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

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in interests and ultimate independence. It was not the work of a brief period, but of centuries of time, aggregating finally into thousands of years; and the multiplication of the languages and dialects of the different families of North and South America probably required for their formation the time measured by three ethnical periods.

      New tribes, as well as new gentes, were constantly forming by natural growth, and the process was sensibly accelerated by the great expanse of the American continent. The method was simple. In the first place there would occur a gradual outflow of people from some overstocked geographical center, which possessed superior advantages in the means of subsistence. Continued from year to year, a considerable population would thus be developed at a distance from the original seat of the tribe In course of time the emigrants would become distinct in interests, strangers in feeling, and, last of all, divergent in speech. Separation and independence would follow, although their territories were contiguous. A new tribe was thus created. This is a concise statement of the manner in which the tribes of the American aborigines were formed, but the statement must be taken as general. Repeating itself from age to age in newly acquired as well as in old areas, it must be regarded as a natural as well as inevitable result of the gentile organization, united with the necessities of their condition. When increased numbers pressed upon the means of subsistence, the surplus removed to a new seat, where they established themselves with facility, because the government was perfect in every gens, and in any number of gentes united in a band. Among the Village Indians the same thing repeated itself in a slightly different manner. When a village became overcrowded with numbers, a colony went up or down on the same stream and commenced a new village. Repeated at intervals of time, several such villages would appear, each independent of the other and a self-governing body, but united in a league or confederacy for mutual protection. Dialectic variation would finally spring up, and thus complete their growth into tribes.

      The manner in which tribes are evolved from each other can be shown directly by examples. The fact of separation can be derived in part from tradition, in part from the possession by each of a number of the same gentes, and deduced in part from the relations of their dialects. Tribes formed by the subdivisions of an original tribe would possess a number of gentes in common, and speak dialects of the same language. After several centuries of separation they would still have a number of the same gentes. Thus the Hurons, now Wyandots, have six gentes of the same name with six of the gentes of the Seneca-Iroquois, after at least four hundred years of separation. The Potawattamies have eight gentes of the same name with eight among the Ojibwas, while the former have six, and the latter fourteen, which are different, showing that new gentes have been formed in each tribe by segmentation since their separation. A still older offshoot from the Ojibwas, or from the common parent tribe of both, the Miamis, have but three gentes in common with the former, namely, the Wolf, the Loon, and the Eagle. The minute social history of the tribes of the Ganowanian family is locked up in the life and growth of the gentes. If investigation is ever turned strongly in this direction, the gentes themselves would become reliable guides, in respect to the order of separation from each other of the tribes of the same stock.

      This process of subdivision has been operating among the American aborigines for thousands of years, until several hundred tribes have been developed from about seventy stocks as existing in as many families of language. Their experience, probably was but a repetition of that of the tribes of Asia, Europe, and Africa when they were in corresponding conditions.

      From the preceding observations it is apparent that an American Indian tribe is a very simple as well as humble organization. It required but a few hundred, and, at most, a few thousand people to form a tribe and place it in a respectable position in the Ganowanian family.

      It remains to present the functions and attributes of an Indian tribe, which are contained in the following propositions:

      I The possession of a territory and a name

      II The exclusive possession of a dialect

      III The right to invest sachems and chiefs elected by the gentes.

      IV The right to depose these sachems and chiefs

      V The possession of a religious faith and worship

      VI A supreme government consisting of a council of chiefs

      VII A head-chief of the tribe in some instances

      For a discussion of these characteristics of a tribe, reference is made to Ancient Society, pp. 113–118.

      The growth of the idea of government commenced with the organization into gentes in savagery. It reveals three great stages of progressive development between its commencement and the institution of political society after civilization had been attained. The first stage was the government of a tribe by a council of chiefs elected by the gentes. It may be called a government of one power, namely the council. It prevailed generally among tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism. The second stage was a government co-ordinated between a council of chiefs and a general military commander, one representing the civil and the other the military functions. This second form began to manifest itself in the Lower Status of barbarism after confederacies were formed, and it became definite in the Middle Status. The office of general, or principal military commander, was the germ of that of a chief executive magistrate, the king, the emperor, and the president. It may be called a government of two powers, namely, the council of chiefs and the general. The third stage was the government of a people or nation by a council of chiefs an assembly of the people, and a general military commander. It appeared among the tribes who had attained to the Upper Status of barbarism, such, for example, as the Homeric Greeks and the Italian tribes of the period of Romulus. A Large increase in the number of people united in a nation, their establishment in walled cities, and the creation of wealth in lands and in flocks and herds, brought in the assembly of the people as an instrument of government. The council of chiefs, which still remained, found it necessary, no doubt, through popular constraint, to submit the most important public measures to an assembly of the people for acceptance or rejection; whence the popular assembly. This assembly did not originate measures. It was its function to adopt or reject, and its action was final. From its first appearance it became a permanent power in the government. The council no longer passed important public measures, but became a preconsidering council, with power to originate and mature public acts to which the assembly alone could give validity. It may be called a government of three powers, namely, the preconsidering council, the assembly of the people, and the general. This remained until the institution of political society, when, for example, among the Athenians, the council of chiefs became the senate, and the assembly of the people the ecclesia or popular assembly. The same organizations have come down to modern times in the two houses of Parliament, of Congress, and of legislatures. In like manner the office of general military commander, as before stated, was the germ of the office of the modern chief executive magistrate.

      Recurring to the tribe, it was limited in the numbers of the people, feeble in strength, and poor in resources; but yet a completely organized society. It illustrates the condition of mankind in the Lower Status of barbarism. In the Middle Status there was a sensible increase of numbers in a tribe, and an improved condition, but with a continuance of gentile society without essential change. Political society was still impossible from want of advancement. The gentes organized into tribes remained as before, but confederacies must have been more frequent. In some areas, as in the Valley of Mexico, large numbers were developed under a common government, with improvements in the arts of life, but no evidence exists of the overthrow among them of gentile society and the substitution of political. It is impossible to found a political society or a state upon gentes. A state must rest upon territory and not upon persons, upon the township as the unit of a political system, and not upon the gens, which is the unit of a social system. It required time and a vast experience, beyond that of the American Indian tribes, as a preparation for such a fundamental change of systems. It also required men of the mental stature of the Greeks and Romans, and with the experience derived from a long chain of ancestors, to devise and gradually introduce that new plan of government under which civilized nations are living at the present time.

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