Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines Part 7

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER III.

COMMUNISM IN LIVING.

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

THEIR COMMUNISM IN LIVING.

Communism in living had its origin in the necessities of the family, which, prior to the Later Period of barbarism, was too weak an organization to face alone the struggle of life. In savagery and in the Older and the Middle Period of barbarism the family was in the syndyasmian or pairing form into which it had pa.s.sed 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 acc.u.mulation 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 pa.s.sage-way through the center, a door at each end, and with the interior part.i.tioned off at intervals of about seven feet. Each apartment or stall thus formed was open for its entire width upon the pa.s.sage-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: Doc.u.mentary History of New York, i, 13.]

Whatever was gained by any member of the household on hunting or fis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sage-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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ftless 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 kins.h.i.+p, 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 owners.h.i.+p 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 dest.i.tution 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 cl.u.s.ters, each cl.u.s.ter 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 cl.u.s.ters of four, five, six, seven, and eight together.... Each cl.u.s.ter 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 cl.u.s.ter 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 pa.s.sage 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 s.p.a.ce of twelve or fifteen inches, the whole length of the house, for the purpose of admitting the light and suffering the smoke to pa.s.s 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sociation. 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.