Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines - Lewis Henry Morgan

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of Virginia Indians

      Fig. 12. Ho-de-no-sote of the Seneca-Iroquois

      Fig. 13. Ground-plan of Seneca-Iroquois Long-House

      Fig. 14. Bartram's ground-plan and cross-section of Onondaga

       Long-House.

      Fig. 15. Palisaded Onondaga Village

      Fig. 16. Mandan Village Plot

      Fig. 17. Ground-plan of Mandan House

      Fig. 18. Cross-section of Mandan House

      Fig. 19. Mandan House

      Fig. 20. Mandan Drying-Scaffold

      Fig. 21. Mandan Ladder

      Fig. 22. Pueblo of Santo Domingo

      Fig. 23. Pueblo of Zunyi

      Fig. 24. Room in Zunyi House

      Fig. 25. Pueblo of Wolpi

      Fig. 26. Room in Moki House

      Fig. 27. North Pueblo of Taos

      Fig. 28. Room in Pueblo of Taos

      Fig. 29. Map of a portion of Chaco Canyon

      Fig. 30. Ground-plans of Pueblos Pintada and Wejegi

      Fig. 31. Ground-plans of Pueblos of Una Vida and Hungo Pavie

      Fig. 32. Restoration of Pueblo Hungo Pavie

      Fig. 33. Ground-plan of Pueblo Chettro Kettle

      Fig. 34. Interior of a Room in Pueblo Chettro Kettle

      Fig. 35. Ground-plan of Pueblo Bonito

      Fig. 36. Room in Pueblo Bonito

      Fig. 37. Restoration of Pueblo Bonito

      Fig. 38. Ground-plan of Pueblo del Arroyo

      Fig. 39. Ground-plan of Pueblo Peuasca Blanca

      Fig. 40. Ground-plan of the Pueblo on Animas River

      Fig. 41. Stone from Doorway

      Fig. 41a. A finished block of Sandstone (for comparison with Fig. 41)

      Fig. 42. Section of Cedar Lintel

      Fig. 43. Outline of Stone Pueblo on Animas River

      Fig. 44. Pueblos at commencement of McElmo Canyon

      Fig. 45. Outline plan of Stone Pueblo near base of Ute Mountain

      Fig. 46. Ground-plan of High Bank Pueblo

      Fig. 47. Restoration of High Bank Pueblo

      Fig. 48. Ground-plan and sections of house, High Bank Pueblo

      Fig. 49. Mound with artificial clay basin

      Fig. 50. Side elevation of Pyramidal Platform of Governor's House

      Fig. 51. Governor's House at Uxmal

      Fig. 52. Ground-plan of Governor's House, Uxmal

      Fig. 53. Ground-plan of the House of the Nuns

      Fig. 54. Section of room in House of the Nuns

      Fig. 55. Ground-plan of Zayi

      Fig. 56. Cross-section through one apartment

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      SOCIAL AND GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION.

      In a previous work I have considered the organization of the American aborigines in gentes, phratries, and tribes, with the functions of each in their social system. From the importance of this organization to a right understanding of their social and governmental life, a recapitulation of the principal features of each member of the organic series is necessary in this connection. [Footnote: "Ancient Society" or "Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization." Henry Holt & Co. 1877.]

      The gentile organization opens to us one of the oldest and most widely-prevalent institutions of mankind. It furnished the nearly universal plan of government of ancient society, Asiatic, European, African, American, and Australian. It was the instrumentality by means of which society was organized and held together. Commencing in savagery, and continuing through the three subperiods of barbarism, it remained until the establishment of political society, which did not occur until after civilization had Commenced. The Grecian gens, phratry, and tribe, the Roman gens, curia, and tribe find their analogues in the gens, phratry, and tribe of the American aborigines. In like manner the Irish sept, the Scottish clan, the phratra of the Albanians, and the Sanskrit ganas, without extending the comparison further, are the same as the American Indian gens, which has usually been called a clan. As far as our knowledge extends, this organization runs through the entire ancient world upon all the continents, and it was brought down to the historical period by such tribes as attained to civilization. Nor is this all. Gentile society wherever found is the same in structural organization and in principles of action; but changing from lower to higher forms with the progressive advancement of the people. These changes give the history of development of the same original conceptions.

       Table of Contents

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

      Among the nations named, the gens indicated a social organization of a remarkable character, which had prevailed from an antiquity so remote that its origin was lost in the obscurity of far distant ages. It was also the unit of organization of a social and governmental system, the fundamental basis of ancient society. This organization was not confined to the Latin, Grecian, and Sanskrit speaking tribes, with whom it became such a conspicuous institution. It has been found in other branches of the Aryan family of nations, in the Semitic, Uralian and Turanian families, among the tribes of Africa and Australia, and of the American aborigines.

      The gens has passed through successive stages of development in its transition from its archaic to its final form with the progress of mankind. These changes were limited in the main to two, firstly, changing descent from the female line, which was the archaic rule, as among the Iroquois, to the male line, which was the final rule, as among the Grecian and Roman gentes; and, secondly, changing the inheritance of the property of a deceased member of the gens from his gentiles, who took it in the archaic period, first to his agnatic kindred, and finally to his

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