ANCIENT SOCIETY

OR

Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from

Savagery through Barbarism to

Civilization

BT LEWIS H. MORGAN, LL. D.

Member of the National Awnlcnty of tftir -era, Author of "The of the troquots", "The American Heaver and his Work*", "Systems of Consanguinity on* Affinity of the

DR. B.R AMBEDKAR OPEN UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY - LIBRARY

N18691

CHICAGO CHARLES H. KERR ft COMPANY

Cum prorepserunt primis anlmalia terrls, Mutum et turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilla propter Unguibus et pugnls, deln fustibus, atque ita porro Pugnabant arm is, quee post fabricaverat usus: Donee verba, quibus voces sensusque notarent, Nominaque invenere: dehinc absistere bello, Oppida coeperunt munire, et ponere leges, Ne quis fur esset, neu latro, neu quis adulter.

(As soon as animals crept forth on the first lands, a speech- less and degraded crowd, they battled for the acorn and for their lairs with claws and flats, then with clubs and at length with arms, which afterwards practice had made; until they learned to use words by which to indicate vocal sounds and thoughts and to use names. After that they began to refrain from war. and fortify walled towns, and to lay down laws that no one should be a thief, nor a robber nor an adulterer.)

—Horace, Sat., I, iii. 99.

"Modern science claims to be proving, by the most careful and exhaustive study of man and his works, that our race began its existence on earth at the bottom of the scale, instead of at the top, and has been gradually working upward; that human powers have had a history of development; that all the ele- ments of culture— as the arts of life, art, science, language, re- ligion, philosophy— have been wrought out by slow and. painful efforts, In the conflict between the soul and the mind of man on the one hand, and external n ,ture on the other.*'— Whitney's "Oriental and Linguistic Studies," p. 341.

"These communities reflect the spiritual conduct of our an- cestors thousands of times removed. We have passed through the same stages of development, physical and moral, and are what we are to-day because they lived, toiled, and endeavored. Our wondrous civilization is the result of the silent efforts of millions of unknown men, as the chalk cliffs of England are formed of the contributions of myriads of foraminlfera."— Dr. J. Kalnes, "Anthropologla," vol. 1, No. 2, p. 233.

PREFACE

THE great antiquity of mankind upon the earth has been conclusively established. It seems singular that the proofs should have been discovered as recently as within the last thirty years, and that the present generation should be the first called upon to recognize so important a fact.

Mankind are now known to have existed in Europe in the glacial period, and even back of its commence- ment, with every probability of their origination in a prior geological age. They have survived many races of animals with whom they were contemporaneous, and passed through a process of development, in the several branches of the human family, as remarkable in its courses as in its progress.

Since the probable length of their career is connected with geological periods, a limited measure of time is ex- cluded. One hundred or two hundred thousand years would be an unextravagant estimate of the period from the disappearance of the glaciers in the northern hemi- sphere to the present time. Whatever doubts may attend any estimate of a period, the actual duration of which is unknown, the existence of mankind extends backward immeasurably, and loses itself in a vast and profound antiquity.

This knowledge changes materially the views which have prevailed respecting the relations of savages to bar- barians, and of barbarians to civilized men. It can now be asserted up6n convincing evidence that savagery pre- ceded barbarism in all the, tribes of mankind, as barbar-

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, tury, and are but feebly prosecuted among us at the pres* ent time, the workmen have been unequal to the work, Moreover, while fossil remains buried in the earth will keep for the future student, the remains of Indian arts, languages and institutions will not. They are perishing daily, and have been perishing for upwards of three cen- turies. The ethnic life of the Indian tribes is declining under the influence of American civilization, their arts and languages are disappearing, and their institutions are dissolving. After a few more years, facts that may now be gathered with ease will become impossible of dis- covery. These circumstances appeal strongly to Amer- icans to enter this great field and gather its abundant harvest.

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, MARCH, 1877.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I

GROWTH OF INTELLIGENCE THROUGH INVENTION* AND DISCOVERIES

CHAPTER I. Ethnical Periods.

Progress of Mankind from the Bottom of the Scale.— Illustrated by Inventions, Discoveries and Institutions.— Two Plans of Government— one Gentile and Social, giving a Society (So- cletas); the other Political, giving a State (Civltas).- The former founded upon Persons and Gentilism; the Latter upon Territory and Property.— The First, tne Plan of Government • of Ancient Society.— The Second, that of Modern or Civilized Society. — Uniformity of Human Experience.— Proposed Eth- nical Periods— I. Lower Status of Savagery; II. Middle Status of Savagery; III. Upper Status of Savagery; FV. Lower Status of Barbarism; V. Middle Status of Barbarism; VI. Upper Status of Barbarism; VII. Status of Civilization 3

CHAPTER II. Arts of Subsistence.

Supremacy of Mankind over the Earth.— Control over Subsist- ence the Condition.— Mankind alone gained that Control.— Successive Arts of Subsistence— I. Natural Subsistence; II. Fish Subsistence; III. Farinaceous Subsistence; IV. Meat and Milk Subsistence; V. Unlimited Subsistence through Field Agriculture.— Long Intervals of Time between them 10

x CONTENTS

CHAPTER III. Ratio of Human Progress.

Retrospect on the Lines of Human Progress.— Principal Contri- butions of Modern Civilization.— Of Ancient Civilization.— Of Later Period of Barbarism.— Of Middle Period.— Of Older Period.— Of Period of Savagery.— Humble Condition of Primi- tive Man.— Human Progress in a Geometrical Ratio.— Rela- tive Length of Ethnical Periods.— Appearance of Semitic and Aryan Families 29

PART II

GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER I. Organization of Society upon the Basis of Sex.

Australian Classes.— Organized upon Sex. — Archaic Character ot the Organization.— Australian Qentes.— The Eight Classes.— Rule of Marriage.— Descent in the Female Line.— Stupendous Conjugal System.— Two Male and Two Female Classes in each Gens.— Innovations upon the Classes.— Gens still Rudi- mentary 47

CHAPTER II. The Iroquols Gens.

The Gentile Organization. —Its Wida Prevalence.— Definition of a Gens.— Descent in the Female Line the Archaic Rule.— Rights, Privileges and Obligations of Members of a Gens.— Right of Electing and Deposing its Sachem and Chiefs.— Obligation not to marry in the Gens.— Mutual Rights of In* heritance of the Property of deceased Members.— Reciprocal Obligations of Help, Defense and Redress of Injuries.— Right of Naming its Members.— Right of Adopting Stranger* into the Gens.— Common Religious Rites, Query.— A Common Burial Place.— Council of the Gens.— Gente* named after Ani- mals.—Number ot Persons in a Gen* fl

CONTENTS Sf

HAPTER HI. Irpquois Phratry.

Definition of a Phratry.— Kindred Gentea Reunited in a Higher Organisation-— Phratry of the Iroquois Tribea.— Its Composi- tion.—Its Use* and Functions.— Social and Religious,— Illus- trations.—The Analogue of the Grecian Phratry; but in its Archaic Form.— Phratries of the Choctas.— Of the Chtckasas. —Of the Mohegans.— Of the Thlinkeets.— Their Probable Uni- versality in the Tribes of the American Aborigine* 88

CHAPTER IV. The Iroquois Tribe.

The Tribe as an Organization.— Composed of Gentes Speaking the same Dialect. — Separation in Area led to Divergence of Speech, and Segmentation.— The Tribe a Natural Growth.— Illustrations.— Attributes of a Tribe.— A Territory and Name. —An Exclusive Dialect.— The Right to Invest and Depose its Sachems and Chiefs.— A Religious Faith and Worship.— A Council of Chiefs.— A Head-Chief of Tribe in some Instances. —Three successive Forms of Gentile Government; First, a Government of One Power; Second, of Two Powers; Third, of Three Powers 103

CHAPTER V. The Iroquois Confederacy.

Confederacies Natural Growths.— Founded upon Common Gen- tes. and a Common Language.— The Iroquois Tribes.— Their Settlement In New York.— Formation of the Confederacy.— Its Structure and Principles.— Fifty Sachem ships Created.— Made Hereditary in certain Gentes.— Number assigned to each Tribe. — Tneso Sachems formed the Council of the Con- federacy.—The Civil Council.— Its Mode of Transacting Busi- ness.—Unanimity Necessary to its Action.— The Mournlnp Council.— Mode of Raising up Sachems.— General Military Commander*.— This Office the Germ of that of a Chief Exec- utive Magistrate.— Intellectual Capacity of the Iroquois. 124

CHAPTER VI. Gentes in Other Tribes of the Ganowanian Family.

Divisions of American Aborigines.— Gentes in Indian Tribes; with their Rules of Descent and Inheritance.— I. Hodeno- saunian Tribes.— II. Dakotlan.-in. Oulf.— IV. Pawnee.-V. AlffpnKin.— VI. At hapasco- Apache.— VII. Tribes of Northwest Coa**.— Eskimos, a Distinct Family.— VTIT. Palish, Sahara In. and KocrtenayTribes.-rx. Shoshonee.-X. Village Indians of New Iffexlco, Mexico and Central America.— XI. South Ameri- can Indian Tribe*.— Probable Universality of tie Organiza- tion In Gentes in the Ganowanian Family .:.... 155

XH CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII. The Aztec Confederacy.

Misconception of Aztec Society.— Condition of Advancement.— Nahuatlac Tribes.— Their Settlement in Mexico.— Puebla of Mexico founded, A.D. 1326.— Aztec Confederacy established. A.D. 1426.— Extent of Territorial Domination.— Probable Number of the People.— Whether or not the Aztecs were organized in Oentes and Phratries.— The Council of Chiefs — Its probable Functions.— Office held by Montezuma.— Elective in Tenure.— Deposition of Montezuma.— ProbabU Functions of the Office.— Aztec Institutions essentially Democratical.— The Government a Military Democracy *,,,,,. 191

CHAPTER VIII. The Grecian Gens.

Early Condition of Grecian Tribes.— Organized into Gentes.— Changes in the Character of the Gens.— Necessity for a Po- litical System.— Problem to be Solved.— The Formation of a State.— Grote's Description of the Grecian Gentes.— Of their Phratries and Tribes.— Rights, Privileges and Obligations of the Members of the Gens.— Similar to those of the Iroquols Gens.— The Office of Chief of the Gens.— Whether Elective or Hereditary.— The Gens the Basis of the Social System.— An- tiquity of the Gentile Lineage.— Inheritance of Property.— Archaic and Final Rule.— Relationships between the Mem- bers of a Gens.— The Gens the Center of Social and Relig- ious Influence 221

CHAPTER IX. The Grecian Phratry, Tribe and Nation.

The Athenian Phratry.— How Formed.— Definition of Dlkcar- chus.— Objects chiefly Religious.— The Phratrlarch.— The Tribe. —Composed of Three Phratries.— The Phylo-Basileus.— The Nation.— Composed of Four Tribes.— BoulC, or Council of Chiefs.— Agora, or Assembly of the People.— The Basileus.— Tenure of the Office.— Military and Priestly Functions.— Civil Functions not shown.— Governments of the Heroic Age, Mil- itary Democracies.— Aristotle's Definition of a Basileus.— La- ter Athenian Democracy.— Inherited from the Gentes.— Its Powerful Influence upon Athenian Development 242

CHAPTER X. The Institution of Grecian Political Society.

Failure of the Gentes at a Basis of Government.— Legislation of Theseus.— Attempted Substitution of Classes.— Its Failure. —Abolition of the Office of Bastleus.— The Archonshlp.— Nau- craries and Trittyes.— Legislation of Solon.— The Property Classes.— Partial Transfer of Civil Power from the Gentes to

CONTENTS xHl

the Classes.— Persons unattached to any Gens.— Made Citizens. —The Senate.— The Ecclesia.— Political Society partially at- tained.—Legislation of Cleisthenes.— Institution of Political Society.— The Attic Deme or Township.— Its Organization and Powers.— Its Local Self-government.— The Local Tribe or District.— The Attic Commonwealth.— Athenian Democ- racy 263

CHAPTER XI. The Roman Gens.

Italian Tribes Organized in Gentes.— Founding1 of Rome.— Tribe* Organized into a Military Democracy.— The Roman Gens.— —Definition of a Gentilis by Cicero.— By Festus.— By Varro. Descent in Male Line.— Marrying out of the Gens.— Rights, Privileges and Obligations of the Members of a Gens.— Dem- ocratic Constitution of Ancient Latin Society.— Number of Persons in a Gens ................ 285

CHAPTER XII. The Roman Curia, Tribe and Populus.

Roman Gentile Society.— Four Stages of Organization.— 1. The Gens; 2. The Curia, consisting of Ten Gentes; 3. The Tribe, composed of Ten Curisr; 4. The Populus Romanus, composed of Three Tribes.— Numerical Proportions. — How Produced.— Concentration of Gentes at Rome.— The Roman Senate.— Its Functions.— The Assembly of the People.— Its Powers.— The People Sovereign.— Office of Military Commander (Rex).— Its Powers and Functions.— Roman Gentile Institutions essen- tially Democratical 309

CHAPTER XIII. The Institution of Roman Political Society.

The Populus.— The Plebeians.— The Clients.— The Patricians.— Limits of the Order.— Legislation of Servius Tulliue.— Insti- tution of Property Classes.— Of the Centuries.— Unequal Suf- frage.—Comitia Centuriata.— Supersedes Comitia Curiata»— Classes supersede the Gentes.— The Census.— Plebeians made Citizens.— Institution of City Wards.— Ot Country Townships. —Tribes increased to Four.— Made Local instead of Consan- guine.—Character of New Political System.— Decline and Dis- appearance of Gentile Organization.— The Work ft Accom- plished 352

CHAPTER XIV. \ Change of Descent from the Female to the Male Line.

How the Change might have been made.— Inheritance of prop- erty the Motive.— Descent in the Female Line among the Lycjanp.— The Cretans,- The Etruscans.— Probably among the

CONTENTS

X

Albanian* In the time of C*cro»s.-The Hundred Famtlie* of the Locriana.— Evidence from Marx-lag**.— Turanian System of Consanguinity among Grecian Tribes.— Legend of the Danaidft 353

CHAPTER XV. »entes in Other Tribes of the Human Family.

The Scottish Clan.— The Irish Sept.— Germanic Tribes.— Traces of a prior Gentile System.— Gentes in Southern Asiatic Tribes.— In Northern.— In Uralian Tribes.— Hundred Families of Chmese.— Hebrew Tribes.— Composed of Gentes and Phra- tries Apparently.— Gentes in African Tribes.— In Australian Tribes.— Subdivisions of Fejees and Re was.— Wide Distribu- tion of Gentile Organization 368

PART III

GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF THE FAMILY

CHAPTER I. The Ancient Family.

Five successive Forms of the Family.— First, the Consanguine Family.— It created the Malayan System of Consanguinity and Affinity.— Second, the Punaluan.— It created the Turanian and Ganowanian System.— Third, the Monogamian.— It cre- ated the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian system.— The Syndyas- mian and Patriarchal Families Intermediate.— Both failed to create a System of Consanguinity.— These Systems Natural Growth*.— Two Ultimate Forms.— One Classiflcatory, the other Descriptive.— General Principles of these Systems.— Their Persistent Maintenance , ,,,,. 393

CHAPTER II. The Consanguine Family.

Former Existence of this Family.— Proved by Malayan System of Consanguinity.— Hawaiian System used as Typical.— Five Grades of Relations.— Details of System.— Explained in its origin by the Intermarriage of Brothers and Sisters in a Gfbup.— Early State of Society in the Sandwich Islands.- Nine Grades of Relations of the Chinese.— Identical in Frln- etolft wit* thj Hawattan.-Fiv« Grade* of Relation* in ideal Republic of Plato.-Tabl* of Malayan System of Consanguin- ity ana Affinity ,,M 419

CONTENTS xv

CHAPTER ZEL

The Punaluan Family.

The Punaluan Family supervened upon the Consanguine.— Tran- sition, how Produced.— Hawaiian Custom of Punalua.— Its probable ancient Prevalence over wide Areas.— The Gentes originated probably in Punaluan Groups.— The Turanian Sys- tem of Consanguinity.— Created by the Punaluan Family.— It proves the Existence of this Family when the System was formed.— Details of System.— Explanation of its Rela- tionships in their Origin.— Table of Turanian and Ganowan- ian Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity 433

CHAPTER IV. The Syndyasmian and the Patriarchal Families.

The Syndyasmian Family.— How Constituted.— Its Characteris- tics.— Influence upon it of the Gentile Organization. — Propens- ity to Pair a late Development.— Ancient Society should be Studied where the highest Exemplifications are found.— The Patriarchal Family.— Paternal Power its Essential Charac- teristic.—Polygamy subordinate.— The Roman Family sim- ilar.—Paternal Power unknown in previous Families. .. 462

CHAPTER V.

The Monogamian Family.

This Family comparatively Modern,— The Term Fam ilia.— Fam- ily of Ancient Germans.— Of Homeric Greeks.— Of Civilized Greeks.— Seclusion of Wives.— Obligations of Monogamy not respected by the Males.— The Roman Family.— Wives un- der Power.— Aryan System of Consanguinity.— It came in un- der Monogamy.— Previous System probably Turanian.— Tran- sition from Turanian into Aryan.— Roman and Arabic Sys- tems of Consanguinity.— Details of the Former.— Present Mo- nogamlan Family.— Table of Roman and Arabic Systems f 76

CHAPTER VL Sequence of Institutions Connected with the Family.

iu«nce in part Hypothetical.— Relation of these Institutions in the Order of their Origination.— Evidence of their Origi- nation in the Order named.— Hypothesis of Degradation Con- sidered.-The Antiquity of Mankind 505

CONTENTS

PART IV

GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF PROPERTY

CHAPTER I. The Three Rules of Inheritance.

Property in the Status of Savagery.— Slow Rate of Progress.— First Rule of Inheritance.— Property Distributed among the Gentiles.— Property in the Lower Status of Barbarism.— -Germ of Second Rule of Inheritance.— Distributed among Agnatlc Kindred.— Improved Character of Man.— Property In Middle Status.— Rule of Inheritance imperfectly Known.— Agnatic Inheritance Probable 535

CHAPTER II. The Three Rules of Inheritance— Continued.

Property in the Upper Status of Barbarism.— Slavery.— Tenure of Lands in Grecian Tribes.— Culture of the Period.— Its Bril- liancy.—Third Rule of Inheritance.— Exclusively in Children. —Hebrew Tribes.— Rule of Inheritance.— Daughters of Ze- lophehad.— Property remained in the Phratry, and probably in the Gens.— The Reversion.— Athenian Inheritance.— Exclu- sively lit Children.— The Reversion.— Inheritance remained in * the Gens.— Heiresses.— Wills.— Roman Inheritance.— The Re- version.—Property remained in the Gens.— Appearance of Aristocracy.— Property Career of the Human Race.— Unity of Origin of Mankind i4*

PART I

&ROWTH OF INTELLIGENCE THROUGH INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES

ANCIENT SOCIETY

CHAPTER I

ETHNICAL PERIODS

The latest investigations respecting the early condition of the human race are tending to the conclusion that mankind commenced their career at the bottom of the scale and worked their way up from savagery to civili- zation through the slow accumulations of experimental knowledge.

As it is undeniable that portions of the human family have existed in a state of savagery, other portions in a state of barbarism, and still other portions in a state of civilization, it seems equally so that these three distinct conditions are connected with each other in a natural as well as necessary sequence of progress. Moreover, that this sequence has been historically true of the entire human family, up to the status attained by each branch respectively, is rendered probable by the conditions un- der which all progress occurs, and by the known ad- vancement of several branches of the family through two or more of these conditions.

An attempt will be made in the following pages to bring forward additional evidence of the rudeness of the early condition of mankind, of the gradual evolution of their mental and moral powers through experience, and of their protracted struggle with opposing obstacles while winning their way to civilization. It will be drawn, in

4 ANCIENT SOCIETY

part, from the great sequence of inventions and dis- coveries which stretches along the entire pathway of human progress; but chiefly from domestic institutions, which express the growth of certain ideas and passions.

As we re-ascend along the several lines of progress toward the primitive ages of mankind, and eliminate one after the other, in the order in which they appeared, in- ventions and discoveries on the one hand, and institu- tions on the other, we are enabled to perceive that the former stand to each other in progressive, and the latter in unfolding relations. While the former class have had a connection, more or less direct, the latter have been developed from a few primary germs of thought. Modern institutions plant their roots in the period of barbarism, into which their germs were transmitted from the previous period of savagery. They have had a lineal descent through the ages, with the streams of the blood, as well as a logical development.

Two independent lines of investigations thus invite our attention. The one leads through inventions and discoveries, and the other through primary institutions. With the knowledge gained therefrom, we may hope to indicate the principal stages of human development. The proofs to be adduced will be drawn chiefly from do- mestic institutions; the references to achievements more strictly intellectual being general as well as subordinate.

The facts indicate the gradual formation and subse- quent development of certain ideas, passions, and aspira- tions. Those which hold the most prominent positions may be generalized as growths of the particular ideas with which they severally stand connected. Apart from inventions and discoveries they are the following: I. Subsistence, V. Religion,

II. Government, VI. House Life and Archi-

III. Language, lecture,

IV. The Family, VII. Property.

First. Subsistence has been increased and perfected by a series of successive arts, introduced at long intervals of time, and connected more or less directly with inven- tions and discoveries.

ETHNICAL PERIODS Q

Second. The germ of government must be sought in the organization into gentes in the Status of savagery; and followed down, through the advancing forms of this institution, to the establishment of political society.

Third. Human speech seems to have been developed from the rudest and simplest forms of expression. Ges- ture or sign language, as intimated by Lucretius, must have preceded articulate language, as thought preceded speech. The monosyllabical preceded the syllabical, as the latter did that of concrete words. Human intelli- gence, unconscious of design, evolved articulate language by utilizing the vocal sounds. This great subject, a de- partment of knowledge by itself, does not fall within the scope of the present investigation.

Fourth. With respect to the family, the stages of its growth are embodied in systems of consanguinity and affinity, and in usages relating to marriage, by means of which, collectively, the family can be definitely traced through several successive forms.

Fifth. The growth of religious ideas is environed with such intrinsic difficulties that it may never receive a perfectly satisfactory exposition. Religion deals so largely with the imaginative and emotional nature, and consequently with such uncertain elements of knowl- edge, that all primitive religions a*e grotesque and to some extent unintelligible. This subject also falls with- out the plan of this work excepting as it may prompt incidental suggestions.

Sixth. House architecture, which connects itself with the form of the family and the plan of domestic life, affords a tolerably complete illustration of progress from savagery to civilization. Its growth can be traced from the hut of the savage, through the communal houses of the barbarians, to the house of the single family of civil- ized nations, with all the successive links by which one extreme is connected with the other. This subject will be noticed incidentally.

Lastly. The idea of property was slowly formed in the human mind, remaining nascent and feeble through immense periods of time. Springing into life in sav-

6 ANCIENT SOCIETY

agery, it required all the experience of this period and of the subsequent period of barbarism to develop the germ, and to prepare the human brain for the accept- ance of its controlling influence. Its dominance as a passion over all other passions marks the commencement of civilization. It not only led mankind to overcome the obstacles which delayed civilization, but to establish political society on the basis of territory and of property. A critical knowledge of the evolution of the idea of prop- erty would embody, in some respects, the most remark- able portion of the mental history of mankind.

It wifl -be my object to present some evidence of human progress along these several lines, and through succes- sive ethnical periods, as it is revealed by inventions and discoveries, and 'by the growth of the ideas of govern- ment, of the family, and of property.

It may be here premised that all forms of government are reducible to two general plans, using the word plan in its scientific sense. In their bases the two are funda- mentally distinct. The first, in the order of time, is founded upon persons, and upon relations purely per- sonal, and may be distinguished as a society (societas). The gens is the unit of this organization ; giving as the successive stages of integration, in the archaic period, the gens, the phratry, the tribe, and the confederacy of tribes, which constituted a people or nation (populus). At a later period a coalescence of tribes in the same area into a nation took the place of a confederacy of tribes occupying independent areas. Such, through prolonged ages, after the gens appeared, was the substantially uni- versal organization of ancient society; and it remained among the Greeks and Romans after civilization super- vened. The second is founded upon territory and upon property, and may be distinguished as a state (civitas). The township or ward, circumscribed by metes and bounds, with the property it contains, is the basis or unit of the latter, and political society is the result. Political society is organized upon territorial areas, and deals with property as well as with persons through territorial relations. The successive stages of integration are the

' ETHNICAL PERIODS 7

township or ward, which is the unit of organization ; the county or province, which is an aggregation of town- ships or wards; and the national domain or territory, which is an aggregation of counties or provinces; the people of each of which are organized into a body politic. It taxed the Greeks and Romans to the extent of their capacities, after they had gained civilization, to invent the deme or township and the city ward; and thus in- augurate the second great plan of government, which remains among civilized nations to the present hour. In ancient society this territorial plan was unknown. When it came in it fixed the boundary line between ancient and modern society, as the distinction will be recognized in these pages.

It may be further observed that the domestic institu- tions of the barbarous, and even of the savage ancestors of mankind, are still exemplified in portions of the human family with such completeness that, with the ex- ception of the strictly primitive period, the several stages of this progress are tolerably well preserved. They are seen in the organization of society upon the basis of sex, then upon the basis of kin, and finally upon the basis of territory; through the successive forms of marriage and of the family, with the systems of con- sanguinity thereby created; through house life and ar- chitecture; and through progress in usages with respect to the ownership and inheritance of property.

The theory of human degradation to expain the ex- istence of savages and of barbarians is no longer ten- able. It came in as a corollary from the Mosaic cosmog- ony, and was acquiesced in from a supposed necessity which no longer exists. As a theory, it is not only in- capable of explaining the existence of savages, but it is without support in the facts of human experience.

The remote ancestors of the Aryan nations presumpt- ively passed through an experience similar to that of ex- isting barbarous and savage tribes. Though the experi- ence of these nations embodies all the information neces- sary to illustrate the periods of civilization, both ancient and modern, together with a part of that in the Later

10 ANCIENT

of fire. Mankind were then living in their original restricted habitat, and subsisting upon fruits and nuts. The commencement of articulate speech belongs to this period. No exemplification of tribes of mankind in this condition remained to the historical period.

II. Middle Status of Savagery.

It commenced with the acquisition of a fish subsist- ence and a knowledge of the use of fire, and ended with the invention of the bow and arrow. Mankind, while in this condition, spread from their original habitat over the greater portion of the earth's surface. Among tribes still existing it will leave in the Middle Status of savagery, for example, the Australians and the greater part of the Polynesians when discovered. It will be suf- ficient to give one or more exemplifications of each status.

III. Upper Status of Savagery.

It commenced with the invention of the bow and ar- row, and ended with the invention of the art of pottery. It leaves in the Upper Status of Savagery the Athapascan tribes of the Hudson's Bay Territory, the tribes of the valley of the Columbia, and certain coast tribes of North and South America; but with relation to the time of their discovery. This closes the period of Savagery.

IV. Lower Status of Barbarism.

The invention or practice of the art of pottery, all things considered, is probably the most effective and con- clusive test that can be selected to fix a boundary line, necessarily arbitrary, between savagery and barbarism. The distinctness of the two conditions has long been re- cognized, but no criterion of progress out of the former into the latter has hitherto been brought forward. All such tribes, then, as never attained to the art of pottery will be classed as savages, and those possessing this art but who never attained a phonetic alphabet and the use of writing will be classed as barbarians.

The first sub-period of barbarism commenced with the manufacture of pottery, whether by original invention or adoption. In finding its termination, and the com- mencement of the Middle Status, a difficulty is cncoun-

ETHNICAL PERIODS H

tered in the unequal endowments of the two hemispheres, which began to be influential upon human affairs after the period of savagery had passed. It may be met, how- ever, by the adoption of equivalents. In the Eastern hemisphere, the domestication of animals, and the West- ern, the cultivation of maize and plants by irrigation, to- gether with the use of adobe-brick and stone in house building have been selected as sufficient evidence of progress to work a transition out of the Lower and into the Middle Status of barbarism. It leaves, for example, in the Lower Status, the Indian tribes of the United States east of the Missouri River, and such tribes of Europe and Asia as practiced the art of pottery, but were without domestic animals.

V. Middle Stattts of Barbarism.

It commenced with the domestication of animals in the Eastern hemisphere, and in th^Western with cultivation by irrigation and with the use of adobe-brick and stone in architecture, as shown. Its termination may be fixed with the invention of the process of smelting iron ore. This places in the Middle Status, for example, the Vil- lage Indians of New Mexico, Mexico, Central America and Peru, and such tribes in the Eastern hemisphere as possessed domestic animals, but were without a knowl- edge of iron. The ancient Britons, although familiar with the use of iron, fairly belong in this connection. The vicinity of more advanced continental tribes had advanced the arts of life among thern far beyond the state of development of their domestic institutions.

VI. Upper Status of Barbarism.

It commenced with the manufacture of iron, and ended with the invention of a phonetic alphabet, and the use of writing in literary composition. Here civilization begins. This leaves in the Upper Status, for example, the Gre- cian tribes of the Homeric age, the Italian tribes shortly before the founding of Rome, and the Germanic tribes ,of the time of Caesar.

VII. Status of Civilisation.

It commenced, as stated, with the use of a phonetic alphabet and the production of literary records, and

Ifc ANCIENT SOCIETY

divides into Ancient and Modern. As an equivalent, hieroglyphical writing upon stone may be admitted.

RECAPITULATION.

Periods. Conditions.

I. Older Period of Savagery, I. Lower Status of Savagery,

II. Middle Period of Savagery, II. Middle Status of Savagery,

III. Later Period of Savagery, HI. Upper Status of Savagery,

IV. Older Period of Barbarism, IV. Lower Status of Barbarism, V. Middle Period of Barbar- V. Middle Status of Barbar- ism, ism,

VI. Later Period of Barbarism, VI. Upper Status of Barbarism, VII. Status of Civilization.

I. Lower Status of Savagery, From the Infancy of the Hu- & man Race to the commence- ment of the next Period.

II. Middle Status of Savagery, From the acquisition of a fish

subsistence and a knowledge of the use of fire, to etc.

III. Upper Status of Savagery, From the Invention of the Bow

and Arrow, to etc.

IV. Lower Status of Barbarism, From the Invention of the Art

of Pottery, to etc.

V. Middle Status of Barbar- From the Domestication of an-

ism, imals on the Eastern hemi-

sphere, and in the Western from the cultivation of maize and plants by Irrigation, with the use of adobe-brick and stone, to etc.

VI. Upper Status of Barbarism, From the Invention of the

process of Smelting Iron Ore, with the use of iron tools, to etc.

VII. Status of Civilization, From the Invention of a Phonetic

Alphabet, with the use of writ- ing, to the present time.

Each of these periods has a distinct culture and exhib- its a mode of life more or less special and peculiar to

ETHNICAL PERIODS Jg

Itself. This specialization of ethnical periods renders it possible to treat a particular society according to its con- dition of relative advancement, and to make it a subject of independent study and discussion. It does not affect the main result that different tribes and nations on the same continent, and even of the same linguistic family, are in different conditions at the same time, since. for our purpose the condition of each is the material fact, the time being immaterial.

Since the use of pottery is less significant than that of domestic animals, of iron, or of a phonetic alphabet, employed to mark the commencement of subsequent eth- nical periods, the reasons for its adoption should be stated. The manufacture of pottery presupposes village life, and considerable progress in the simple arts. l Flint and stone implements are older than pottery, remains of the former having been found in ancient repositories in numerous instances unaccompanied by the latter. A suc- cession of inventions of greater need and adapted to a lower condition must have occurred before the want of pottery would be felt. The commencement of village life, with some degree of control over subsistence, wooden vessels and utensils, finger weaving with filaments of bark, basket making, and the bow and arrow make their appearance before the art of pottery. The Village In- dians who were in the Middle Status of barbarism, such as the Zunians the Aztecs and the Cholulans, manufac- tured pottery in large quantities and in many forms of considerable excellence; the partially Village Indians of the United States, who were in the Lower Status of bar- barism, such as the Iroquois, the Choctas, and the Cher- okees, made it in smaller quantities and in a limited num-

i Mr. Edwin B. Tylor observes that Goquet "first propounded* in the last century, the notion that the way in which pottery came to be made, was that people daubed such combusible ves- sels as these with clay to protect them from fire, till they found

hold utensils of wood, even their boillnjr pots, but postered with a kind of clay, a good finger thick, which prevented the fire from burning them. — Ib. 273.

14 ANCIENT SOCIETY

Ker of forms; but the Non-horticultural Indians, who were in the Status of savagery, such as the Athapascans, the tribes of California and of the valley of the Colum- bia, were ignorant of its use.1 In Lubbock's Pre-His- toric Times, in Tylor's Early History of Mankind, and in Peschel's Races of Man, the particulars respecting this art, and the extent of its distribution, have been collected with remarkable breadth of research. It was unknown in Polynesia (with the exception of the Islands of the Tongans and Fijians), in Australia, in California, and in the Hudson's Bay Territory. Mr. Tylor remarks that "the art of weaving was unknown in most of the Islands away from Asia," and that "in most of the South Sea Islands there was no knowledge of pottery.":2 The Rev. Lorimer Fison, an English missionary residing in Au- stralia, informed the author in answer to inquiries, that "the Australians had no woven fabrics, no pottery, and were ignorant of the bow and arrow." This last fact was also true in general of the Polynesians. The intro- duction of the ceramic art produced a new epoch in human progress in the direction of an improved living and increased domestic conveniences. While flint and stone implements — which came in earlier and required long periods of time to develop all their uses — gave the canoe, wooden vessels and utensils, and ultimately tim- ber and plank in house architecture, 8 pottery gave a dur- able vessel for boiling food, which before that had been rudely accomplished in baskets coated with clay, and in

1 Pottery has been found in aboriginal mounds in Oregon within a few years past.— Foster's "Pre-Historic Races of the United States," I. 162. The first vessels of pottery among the Aborigines of the United States seem to have been made in baskets of rushes or willows used as moulds which were burned off after the vessel hardened.— Jones's "Antiquities of the Southern Indians," p. 461. Prof. Rau's article on "Pottery." "Smithsonian Report/' 1866, p. 362.

•"Early History of Mankind," p. 181; "Pre-Hlstoric Times," pp. 437, 441, 462, 477, 633, 642.

* Lewis and Clarke (1806) found plank in use in houses among the tribes of the Columbia River.— "Travels," Longman's Ed., 1814, p. 503. Mr. John Keast Lord found "cedar plank chipped

from the solid tree with chisels and hatchets made of stone/* !n Indian houses on Vancouver's Island.— "Naturalist $n British, Columbia/' I, 169.

ETHNICAL PERIODS 15

ground cavities lined with skin, the boiling being effected with heated stones.1

Whether the pottery of the aborigines was hardened by fire or cured by the simple process of drying, has been made a question. Prof E. T. Cox, of Indianapolis, has shown by comparing the analyses of ancient pottery and hydraulic cements, "that so far as chemical constituents are concerned it (the pottery) agrees very well with the composition of hydraulic stones." He remarks further, that "all the pottery belonging to the mound-builders' age, which I have seen, is composed of alluvial clay and sand, or a mixture of the former with pulverized fresh- water shells. A paste made of such a mixture possesses in a high degree the properties of hydraulic Puzzuolani and Portland cement, so that vessels formed of it hard- ened without being burned, as is customary with modern pottery. The fragments of shells served the purpose of gravel or fragments of stone as at present used in con- nection with hydraulic lime for the manufacture of arti- ficial stone." The composition of Indian pottery in an- alogy with that of hydraulic cement suggests the difficul- ties in the way of inventing the art, and tends also to explain the lateness of its introduction in the course of human experience. Notwithstanding the ingenious sug- gestion of Prof. Cox, it is probable that pottery was hard- ened by artificial heat. In some cases the fact is directly attested. Thus Adair, speaking of the Gulf Tribes, re- marks that "they make earthen pots of very different sizes, so as to contain from two to ten gallons, large pitchers to carry water, bowls, dishes, platters, basins, and a prodigious number of other vessels of such anti- quated forms as would be tedious to describe, and im- possible to name. Their method of glazing them is, they

1 Tylor's "Early History of Mankind," p. 265, "et seq." * "Geological Survey of Indiana," 1873, p. 119. He gives the following analysis: Ancient Pottery, "Bone Bank," Posey Co., Indiana.

Moisture at 21 2o F., 1.00 Peroxide of Iron, 5.60

Silica, 36.00 Sulphuric Acid, .20

Carbonate of Lime, 26.50 Organic Matter (alka- Carbonate of Magnesia, 8.02 lies and loss), 23.60

Alumina, 5.00

100.00

|4| ANCIENT SOCIETY

place them over a large fi*e of smoky pitch-pine, which makes them smooth, black and firm."1

Another advantage of fixing definite ethnical periods is the direction of special investigation to those tribes and nations which afford the best exemplification of each status, with the view of making each both standard and illustrative. Some tribes and families have been left in geographical isolation to work out the problems of prog- ress by original mental effort; and have, consequently, retained their arts and institutions pure and homogene" ous; while those of other tribes and nations have been adulterated through external influence. Thus, while Africa was and is an ethnical chaos of savagery and bar- barism, Australia and Polynesia were in savagery, pure and simple, with the arts and institutions belonging to that condition. In like manner, the Indian family of America, unlike anv other existing family, exemplified the condition of mankind in three successive ethnical periods. In the undisturbed possession of a great con- tinent, of common descent, and with homogeneous insti- tutions, they illustrated, when discovered, each of these conditions, and especially those of the Lower and of the Middle Status of barbarism, more elaborately and com- pletely than any other portion of mankind. The far northern Indians and some of the coast tribes of North and South America were in the Upper Status of savag- ery; the partially Village Indians east of* the Mississippi were in the Lower Status of barbarism, and the Village Indians of North and South America were in the Mid- dle Status. Such an opportunity to recover full and min- ute information of the course of human experience and progress in developing their arts and institutions through these successive conditions has not been offered within the historical period. It must be added that it has been indifferently improved. Our greatest deficiencies relate to the last period named.

Differences in the culture of the same period in the

* "History of the American Indians," Lond. ed., 1775, p. 424. The Iroquois affirm that In ancient times their foreiatherf their pottery before a lire.

ETHNICAL PERIODS 17

Eastern and Western hemispheres undoubtedly existed in consequence of the unequal endowments of the conti- nents; but the condition of society in the corresponding status must have been, in the main, substantially similar.

The ancestors of the Grecian, Roman, and German tribes passed through the stages we have indicated, in the midst of the last of which the light of history fell upon them. Their differentiation from the undistin- guishable mass of barbarians did not occur, probably, earlier than the commencement of the Middle Period ot barbarism. The experience o£ these tribes has been lost, with the exception of so much as is represented by the institutions, inventions and discoveries which they had brought with them, and possessed when they first came under historical observation. The Grecian and Latin tribes of the Homeric and Romulian periods afford the highest exemplification of the Upper Status of barbar- ism. Their institutions were likewise pure and homo- geneous, and their experience stands directly connected with the final achievement of civilization.

Commencing, then, with the Australians and Polyne- sians, following with the American Indian tribes, and concluding with the Roman and Grecian, who afford the highest exemplifications respectively of the six great stages of human progress, the sum of their united expe- riences may be supposed fairly to represent that of the human family from the Middle Status of savagery to the end of ancient civilization. Consequently, the Aryan na- tions will find the type of the condition of their remote ancestors, when in savagery, in that of the Australians and Polynesians ; when in the Lower Status of barbarism in that of the partially Village Indians of America ; and when in the Middle Status in that of the Village Indians, with which their own experience in the Upper Status directly connects. So essentially identical are the arts, institutions and mode of life in the same status upon all the continents, that the archaic form of the principal domestic institutions of the Greeks and Romans must even now be sought in the corresponding institutions of the American aborigines, as will be shown in the course

1§ ANCIBNT SOCIETY

of this volume. This fact forms a part of the accumu- lating evidence tending to show that the principal insti- tutions of mankind have been developed from a few pri- mary germs of thought; and that the course and man- ner of their development was predetermined, as well as restricted within narrow limits of divergence, by the nat- ural logic of the human mind and the necessary limita- tions of its powers. Progress has been found to be sub- stantially the same in kind in tribes and nations inhabit- ing different and even disconnected continents, while in the same status, with deviations from uniformity in par- ticular instances produced by special causes. The argu- ment when extended tends to establish the unity of origin of mankind.

In studying the condition of tribes and nations in these several ethnical periods we are dealing, substantially, with the ancient history and condition of our own remote ancestors.

CHAPTER II

ARTS OF SUBSISTENCE

The important fact that mankind commenced at the bottom of the scale and worked up, is revealed in an expressive manner by their successive arts of subsist- ence. Upon their skill in this direction, the whole ques- tion of human supremacy on the earth depended. Man- kind are the only beings who may be said to have gained an absolute control over the production of food; which at the outset they did not possess above other animals. Without enlarging the basis of subsistence, mankind could not have propagated themselves into other areas not possessing the same kinds of food, and ultimately over the whole surface of the earth ; and lastly, without obtaining an absolute control over both its variety and amount, they could not have multiplied into populous nations. It is accordingly probable that the great epochs of human progress have been identified, more or less di- rectly, with the enlargement of the sources of subsist- ence.

We are able to distinguish five of these sources of hu- man food, created by what may be called as many suc- cessive arts, one superadded to the other, and brought out at long separated intervals of time. The first two originated in the period of savagery, and the last three, in the period of barbarism. They are the following, stated in the order of their appearance:

I. Natural Subsistence upon Fruits and Roots on a Restricted Habitat.

20 ANCIENT SOCIETY

This proposition carries us back to the strictly primi- tive period of mankind, when few in numbers, simple in subsistence, and occupying limited areas, they were just entering upon their new career. There is neither an art, nor an institution, that can be referred to this period; and but one invention, that of language, which can be connected with an epoch so remote. The kind of sub- sistence indicated assumes a tropical or subtropical cli- mate. In such a climate, by common consent, the habitat of primitive man has been placed. In fruit and nutbear- ing forests under a tropical sun, we are accustomed, and with reason, to regard our progenitors as having com- menced their existence.

The races of animals preceded the race of mankind, in the order of time. We are warranted in supposing that they were in the plenitude of their strength and num- bers when the human race first appeared. The classical poets pictured the tribes of mankind dwelling in groves, in caves and in forests, for the possession of which they disputed with wild beasts1 — while they sustained them- selves with the spontaneous fruits of the earth. If man- kind commenced their career without experience, with- out weapons, and surrounded with ferocious animals, it is not improbable that they were at least partially, tree- livers, as a means of protection and security.

The maintenance of life, through the constant acqui- sition of food, is the great burden imposed upon exist- ence in all species of animals. As we descend in the scale of structural organization, subsistence becomes more and more simple at each stage, until the mystery finally vanishes. But, in the ascending scale, it becomes increasingly difficult until the highest structural form, that of man, is reached, when it attains the maximum. Intelligence from henceforth becomes a more prominent factor. Animal food, in all probability, entered from a very early period into human consumption ; but whether it was actively sought when mankind were essentially frugivorous in practice, though omnivorous in structural

* "Lucr. D* Re. Nat./' lib. v, 951.

ARTS OF SUBSISTENCE $1

organization, must remain a matter of conjecture. This mode of sustenance belongs to the - strictly primitive period.

II. Fish Subsistence.

In fish must be recognized the first kind of artificial food, because it was not fully available without cooking. Fire was first utilized, not unlikely, for this purpose. Fish were universal in distribution, unlimited in supply, and the only kind of food at all times attainable. The cereals in the primitive period were still unknown, if in fact they existed, and the hunt for game was too pre- carious ever to have formed an exclusive means of hu*- man support. Upon this species of food mankind became independent of climate and of locality ; and by following the shores of the seas and lakes, and the courses of the rivers could, while in the savage state, spread themselves over the greater portion of the earth's surface. Of the fact of these migrations there is abundant evidence in the remains of flint and stone implements of the Status of Savagery found upon all the continents. In reliance upon fruits and spontaneous subsistence a removal from the original habitat would have been impossible.

Between the introduction of fish, followed by the wide migrations named, and the cultivation of farinaceous food, the interval of time was immense. It covers a large part of the period of savagery. But during this interval there was an important increase in the variety and amount of food. Such, for example, as the bread roots cooked in ground ovens, and in the permanent addition of game through improved weapons, and especially through the bow and arrow. This remarkable invention, which came in after the spear war club, and gave the first deadly weapon for the hunt, appeared late in savag- ery. It has been used to mark the commencement of

1 As a combination of forces it is so abstruse that It not unlikely owed its origin to accident. The elasticity and tough- ness of certain kinds of w^ood. the tension of a cord of sinew or vegetable fibre by means of a btrit bow, and Anally their combination to propel an arrow by human muscle, are not very

ft ANCIENT SOCIBTIT

its Upper Status. It must have given a powerful upward influence to ancient society, standing in the same relation to the period of savagery, as the iron sword to the period of barbarism, and fire-arms to the period of civilization.

From the precarious nature of all these sources of food, outside of the great fish areas, cannibalism became the dire resort of mankind. The ancient universality of this practice is being gradually demonstrated.

III. Farinaceous Subsistence through Cultivation.

We now leave Savagery and enter the lower Status of barbarism. The cultivation of cereals and plants was unknown in the Western hemisphere except among the tribes who had emerged from savagery; and it seems to have been unknown in the Eastern hemisphere until after the tribes of Asia and Europe had passed through the Lower, and had drawn near to the close of the Middle Status of barbarism. It gives us the singular fact that the American aborigines in the Lower Status of barbar- ism were in possession of horticulture one entire ethnical period earlier than the inhabitants of the Eastern hemi- sphere. It was a consequence of the unequal endow- ments of the two hemispheres; the Eastern possessing all the animals adapted to domestication, save one, and a majority of the cereals ; while the Western had only one cereal fit for cultivation, but that the best. It tended to prolong the older period of barbarism in the former, to shorten it in the latter; and with the advantage of con- dition in this period in favor of the American aborigines. But when the most advanced tribes in the Eastern hemi- sphere, at the commencement of the Middle Period of barbarism, had domesticated animals which gave them meat and milk, their condition, without a knowledge of the cereals, was much superior to that of the American aborigines in the corresponding period, with maize and plants, but without domestic animals. The differentia-

obvious suggestions to the mind of a savage. As elsewhere noticed, the bow and arrow are unknown to the Polynesians in

Sneral, and to the Australians. From this fact alone it is own that mankind were well advanced in the savage state Wh»n the bow and arrow made their first appearance.

ARTS OF SUBSISTENCE *8

tion of the Semitic and Aryan families from the mass of barbarians seems to have commenced with the domesti- cation of animals.

That the discovery and cultivation of the cereals by the Aryan family was subsequent to the domestication of animals is shown by the fact, that there are common terms for these animals in the several dialects of the Aryan language, and no common terms for the cereals or cultivated plants. Mommsen, after showing that the domestic animals have the same names in the Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin (which Max Miiller afterwards ex- tended to the remaining Aryan dialects *) thus proving that they were known and presumptively domesticated before the separation of these nations from each other, proceeds as follows: "On the other hand, we have as yet no certain proofs of the existence of agriculture at this period. Language rather favors the negative view. Of the Latin-Greek names of grain none occur in the Sanskrit with the single exception of zea, which philo- logically represents the Sanskrit yavas, but denotes in Indian, barley; in Greek, spelt. It must indeed be granted that this diversity in the names of cultivated plants, which so strongly contrasts with the essential agreement in the appellations of domestic animals, does not absolutely preclude the supposition of a common original agriculture. The cultivation of rice among the Indians, that of wheat and spelt among the Greeks, and that of rye and oats among the Germans and Celts, may all be traceable to a common system of original tillage/'2 This last conclusion is forced. Horticulture preceded field culture, as the garden (hortos) preceded the field (ager) ; and although the latter implies boundaries, the former signifies directly an "inclosed space." Tillage, however, must have been older than the inclosed garden ; the natural order being first, tillage of patches of open alluvial land, second of inclosed spaces or gardens, and third, of the field by means of the plow drawn by animal

* "Chip* from a German Workshop," Comp. Table, 11, p.

• "Hlatory of Rome," Scrlbner'a ed., 1871, I, p. 38.

41.

&4 ANCIENT SOCIETY

power. Whether the cultivation of such plants as the pea, bean, turnip, parsnip, beet, squash and melon, one or more of them, preceded the cultivation of the cereals, we have at present no means of knowing. Some of these have common terms in Greek and Latin; but I am as- sured by our eminent philologist, Prof. W. D. Whitney, that neither of them has a common term in Greek or Latin and Sanskrit.

Horticulture seems to have originated more in the necessities of the domestic animals than in those of man- kind. In the Western hemisphere it commenced with maize. This new era, although not synchronous in the two hemispheres, had immense influence upon the des- tiny of mankind. There are reasons for believing that it requires ages to establish the art of cultivation, and render farinaceous food a principal reliance. Since in America it led to localization and to village life, it tended, especially among the Village Indians, to take the place of fish and game. From the cereals and cultivated plants, moreover, mankind obtained their first impression of the possibility of an abundance of food.

The acquisition of farinaceous food in America and of domestic animals in Asia and Europe, were the means of delivering the advanced tribes, thus provided, from the scourge of cannibalism, which as elsewhere stated, there are reasons for believing was practiced universally throughout the period of savagery upon captured ene- mies, and, in time of famine, upon friends and kindred. Cannibalism in war, practiced by war parties in the field, survived among the American aborigines, not only in the Lower, but also in the Middle Status of barbarism, as, for example, among the Iroquois and the Aztecs ; but the general practice had disappeared. This forcibly illus- trates the great importance which is exercised by a per- manent increase of food in ameliorating the condition of mankind.

IV. Meat and Milk Subsistence.

The absence of animals adapted to domestication in

AHTS OP

the Western hemisphere, excepting the llama, 1 and the specific differences in the cereals of the two hemispheres exercised an important influence upon the relative ad- vancement of their inhabitants. While this inequality of endowments was immaterial to mankind in the period of savagery, and not marked in its effects in the Lower Status of barbarism, it made an essential difference with that portion who had attained to the Middle Status. The domestication of animals provided a permanent meat and milk subsistence which tended to differentiate the tribes which possessed them from the mass of other barbarians. In the Western hemisphere, meat was restricted to the precarious supplies of game. This limitation upon an essential species of food was unfavorable to the Village Indians; and doubtless sufficiently explains the inferior size of the brain among them in comparison with that of Indians in the Lower Status of barbarism. In the East- ern hemisphere, the domestication of animals enabled the thrifty and industrious to secure for themselves a per- manent supply of animal food, including milk ; the health- ful and invigorating influence of which upon the race, and especially upon children, was undoubtedly remark- able. It is at least supposable that the Aryan and Sem- itic families owe their pre-eminent endowments to the great scale upon which, as far back as our knowledge extends, they have identified themselves with the main- tenance in numbers of the domestic animals. In fact, they incorporated them, flesh, milk, and muscle into their plan of life. No other family of mankind have done this to an equal extent, and the Aryan have done it to a greater extent than the Semitic.

The domestication of animals gradually introduced a new mode of life, the pastoral, upon the plains of the

1 The early Spanish writers speak of a "dumb dogr" found , domesticated In the "West India Islands, and also in Mexico and Central America. (See figures of the Aztec dogr in pi. Hi, vol. I, of Clavigero's "History of Mexico"). I have seen no identi- fication of the animal. They also speak of poultry as well as turkeys on the continent. The aborigines had domesticated the turkey, and the Nahuatlac tribes some species of wild fowl.

t We learn from the Iliad that the Greeks milked their sheep, M well as their cows and groats. See "Iliad/' iv, 433.

Euphrates and of India, and upon the steppes of Asia; on the confines of one or the other of which the domesti- cation of animals was probably first accomplished. To these areas, their oldest traditions and their histories alike refer them. They were thus drawn to regions which, so far from being the cradle lands of the human race, were areas they would not have occupied as savages, or as barbarians in the Lower Status of barbarism, to whom forest areas were natural homes. After becoming habituated* to pastoral life, it must have been impossible for either of these families to re-enter the forest areas of Western Asia and of Europe with their flocks and herds, without first learning to cultivate some of the cereals with which to subsist the latter at a distance from the grass plains. It seems extremely probable, therefore, as before stated, that the cultivation of the cereals origi- nated in the necessities of the domestic animals, and in connection with these western migrations; and that the use of farinaceous food by these tribes was a consequence of the knowledge thus acquired.

In the Western hemisphere, the aborigines were ena- bled to advance generally into the Lower Status of bar- barism, and a portion of them into the Middle Status, without domestic animals, excepting the llama in Peru, and upon a single cereal, maize, with the adjuncts of the bean, squash, and tobacco, and in some areas, cacao, cot- ton and pepper. But maize, from its growth in the hill — which favored direct cultivation — from its useable- ness both green and ripe, and from its abundant yield and nutritive properties, was a richer endowment in aid of early human progress than all other cereals put to- gether. It serves to explain the remarkable progress the American aborigines had made without the domestic animals; 'the Peruvians having produced bronze, which stands next, and quite near, in the order of time, to the process of smelting iron ore.

V. Unlimited Subsistence through Field Agriculture.

The domestic animals supplementing human muscle with animal power, contributed a new factor of the high- est value. In course of time, the production of iron gave

ARffl 6# 8U6S1STENCE jft

the plow with an iron point, and a better spade and axe. Out of these, and the previous horticulture, came field agriculture; and with it, for the first time, unlimited subsistence. The plow drawn by animal power may be regarded as inaugurating a new art. Now, for the first time, came the thought of reducing the forest, and bring- ing wide fields under cultivation. l Moreover, dense pop- ulations in limited areas now became possible. Prior to field agriculture it is not probable that half a million peo- ple were developed and held together under one govern- ment in any part of the earth. If exceptions occurred, they must have resulted from pastoral life on the plains, or from horticulture improved by irrigation, under pecu- liar and exceptional conditions.

In the course of these pages it will become necessary to speak of the family as it existed in different ethnical periods ; its form in one period being sometimes entirely different from its form in another. In Part III these several forms of the family will be treated specially. But as they will be frequently mentioned in the next ensuing Part, they should at least be defined in advance for the information of the reader. They are the following:

I. The Consanguine Family.

It was founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters in a group. Evidence still remains in the oldest of existing systems of Consanguinity, the Malayan, tend- ing to show that this, the first form of the family, was anciently as universal as this system of consanguinity which it created.

II. The Punaluan Family.

Its name is derived from the Hawaiian relationship of Punalua. It was founded upon the intermarriage of several brothers to each other's wives in a group ; and of several sisters to each other's husbands in a group. But the term brother, as here used, included the first, second, third, and even more remote male cousins, all of whom were considered brothers to each other, as we consider own brothers ; and the term sister included the first, sec-

» "Lucr. De Re. Nat./' v, 1369.

$8 ANCIENT SOCIETY

ond, third, and even more remote female cousins, all of whom were sisters to each other, the same as own sis- ters. This form of the family supervened upon the con- sanguine. It created the Turanian and Ganowanian sys- tems of consanguinity. Both this and the previous form belong to the period of savagery.

III. The Syndyasmian Family.

The term is from syndyaso, to pair, syndyasmos, a joining two together. It was founded upon the pairing of a male with a female under the form of marriage, but without an exclusive cohabitation. It was the germ ol the Monogamian Family. Divorce or separation was at the option of both husband and wife. This form of the family failed to create a system of consanguinity.

IV. The Patriarchal Family.

It was founded upon the marriage of one man to sev- eral wives. The term is here used in a restricted sense to define the special family of the Hebrew pastoral tribes, the chiefs and principal men of which practiced polyg- amy. It exercised but little influence upon human affairs for want of universality.

V. The Monogamian Family.

It was founded upon the marriage of one man with one woman, with an exclusive cohabitation; the latter constituting the essential element of the institution. It is pre-eminently the family of civilized society, and was therefore essentially modern. This form of the family also created an independent system of consanguinity.

Evidence will elsewhere be produced tending to show both the existence and the general prevalence of these several forms of the family at different stages of human progress.

CHAPTER III

RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS

It is well to obtain an impression of the relative amount and of the ratio of human progress in the several ethnical periods named, by grouping together the achievements of each, and comparing them with each other as distinct classes of facts. This will also enable us to form some conception of the relative duration of these periods. To render it forcible, such a survey must be general, and in the nature of a recapitulation. It should, likewise, be limited to the principal works of each period.

Before man could have attained to the civilized state it was necessary that he should gain all the elements of civilization. This implies an amazing change of condi- tion, first from a primitive savage to a barbarian of the lowest type, and then from the latter to a Greek of the Homeric period, or to a Hebrew of the time of Abraham. The progressive development which history records in the period of civilization was not less true of man in each of the previous periods.

By re-ascending along the several lines of human progress toward the primitive ages of man's existence, and removing one by one his principal institutions, inven- tions, and discoveries, in the order in which they have appeared, the advance made in each period will be real- ized.

The principal contributions of modern civilization are the electric telegraph; coal gas; the spinning- j enny ; and the power loom; the steam-engine with its numerous dependent machines, including the locomotive, the rail-

gO ANCIENT SOCIETY

way, and the steam-ship; the telescope; the discover/ oi the ponderability of the atmosphere and of the LO&r sys- tem; the art of printing; the canal lock; the mariner's compass; and gunpowder. The mass of other inven- tions, such, for example, as the Ericsson propeller, will be found to hinge upon one or another of those named as antecedents : but there are exceptions, as photography, and numerous machines not necessary to be noticed. With these also should be remove^ the modern sciences ; religious freedom and the common schools; representa- tive democracy; constitutional monarchy with parlia- ments; the feudal kingdom; modern privileged classes; international, statute and common law.

Modern civilization recovered and absorbed whatever was valuable in the ancient civilizations and although its contributions to the sum of human knowledge have been vast, brilliant and rapid, they are far from being so dis- proportionately large as to overshadow th* ancient civili- zations and sink them into comparative insignificance.

Passing over the mediaeval period, which gave Gothic architecture, feudal aristocracy with hereditary titles of rank, and a hierarchy under the headship of a pope, we enter the Roman and Grecian civilizations. They will be found deficient in great inventions and discoveries, but distinguished in art, in philosophy, and in organic insti- tutions. The principal contributions of these civiliza- tions were imperial and kingly government; the civil law; Christianity; mixed aristocratical and democratical government, with a senate and consuls ; democratical gov- ernment with a council and popular assembly ; the organ- ization of armies into cavalry and infantry, with military discipline ; the establishment of navies, with the practice of naval warfare; the formation of great cities, with municipal law; commerce on the seas; the coinage of money; and the state, founded upon territory and upon property; and among inventions, fire-baked brick, the crane,1 the water-wheel for driving mills, the bridge,

* The Egyptian* may have Invented the erane (See Jlerodotaa, 11, 126). They also had the balance scale.

RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS ftl

acqueduct and sewer; lead pipe used as a conduit with the faucet; the arch, the balance scale; the arts and sci- ences of the classical period, with their results, includ- ing the orders of architecture ; the Arabic numerals, and alphabetic writing.

These civilizations drew largely from, as well as rested upon, the inventions and discoveries and the institutions of the previous period of barbarism. The achievements of civilized man, although very great and remarkable, are nevertheless very far from sufficient to eclipse the works of man as a barbarian. As such he had wrought out and possessed all the elements1 of civilization, except- ing alphabetic writing. His achievements as a barbarian should be considered in their relation to the sum of hu- man progress ; and we may be forced to admit that they transcend, in relative importance, all his subsequent works.

The use of writing, or its equivalent in hieroglyphics upon stone, affords a fair test of the commencement of civilization.1 Without literary records neither history nor civilization can properly be said to exist. The pro- duction of the Homeric poems, whether transmitted orally or committed to writing at the time, fixes with sufficient nearness the introduction of civilization among the Greeks. These poems, ever fresh and ever marvel- ous, possess an ethnological value which enhances im- mensely their other excellences. This is especially true of the Iliad, which contains the oldest as well as the most circumstantial account now existing of the progress of mainland up to the time of its composition. Strabo com- pliments Homer as the father of geographical science ; *

1 The phonetic alphabet came, like other great inventions, at the end of successive efforts. The slow Egyptian, advancing; the hieroglyph through its several forms, had reached a sylla- bus composed of phonetic characters, and at this stage was resting upon hte labors. He could write in permanent charac- ters upon stone. Then came in the inquisitive Phoenician, the

first navigator and trader on the sea, who, whether previously versed in hieroglyphs or otherwise, seems to have entered at a bo«nd upon the labors of the Egyptian, and by an inspiration of genius to have mastered the problem over —•-•-•- ^ .- — was dreaming. He produced that wondrous al letters Which in time gave to mankind a writ the means for literary and historical records. • "Btrato," Z, *

82 ANCIENT SOCIETY

but the great poet has given, perhaps without design, what was infinitely more important to succeeding genera- tions : namely, a remarkably full exposition of the arts, usages, inventions and discoveries, and mode of life of the ancient Greeks. It presents our first comprehensive picture of Aryan society while still in barbarism, show- ing the progress then made, and of what particulars it consisted. Through these poems we are enabled confi- dently to state that certain things were known among the Greeks before they entered civilization. They also cast an illuminating light far backward into the period of barbarism.

Using the Homeric poems as a guide and continuing the retrospect into the Later Period of barbarism, let us strike off from the knowledge and experience of man- kind the invention of poetry ; the ancient mythology in its elaborate form, with the Olympian divinities; temple architecture; the knowledge of the cereals, excepting maize and cultivated plants, with field agriculture; cities encompassed with walls of stone, with battlements, tow- ers and gates; the use of marble in architecture; ship- building with plank and probably with the use of nails; the wagon and the chariot; metallic plate armor; the copper-pointed spear and embossed shield; the iron sword ; the manufacture of wine, probably ; the mechan- ical powers excepting the screw ; the potter's wheel and the hand-mill for grinding grain ; woven fabrics of linen and woolen from the loom ; the iron axe and spade ; the iron hatchet and adz ; the hammer and the anvil ; the bel- lows and the forge ; and the side-hill furnace for smelt- ing iron ore, together with a knowledge of iron. Along with the above-named acquisitions must be removed the monogamian family; military democracies of the heroic age ; the later phase of the organization into gentes, phrat- ries and tribes ; the agora or popular assembly, probably ; a knowledge of individual property in houses and lands : and the advanced form of municipal life in fortified cities. When this has been done, the highest class of barbarians will have surrendered the principal portion of their mar-

RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS 89

vclous works, together with the mental and moral growth thereby acquired.

From this point backward through the Middle Period of barbarism the indications become less distinct, and the relative order in which institutions, inventions and dis- coveries appeared is less clear; but we are not without some knowledge to guide our steps even in these distant ages of the Aryan family. For reasons previously stated, other families, besides the Aryan, may now be resorted - to for the desired information.

Entering next the Middle Period, let us, in like man- ner, strike out of human experience the process of mak- ing bronze ; flocks and herds of domestic animals ; com- munal houses with walls of adobe, and of dressed stone laid in courses with mortar of lime and sand ; cyclopean walls ; lake dwellings constructed on piles ; the knowledge of native metals, l with the use of charcoal and the cruci- ble for melting them; the copper axe and chisel; the shuttle and embryo loom ; cultivation by irrigation, cause- ways, reservoirs and irrigating canals ; paved roads ; osier suspension bridges ; personal gods, with a priesthood dis- tinguished by a costume, and organized in a hierarchy; human sacrifices ; military democracies of the Aztec type ; woven fabrics of cotton and other vegetable fibre in the Western hemisphere, and of wool and flax in the East- ern; ornamental pottery; the sword of wood, with the edges pointed with flints ; polished flint and stone imple- ments ; a knowledge of cotton and flax ; and the domestic animals.

The aggregate of achievements in this period was less than in that which followed; but in its relations to the sum of human progress it was very great. It includes the domestication of animals in the Eastern hemisphere, which introduced in time a permanent meat and milk subsistence, and ultimately field agriculture ; and also in- hugurated those experiments with the native metals which

1 Homer mention! the native metal*; but they were known Ion* before hie time, and before iron. The use of charcoal and tae emdble in meitin* them prepared the way for wnettla* •FOB ore*

84 ANCIENT SOCIETY

resulted in producing bronze,1 as well as prepared the way for the higher process of smelting iron ore. In the Western hemisphere it was signalized by the discovery and treatment of the native metals, which resulted in the production independently of bronze ; by the introduction of irrigation in the cultivation of maize and plants, and by the use of adobe-brick and stone in the construction of great joint tenement houses in the nature of fort- resses.

Resuming the retrospect and entering the Older Period of barbarism, let us next remove from human acquisi- tions the confederacy, based upon gentes, phratnes and tribes under the government of a council of chiefs which gave a more highly organized state of society than be- fore that had been known. Also the discovery and culti- vation of maize and the bean, squash and tobacco, in the Western hemisphere, together with a knowledge of fari- naceous food ; finger weaving with warp and woof ; the kilt, moccasin and leggin of tanned deer-skin ; the blow- gun for bird shooting; the village stockade for defense; tribal games ; element worship, with a vague recognition of the Great Spirit ; cannibalism in time of war; and last- ly, the art of pottery.

As we ascend ih the order of time and of development, but descend in the scale of human advancement, inven- tions become more simple, and more direct in their rela-

1 The researches of Beckmann have loft a doubt upon the existence of a true bronze earlier than a knowledge of iron among1 the Greeks and Latins.% He thinks "electrum," men- tioned in the "Iliad," was a mixture of gold and silver ("His- tory of Inventions/' Bohn's ed., ii, 212); and that the "stannum" of the Romans, which consisted of silver and lead, was the same as the "kassiteron" of Homer (Ib., ii, 217). This word has usually been interpreted as tin. In commenting upon the composition called bronze, he remarks: "In my opinion the greater part of these things were made of "stannum," properly so called, which by the admixture of the noble metals, and some difficulty of fusion, was rendered fitter for use than pure copper." (Ib., ii, 213). These observations were limited to the nations of the Mediterranean, within whose areas tin was not produced. Axes, knives, razors, swords, daggers, and personal ornaments discovered in Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, and other parts of Northern Europe, have been found, on analysis, composed of copper and tin, ana therefore fall under the strict definition of bronze. They were also found in relations indicat- ing priority to iron.

RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS S6

tions to primary wants ; and institutions approach nearer and nearer to the elementary form of a gens composed of consanguinei, under a chief of their own election, and to the tribe composed of kindred gentes, under the gov- ernment of a council of chiefs. The condition of Asiatic and European tribes in this period, (for the Aryan and Semitic families did not probably then exist), is substan- tially lost. It is represented by the remains of ancient art between the invention of pottery and the domestica- tion of animals' and includes the people who formed the shell-heaps on the coast of the Baltic, who seem to have domesticated the dog, but no other animals.

In any just estimate of the magnitude of the achieve- ments of mankind in the three sub-periods of barbarism, they must be regarded as immense, not only in number and in intrinsic value, but also in the mental and moral development by which they were necessarily accom- panied.

Ascending next through the prolonged period of sav- agery, let us strike out of human knowledge the organi- zation into gentes, phratries and tribes ; the syndyasmian family; the worship of the elements in its lowest form; syllabical language ; the bow and arrow ; stone and bone implements ; cane and splint baskets ; skin garments ; the punaluan family ; the organization upon the basis of sex ; the village, consisting of clustered houses ; boat craft, in- cluding the bark and dug-out canoe ; the spear pointed with flint, and the war club; flint implements of the ruder kinds; the consanguine family; monosyllabical language ; fetichism ; cannibalism ; a knowledge of the use of fire; and lastly, gesture language.1 When this

i The origin of language has been investigated far enough to find the grave difficulties In the way of any solution of the problem. It seems to have been abandoned, by common consent, as an unprofitable subject. It is more a question of the laws of human development and of the necessary operations of the mental principle, than of the materials of language. Lucretius remarks that with sounds and with gesture, mankind In th« primitive period intimated their thoughts stamuveringty to *ao\ other (— v. 1021). He assumes that thought preceded speech, ajnC that gesture language preceded articulate language. Oestuf* or siirn language seems to hare been primitive, the elder stst^ of articulate speech. It is still the universal language ef bar-

35 ANCIENT SOCIETY

work of elimination has been done in the order in which these several acquisitions were made, we shall have ap- proached quite near the infantile period of man's exist- ence, when mankind were learning the use of fire, which rendered possible a fish subsistence and a change of hab- itat, and when they were attempting the formation of articulate language. In a condition so absolutely primi- tive, man is seen to be not only a child in the scale of humanity, but possessed of a brain into which not a thought or conception expressed by these institutions, in- ventions and discoveries had penetrated; — in a word, he stands at the bottom of the scale, but potentially all he has since become.

With the production of inventions and discoveries, and with the growth of institutions, the human mind neces- sarily grew and expanded; and we are led to recognize a gradual enlargement of the brain itself, particularly of the cerebral portion. The slowness of this mental growth was inevitable, in the period of savagery, from the extreme difficulty of compassing the simplest inven- tion out of nothing, or with next to nothing to assist mental effort; and of discovering any substance or force

barians, if not of savages, in their mutual Intercourse when their dialects are not the same. The American aborigines have developed such a language, thus showing that one may be formed adequate for general intercourse. As used by them it is both graceful and expressive, and affords pleasure in its use. It is a language of natural symbols, and therefore possesses the elements of a universal language. A sign language is easier to invent than one of sounds; and, since it is mastered with greater facility, a presumption arises that it preceded articulate speech. The sounds of the voice would first come in, on this hypothesis, in aid of gesture; and as they gradually assumed a conventional signification, they would supersede, to that extent, the language of signs, or become incorporated m It. It would also tend to develop the capacity of the vocal organs. No proposition can be plainer than that gesture has attended articulate language from its birth. It is still insepar- able from it; and may embody the remains, by survival, of an ancient mental habit. If language were perfect, a gesture to lengthen out or emphasize its meaning would be a fault. As we descend through the gradations of language into its ruder forma* the gesture element increases in the quantity and variety of its forms until we find languages BO dependent upon gestures that without them they would be substantially un- intelligible. Growing up and flourishing aide by aide through savagery, and far into the period of barbarism, they remain, In modified forma, indiaaolubly united. Those who are curious to solve the problem of the origin of language would do well t» look to the possible suggestions from gesture langua**,

RATIO OP HUMAN PROGRESS 37

in nature available in such a rude condition of life. It was not less difficult to organize the simplest form of society out of such savage and intractable materials. The first inventions and the first social organizations were doubtless the hardest to achieve, and were consequently separated from each other by the longest intervals of time. A striking illustration is found in the successive forms of the family. In this law of progress, which works in a geometrical ratio, a sufficient explanation is found of the prolonged duration of the period of sav- agery.

That the early condition of mankind was substantially as above indicated is not exclusively a recent, nor even a modern opinion. Some of the ancient poets and phi- losophers recognized the fact, that mankind commenced in a state of extreme rudeness from which they had risen by slow and successive steps. They also perceived that the course of their development was registered by a pro- gressive series of inventions and discoveries, but without noticing as fully the more conclusive argument from social institutions.

The important question of the ratio of this progress, which has a direct bearing upon the relative length of the several ethnical periods, now presents itself. Human progress, from first to last, has been in a ratio not rig- orously but essentially geometrical. This is plain on the face of the facts; and it could not, theoretically, have occurred in any other way. Every item of absolute knowledge gained became a factor in further acquisi- tions, until the present complexity of knowledge was attained. Consequently, while progress was slowest in time in the first period, and most rapid in the last, the relative amount may have been greatest in the first, when the achievements of either period are considered in their relations to the sum. It may be suggested, as not im- probable of ultimate recognition, that the progress of mankind in the period of savagery, in its relations to the sum of human progress, was greater in degree than it was afterwards in the three sub-periods of barbarism; and that the progress made in the whole period of bar-

to ANCTUKT SOCIETY

barism was, in like manner, greater in degree than it has been since in the entire period of civilization.

What may have been the relative length of these eth- nical periods is also a fair subject of speculation. An exact measure is not attainable, but an approximation may be attempted. On the theory of geometrical pro- gression, the period of savagery was necessarily longer in duration than the period of barbarism, as the latter was longer than the period of civilization. If we assume a hundred thousand years as the measure of man's exist- ence upon the earth in order to find the relative length of each period, — and for this purpose, it may have been longer or shorter, — it will be seen at once that at least sixty thousand years must be assigned to the period of savagery. Three-fifths of the life of the most advanced portion of the human race, on this apportionment, were spent in savagery. Of the remaining years, twenty thou- sand, or one-fifth, should be assigned to the Older Pe- riod of barbarism. For the Middle and Later Periods there remain fifteen thousand years, leaving five thou- sand, more or less, for the period of civilization.

The relative length of the period of savagery is more likely under than over stated. Without discussing the principles on which this apportionment is made, it may be remarked that in addition to the argument from the geometrical progression under which human develop- ment of necessity has occurred, a graduated scale of progress has been universally observed in remains of an- cient art, and this will be found equally true of institu- tions. It is a conclusion of deep importance in ethnology that the experience of mankind in savagery was longer in duration than all their subsequent experience, and that the period of civilization covers but a fragment of the life of the race.

Two families of mankind, the Aryan and Semitic, by the commingling of diverse stocks, superiority of sub- sistence or advantage of position, and possibly from all together, were the first to emerge from barbarism. They were substantially the founders of civilization. l But

The Egyptians art «uppoi«d to affllUU remotely with th* Stmitic family.

RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS ftg

their existence as distinct families was undoubtedly, in a comparative sense, a late event. Their progenitors are lost in the undistinguishable mass of earlier barbarians. The first ascertained appearance of the Aryan family was in connection with the domestic animals, at which time they were one people in language and nationality. It is not probable that the Aryan or Semitic families were developed into individuality earlier than the commence- ment of the Middle Period of barbarism, and that their differentiation from the mass of barbarians occurred through their acquisition of the domestic animals.

The most advanced portion of the human race were halted, so to express it, at certain stages of progress, until some great invention or discovery, such as the domestication of animals or the smelting of iron ore, gave a new and powerful impulse forward. While thus restrained, the ruder tribes, continually advancing, ap- proached in different degrees of nearness to the same status ; for wherever a continental connection existed, all the tribes must have shared in some measure in each other's progress. All great inventions and discoveries propagate themselves; but the inferior tribes must have appreciated their value before they could appropriate them. In the continental areas certain tribes would lead ; but the leadership would be apt to shift a number of times in the course of an ethnical period. The de- struction of the ethnic bond and life of particular tribes, followed by their decadence, must have arrested for a time, in many instances and in all periods, the upward flow of human progress. From the Middle Period of barbarism, however, the Aryan and Semitic families seem fairly to represent the central threads of this progress, which in the period of civilization has been gradually assumed by the Aryan family alone.

The truth of this general position may be illustrated by the condition of the American aborigines at the epoch of their discovery. They commenced their career on the American continent in savagery; and, although pos- sessed of inferior mental endowments, the body of them had emerged from savagery and attained to the Lower

4Q ANCIENT SOCIETY

Status of barbarism; whilst a portion of them, the Vil- lage Indians of North and South America, had risen to the Middle Status. They had domesticated the llama, the only quadruped native to the continent which prom- ised usefulness in the domesticated state, and had pro- duced bronze by alloying copper with tin. They, needed but one invention, and that the greatest, the art of smelting iron ore, to advance themselves into the Upper Status. Considering the absence of all connection with the most advanced portion of the human family in the Eastern hemisphere, their progress in unaided self-devel- opment from the savage state must be accounted remark- able. While the Asiatic and European were waiting patiently for the boon of iron tools, the American Indian was drawing near to the possession of bronze, which stands next to iron in the order of time. During this period of arrested progress in the Eastern hemisphere, the American aborigines advanced themselves, not to the status in which they were found, but sufficiently near to reach it while the former were passing through the last period of barbarism, and the first four thousand years of civilization. It gives us a measure of the length of time they had fallen behind the Aryan family in the race of progress : namely the duration of the Later Pe- riod of barbarism, to which the years of civilization must be added. The Aryan and Ganowanian families together exemplify the entire experience of man in five ethnical periods, with the exception of the first portion of the Later Period of savagery.

Savagery was the formative period of the human race. Commencing at zero in knowledge and experience, with- out fire, without articulate speech and without arts, our savage progenitors fought the great battle, first for ex- istence, and then for progress, until they secured safety from the ferocious animals, and permanent subsistence. Out of these efforts there came gradually a developed speech, and the occupation of the entire surface of the earth. But society from its rudeness was still incapable of organization in numbers. When the most advanced portion of mankind had emerged from savagery, and

RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS 41

entered the Lower Status of barbarism, the entire popu- lation of the earth must have been small in numbers. The earliest inventions' were the most difficult to accom- plish because of the feebleness of the power of abstract reasoning. Each substantial item of knowledge gained would form a basis for further advancement; but this must have been nearly imperceptible for ages upon ages, the obstacles to progress nearly balancing the energies arrayed against them. The achievements of savagery are not particularly remarkable in character, but they represent an amazing amount of persistent labor with feeble means continued through long periods of time be- fore reaching a fair degree of completeness. The bow and arrow afford an illustration.

The inferiority of savage man in the mental and moral scale, undeveloped, inexperienced, and held down by his low animal appetites and passions, though reluctantly recognized, is, nevertheless, substantially demonstrated by the remains of ancient art in flint stone and bone im- plements, by his cave life in certain areas, and by his osteological remains. It is still further illustrated by the present condition of tribes of savages in a low state of development, left in isolated sections of the earth as monuments of the past. And yet to this great period of savagery belongs the formation of articulate language and its advancement to the syllabical stage, the establish- ment of two forms of the family, and possibly a third, and the organization into gentes which gave the first form of society worthy of the name. All these conclu- sions are involved in the proposition, stated at the out- set, that mankind commenced their career at the bottom of the scale ; which "modern science claims to be prov- ing by the most careful and exhaustive study of man and his works." l

In like manner, the great period of barbarism was signalized by four events of pre-eminent importance: namely, the domestication of animals, the discovery of the cereals, the use of stone in architecture, and the in-

I Whlt»*y» "Oriental and Llncuiitlc studies," p. 341.

4ft ANCIENT SOCIETY

vention of the process of smelting iron ore. Commen- cing probably with the dog as a companion in the hunt, followed at a later period by the capture of the young of other animals and rearing them, not unlikely, from the merest freak of fancy, it required time and experi- ence to discover the utility of each, to find means of rais- ing them in numbers and to learn the forbearance ne- cessary to spare them in the face of hunger. Could the special history of the domestication of each animal be known, it would exhibit a series of marvelous facts. The experiment carried, locked up in its doubtful chances, much of the subsequent destiny of mankind. Secondly, the acquisition of farinaceous food by cultivation must be regarded as one of the greatest events in human experience. It was less essential in the Eastern hemi- sphere, after the domestication of animals, than in the Western, where it became the instrument of advancing a large portion of the American aborigines into the Lower, and another portion into the Middle Status of barbarism. If mankind had never advanced beyond this last condition, they had the means of a comparatively easy and enjoyable life. Thirdly, with the use of adobe- brick and of stone in house building, an improved mode of life was introduced, eminently calculated to stimulate the mental capacities, and to create the habit of industry, — the fertile source of improvements. But, in its rela- tions to the high career of mankind, the fourth inven- tion must be held the greatest event in human experi- ence, preparatory to civilization. When the barbarian, advancing step by step, had discovered the native metals, and learned to melt them in the crucible and to cast them in moulds; when he had alloyed native copper with tin and produced bronze ; and, finally, when by a still greater effort of thought he had invented the furnace, and pro- duced iron from the ore, nine-tenths of the battle for civilization was gained. l Furnished with iron tools,

i M. Quiquerez, a Swiss engineer, discovered in the canton of Berne the remains of a number of side-hill furnaces for smelt- in* iron ore; together with tools, fragments of iron and charcoal. To construct one, an excavation was made in the tide of «, hill in which * fcosh was formed of clay, wUJi a

RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS 43

capable of holding both an edge and a point, mankind were certain of attaining to civilization. The produc- tion of iron was the event of events in human experi- ence, without a parallel, and without an equal, beside which all other inventions and discoveries were incon- siderable, or at least subordinate. Out of it came the metallic hammer and anvil, the axe and the chisel, the plow with an iron point, the iron sword; in fine, the basis of civilization, which may be said to rest upon this metal. The want of iron tools arrested the progress of mankindwin barbarism. There they would have remained to the present hour, had they failed to. bridge the chasm. It seems probable that the conception and the process of smelting iron ore came but once to man. It would be a singular satisfaction could it be known to what tribe and family we are indebted for this knowledge, and with it for civilization. The Semitic family were then in ad- vance of the Aryan, and in the lead of the human race. They gave the phonetic alphabet to mankind and it seems not unlikely the knowledge of iron as well.

At the epoch of the Homeric poems, the Grecian tribes had made immense material progress. All the common metals were known, including the process of smelting ores, and possibly of changing iron into steel ; the prin- cipal cereals had been discovered, together with the art of cultivation, and the use of the plow in field agricul- ture; the dog, the horse, the ass, the cow, the sow, the sheep and the goat had been domesticated and reared in flocks and herds, as has been shown. Architecture had produced a house constructed of durable materials, con- taining separate apartments,1 and consisting of more than a single story;8 ship building, weapons, textile

chimney in the form of a dome above it to create a draft. No evidence was found of tl\e use of the bellows. The boshes seem to have been charged with alternate layers of pulverized ore and charcoal, combustion being: sustained by fanning the flames. The result was a spongy mass of partly fused ore ' which was afterwards welded into a compact mass by ham- mering1. A deposit of charcoal was found beneath a bed of peat twenty feet in thickness. It is not probable that these furnaces ware coeval with the knowledge of smelting: iron ore; but they were, not unlikely, close copies of the original furnace.— Vide Flguier's "Primitive Man," Putnam's ed., p. $OL

i Palace of Priam.—!!., vi, 242.

• House of Ulysses.- Od.. xvl, 448.

44 ANCIENT SOCIETY

fabrics, the manufacture of wine from the gtape, the cultivation of the apple, the pear, the olive and the fig,1 together with comfortable apparel, and useful imple- ments and utensils, had been produced and brought into human use. But the early history of mankind was lost in the oblivion of the ages that had passed away. Tradi- tion ascended to an anterior barbarism through which it was unable to penetrate. Language had attained such development that poetry of the highest structural form was about to embody the inspirations of genius. The closing period of barbarism brought this portion of the human family to the threshold of civilization, animated by the great attainments of the past, grown hardy and intelligent in the school of experience, and with the un- disciplined imagination in the full splendor of its cre- ative powers. Barbarism ends with the production of grand barbarians. Whilst the condition of society in this period was understood by the later Greek and Ro- man writers, the anterior state, with its distinctive cul- ture and experience, was as deeply concealed from their apprehension as from our own; except as occupying a nearer stand-point in time, they saw more distinctly the relations of the present with the past. It was evident to them that a certain sequence existed in the series of inventions and discoveries, as well as a certain order of development of institutions, through which mankind had advanced themselves from the status of savagery to that of the Homeric age; but the immense interval of time between the two conditions does not appear to have been made a subject even of speculative consideration.

i Od., vli, 115.

PART II.

1ROWTH OF THE IDEA OF GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER I

ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY UPON THE BASIS OF SEX

In treating the subject of the growth of the idea of government, the organization into gentes on the basis of kin naturally suggests itself as the archaic frame- work of ancient society; but there is a still older and more archaic organization, that into classes on the basis of sex, which first demands attention. It will not be taken up because of its novelty in human experience, but for the higher reason that it seems to contain the germ- inal principle of the gens. If this inference is warranted by the facts it will give to this organization into male and female classes, now found in full vitality among the Australian aborigines, an ancient prevalence as wide spread, in the tribes of mankind, as the original organi- zation into gentes.

It will soon be perceived that low down in savagery community of husbands and wives, within prescribed limits, was the central principle of the social system. The marital rights and privileges, (jura conjugialia,) l established in the group, grew into a stupendous scheme, which became the organic principle on which society was constituted. From the nature of the case these rights and privileges rooted themselves so firmly that emanci- pation from them was slowly accomplished through movements which resulted in unconscious reformations. Accordingly it will be found that the family has ad-

1 The Romans made a distinction between "connublum," which related to marriage considered as a civil institution, and "oonjufflum," which was a mere physical union.

48 ANCIENT SOCIETY

vanced from a lower to a higher form as the range of this conjugal system was gradually reduced. The fam- ily, commencing in the consanguine, founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters in a group, passed into the second form, the punaluan, under a social system akin to the Australian classes, which broke up the first species of marriage by substituting groups of brothers who shared their wives in common, and groups of sis- ters who shared their husbands in common, — marriage in both cases being in the group. The organization into classes upon sex, and the subsequent higher organization into gentes upon kin, must be regarded as the results of great social movements worked out unconsciously through natural selection. For these reasons the Aus- tralian system, about to be presented, deserves attentive consideration, although it carries us into a low grade of human life. It represents a striking phase of the ancient social history of our race.

The organization into classes on the basis of sex, and the inchoate organization into gentes on the basis of kin, now prevail among that portion of the Australian abo- rigines who speak the Kamilaroi language. They in- habit the Darling River district north of Sydney. Both organizations are also found in other Australian tribes, and so wide spread as to render probable their ancient universal prevalence among them. It is evident from internal considerations that the male and female classes are older than the gentes: firstly, because the gentile organization is higher than that into classes; and sec- ondly, because the former, among the Kamilaroi, are in process of overthrowing the latter. The class in its male and female branches is the unit of their social system, which place rightfully belongs to the gens when in full development. A remarkable combination of facts is thus presented; namely, a sexual and a gentile organization, both in existence at the same time, the former holding the central position, and the latter inchoate but advancing to completeness through encroachments upon the former.

This organization upon sex has not been found, as yet, in any tribes of savages out of Australia, but the slow

ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY ON BASIS OP SEX 4|

development of these islanders in their secluded habitat, and the more archaic character of the organization upon sex than that into gentes, suggests the conjecture, that the former may have been universal in such branches of the human family as afterwards possessed the gentile organization. Although the class system, when traced out fully, involves some bewildering complications, it will reward the attention necessary for its mastery. As a curious social organization among savages it possesses but little interest ; but as the most primitive form of so- ciety hitherto discovered, and more especially with the contingent probability that the remote progenitors of our own Aryan family were once similarly organized, it be- comes important, and may prove instructive.

The Australians rank below the Polynesians, and far below the American aborigines. They stand below the African negro and near the bottom of the scale. Their social institutions, therefore, must approach the primi- tive type as nearly as those of any existing people. l

Inasmuch as the gens is made the subject of the succeeding chapter, it will be introduced in this without discussion, and only for the necessary explanation of the classes.

The Kamilaroi are divided into six gentes, standing with reference to the right of marriage, in two divisions, as follows:

I. i. Iguana, (Duli). 2. Kangaroo, (Murriira). 3. Opossum, (Mute).

II. 4. Emu, (Dinoun). 5. Bandicoot, (Bilba. 6. Blacksnake, (Nurai).

Originally the first three gentes were not allowed to

i For the detailed facts of the Australian system I am Indebt- ed to the Rev. Lorimer Fison, an English missionary in Australia, who received a portion of them from the Rev. W. Ridley, and another portion from T. E. Lance, Esq., both of whom had spent many years among the Australian aborigines, and enjoyed excellent opportunities for observation. The facts were sent by Mr. Fison with a critical analysis and discussion of the system, which, with observations of the writer, were published in the "Proceedings of the Am. Acad. of Arts and Sciences for 1872." See vol. viil, p. 412. A brief notice of thft Kamilaroi classes is given in McLennan's "Primitive MarrlagV * 118: and to Tylor^i "Barly History of Mankind." p, 88* • Pady melon: * species of Kangaroo,

{JO ANCIENT SOCIETY

intermarry with each other, because they were subdi- visions of an original gens; but they were permitted to marry into either of the other gentes, and vice versd. This ancient rule is now modified, among the Kamilaroi, in certain definite particulars but not carried to the full extent of permitting marriage into ahy gens but that of the individual. Neither males nor females can marry into their own gens, the prohibition being absolute. Descent is in the female line, which assigns the children to the gens of their mother. These are among the es- sential characteristics of the gens, wherever this insti- tution is found in its archaic form. In its external fea- tures, therefore, it is perfect and complete among the Kamilaroi.

But there is a further and older division of the people into eight classes, four of which are composed exclu- sively of males, and four exclusively of females. It is accompanied with a regulation in respect to marriage and descent which obstructs the gens, and demonstrates that the latter organization is in process of development into its true logical form. One only of the four classes of males can marry into one only of the four classes ofc females. In the sequel it will be found that all the males of one class are, theoretically, the husbands of all the females of the class into which they are allowed to marry. Moreover, if the male belongs to one of the first three gentes the female must belong to one of the op- posite three. Marriage is thus restricted to a portion of the males of one gens, with a portion of the females of another gens, which is opposed to the true theory of the gentile institution, for all the members of each gens should be allowed to marry persons of the opposite sex in all the gentes except their own.

The classes are the following:

Male. Female.

1. Ippai. i. Ippata.

2. Kumbo. 2. Buta.

3. Murri. 3. Mata.

4. Kubbi. 4. Kapota.

All the Ippais, of whatever gens, are brothers to each

ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY ON BASIS OF SEX 51

other. Theoretically, they are descended from a sup- posed common female ancestor. All the Kumbos are the same ; and so are all the Murris and Kubbis, respectively, and for the same reason. In like manner, all the Ippatas, of whatever gens, are sisters to each other, and for the same reason ; all the Butas are the same, and so are all the Matas and Kapotas, respectively. In the next place, all the Ippais and Ippatas are brothers and sisters to each other, whether children of the same mother or collateral consanguinei, and in whatever gens they are found. The Kumbos and Butas are brothers and sisters; and so are the Murris and Matas, and the Kubbis and Kapotas re- spectively. If an Ippai and Ippata meet, who have never seen each other before, they address each other as bro- ther and sister. The Kamilaroi, therefore, are organized into four great primary groups of brothers and sisters, each group being composed of a male and a female branch ; but intermingled over the areas of their occupa- tion. Founded upon sex, instead of kin, it is older than the gentes, and more archaic, it may be repeated, than any form of society hitherto known.

The classes embody the germ of the gens, but fall short of its realization. In reality the Ippais and Ippatas form a single class in two branches, and since they cannot in- termarry they would form the basis of a gens but for the reason that they fall under two names, each of which is integral for certain purposes, and for the further reason that their children take different names from their own. The division into classes is upon sex instead of kin, and has its primary relation to a rule1 of marriage as remark- able as it is original.

Since brothers and sisters are not allowed to inter- marry, the classes stand to each other in a different order with respect to the right of marriage, or rather, of co- habitation, which better expresses the relation. Such was the original law, thus:

Ippai can marry Kapota, and no other.

Kumbo can marry Mata, and no other.

Murri can marry Buta, and no other.

K\ibbi can marry Ippata, and no other*

08 ANCIENT SOCIETY

This exclusive scheme has been modified in one particu- lar, as will hereafter be shown : namely, in giving to each class of males the right of intermarriage with one addi- tional class of females. In this fact, evidence of the encroachment of the gens upon the class is furnished, tending to the overthrow of the latter.

It is thus seen that each male in the selection of a wife, is limited to one-fourth part of all the Kamilaroi females. This, however, is not the remarkable part of the system. Theoretically every Kapota is the wife of every Ippai; every Mata is the wife of every Kumbo; every Buta is the wife of every Murri; and every Ippata of every Kubbi. Upon this material point the information is spe- cific, Mr. Fison, before mentioned, after observing that Mr. Lance had "had much intercourse with the natives, having lived among them many years on frontier cattle- stations on the Darling River, and in the trans-Darling country," quotes from his letter as follows : "If a Kubbi meets a stranger Ippata, they address each other as Goleer = Spouse. ... A Kubbi thus meeting an Ippata, even though she were of another tribe, would treat her as his wife, and his right to do so would be recognized by her tribe." Every Ippata within the immediate circle of his. acquaintance would consequently be his wife as well.

Here we find, in a direct and definite form, punaluan marriage in a group of unusual extent; but broken up into lesser groups, each a miniature representation of the whole, united for habitation and subsistence. Under the conjugal system thus brought to light one-quarter of all the males are united in marriage with one-quarter of all the females of the Kamilaroi tribes. This picture of savage life need not revolt the mind, because to them it was a form of the marriage relation, and therefore devoid of impropriety. It is but an extended form of polygyny and polyandry, which, within narrower limits, have pre- vailed universally among savage tribes. The evidence of the fact still exists, in unmistakable form, in their sys- tems of consanguinity and affinity, which have outlived the customs and usages in which they originated. It

ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY ON BASIS OF SEX 53

will be noticed that this scheme of intermarriage is but a step from promiscuity, because it is tantamount to that with the addition of a method. Still, as it is made a sub- ject of organic regulation, it is far removed from general promiscuity. Moreover, it reveals an existing^ state of marriage and of the family of which no adequate con- ception could have been formed apart from the* facts. It affords the first direct evidence of a state of society which had previously been deduced, as extremely probable, from systems of consanguinity and affinity.1

Whilst the children remained in the gens of their mother, they passed into another class, in the same gens, different from that of either parent. This will be made apparent by the following table :

Male. Female. Male. Female.

Ippai marries Kapota. Their children are Murri and Mata. Kumbo marries Mata. Their children are Kubbi and Kapota. Murri marries Buta. Their children are Ippai and Ippata. Kubbi marries Ippata. Their children are Kumbo and Buta.

If these descents are followed out it will be found that, in the female line, Kapota is the mother of Mata, and Mata in turn is the mother of Kapota ; so Ippata is the mother of Buta, and the latter in turn is the mother of Ippata. It is the same with the male classes; but since descent is in the female line, the Kamilaroi tribes derive themselves from two supposed female ancestors, which laid the foundation for two original gentes. By tracing these- descents still further it will be found that the blood of each class passes through all the classes.

Although each individual bears one of the class names above given, it will be understood that each has in addi- tion the single personal name, which is common among savage as well as barbarous tribes. The -more closely this organization upon sex is scrutinized, the more re- markable it seems as the work of savages. When once established, and after that transmitted through a few

"System* of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family. (Smtthfconlan Contribution* to Knowledge)," voL xvii, p. 410, Met ieq."

54 % ANCIENT SOCIET*

generations, it would hold society with such p6Wef as to become difficult of displacement. It would require a similar and higher system, and centuries of time, to ac- complish this result ; particularly if the range of the con- jugal system would thereby be abridged.

The gentile organization supervened naturally upon the classes as a higher organization, by simply enfolding them unchanged. That it was subsequent in point of time, is shown by the relations of the two systems, by the inchoate condition of the gentes, by the impaired condi- tion of the classes through encroachments by the gens, and by the fact that the class is still the unit of organi- zation. These conclusions will be made apparent in the sequel.

From the preceding statements the composition of the gentes will be understood when placed in their relations to the classes. The latter are in pairs of brothers and sisters derived from each other; and the gentes them- selves, through the classes, are in pairs, as follows:

Gentes. Male. Female. Male. Female.

1. Iguana. All are Murri & Mata, or Kubbi & Kapota.

2. Emu. All are Kumbo & Buta, or Ippai & Ippata.

3. Kangaroo. All are Murri & Mata, or Kubbi & Kapota.

4. Bandicoot. All are Kumbo & Buta, or Ippai & Ippata.

5. Opossum. All are Murri & Mata, or Kubbi & Kapota.

6. Blacksnake. All are Kumbo & Buta, or Ippai & Ippata.

The connection of children with a particular gens is proven by the law of marriage. Thus, Iguana-Mata must marry Kumbo ; her children are Kubbi and Kapota, and necessarily Iguana in gens, because descent is in the female line. Iguana-Kapota must marry Ippai ; her chil- dren are Murri and Mata, and also Iguana in gens, for the same reason. In like manner Emu-Buta must marry .Murri ; her children are Ippai and Ippata, and of the Emu gens. So Emu-Ippata must marry Kubbi; her children are Kumbo and Buta, and also of the Emu gens. In this manner the gens is maintained by keeping in its mem- bership the children of all its female members. The samt is true in all respects of each of the remaining gentes.

ORGANIZATION OP SOCIETY ON BASIS OP SEX 55

It will be noticed that each gens is made up, theoretically, of the descendants of two supposed female ancestors, and contains four of the eight classes. It seems probable that originally there were but two male, and two female classes, which were set opposite to each other in respect to the Bright of marriage; and that the four afterward subdivided into eight. The classes as an anterior organi- zation were evidently arranged within the gentes, and not formed by the subdivision of the latter.

Moreover, since the Iguana, Kangaroo and Opossum gentes are found to be counterparts of each other, in the classes they contain, it follows that they are subdivisions of an original gens. Precisely the same is true of Emu, Bandicoot and Blacksnake, in both particulars; thus re- ducing the six to two original gentes, with the right in each to marry into the other, but not into itself. It is confirmed by the fact that the members of the first three gentes could not originally intermarry ; neither could the members of the last three. The reason which prevented intermarriage in the gens, when the three were one, would follow the subdivisions because they were of the same descent although under different gentile names. Exactly the same thing is found among the Seneca-Iro- quois, as will hereafter be shown.

Since marriage is restricted to particular classes, when there were but two gentes, one-half of all the females of one were, theoretically, the wives of one-half of all the males of the other. After their subdivision into six the benefit of marrying out of the, gens, which was the chief advantage of the institution, was arrested, if not neutral- ized, by the presence of the classes together with the restrictions mentioned. It resulted in continuous in-and- in marriages beyond the immediate degree of brother and sister. If the gens could have eradicated the classes this evil would, in a great measure, have been removed.

* If a diagram of descents is mtfde, for example, of Ippat and Kapota, and carried to the fourth veneration, riving to each Intermediate pair two children, a male and a female, the fol- • lowing results will appear. The children of Ippal and Kapota are Murri and Mata. As brothers and sisters the latter cannot marry. At the second degree, the children of Hurri, married to Buta, are Ippai and Ippata, and of Mata married to Kumfco,

56 ANCIENT SOCIETY

The organization into classes seems to have been directed to the single object of breaking up the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, which affords a probable explana- tion of the origin of the system. But since it did not look beyond this special abomination it retained a con- jugal system nearly as objectionable, as well as cast it in a permanent form.

It remains to notice an innovation upon the original constitution of the classes, and in favor of the gens, which reveals a movement, still pending, in the direction of the true ideal of the gens. It is shown in two partic- ulars: firstly, in allowing each triad of gentes to inter- marry with each other, to a limited extent; secondly, to marry into classes not before permitted. Thus, Igu- ana-Murri can now marry Mata in the Kangaroo gens, his collateral sister, whereas originally he was restricted to Buta in the opposite three. So Iguana-Kubbi can now marry Kapota, his collateral sister. Emu-Kumbo can now marry Buta, and Emu-Ippai can marry Ippata in the Blacksnake gens, contrary to original limitations. Each class of males in each triad of gentes seems now to be allowed one additional class of females in the two re- maining gentes of the same triad, from which they were before excluded. The memoranda sent by Mr. Fison,

are Kubbl and Kapota. Of these, Ippai marries his cousin Kapota, and Kubbi marries his cousin Ippata. It will be noticed that the eight classes are reproduced from two in the second and third generations, with the exception of Kumbo and Buta. At the next or third degree, there are two Murris, two Matas, two Kumbos, and two But as; of whom the Murris marry the Butas, their second cousins, and the Kubbis the Matas, their second cousins. At the fourth generation there are four each of Ippais Kapotas Kubbis and Ippatas, who are third cousins* Of these, the Ippais marry the Kapotas, and the Kubbis the Ippatas; and thus it runs from generation to generation. A similar chart of the remaining marriageable classes will pro* rtuce like results. These details are tedious, but they make the fact apparent that in this condition of ancient society they not only intermarry constantly, but are compelled to do so through this organization upon sex. Cohabitation would not follow this ir variable course because an entire male and female class were married In a group; but its occurrence must have been con- stant under the system. One of the primary objects secured by the gens, when fully matured, was thus defeated: namely, the aggregation of a moiety of the descendants of a supposed com* man ancestor under a prohibition of intermarriage, followed by * right of marrying into any other gens.

ORGANIZATION OP SOCIETY ON BASIS OF SKX 57

however, do not show a change to the full extent here indicated.1

This innovation would plainly have been a retrograde movement but that it tended to break down the classes. The line of progress among the Kamilaroi, so far as any is observable, was from classes into gentes, followed by a tendency to make the gens instead of the class the unit of the social organism. In this movement the overshad- owing system of cohabitation was the resisting element. Social advancement was impossible without diminishing its extent, which was equally impossible so long as the classes, with the privileges they conferred, remained in full vitality. The jura conjugialia, which appertained to these classes, were the dead weight upon the Kamilaroi, without emancipation from which they would have re- mained for additional thousands of years in the same con- dition, substantially, in which they were found.

An organization somewhat similar is indicated by the punalua of the Hawaiians which will be hereafter ex- plained. Wherever the middle or lower stratum of savagery is uncovered, marriages of entire groups under usages defining the groups, have been discovered either in absolute form, or such traces as to leave little doubt that such marriages were normal throughout this period of man's history. It is immaterial whether the group, the- oretically, was large or small, the necessities of their con- dition would set a practical' limit to the size of the group living together under this custom. If then community of husbands and wives is found to have been a law of the savage state, and, therefore, the essential condition of society in savagery, the inference would be conclusive that our own savage ancestors shared in this common experience of the human race.

In such usages and customs an explanation of the low condition of savages is found. If men in savagery had not been left behind, in isolated portions of the earth, to testify concerning the early condition of mankind in-gen- eral, it would have been impossible to form any definite

i "Proc. Am. Acad. ArU and Sciences/' vitl. 48«.

68 ANClfcNT SOCIETY

conception of what it must have been. An important in- ference at once arises, namely, that the institutions of mankind have sprung up in a progressive connected series, each of which represents the result of unconscious reformatory movements to extricate society from exist- ing evils. The wear of ages is upon these institutions, for the proper understanding of which they must be studied in this light. It cannot be assumed that the Au- stralian savages are now at the bottom of the scale, for their arts and institutions, humble as they are, show the contrary ; neither is there any ground for assuming their degradation from a higher condition, because the facts of human experience afford no sound basis for such an hypothesis. Cases of physical and mental deterioration in tribes and nations may be admitted, for reasons which are known, but they never interrupted the general prog- ress of mankind. All the facts of human knowledge and experience tend to show that the human race, as a whole, have steadily progressed from a lower to a higher condition. The arts by which savages maintain their lives are remarkably persistent. They are never lost un- til superseded by others higher in degree. By the prac- tice of these arts, and by the experience gained through social organizations, mankind have advanced under a necessary law of development, although their progress may have been substantially imperceptible for centuries. It was the same with races as with individuals, although tribes and nations have perished through the disruption of their ethnic life.

The Australian classes afford the first, and, so far as the writer is aware, the only case in which we are able to look down into the incipient stages of the organiza- tion into gentes, and even through it upon an interior organization so archaic as that upon sex. It seems to afford a glimpse at society when it verged upon the prim- itive. Among other tribes the gens seems to have ad- vanced in proportion to the curtailment of the conjugal system. Mankind rise in the scale and the family ad- vances through its successive forms, as these rights sink

ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY ON BAfltS OF &EX 56

down before the efforts of society to improve' its internal organization.

The Australians might not have effected the overthrow of the classes in thousands of years if they had remained undiscovered; while more favored continental tribes had long before perfected the gens, then advanced it through its successive phases, and at last laid it aside after enter- ing upon civilization. Facts illustrating the rise of suc- cessive social organizations, such as that upon sex, and that upon kin are of the highest ethnological value. A knowledge of what they indicate is eminently desirable, if the early history of mankind is to be measurably re- covered.

Among the Polynesian tribes the gens was unknown ; but traces of a system analogous to the Australian classes appear in the Hawaiian custom of punalua. Original ideas, absolutely independent of previous knowledge and experience, are necessarily few in number. Were it pos- sible to reduce the sum of human ideas to underived originals, the small numerical result would be startling. Development is the method of human progress.

In the light of these facts some of the excrescences of modern civilization, such as Mormonism, are seen to be relics of the old savagism not yet eradicated from the human brain. We have the same brain, perpetuated by reproduction, which worked in the skulls of barbarians and savages in by-gone ages; and it has come down to us ladened and saturated with the thoughts, aspirations and passions, with which it was busied through the in- termediate periods. It is the same brain grown older and larger with the experience of the age$. These outcrops of barbarism are so many revelations of its ancient pro- clivities. They are explainable as a species of mental atavism.

Out of a few germs of thought, conceived in the early ^ages, have been evolved all the principal institutions of mankind. Beginning their growth in the period of sav- agery, fermenting through the period of barbarism, they have continued their advancement through the period of civilization. The evolution of these germs of thought

ao ANCIENT SOCIETY

has been guided by a natural logic which formed an e§- sential attribute of the brain itself. So unerringly has this principle performed its functions in all conditions of experience, and in all periods of time, that its results are uniform, coherent and traceable in their courses. These results alone will in time yield convincing proofs of the unity of origin of mankind. The mental history of the human race, which is revealed in institutions, inventions and discoveries, is presumptively the history of a single species, perpetuated through individuals, and developed through experience. Among the original germs of thought, which have exercised the most powerful influ- ence upon the human mind, and upon human destiny, are these which relate to government, to the family, to langu- age, to religion, an to property. They had a definite be- ginning far back in savagery, and a logical progress, but can have no final consummation, because they are still progressing, and must ever continue to progress.

CHAPTER II

THE IROQUOIS GENS

The experience of mankind, as elsewhere remarked, has developed but two plans of government, using the word plan in its scientific sense. Both were definite and systematic organizations of society. The first and most ancient was a social organization, founded upon gentes, phratries and tribes. The second and latest in time was a political organization, founded upon territory and upon property. Under the first a gentile society was created, in which the government dealt with persons through their relations to a gens and tribe. These relations were purely personal. Under the second a political society was instituted, in which the government dealt with per- sons through their relations to territory, e. g. — the town- ship, the county, and the state. These relations were purely territorial. The two plans were fundamentally different. One belongs to ancient society, and the other to modern.

The gentile organization opens to us one of the oldest and most widely prevalent institutions of mankind. It furnished the nearly universal plan of government of an- cient society, Asiatic, European, African and Australian. It was the instrumentality by means of which society was organized and held together. Commencing in savagery, and "continuing through the three sub-periods of bar- bafism, it remained until the establishment of political society, which did not occur until after civilization had commenced. The Grecian gens, phratry and tribe, the Roman gens, curia and tribe find their analogues in the

•i

ft* ANCIENT SOCIETY

gens, phratry and tribe of the American aborigines. In like manner, the Irish sept, the Scottish clan, the phrara of the Albanians, and the Sanskrit ganas, without extend- ing the comparison further, are the same as the Amer- ican Indian gens, which has usually been called a clan. As far as our knowledge extends, this organization runs through the entire ancient world upon all the continents, and it was brought down to the historical period by such tribes as attained to civilization. Nor is this all. Gentile society wherever found is the same in structural organi- zation and in principles of action; but changing from lower to higher forms with the progressive advance- ment of the people. These changes give the history of development of the same original conceptions.

Gens, genos, and ganas in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit have alike the primary signification of kin. They contain the same element as gigno, gignomai, and ganamai, in the same languages, signifying to beget] thus implying in each an immediate common descent of the members of a gens. A gens, therefore, is a body of consanguine! descended from the same common ancestor, distinguished by a gentile name, and bound together by affinities of blood. It includes a moiety only of such descendants. Where descent is in the female line, as it was universally in the archaic period, the gens is composed of a sup- posed female ancestor and her children, together with the children of her female descendants, through females, in perpetuity; and where descent is in the male line — into which it was changed after the appearance of prop- erty in masses — of a supposed male ancestor and his children, together with the children of his male descend- ants, through males, in perpetuity. The family name among ourselves is a survival of the gentile name, with descent in the male line, and passing in the same manner. The modern family, as expressed by its name, is an un- organized gens; with the bond of kin broken, and its members as widely dispersed as the family name is found.

Among the nations named, the gens indicated a social organization of a remarkable character, which had pre- vailed from an antiquity so remote that its origin was

IROQUOIS GENS 68

lost in the obscurity of far distant ages. It was also the unit of organization of a social and governmental sys- tem, the fundamental basis of ancient society. This or- ganization was not confined to the Latin, Grecian and Sanskrit speaking tribes, with whom it became such a conspicuous institution. It has been found in other branches of the Aryan family of nations, in the Sem- itic, Uralian and Turanian families, among the tribes of Africa and Australia, and of the American aborigines.

An exposition of the elementary constitution of the gens, with its functions, rights, and privileges, requires our first attention ; after which it will be traced, as widely as possible, among the tribes and nations of mankind in order to prove, by comparisons, its fundamental unity. It will then be seen that it must be regarded as one of the primary institutions of mankind.

The gens has passed through successive stages of de- velopment in its transition from its archaic to its final form with the progress of mankind. These changes were limited, in the main, to two : firstly, changing descent from the female line, which was the archaic rule, as among the Grecian and Roman gentcs; and, secondly, changing the inheritance of the property of a deceased member of the gens from his gentiles, who took it in the archaic period, first to his agnatic kindred, and finally to his children. These changes, slight as they may seem, indicate very great changes of condition as well as a large degree of progressive development.

The gentile organization, originating in the period of savagery, enduring through the three sub-periods of barbarism, finally gave way, among the more advanced tribes, when they attained civilization, the requirements of which it was unable to meet. Among the Greeks and Romans, political society supervened upon gentile soci- ety, but not until civilization had commenced. The town- ship (and its equivalent, the city ward), with its fixed property, and the inhabitants it contained, organized as a body politic, became the unit and the basis of a new and radically different system of government. After political society was instituted, this ancient and time-

54 ANCIENT SOCIETY

honored organization, with the phratry and tribe devel- opment from it, gradually yielded up their existence. It will be my object, in the course of this volume, to trace the progress of this organization from its rise in ^savagery to its final overthrow in civilization ; for it was under gentile institutions that barbarism was won by v some of the tribes of mankind while in savagery, and that civilization was won by the descendants of some of the same tribes while in barbarism. Gentile institutions car- ried a portion of mankind from savagery to civilization.

This organization may be successfully studied both in its living and in its historical forms in a large number of tribes and races. In such an investigation it is pre- ferable to commence with the gens in its archaic form, and then to follow it through its successive modifications among advanced nations, in order to discover both the changes and the causes which produced them. I shall commence, therefore, with the gens as it now exists among the American aborigines, where it is found in its archaic form, and among whom its theoretical constitu- tion and practical workings can be investigated more suc- cessfully than in the historical gentes of the Greeks and Romans. In fact to understand fully the gentes of the latter nations a knowledge of the functions, and of the rights, privileges and obligations of the members of the American Indian gens is imperatively necessary.

In American Ethnography tribe and clan have been used in the place of gens as an equivalent term, from not perceiving its universality. In previous works, and folowing my predecessors, I have so used them.1 A comparison of the Indian clan with the gens of the Greeks and Romans reveals at once their identity in structure and functions. It also extends to the phratry and tribe. If the identity of these several organizations

i In "Letters on the Iroquois by Skenandoah," published in the "American Review" in 1847; in the "League of the Iro- quois," published in 1851; and in "Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family/' published in 1871. (Smith- sonian Contributions to Knowledge," vol. xvii.) I have used "tribe" as the equivalent of "yens," and in its place; but with an exact definition of the group.

IROQUOIS GENS 45

can be shown, of which there can be no doubt, there is a manifest propriety in returning to the Latin and Gre- cian terminologies which are full and precise as well as historical. I have made herein the substitutions required, and propose to show the parallelism of these several or- ganizations.

The plan of government of the American aborigines commenced with the gens and ended with the confeder- acy, the latter being the highest point to which their gov- ernmental institutions attained. It gave for the organic series: first, the gens, a body of consanguinei having a common gentile name; second, the phratry, an assem- blage of related gentes united in a higher association for certain common objects; third, the tribe, an assemblage of gentes, usually organized in phratries, all the mem- bers of which spoke the same dialect ; and fourth, a con- federacy of tribes, the members of which respectively spoke dialects of the same stock language. It resulted in a gentile society (societas), as distinguised from a political society or state (civitas). The difference be- tween the two is wide and fundamental. There was neither a political society, nor a citizen, nor a state, nor any civilization in America when it was discovered. One entire ethnical period intervened between the highest American Indian tribes and the beginning of civiliza- tion, as that term is properly understood.

In like manner the plan of government of the Gre- cian tribes, anterior to civilization, involved the same organic series, with the exception of the last member: first, the gens, a body of consanguinei bearing a common gentile name; second, the phratry, an assemblage of gentes, united for social and religious objects ; third, the tribe, an assemblage of gentes of the same lineage or- ganized in phratries; and fourth, a nation, an assem- blage of tribes who had coalesced in a gentile society upon one common territory, as the four tribes of the Athenians in Attica, and the three Dorian tribes at % Sparta. Coalescence was a higher process than confeder- 'ating. In the latter case the tribes occupied independent termories,

M ANCIENT SOCIETY

The Roman plan and series were the same : First, the gens, a body of consanguinei bearing a common gentile name ; second, the curia, an assemblage of gentes united in a higher association for the preformance of religious and governmental functions; third, the tribe, an assem- blage of gentes organized in curiae; and fourth, a nation, an assemblage of tribes who had coalesced in a gentile society. The early Romans styled themselves, with en- tire propriety, the Populus Romanus.

Wherever gentile institutions prevailed, and prior to the establishment of political society, we find peoples or nations in gentile societies, and nothing beyond. The state did not exist. Their goverments were essentially /democratical, because the principles on which the gens, t phratry and tribe were organized were democratical. 'This last proposition, though contrary to received opini- ons, is historically important. The truth of it can be tested as the gens, phratry and tribe of the American aborigines, and the same organizations among the Greeks and Romans are successively considered. As the gens, the unit of organization, was essentially democratical, so necessarily was the phratry composed of gentes, the tribe composed of phraties, and the gentile society formed by the confederating, or coalescing of tribes.

The gens, though a very ancient social organization founded upon kin, does not include all the descendants of a common ancestor. It was for the reason that when the gens came in, marriage between single pairs was un- known, and descent through males could not be traced with certainty. Kindred were linked together chiefly through the bond of their maternity. In the ancient gens descent was limited to the female line. It embraced all such persons as traced their descent from a supposed common female ancestor, through females, the evidence of the fact being the possession of a common gentile name. It would include this ancestor and her children, the children of her daughters, and the children of her female descendants, through females, in perpetuity^ whilst the children of her sons, and the children of her' male descendants, through males, would belong to other

IROQUOIS GENS 67

gentes; namely, those of their respective mothers. Such was the gens in its archaic form, when the paternity of children was not certainly ascertainable, and when their maternity afforded the only certain criterion of descents.

This state of descents, which can be traced back to the Middle Status of savagery, as among the Australians, remained among the American aborigines through the Upper Status of savagery, and into and through the Lower Status of barbarism, with occasional exceptions. In the Middle Status barbarism, the Indian tribes began to change descent from the female line to the male, as the syndyasmian family of the period began to assume monogamian characteristics. In the Upper Status of barbarism, descent had become changed to the male line among the Grecian tribes, with the exception of the Lycians, and among the Italian tribes, with the excep- tion of the Etruscans. The influence of property and its inheritance in producing the monogamian family which assured the paternity of children, and in causing a change of descent from the female line to the male, will be con- sidered elsewhere. Between the two extremes, repre- sented by the two rules of descent, three entire ethnical periods intervene, covering many thousands of years.

With descent in the male line, the gens embraced all persons who traced their descent from a supposed com- mon male ancestor, through males only, the evidence of the fact being, as in the other case, the possession of a common gentile name. It would include this ancestor and his children, the children of his sons, and the chil- dren of his male descendants, through males, in perpe- tuity ; whilst the children of his daughters, and the chil- dren of his female descendants, through females, would belong to other gentes ; namely, those of their respective fathers. Those retained in the gens in one case were those excluded in the other, and vice versa. Such was the gens in its final form, after the paternity of children became ascertainable through the rise of monogamy. The transition of a gens from one form into the other was perfectly simple, without involving its overthrow. All that was needed was an adequate motive, as will else-

68 ANCIENT SOCIETY

where be shown. The same gens, with descent changed to the male line, remained the unit of the social system. It could not have reached the second form without pre- viously existing in the first.

As intermarriage in the gens was prohibited, it with- drew its members from the evils of consanguine marri- ages, and thus tended to increase the vigor of the stock. The gens came into being upon three principal concep- tions, namely; the bond of kin, a pure lineage through descent in the female line, and non-intermarriage in the gens. When the idea of a gens was developed, it would naturally have taken the form of gentes in pairs, be- cause the children of the males were excluded, and be- cause it was equally necessary to organize both classes of descendants. With two gentes started into being simultaneously the whole result would have been at- tained; since the males and females of one gens would marry the females and males of the other ; and the chil- dren, following the gentes of their respective mothers, would be divided between them. Resting on the bond of kin as its cohesive principle the gens afforded to each individual member that personal protection which no other existing pqwer could give.

After considering the rights, privileges and obligations of its members it will be necessary to follow the gens in its organic relations to a phratry, tribe and confeder- acy, in order to find the uses to which it was applied, the privileges which it conferred, and the principles which it fostered. The gentes of the Iroquois will be taken as the standard exemplification of this institution in the Ganowanian family. They had carried their scheme of government from the gens to the confederacy, making it complete in each of its parts, and art excellent illustra- tion of the capabilities of the gentile organization in its archaic form. When discovered the Iroquois were in the Lower Status of barbarism, and well advanced in the arts of life pertaining to this condition. They manu- factured nets, twine and rope from filaments of bark; wove belts and burden straps, with warp and woof, from the same materials; they manufactured earthen .vessels

IROQUOIS GENS 0?

and pipes from clay mixed with siliceous materials and hardened by fire, some of which were ornamented with rude medallions; they cultivated maize, beans, squashes, and tobacco, in garden beds, and made unleavened bread from pounded maize which they boiled in earthern ves- sels;1 they tanned skins into leather with which they manufactured kilts, leggins, and moccasins; they used the bow and arrow and warclub as their principal weap- ons; used flint stone and bone implements, wore skin garments, and were expert hunters and fishermen. They constructed long joint-tenement houses large enough to accommodate five, ten, and twenty families, and each household practiced communism in living ; but they were unacquainted with the use of stone or adobe-brick in house architecture, and with the use of the native metals. In mental capacity and in general advancement they were the representative branch of the Indian family north of New Mexico. General F. A. Walker has sketched their military career in two paragraphs: "The career of the Iroquois was simply terrific. They were the scourge of God upon the aborigines of the continent."

From lapse of time the Iroquois tribes have come to differ slightly in the number, and in the names of their respective gentes. The largest number being eight, as follows :

Senecas. — I. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5. Deer. 6. Snipe. 7. Heron. 8. Hawk.

Cayugas. — i. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5. Deer. 6. Snipe. 7. Eel. 8. Hawk.

Onondagas. — i. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5. Deer. 6. Snipe. 7. Eel. 8. Ball.

Oneidas.-— i. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Turtle.

Mohawks. — i. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Turtle.

Tuscaroras. — i. Gray Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Great Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5. Yellow Wolf. 6. Snipe. 7. Eel. 8. Lit- tle Turtle.

These changes show that certain gentes in some of the

i These loaves or cakes were about six inches In diameter and an inch thick.

• "North American Review/' April No., 1873, p. S70 Note,

sooiarr

tribes have become extinct through the vicissitudes ol time ; and that others have been formed by the segmen- tation of over-full gentes.

With a knowledge of the rights, privileges and obliga- tions of the members of a gens, its capabilities as the unit of a social and governmental system will be more fully understood, as well as the manner in which it entered into the higher organizations of the phratry, tribe, and confederacy.

The gens is individualized by the following rights, privileges, and obligations conferred and imposed upon its members, and which made up the jus gentilicium. I. The right of electing its sachem and chiefs.

II. The right of deposing its sachem and chiefs.

III. The obligation not to* marry in the gens.

IV. Mutual rights of inheritance of the, property of

deceased members.

V. Reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and re- dress of injuries.

VI. The right of bestowing names upon its members. VII. The right of adopting strangers into the gens. VIII. Common religious rites, query.

IX. A common burial place.

X. A council of the gens.

These functions and attributes gave vitality as well as individuality to the organization, and protected the per- sonal rights of its members.

I. The right of electing its sachem and chiefs.

Nearly all the American Indian tribes had two grades of chiefs, who may be distinguished as sachems and com- mon chiefs. Of these two primary grades all other grades were varieties. They were elected in each gens from among its members. A son could not be chosen to suc- ceed his father, where descent was in the female line, be- cause he belonged to a different gens, and no gens would have a chief or sachem from any gens but its own. The office of sachem was hereditary in the gens, in the sense that it was filled as often as a vacancy occurred; while the office of chief was. non-hereditary, because it was be- stowed in reward of personal merit, and died with the

individual. Moreover, the duties of a sachem were con- fined to the affairs of peace. He could not go out to war as a sachem. On the other hand, the chiefs who were raised to office for personal bravery, for wisdom in af- fairs, or for eloquence in council, were usually the su- perior class in ability, though not in authority over the gens. The relation of the sachem was primarily to the gens, of which he was the official head; while that of the chief was primarily to the tribe, of the council of which he, as well as the sachem, were members.

The office of sachem had a natural foundation in the gens, as an organized body of consanguine! which, as such, needed a representative head. As an office, how- ever, it is older than the gentile organization, since it is found among tribes not thus organized, but among .whom it had a similar basis in the punaluan group, and even in the anterior horde. In the gens the constituency of the sachem was clearly defined, the basis of the relation was permanent, and its duties paternal. While the office was hereditary in the gens it was elective amonff its male members. When the Indian system of consanguinity is considered, it will be found that all the male members of a gens were either brothers to each other, own or col- lateral, uncles or nephews, own or collateral, or col- lateral grandfathers and grandsons. 1 This will explain the succession of the office of sachem which passed from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew, and very rarely from grandfather to grandson. The choice, which was by free suffrage of both males and females of adult age, usually fell upon a brother of the decased sachem, or upon one of the sons of a sister; an own brother, or the son of an own sister being most likely to be prefer- red. As between several brothers, own and collateral, on the one hand, and the sons of several sisters, own and collateral, on the other, there was no priority of right,

I The sons of several sisters are brothers to each other, instead of cousins. The latter are here distinguished as col- lateral brothers. So a man's brother's son is his son instead of fels nephew; while his collateral sister's son is his nephew, at well as his own sister's son. The former is distinguished as a collateral nephew. —

TJ ANCIENT SOCIETY

for the reason that all the male members of the gens were equally eligible. To make a choice between them was the function of the elective principle.

Upon the death of a sachem, for example among the Seneca-Iroquois, a council of his gentiles1 was convened to name his successor. Two candidates, according to their usages, must be voted upon; both of them members of the gens. Each person of adult age was called upon to express his or her preference, and the one who re- ceived the largest number of affirmative declarations was nominated. It still required the assent of the seven re- maining gentes before the nomination was complete. If these gentes, who met for the purpose by phratries, re- fused to confirm the nomination it was thereby set aside, and the gens proceeded to make another choice. When the person nominated by his gens was accepted by the remaining gentes the election was complete ; but it was still necessary that the new sachem should be raised up, to use their expression, or invested with his office by a council of the confederacy, before he could enter upon its duties. It was their method of conferring the tw- perium. In this- manner the rights and interests of the several gentes were consulted and preserved; for the sachem of a gens was ex officio a member of the council of the tribe, and of the higher council of the confeder- acy. The same method of election and of confirmation existed with respect to the office of chief, and for the same reasons. But a general council was never con- vened to raise up chiefs below the grade of a sachem. They awaited the time when sachems were invested.

The principle of democracy, which was born of the gentes, manifested itself in the retention by the gentiles of the right to elect their sachem and chiefs, in the safe- guards thrown around the office to prevent usurpation, and in the check upon the election held by the remain- ing gentes.

The chiefs in each gens were usually proportioned

t Pronounced "gren'-tl-lee," it may be remarked to thoie un- familiar with Latin.

IROQUOIS GENS flft

to the number of its 'members. Among the Seneca-Iro- quois there is one chief for about every fifty persons. They now number in New York some three thousand, and have eight sachems and about sixty chiefs. There are reasons for supposing that the proportionate number is now greater than in former times. With respect to the number of gentes in a tribe, the more numerous the peo- ple the greater, usually, the number of gentes. The num- ber varied in the different tribes, from three among the Delawares and Munsees to upwards of twenty among the Ojibwas and Creeks; six, eight, and ten being common numbers.

II. The right of deposing its sachem and chiefs. This right, which was not less important than that to

elect, was reserved by the members of the gens. Although the office was nominally for life, the tenure was practi- cally during good behavior, in consequence of the power to depose. The installation of a sachem was symbolized as "putting on the horns," and his deposition as "taking off the horns." Among widely separated tribes of man- kind horns have been made the emblem of office and of authority, suggested probably, as Tylor intimates, by the commanding appearance of the males among ruminant animals bearing horns. Unworthy behavior, followed by a loss of confidence, furnished a sufficient ground for deposition. When a sachem or chief had been deposed in due form by a council of his gens, he ceased there- after to be recognized as such, and became thenceforth a private person. The council of the tribe also had power to depose both sachems and chiefs, without wait- ing for the action of the gens, and even against its wishes. Through the existence and occasional exercise of this power the supremacy of the gentiles over their sachem and chiefs was asserted and preserved. It also reveals the democratic constitution of the gens.

III. The obligation not to marry in the gens. Although a negative proposition it was fundamental.

It was evidently a primary object of the organization to isolate a moiety of the descendants of a supposed founder, and prevent their intermarriage for reasons of kin. When

94

the gens came into existence brothers were intermarried to each other's wives in a group, and sisters to each other's husbands in a group, to which th^ gens inter- posed no obstacle. But it sought to exclude brothers and sisters from the marriage relation which was effected, as there are good reasons for stating, by the prohibition in question. Had the gens attempted to uproot the en- tire conjugal system of the period by its direct action, there is not the slightest probability that it would have worked its way into general establishment. The gens, originating probably in the ingenuity of a small band of savages, must soon have proved its utility in the pro- duction of superior men. Its nearly universal prevalence in the ancient world is the highest evidence of the ad- vantages it conferred, and of its adaptability to human wants in savagery and in barbarism. The Iroquois still adhere inflexibly to the rule which forbids persons to marry in their own gens.

IV. Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased members.

In the Status of savagery, and in the Lower Status of barbarism, the amount of property was small. It con- sisted in the former condition of personal effects, to which, in the latter, were added possessory rights in joint-tenement houses and in gardens. The most valu- able personal articles were buried with the body of the deceased owner. Nevertheless, the question of inherit- ance was certain to arise, to increase in importance with the increase of property in variety and amount, and to result in some settled rule of inheritance. Accordingly we find the principle established low down in barbarism, and even back of that in savagery, that the property should remain in the gens, and be distributed among the gentiles of the deceased owner. It was customary law in the Grecian and Latin gentes in the Upper Status of barbarism, and remained as written law far into civili- zation, that the property of a deceased person should re- main in the gens. But after the time of Solon among the Athenians it was .limited to cases of intestacy.

The question, who should take the property, has given

iRogtiois

rise to three great and successive rules of inheritance. First, that it should be distributed among the gentiles of the deceased owner. This was the rule in the Lower Status of barbarism, and so far as is known in the Status of savagery. Second, that the property should be dis- tributed among the agnatic kindred of the deceased owner, to the exclusion of the remaining gentiles. The germ of this rule makes its appearance in the Lower Sta- tus of barbarism, and it probably became completely established in the Middle Status. Third, that the prop- erty should be inherited by the children of the deceased owner, to the exclusion of the remaining agnates. This became the rule in the Upper Status of barbarism.

Theoretically, the Iroquois were under the first rule; but, practically, the effects of a deceased person were ap- propriated by his nearest relations within the gens. In the case of a male his own brothers and sisters and maternal uncles divided his effects among themselves. This practical limitation of the inheritance to the nearest gentile kin discloses the germ of agnatic inheritance. In the case of a female her property was inherited by her children and her sisters, to the exclusion of her brothers. In every case the property remained in the gens. The children of the deceased males took nothing from their father because they belonged to a different gens. It was for the same reason that the husband took nothing from the wife, or the wife from her husband. These mutual right of inheritance strengthened the autonomy of the gens.

V. Reciprocal obligations? of help, defense, and redress of injuries.

In civilized society the state assumes the protection of persons and of property. Accustomed to look to this source for the maintenance of personal rights, there has been a corresponding abatement of the strength of the bond of kin. But under gentile society the individual depended for security upon his gens. It took the place afterwards held by the state, and possessed the requisite numbers to render its guardianship effective. Within its membership the bond of kin was a powerful element for

J0 AKCIENT

mutual support. To wrong a person was to wrong his gens; and to support a person was to stand behind him with the entire array of his gentile kindred.

In their trials and difficulties the members of the gens assisted each other. Two or three illustrations may be given from the Indian tribes at large. Speaking of the Mayas of Yucatan, Herrera remarks, that "when any satisfaction was to be made for damages, if he who was adjudged to pay was like to be reduced to poverty, the kindred contributed." l By the term kindred, as here used, we are justified in understanding the gens. And of the Florida Indians : "When a brother or son dies the people of the house will rather starve than seek any- thing to eat during three months, but the kindred and relations send it aril in."8 Persons who removed from one village to another could not transfer their possessory right to cultivated lands or to a section of a joint-tene- ment house to a stranger; but must leave them to his gentile kindred. Herrera refers to this usage among the Indian tribes of Nicaragua ; "He that removed from one town to another could not sell what he had, but must leave it to his nearest relation." 8 So much of their prop- erty was held in joint ownership that their plan of life would not admit of its alienation to a person of another gens. -Practically, the right to such property was pos- sessory, and when abandoned it reverted to the gens. Garcilasso de la Vega remarks of the tribes of the Pe- ruvian Andes, that "when the commonalty, or ordinary sort, married, the communities of the people were obliged to build and provide them houses."4 For communities, as here used, we are justified in understanding the gens. Herrera speaking of the same tribes observes that "this variety of tongues proceed from the nations being divided into races, tribes, or clans." * Here the gentiles were re- quired to assist newly married pairs in the construction of their houses.

i "History of America/' Lond. ed., 1725, Steven*' Trans., iv, 171. a Ib., iv. 34.

« "History of America," ill, 208.

4 "Royal Commentaries," Lond. ed., 1688, Rycaut's Trans., p. 107.1 • | Herrera, ir, 231.

IROQtTOIS GENS *

The ancient practice of blood revenge, which has pre- vailed so widely in the tribes of mankind, had its birth- place in the gens. It rested with this body to avenge the murder of one of its members. Tribunals for the trial of criminals and laws prescribing their punishment, came late into existence in gentile society : but they made their appearance before the institution of political soci- ety. On the other hand, the crime of murder is as old as human society, and its punishment by the revenge of kinsmen is as old as the crime itself. Among the Iro- quois and other Indian tribes generally, the obligation to avenge the murder of a kinsman was universally recog- nized.1

It was, however, the duty of the gens of the slayer, and of the slain, to attempt an adjustment of the crime before proceeding to extremities. A council of the mem- bers of each gens was held separately, and propositions were made in behalf of the murderer for a condonation of the act, usually in the nature of expressions of regret and of presents of considerable value. If there were justifying or extenuating* circumstances it generally re- sulted in a composition ; but if the gentile kindred of the slain person were implacable, one or more avengers were appointed by his gens from among its members, whose duty is was to pursue the criminal until discovered, and then to slay him wherever he might be found. If they accomplished the deed it was no ground of complaint by any member of the gens of the victim. Life having answered for life the demands of justice were appeased.

The same sentiment of fraternity manifested other ways in relieving a fellow gentilis in in protecting him from injuries.

VI. The right of bestmving names

Among savage and barbarous tribes qfiCre^vrno name for the family. The personal names the same family do not indicate any

i "Their hearts burn violently day and nil minion till they have shed blood for blot from father to son the memory of the loaa ^ or one of their own tribe, or family, though woman."— Adair'i "Hilt. Amer. Indiana/' Lond.

uP

98 'ANCIENT SOCIETY

between them. The family name is no older than civili-i zation.1 Indian personal names, however, usually indi- cate the gens of the individual to persons of other gentes in the same tribe. As a rule each gens had names for persons that were its special property, and, as such, could not be used by other gentes of the same tribe. A gentile name conferred of itself gentile rights. These names either proclaimed by their signification the gens to which they belonged, or were known as such by common repu- tation. *

After the birth of a child a name was selected by its mother from those not in use belonging to the gens, with the concurrence of her nearest relatives, which was then bestowed upon the infant But the child was not fully christened until its birth and name, together with the name and gens of its mother and the name of its father, had been announced at the next ensuing council of the tribe. Upon the death of a person his name could not be used again in the life-time of the oldest surviving son without the consent of the latter. *

Two classes of names were in use, one adapted to childhood, and the other to adult life, which were ex- changed at the proper period in the same formal manner ; one being taken away, to use their expression, and the other bestowed in its place. O-w?-go, a canoe floating down the stream, and Ah-wou'-ne-ont, hanging flower; are names for girls among the Seneca-Iroquois ; and Ga-ne-o-di'-yo, handsome lake, and Do-ne-ho-ga'-weh door-keeper, are names of adult males. At the age of sixteen or eighteen, the first name was taken away, usu- ally by a chief of the gens, and one of the second class

1 Moinmsen's ''History of Rome,** Scrlbner's ed., Dlckson's Trans., 1* 4*.

2 One of the twelve gentes of the Omaha* is LA'-ta-dt, the Pigeon-Hawk,, which has, amons; others, the following names:

•• > < Boys' Names.

Ah-hIse'-n*-<U, "Long Win*"

Gla-dan'-noh*che, "Hawk balancing- Itself In the air." Nes-tase'-U, "White-Eyed Bird." Girls' Names.

. Me-ta'-na, •'Bird singing at daylight." Lt-tt-dl'-wlB, "One of the Birds.'r Wi-U'-na, "Bird's Egg."

j When particular usages are named it will be understood •they ar* IroQuols unless the contrary is stated.

IROQUOIS GENS ft

bestowed in its place. At the next council of the tribe the change of names was publicly announced, after which the person, if a male, assumed the duties of manhood. In some Indian tribes the youth was required to go out upon the war-path and earn his second name by some act of personal bravery. After a severe illness it was not uncommon for the person, from superstitious con- siderations, to solicit and obtain a second change of name. It was sometimes done again in extreme old age. When a person was elected a sachem or a chief his name was taken away, and a new one conferred at the time of his installation. The individual had no control over the question of a change. It is the prerogative of the female relatives and of the chiefs; but an adult person might change his name provided he could induce a chief to announce it in council. A person having the control of a particular name, as the eldest son of that of his de- ceased father, might lend it to a friend in another gens ; but after the death of the person thus bearing it the name reverted to the gens to which it belonged.

Among the Shavvnees and Delawares the mother has now the right to name her child into any gens she pleases ; and the name given transfers the child to the gens to which the name belongs. But this is a wide departure from archaic usages, and exceptional in practice. It tends to corrupt and confound the gentile lineage. The names now in use among the Iroquois and among other Indian tribes are, in the main, ancient names handed down in the gentes from time immemorial.

The precautions taken with respect to the use of names belonging to the gens sufficiently prove the importance attached to them, and the gentile rights they confer.

Although this question of personal names branches out in many direction it is foreign to my purpose to do more than illustrate such general usages as reveaf the relations of the members of a gens. In familiar intercourse and in formal salutation the American Indians address each other by the term of relationship the person spoken to sustains to the speaker. When related they salute by kin; when not related "my friend" is substituted. It

SC ANCIENT SOCIETY

would be esteemed an act of rudeness to address an In- dian by his personal name, or to inquire his name directly from himself.

Our Saxon ancestors had single personal names down to the Norman conquest, with none to designate the fam- ily. This indicates the late appearance of the mono- gamian family among them ; and it raises a presumption of the existence in an earlier period of a Saxon gens.

VII. The right of adopting strangers into the gens.

Another distinctive right of the gens was that of ad- mitting new members by adoption. Captives taken in war were either put to death, or adopted into some gens. Women and children taken prisoners usually experienced clemency in this form. Adoption not only conferred gentile rights, but also the nationality of the tribe. The person adopting a captive placed him or her in the rela- tion of a brother or sister; if a mother adopted, in that of a son or daughter; and ever afterwards treated the person in all respects as though born in that relation. Slavery, which in the Upper* Status of barbarism became the fate of the captive, was unknown among tribes in the Lower Status in the aboriginal period. The gauntlet also had some connection with adoption, since the person who succeeded, through hardihood or favoritism, in run- ning through the lines in safety was entitled to this re- ward. Captives when adopted were often assigned in the family the places of deceased persons slain in battle, in order to fill up the broken ranks of relatives. A de- clining gens might replenish its numbers, through adop- tion, although such instances are rare.. At one time the Hawk gens of the Senecas were reduced to a small num- ber of persons, and its extinction became imminent To save the gens a number of persons from the Wolf gens by mutual consent were transferred in a body by adop- tion to that of the Hawk. The right to adopt seems to be left to the discretion, of each gens.

Among the Iroquois the ceremony of adoption was

IROQUOIS OENS g|

performed at a public council of the tribe, which turned it practically into a religious rite.1

VIII. Religious rites in the gens. Query.

Among the Grecian and Latin tribes these rites held a conspicuous position. The highest polytheistic form of religion which had then appeared seems to have sprung from the gentcs in which religious rites were constantly maintained. Some of them, from the sanctity they were supposed to possess, were nationalized. In some cities the office of high priest of certain divinities was heredit- ary in a particular gens. a The gens became the natural centre of religious growth and the birthplace of religious ceremonies.

But the Indian tribes, although they had a polytheistic system, not much unlike that from which the Grecian and Roman must have sprung, had not attained that religious development which was so strongly impressed upon the gentes of the latter tribes. It can scarcely be said any Indian gens had special religious rites; and yet their religious worship had a more or less direct connection with the gentes. It was here that religious ideas would naturally germinate and that forms of worship would be instituted. But thev would expand from the gens over the tribe, rather than remain special to the gens. Ac- cordingly we find among the Iroquois six annual religi- ous festivals, (Maple, Planting. Berry, Green-Corn, Har- vest, and New Years Festivals)8 which were common to all the gentes united in a tribe, and which were observed at stated seasons of the year.

Each gens furnished a number of "Keepers of the

i After the people had assembled at the council house one of the chiefs made an address giving some account of the person, the reason for hie adoption, the name and gens of the person adopting, and the name bestowed upon the novitiate. Two chiefs taking the person by the arms then marched with h|ai through the council house* and back, ohanting the sons; of adoption. To this the people responded In musical chorus at the end of each verse. The march continued until the verses were ended, which required three rounds. With this the cere- mony concluded. Americans are sometime* adopted as a com* pliment. It fell to my lot some years ago to be thus adopted Into the Hawk gens of the Senecas, when this ceremony waf

"Hist, of Gr«ec«," t 194. ^ "League of the Iroquois/' p. 111.

01 ANCIENT SOCIETY

Faith/' both male and female, who together were charged with the celebration of these festivals.1 The number ad- vanced to this office by each was regarded as evidence • of the fidelity of the gens to religion. They designated the days for holding the festivals, made the necessary arrangements for the celebration, and conducted the cer- emonies in conjunction with the sachems and chiefs of the tribe, who were, ex officio, "Keepers of the Faith." With no official head, and none of the marks of a priest- hood, their functions were equal. The female "Keepers of the Faith" were more especially charged with the preparation of the feast, which was provided at all coun- cils at the close of each day for all persons in attendance. It was a dinner in common. The religious rites apper- taining to these festivals, which have been described in a previous work,1 need not be considered further than to remark, that their worship was one of thanksgiving, with invocations to the Great Spirit, and to the Lesser Spirits to continue to them the blessings of life.

With the progress of mankind out of the Lower into the Middle, and more especially out of the latter into the Upper Status of barbarism, the gens became more the centre of religious influence and the source of religious development. We have only the grosser part of the Aztec religious system ; but in addition to national gods, there seem to have been other gods, belonging to smaller divisions of the people than the phratries. The existence of an Aztec ritual and priesthood would lead us to ex- pect among them a closer connection of religious rites with the gentes than is found among the Iroquois; but

i The "Keeper* of the Faith" were about as numerous as the chief*, and were selected by the wise-men and matron* of each gens. After their selection they were raised up by a council of the tribe with ceremonies adapted to the occasion. Their names were taken away and new ones belonging to this class bestowed in their place. Men and women in about equal num- bers were chosen. They were censors of the people, with power to report the evil deeds of persons to the council. 7t was the duty of individuals selected to accept the office: hut after a reasonable service each mifht relinquish it, which was done by dropping his name as a Keeper of the Faith, twid resuming his former name.

» "League of the Iroquois," p. 181.

IROQUOIS GENS SI

their religious beliefs and observances are under the same cloud of obscurity as their social organization.

IX. A common burial place.

An ancient but not exclusive mode of burial was by scaffolding the body until the flesh had wasted, after which the bones were collected and preserved in bark barrels in a house constructed for their reception. Those belonging to the same gens were usually placed in the same house. The Rev. Dr. Cyrus Byington found these practices among the Choctas in 1827 ; and Adair mentions usages among the Cherokees substantially the same. "I saw three of them," he remarks, "in one of their towns pretty near each other; * * Each house contained the bones of one tribe separately, with the hieroglyphical figures of each family [gens] on each of the oddshaped arks. They reckoned it irreligious to mix the bones of a relative with those of a stranger, as bone of bone and flesh of flesh should always be jointed together."1 The Iroquois in ancient times used scaffolds and preserved the bones of deceased relatives in bark barrels, often keeping them in the house they occupied. They also buried in the ground. In the latter case those of the same gens were not always buried locally together un-, less they had a common cemetery for the village. The late Rev. Ashur Wright, so long a missionary among the Senecas, and a noble specimen of the American mission- ary, wrote to the author as follows; "I find no trace of the influence of clanship in the burial places of the dead. I believe that they buried promiscuously. However, they say that formerly the members of the different clans more frequently resided together than they do at the present time. As one family they were more under the influence of family feeling, and had less of individual interest Hence, it might occasionally happen that a large proportion of the dead in some partiular burying place might be of the same clan." Mr. Wright is un- doubtedly correct that in a particular cemetery members of all the gentes established in a village would be buried ;

i "HUtory of the American Indian*/' p. 181.

§4 ANCIENT SOCIETY

but they might keep those of the same gens locally to- gether. An illustration in point is now found at the Tuscarora reservation near Lewiston, where the tribe has one common cemetery, and where individuals of the same gens are buried in a row by themselves. One row is composed of the graves of the deceased members of the Beaver gens, two rows of the members of the Bear gens, one row of the Gray Wolf, one of the Great Turtle, and so on to the number of eight rows. Husband and wife are separated from each other and buried in dif- ferent rows; fathers and their children the same; but mothers and their children and brothers and sisters are found in the same row. It shows the power of gentile feeling^ and the quickness with which ancient usages are reverted to under favorable conditions; for the Tus- caroras are now christianized without surrendering the practice. An Onondaga Indian informed the writer that the same mode of burial by gentes now prevailed at the Onondaga and Oneida cemeteries. While this usage, perhaps, cannot be declared general among the Indian tribes, there was undoubtedly in ancient times a tendency to, and preference for this mode of burial.

Among the Iroquois, and what is true of them Is gen- erally true of other Indian tribes in the same status of advancement, all the members of the gens are mourners at the funeral of a deceased gentilis. The addresses at the funeral, the preparation of the grave, and the burial of the body were performed by members of other gentes.

The Village Indians of Mexico and Central America practiced a slovenly cremation, as well as scaffolding, and burying in the ground. The former was confined to chiefs and prominent men.

X. A council of the gens.

The council was the great feature of ancient society, Asiatic, European and American, from the institution of the gens in savagery to civilization. It was the instru- ment of government as well as the supreme authority over the gens, the tribe, and the confederacy. Ordinary affairs were adjusted by the chiefs ; but those of general «nferest were submitted to the determination of a coun-

IROQUOIS GENS 86

cil. As the council sprang from the gentile organization the two institutions have come down together through the ages. The Council of Chiefs represents the ancient method of evolving the wisdom of mankind and applying it to human affairs. Its history, gentile, tribal, and con- federate, would express the growth of the idea of gov- ernment in its whole development, until political society supervened into which the council, changed into a senate, was transmitted.

The simplest and lowest form of the council was that of the gens. It was a democratic assembly because every adult male and female member had a voice upon all questions brought before it. It elected and deposed its sachem and chiefs, it elected Keepers of the Faith, it condoned or avenged the murder of a gentiles, and it adopted persons into the gens. It was the germ of the higher council of the tribe, and of that still higher of the confederacy, each of which was composed exclusively of chiefs as representatives of the gentes.

Such were the rights, privileges and obligations of the members of an Iroquois gens; and such were those of the members of the gentes of the Indian tribes generally, as far as the investigation has been carried. When the gentes of the Grecian and Latin tribes are considered, the same rights, privileges and obligations will be found to exist, with the exception of the I, II, and VI; and with respect to these their ancient existence is probable though the proof is not perhaps attainable.

All the members of an Iroquois gens were personally free, and they were bound to defend each other's free- dom ; they were equal in privileges and in personal rights, the sachem and chiefs claiming no superiority; and they were a brotherhood bound together by the ties of kin. Liberty, equality, and fraternity, though never formulated, were cardinal principles of the gens. These facts are material, because the gens was the unit of a social and governmental system, the foundation upon which Indian society was organized. A structure com- posed of such units would of necessity bear the impress of their character, for as the unit so the compound It

$0 ANCIENT SOCIETY

serves to explain that sense of independence and per* sonal dignity universally an attribute of Indian character.

Thus substantial and important in the social system was the gens as it anciently existed among the American aborigines, and as it still exists in full vitality in many Indian tribes. It was the basis of the phratry, of the tribe, and the confederacy of tribes. Its functions might have been presented more elaborately in several particu- lars ; but sufficient has been given to show its permanent and durable character.

At the epoch of European discovery the American Indian tribes generally were organized in gentes, with descent in the female line. In some tribes, as among the Dakotas, the gentes had fallen out ; in others, as among the Ojibwas, the Omahas, and the Mayas of Yucatan, descent had been changed from the female to the male line. Throughout aboriginal America the gens took its name from some animal, or inanimate object, and never from a person. In this early condition of society, the individuality of persons was lost in the gens. It is at least presumable that the gentes of the Grecian and Latin tribes were so named at some anterior period ; but when they first came under historical notice, they were named after persons. In some of the tribes, as the Moqui Vil- lage Indians of New Mexico, the members of the gem claimed their descent from the animal whose name they bore — their remote ancestors having been transformed by the Great Spirit from the animal into the human form. The Crane gens of the Ojibwas have a similar legend. In some tribes the members of a gens will not eat the animal whose name they bear, in which they are doubtless influenced by this consideration.

With respect to the number of persons in a gens it varied with the number of the gentes, and with the pros- perity or decadence of the tribe. Three thousand Sene- cas divided equally among eight gentes would give* an average of three hundred and seventy-five persons to a gens. Fifteen thousand Ojibwas divided equally among twenty-three gentes would give six hundred and fifty persons to * gens. The Cherokees would average more

tttOQUOXS GENS $7

than a thousand to a gens. In the present condition of the principal Indian tribes the number of persons in each gens would range from one1 hundred to a thousand.

One of the oldest and most widely prevalent institu- tions of mankind, the gentes have been closely identi- fied with human progress upon which they have exer- cised a powerful influence. They have been found in tribes in the Status of savagery, in the Lower, in the Middle, and in the Upper Status of barbarism on differ- ent continents, and in full vitality in the Grecian and Latin tribes after civilization had commenced. Every family of mankind, except the Polynesian, seems to have come under the gentile organization, and to have been indebted to it for preservation, and for the means of progress. It finds its only parallel in length of duration in systems of consanguinity, which, springing up at a still earlier period, have remained to the present time, al- though the marriage usages in which they originated have long since disappeared.

From its early institution, and from its maintenance through such immense stretches of time, the peculiar adaption of the gentile organization to mankind, while in a savage and in a barbarous state, must be regarded as abundantly demonstrated.

CHAPTER III

THE IROQUOIS PHRATRY

The phratry is a brotherhood, as the term imports, and a natural growth from the organization into gentes. It is an organic union or association of two or more gentes of the same tribe for certain common objects. These gentes were usually such as had been formed by the segmentation of an original gens.

Among the Grecian tribes, where the phratric organi- zation was nearly as constant as the gens, it became a very conspicuous institution. Each of the four tribes of the Athenians was organized in three phratries, each composed of thirty gentes, making a total of twelve phratries and three hundred and sixty gentes. Such precise numerical uniformity in the composition of each phratry and tribe could not have resulted from the sub- division of gentes through natural processes. It must have been produced, as Mr. Grote suggests, by legis- lative procurement in the interests of a symmetrical or- ganization. All the gentes of a tribe, as a rule, were of common descent and bore a common tribal name, conse- quently it would not require severe constraint to unite the specified number in each phratry, and to form the specified number of phratries in each tribe. But the phratric organization had a natural foundation in the immediate kinship of certain gentes as subdivisions of an original gens, which undoubtedly was the basis on which the Grecian phratry was originally formed. The incor- poration of alien gentes, and transfers by consent or constraint, would explain the numerical adjustment of the gentes and phratries in the Athenian tribes.

IfcOQUOIS PHHATRY gft

»

The Roman curia was the analogue of the Grecian phratry. It is constantly mentioned by Dionysius as a phratry. l There were ten gentes in each curia, and ten curiae in each of the three Roman tribes, making thirty curiae and three hundred gentes of the Romans. The functions of the Roman curia are much better known than those of the Grecian phratry, and were higher in degree because the curia entered directly into the func- tions of government. The assembly of the gentes (com- itia curiata) voted by curiae, each having one collective vote. This assembly was the sovereign power of the Roman People down to the time of Servius Tullius.

Among the functions of the Grecian phratry was the observance of special religious rites, the condonation or revenge of the murder of a phrator, and the purifica- tion of a murderer after he had escaped the penalty of his crime preparatory to his restoration to society.2 Atv a later period among the Athenians — for the phratry at Athens survived the institution of political society under Cleisthenes — it looked after the registration of citizens, thus becoming the guardian of descents and of the evi- dence of citizenship. The wife upon her marriage was enrolled in the phratry of her husband, and the children of the mariage were enrolled in the gens and phratry of their father. It was also the duty of this organization to prosecute the murderer of a phrator in the courts of justice. These are among its known objects and func- tions in the earlier and later periods. Were all the partic- ulars fully ascertained, the phratry would probably manifest itself in connection with the common tables, the public games, the funerals of distinguished men, the earliest army organization, and the proceedings of coun- cils, as well as in the observance of religious rites and in the guardianship of social privileges.

The phratry existed in a large number of the Iribes of the American aborigines, where it is seen to arise by natural growth, and to stand as the second member of

i -"Dionyilut." lib. II. cap. vli; and vid. lib. II, c. zili. * That purification was performed by the phratry if intimated toy JEcchylus: "Eumenides," 656.

ftO ANCIENT SOCIETY

the organic series, as among the Grecian and Latin tribes. It did not possess original governmental functions, as the gens, tribe and confederacy possessed them; but it was endowed with certain useful powers in the social system, from the necessity for some organization larger than a gens and smaller than a tribe, and especially when the tribe was large. The same institution in essential features and in character, it presents the organization in its archaic form and with its archaic functions. A knowledge of the Indian phratry is necessary to an in- telligent understanding of the Grecian and the Roman.

The eight gentes of the Seneca-Iroquois tribe were reintegrated in two phratries as follows :

First Phratry.

Gentes— x m Bear. 2. Wolf. 3. Beaver. 4. Turtle. Second Phratry.

Gentes — 5. Deer. 6. Snipe. 7. Heron. 8. Hawk.

Each phratry (De-a-non-da'-yoh) is a brotherhood as this term also imports. The gentes in the same phra- try are brother gentes to each other, and cousin gentes to -those of the other phratry. They are equal in grade, character and privileges. It is a common practice of the Senecas to call the gentes of their own phratry brother gentes, and those of the other phratry their cousin gen- tes, when they mention them in their relation to the phra- tries. Originally marriage was not allowed between the members of the same phratry ; but the members of either could marry into any gens of the other. This prohibi- tion tends to show that gentes of each phratry were sub- divisions of an original gens, and therefore the prohibi- tion against marrying into a person's own gens had fol- lowed to its subdivisions. This restriction, however, was long since removed, except with respect to the gens of the individual. A tradition of the Senecas affirms that the Bear and the Deer were the original gentes, of which the others were subdivisions. It is thus seen that the phratry had a natural foundation in the kinship of the gentes of which it was composed. After their sub- division from increase of numbers .there was a natural

JROQUOIS PHRATRY ft

tendency to their reunion in a higher organization for objects common to them all. The same gentes are not constant in a phratry indefinitely, as will appear when the composition of the phratries in the remaining Iroquois tribes is considered. Transfers of particular gentes from one phratry to the other must have occurred when the equilibrium in their respective numbers was disturbed. It is important to know the simple manner in which this organization springs up, and the facility with which it is managed, as a part of the social system of ancient so- ciety. With the increase of numbers in a gens, followed by local separation of its members, segmentation occur- red, and the seceding portion adopted a new gentile name. But a tradition of their former unity would re- main, and become the basis of their reorganization in a phratry.

In like manner the Cayuga-Iroquois have eight gentes in two phratries ; but these gentes are not divided equally between them. They are the following :

First Phratry. Gentes. — I. Bear. 2. Wolf. 3. Turtle. 4. Snipe. 5. Eel.

Second Phratry. Gentes. — 6. Deer. 7. Beaver. 8. Hawk.

Seven of these gentes are the same as those of the Senecas; but the Heron gens has disappeared, and the Eel takes its place, but transferred to the opposite phra- try. The Beaver and the Turtle gentes also have ex- changed phratries. The Cayugas style the gentes of the same phratry brother gentes to each other, and those of the opposite phratry their cousin gentes.

The Onondaga-iroquois have the same number of gentes, but two of them differ in name from those of the Senecas. They are organized in two phratries as follows : First Phratry.

Gentes. — I. Wolf. 2. Turtle. 3. Snipe. 4. Beaver.

5. Ball.

Second Phratry. Gentes.— 6. Deer. 7. Eel. 8. Bear.

Here again the composition of the phratries is differ- ent from that of the Senecas. Three of the gentes in the

0$ ANCIENT SOCIETY

first phratry are the same in each; but the Bear gens has been transferred to the opposite phratry and is now found with the Deer. The division of gentes is also unequal, as among the Cayugas. The gentes in the same phratry are called brother gentes to each other, and those in the other their cousin gentes. While the Onondagas have no Hawk, the Senecas have no Eel gens; but the members of the two fraternize when they meet, claiming that there is a connection between them.

The Mohawks and Oneidas have but three gentes, the Bear, the Wolf, and the Turtle, and no phratries. When the confederacy was formed, seven of the eight Seneca gentes existed in the several tribes as is shown by the establishment of sachemships in them; but the Mohawks and Oneidas then had only the three named. It shows that they had then lost an entire phratry, and one gens of that remaining, if it is assumed that the original tribes were once composed of the same gentes. When a tribe organized in gentes and phratries subdivides, it might occur on the line of the phratric organization. Although the members of a tribe are intermingled throughout by marriage, each gens in a phratry is com- posed of females with their children and descendants, through females, who formed the body of the phratry. They would incline at least to remain locally together, and thus might become detached in a body. The male members of the gens married to women of other gentes and remaining with their wives would not affect the gens since the children of the males do not belong to its con- nection. If the minute history of the Indian tribes is ever recovered it must be sought through the gentes and phratries, which can be followed from tribe to tribe. In such an investigation it will deserve attention whether tribes ever disintegrated by phratries. It is at least im- probable.

The Tuscarora-Iroquois became detached from the main stock at some unknown period in the past, and in- habited the Neuse river region in North Carolina at the time of their discovery. About A. D, 1712 they were forced out of this area, whereupon they removed to the

IROQUOIS PHRATRT 9?5

country of the Iroquois and were admitted into the con- federacy as a sixth member. They have eight gentes organized in two phratries, as follows :

First Phratry. Gentes. — i. Bear. 2. Beaver. 3. Great Turtle. 4. Eel.

Second Phratry.

Gentes. 5. Gray Wolf. 6. Yellow Wolf. 7. Little Turtle. 8. Snipe.

They have six gentes in common with the Cayugas and Onondagas, five in common with the Senecas, and three in common with the Mohawks and Oneidas. The Deer gens, which they once possessed, became extinct in modern times. It will be noticed, also, that the Wolf gens is now divided into two, the Gray and the Yellow, and the Turtle into two, the Great and Little. Three of the gentes in the first phratry are the same with three in the first phratry of the Senecas and Cayugas, with the exception that the Wolf gens is double. As several hun- dred years elapsed between the separation of the Tus- caroras from their congeners and their return, it affords some evidence of permanence in the existence of a gens. The gentes in the same phratry are called brother gen- tes to each other, and those in the other phratry their cousin gentes, as among the other tribes.

From the differences in the composition of the phra- tiies in the several tribes it seems probable that the phra- tries arc modified in their gentes at intervals of time to meet changes of condition. Some gentes prosper and increase in numbers, while others through calamities de- cline, and others become extinct ; so that transfers of gen- tes from one phratry to another were found necessary to preserve some degree of equality in the number of phrators in each. The phratric organization has existed among the Iroquois from time immemorial. It is proba- bly older than the confederacy which was established more than four centuries ago. The amount of differ- ence in their composition, as to the gentes they contain, represents the vicissitudes through which each tribe has passed in the interval. In any view of the matter it is

94 ANCIENT SOCIETY

small, tending to illustrate the permanence of the phra- try as well as the gens.

'The Iroquois tribes had a total of thirty-eight gentes, and in four of the tribes a total of eight phratries.

In its objects and uses the Iroquois phratry falls be- low the Grecian, as would be supposed, although our knowledge of the functions of the latter is limited ; and below what is known of the uses of the phratry among the Roman tribes. In comparing the latter with the former we pass backward through two ethnical periods, and into a very different condition of society. The dif- ference is in the degree of progress, and not in kind ; for we have the same institution in each race, derived from the same or a similar germ, and preserved by each through immense periods of time as a part of a social system. Gentile society remained of necessity among the Grecian and Roman tribes until political society super- vened ; and it remained among the Iroquois tribes be- cause they were still two ethnical periods below civili- zation. Every fact, therefore, in relation to the func- tions and uses of the Indian phratry is important, be- cause it tends to illustrate the archaic character of an institution which became so influential in a more devel- oped condition of society.

The phratry, among the Iroquois, was partly for so- cial and partly for religious objects. Its functions and uses can be best shown by practical illustrations. We begin with the lowest, with games, which were of com- mon occurrence at tribal and confederate councils. In the ball game, for example, among the Senecas, they play by phratries, one against the other; and they, bet against each other upon the result of the game. Each phratry puts forward its best players, usually from six to ten on a side, and the members of each phratry as- semble together but upon opposite sides of the field in which the game is played. Before it commences, articles of personal property are hazarded upon the result by members of the opposite phratries. These are deposited with keepers to abide the event. The game is played with spirit and enthusiasm, and is an exciting spectacle*

IHOQUOIS PHRATRT 95

The members of each phratry, from their opposite sta- tions, watcli the game with eagerness, and cheer their respective players at every successful turn of the game. l

In many ways the phratric organization manifested it- self. At a council of the tribe the sachems and chiefs in each phratry usually seated themselves on opposite sides of an imaginary council-fire, and the speakers ad- dressed the two opposite bodies as the representatives of the phratries. Formalities, such as these, have a pecu- liar charm for the Red Man in the transaction of busi- ness.

Again ; when a murder had been committed it was usual for the gens of the murdered person to meet in council; and, after ascertaining the facts, to take meas- ures for avenging the deed. The gens of the criminal also held a council, and endeavored to effect an adjust- ment or condonation of the crime with the gens of the murdered person. r>ut it often happened that the gens of the criminal called upon the other gcntes of their phratry, when the slayer and the slain belonged to op- posite phratries, to unite with them to obtain a condo- nation of the crime. In such a case the phratry held a council, and then addressed itself to the other phratry to which it sent a delegation with a belt of white wam- pum asking for a council of the phratry, and for an ad- justment of the crime. They offered reparation to the family and gens of the murdered person in expressions \of regret and in presents of value. Negotiations were continued between the two councils until an affirmative or a negative conclusion was reached. The influence of a phratry composed of several gentes would be greater than that of a single gens ; and by calling into action the opposite phratry the probability of a condonation would be increased, especially if there were extenuating cir- cumstances. We may thus see how naturally the Gre- cian phratry, prior to civilization, assumed the principal though not exclusive management of cases of murder, and also of the purification of the murderer if he escaped

"League of the Iroquois," p. 294.

96 ANCIENT SOCIETY

punishment; and, after the institution of political society, with what proprietry the phratry assumed the duty of prosecuting the murderer in the courts of justice.

At the funerals of persons of recognized importance in the tribe, the phratric organization manifested itself in a conspicuous manner. The phrators of the decedent in a body were the mourners, and the members of the op- posite phratry conducted the ceremonies. In the case of a sachem it was usual for the opposite phratry to send, immediately after the funeral, the official wampum belt of the deceased ruler to the central council fire at On- ondaga, as a notification of his demise. This was re- tained until the installation of his successor, when it was bestowed upon him as the insignia* of his office. At the funeral of Handsome Lake (Ga-ne-o-di'-yo), one of the eight Seneca sachems (which occurred some years ago), there was an assemblage of sachems and chiefs to the number of twenty-seven, and a large concourse of mem- bers of both phratries. The customary address to the dead body, and the other addressess before the removal of the body, were made by members of the opposite phratry. After the addressess were concluded, the body was borne to the grave by persons selected from the last named phratry, followed, first, by the sachems and chiefs, then by the family and gens of the decedent, next by his remaining phrators, and last by the members of the opposite phratry. After the body had been deposited in the grave the sachems and chiefs formed in a circle around it for the purpose of filling it with earth. Each in turn, commencing with the senior in years, cast in three shovelfuls, a typical number in their religious sys- tem ; of which the first had relation to the Great Spirit, the second to the Sun, and the third to Mother Earth, When the grave was filled the senior sachem, by a figure of speech, deposited "the horns'* of the departed sachem, emblematical of his office, upon the top of the grave over his head, there to remain until his successor was installed. In that subsequent ceremony, "the horns" were said to be taken from the grave of the1 deceased ruler, and

IROQUOIS PHRATRT ff

placed upon the head of his successor. l The social and religious functions of the phratry, and its naturalness in the organic system of ancient society, are rendered ap- parent by this single usage.

The phratry was also directly concerned in the elec- tion of sachems and chiefs of the several gentes, upon which they had a negative as well as a confirmative vote. After the gens of a deceased sachem had elected his suc- cessor, or had elected a chief of the second grade, it was necessary, as elsewhere stated, that their choice should be accepted and confirmed by each phratry. It was ex- pected that the gentes of the same phratry would con- firm the choice almost as a matter of course ; but the op- posite phratry also must acquiesce, and from this source opposition sometimes appeared. A council ofc each phra- try was held and pronounced upon the question of ac- ceptance or rejection. If the nomination made was ac- cepted by both it became complete ; but if either refused it was thereby set aside, and a new election was made by the gens. When the choice made by the gens had been accepted by the phratries, it was still necessary, as be- fore stated, that the new sachem, or the new chief, should be invested by the council of the confederacy, which alone had power to invest, with office.

The Senecas have now lost their Medicine Lodges which fell out in modern times ; but they formerly ex- isted and formed a prominent part of their religious sys- tem. To hold a Medicine Lodge was to observe their highest religious rites, and to practice their highest reli- gious mysteries. They had two such organizations, one in each phratry, which shows still further the natural connection of the phratry with religious observances.

Very little is now known concerning these lodges or

»

t It was a journey of ten days from earth to heaven for the departed spirit, according: to Iroquoia belief. For ten days after the death of a person, the mourners met nightly to lament the deceased, at which they Indulged In excessive grief. The dtrge or wall was performed by women. It was an ancient custom to make a fire on the grave each night for the same period* On the eleventh day they held a feast; the spirit of the departed having reached heaven, the place of rest, there was no further cause for mourning. With the feast It terminated.

ftg ANCIENT SOCIETY

tbc;r ceremonies. Each was a brotherhood, into which new members were admitted by a formal initiation.

The phratry was without governmental functions in the strict sense of the phrase, these being confined to the gens, tribe and confederacy ; but it entered into their so- cial affairs with large administrative powers, and would have concerned itself more and more with their religious affairs as the condition of the people advanced. Un- like the Grecian phratry and the Roman curia it had no official head. There was no chief of the phratry as such, and no religious functionaries belonging to it as distin- guished from the gens and tribe. The phratric institu- tion among the Iroquois was in its rudimentary archaic form, but it grew into life by natural and inevitable de- velopment, and remained permanent because it met neces- sary wants. Every institution of mankind which attained permanence will be found linked with a perpetual want. With the gens, tribe and confederacy in existence the presence of the phratry was substantially assured. It required time, however, and further experience to mani- fest all the uses to which it might be made subservient.

Among the Village Indians of Mexico and Central America the phratry must have existed, reasoning upon general priciples; and have been a more fully developed and influential organization than among the Iroquois. Unfortunately, mere glimpses at such an institution are all that can be found in the teeming narratives of the Spanish writers within the first century after the Spanish conquest. The four "lineages" of the Tlascalans who occupied the four quarters of the pueblo of Tlascala, were, in all probability, so many phratries. They were sufficiently numerous for four tribes; but as they occu- pied the same pueblo and spoke the same dialect the phra- tric organization was apparently a necessity. Each line- age, or phratry so to call it, had a distinct military or- ganization, a peculiar costume and banner, and its head war-chief (Teuctli), who was its general military com- mander. They went forth to battle by phratries. The organization of a military force by phratries and by tribes was not unknown to the Homeric Greeks* Thus ;

IROQUOIS PHRATRT 09

Nestor advises Agamemnon to "separate the troops by phratries and by tribes, so that phratry may support phratry and tribe tribe." l Under gentile institutions of the most advanced type the principle of kin became, to a considerable extent, the basis of the army organization. The Aztecs, in like manner, occupied the pueblo of Mex- ico in four distinct divisions, the people of each of which were more nearly related to each other than to the peo- ple of the other divisions. They were separate lineages, like the Tlascalan, and it seems highly probably were four phratries, separately organized as such. They were distinguished from each other by costumes and stand- ards, and went out to war as separate divisions. Their geographical areas were called the four quarters of Mex- ico. This subject will be referred to again.

With respect to the prevalence of this organization, among the Indian tribes in the Lower Status of barbar- ism, the subject has been but slightly investigated. It is probable that it was general in the principal tribes, from the natural manner in which it springs up as a necessary member of the organic series, and from the uses, other than governmental, lo which it was adapted.

In some of the tribes the phratries stand out promi- nently upon the face of their organization. Thus, the Chocta gentes are united in two phratries which must be mentioned first in order to show the relation of the gentes to each other. The first phratry is called "Di- vided People," and also contains four gentes. The sec- ond is called "Beloved People/' and also contains four gentes. This separation of the people into two divisions by gentes created two phratries. Some knowledge of the functions of these phratries is of course desirable; but without it the fact of their existence is established by the divisions themselves. The evolution of a confederacy from a pair of gentes, for less than two are never found in any tribe, may he deduced, theoretically, from the known facts of Indian experience. Thus, the gens in- creases in the number of its members and divides into

"Iliad," 11, 362.

100 ANCIENT SOCIETT

two; these again subdivide, and in time reunite in two or more phratries. These phratries form a tribe, and its members speak the same dialect. In course of time