Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/106

 to mean that all the lands of the original grant have been parcelled out. The further statement of Mr. Miller, that if a father dies his land is divided between his widow and children, and that if a mother dies, leaving no husband, her land is divided equally between her sons and daughters, is important, because it shows an inheritance by the children from both father and mother, a total departure from the principles of gentile inheritance. While visiting the Taos pueblo in the summer of! 878 I was unable to find among them the gentile organization, and from lack of sufficient time could not inquire into their rules of descent and inheritance.

My friend, Mr. Ad. F. Bandelier, now recognized as our most eminent scholar in Spanish American history, has recently investigated the subject of the tenure of lands among the ancient Mexicans with great thoroughness of research. The results are contained in an essay published in the Eleventh Annual Report of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, p. 385 (Cambridge, 1 878). It gives me great pleasure to incorporate verbatim in this chapter, and with his permission, so much of this essay as relates to the kinds or classes of land recognized among them, the manner in which they were held, and his general conclusions.

In the pueblo of Mexico (Tenochtitlan), he remarks: "Four quarters had been formed by the localizing of four relationships composing them respectively, and it is expressly stated that each one 'might build in its quarter (barrio) as it liked.' The term for these relationships, in the Nahuatl tongue, and used among all the tribes speaking it, was 'calpulli.' It is also used to designate a great hall or house, and we may therefore infer that, originally at least, all the members of one kinship dwelt under one common roof The ground thus occupied by the 'calpulli' was as