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Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines

L >> Lewis H. Morgan >> Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines



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CONTRIBUTIONS TO NORTH AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

VOLUME IV




HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES

BY LEWIS H. MORGAN




PREFACE.

The following work substantially formed the Fifth Part of the
original manuscript of "Ancient Society," under the title "Growth of
the Idea of House Architecture." As the manuscript exceeded the
limits of a single volume, this portion (Part V) was removed, and
having then no intention to publish it separately, the greater part
of it found its way into print in detached articles. A summary was
given to Johnson's New Universal Cyclopedia in the article on the
"Architecture of the American Aborigines." The chapter on the
"Houses of the Aztecs" formed the basis of the article entitled
"Montezuma's Dinner," published in the North American Review, in
April, 1876. Another chapter, that on the "Houses of the Mound
Builders," was published in the same Review in July, 1876. Finally,
the present year, at the request of the executive committee of the
"Archaeological Institute of America," at Cambridge, I prepared from
the same materials an article entitled "A Study of the Houses and
House Life of the Indian Tribes," with a scheme for the exploration
of the ruins in New Mexico, Arizona, the San Juan region, Yucatan,
and Central America.

With some additions and reductions the facts are now presented in
their original form, and as they will now have a wider distribution
than the articles named have had, they will be new to most of my
readers. The facts and suggestions made will also have the advantage
of being presented in their proper connection. Thus additional
strength is given to the argument as a whole. All the forms of this
architecture sprang from a common mind, and exhibit, as a consequence,
different stages of development of the same conceptions, operating
upon similar necessities. They also represent these several
conditions of Indian life with reasonable completeness. Their houses
will be seen to form one system of works, from the Long House of the
Iroquois to the Joint Tenement houses of adobe and of stone in New
Mexico, Yucatan, Chiapas, and Guatemala, with such diversities as
the different degrees of advancement of these several tribes would
naturally produce. Studied as one system, springing from a common
experience, and similar wants, and under institutions of the same
general character, they are seen to indicate a plan of life at once
novel, original, and distinctive.

The principal fact, which all these structures alike show, from the
smallest to the greatest, is that the family through these stages of
progress was too weak an organization to face alone the struggle of
life, and sought a shelter for itself in large households composed
of several families. The house for a single family was exceptional
throughout aboriginal America, while the house large enough to
accommodate several families was the rule. Moreover, they were
occupied as joint tenement houses. There was also a tendency to form
these households on the principle of gentile kin, the mothers with
their children being of the same gens or clan.

If we enter upon the great problem of Indian life with a
determination to make it intelligible, their house life and domestic
institutions must furnish the key to its explanation. These pages
are designed as a commencement of that work. It is a fruitful, and,
at present, but partially explored field. We have been singularly
inattentive to the plan of domestic life revealed by the houses of
the aboriginal period. Time and the influences of civilization have
told heavily upon their mode of life until it has become so far
modified, and in many cases entirely overthrown, that it must be
taken up as a new investigation upon the general facts which remain.
At the epoch of European discovery it was in full vitality in North
and South America; but the opportunities of studying its principles
and its results were neglected. As a scheme of life under
established institutions, it was a remarkable display of the
condition of mankind in two well marked ethnical periods, namely,
the Older Period and the Middle Period of barbarism, the first being
represented by the Iroquois and the second by the Aztecs, or ancient
Mexicans. In no part of the earth were these two conditions of human
progress so well represented as by the American Indian tribes. A
knowledge of the culture and of the state of the arts of life in
these periods is indispensable to a definite conception of the
stages of human progress. From the laws which govern this progress,
from the uniformity of their operation, and from the necessary
limitations of the principle of intelligence, we may conclude that
our own remote ancestors passed through a similar experience and
possessed very similar institutions. In studying the condition of
the Indian tribes in these periods we may recover some portion of
the lost history of our own race. This consideration lends incentive
to the investigation.

The first chapter is a condensation of four in "Ancient Society,"
namely, those on the gens, phratry, tribe, and confederacy of tribes.
As they formed a necessary part of that work, they become equally
necessary to this. A knowledge of these organizations is
indispensable to an understanding of the house life of the aborigines.
These organizations form the basis of American ethnology. Although
the discussion falls short of a complete explanation of their
character and of their prevalence, it will give the reader a general
idea of the organization of society among them.

We are too apt to look upon the condition of savage and of barbarous
tribes as standing on the same plane with respect to advancement.
They should be carefully distinguished as dissimilar conditions of
progress. Moreover, savagery shows stages of culture and of progress,
and the same is true of barbarism. It will greatly facilitate the
study of the facts relating to these two conditions, through which
mankind have passed in their progress to civilization, to
discriminate between ethnical periods, or stages of culture both in
savagery and in barbarism. The progress of mankind from their
primitive condition to civilization has been marked and eventful.
Each great stage of progress is connected, more or less directly,
with some important invention or discovery which materially
influenced human progress, and inaugurated an improved condition.
For these reasons the period of savagery has been divided into three
subperiods, and that of barbarism also into three, the latter of
which are chiefly important in their relation to the condition of
the Indian tribes. The Older Period of barbarism, which commences
with the introduction of the art of pottery, and the Middle Period,
which commences with the use of adobe brick in the construction of
houses, and with the cultivation of maize and plants by irrigation,
mark two very different and very dissimilar conditions of life. The
larger portion of the Indian tribes fall within one or the other of
these periods. A small portion were in the Older Period of savagery,
and none had reached the Later Period of barbarism, which
immediately precedes civilization. In treating of the condition of
the several tribes they will be assigned to the particular period to
which they severally belong under this classification.

I regret to add that I have not been able, from failing health, to
give to this manuscript the continuous thought which a work of any
kind should receive from its author. But I could not resist the
invitation of my friend Major J. W. Powell, the Director of the
Bureau of Ethnology, to put these chapters together as well as I
might be able, that they might be published by that Bureau. As it
will undoubtedly be my last work, I part with it under some
solicitude for the reason named; but submit it cheerfully to the
indulgence of my readers.

I am greatly indebted to my friend Mr. J. C. Pilling, of the same
Bureau, for his friendly labor and care in correcting the proof
sheets, and for supervising the illustrations. Such favors are very
imperfectly repaid by an author's thanks.

The late William W. Ely, M. D., LL. D., was, for a period of more
than twenty-five years, my cherished friend and literary adviser,
and to him I am indebted for many valuable suggestions, and for
constant encouragement in my labors. The dedication of this volume
to his memory is but a partial expression of my admiration of his
beautiful character, and of my appreciation of his friendship.

LEWIS H. MORGAN

ROCHESTER, N. Y., June, 1881





TABLE OF CONTENTS.



CHAPTER I.

SOCIAL AND GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION.

The Gens: organized upon kin; rights, privileges, and obligations of
its members--The Phratry: its character and functions--The Tribe:
its composition and attributes--The Confederacy of Tribes: its nature,
character and functions.



CHAPTER II.

THE LAW OF HOSPITALITY AND ITS GENERAL PRACTICE.

Indian tribes in three dissimilar conditions--Savage tribes--
Partially horticultural tribes--Village Indians--Usages and customs
affecting their house life--The law of hospitality practiced by the
Iroquois; by the Algonkin tribes of lower Virginia; by the Delawares
and Munsees; by the tribes of the Missouri, of the Valley of the
Columbia; by the Dakota tribes of the Mississippi, by the Algonkin
tribes of Wisconsin; by the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Creeks; by the
Village Indians of New Mexico, of Mexico, of Central America; by the
tribes of Venezuela; by the Peruvians--Universality of the usage--It
implies communism in living in large households.



CHAPTER III.

COMMUNISM IN LIVING.

A law of their condition--Large households among Indian tribes--
Communism in living in the household--Long Houses of the Iroquois--
Several families in a house--Communism in household--Long Houses of
Virginia Indians--Clustered cabins of the Creeks--Communism in the
cluster--Hunting bands on the plains--The capture a common stock--
Fishing bands on the Columbia--The capture a common stock--Large
households in tribes of the Colombia--Communism in the household--
Mandan houses--Contained several families--Houses of the Sauks the
same--Village Indians of New Mexico--Mayas of Yucatan--Their present
communism in living--Large households of Indians of Cuba, of
Venezuela, of Carthagena, of Peru.



CHAPTER IV.

USAGES AND CUSTOMS WITH RESPECT TO LAND AND FOOD.

Tribal domain owned by the tribe in common--Possessory right in
individuals and families to such land as they cultivated--Government
compensation for Indian lands paid to tribe; for improvements to
individuals--Apartments of a house and possessory rights to lands
went to gentile heirs--Tenure of land among sedentary Village
Indians at Taos, Jemex, and Zunyi--Among Aztecs or Ancient Mexicans,
as presented by Mr. Bandelier; in Peru--The usage of having but one
prepared meal each day, a dinner--Rule among Northern tribes--A
breakfast as well as a dinner claimed for the Mexicans--Separation
at meals, the men eating first, and by themselves, and the women and
children afterwards.



CHAPTER V.

HOUSES OF INDIAN TRIBES NORTH OF NEW MEXICO.

Houses of Indian tribes must be considered as parts of a common
system of construction--A common principle runs through all its forms;
that of adaptation to communism in living within the household--It
explains this architecture--Communal houses of tribes in savagery;
in California; in the valley of the Yukon; in the valley of the
Columbia--Communal house of tribes in the lower status of barbarism--
Ojibwa lodge--Dakota skin tent--Long houses of Virginia Indians; of
Nyach tribe on Long Island; of Seneca-Iroquois; of Onondaga-Iroquois--
Dirt Lodge of Mandans and Minnetarees--Thatched houses of Maricopas
and Mohaves of the Colorado; of the Pimas of the Gila--What a
comparison shows.



CHAPTER VI.

HOUSES OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF NEW MEXICO.

Improved character of houses--The defensive principle incorporated
in their plan of the Houses--Their joint tenement character--Two or
more stories high--Improved apparel, pottery, and fabrics--Pueblo of
Santo Domingo; of adobe bricks--Built in terraced town--Ground story
closed--Terraces reached by ladders--Rooms entered through
trap-doors in ceilings--Pueblo of Zunyi--Ceiling--Water-jars and
hand mill--Moki pueblo--Room in same--Ceiling like that at Zunyi--
Pueblo of Taos--Estufas for holding councils--Size of adobes--Of
doorways--Window-openings and trap-doorways--Present governmental
organization--Room in pueblo--Fire-places and chimneys of modern
introduction--Present ownership and inheritance of property--Village
Indians have declined since their discovery--Sun worship--The
Montezuma religion--Seclusion from religious motives.



CHAPTER VII.

HOUSES IN RUINS OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF THE SAN JUAN RIVER
AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

Pueblos in stone--The best structures in New Mexico--Ruins in the
valley of the Chaco--Exploration of Lieut. J. H. Simpson in 1849; of
William H. Jackson in 1877--Map of valley--Ground plans--Pueblo
Pintado and Weje-gi--Constructed of tabular pieces of sandstone--
Estufas and their uses--Pueblos Una Vida and Hungo Pavie--Restoration
of Hungo Pavie--Pueblo of Chettro-Kettle--Room in same--Form of
ceiling--Pueblo Bonito--Room in same--Restoration of Pueblo--Pueblo
del Arroyo--Pueblo Penyasca Blanca--Seven large pueblos and two
smaller ones--Pueblo Alto without the valley on table land on the
north side--Probably the "Seven Cities of Cibola" of Coronado's
Expedition--Reasons for supposition--The pueblos constructed
gradually--Remarkable appearance of the valley when inhabited.



CHAPTER VIII.

HOUSES IN RUINS OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF THE SAN JUAN RIVER
AND ITS TRIBUTARIES--(Continued.)

Ruins of stone pueblo on Animas River--Ground plan--Each room faced
with stone, showing natural faces--Constructed like those in Chaco--
Adobe mortar--Its composition and efficiency--Lime unknown in New
Mexico--Gypsum mortar probably used in New Mexico and Central America--
Cedar poles used as lintels--Cedar beams used as joists--Estufas;
neither fire-places nor chimneys--The House a fortress--Second stone
pueblo--Six other pueblos in ruins near--The Montezuma Valley--Nine
pueblos in ruins in a cluster--Diagram--Ruins of stone pueblos near
Ute Mountain--Outline of plan--Round tower of stone with three
concentric walls--Incorporated in pueblo--Another round tower--With
two concentric walls--Stands isolated--Other ruins--San Juan
district as an original centre of this Indian culture--
Mound-Builders probable emigrants from this region--Historical
tribes of Mexico emigrants from same--Indian migrations--Made under
control of physical causes.



CHAPTER IX.

HOUSES OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS.

Area of their occupation--Their condition that of Village Indians--
Probably immigrants from New Mexico--Character of their earthworks--
Embankments enclosing squares--Probable sites of their houses--
Adapted, as elevated platforms, to Long Houses--High bank works--
Capacity of embankments--Conjectural restoration of the pueblo--
Other embankments--Their probable uses--Artificial clay beds under
grave-mounds--Probably used for cremation of chiefs--Probable
numbers of the Mound Builders--Failure of attempt to transplant this
type of village life to the Ohio Valley--Their withdrawal probably
voluntary.



CHAPTER X.

HOUSES OF THE AZTECS OR ANCIENT MEXICANS.

First accounts of Pueblo of Mexico--Their extravagance--Later
American exaggerations--Kings and emperors made out of sachems and
war-chiefs--Ancient society awakens curiosity and wonder--Aztec
government a confederacy of three Indian tribes--Pueblo of Mexico in
an artificial lake--Joint-tenement houses--Several families in each
house--Houses in Cuba and Central America--Aztec houses not fully
explored--Similar to those in New Mexico--Communism in living
probable--Cortez in Pueblo of Mexico--His quarters--Explanation of
Diaz--Of Herrera--Of Bandolier--House occupied by Montezuma--A
communal house--Montezuma's dinner--According to Diaz--to Cortez--to
Herrera--To H. H. Bancroft--Excessive exaggerations--Dinner in
common by a communal household--Bandelier's "Social Organization and
Mode of Government of the Ancient Mexicans."



CHAPTER XI.

RUINS OF HOUSES OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF YUCATAN
AND CENTRAL AMERICA.

Pueblos in Yucatan and Central America--Their situation--Their house
architecture--Highest type of aboriginal architecture--Pueblos were
occupied when discovered--Uxmal houses erected on pyramidal
elevations--Governor's house--Character of its architecture--House
of the Nuns--Triangular ceiling of stone--Absence of chimneys--No
cooking done within the house--Their communal plan evidently
joint-tenement houses--Present communism of Mayas--Presumtively
inherited from their ancestors--Ruins of Zayi--The closed house--
Apartments constructed over a core of masonry--Palenque--Mr.
Stephens' misconception of these ruins--Whether the post and lintel
of stone were used as principles of construction--Plan of all these
houses communal--Also fortresses--Palenque Indians flat-heads--
American ethnography--General conclusions.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FRONTISPIECE. Zunyi Water Carrier.

Fig. 1. Earth Lodges of the Sacramento Valley

Fig. 2. Gallinomero Thatched Lodge

Fig. 3. Matdu Lodge in the high Sierra

Fig. 4. Yukuta Tule Lodges

Fig. 5. Kutchin Lodge

Fig. 6. Ground-plan of Necrohokioo

Fig. 7. Frame of Ojibwa Wig-e-wam

Fig. 8. Dakota Woka-yo, or Skin Tent

Fig. 9. Village of Pomeiock

Fig. 10. Village of Secotan

Fig. 11. Interior of House 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





HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES.




CHAPTER I.

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.



THE GENS.

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 children. These changes, slight
as they may seem, indicate very great changes of condition as well
as a large degree of progressive development.

The gentile organization, originating in the period of savagery,
enduring through the three subperiods of barbarism, finally gave way,
among the more advanced tribes, when they attained civilization--the
requirements of which it was unable to meet. Among the Greeks and
Romans political society supervened upon gentile society, but not
until civilization had commenced. The township (and its equivalent,
the city ward), with its fixed property, and the inhabitants it
contained, organized as a body politic, became the unit and the
basis of a new and radically different system of government. After
political society was instituted this ancient and time-honored
organization, with the phratry and tribe developed from it,
gradually yielded up their existence. It was under gentile
institutions that barbarism was won by some of the tribes of mankind
while in savagery, and that civilization was won by the descendants
of some of the same tribes while in barbarism. Gentile institutions
carried a portion of mankind from savagery to civilization.

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