Ancient Society - Lewis Henry Morgan

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race, were areas they would not have occupied as savages, or as barbarians in the Lower Status of barbarism, to whom forest areas were natural homes. After becoming habituated to pastoral life, it must have been impossible for either of these families to re-enter the forest areas of Western Asia and of Europe with their flocks and herds, without first learning to cultivate some of the cereals with which to subsist the latter at a distance from the grass plains. It seems extremely probable, therefore, as before stated, that the cultivation of the cereals originated in the necessities of the domestic animals, and in connection with these western migrations; and that the use of farinaceous food by these tribes was a consequence of the knowledge thus acquired.

      In the Western hemisphere, the aborigines were enabled to advance generally into the Lower Status of barbarism, and a portion of them into the Middle Status, without domestic animals, excepting the llama in Peru, and upon a single cereal, maize, with the adjuncts of the bean, squash, and tobacco, and in some areas, cacao, cotton and pepper. But maize, from its growth in the hill—which favored direct cultivation—from its useableness both green and ripe, and from its abundant yield and nutritive properties, was a richer endowment in aid of early human progress than all other cereals put together. It serves to explain the remarkable progress the American aborigines had made without the domestic animals; the Peruvians having produced bronze, which stands next, and quite near, in the order of time, to the process of smelting iron ore.

      V. Unlimited Subsistence through Field Agriculture.

      The domestic animals supplementing human muscle with animal power, contributed a new factor of the highest value. In course of time, the production of iron gave the plow with an iron point, and a better spade and axe. Out of these, and the previous horticulture, came field agriculture; and with it, for the first time, unlimited subsistence. The plow drawn by animal power may be regarded as inaugurating a new art. Now, for the first time, came the thought of reducing the forest, and bringing wide fields under cultivation.15 Moreover, dense populations in limited areas now became possible. Prior to field agriculture it is not probable that half a million people were developed and held together under one government in any part of the earth. If exceptions occurred, they must have resulted from pastoral life on the plains, or from horticulture improved by irrigation, under peculiar and exceptional conditions.

      In the course of these pages it will become necessary to speak of the family as it existed in different ethnical periods; its form in one period being sometimes entirely different from its form in another. In Part III these several forms of the family will be treated specially. But as they will be frequently mentioned in the next ensuing Part, they should at least be defined in advance for the information of the reader. They are the following:

      I. The Consanguine Family.

      It was founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters in a group. Evidence still remains in the oldest of existing systems of Consanguinity, the Malayan, tending to show that this, the first form of the family, was anciently as universal as this system of consanguinity which it created.

      II. The Punaluan Family.

      Its name is derived from the Hawaiian relationship of Punalua. It was founded upon the intermarriage of several brothers to each other’s wives in a group; and of several sisters to each other’s husbands in a group. But the term brother, as here used, included the first, second, third, and even more remote male cousins, all of whom were considered brothers to each other, as we consider own brothers; and the term sister included the first, second, third, and even more remote female cousins, all of whom were sisters to each other, the same as own sisters. This form of the family supervened upon the consanguine. It created the Turanian and Ganowánian systems of consanguinity. Both this and the previous form belong to the period of savagery.

      III. The Syndyasmian Family.

      The term is from συνδυάζω, to pair, συνδυασμός, a joining two together. It was founded upon the pairing of a male with a female under the form of marriage, but without an exclusive cohabitation. It was the germ of the Monogamian Family. Divorce or separation was at the option of both husband and wife. This form of the family failed to create a system of consanguinity.

      IV. The Patriarchal Family.

      It was founded upon the marriage of one man to several wives. The term is here used in a restricted sense to define the special family of the Hebrew pastoral tribes, the chiefs and principal men of which practiced polygamy. It exercised but little influence upon human affairs for want of universality.

      V. The Monogamian Family.

      It was founded upon the marriage of one man with one woman, with an exclusive cohabitation; the latter constituting the essential element of the institution. It is pre-eminently the family of civilized society, and was therefore essentially modern. This form of the family also created an independent system of consanguinity.

      Evidence will elsewhere be produced tending to show both the existence and the general prevalence of these several forms of the family at different stages of human progress.

       Table of Contents

      Retrospect on the Lines of Human Progress.—Principal Contributions of Modern Civilization.—Of Ancient Civilization.—Of Later Period of Barbarism.—Of Middle Period.—Of Older Period.—Of Period of Savagery.—Humble Condition of Primitive Man.—Human Progress in a Geometrical Ratio.—Relative Length of Ethnical Periods.—Appearance of Semitic and Aryan Families.

      It is well to obtain an impression of the relative amount and of the ratio of human progress in the several ethnical periods named, by grouping together the achievements of each, and comparing them with each other as distinct classes of facts. This will also enable us to form some conception of the relative duration of these periods. To render it forcible, such a survey must be general, and in the nature of a recapitulation. It should, likewise, be limited to the principal works of each period.

      Before man could have attained to the civilized state it was necessary that he should gain all the elements of civilization. This implies an amazing change of condition, first from a primitive savage to a barbarian of the lowest type, and then from the latter to a Greek of the Homeric period, or to a Hebrew of the time of Abraham. The progressive development which history records in the period of civilization was not less true of man in each of the previous periods.

      By re-ascending along the several lines of human progress toward the primitive ages of man’s existence, and removing one by one his principal institutions, inventions and discoveries, in the order in which they have appeared, the advance made in each period will be realized.

      The principal contributions of modern civilization are the electric telegraph; coal gas; the spinning-jenny; and the power loom; the steam-engine with its numerous dependent machines, including the locomotive, the railway, and the steam-ship; the telescope; the discovery of the ponderability of the atmosphere and of the solar system; the art of printing; the canal lock; the mariner’s compass; and gunpowder. The mass of other inventions, such, for example, as the Ericsson propeller, will be found to hinge upon one or another of those named as antecedents: but there are exceptions, as photography, and numerous machines not necessary to be noticed. With these also should be removed the modern sciences; religious freedom and the common schools; representative democracy; constitutional monarchy with parliaments; the feudal kingdom; modern privileged classes; international, statute and common law.

      Modern civilization recovered and absorbed whatever was valuable in the ancient civilizations; and although its contributions to the sum of human knowledge have been vast, brilliant and rapid, they are far from being so disproportionately large as to overshadow the ancient civilizations and sink them into comparative insignificance.

      Passing over the mediæval period, which gave Gothic architecture, feudal aristocracy with hereditary titles of rank, and a hierarchy under the headship of a pope, we enter the Roman and Grecian civilizations.

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