Page:The American Indian.djvu/199

Rh family relationships. This work, perhaps more than anything else, stimulated a number of American field-workers to re-examine the whole problem.

The comprehension of social organization is by no means easy because the phenomenon is very complex and lacks objective definition. In North America, where we know the subject best, we find among other forms a natural social group, or band, under the leadership of a competent individual. The nucleus of this group is frequently the immediate family of the leader, recruited by relatives and strangers who have attached themselves because of faith in his leadership. Thus, an energetic leader may soon have a large following. Such groups are usually found among hunting peoples who maintain their tribal solidarity by meeting once or twice a year en masse, at which time only, the tribal government is in function. After these brief intervals, they again scatter out in these same groups, or communities. In the United States and Canada, and in fact everywhere, the annual round of seasons gives human social life a kind of yearly cycle. This is very striking in the bison area, particularly among those tribes on the borders who raise a little maize or tobacco. Here the severe weather of January finds the small bands we have noted sheltered in little valleys some distance apart, each usually having its definite camping place. Here they stay until spring, when their fields are prepared. When the crop is in, a call is sent out by the tribal chief for all to meet at a certain place, where the bands are automatically confederated into an organized camp which now moves and kills bison as a body. After an interval, they return to harvest their crop and then once again set out for the autumn hunt, to scatter out, at last, to their homes in December. In such a political group, it is clear that the simple band is the fundamental unit and as such is little more than the voluntary association of individuals under an able leader. All are more or less dependent upon his bounty. Among these may be a shaman and also a priest, though the leader himself may be one of these.