Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines Part 12

[Relocated Footnote 13: From "tlalli" soil, and "maitl" hand. Hands of the soil. Molma (Parte IIa, p. 124) has: "tlalmaitl"--"labrador, y ganyan." This name is given in distinction of the "macehuales" or people working the soil in general. The tlalmaites are identical with the "mayeques." (See Zurita, p. 224): "tlalmaites or mayeques, which signifies tillers of the soil of others...." He distinguishes them plainly from the 'teccallec,' which are the 'tecpanpouhque' or "tecpantlaca" formerly mentioned as attending to a cla.s.s official lands (p. 221, Zurita). Herrera (Dec. III, Lib. IV, cap. XVII, p. 138): "These mayeques could not go from one tract to another, neither leave those which they cultivated, and raised. They paid tribute to n.o.body else but the master of the land." This tends to show that there existed not an established obligation, a serfdom, but a voluntary contract, that the "tlalmaites" were not serfs, but simply renters.]

[Relocated Footnote 14: Motolinia (Tratado II, cap. V, p. 120): "But they left their houses and lands to their children" ... Gomara (p. 434): "Es costumbre de pecheros que el hijo mayor herede al padre en toda la hacienda raiz y mueble, y que tenga y mantenga todos los hermanos y sobrinos, con tal que haganellos lo que el les mandare." Clavigero (Lib. VII, cap. XIII): "In Mexico, and nearly the entire realm, the royal family excepted as already told, the sons succeeded to the father's rights; and if there were no sons, then the brothers, and the brothers' sons inherited." Bustamante ("Tezcoco," etc., p. 219): In all these cases, Bustamante only speaks of chiefs; but the quotations from Motolinia and Gomara directly apply to the people in general.]

[Relocated Footnote 15: Mr. L. H. Morgan has investigated the custom of inheritance, not only among the northern Indians, but also among the pueblo Indians of New Mexico. He establishes the fact, that the "kinship" or "gens," which we may justly consider as the unit of organization in American aboriginal society, partic.i.p.ated in the property of the deceased. He proves it among the Iroquois ("Ancient Society," Part II, cap. II, pp. 75 and 76). Wyandottes, Id., cap. VII, p. 153. Missouri-tribes, p. 155. Winnebagoes, p 157. Mandans, p 158.

Minnitarees, p. 159. Creeks, p. 161. Choctas, p. 162. Chickasas, p.

163. Ojibwas, p. 167; also Potowattomies and Crees, Miamis, p. 168.

Shawnees, p. 169. Sauks, Foxes and Menominies, p. 170. Delawares, p.

172. Munsees and Mohegans, p. 173. Finally, the pueblo Indians of New Mexico are shown to have, if not the identical at least a similar mode of inheritance. It would be easy to secure further evidence, from South America also.]

[Relocated Footnote 16: Letter of Motolinia and Diego d'Olarte, to Don Luis de Velasco, Cholula, 27 Aug., 1554 ("Recueil," etc., etc., p.

407): "The daughters did not inherit; it was the princ.i.p.al, wife's son" ... "Besides, nearly every author designates but a son, or sons, as the heirs. There is no mention made of daughters at all. In Tlaxcallan, it is also expressly mentioned that the daughters did not inherit" (Torquemada, Lib. XI, cap. XXII, p. 348). In general, the position of woman in ancient Mexico was a very inferior one, and but little above that which it occupies among Indians in general.

(Compare the description of Gomara, p. 440, Vedia I, with those of Sahagun. Lib. X, cap. I, p. 1; cap. XIII, pp. 30, 31, 32, and 33.

The fact is generally conceded). H. H. Bancroft "Native Races," Vol.

II, cap. VI, p. 224, etc.]

CHAPTER V.

HOUSES OF INDIAN TRIBES NORTH OF NEW MEXICO.

The growth of the idea of house architecture in general is a subject more comprehensive than the scope of this volume. But there is one phase of this growth, ill.u.s.trating as it does the condition of society and of the family in savagery and in barbarism, to which attention will be invited. It is found in the domestic architecture of the American aborigines, considered as a whole, and as parts of one system. As a system it stands related to the inst.i.tutions, usages, and customs presented in the previous chapters. There is not only abundant evidence in the collective architecture of the Indian tribes of the gradual development of this great faculty or apt.i.tude of the human mind among them, through three ethnical periods, but the structures themselves, or a knowledge of them, remain for comparison with each other. A comparison will show that they belong to a common indigenous system of architecture. There is a common principle running through all this architecture, from the hut of the savage to the commodious joint-tenement house of the Village Indians of Mexico and Central America, which will contribute to its elucidation.

The indigenous architecture of the Village Indians has given to them, more than aught else, their position in the estimation of mankind.

The facts of their social condition in other respects, which, unfortunately, are obscure, have been much less instrumental in fixing their status than existing architectural remains. The Indian edifices in Mexico and Central America of the period of the Conquest may well excite surprise and even admiration; from their palatial extent, from the material used in their construction, and from the character of their ornamentation, they are highly creditable to their skill in architecture. But a false interpretation has, from the first, been put upon this architecture, as I think can be shown, and inferences with respect to the social condition and the degree of advancement of these tribes have been constantly drawn from it both fallacious and deceptive, when the plain truth would have been more creditable to the aborigines. It will be my object to give an interpretation of this architecture in harmony with the usages and customs of the Indian tribes. The houses of the different tribes, in ground-plan and mechanism, will be considered and compared, in order to show wherein they represent one system.

A common principle, as before stated, runs through all this architecture, from the "long-house" of the Iroquois to the "pueblo houses" of New Mexico, and to the so-called "palace" at Palenqne, and the "House of the Nuns" at Uxmal. It is the principle of adaptation to communism in living, restricted in the first instance to household groups, and extended finally to all the inhabitants of a village or encampment by the law of hospitality. Hunger and dest.i.tution were not known at one end of an Indian village while abundance prevailed at the other. Joint-tenement houses, each occupied by one large household, as among the Iroquois, or by several household groups, as in Yucatan, were the natural and inevitable result of their usages and customs. Communism in living and the law of hospitality, it seems probable, accompanied all the phases of Indian life in savagery and in barbarism. These and other facts of their social condition embodied themselves in their architecture, and will contribute to its elucidation.

The house architecture of the Northern tribes is of little importance, in itself considered; but, as an outcome of their social condition and for comparison with that of the Southern Village Indians, it is highly important. An attempt will be made to show, firstly, that the known communism in living of the former tribes entered into and determined the character of their houses, which are communal; and, secondly, that wherever the structures of the latter cla.s.s are obviously communal, the practice of communism in living at the period of discovery may be inferred from the structures themselves, although many of them are now in ruins, and the people who constructed them have disappeared. Some evidence, however, of the communism of the Village Indians has been presented.

COMMUNAL HOUSES OF TRIBES IN SAVAGERY.

Mr. Stephen Powers, in his recent and instructive work on the "California Tribes," enumerates seven varieties of the lodge constructed by these tribes, adapted to the different climates of the State. One form was adapted to the raw and foggy climate of the California coast, constructed of redwood poles over an excavated pit, another to the snow-belt of the Coast Range and of the Sierras; another to the high ranges of the Sierras; another to the warm coast valleys; another, limited to a small area, constructed of interlaced willow poles, the interstices being open; another to the woodless plains of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, dome-shaped and covered with earth; and another to the hot and nearly rainless region of the Kern and Tulare valleys, made of tule. Four of these varieties are given below, the ill.u.s.trations being taken from his work. [Footnote: Powell's Geographical Survey, &c., of the Rocky Mountain Region, Contributions to American Ethnology, vol. iii, Powers' Tribes of California, p. 436.]

"In making a wigwam, they excavated about two feet, banked up the earth enough to keep out the water, and threw the remainder on the roof dome-shaped. With the Lolsel the bride often remains in the father's house, and her husband comes to live with her, whereupon half the purchase money is returned. Thus there will be two or three families in one lodge. They are very clannish, especially the mountain tribes, and family influence is all potent." [Footnote: ib., p. 221.]

Elsewhere he remarks upon this form of house as follows: "On the great woodless plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, the savages naturally had recourse to earth for a material. The round, domed-shaped, earth-covered lodge is considered the characteristic one of California; and probably two-thirds of its immense aboriginal population lived in dwellings of this description. The doorway is sometimes directly on top, sometimes on the ground, at one side. I have never been able to ascertain whether the amount of rain-fall of any given locality had any influence in determining the place of the door." [Footnote: ib., p. 437.]

This mode of entrance reappears in the more artistic house of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, where the rooms are entered by means of a trap-door in the roof, the descent being made by a ladder. The "immense aboriginal population" of California, claimed by Mr. Powers, is too strong a statement.

"This wigwam is in the shape of the capital letter L, made up of slats leaning up to a ridge-pole and heavily thatched. All along the middle of it the different families or generations have their fires, while they sleep next the walls, lying on the ground, underneath rabbit-skins and other less elegant robes, and amid a filthy cl.u.s.ter of baskets, dogs, and all the wretched trumpery dear to the aboriginal heart. There are three narrow holes for dens, one at either end and one at the elbow." This is Mr. Powers' fifth variety of the lodge. [Footnote: Powers' Tribes of Cal., p. 284.]

"In the very highest region of Sierra, where the snow falls to such an enormous depth that the fire would be blotted out and the whole open side snowed up, the dwelling retains substantially the same form and materials, but the fire is taken into the middle of it, and one side of it (generally the east one) slopes down more nearly horizontal than the other, and terminates in a curved way about three feet high and twice as long." Half a dozen such houses make an Indian village, with the addition of a "dome-shaped a.s.sembly or dance house" in the middle s.p.a.ce. "One or more acorn-granaries of wicker-work stand around each lodge, much like hogsheads in shape and size, either on the ground or mounted on posts as high as one's head, full of acorns and capped with thatch." [Footnote: Powers'

Tribes of Cal., p. 284.]

In Southern California, where the climate is both dry and hot, the natives constructed a wigwam entirely different from those found in other parts of the State. "In the Yokut nation," Mr. Powers remarks, "there appears to be more political solidarity, more capacity in the petty tribes of being grouped into large and coherent ma.s.ses than is common in the State. This is particularly true of those living on the plains, who display in their encampments a military precision and regularity which are remarkable. Every village consists of a single row of wigwams, conical or wedge-shaped, generally made of tule, and just enough hollowed out within so that the inmates may sleep with the head higher than the feet, all in perfect alignment, and with a continuous awning of brushwood stretching along in front.

In one end-wigwam lives the village captain; on the other the shaman of si-se'-ro. In the mountains there is some approach to this martial array, but it is universal on the plains." [Footnote: Powers' Tribes of Cal., p. 370.]

As a rule these houses were occupied by more families than one, as is shown by the same author. In the northern part of the State "the Tatu wigwams do not differ essentially from those of the vicinal tribes. They are constructed of stout willow wicker-work, dome-shaped, and thatched with gra.s.s. Sometimes they are very large and oblong, with sleeping-room for thirty or forty persons." [Footnote: ib., p.

139.]

The Yo-kai'-a inhabit a section of the north-west part of the State.

"Their style of lodge is the same which prevails generally along Russian River, a huge frame-work of willow poles covered with thatch, and resembling a large flattish haystack. Though still preserving the same style and materials, since they have adopted from the Americans the use of boards they have learned to construct all around the wall of the wigwam a series of little state rooms, if I may so call them, which are snugly boarded up and furnished with bunks inside. This enables every family in these immense patriarchal lodges to disrobe and retire with some regard to decency, which could not be done in the one common room of the old style wigwam."

[Footnote: ib., p. 163.]

Again: "The Se-nel, together with three other petty tribes, mere villages, occupy that broad expanse of Russian River Valley on one side of which now stands the American village of Senel. Among them we find unmistakably developed that patriarchal system which appears to prevail all along Russian River. They construct immense dome-shaped or oblong lodges of willow poles an inch or two in diameter, woven in square lattice-work, securely lashed and thatched.

In each one of these live several families, sometimes twenty or thirty persons, including all who are blood relations. Each wigwam, therefore, is a pueblo, a law unto itself; and yet these lodges are grouped in villages, some of which formerly contained hundreds of inhabitants." [Footnote: ib., p. 168.]

I cannot find that Mr. Powers mentions the practice of communism in these households, but the fact seems probable. Their usages in the matter of hospitality are much the same as in the other tribes.

Their princ.i.p.al food was salmon, acorn-flour bread, game, kamas, and berries. They were, without pottery, cooked in ground ovens, and also in water-tight baskets by means of heated stones.

A brief reference may be made to the skin lodge of the Kutchin or Louchoux of the Yukon and Peel Rivers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 5.--Kutchin Lodge.]

This simple structure, the ground plan and elevation of which were taken from the Smithsonian Report, is thus described by Mr.

Strachan Jones: [Footnote: Report for 1866, p. 321.] "Deer-skins are dressed with the hair on, and sewed together, forming two large rolls, which are stretched over a frame of bent poles. The lodge is nearly elliptical, about twelve or thirteen feet in diameter and six feet high, very similar to a tea-cup turned over. The door is about four feet high, and is simply a deer-skin fastened above and hanging down.

The hole to allow the smoke to escape is about four feet in diameter.

Snow is heaped up outside the edges of the lodge and pine brush spread on the ground inside, the snow having been previously shoveled off with snow-shoes. The fire is made in the middle of the lodge, and one or more families, as the case may be, live on each side of the fire, every one having his or her particular place."

[Footnote: ib., p. 322.] He further remarks that "they have no pottery," and that they boil water "by means of stones heated red hot and thrown into the kettle." [Footnote: ib., p. 321.]

The princ.i.p.al fact to be noticed is that the lodge is comparted into stalls open on the central s.p.a.ce, in the midst of which is the fire-pit, evidently for the accommodation of more families than one.

This arrangement of the interior will reappear in numerous other cases. The Kutchin must be cla.s.sed as savages, although near the close of that condition.

The tribes of the valley of the Columbia lived more or less in villages, but, like the tribes of California, were without horticulture and without pottery. But they found an abundant subsistence in the sh.e.l.l-fish of the coast, and in the myriads of fish in the Columbia and its tributaries. They also subsisted upon kamash and other bread roots of the prairies, which they cooked in ground ovens, and upon berries and game. They were expert boatmen and fishermen, manufactured water-tight baskets, implements of wood, stone, and bone, and used the bow and arrow. As another quite remarkable fact, they used plank in their houses, made by splitting logs with stone and elk-horn chisels. Like the Kutchin, they were in the Upper Status of savagery.

When Lewis and Clarke visited the Columbia River district (1805-1806) they found the Indian tribes living in houses of the plainest communal type, and some of them approaching in ground dimensions and in the number of their occupants the pueblo houses in New Mexico.

They speak of a house of the Chopunish (Nez Perces) as follows: "This village of Tumachemootool is in fact only a single house one hundred and fifty feet long, built after the Chopunish fashion, with sticks, straw and dried gra.s.s. It contains twenty-four fires, about double that number of families, and might perhaps muster a hundred fighting men." [Footnote: Travels, etc., l. c., p. 548.]

This would give five hundred people in a single house. The number of fires probably indicates the number of groups practicing communism in living among themselves, though for aught we know it may have been general in the entire household.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 6--Ground plan of Ncerchokioo.]

Another great house, Ncerchokioo, is thus described: "This large building is two hundred and twenty-six feet in front, entirely above ground, and may be considered a single house, because the whole is under one roof, otherwise it would seem more like a range of buildings, as it is divided into seven distinct apartments, each thirty feet square, by means of broad boards set up on end from the floor to the roof. The apartments are separated from each other by a pa.s.sage or alley four feet wide, extending through the whole depth of the house, and the only entrance is from the alley through a small hole about twenty inches wide and not more than three feet high.

The roof is formed of rafters and round poles laid on horizontally.

The whole is covered with a double roof of bark of white cedar."

[Footnote: Lewis and Clarke's Travels, p. 503.]

The apartments, as in the previous case of the fires, may be supposed to indicate the number of groups into which the great household was subdivided for the practice of communism.

Elsewhere, speaking of the houses of the Clahclellahs, they remark: "These houses are uncommonly large; one of them measured one hundred and sixty by forty feet, and the frames are constructed in the usual manner.... Most of the houses are built of boards and covered with bark, though some of the more inferior kind are constructed wholly of cedar bark, kept smooth and flat by small splinters fixed crosswise through the bark, at the distance of twelve or fourteen inches apart." [Footnote: ib., p. 515.]

The houses of the coast tribes (Clatsops and Chinooks) are also described. "The houses in this neighborhood are all large wooden buildings, ranging in length from twenty to sixty feet, and from fourteen to twenty in width. They are constructed in the following manner: two posts of split timber or more, agreeable to the number of part.i.tions, are sunk in the ground, above which they rise to the height of fourteen or eighteen feet. They are hollowed at the top, so as to receive the end of a round beam or pole (ridge-pole) stretching from one to the other, and forming the upper point of the roof for the whole extent of the building. On each side of this range is placed another, which forms the eaves of the house, and is about five feet high; and as the building is often sunk to the depth of four or five feet, the eaves come very near the surface of the earth. Smaller pieces of timber are now extended by pairs, in the form of rafters, from the lower to the upper beams, where they are attached at both ends with cords of cedar bark. On these rafters two or three ranges of small poles are placed horizontally, and secured in the same way with strings of cedar bark. The sides are now made, with a range of white boards, sunk a small distance into the ground, with upper ends projecting above the poles at the eaves.... The gable end and part.i.tions are formed in the same way.... The roof is than covered with a double range of thin boards, except an aperture of two or three feet in the center, for the smoke to pa.s.s through.

The entrance is by a small hole, cut out of the boards, and just large enough to admit the body. The very largest houses only are divided by part.i.tions, for though three or four families reside in the same room, there is quite s.p.a.ce enough for all of them. In the center of each room is a s.p.a.ce six or eight feet square, sunk to the depth of twelve inches below the rest of the floor, and inclosed by four pieces of square timber. Here they make the fire, for which purpose pine bark is generally preferred. Around the fireplace mats are placed, and serve as seats during the day, and very frequently as beds at night. There is, however, a more permanent bed made by fixing, in two or sometimes three sides of the room, posts reaching from the roof to the ground, and at the distance of four feet from the wall. From these posts to the wall itself, one or two ranges of boards are placed so as to form shelves, in which they either sleep or there stow away their various articles of merchandise."

[Footnote: Lewis and Clarke's Travels, p. 431.]