The North-Americans of yesterday

TRIBES often had a definite organisation and a regular government, and each held sway over a territory with fixed boundaries. When the limits were not placed at a river, lake, or mountain range they were marked by certain trees or stones, or other natural features along the trails. When at peace, those who entered another domain were considered visitors, and they were expected to be friendly with all friends of the occupants of the region. “Both the Kuchins and the Eskimos are very jealous,” says H. H. Bancroft, “regarding their boundaries.”[363]

When I was once coming out of the Shevwits country, my Uinkarets guide exclaimed as we passed a certain bowlder near the trail, “Now we are out of the Shevwits land.” Beyond that point the Shevwits would not venture except in a friendly way, so long as they were friendly with the owners of the land. I rejoiced in this fact at the time because the Shevwits had not been entirely agreeable, and I was glad to pass the point where I was certain they would not bother us. We were now in the country of the Santa Clara tribe.

The Iroquois had the habit of occupying both banks of a river or lake, hence they did not utilise these as boundaries, but ran straight lines, marked here and there by some well-known object. “On the boundary line between the Onondagas and Oneidas,” says Morgan,[364] “the most prominent point was the Deep Spring (Deosongwa) near Manlius, in the county of Onondaga. This spring not only marked the limital line between them, but it was a well-known stopping-place on the great central trail or highway of the Iroquois.... From Deep Spring the line ran due south into Pennsylvania, crossing the Susquehanna near its confluence with the Chenango. North of this spring the line was deflected to the west, leaving in the Oneida territory the whole circuit of the lake. Crossing the She-u-ka or Oneida outlet, a few miles below the lake, the line inclined again to the east, until it reached the meridian of the Deep Spring. From thence it ran due north, crossing Black River, at the site of Watertown, and the St. Lawrence to the eastward of the Thousand Islands.”

This line separated territories belonging to two tribes of the celebrated league, and was not a boundary between hostile or different tribes. The Iroquois were exact about their internal boundary lines, because it served to keep each member of the confederacy distinct and independent, and enabled the idea of home rule to be properly carried out. They always knew just whose ground they were on, just as we know to-day which county or State we are in. It was another mark of the wisdom with which the confederacy was planned.

When the whites came to these shores and took possession right and left of the soil, they immediately stirred up the hostility of the owners, who naturally desired to be considered in the matter. Penn did consider them, and he had no trouble; and I have no doubt much of the fighting and enmity which followed our coming might have been avoided if Europeans had more fully recognised the native rights and had paid a fair equivalent for what they wanted. But there was nothing to compel this attention to the moral side, and justice must have force to bind it; besides, owing to the large influx of whites, the Amerinds were inevitably driven back. The English in a measure finally recognised the Iroquois rights and then afterwards turned this to good account by claiming sovereignty over the territory on the ground that the Iroquois were British subjects. The Navajos recognise the San Juan River as their northern limit and the Southern Utes correspondingly accepted it as their southern limit. “The claims of the Susquehannocks extended down the Chesapeake Bay on the east shore, as far as the Choptank River and on the west shore as far as the Patuxent. In 1654 they ceded to the government of Maryland their southern territory to these boundaries.”[365] Thus it is proved that Maryland recognised their ownership. These examples are enough to show that the territorial rights of each tribe were definitely understood, just as nations to-day have established limits. When the settlements of our people finally crowded tribes back upon each other’s domain, a great deal of confusion and dispute arose as to ownership, and when the government began to pay for lands it was often necessary to pay for the same tract several times, owing to the conflicting claims.

Scattered over the territory claimed or held by a tribe were the houses and villages of the tribe or the sub-tribes. Powell states that “every tribe lived in a village, and every village constituted a distinct tribe.” But the village was often spread over a wide region. Speaking of this, Adair says: “A stranger might be in the middle of one of their populous, extensive towns without seeing half a dozen houses in the direct course of his path.”[366] But this was only in the interior of the country of a tribe. Along the frontier the towns would be more compactly arranged, in order that the people might easily be called to defend them. The villages were usually permanent, though they were frequently, some annually, abandoned temporarily at certain seasons for the pursuit of game or for some other good reason, all the people coming together again as the cold weather approached. The Navajos often have a winter home in the lower, sheltered lands of their territory, while in summer they proceed to the higher levels where the winter snows are deep and the summer grass is high. Each Amerind village always had at least one assembly place for which they had their special names, but the general term that is now often used by ethnologists is that of kiva,[367] borrowed from the Mokis, because the Moki kiva is a representative of the general assembly hall and council-chamber, or lodge. The kiva, besides being used for social purposes, as a lounging-place and a working-place for the men, is also used for religious functions. Those structures, therefore, which crowned the mounds of the United States and Mexico, and are usually designated as “temples,” were possibly more of the nature of kivas, a temple in our usage being a structure devoted solely to worship, whereas many Amerind buildings of this class were used for various purposes. Often there were several, depending on the size of the tribe. The tribe was organised on the basis of the gens or the clan, and each gens or clan might have its own kiva. They might also belong to some of the secret orders, so that we may enumerate three kinds: the tribal, or chief kiva, the kiva belonging to the gens or clan, and the kiva belonging to the phratry, or secret society. The gens and the clan were groups of blood relations, or, as put by Powell, “an organised body of consanguineal kindred.”[368] The members of a gens often lived in one house or in a group of houses; for example, among the Iroquois in the long-house,[369] with its row of camp-fires, while in some other tribes each family might have its own house or tent, but they would then generally pitch or build it contiguous to the other habitations of their gens. It was this principle, in vogue in almost all the tribes of America, which directed the character of most of the Amerind structures. Everybody in a tribe belonged to a gens or clan, otherwise he could not be in the tribe. The complete organisation of the tribe then was: a group of families forming a gens or clan, two gentes being represented in each family; the “father must belong to one gens and the mother and her children to another,” descent being commonly in the female line, and marriage within a gens being forbidden; a group of gentes formed the phratry, and a group of phratries formed the tribe, while a group of tribes formed the confederacy, probably the highest form of government the Amerinds reached. The phratry as an organisation was often absent, and the tribe was then composed of the gentes without any further grouping. Powell seems to use “phratry” in a different sense from Morgan and some other writers. Morgan described a phratry as a group of gentes, whereas Powell defines it as simply a brotherhood or society. Each gens governed itself so far as its internal affairs were concerned; that is, it had home rule, just as we have it to-day in our towns, counties, etc. It sent delegates to the council of the tribe to represent it, and it elected its own officers. There was sometimes no tribal or head chief. I never could learn of any among the Navajos, and the Iroquois had none. When, as was frequent, there was a sachem, or tribal chief, he was chosen or elected by the chiefs of the various clans or gentes forming the council, but in some tribes he inherited the office, or at least the right to hold it. I understood this to be the case among the Kaivavits Utes of southern Utah. A gens had the right to take into its ranks any alien it chose to. Such a person was then a member of that gens and partook of all the benefits or disadvantages, as the case might be. He was a son or brother or husband, or the corresponding relationships if a woman, and on all occasions was treated as if he had been born into the gens or clan instead of adopted into it. He was therefore eligible for all offices in the tribe, and white men in this way sometimes became chiefs. Beckwourth,[370] who, however, was really supposed by a Crow woman to be her long-lost son, became head chief of the Crows, and held the office with distinction for a number of years. He began by being fifth councillor. “In the Crow nation there are six councillors, and by them the nation is ruled. There are also two head chiefs, who sit with the council whenever it is in session. The office of first councillor is the highest in the nation next to the head chiefs, whose authority is equal. If in any of these divisions, when a matter is brought to the vote, the suffrages are equal, one of the old pipemen is summoned before the council and the subject under discussion is stated to him, with the substance of the arguments advanced on both sides; after hearing this he gives his casting vote, and the question is finally settled.”[371]

George Bancroft says, “There have been chiefs who could not tell when, where, or how they obtained power.... Opinion could crowd a civil chief into retirement, and could dictate his successor.” Opinion was a most potent factor in all tribes, and this would be largely directed by those having popularity and power. Officers, in fact all persons, become extremely well known in the small community of an Amerind tribe. Every peculiarity of temperament was understood, and the individual was respected or despised according to his predominating characteristics. Those who were bold and fierce and full of strategy were made war-chiefs, while those who possessed judgment and decision were made civil chiefs or governors. In many tribes the civil and the military branches of government are separate and distinct. Certain chieftains were the peace chiefs. “They could neither go to war themselves, nor send nor receive the war belt—the ominous string of dark wampum, which indicated that the tempest of strife was to be let loose. Their proper badge was the wampum belt, with a diamond-shaped figure in the centre, worked in white beads, which was the symbol of the peaceful council fire, and was called by that name. War was declared by the people at the instigation of the ‘war-captains,’ valorous braves, of any birth or family, who had distinguished themselves by personal prowess, and especially by good success in forays against the enemy. Nor did the authority of the chiefs extend to any infringement on the traditional rights of the gens, as, for instance, that of blood revenge. The ignorance of this limitation of the central power led to various misunderstandings at the time, on the part of the colonial authorities, and since then, by later historians. Thus in 1728 the Delaware Indians on Brandywine were summoned by the Governor to answer about a murder. Their chief, Civility, answered that it was committed by the Minisinks, ‘over whom they had no authority.’ This did not mean but that in some matters authority could be exerted, but not in a question relating to a feud of blood.”[372] War-chiefs as well as civil chiefs were elected by the council, and could be deposed also by the council whenever it was desirable.

Brinton says, “The gentile system is by no means universal, ... where it exists, it is often traced in the male line; both property and dignities may be inherited directly from the father.... In fact, no one element of the system was uniformly respected, and it is an error of theorists to make it appear so. It varied widely in the same stock and in all its expressions.”[373] This intricate subject cannot be fully understood till the organisation of many tribes has been studied in detail. “In some tribes, as the Dakota, the gentes had fallen out; in others as among the Ojibways, the Omahas and the Mayas of Yucatan descent had been changed from the female to the male line.”[374] But Powell and Morgan both hold that the majority of the Amerind tribes were organised on the basis of descent in the female line. “The gens came into being,” says Morgan, “upon three principal conceptions, namely: the bond of kin, a pure lineage through descent in the female line, and non-intermarriage in the gens.”[375]

Powell in his article on the “North American Indians” in Johnson’s Cyclopedia seems to use the term “clan” to describe a body of kindred with descent in the female line, and “gens” where the descent is in the male line. “In most of the tribes the fundamental unit of organisation was the clan,” he says, and then again, “a few of the tribes were organised on the gentile plan and in the gens kinship is reckoned in the male line.” Such a distinction would be convenient, but Morgan did not recognise it at the time of his writing, as is evident from the quotation above from his Ancient Society, and general usage seems not to have defined gens to mean descent in either line specifically. Nevertheless, there is probably no reason why the distinction should not be made with regard to the Amerinds, at least, if it should be agreed upon. Powell also says: “As a clan is a group of people who reckon kinship through females to some ancestral female, real or conventional, so a gens is a group of people who reckon kinship through males to some ancestral male, real or conventional. It seems that the primordial constitution of the tribe is by clanship and that the clanship tribe is developed into the gentile tribe. Most of the tribes of North America have clanship organisation, yet there is a goodly number with gentile organisation, while perhaps it may be said that a majority of the clanship tribes have some elements of the gentile organisation; so that it may be justly affirmed that a great many of the tribes on this continent are in the stage of transition, and there is scarcely a gentile tribe which has not some feature of clanship organisation as a survival.”[376] The privileges and obligations of the gens (or clan) were, according to Morgan as follows:

“I. The right of electing its sachem or chief.

“II. The right of deposing its sachem or chief.

“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, defence, and redress of injuries.

“VI. The right of bestowing names upon its members.

“VII. The right of adopting strangers into the gens.

“VIII. Common religious rites.

“IX. A common burial-place.

“X. A council of the gens.”[377]

Among the Wyandots there is a council in each gens composed of four women. “These four women councillors select a chief of the gens from its male members—that is, from their brothers and sons. This gentile chief is the head of the gentile council. The council of the tribe is composed of the aggregated gentile councils. The tribal council then is composed of one-fifth men and four-fifths women.”[378] This is not the case with other tribes, however. Among the Tlinkits it is the richest who “obtain the highest places,” the selection of the chiefs depending entirely on the amount of property they have; that is, on a property basis. These Amerinds have a better appreciation of property than any others I have ever seen. They seldom haggle, but in selling they state a price and adhere to it. A smaller amount offered is usually treated with scorn.

The sign of clan or gens membership was the totem, all members of the same gens having the same totem, and his or her name usually indicating this totem. For example, if we know an Amerind woman’s name to be Spotted Fawn, we place her at once in the deer clan. The deer is the animal that she looks up to as being most intimately connected with her past and her future, and from which her ancestors were descended. This is the clan or gens totem. As mentioned in a previous chapter, there are also two other kinds of totems, those pertaining to sex and those pertaining to the individual alone. Totems are always chosen from a class of organic objects, while a fetich may be anything at all. Thus the totems are deer, frogs, bears, snakes, corn, etc., while a fetich may be a pebble, a piece of glass wrapped in a bit of buckskin together with a feather, or some similar object. The fetich was a talisman, the totem a beneficent attending spirit and a sign of family and origin.

The Iroquois confederacy was planned by Hiawatha through Däganowédä as an interpreter of his ideas and wishes. Some, Horatio Hale for one, think that Hiawatha was a real person, and others that it was Däganowédä who did the work under the guise of representing Hiawatha.[379] However this may be, the organisation of the several tribes into the confederacy was a work of genius, and this was one of the highest governments that was discovered on this continent. We cannot say, however, that it was the highest that ever existed, next to that of the Aztecs or the other Central Amerinds, for we really do not know what there may have been before, not only in Mexico and Central America, but in the Mississippi valley or even in the State of New York. As noted in a previous chapter, if the Iroquois had disappeared before our arrival, we could have gained no conception of their remarkable government from any remains that we would have found. The Mississippi valley and the South-west, as well as Mexico and Central America, exhibit traces of tribes who may easily have arrived at a governmental development equal to, if, indeed, not superior to, that of the Aztecs or the Iroquois. These tribes were undoubtedly Amerind, but there is nothing to prove that earlier Amerind tribes were inferior in their political development to later ones.

The misconceptions of the Spaniards due to ignorance of Amerind organisation gave false colouring to the Aztec confederacy; and the flowing diction of Prescott, gemmed with terms and titles applicable to Old-World society, but having no place in that of the New, added to the confusion. Pages relating to “nobles,” “princes,” “royal allies,” “sovereigns,” “lords,” etc., do not help in fathoming the intricacies of Amerind government. Had the Spaniards met with the Iroquois we should have had something similar in their case; and the fact that they had no head chief would not have been discovered by the conquistadores, so eager for other prey. One of the war-chiefs would again have been taken for a royal personage, and the sachems and councillors would have been nobles and princes, while the outlying tribes of the Five Nations would have filled the bill for royal allies. It is likely that the Aztec government was in advance of that of the Iroquois, but that there was any royalty about it must be doubted till better evidence is available. On the other hand, Morgan’s attempt to prove that the Aztec organisation was not beyond that of the Pueblos or the Iroquois is to be taken with caution. Brinton says: “The government of these states did not differ in principle from that of the northern tribes, though its development had reached a later stage. Descent was generally reckoned in the male line, and the male children of the deceased were regarded as the natural heirs both to his property and his dignities. Where the latter, however, belonged rather to the gens than the individual, a form of election was held, the children of the deceased being given the preference. In this sense, which was the usual limitation in America, many positions were hereditary, including that of the chieftaincy of the tribe or confederation. The Montezuma who was the ruler who received Cortez, was the grandson of Axayacatl, who in turn was the son of the first Montezuma, each of whom exercised the chief power.”[380] The daughter of the first Montezuma seems to have occupied the position of head chief for a time, or, as Prescott would put it, she was queen. It is possible that while Montezuma was a war chief he may have combined certain civil powers with his war office, and that the confederacy was actually on the road to an absolute monarchy[381] or something of the kind, which, if human progress takes always the same general directions, was the next stage to be expected on this soil. Bandelier, Morgan, and others see in the various Mexican tribes and confederacies little that is different from the organisation of the Amerinds to the northward, and probably when all is well understood we may find that they are not far from correct; that, while there are differences, they are yet not sufficient to entitle the Mexicans to the separation from other Amerinds that has been claimed for them by romantic writers. Speaking of Tlaxcala, the famous “province” where Cortes found a resting-place on his inward journey, Bandelier says: “Owing to a misconception of aboriginal institutions, it has been palmed off as a kind of Mexican Switzerland, as a free republic in the midst of despotically ruled communities. Such was not the case. There was not the slightest fundamental difference between the social organisation and mode of government of the Tlaxcaltecos and that of the Mexican tribe; but the exceptional geographical position of the latter and the natural barrenness of their land led them to seek means of subsistence from abroad. The confederacy of tribes grew out of tribal organisation, and the greater ability of the inhabitants of the Central Valley gave to their confederacy a power of aggression superior to that of any other aboriginal cluster in the same country.... The Tlaxcaltecos were organised in four localised phratries, like the Mexicans. Two elective chiefs—that is, elective in regard to the individual, but with heredity of office in a certain gens—formed the nominal head of the tribe. The true directive power, however, lay in the council of the tribe. The tribe of Mexico had a similar organisation. What created an apparent dissimilarity was the confederacy of the valley tribes, with its chief-captain always taken from the Mexicans. As, in the single tribe, the war-chief office was hereditary in the gens, so, in the confederacy, the same office becomes hereditary in the tribe.”[382] How different is the wording of Prescott when speaking of the Aztec organisation! “The government was an elective monarchy. Four of the principal nobles, who had been chosen by their own body in the preceding reign, filled the office of electors, to whom were added, with merely honourary rank, however, the two royal allies of Tezcuco and Tlacopan. The sovereign was selected from the brothers of the deceased prince, or, in default of them, from his nephews. Thus the election was always restricted to the same family. The candidate preferred must have distinguished himself in war, though, as in the case of the last Montezuma.”[383] In other words, the election was restricted to a certain gens. Morgan says: “Nearly all American Indian tribes had two grades of chiefs, who may be distinguished as sachems and common 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 succeed his father when descent was in the female line, because he belonged to a different gens, and no gens would have a chief or sachem from any gens but its own.” (Morgan here evidently forgot the right of adoption. It would be perfectly regular, should a gens wish to do so, to adopt a son into the gens in order that he might succeed his father.) “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 bestowed in reward of personal merit, and died with the individual. Moreover, the duties of a sachem were confined 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 of affairs, or for eloquence in council, were usually the superior 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.”[384]

As the Iroquois league was such an important affair, and as it was so thoroughly studied by Morgan, I will quote him further by giving his statement of the main points in the organisation.

“I. The Confederacy was a union of Five Tribes (afterwards Six), composed of common gentes under one government on the basis of equality, each Tribe remaining independent in all matters pertaining to local self-government.

“II. It created a General Council of Sachems, who were limited in number, equal in rank and authority, and invested with supreme powers over all matters pertaining to the Confederacy.

“III. Fifty Sachemships were created and named in perpetuity in certain gentes of the several Tribes; with power in these gentes to fill vacancies as often as they occurred, by election from among their respective members, and with the further power to depose from office for cause; but the right to invest these Sachems with office was reserved to the General Council.

“IV. The Sachems of the Confederacy were also Sachems in their respective Tribes, and with the Chiefs of these Tribes formed the Council of each, which was supreme over all matters pertaining to the Tribe exclusively.

“V. Unanimity in the Council of the Confederacy was made essential to every public act.

“VI. In the General Council the Sachems voted by Tribes, which gave to each Tribe a negative upon the others.

“VII. The Council of each Tribe had power to convene the General Council; but the latter had no power to convene itself.

“VIII. The General Council was open to the orators of the people for the discussion of public questions; but the Council alone decided.

“IX. The Confederacy had no Chief Executive Magistrate or official head.

“X. Experiencing the necessity for a General Military Commander, they created the office in a dual form, that one might neutralise the other. The two principal War-chiefs created were made equal in powers.”[385]

Such was the remarkable construction of the government of these Amerind people of New York. In its conception, in its details, and in its execution it was one of the most extraordinary primitive governments ever recorded. From a comparatively weak people it placed the Iroquois, though they were far inferior in numbers to surrounding tribes, in a commanding position, and enabled them to extend their sway over a vast territory. They made no attempt to hold the region that was subject to their devastation, but probably, had not the European appeared on the scene, they would have gradually expanded until their villages covered many times the area which they specifically claimed when our people first came. An increase of population which would have overtaxed the game-supply would have pushed the development of their agriculture and forced the confederacy to move along higher and broader lines. One great drawback to Amerindian progress, internecine wars, was entirely obliterated by the masterly organisation of the Iroquois league, while at the same time they gained by their union a strength for offence and defence that, together with their fertile and well-watered domain, rendered their organisation impregnable. This and the Mexican confederacy prove that the Amerind was capable of great things in governmental organisation. It only remained for him to discover the secrets of smelting and forging, and he was apparently on the brink of these discoveries, to step into a foremost place of development and progress. In some respects it is a pity the Europeans did not remain in ignorance of this continent for another five hundred years.