Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/108

 "The soil built over by each 'calpulli' probably remained for some time the only solid expanse held by the Mexicans. Gradually, however, the necessity was felt for an increase of this soil. Remaining unmolested 'in the midst of canes and reeds,' their numbers had augmented, and for residence as well as for food a greater area was needed. Fishing and hunting no longer satisfied a people whose original propensities were horticultural; they aspired to cultivate the soil as they had once been accustomed to, and after the manner of the kindred tribes surrounding them. For this purpose they began throwing up little artificial garden beds, 'chinampas,' on which they planted Indian corn and perhaps some other vegetables. Such plots are still found, as 'floating gardens,' in the vicinity of the present city of Mexico, and they are described as follows by a traveler of this century:

They are artificial gardens, about fifty or sixty yards long, and not more than four or five wide. They are separated by ditches of three or four yards, and are made by taking the soil from the intervening ditch and throwing it on the chinampa, by which means the ground is raised generally about a yard, and thus forms a small fertile garden, covered with the finest culinary vegetables, fruits, and flowers. * * *'

"Each consanguine relationship thus gradually surrounded the surface on which it dwelt with a number of garden plots sufficient to the wants of its members. The aggregate area thereof, including the abodes, formed the calpullalli—soil of the 'calpulli' —and was held by it as a unit; the single tracts, however, being tilled and used for the benefit of the single families. The mode of tenure of land among the Mexicans at that period was therefore very simple. The tribe claimed its territory, ',' an undefined expanse over which it might extend—the 'calpules,' however, held and possessed within that territory such portions of it as were productive; each