COMMUNISM IN LIVING.
We are now to consider the remaining usages and customs named in the
last chapter.
THEIR COMMUNISM IN LIVING.
Communism in living had its origin in the necessities of the family,
which, prior to the Later Period of barbarism, was too weak an
organization to face alone the struggle of life. In savagery and in
the Older and the Middle Period of barbarism the family was in the
syndyasmian or pairing form into which it had passed from a previous
lower form. [Footnote: Ancient Society, p. 459.]
Wherever the gentile organization prevailed, several families,
related by kin, united as a rule in a common household and made a
common stock of the provisions acquired by fishing and hunting, and
by the cultivation of maize and plants. They erected joint tenement
houses large enough to accommodate several families, so that,
instead of a single family in the exclusive occupation of a single
house, large households as a rule existed in all parts of America in
the aboriginal period. This community of provisions was limited to
the household; but a final equalization of the means of subsistence
was in some measure affected by the law of hospitality. To a very
great extent communism in living was a necessary result of the
condition of the Indian tribes. It entered into their plan of life
and determined the character of their houses. In effect it was a
union of effort to procure subsistence, which was the vital and
commanding concern of life. The desire for individual accumulation
had not been aroused in their minds to any sensible extent. It is
made evident by a comparison of the conditions of barbarous tribes
on different continents that communism has widely prevailed among
them, and that the influence of this ancient practice had not
entirely disappeared among the more advanced tribes when
civilization finally appeared. The common meal-bin of the ancient
and the common tables of the later Greeks seem to be survivals of an
older communism in living. This practice, though never investigated
as a specialty, may be shown by the known customs of a number of
Indian tribes, and may be confirmed by an examination of the plans
of their houses.
Our first illustration will be taken from the usages of the Iroquois.
In their villages they constructed houses, consisting of frames of
poles covered with bark, thirty, fifty, eighty, and a hundred feet
in length, with a passage-way through the center, a door at each end,
and with the interior partitioned off at intervals of about seven
feet. Each apartment or stall thus formed was open for its entire
width upon the passage-way. These houses would accommodate five, ten,
and twenty families, according to the number of apartments, one
being usually allotted to a family. Each household was made up on
the principle of kin. The married women, usually sisters, own or
collateral, were of the same gens or clan, the symbol or totem of
which was often painted upon the house, while their husbands and
the wives of their sons belong to several other gentes. The
children were of the gens of their mother. While husband and
wife belonged to different gentes, the preponderating number
in each household would be of the same gens, namely, that of
their mothers. As a rule the sons brought home their wives, and
in some cases the husbands of the daughters were admitted to
the maternal house. Thus each household was composed of a
mixture of persons of different gentes; but this would not
prevent the numerical ascendency of the particular gens to
whom the house belonged. In a village of one hundred and twenty
houses, as the Seneca village of Tiotohatton described by
Mr. Greenbalgh i n 1677, there would be several such houses
belonging to each gens. It presented a general picture of Indian
life in all parts of America at the epoch of European discovery.
[Footnote: Documentary History of New York, i, 13.]
Whatever was gained by any member of the household on hunting or
fishing expeditions, or was raised by cultivation, was made a common
stock. Within the house they lived from common stores. Each house
had several fires, usually one for each four apartments, which was
placed in the middle of the passage-way and without a chimney. Every
household was organized under a matron who supervised its domestic
economy. After the single daily meal was cooked at the several fires
the matron was summoned, and it was her duty to divide the food,
from the kettle, to the several families according to their
respective needs. What remained was placed in the custody of another
person until it was required by the matron. The Iroquois lived in
houses of this description as late as A. D. 1700, and in occasional
instances a hundred years later. An elderly Seneca woman informed
the writer, thirty years ago, that when she was a girl she lived in
one of these joint tenement houses (called by them long-houses),
which contained eight families and two fires, and that her mother
and her grandmother, in their day, had acted as matrons over one of
these large households. [Footnote: The late Mrs. William Parker, of
Tonawanda.]
This mere glimpse at the ancient Iroquois plan of life, now entirely
passed away, and of which remembrance is nearly lost, is highly
suggestive. It shows that their domestic economy was not without
method, and it displays the care and management of woman, low down
in barbarism, for husbanding their resources and for improving their
condition. A knowledge of these houses, and how to build them, is
not even yet lost among the Senecas. Some years ago Mr. William
Parker, a Seneca chief, constructed for the writer a model of one of
these long-houses, showing in detail its external and internal
mechanism.
The late Rev. Ashur Wright, DD., for many years a missionary among
the Senecas, and familiar with their language and customs, wrote to
the author in 1873 on the subject of these households, as follows:
"As to their family system, when occupying the old long-houses, it
is probable that some one clan predominated, the women taking in
husbands, however, from the other clans; and sometimes, for a novelty,
some of their sons bringing in their young wives until they felt
brave enough to leave their mothers. Usually, the female portion
ruled the house, and were doubtless clannish enough about it. The
stores were in common; but woe to the luckless husband or lover who
was too shiftless to do his share of the providing. No matter how
many children or whatever goods he might have in the house, he might
at any time be ordered to pick up his blanket and budge; and after
such orders it would not be healthful for him to attempt to disobey;
the house would be too hot for him; and unless saved by the
intercession of some aunt or grandmother he must retreat to his own
clan, or as was often done, go and start a new matrimonial alliance
in some other. The women wore the great power among the clans, as
everywhere else. They did not hesitate, when occasion required, to
'knock off the horns,' as it was technically called, from the head
of a chief and send him back to the ranks of the warriors. The
original nomination of the chiefs also always rested with them."
The mother-right and gyneocracy among the Iroquois here plainly
indicated is not overdrawn. The mothers and their children, as we
have seen, were of the same gens, and to them the house belonged. It
was a gentile house. In case of the death of father or mother, the
apartments they occupied could not be detached from the kinship, but
remained to its members. The position of the mother was eminently
favorable to her influence in the household, and tended to
strengthen the maternal bond. We may see in this an ancient phase of
human life which has had a wide prevalence in the tribes of
mankind, Asiatic, European, African, American, and Australian. Not
until after civilization had begun among the Greeks, and gentile
society was superseded by political society, was the influence
of this old order of society overthrown. It left behind, at least
among the Grecian tribes, deep traces of its previous existence.
[Footnote: These statements illustrate the gyneocracy and
mother-right among the ancient Grecian tribes discussed by Bachofen
in "Das Mutterrecht." The phenomena discovered by Bachofen owes
its origin, probably, to descent in the female line, and to the
junction of several families in one house, on the principle of kin,
as among the Iroquois.]
Among the Iroquois, those who formed a household and cultivated
gardens gathered the harvest and stored it in their dwelling as a
common stock. There was more or less of individual ownership of
these products, and of their possession by different families. For
example, the corn, after stripping back the husk, was braided by the
husk in bunches and hung up in the different apartments; but when
one family had exhausted its supply, their wants were supplied by
other families so long as any remained. Each hunting and fishing
party made a common stock of the capture, of which the surplus, on
their return, was divided among the several families of each
household, and, having been cured, was reserved for winter use The
village did not make a common stock of their provisions, and thus
offer a bounty to imprudence It was confined to the household But
the principle of hospitality then came in to relieve the
consequences of destitution We can speak with some confidence of the
ancient usages and customs of the Iroquois; and when any usage is
found among them in a definite and positive form, it renders
probable the existence of the same usage in other tribes in the same
condition, because their necessities were the same.
In the History of Virginia, by Capt. John Smith, the houses of the
Powhatan Indians are partially described, and are found to be much
the same as those of the Iroquois We have already quoted from this
work the description of a house on Roanoke Island containing five
chambers. Speaking of the houses in the vicinity of James River in
1606-1608, he remarks, "Their houses are built like our arbors, of
small young sprigs bowed and tied, and so close covered with mats,
or the bark of trees, very handsomely, that notwithstanding either
wind, rain, or weather, they are as warm as stoves but very smoky,
yet at the top of the house there is a hole made for the smoke to go
into right over the fire. Against the fire they lie on little
hurdles of reeds covered with a mat, borne from the ground a foot
and more by a hurdle of wood On these, round about the house, they
lie, heads and points, one by the other, against the fire, some
covered with mats, some with skins, and some stark naked lie on the
ground, from six to twenty in a house.... In some places are from
two to fifty of these houses together, or but little separated by
groves of trees." [Footnote: Smith's History of Virginia, Richmond
ed., 1819, i, 130]
The noticeable fact in this statement is the number of persons in
the house, which shows a household consisting of several families
Their communism in living may be inferred Elsewhere he speaks of
"houses built after their manner, some thirty, some forty yards long,"
and speaking of one of the houses of Powhatan he says, "This house
is fifty or sixty yards in length," and again, at Pamunk, "A great
fire was made in a long-house, a mat was spread on one side as on
the other, and on one side they caused him to sit." [Footnote: 5,
Ib, 1, 142, 143; Smith's Hist. Va., Richmond ed., 1819, i, 160.]
We here find among the Virginia Indians at the epoch of their
discovery long-houses very similar to the long-houses of the Iroquois,
with the same evidence of a large household. It may safely be taken
as a rule that every Indian household in the aboriginal period,
whether large or small, lived from common stores.
Mr. Caleb Swan, who visited the Creek Indians of Georgia in 1790,
found the people living in small houses or cabins, but in clusters,
each cluster being occupied by a part of a gens or clan. He remarks
that "the smallest of their towns have from ten to forty houses, and
some of the largest from fifty to two hundred, that are tolerably
compact. These houses stand in clusters of four, five, six,
seven, and eight together.... Each cluster of houses contains
a clan or family of relations who eat and live in common."
[Footnote: Schoolcraft's Hist. Cond. and Pros. of Indian Tribes,
vol. v. 262.]
Here the fact of several families uniting on the principle of kin,
living in a cluster of houses, and practicing communism, is
expressly stated.
James Adair, writing still earlier of the southern Indians of the
United States generally, remarks in a passage before quoted, as
follows: "I have observed, with much inward satisfaction, the
community of goods that prevailed among them.... And though they do
not keep one promiscuous common stock, yet it is to the very same
effect, for every one has his own family or tribe, and when any one
is speaking either of the individuals or habitations of his own
tribe, he says, 'He is of my house,' or, 'It is my house.'"
[Footnote: History of the American Indians, p. 17.]
It is singular that this industrious investigator did not notice,
what is now known to be the fact, that all these tribes were
organized in gentes and phratries. It would have rendered his
observations upon their usages and customs more definite. Elsewhere
he remarks further that "formerly the Indian law obliged every town
to work together in one body, in sewing or planting their crops,
though their fields were divided by proper marks, and their harvest
is gathered separately. The Cherokees and Muscogees [Creeks] still
observe that old custom, which is very necessary for such idle people."
[Footnote: ib., p. 430.]
They cultivated, like the Iroquois, three kinds of maize, an
"early variety," the "hominy corn," and the "bread corn," also beans,
squashes, pumpkins, and tobacco. [Footnote: History of the American
Indians, p. 430] Chestnuts, a tuberous root something like the
potato but gathered in the marshes, berries, fish, and game, entered
into their subsistence. Like the Iroquois, they made unleavened
bread of maize flour, which was boiled in earthen vessels, in the
form of cakes, about six inches in diameter and an inch thick.
[Footnote: ib. pp. 406, 408.] Among the tribes of the plains, who
subsist almost exclusively upon animal food, their usages in the
hunt indicate the same tendency to communism in food. The Blackfeet,
during the buffalo hunt, follow the herds on horseback in large
parties, composed of men, women, and children. When the active
pursuit of the herd commences, the hunters leave the dead animals in
the track of the chase to be appropriated by the first persons who
come up behind. This method of distribution is continued until all
are supplied. All the Indian tribes who hunt upon the plains, with
the exception of the half-blood Crees, observe the same custom of
making a common stock of the capture. It tended to equalize, at the
outset, the means of subsistence obtained. They cut the beef into
strings, and either dried it in the air or in the smoke of a fire.
Some of the tribes made a part of the capture into pemmican, which
consists of dried and pulverized meat mixed with melted buffalo fat,
which is baled in the hide of the animal.
During the fishing season in the Columbia River, where fish are more
abundant than in any other river on the earth, all the members of
the tribe encamp together, and make a common stock of the fish
obtained. They are divided each day according to the number of women,
giving to each an equal share. At the Kootenay Falls, for example,
they are taken by spearing, and in huge baskets submerged in the
water below the falls. The salmon, during the spring run, weigh from
six to forty pounds, and are taken in the greatest abundance, three
thousand a day not being an unusual number. Father De Smet, the late
Oregon missionary, informed the writer, in 1862, that he once spent
several days with the Kootenays at these falls, and that the share
which fell to him, as one of the party, loaded, when dried, thirty
pack mules. The fish are split open, scarified, and dried on
scaffolds, after which they are packed in baskets and then removed
to their villages. This custom makes a general distribution of the
capture, and leaves each household in possession of its share.
[Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to chapter end.]
Their communism in living is involved in the size of the household,
which ranged from ten to forty persons. "The houses of the Sokulks
are made of large mats of rushes, and are generally of a square or
oblong form, varying in length from fifteen to sixty feet; the top
is covered with mats, leaving a space of twelve or fifteen inches,
the whole length of the house, for the purpose of admitting the
light and suffering the smoke to pass through; the roof is nearly
flat ... and the house is not divided into apartments, the fire
being in the middle of the large room, and immediately under the
hole in the roof.... On entering one of these houses he [Captain
Clarke] found it crowded with men, women, and children, who
immediately provided a mat for him to sit on, and one of the party
immediately undertook to prepare something to eat." [Footnote: Lewis
and Clarke's Travels, pp. 351-353.]
Again: "He landed before five houses close to each other, but no one
appeared, and the doors, which were of mats, were closed. He went
towards one of them with a pipe in his hand, and pushing aside the
mat entered the lodge, where he found thirty-two persons, chiefly
men and women, with a few children, all in the greatest consternation."
[Footnote: ib., p. 357.] And again: "This village being part of the
same nation with the village we passed above, the language of the
two being the same, and their houses being of the same form and
materials, and calculated to contain about thirty souls."
[Footnote: ib., p. 376.]
In enumerating the people Lewis and Clarke often state the number of
inhabitants with the number of houses, thus:
"The Killamucks, who number fifty houses and a thousand souls."
"The Chilts, who ... are estimated at seven hundred souls and
thirty-eight houses."
"The Clamoitomish, of twelve houses and two hundred and sixty souls."
"The Potoashees, of ten houses and two hundred souls."
"The Pailsk, of ten houses and two hundred souls."
"The Quinults, of sixty houses and one thousand souls."
[Footnote: Lewis and Clarke's Travels, pp. 426-428.]
Speaking generally of the usages and customs of the tribes of the
"Columbia plains," they make the following statements: "Their large
houses usually contain several families, consisting of the parents,
their sons and daughters-in-law and grandchildren, among whom the
provisions are common, and whose harmony is scarcely ever
interrupted by disputes. Although polygamy is permitted by their
customs, very few have more than a single wife, and she is brought
immediately after the marriage into the husband's family, where she
resides until increasing numbers oblige them to seek another house.
In this state the old man is not considered the head of the family,
since the active duties, as well as the responsibility, fall on some
of the younger members. As these families gradually expand into bands,
or tribes, or nations, the paternal authority is represented by the
chief of each association. This chieftain, however, is not hereditary."
[Footnote: ib., p. 443.] Here we find among the Columbian tribes, as
elsewhere, communism in living, but restricted to large households
composed of several families.
A writer in Harper's Magazine, speaking of the Aleutians, remarks:
"When first discovered this people were living in large yurts, or
dirt houses, partially underground ... having the entrances through
a hole in the top or centre, going in and out on a rude ladder.
Several of these ancient yurts were very large, as shown by the ruins,
being from thirty to eighty yards long and twenty to forty in width....
In these large yurts the primitive Aleuts lived by fifties and
hundreds for the double object of protection and warmth."
[Footnote: Harper's Magazine, vol. 55, p. 806.]
Whether these tribes at this time were organized in gentes and
phratries is not known. At the time of the Wilkes expedition
(1838-1842) the gentile organization did not exist among them;
neither does it now exist; but it is still found among the tribes
of the Northwest Coast, and among the Indian tribes generally. The
composition of the household, as here described, is precisely like
the household of the Iroquois prior to A.D. 1700.
The Mandan village contained at the time of Catlin's visit (1832),
as elsewhere stated, about fifty houses and about fifteen hundred
people. "These cabins are so spacious," Catlin remarks, "that they
hold from twenty to forty persons--a family and all their connections....
From the great numbers of the inmates in these lodges they are
necessarily very spacious, and the number of beds considerable. It
is no uncommon thing to see these lodges fifty feet in diameter
inside (which is an immense room), with a row of these curtained
beds extending quite around their sides, being some ten or twelve of
them, placed four or five feet apart, and the space between them
occupied by a large post, fixed quite firmly in the ground, and six
or seven feet high, with large wooden pegs or bolts in it, on which
are hung or grouped, with a wild and startling taste, the arms and
armor of the respective proprietors." [Footnote: North American
Indians, Philadelphia ed., 1857, i, 139.]
The household, according to the custom of the Indians, was a large
one. The number of inhabitants divided among the number of houses
would give an average of thirty persons to each house. It is evident
from several statements of Catlin before given that the household
practiced communism in living, and that it was formed of related
families, on the principle of gentile kin, as among the Iroquois.
Elsewhere he intimates that the Mandans kept a public store or
granary as a refuge for the whole community in a time of scarcity.
[Footnote: ib., i, 210.]
In like manner Carver, speaking generally of the usages and customs
of the Dakota tribes and of the tribes of Wisconsin, remarks that
"they will readily share with any of their own tribe the last part
of their provisions, and even with those of a different nation, if
they chance to come in when they are eating. Though they do not keep
one common store, yet that community of goods which is so prevalent
among them, and their generous disposition, render it nearly of the
same effect." [Footnote: Travels, etc, p. 171.]
What this author seems to state is that community of goods existed
in the household, and that it was lengthened out to the tribe by the
law of hospitality. Elsewhere, speaking of the large village of the
Sauks, he says: "This is the largest Indian town I ever saw. It
contains about ninety houses, each large enough for several families."
[Footnote: Travels, etc., Phila. ed. 1796, p. 29.]
In a previous chapter (supra p. 49.) Heckewelder's observations upon
hospitality among the Delawares and Munsees, implying the principle
of communism, have been given. He remarks further that "there is
nothing in an Indian's house or family without its particular owner.
Every individual knows what belongs to him, from the horse or cow
down to the dog, cat, kitten, and little chicken.... For a litter of
kittens or a brood of chickens there are often as many different
owners as there are individual animals. In purchasing a hen with her
brood one frequently has to deal for it with several children. Thus,
while the principle of community of goods prevails in the State, the
rights of property are acknowledged among the members of the family.
This is attended with a very good effect, for by this means every
living creature is properly taken care of." [Footnote: Indian Nations,
p. 158.]
I do not understand what Heckewelder means by the remark that
"the principle of community of goods prevails in the state," unless
it be that the rule of hospitality was so all-pervading that it was
tantamount to a community of goods, while individual property was
everywhere recognized until it was freely surrendered. This may be
the just view of the result of their communism and hospitality, but
it is a higher one than I have been able to take.
The household of the Mandans consisting of from twenty to forty
persons, the households of the Columbian tribes of about the same
number, the Shoshone household of seven families, the households of
the Sauks, of the Iroquois, and of the Creeks each composed of
several families, are fair types of the households of the Northern
Indians at the epoch of their discovery. The fact is also
established that these tribes constructed as a rule large joint
tenement houses, each of which was occupied by a large household
composed of several families, among whom provisions were in common,
and who practiced communism in living in the household.
Among the Village Indians of New Mexico a more advanced form of
house architecture appears, and their joint tenement character is
even more pronounced. They live in large houses, two, three, and
four stories high, constructed of adobe brick, and of stone imbedded
in adobe mortar, and containing fifty, a hundred, two hundred, and
in some cases five hundred apartments in a house. They are built in
the terraced form, with fireplaces and chimneys added since their
discovery, the first story closed up solid, and is entered by ladders,
which ascend to the platform-roof of the first story. These houses
are fortresses, and were erected as strongholds to resist the
attacks of the more barbarous tribes by whom they were perpetually
assailed. Each house was probably occupied by a number of household
groups, whose apartments were doubtless separated from each other by
partition walls. In a subsequent chapter the character of these
houses will be more fully shown.
Our knowledge of the plan of life in these houses in the aboriginal
period is still very imperfect. They still practice the old
hospitality, own their lands in common, but with allotments to
individuals and to families, and are governed by a cacique or sachem
and certain other officers annually elected. An American missionary
to the Laguna Village Indians, Rev. Samuel Gorman, in an address
before the Historical Society of New Mexico in 1869, remarks as
follows: "They generally marry very young, and the son-in-law
becomes the servant of the father-in-law, and very often they all
live together in one family for years, even if there be several
sons-in-law; and this clannish mode of living is often, if not
generally, a fruitful source of evil among this people. Their women
generally have control over the granary, and they are more provident
than their Spanish neighbors about the future. Ordinarily they try
to have one year's provisions on hand. It is only when they have two
years of scarcity succeeding each other that pueblos as a community
suffer hunger." [Footnote: Address, p. 14.]
The usages of these Indians have doubtless modified in the last two
hundred years under Spanish influence; they have decreased in numbers,
and the family group is probably smaller than formerly. But it is
not too late to recover the aboriginal plan of life among them if
the subject were intelligently investigated. It is to be hoped that
some one will undertake this work.
The Spanish writers do not mention the practice of communism in
living as existing among the Village Indians of Mexico or Central
America. They are barren of practical information concerning their
mode of life; but we have the same picture of large households
composed of several families, whose communism in the household may
reasonably be inferred.
We have also the striking illustration of "Montezuma's Dinner,"
hereafter to be noticed, which was plainly a dinner in common by a
communal household. Beside these facts we have the ownership of
lands in common by communities of persons. Moreover, the ruins of
ancient houses in Central and South America, and in parts of Mexico,
show very plainly their joint tenement character. From the plans of
these houses the communism of the people by households may be
deduced theoretically with reasonable certainty.
Yucatan, when discovered, was occupied by a number of tribes of Maya
Indians. The Maya language spread beyond the limits of Yucatan. This
region, with Chiapas, Guatemala, and a part of Honduras, contained
and still contains evidence, in the ruins of ancient structures, of
a higher advancement in the arts of life than any other part of
North America. The present Maya Indians of Yucatan are the
descendants of the people who occupied the country at the period of
the Spanish conquest, and who occupied the massive stone houses now
in ruins, from which they were forced by Spanish oppression.
We have a notable illustration of communism in living among the
present Maya Indians, as late as the year 1840, through the work of
John L Stephens. At Nohcacab, a few miles east of the ruins of Uxmal,
Mr. Stephens, having occasion to employ laborers, went to a
settlement of Maya Indians, of whom he gives the following account:
"Their community consists of a hundred labradores, or working men;
their lands are held and wrought in common, and the products are
shared by all. Their food is prepared at one hut, and every family
sends for its portion, which explains a singular spectacle we had
seen on our arrival, a procession of women and children, each
carrying an earthen bowl containing a quantity of smoking hot broth,
all coming down the same road, and disappearing among the different
huts. Every member belonging to the community, down to the smallest
pappoose, contributing in turn a hog. From our ignorance of the
language, and the number of other and more pressing matters claiming
our attention, we could not learn all the details of their internal
economy, but it seemed to approximate that improved state of
association which is sometimes heard of among us; and as theirs has
existed for an unknown length of time, and can no longer be
considered merely experimental, Owen on Fourier might perhaps take
lessons from them with advantage." [Footnote: Incidents of Travel in
Yucatan, ii, 14.]
A hundred working men indicate a total of five hundred persons, who
were then depending for their daily food upon a single fire, the
provisions being supplied from common stores, and divided from the
caldron. It is, not unlikely, a truthful picture of the mode of life
of their forefathers in the "House of the Nuns," and in the
"Governor's House" at Uxmal, at the epoch of the Spanish conquest.
It is well known that Spanish adventurers captured these pueblos,
one after the other, and attempted to enforce the labor of the
Indians for personal ends, and that the Indians abandoned their
pueblos and retreated into the inaccessible forests to escape
enslavement, after which their houses of stone fell into decay, the
ruins of which, and all there ever was of them, still remain in all
parts of these countries.
It is hardly supposable that the communism here described by Mr.
Stephens was a new thing to the Mayas; but far more probable that it
was a part of their ancient mode of life, to which these ruined
houses were eminently adapted. The subject of the adaptation of the
old pueblo houses in Yucatan and Central America to communism in
living will be elsewhere considered.
When Columbus first landed on the island of Cuba, he sent two men
into the interior, who reported that "they traveled twenty-two
leagues, and found a village of fifty houses, built like those
before spoken of, and they contained about one thousand persons,
because a whole generation lived in a house; and the prime men came
out to meet them, led them by the arms, and lodged them in one of
these new houses, causing them to sit down on seats ... and they
gave them boiled roots to eat, which tasted like chestnuts."
[Footnote: Herrera, i, 55.]
One of the first expeditions which touched the main land on the
coast of Venezuela in South America found much larger houses than
these last described. "The houses they dwelt in were common to all,
and so spacious that they contained one hundred and sixty persons,
strongly built, though covered with palm-tree leaves, and shaped
like a bell." [Footnote: ib., 216.]
Herrera further remarks of the same tribe, that "they observed no
law or rule in matrimony, but took as many wives as they would, and
they as many husbands, quitting one another at pleasure, without
reckoning any wrong done on either part. There was no such thing as
jealousy among them, all living as best pleased them, without taking
offense at one another." [Footnote: ib., i, 216.]
This shows communism in husbands as well as wives, and rendered
communism in food a necessity of their condition. Elsewhere the same
author speaks of the habitations of the tribes on the coast of
Carthagena. "Their houses were like long arbors, with several
apartments, and they had no beds but hammocks." [Footnote: ib., 348.]
Many similar statements are scattered through his work.
Among the more advanced tribes of Peru the lands were divided, and
allotted to different uses; one part was for the support of the
government, another for the support of religion, and another for
the support of individuals. The first two parts were cultivated by
the people under established regulations, and the crops were placed
in public storehouses. This is the statement of Garcilasso.
[Footnote: Royal Com. l. c., pp. 154, 157.]
Herrera, however, says generally that the people lived from common
stores. "The Spaniards drawing near to Caxamalca begun to have a
view of the Inca army lying near the bottom of a mountain.... They
were pleased to see the beauty of the fields, most regularly
cultivated, for it was an ancient law among these people that all
should be fed from common stores, and none should touch the standing
corn." [Footnote: Herrera, iv, 249.] The discrepancy between Herrera
and Garcilasso may perhaps be explained by the reservation of the
crops grown on lands set apart for the government and for religion.
The reason for presenting the foregoing observations of different
authors concerning the households, the houses, and the practice of
communism in food, has been to show, firstly, that the household of
the Indian tribes was a large one, composed of several families;
secondly, that their houses were constructed to accommodate several
families; and thirdly, that the household practiced communism in
living. These are the material facts, and they have been
sufficiently illustrated. The single family of civilized society
live from common stores, yet it is not communism; but where several
families coalesce in one common household and make a common stock of
their provisions, and this is found to be a general rule in entire
tribes, it is a form of communism important to be noticed. It is
seen to belong to a society in a low stage of development, where it
springs from the necessities of their condition. These usages and
customs exhibit their plan of life, and reveal the wide difference
between their condition and that of civilized society; between the
Indian family, without individuality, and the highly individualized
family of civilization.
[Relocated Footnote: Alfred W. Howitt, F. G. S., Bariusdale,
Australia, mentions, in a letter to the author, the following
singular custom of an Australian tribe concerning the distribution
of food in the family group:
A man catches seven river eels; they are divided thus (it is
supposed that his family consists only of these named):
1st eel. Front half himself; hind half his wife.
2d eel. Front half his wife's mother; hind half his wife's sister.
3d eel. Front half his elder sons; hind half his younger sons.
4th eel. Front half his elder daughters; hind half his younger
daughters.
5th eel. Front half his brother's sons; hind half his brother's
daughters.
6th eel. One whole eel to his married daughter's husband.
7th eel. One whole eel to his married daughter.
This custom may be supposed to show the ordinary household group,
and the order of their relative nearness to Ego. It foots up himself
and wife, wife's mother and sister, his sons and daughters, his
brother's sons and daughters, and his daughter's husband. It implies
also other members of the household, who are obliged to take care of
themselves: viz. his brothers and sisters.]