consisted of a dome-shaped wicker-work about six feet high, and from twenty to fifty feet in diameter, thatched with straw or cornstalks. In front is usually a large arbor, on top of which is piled the cotton on the pod for drying. In the houses were stowed watermelons, pumpkins, beans, corn, and wheat, the three last articles generally in large baskets. Sometimes the corn was in baskets, covered with earth, and placed on the tops of the domes. A few chickens and dogs were seen, but no other domestic animals except horses, mules, and oxen.... Several acquaintances formed in our camp yesterday, were recognized, and they received me cordially, made signs to dismount, and when I did so offered watermelons and pinole. Pinole is the heart of Indian corn, baked, ground up, and mixed with sugar. When dissolved in water it affords a delicious beverage; it quenches thirst, and is very nutritious.... The population of the Pimas and Maricopas together is estimated variously at from three to ten thousand. The first is evidently too low. This peaceful and industrious race are in possession of a beautiful and fertile basin. Living remote from the civilized world they are seldom visited by whites, and then only by those in distress, to whom they generously furnish horses and food." [Footnote: Military Reconnaissance in New Mexico, pp. 85, 86.]

In this case and in those stated by Lieutenant Ives and Dr. Tenbroeck we find a repetition of the Iroquois rule to set food before the guest when he first enters the house.

With respect to the Village Indians of Mexico, Central and South America, our information is, in the main, limited to the hospitality extended to the Spaniards; but it is sufficient to show that it was a part of their plan of life, and, as it must be supposed, a repetition of their usages in respect to each other. In every part of America that they visited, the Spaniards, although often in numbers as a military force, were assigned quarters in Indian houses, emptied of their inhabitants for that purpose, and freely supplied with provisions. Thus at Zempoala "the lord came out, attended by ancient men, two persons of note supporting him by the arms, because it was the custom among them to come out in that manner when one great man received another. This meeting was with much courtesy and abundance of compliments, and people were already appointed to find the Spaniards quarters and furnish provisions" [Footnote: Herrera's History of America, ii, 212.]

When near Tlascala the Tlascallans "sent three hundred turkeys, two hundred baskets of cakes of teutli, which they call tamales, being about two hundred arrobas; that is, fifty hundred weight of bread, which was an extraordinary supply for the Spaniards, considering the distress they were in;" and when at Tlascala, Cortes and his men "were generously treated, and supplied with all necessaries." [Footnote: ib., ii. 261, 279.]

"They entered Cholula and went to a house where they lodged altogether, and their Indians with them, although upon their guard, being for the present plentifully supplied with provisions." [Footnote: ib., ii, 311]

Although the Spaniards numbered about four hundred, and their allied Indians about a thousand, they found accommodations in a single joint tenement house of the Aboriginal American model. Attention is called to this fact, because we shall find the Village Indians, as a rule, living in large houses, each containing many apartments, and accommodating five hundred or more persons. The household of several families of the northern Indians reappears in the southern tribes in a much greater household of a hundred or more families in a single joint tenement house, but not unlikely broken up into several household groups. The pueblo consisted sometimes of one, sometimes of two or three, and sometimes of a greater number of such houses. The plan of life within these houses is not well understood, but it can still be seen in New Mexico, and it is to be hoped it will attract investigation.

Speaking of the Maya Indians of Yucatan, Herrera remarks that "they are still generous and free-hearted, so that they will make everybody eat that comes into their houses, which is everywhere practiced in traveling." [Footnote: Herrera's History of America, iv, 117.]

This is a fair statement of the Iroquois law of hospitality found among the Mayas, practiced among themselves and towards strangers from other tribes. When Grijalva, about 1517, discovered the Tabasco River, he held friendly intercourse with some of the tribes of Yucatan. "They immediately sent thirty Indians loaded with roasted fish, hens, several sorts of fruit, and bread made of Indian wheat." [Footnote: ib., ii, 126]

When Cortes, in 1525, made his celebrated expedition to Honduras, he passed near the pueblo of Palenque and near that of Copan without being aware of either, and visited the shore of Lake Peten. "Being well received in the city of Apoxpalan, Cortes and all the Spaniards, with their horses, were quartered in one house, the Mexicans being dispersed into others, and all of them plentifully supplied with provisions during their stay." [Footnote: ib., iii, 359.]

They numbered one hundred and fifty Spanish horse and several hundred Aztecs. It was at this place, according to Herrera, that Quatemozin, who accompanied Cortes as a prisoner, was barbarously executed by his command. [Footnote: ib., iii, 361.] Cortes next visited an island in Lake Peten, where he was sumptuously entertained by Canec, the chief of the tribe, where they "sat down to dinner in stately manner, and Canec ordered fowls, fish cakes, honey, and fruit." [Footnote: ib., iii, 362.]

In South America the same account of the hospitality of the Indian tribes is given by the early explorers. About the year 1500 Christopher Guerra made a voyage to the coast of Venezuela: "They came to an anchor before a town called Curiana, where the Indians entreated them to go ashore, but the Spaniards being no more than thirty-three in all durst not venture.... At length, being convinced of their sincerity, the Spaniards went ashore, and being courteously entertained, staid there twenty days. They plentifully supplied them for food with venison, rabbits, geese, ducks, parrots, fish, bread made of maize or Indian wheat, and other things, and brought them all the game they would ask for.... They perceived that they kept markets or fairs, and that they made use of jars, pitchers, pots, dishes, and porringers, besides other vessels of several shapes." [Footnote: Herrera's Hist. America, iv, 248.]

Pizarro found the same custom among the Peruvians and other tribes of the coast. At the time of his first visit to the coast of Peru he found a female chief by whom he was entertained. "The lady came out to meet them with a great retinue, in good order, holding green boughs and ears of Indian wheat, having made an arbor where were seats for the Spaniards, and for the Indians at some distance. They gave them to eat fish and flesh dressed in several ways, much fruit, and such bread and liquor as the country afforded." [Footnote: ib., i, 229.]

When on the coast of Tumbez, and before landing, "ten or twelve floats were immediately sent out with a plenty of provisions, fruits, pots of water, and of chica, which is their liquor, as also a lamb." [Footnote: ib., iv, 3.]

After entering Peru, on his second visit to the coast, "Atahuallpa's messengers came and presented the governor with ten of their sheep from the Inca, and some other things of small value, telling him very courteously that Atahuallpa had commanded them to inquire what day he intended to be at Caxamalca, that he might have provisions on the way." [Footnote: ib., iii, 399.]

* * * * *

"The next day more messengers came from Atahuallpa with provisions, which he received with thanks.". [Footnote: ib., iv, 244.]

The native historian, Garcilasso de la Viga, remarks: "Nor were the Incas, among their other charities, forgetful of the conveniences for travelers, but in all the great roads built houses or inns for them, which they called corpahuaci, where they were provided with victuals and other necessaries for their journeys out of the royal stores; and in case any traveler fell sick on the way, he was there attended and care taken of him in a better manner perhaps than at his own home." [Footnote: Royal Commentaries of Peru, Lond. ed., 1688; Recent Trans., p 145.]

These illustrations, which might be multiplied, are sufficient to show the universality of the practice of hospitality among the Indian tribes of America at the epoch of European discovery. Among all these forms, as stated by different observers, the substance of the Iroquois law of hospitality is plainly found, namely: If a man entered an Indian house, whether a villager, a tribesman, or a stranger, and at whatever hour of the day, it was the duty of the women of the house to set food before him. An omission to do this would have been a discourtesy amounting to an affront. If hungry, he ate, if not hungry, courtesy required that he should taste the food and thank the giver. It is seen to have been a usage running through three ethnic conditions of the Indian race, becoming stronger as the means of subsistence increased in variety and amount, and attaining its highest development among the Village Indians in the Middle Status of barbarism. It was an active, well-established custom of Indian society, practiced among themselves and among strangers from other tribes, and very naturally extended to Europeans when they made their first appearance among them. Considering the number of the Spaniards often in military companies, and another fact which the aborigines were quick to notice, namely, that a white man consumed and wasted five times as much as an Indian required, their hospitality in many cases must have been grievously overtaxed. [Footnote: "The appetite of the Spaniards appeared to the American inhabitants voracious; and they affirmed that one Spaniard devoured more food in a day than was sufficient for ten Americans."— (Robertson's History of America, Lond. ed., 1856, i, p. 72.)]

Attention has been called to this law of hospitality, and to its universality, for two reasons: firstly, because it implies the existence of common stores, which supplied the means for its practice; and secondly, because, wherever found, it implies communistic living in large households. It must be evident that this hospitality could not have been habitually practiced by the Iroquois and other northern tribes, and much less by the Village Indians of Mexico, Central and South America, with such uniformity, if the custom in each case had depended upon the voluntary contributions of single families. In that event it would have failed oftener than it would have succeeded. The law of hospitality, as administered by the American aborigines, indicates a plan of life among them which has not been carefully studied, nor have its effects been fully appreciated. Its explanation must be sought in the ownership of lands in common, the distribution of their products to households consisting of a number of families, and the practice of communism in living in the household. Common stores for large households, and possibly for the village, with which to maintain village hospitality, are necessary to explain the custom. It could have been maintained on such a basis, and it is difficult to see how it could have been maintained on any other. The common and substantially universal practice of this custom, among the American Indian Tribes, at the period of their discovery, among whom the procurement of subsistence was their vital need, must be regarded as evidence of a generous disposition, and as exhibiting a trait of character highly creditable to the race.

[Relocated Footnote: PROPOSED ETHNIC OR CULTURE PERIODS.

PERIOD OF SAVAGERY. PERIOD OF BARBARISM. Subperiods. Conditions. Subperiods. Conditions. Older Period ..... Lower Status Older Period .... Lower Status Middle Period .... Middle Status Middle Period ... Middle Status Later Period ..... Upper Status Later Period .... Upper Status.

PERIOD OF CIVILIZATION

RECAPITULATION

OLDER PERIOD OF SAVAGERY.—From the infancy of the human race to the knowledge of fire and the acquisition of fish subsistence.

MIDDLE PERIOD.—From the acquisition of a fish subsistence to the invention of the bow and arrow.

LATER PERIOD.—From the invention of the bow and arrow to the invention of the art of pottery.

OLDER PERIOD OF BARBARISM.—From a knowledge of pottery to the domestication of animals in the eastern hemisphere, and in the western to the cultivation of maize and plants by irrigation.

MIDDLE PERIOD.—From the domestication of animals, &c., to the invention of the process of smelting iron ore.

LATER PERIOD.—From the knowledge of iron to the invention of a phonetic alphabet, or the use of hieroglyphs upon stone as an equivalent.

CIVILIZATION.—From the invention of a phonetic alphabet and the use of letters in literary composition to the present time.]



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. [Footnote: Ancient Society, p. 459.]

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 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 i n 1677, 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. [Footnote: Documentary History of New York, i, 13.]

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 passage-way 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 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. [Footnote: The late Mrs. William Parker, of Tonawanda.]

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, DD., 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 intercession 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 wore 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.

[Footnote: 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.]

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." [Footnote: Smith's History of Virginia, Richmond ed., 1819, i, 130]

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," and speaking of one of the houses of Powhatan he says, "This house is fifty or sixty yards in length," and again, at Pamunk, "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." [Footnote: 5, Ib, 1, 142, 143; Smith's Hist. Va., Richmond ed., 1819, i, 160.]

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." [Footnote: Schoolcraft's Hist. Cond. and Pros. of Indian Tribes, vol. v. 262.]

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.'" [Footnote: History of the American Indians, p. 17.]

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 sewing 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." [Footnote: ib., p. 430.]

They cultivated, like the Iroquois, three kinds of maize, an "early variety," the "hominy corn," and the "bread corn," also beans, squashes, pumpkins, and tobacco. [Footnote: History of the American Indians, p. 430] 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, in the form of cakes, about six inches in diameter and an inch thick. [Footnote: ib. pp. 406, 408.] 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 any 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.