Undoubtedly field produce formed the larger part of this portion of the wealth of the Iroquois, while the animal world supplied the material of which clothing was made. Dwellings were constructed of wood and bark; those used during the hunting season were small and portable, like the ordinary wigwam of the purely hunting tribe; those of the village, on the other hand, were of the sort characteristic of a settled agricultural people. In other words, the village dwellings were large and permanent houses, carefully built, and surrounded by a strong palisade. All these goods were valuable; i. e. they were important to their owners in proportion to the amount of effort involved in their production. As a general thing, the sources of supply were practically unlimited and access to them was free to all. Hence labor cost was the only factor determining value. Generally speaking, the Iroquois notion of wealth went no farther than the concrete concept from the standpoint of which we have been speaking. Wealth to them meant merely a collection of freely reproducible goods each valuable mainly on account of its usefulness to its owner and its labor cost; nevertheless, the faint beginnings of the phenomenon which Professor Keasbey calls Prestige Value, and the consequent concept of wealth as an abstract fund to be measured in terms of a standard of value, are plainly perceptible. There was one article known to the Iroquois, the amount of which was limited and the value of which was general and social and did not decrease under accumulation; wampum was an object "both lasting and scarce, and so valuable as to be hoarded up." The estimation in which wampum was held was based primarily upon its usefulness as an ornament. Mr. Holmes says that for this purpose "the flinty substances of the shells of mollusks has been a favorite material at all times and with all peoples. Especially is this true of the shell-loving natives of North America among whom shell beads have been in use far back into the prehistoric ages, and who today from Oregon to Florida burden themselves to discomfort with 3 99.2 1 Keasbey, "Prestige Value," Q. J. Econ., XVII, May, 1903. ... 66 multiple strings of their favorite ornament; and this, too, without any reference to their value as money." On the necks of brawny and unkempt savages, I have seen necklaces that would not shame a regal wardrobe, and have marvelled at the untaught appreciation of beauty displayed." The Iroquois were not behind. the other nations in their love of shell ornaments. Their women and even their men wore necklaces, bracelets, belts, and hairornaments made of violet and white shell beads of various sizes and shapes-round, oval, or cylindrical-strung on a fibre or sinew thread.1 Cut in the form of sticks, it was also worn thrust through the lobes of the ears.2 Besides its aesthetic value, however, wampum possessed a certain prestige value based upon the fact that it was not, so far as the Iroquois were concerned, a freely reproducible good. In the first place, the supply was limited to a certain locality, chiefly along the Atlantic coast, to which the Iroquois did not have direct access. Hence the greater part of their wampum had to be obtained in a roundabout way, through the coast tribes who manufactured it. In the second place, even though the Iroquois had possessed an unlimited supply of the raw material close at hand, the prohibitive labor cost involved in cutting out, perforating, and polishing the beads, would have given them a scarcity value. Naturally, the more such ornaments an individual possessed, the greater the prestige he enjoyed. Hence it became an object in itself to be known as the owner of much wampum. Here, at last, was something whose value did not decrease with accumulation. A man could not make use of more than one house or of more than a certain amount of meat or corn, but he could always find a use for wampum. Even after he had decorated everything and everybody that belonged to him, and the utility of his wampum as an 1 1 Jes. Rel., XIV, 163; XV, 155, 205; XLIV, 289, 291; Lafitau, II, 59; Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 41, pp. 326 sq., 356 sq.; Holmes, Eth. Rep., 1880-1881, pp. 230 sq.; Schoolcraft, "Notes on the Iroquois," P. 144. 8 * Woodward, "Wampum,” pp. 16 sq.; Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., pp. 137, 148; No. 41, pp. 330 sq.; Jes. Rel., VIII, Notes, pp. 312 sq. 66 ornament had sunk to the zero point, still he could lay up the surplus in his cabin, and thereby gain prestige among his poorer neighbors. It is interesting to note how far its prestige value had led the Iroquois and Hurons to regard wampum as the measure of wealth in general. A certain Huron, for instance, mentioned by the Jesuit Relation,1 returns from a six months' trading journey with his gross receipts entirely in the form of wampum beads, of which he had fourteen thousand. He reckons all his wealth in terms of wampum, and says that if he were richer" he would give a larger sum to the missionaries. Again, we find a man spoken of as left in deep destitution, "having seen his porcelain collars and all that he had, taken."2 A wampum collar or belt was as tempting a bribe to the Iroquois or Huron, as a good sized checque is now to the modern politician. It required a stout struggle to refuse it. Thus an honest Huron remarks, “We have nothing so precious as our porcelain collars: if I were to see a score of them glittering before me, to entice me into sin . . . my heart would have loathing for that in which it has so much delighted." On another occasion, a converted woman, transported to the heights of enthusiasm, exclaims "My God . . . I would rather trample under foot a thousand porcelain collars than commit a single sin against you." Finally, we have again and again the direct testimony of the Jesuits that "All the riches of the country" were comprised in the "bracelets, crowns, and all the ornaments worn by the women.”5 True, it is only with the private appropriation of such great natural resources as land and cattle, and the full development of the Proprietary Period that the phenomenon of prestige value and the ability to measure wealth as an abstract fund to be expressed in terms of some unit of value makes its permanent appearance; nevertheless, it was the same principle, working under less favorable circumstances which produced even among the Iroquois a faint prototype of future things. 1 1 Jes. Rel., XXXIII, 185. 2 Jes. Rel., XVI, 205. Jes. Rel., XX, 223. Jes. Rel., XXVI, 227. Jes. Rel., XLII, 155. Cf. VIII, 259, 273; IX, 281; XXXVIII, 271. CHAPTER V. THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. The system according to which the wealth of the Iroquois was distributed was an exact reflexion of their system of organization for production. Looking from above downward, we find the Confederacy exercising a sort of general control over the whole territorial area occupied by the Iroquois tribes and over that of subject nations. In order to meet necessary expenses, the Confederacy also possessed a treasury of its own, filled by tributes exacted from dependent peoples, and by gifts from the Iroquois tribes themselves. Within the area controlled by the Confederacy, each tribe also occupied its own territorial district,1 and possessed a treasury of its own, kept full by contributions from various sources. Presents from outsiders and from individual Iroquois who wished to gain influence over the tribe formed one source of supply: the gentes, however, were the chief contributors.3 The contents of the treasury consisted primarily of wampum. Besides that commodity, the treasury also contained skins, corn meal, meat, and anything else that could be used toward the payment of tribal expenses; as for instance, in the entertainment of ambassadors, and the confirmation of treaties. Captives were, also, sometimes kept as tribal property, instead of being given to some gens.5 4 Within the tribal domain, every one had an equal right to hunt 'La Hontan, "Voyages," II, 175-"Les sauvages se font la guerre au sujet de la chasse ou du passage sur leurs terres, parceque les limites sont réglées, chaque nation connaît les bornes de son païs.” Cf. Morgan, “League" (ed. 1901), II, 272–273; Morgan, "Houses and Houselife," p. 79; Schoolcraft, "Hist. Ind. Tribes," I, 278; Margry, V, 395; Jes. Rel., XII, 189. 66 "3 ing and fishing privileges and the use of land for cultivation. As regards game rights and fishing stations the distributive unit might be either the individual father of each family, or it might be the men's clan, according as the productive organization was the family or the clan: a single hunter had a right to as much of the produce of his labor as he could carry away.1 Similarly a solitary fisherman who "has discovered a lake or a good fishing place or a Beaver dam, is owner of it; he marks the place, and no one disputes his right to it."2 On the other hand, when the hunt or the fishing expedition was carried on by a coöperative group, that group or clan was regarded as the collective owner of the produce. "Each hunting and fishing party," says Mr. Morgan, made a common stock of the capture.' "If they travel in company," says Loskiel," they have all things in common. They usually appoint one to be their leader, and the young men hunt by the way. If they kill a deer, they bring it to the rendez-vous, lay it down by the fire, and expect that the leader will distribute it among the whole party." Fishing rights were distributed according to a similar plan. Only certain places were suitable for fishing with weirs, nets, and harpoons. Of these natural monopolies, the tribe was the owner, while possessory rights were claimed temporarily by individual clans. In 1753 Zeisburger found between Oneida and Cross Lakes, six weirs owned by the Onondagas. On the Seneca River he went from one to another. At the eastern station he met an Onondaga chief who told him how the country was divided. "It is plain to be seen," he concludes, "that they have much order in their affairs. For instance, each one has his own place where he is permitted to fish, and no one is allowed to invade upon his part." The Oneida annual fishing feast is another good example of the perfect system of clan distribution. When all were assembled," says Mr. Beauchamp," "a row of stakes was placed across the 1Loskiel, p. 78. 3 2 La Potherie, III, 33. 66 Morgan, "Houses and House Life,” p. 67. 'Loskiel, p. 102. 5 Cf. Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 50, p. 297. "Beauchamp, "Iroquois Trail,” p. 92. |