Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/99

 seats; * * * and they gave them boiled roots to eat, which tasted like chestnuts." One of the first expeditions which touched the main land on the coast of Venezuela in South America found much larger houses than these last described. "The houses they dwelt in were common to all, and so spacious that they contained one hundred and sixty persons, strongly built, though covered with palm-tree leaves, and shaped like a bell. -Herrera further remarks of the same tribe, that "they observed no law or rule in matrimony, but took as many wives as they would, and they as many husbands, quitting one another at pleasure, without reckoning any wrong done on either part. There was no such thing as jealousy among them, all living as best pleased them, without taking offense at one another." This shows communism in husbands as well as wives, and rendered communism in food a necessity of their condition. Elsewhere the same author speaks of the habitations of the tribes on the coast of Carthagena. "Their houses were like long arbors, with several apartments, and they had no beds but hammocks." Many similar statements are scattered through his work.

Among the more advanced tribes of Peru the lands were divided, and allotted to different uses; one part was for the support of the government, another for the support of religion, and another for the support of individuals. The first two parts were cultivated by the people under established regulations, and the crops were placed in public storehouses. This is the statement of Garcilasso. Herrera, however, says generally that the people lived from common stores "The Spaniards drawing near to Caxamalca begun to have a view of the Inca army lying near the bottom of a mountain. * * * They were pleased to see the beauty of the fields, most regularly cultivated, for it was an ancient law among these people that all should be fed from common stores, and none should touch the standing corn." The discrepancy between Herrera and Garcilasso may perhaps be explained by the reservation of the crops grown on lands set apart for the government and for religion.

The reason for presenting the foregoing observations of different authors concerning the households, the houses, and the practice of communism in