Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/88

 No matter how many children, or whatever goods he might have in the house, he might at any time be ordered to pick up his blanket and budge; and after such orders it would not be healthful for him to attempt to disobey; the house would be too hot for him; and unless saved by the inter. cession of some aunt or grandmother, he must retreat to his own clan, or as was often done, go and start a new matrimonial alliance in some other. The women were the great power among the clans, as everywhere else They did not hesitate, when occasion required, to 'knock off the horns,' as it was technically called, from the head of a chief and send him back to the ranks of the warriors The original nomination of the chiefs also always rested with them."

The mother-right and gyneocracy among the Iroquois here plainly indicated is not overdrawn. The mothers and their children, as we have seen, were of the same gens, and to them the house belonged. It was a gentile house. In case of the death of father or mother, the apartments they occupied could not be detached from the kinship, but remained to its members. The position of the mother was eminently favorable to her influence in the household, and tended to strengthen the maternal bond. We may see in this an ancient phase of human life which has had a wide prevalence in the tribes of mankind, Asiatic, European, African, American, and Australian. Not until after civilization had begun among the Greeks, and gentile society was superseded by political society, was the influence of this old order of society overthrown. It left behind, at least among the Grecian tribes, deep traces of its previous existence.

Among the Iroquois, those who formed a household and cultivated gardens gathered the harvest and stored it in their dwelling as a common stock. There was more or less of individual ownership of these products, and of their possession by different families. For example, the corn, after stripping back the husk, was braided by the husk in bunches and hung up in the different apartments; but when one family had exhausted its supply, their wants were supplied by other families so long as any remained. Each