Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines Part 11

"3. Individuals, whatever might be their position or office, without any exception, held but the right to use certain defined lots for their sustenance, which right, although hereditary in the male line, was nevertheless limited to the conditions of residence within the area held by the kin, and of cultivation either by or in the name of him to whom the said lots were a.s.signed.

"4. No possessory rights to land were attached to any office or chieftaincy. As members of a kin, each chief had the use of a certain lot, which he could rent or farm to others, for his benefit.

"5. For the requirements of tribal business, and of the governmental features of the kins.h.i.+ps (public hospitality included), certain tracts were set apart as official lands, out of which the official households were supplied and sustained; but these lands and their products were totally independent from the persons or families of the chiefs themselves.

"6. Conquest of any tribe by the Mexicans was not followed by an annexation of that tribe's territory, nor by an apportionment of its soil among the conquerors. Tribute was exacted, and, for the purpose of raising that tribute (in part), special tracts were set off; the crops of which were gathered for the storehouses of Mexico.

"7. Consequently, as our previous investigations (of the warlike inst.i.tutions and customs of the ancient Mexicans) have disproved the generally received notion of a military despotism prevailing among them, so the results of his review of Tenure and distribution of lands tend to establish 'that the principle and inst.i.tution of feudality did not exist in aboriginal Mexico.'"

Among the Peruvians their land system was probably much the same as among the ancient Mexicans. But according to Garcilapo de la Vega, they had carried their system with respect to lands a little farther.

Their lands, he remarks, were "divided into three parts and applied to different uses. The first was for the Sun, his priests and ministers; the second was for the King, and for the support and maintenance of his governors and officers.... And the third was for the natives and sojourners of the provinces, which was divided equally according to the needs which each family required."

[Footnote: Royal Commentaries of Peru, Lond. ed., 1688. Rycaut, trans., p. 154.]

While these several statements may not present the exact case in all respects in Peru, Mexico, or among the Northern Indian tribes, they sufficiently indicate the owners.h.i.+p of land by communities of persons, larger or smaller, with a system of tillage that points to large households. Neither the Peruvians, nor the Aztecs, nor any Indian tribe had attained to a knowledge of the owners.h.i.+p of land in severalty in fee simple at the period of their discovery. This knowledge belongs to the period of civilization. There is not the slightest probability that any Indian, whether Iroquois, Mexican, or Peruvian, owned a foot of land that he could call his own, with power to sell and convey the same in fee simple to whomsoever he pleased.

THE CUSTOM OF HAVING BUT ONE PREPARED MEAL EACH DAY--A DINNER--AND THEIR SEPARATION AT MEALS, THE MEN EATING FIRST AND THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN AFTERWARDS.

This was the usage among the Indian tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism. In the Middle Status there seems to have been more method and regularity of life, but no change in their customs with respect to food, so marked in character that we are forced to recognize a new plan of domestic life among them. The Iroquois had but one cooked meal each day. It was as much as their resources and organization for housekeeping could furnish, and was as much as they needed. It was prepared and served usually before the noon-day hour, ten or eleven o'clock, and may be called a dinner. At this time the princ.i.p.al cooking for the day was done. After its division at the kettle, among the members of the household, it was served warm to each person in earthen or wooden bowls. They had neither tables, nor chairs, nor plates, in our sense, nor any room in the nature of a kitchen or a dining room, but ate each by himself, sitting or standing, and where most convenient to the person. They also separated as to the time of eating, the men eating first and by themselves, and the women and children afterwards and by themselves.

That which remained was reserved for any member of the household when hungry. Towards evening the women cooked hominy, the maize having been pounded into bits the size of a kernel of rice, which was boiled and put aside to be used cold as a lunch in the morning or evening, and for the entertainment of visitors. They had neither a formal breakfast nor a supper. Each person, when hungry, ate of whatever food the house contained. They were moderate eaters. This is a fair picture of Indian life in general in America, when discovered. After intercourse commenced with whites, the Iroquois gradually began to adopt our mode of life but very slowly. One of the difficulties was to change the old usage and accustom themselves to eat together. It came in by degrees, first with the breaking up of the old plan of living together in numbers in the old long-houses, and with the subst.i.tution of single houses for each family, which ended communism and living in the large household, and subst.i.tuted the subsistence of a single family through individual effort. After many years came the use of the table and chairs among the more advanced families of the Iroquois tribes. There are still upon the Iroquois reservations in this State many log homes or cabins with but a single room on the ground floor and a loft above, with neither a table or chair in their scanty furniture. A portion of them still live very much in the old style, with perhaps two regular meals daily instead of one. That they have made this much of change in the course of two centuries must be accounted remarkable, for they have been compelled, so to speak, to jump one entire ethnical period, without the experience or training of so many intervening generations, and without the brain-growth such a change of the plan of domestic life implies, when reached through natural individual experience.

There is a tradition still current among the Seneca-Iroquois, if the memory of so recent an occurrence may be called traditional, that when the proposition that man and wife should eat together, which was so contrary to immemorial usage, was first determined in the affirmative, it was formally agreed that man and wife should sit down together at the same dish and eat with the same ladle, the man eating first and then the woman, and so alternately until the meal was finished.

The testimony of such writers as have noticed the house-life of the Indian tribes is not uniform in respect to the number of meals a day.

Thus Catlin remarks, "As I have before observed these men (the Mandans) generally eat but twice a day, and many times not more than once, and these meals are light and simple.... The North American Indians, taking them in the aggregate, even when they have an abundance to subsist on, eat less than any civilized population of equal numbers that I have ever traveled among." [Footnote: North American Indians, Philadelphia ed., 1857, i, 203.]

And Heckewelder, speaking of the Delawares and other tribes, says: "They commonly make two meals every day, which they say is enough.

If any one should feel hungry between meal-times, there is generally something in the house ready for him."

[Footnote: Indian Nations, 193.] Adair contents himself with stating of the Chocta and Cherokee tribes that "they have no stated meal time."

[Footnote: History of the American Indian, Lond. ed., 1775, p. 17.]

There was doubtless some variation in different localities, and even in the same household; but as a general rule, from what is known of their mode of life, one prepared meal each day expresses very nearly all the people in this condition of society can do for the sustenance of mankind.

Although the sedentary Village Indians were one ethnical period in advance of the Northern Indians, there can be but little doubt that their mode of life in this respect was substantially the same. Among the Aztecs or ancient Mexicans a dinner was provided about midday, but we have no satisfactory account of a breakfast or a supper habitually and regularly prepared. Civilization, with its diversified industries, its multiplied products, and its monogamian family, affords a breakfast and supper in addition to a dinner. It is doubtful whether they are older than civilization; and even if they can be definitely traced backward into the older period of barbarism, there is little probability of their being found in the Middle period. Clavigero attempts to invest the Aztecs with a breakfast, but he was unable to find any evidence of a supper.

"After a few hours of labor in the morning," he observes, "they took their breakfast, which was most commonly atolli, a gruel of maize, and their dinner after midday; but among all the historians we can find no mention of their supper." [Footnote: History of Mexico, ii, 262.]

The "gruel of maize" here mentioned as forming usually the Aztec breakfast suggests the "hominy of the Iroquois," which, like it, was not unlikely kept constantly prepared in every Mexican house as a lunch for the hungry. Two meals each day are mentioned by other Spanish authors, but as the Aztecs, as well as the tribes in Yucatan and Central America, were ignorant of the use of tables and chairs in eating their food, divided their food from the kettle, placing the dinner of each person usually in a separate bowl, and separated at their meals, the men eating first and by themselves, and the women and children afterwards, this similarity of usage renders it probable they were not far removed from the Iroquois in respect to the time and manner of taking their food. Montezuma's dinner, witnessed by Bernal-Diaz and others, and elaborately described by a number of authors, shows that the Aztecs had a smoking hot dinner each day, prepared regularly, and on a scale adequate to a large household; that the dinner of each person was placed in one bowl, and all these bowls to the number of several hundred were brought in and set down together upon the floor of one room, where they were taken up one by one by the male members of the household, and the contents eaten sitting down upon the floor or standing in the open court, as best suited them. The breakfast that preceded it, and the supper that follows, are not mentioned, from which we infer that there was neither a breakfast nor a supper for these inquisitive observers to see. Neither is the subsequent dinner of the women and children of the household mentioned, from which it may be inferred that as the men ate their dinner first in a particular hall by themselves, the women and children took their dinner later in another hall, not seen by the Spaniards.

In the accounts of Montezuma's dinner a cook-house or kitchen is mentioned, in which the dinner for the large household of the "Tecpan" or "official house," so fully explained above by Mr.

Bandelier, was prepared. This kitchen, and the use of another room, where the bowls containing the dinner of each person separately were set down on the floor in a ma.s.s by themselves--an incipient dining-room--make their first appearance in the Middle Status of barbarism. But, as will be noticed, they are but rude realizations of the kitchen and dining-room of civilized man. The pueblo houses in Yucatan and Chiapas, now in ruins, are without chimneys, from which it may be inferred that no cooking was done within them. At Uxmal we recognize in the Governor's House, the Tecpan or official-house, and in the House of the Nuns, and other structures which formed the pueblo, the joint-tenement houses in which the body of the tribe resided. If the truth of the matter is ever ascertained, it will probably be found that the dinner for each household group, consisting of several families, was prepared in a common cook-house outside of the main structure, and that it was divided at the kettle to the individuals of each household.

The separation of the s.e.xes at their meals has been sufficiently referred to among the Iroquois. Robertson states the usage as general.

"They must approach their lords with reverence; they must regard them as more exalted beings, and are not permitted to eat in their presence." [Footnote: History of America, New York ed., 1856, 178.]

Catlin the same: "These women, however, although graceful and civil, and ever so beautiful, or ever so hungry, are not allowed to sit in the same group with the men while at their meals. So far as I have yet traveled in the Indian country, I have never seen an Indian woman eating with her husband. Men form the first group at the banquet, and women and children and dogs all come together at the next." [Footnote: North American Indians, i, 202.] And Adair "for the men feast by themselves and the women eat the remains."

[Footnote: History of the American Indians, p. 140.]

Herrera remarks that "the woman of Yucatan are rather larger than the Spanish and generally have good faces ... but they would formerly be drunk at their festivals, though they did eat apart."

[Footnote: History of America, iv, 175.] And Sahagun, speaking of the ceremony of baptism among the Aztecs, observes that "to the women, who ate apart, they did not give cacao to drink."

[Footnote: Historia General, lib. iv, 36]

With these general references to the universality of the practice on the part of the men of eating first, and leaving the women and children to come afterwards, according to the manners of barbarism, we leave the subject.

[Relocated Footnote 1: Torquemada (Lib. II, cap. LXVIII, p. 194) "Estaba de ordinario, recogido en una grande Sala (el calpul)."

(Lib. III, cap. XXVII, p. 305. Lib. IV, cap. XIX, p. 396) (que asi llaman las Salas grandes de Comunidad, o de Cabildo). We find, under the corrupted name of "galpon," the "calpulli" in Nicaragua among the Niquirans, which speak a dialect of the Mexican (Nahuatl) language. See E. G. Squier ("Nicaragua," Vol. II, p. 342). "The council-houses were called grepons, surrounded by broad corridors called galpons, beneath which the arms were kept, protected by a guard of young men". Mr. Squier evidently bases upon Oviedo ("Hist. general," Lib. XLII, cap. III, p. 52). "Esta casa de cabildo llaman galpon...." It is another evidence in favor of our statements, that the kins.h.i.+p formed the original unit of the tribe, and at the same time a hint that, as in New Mexico, originally, an entire kin inhabited a single large house. See Molina's Vocab. (p. 11).]

[Relocated Footnote 2: There is no evidence of any tribute or prestation due by the quarters to the tribe. The custom always remained, that the "calpulli" was sovereign within its limits. See Alonzo de Zunta ("Rapport sur les differentes cla.s.ses de chefs de la Nouvelle-Espagne," pp. 51-65). Besides, Ixtlilxochitl says: ("Hist. des Chichim," cap. x.x.xV, p. 242), "Other fields were called Calpolalli or Altepetlalli." Now calpulalli (from "calpulli,"

quarter or kins.h.i.+p, and "tlalli," soil), means soil of the kin, and altepetalli ("altepetl," tribe), soil of the tribe. Clavigero even says that the lands called "altepetlalli," belonging to the communities "of the towns and villages, were divided into so many parts as there were quarters in the town, each quarter having its own, without the least connection with the other." (Lib. VII, cap. XIV.) This indicates plainly that the kins.h.i.+ps held the soil, whereas the tribe occupied the territorial expanse. The domain, either as pertaining to a "lord," or to a "state", was unknown among the Indians in general. Even among the Peruvians, who were more advanced than the Mexicans in that respect, there was no domain of the tribe.]

[Relocated Footnote 3: See Torquemada (Lib. II, cap. XI, and Lib. III, cap. XXII). Duran (cap. V). The quotation is from Herrera (Dec. II, Lib. VII, cap. XIII, p. 190), and is confirmed by Torquemada (Lib.

III, cap. XXIII, p. 291), and especially by Gomara ("Conquista de Mejico," p. 443. Vedia, I.) "Many married people ('muchos casados') live in one house, either on account of the brothers and relations being together, as they do not divide their grounds ('heredades'), or on account of the limited s.p.a.ce of the pueblos; although the pueblos are large, and even the houses." Peter Martyr of Angleria ("De Novo Orbe," translated by Richard Eden and Michael Lok, London, 1612, Dec. V, cap. X, p. 228), says: "But the common houses themselves as high as a mannes Girdle, were also built of stone, by reason of the swelling of the lake through the flood, or was.h.i.+ng float of the Ryvers falling into it. Upon those greate foundations, they builded the reste of the house, with Bricke dryed, or burned in the sunne, intermingled with Beames of Tymber, and the common houses have but one floore or planchin." We are forcibly reminded here of the houses of Itza on Lake Peten, which were found in 1695.

("Hist. de la Conq. de los Itzaex," Lib. VIII, cap. XII, p. 494.) "It was all filled with houses, some with stone walls more than one rod high, and higher up of wood, and the roofs of straw, and some only of wood and straw. There lived in them all the Inhabitants of the Island brutally together, one relations.h.i.+p occupying a single house." See also the highly valuable Introduction to the second Dialogue of Cervantes-Salazar ("Mexico in 1554") by my excellent friend Sr. Icazbalceta (pp. 73 and 74).]

[Relocated Footnote 4: This successive formation of new "calpulli" is nowhere explicitly stated, but it is implied by the pa.s.sage of Duran which we have already quoted (Cap. V, p. 42). It also results from their military organization as described in the "Art of War" (p. 115).

With the increase of population, the original kins.h.i.+ps necessarily disaggregated further, as we have seen it to have occurred among the Quiche (see "Popul-Vuh," quoted in our note 7), forming smaller groups of consanguinei. After the successful war against the Tecpanecas, of which we shall speak hereafter, we find at least twenty chiefs, representing as many kins (Duran, cap. XI, p. 97), besides three more, adopted then from those of Culhuscan (Id., pp.

98 and 99). This indicates an increase.]

[Relocated Footnote 5: Torquemada (Lib. III, cap. XXIV, p. 295): "I confess it to be truth that this city of Mexico is divided into four princ.i.p.al quarters, each one of which contains others, smaller ones, included, and all, in common as well as in particular, have their commanders and leaders...." Zurita ("Rapport," p. 58-64).

That the smaller subdivisions were those who held the soil, and not the four original groups, must be inferred from the fact that the ground was attached to the calpulli. Says Zurita (p. 51), "They (the lands) do not belong to each inhabitant of the village, but to the calpulli, which possesses them in common." On the other hand, Torquemada states (Lib. XIV, cap. VII, p. 545), "That in each pueblo, according to the number of people, there should be (were) cl.u.s.ters ('parcialidades') of diverse people and families.... These cl.u.s.ters were distributed by calpules, which are quarters ('barrios'), and it happened that one of the aforesaid cl.u.s.ters sometimes contained three, four, and more calpules, according to the population of the place ('pueblo') or tribe." The same author further affirms: "These quarters and streets were all a.s.sorted and leveled with so much accuracy that those of one quarter or street could not take a palm of land from those of another, and the same was with the streets, their lots running (being scattered) all over the pueblo."

Consequently there were no communal lands allotted to the four great quarters of Mexico as such, but each one of the kins.h.i.+ps (calpules) held its part of the original aggregate. Compare Gomara (Vedia, Vol.

I, "Conq. de Mejico," p. 434: "Among tributaries it is a custom, etc., etc." Also p. 440). Clavigero (Lib. VII, cap. XIV): "Each quarter has its own tract, without the least connection with the others."]

[Relocated Footnote 6: Compare Duran (Cap XI, p. 87). Acosta (Lib.

VII, cap, x.x.xI, p. 470). It appears as if the "teepan" had not been constructed previous to the middle of the 14th century, the meetings of the tribe being previously called together by priests, and probably in the open s.p.a.ce around the main house of wors.h.i.+p. The fact of the priests calling the public meetings is proved by Duran (Cap. IV, p. 42). Acosta (Lib. VII, cap. VII, p. 468). Veytia (Lib. II, cap. XVIII, pp. 156,159. Cap. XXI, p. 186). Acosta first mentions "unos palacios, aunque harto pobres." (Lib. VII, cap. 8, p. 470), on the occasion of the election of the first regular "tlacatecuhtli:" Acamapichtli--Torquemada says (Lib. XII, cap. XXII, p. 290) that they lived in miserable huts of reeds and straw, erected around the open s.p.a.ce where the altar or place of wors.h.i.+p of Huitzilopochtli was built. The public building was certainly their latest kind of construction.]

[Relocated Footnote 7: "Patronomial Estates" are mentioned frequently, but the point is, where are they to be found?

Neither the "teepan-tlalli" nor the "tlatoca-tlalli," still less the "calpulalli," show any trace of individual owners.h.i.+p.

"Eredad" (heirloom) is called indiscriminately "milli" and "cuemitl" (Molina, Parte Ia, p. 57). The latter is also rendered as "tierra labrada, o camellon" (Molina, Parte IIa, p. 26). It thus reminds us of the "chinamitl" or garden-bed (as the name "camellon" also implies), and reduces it to the proportion of an ordinary cultivated lot among the others contained within the area of the calpulli. It is also called "tlalli," but that is the general name for soil or ground. "Tierras o eredades de particulares, juntas an alguna vega," is called "tlalmilli".

This decomposes into "tlalli" soil and "milli." But "vega"

signifies a fertile tract or field, and thus we have again the conception of communal lands, divided into lots improved by particular families, as the idea of communal tenure necessarily implies.]

[Relocated Footnote 8: Zurita ("Rapport," etc., etc., p. 50): "The chiefs of the second cla.s.s are yet called calpullec in the singular and chinancallec in the plural." (This is evidently incorrect, since the words 'calpulli' and 'chinancalli' can easily be distinguished from each other.) "'Chinancalli', however after Molina means 'cercado de seto' (Parte IIa, p. 21), or an inclosed area, and if we connect it with the old original 'chinamitl' we are forcibly carried back to the early times, when the Mexicans but dwelt on a few flakes of more or less solid ground. This is an additional evidence in favor of the views we have taken of the growth of landed tenure among the Mexican tribe. We must never forget that the term is 'Nahuatl,' and as such recognized by all the other tribes, outside of the Mexicans proper. The interpretation as 'family' in the Quiche tongue of Guatemala, which we have already mentioned, turns up here as of further importance; that is: chiefs of an old race or family, from the word calpulli or chinancalli, which is the same, and signifies a quarter (barrio), inhabited by a family known, or of old origin, which possesses since long time a territory whose limits are known, and whose members are of the same lineage."

"The calpullis, families or quarters, are very common in each province. Among the lands which were given to the chefs of the second cla.s.s there were also calpullis. These lands are the property of the people in general ('de la ma.s.se du peuple') from the time the Indians reached this land. Each family or tribe received a portion of the soil for perpetual enjoyment. They also had the name of calpulli, and until now this property has been respected. They do not belong to each inhabitant of the village in particular, but to the calpulli, which possesses them in common." Don Ramirez de Fuenleal, letter dated Mexico, 3 Nov., 1532 ("Recueil de pieces,"

etc, Ternaux-Compans, p. 253): "There are very few people in the villages which have lands of their own ... the lands are held in common and cultivated in common." Herrera (Dec. III, Lib. IV, cap. XV, p. 135) confirms, in a condensed form, the statement of Zurita, "and they are not private lands of each one, but held in common."

Torquemada (Lib. XIV, cap. VII, p. 545.) Veytia (Lib. III, cap. VI, p. 196). "Finally, there were other tracts of lands in each tribe, called calpulalli, which is land of the calpules (barrios), which also were worked in common." Oviedo (Lib. x.x.xII, cap. LI, pp. 536 and 537). Clavigero (Lib. VII, cap. XIV). Bustamante ("Tezcoco," etc., Parte IIIa, cap. V. p. 232).]

[Relocated Footnote 9: Zurita (p. 52): "He who obtained them from the sovereign has not the right to dispose of them." Herrera (Dec. III, Lib. IV, cap. XV, p. 135): "He who possessed them could not alienate them, although he enjoyed their use for his lifetime." Torquemada (Lib. XIV, cap. VII, p. 545): "Disputes about lands are frequently mentioned, but they refer to the enjoyment and possession, and not the transfer of the land." Baron Humboldt ("Unes des Cordilleres et monuments indigenes des peuples de l'Amerique", Vol. I, Tab. V) reproduces a Mexican painting representing a litigation about land.

But this painting was made subsequent to the Conquest, as the fact that the parties contending are Indians and Spaniards sufficiently a.s.serts. Occasional mention is made that certain lands "could be sold."

All such tracts, however, like the "pallali", have been shown by us to be held in communal tenure of the soil, there enjoyment alone being given to individuals and their families.]

[Relocated Footnote 10: Zurita (p. 60): "The calpulli have a chief taken necessarily from among the tribe; he must be one of the princ.i.p.al inhabitants, an able man who can a.s.sist and defend the people. The election takes place among them.... The office of this chief is not hereditary; when any one dies, they elect in his place the most respected old man.... If the deceased has left a son who is able the choice falls upon him, and a relative of the former inc.u.mbent is always preferred." (Id., pp. 50 and 222). Simancas M. S. S. ("De l'ordre de succession," etc., "Recucil," p. 225): As to the mode of regulating the jurisdiction and election of the alcaldes and regidors of the villages, "they nominated men of note who had the t.i.tle of achcatanlitin.... There were no other elections of officers...." ('Art of War,' etc. pp. 119 and 120).]

[Relocated Footnote 11: Zurita (pp. 61 and 62): "This chief has charge of the lands of the calpulli. It is his duty to defend their possession. He keeps paintings showing the tracts, the names of their holders, the situation, the limits, the number of men tilling them, the wealth of private individuals, the designations of each as are vacant, of others that belong to the Spaniards, the date of donation, to whom and by whom they were given. These paintings he constantly renews, according to the changes occurring, and in this they are very skillful." It is singular that Motolinia, in his "Epistola proemial" ("Col. de Doc."; Icazbalceta, Vol. I, p. 5), among the five "books of paintings" which he says the Mexicans had, makes no mention of the above. Neither does he notice it in his letter dated Cholala, 27 Aug., 1554 ("Recueil de pieces," etc., Teruaux-Compans).]

[Relocated Footnote 12: Each family, represented by its male head, obtained a certain tract or lot for cultivation and use, Zurita (p. 55). "The party (member of the calpulli, because no member of another one had the right to settle within the area of it--see Id., p. 53), who has no lands applies to the chief of the calpulli, who, upon the advice of the other old men, a.s.signs to him such as corresponds to his ability and wants. These lands go to his heirs...." (id., p. 56). "The proprietor who did not cultivate during two years, either through his own fault or through negligence, without just cause ... he was called upon to improve them, and if he failed to do so they were given to another the following year." Bustamante (Tezcoco, etc., Parte IIIa, p. 190, cap I): "The fact that any holder of a 'tlalmilli' might rent out his share, if he himself was occupied in a line precluding him from actual work on it, results from the lands of the 'calpulli' being represented alternately treated as communal and again as private lands. Besides, it is said of the traders who, from the nature of their occupation, were mostly absent, that they were also members and partic.i.p.ants of a 'calpulli'" (Zurita, p. 223. Sahagun, Lib.

VIII, cap. III, p. 349). Now, as every Mexican belonged to a kins.h.i.+p, which held lands after the plan exposed above, it follows that such as were not able to work themselves, on account of their performing other duties subservient to the interests of the community still preserved their tracts by having others to work them for their benefit. It was not the right of tenancy which authorizes the improvement, but the fact of improvement for a certain purpose and benefit, which secured the possession or tenancy.]