Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/86

 different continents that communism has widely prevailed among them, and that the influence of this ancient practice had not entirely disappeared among the more advanced tribes when civilization finally appeared. The common meal-bin of the ancient and the common tables of the later Greeks seem to be survivals of an older communism in living. This practice, though never investigated as a specialty, may be shown by the known customs of a number of Indian tribes, and may be confirmed by an examination of the plans of their houses. Our first illustration will be taken from the usages of the Iroquois. In their villages they constructed houses, consisting of frames of poles covered with bark, thirty, fifty, eighty, and a hundred feet in length, with a passage-way through the center, a door at each end, and with the interior partitioned off at intervals of about seven feet. Each apartment or stall thus formed was open for its entire width upon the passage-way. These houses would accommodate five, ten, and twenty families, according to the number of apartments, one being usually allotted to a family. Each household was made up on the principle of kin. The married women, usually sisters, own or collateral, were of the same gens or clan, the symbol or totem of which was often painted upon the house, while their husbands and the wives of their sons belong to several other gentes. The children were of the gens of their mother. While husband and wife belonged to different gentes, the preponderating number in each household would be of the same gens, namely, that of their mothers. As a rule the sons brought home their wives, and in some cases the husbands of the daughters were admitted to the maternal house. Thus each household was composed of a mixture of persons of different gentes; but this would not prevent the numerical ascendency of the particular gens to whom the house belonged. In a village of one hundred and twenty houses, as the Seneca village of Tiotohatton described by Mr. Greenbalgh in 1677, there would be several such houses belonging to each gens. It presented a general picture of Indian life in all parts of America at the epoch of European discovery. Whatever was gained by any member of the household on hunting or fishing expeditions, or was raised by cultivation, was made a common stock. Within the house