custom was a good way for a family to utilize its surplus wealth. A similar redistribution was effected by the practice of feastgiving. The feast of Dreams, for instance, was held once a year, or oftener, on different important occasions. This festival, according to one of the Jesuits, "will sometimes last four or five days, during which all is disorder, and no one does more than snatch a hasty meal. All are at liberty to run through the cabins in grotesque attire, both men and women, indicating .. by signs, or by singing in enigmatical or obscure terms, what they have wished for in their dreams; and this each person tries to divine, offering the thing guessed, however precious it may be, and making a boast of appearing generous on this occasion." 1 Other feasts of a more ordinary character were given all through the year on every imaginable occasion.2 No one was excluded from these except as a punishment for some offense.3 The result was that in the long run every clan member was on a level with the rest as far as wealth was concerned. Large public feasts given by one village to another, played the same part in the distributive system of the tribe, as the purely local festivities played in that of the village and clan. In general, we are justified in asserting that the clan was the predominant distribution group of the Iroquois, and that within its ranks control of the surplus was shared equally among the members. Even accidental circumstances making one man richer than another had only a temporary effect, which soon disappeared before the lack of motive for accumulation and the strength of the clan ideal.

Among the rank and file of the Iroquois, equality of opportunity in production resulted in equality in distribution; nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that other classes, outside the clans, shared in the life of the ordinary Iroquois village. These occupied a distinct place in the productive, and hence also in the distributive organization of the community. The monopolistic part in production played by the medicine men gave them a cer1 Jes. Rel., LV, 61.

2 Jes. Rel., VIII, 127, 143; XVII, 209; XV, 113, 183; XXIII, 187; LXXII, 328; XXIII, 161.

3 Jes. Rel., XVI, 127.

Ac

tain control over the surplus of the clan, which they were not slow to perceive. These people, both men and women, may sometimes have taken part in the productive activities of the clan, and have received their share of the produce; but the main part of their wealth they received in the form of a tax upon the surplus of others, rendered in return for the supposed services of the medicine man in controlling the forces of nature. The medicine man claimed to be able to cure diseases, to bring good or bad weather as he pleased, to make game plenty or scarce, to bring many fish up the streams or to hold them back, to blast or to foster the growth of the corn. No wonder, then, that agriculturists and hunters paid him tribute, and were willing to support him, in order to enlist his valuable services on their side.1 cording to the Jesuit Relations, the Hurons asserted that the sorcerers ruin them; for if any one has succeeded in an enterprise, if his trading or hunting is successful, immediately these wicked men bewitch him or some members of his family, so that they have to spend it all in doctors and medicines." In fact, it was not unusual for a noted magician to lay a whole country under tribute. Thus in one case a magician exacts gifts from all the villages throughout the region, on pain of non-success in the fishing season.3 In another instance, he effects the same result by claiming to be able to cure an epidemic. It is not surprising if among the Iroquois, as among the Delawares and other tribes, the medicine-men were the richest people in the country. They formed in reality, a class of parasites living on the surplus produced by others.

66

'Jes. Rel., XVI, 149. Cf. XIX, 83-" Intimidating by their threats those who have not recourse to their art, and on the contrary, giving assurances of powerfully protecting those who acknowledge by some gift the Demon they adore."

X, 199-"The honors and emoluments are always great. These poor people . will give their all to anyone who pretends to help them." 2 Jes. Rel., VIII, 123.

3 Jes. Rel., XIX, 87.

Jes. Rel., XIII, 237.

5 Heckewelder, p. 235—" Our doctors are the richest people among us, they have everything they want,-fine clothes to wear, plenty of strings and belts of wampum," etc.

Just as the medicine-men stood above the clan in the distributive system, so the servile classes stood below it. Their part in production we have already mentioned. In the distribution of the utilities they helped to produce, we have the testimony of the Jesuit Relations that they received nothing but " food and shelter in exchange for their ceaseless labor and sweat."1 Beyond mere sustenance they had no rights of any kind, as long as they remained in the servile class. Rebellion or desertion on their part resulted in nothing but recapture, with cruel torture and death.

To recapitulate :—the system of distribution among the Iroquois is in every respect directly traceable to the peculiarities of their productive organization: within the area covered by the Confederacy each tribe occupied its own territory and owned all the sources of supply contained within the region: within the tribal boundaries the clans controlled the access to the sources of supply; and since the women's clans represented the agricultural laboring force, they also had control of the cultivated land and its produce, and gave support to the warriors only in return for their military services; while, on the other hand, the men's clan was the distributive unit of hunting and fishing life, wherever the domestic economy did not reappear: the clan principle of distribution thus explains the laws of inheritance prevalent among the Iroquois, and also the form which the consumption group tended to adopt: besides the clan, however, there were two other groups to be accounted for in treating of the distributive system of the Iroquois ; the jugglers or medicine men, who on the strength of their supposed monopoly in production, received an extra portion of the social surplus; captives and degenerates, who formed a servile class, giving up the whole product of their labor to the clans, and living in a position of absolute dependence upon them. Evidently, the distributive system of the Iroquois is the direct outcome of their organization for production.

1 Jes. Rel., XLIII, 295.

2

CHAPTER VI.

EXCHANGE.

The distributive system naturally gave very little opportunity for the development of any system of internal trade:1 differences in environment and manner of life in different sections of the country, however, led to a certain amount of barter between the Iroquois and other tribes. This trade received a great stimulus after the coming of the Europeans, when the Hurons and Iroquois, thanks to their fine geographical location, took the position of middle-men between the tribes of the interior and the European fur-traders of the coast. With this later development we are not particularly concerned. What interests us is rather the earlier state of aboriginal trade in this quarter. From time immemorial the Iroquois and Hurons had probably bartered their surplus corn and manufactures for the skins and birch-bark canoes offered them by the non-agricultural nomads of the North.3 The Huron country, fact, was regarded as "the granary of the Algonquins." With equal truth it might have been called the tobacco field of the region, considering the fact that the Petun or Tobacco nation of the Hurons gained its name as a result of its custom of cultivating large fields of tobacco expressly for purposes of trade. The Hurons and Iroquois also bartered goods with other tribes in their neighborhood. In this way, as well as by force of arms, the Five

5

in

'La Potherie, III, 33. According to La Potherie there was no internal trade even after the coming of the whites, except in brandy which was sold from house to house by any one who happened to get hold of some. 2 Jes. Rel., VIII, 57; XIII, 215.

'La Potherie, I, 289; Sagard, p. 274; Lafitau, II, 216 sq.; Jes. Rel., VI, 273; XXXVII, 65; XXXVIII, 237; Lafitau, II, 332-333-"Les nations sauvages commercent les unes avec les autres de tout temps. Leur commerce est un pur troc de denrées contre denrées."

Jes. Rel., VIII, 115. Cf. XV, 155; XIII, 249; XXI, 239.

5 Jes. Rel., I, 22.

Jes. Rel., XV, 155, 247, note 7.

1

Nations obtained much of their wampum.1 Most of the finer materials-jasper, white quartz, and chalcedony-used in making arrow-heads, also came from other parts of the country. More or less trade in slaves was also carried on between the Iroquois and other tribes.3 Charms, too, were objects of barter between the Iroquois and surrounding nations.*

The methods by which the interchange of goods was accomplished were those now familiar to all students of primitive society. Among the Hurons, from early spring on through the summer, trading parties left the villages to scatter in every direction among the neighboring tribes.5 These parties might consist of one or two canoes each holding three or four men, or they might be a large fleet of boats, all travelling together, and filled with traders and their wares and provisions. In the last resort trade seems to have been a matter regulated by the men's clans. According to the Jesuit Relations, a sort of monopoly of the trade carried on at any spot to which he or members of his gens-that is to say, his clan-had paid the first visit, was regarded as a merchant's indispensable right. Similarly the first man to find a particular line of trade profitable enjoyed a certain monopoly of the business, which he shared as a usual thing only with members of his clan, and perhaps with his children. According to the Jesuit Relation, "Several families (gentes) have their own private trades, and he is considered master of one line of trade who was the first to discover it. The children share the rights of their parents in this respect, as do those who bear the same name; no one goes into it without permission, which is given only in 1Jes. Rel., XII, 189; L, 135; Woodward, "Wampum," pp. 16 sq.; Lloyd, Morgan's "League" (ed. 1901), Notes, II, 244.

2 Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 16, pp. 12–13.

Jes. Rel., XVIII, 173; LIX, 309, note 25-" The Iroquois were habitual stealers and sellers of men."

Jes. Rel., XXXIX, 27; Jes. Rel., X, 51; XIX, 125.

5 Permission to go was previously obtained from the authorities in order to avoid leaving the village en masse and so depriving it of its garrison. Cf. Sagard, p. 260.

6 Jes. Rel., XXXVIII, 247; LII, 165; XXXV, 43; XIX, 105; XXII, 75, 81; XXXIII, 215; XXIV, 155.