stream and woven with branches. Then the fish were driven down the Creek, and another row of stakes was placed behind them. When this was done, the spearing commenced, and the division of fish and the feast followed." In the hunting and fishing season, then, either the family or the mens' clan formed. the unit of distribution according as the domestic or the clan system of production was adopted. Since, however, we know that the latter method was the more usual among the Iroquois, we are justified in asserting that the clan principle of distribution was predominant even as regards hunting and fishing products.

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In treating of cultivated land, Powell and others always speak of the gens as the proprietory group; nevertheless, it must be remembered that not the collection of relatives known as the gens, but only the female members of the kindred group, were the real possessors of the land. The men of the gens had no part at all in the control of the fields from which they derived their vegetable food. Brothers and sons, though just as much members of the gens as are their mothers and sisters, "never have anything but their subsistence," Lafitau tells us,1 " and have nothing to say as to the distribution of the land and its produce."2 Understanding the word gens," as conveying the meaning which Professor Keasbey puts into the term "clan," we get from Major Powell1 a very good idea of the general laws of distribution in regard to cultivated land. "Within the area claimed by the tribe," he says, "each gens (clan) occupies a smaller tract for purpose of cultivation. The right of the gens to cultivate a particular tract is a matter settled in the council of the tribe, and the gens may abandon one tract for another only with the consent of the tribe. The women councillors partition the gentile land among the householders, and the household tracts are distinctly marked by them. The ground is repartitioned once in two years. The heads 1Lafitau, I, 72-73.

3

4

Keasbey, "Inst. of Society," International Mo., I, 355 sq.

Powell, "Wyandot Gov't," Eth. Rep., 1879-1880, p. 65. Cf. Morgan, “League,” p. 326; Anc. Soc., pp. 76-77; “Houses and House Life,” pp. 66-67; La Potherie, III, 33; Carr, Mounds," Sm. Inst. Rep., 1891, p.

66

of the households are responsible for the cultivation of their own tracts, and in case of neglect, the council of the gens calls the responsible parties to account." It seems clear that possessory rights to cultivated land within the tribal area belonged to the women's clans. Within the clan, land was divided among the different households according to their size. In case a family or household moved away to another village, the land which its female members had previously been cultivating simply reverted to the clan, and was disposed of as its officials saw fit. The same general rule that governed the distribution of land and its produce, held good in the case of other immovable possessions,— such as houses. The latter were, in the last resort, the property of the women's clan. Only as a member of the organization did any woman have a right to a compartment in the Longhouse. Thus, while in the hunting season the men's clan tended to be the distributive unit, in the village, on the other hand, it was the women's organization which controlled the surplus and represented the owning class.

To the strength of the clan principle of distribution may also be ascribed the nature of the Iroquois laws of inheritance. Since the individual member of the women's clan possessed only the usufruct of lands, houses, etc., the organization would naturally be her heir. Generally, however, the clan found it convenient to act merely as administrator, giving to the daughter or nearest female relative of the deceased the vacant place in its ranks. Of the personal property of the dead woman,—the implements, cooking utensils, etc., a few were buried with her; the rest went also to her near relatives.1 Similarly, a man's personal property, his hunting and fishing implements, his clothing, etc., was inherited by the military clan to which he belonged, and was generally given to his nearest male relative in that clan; i. e. to his sister's son or his brother. A man's own son belonged to another gens, and hence to another military clan; therefore, he could lay claim to none of the possessions of the deceased. From

1 Powell, "Wyandot Gov't," Eth. Rep., 1879-'80, p. 65; Chadwick, "People of the Longhouse," p. 57; La Potherie, III, 33; Jes. Rel., LXIII, 183; Lafitau, I, 72–73.

2 Jes. Rel., XLIV, 305–307.

the point of view of inheritance, then, the clan rather than the organic family, stands out preëminent. The women's clan was the heir of any of its members; the men's clan played the same part in regard to individuals belonging to its ranks. Here we have the solution of the apparently arbitrary custom, according to which women inherited from their mothers, but men from their uncles.

The influence of the clan principle of distribution upon the consumption group is evident in the Iroquois economy. It must be admitted that under almost any circumstances it is not only possible but probable that the family will remain the consumption group. In the domestic and village economy this is inevitably the case. Even in the typical republican and communal clan economies there is nothing to prevent clan members from taking their share of the produce and consuming it in company with their own families and those dependent upon them. Undoubtedly this was often the case among the Iroquois during the hunting season; nevertheless, when no women accompanied the party the men's clan must have consumed as such. Even after the return to the village, the men's clan generally appropriated most of the fresh meat and fish brought back and consumed it in a constant succession of feasts, in which the women had no part. Sometimes, indeed, a benevolent male relative might save his portion for them, but aside from these exceptions, women who stayed in the village were not likely to eat fresh meat from one end of the year to the other.1 In the ordinary village life, also, the fact that there were two clans-the warriors' and the women's-seems to have had a tendency to cause the consumption group to identify itself with these organizations. The typical Iroquois household was composed not of a husband and wife and their children, but of a group of females, young and old, representing several generations, together with their brothers. In other words, the household or consumption group was made up of a portion or even the whole of a women's clan, and a corresponding portion of the warriors' clan of the same gens. It is interesting to note that the two organiza

1Jes. Rel., XVII, 113; VIII, 143; Beauchamp, "Iroquois Trail," p. 92; Jes. Rel., XV, 183; LXXII, 328.

tions kept separate, even as to the time of eating, " the men eating first and by themselves, and the women and children afterwards and by themselves." Thus even as a consumption group the clan had become prominent among the Iroquois.1

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It seems impossible that under the communistic regime which has been described, any sort of division into classes of rich and poor could take place. In general, the evidence on the subject tends to substantiate this view. In the Jesuit Relation of 1656, we read: "No hospitals are needed among them, because there are neither mendicants nor paupers as long as there are any rich people among them. Their kindness, humanity and courtesy not only make them liberal with what they have, but cause them to possess hardly anything except in common. A whole village must be without corn before any individual can be obliged to endure privation. They divide the produce of their fisheries equally with all who come; and the only reproach they address to us is our hesitation to send to them oftener for our supply of provisions."2 In this very quotation, however, there is evidence of some division of the clan into rich and poor. It is as long as there are any rich people among them" that no one suffers for lack of food. It was indeed quite possible for temporary differences in wealth to spring up between different households; for instance, one family might keep its field cleaner and in better condition than another, and so harvest a larger crop. As long as the other members of the clan had enough to live on, the more diligent might keep their own corn, and perhaps accumulate a large store, adding to it from year to year. This surplus could be expended in feasts, or traded off with foreign tribes for skins or wampum and slaves. Similarly, in the hunting clan, the actual slayer of an animal got the skin as a reward for his skill. Thus a good marksman might come to be the possessor of more skins 1Cf. Margry, V, 389; III, 393; Morgan, "Houses and House Life." 2 Jes. Rel., XLIII, 271-273. Cf. Heckewelder, pp. 268-269. Loskiel, p.

14.

3 Jes. Rel., VIII, 93-95-A certain rich Huron referred to had two bins of corn holding from at least one hundred to one hundred and twenty bushels.

2

than the other men. Again, a band of victorious warriors was sometimes presented by the village with a large amount of wampum, which they would divide up among themselves. A skillful gambler, too, could often improve his worldly condition at the expense of his opponent. In many such ways one individual or household might become richer than others, possessing more wampum, clothing, and household furnishings, and entertaining more lavishly. Such differences in wealth, however, were merely temporary. Accumulation, where little beyond vital and aesthetic values prevail, does not proceed far nor last long. About the only object in amassing a surplus was to give it away and so to gain prestige. "You might say," writes a Jesuit missionary," that all their exertions, their labors, and their trading, concern almost entirely the amassing of some things with which to honor the dead. They have nothing sufficiently precious for this purpose; they lavish robes, axes and porcelain . . . in quantities . . . and yet these are the whole riches of the country. You will see them often in the depth of winter, almost entirely naked, while they have handsome and valuable robes in store that they keep in reserve for the dead."4 Among the Five Nations, and even among the rather more extravagant Hurons, all this wealth did not go into the grave. Merely the clothes in which it was dressed, a few provisions, and some other little articles, were buried with the corpse. The mass of other things-corn, skins, wampum, etc.—were distributed among the mourning friends and relations, in whose eyes such liberality greatly raised the prestige of the afflicted family. Mr. Hale says that in the latter days of the Iroquois, these funeral usages were discontinued; nevertheless, in its time, the

Jes. Rel., LIV, 25.

2 Jes. Rel., X, 81, 187.

3

Morgan, "Houses and Houselife," pp. 455 sq.; Lafitau, II, 89-90; Loskiel, pp. 14, 68; Jes. Rel., LVIII, 185; Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 41, pp. 357-358.

Cf. A. E. Jenks, "Faith in the Economic Life of the Amerind," Am. Anthrop., N. S., II (1900), p. 683.

5

Jes. Rel., X, 265-271. Cf. Lafitau, II, 413-415; Jes. Rel., LXXII, 328.

Hale, "Iroquois Book of Rites," in Brinton's "Library of Aboriginal American Lit.," Part II, p. 73.