Ἀλλ' ἄγε μοι τόδε εἰπὲ καὶ ἀτρεκέως κατάλεξον,εἰ δὴ ἐξ αὐτοῖο τόσος παῖς εἶς Ὀδυσῆος.αἰνῶς γὰρ κεφαλήν τε καὶ ὄμματα καλὰ ἔοικαςκείνῳ, ἐπεὶ θαμὰ τοῖον ἐμισγόμεθ' ἀλλήλοισιν,πρίν γε τὸν ἐς Τροίην ἀναβήμεναι, ἔνθα περ ἄλλοιἈργείων οἱ ἄριστοι ἔβαν κοίλῃς ἐπὶ νηυσίν·ἐκ τοῦ δ' οὔτ' Ὀδυσῆα ἐγὼν ἴδον οὔτ' ἐμὲ κεῖνος.Τὴν δ' αὖ Τηλέμαχος πεπνυμένος ἀντίον ηὔδατοιγὰρ ἐγώ τοι, ξεῖνε, μάλ' ἀτρεκέως ἀγορεύσω.μήτηρ μέν τ' ἐμέ φησι τοῦ ἔμμεναι, αὐτὰρ ἔγωγεοὐκ οἶδ'· οὐ γάρ πώ τις ἑὸν γόνον αὐτὸς ἀνέγνω.Odyssey, i. 206.[Back to Main Text]
Ἀλλ' ἄγε μοι τόδε εἰπὲ καὶ ἀτρεκέως κατάλεξον,εἰ δὴ ἐξ αὐτοῖο τόσος παῖς εἶς Ὀδυσῆος.αἰνῶς γὰρ κεφαλήν τε καὶ ὄμματα καλὰ ἔοικαςκείνῳ, ἐπεὶ θαμὰ τοῖον ἐμισγόμεθ' ἀλλήλοισιν,πρίν γε τὸν ἐς Τροίην ἀναβήμεναι, ἔνθα περ ἄλλοιἈργείων οἱ ἄριστοι ἔβαν κοίλῃς ἐπὶ νηυσίν·ἐκ τοῦ δ' οὔτ' Ὀδυσῆα ἐγὼν ἴδον οὔτ' ἐμὲ κεῖνος.
Τὴν δ' αὖ Τηλέμαχος πεπνυμένος ἀντίον ηὔδατοιγὰρ ἐγώ τοι, ξεῖνε, μάλ' ἀτρεκέως ἀγορεύσω.μήτηρ μέν τ' ἐμέ φησι τοῦ ἔμμεναι, αὐτὰρ ἔγωγεοὐκ οἶδ'· οὐ γάρ πώ τις ἑὸν γόνον αὐτὸς ἀνέγνω.Odyssey, i. 206.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 63:Lumholtz,Among Cannibals, p. 213; Lubbock,Origin of Civilization, p. 107; Morgan,Ancient Society, part iii., chap. iii. "After battle it frequently happens among the native tribes of Australia that the wives of the conquered, of their own free-will, go over to the victors; reminding us of the lioness which, quietly watching the fight between two lions, goes off with the conqueror." Spencer,Principles of Sociology, vol. i. p. 632.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 64:The notion of the descent of the human race from a single "pair," or of different races from different "pairs," is a curious instance of transferring modern institutions into times primeval. Of course the idea is absurd. When the elder Agassiz so emphatically declared that "pines have originated in forests, heaths in heaths, grasses in prairies, bees in hives, herrings in shoals, buffaloes in herds, men in nations" (Essay on Classification, London, 1859, p. 58), he made, indeed, a mistake of the same sort, so far as concerns the origin of Man, for the nation is a still more modern institution than the family; but in the other items of his statement he was right, and as regards the human race he was thinking in the right direction when he placedmultitudeinstead ofdualityat the beginning. If instead of that extremely complex and highly organized multitude called "nation" (in the plural), he had started with the extremely simple and almost unorganized multitude called "horde" (in the singular), the statement for Man would have been correct. Such views were hardly within the reach of science thirty years ago.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 65:Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, part ii., chaps. xvi., xxi., xxii.;Excursions of an Evolutionist, pp. 306-319;Darwinism, and other Essays, pp. 40-49;The Destiny of Man, §§ iii.-ix.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 66:The slowness of the development has apparently been such as befits the transcendent value of the result. Though the question is confessedly beyond the reach of science, may we not hold that civilized man, the creature of an infinite past, is the child of eternity, maturing for an inheritance of immortal life?[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 67:The Teutonichundredand Romancuriaanswered to the Greekphratry.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 68:Fenton'sEarly Hebrew Life, London, 1880, is an interesting study of the upper period of barbarism; see also Spencer,Princip. of Sociol., i. 724-737.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 69:See below, p.122.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 70:As among the Hervey Islanders; Gill,Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, p. 36. Sir John Lubbock would account for the curious and widely spread custom of theCouvadeas a feature of this change.Origin of Civilization, pp. 14-17, 159; cf. Tylor,Early Hist. of Mankind, pp. 288, 297.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 71:"There is no embarrassment growing out of problems respecting the woman's future support, the division of property, or the adjustment of claims for the possession of the children. The independent self-support of every adult healthy Indian, male or female, and the gentile relationship, which is more wide-reaching and authoritative than that of marriage, have already disposed of these questions, which are usually so perplexing for the white man. So far as personal maintenance is concerned, a woman is, as a rule, just as well off without a husband as with one. What is hers, in the shape of property, remains her own whether she is married or not. In fact, marriage among these Indians seems to be but the natural mating of the sexes, to cease at the option of either of the interested parties." Clay MacCauley, "The Seminole Indians of Florida", inFifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1887, p. 497. For a graphic account of the state of things among the Cheyennes and Arrapahos, see Dodge,Our Wild Indians, pp. 204-220.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 72:See Morgan'sHouses and House-Life of the American Aborigines, Washington, 1881, an epoch-making book of rare and absorbing interest.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 73:This verb of Mr. Morgan's at first struck me as odd, but though rarely used, it is supported by good authority; seeCentury Dictionary, s. v.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 74:The Iroquois ceased to build such houses before the beginning of the present century. I quote Mr. Morgan's description at length, because his book is out of print and hard to obtain. It ought to be republished, and in octavo, like hisAncient Society, of which it is a continuation.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 75:Lucien Carr, "On the Social and Political Position of Woman among the Huron-Iroquois Tribes,"Reports of Peabody Museum, vol. iii. p. 215.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 76:This was not incompatible with the subjection of women to extreme drudgery and ill-treatment. For an instructive comparison with the case among the tribes of the Far West, see Dodge,Our Wild Indians, chap. xvi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 77:Among the Wyandots there is in each clan a council composed of four squaws, and this council elects the male sachem who is its head. Therefore the tribal council, which is the aggregate of the clan-councils, consists one fifth of men and four fifths of women. See Powell, "Wyandot Government: a Short Study of Tribal Society," inFirst Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1881, pp. 59-69; and also Mr. Carr's interesting essay above cited.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 78:H. H. Bancroft,Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. i. p. 109.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 79:Morgan,Houses and House-Life, p. 16.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 80:See Freeman,Comparative Politics, p. 117; Stubbs,Const. Hist., vol. i. pp. 98-104; Grote,History of Greece, vol. iii. pp. 74, 88. It is interesting to compare Grote's description with Morgan's (Anc. Soc., pp. 71, 94) and note both the closeness of the general parallelism and the character of the specific variations.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 81:In hisLeague of the Iroquois, Rochester, 1851, a book now out of print and excessively rare. A brief summary is given in hisAncient Society, chap. v., and in hisHouses and House-Life, pp. 23-41. Mr. Morgan was adopted into the Seneca tribe, and his life work was begun by a profound and exhaustive study of this interesting people.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 82:Houses and House-Life, p. 33. At the period of its greatest power, about 1675, the people of the confederacy were about 25,000 in number. In 1875, according to official statistics (see table appended to Dodge'sPlains of the Great West, pp. 441-448), there were in the state of New York 198 Oneidas, 203 Onondagas, 165 Cayugas, 3,043 Senecas, and 448 Tuscaroras,—in all 4,057. Besides these there were 1,279 Oneidas on a reservation in Wisconsin, and 207 Senecas in the Indian Territory. The Mohawks are not mentioned in the list. During the Revolutionary War, and just afterward, the Mohawks migrated into Upper Canada (Ontario), for an account of which the reader may consult the second volume of Stone'sLife of Brant. Portions of the other tribes also went to Canada. In New York the Oneidas and Tuscaroras were converted to Christianity by Samuel Kirkland and withheld from alliance with the British during the Revolution; the others still retain their ancient religion. They are for the most part farmers and are now increasing in numbers. Their treatment by the state of New York has been honourably distinguished for justice and humanity.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 83:Somewhat on the same principle that in mediæval Europe led an earl or count, commanding an exposed border district ormarchto rise in power and importance and become a "margrave" [mark+graf= march-count] or "marquis." Compare the increase of sovereignty accorded to the earls of Chester and bishops of Durham as rulers of the two principal march counties of England.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 84:For instance, the whole discussion in Gomme'sVillage Community, London, 1890, an excellent book, abounds with instances of this crumpling.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 85:Morgan,Houses and House-life, pp. 126-129; Catlin'sNorth Amer. Indians, i. 81ff.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 86:Catlin, i. 83.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 87:Catlin, i. 90.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 88:See above, p.25.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 89:See his articles in theCentury Magazine, Dec., 1882, Feb., 1883, May, 1883; and his papers on "Zuñi Fetiches,"Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology, ii. 9-45; "A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth," id. iv. 473-521; see also Mrs. Stevenson's paper, "Religious Life of a Zuñi Child," id. v. 539-555; Sylvester Baxter, "An Aboriginal Pilgrimage,"Century Magazine, Aug., 1882.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 90:Cf. Greek οἶκος, "house," with Latinvicus, "street" or "village," Sanskritvesa, "dwelling-place," Englishwick, "mansion" or "village."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 91:"With the woman rests the security of the marriage ties; and it must be said, in her high honour, that she rarely abuses the privilege; that is, never sends her husband 'to the home of his fathers,' unless he richly deserves it." But should not Mr. Cushing have said "home of his mothers," or perhaps, of "his sisters and his cousins and his aunts?" For a moment afterward he tells us, "To her belong all the children; and descent, including inheritance, is on her side."Century Magazine, May, 1883, p. 35.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 92:For example, since the arrival of the Spaniards some or perhaps all of the pueblos have introduced chimneys into their apartments; but when they were first visited by Coronado, he found the people wearing cotton garments, and Franciscan friars in 1581 remarked upon the superior quality of their shoes. In spinning and weaving, as well as in the grinding of meal, a notable advance had been made.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 93:At least a better one than Mr. Prescott had when he naively reckoned five persons to a household,Conquest of Mexico, ii. 97.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 94:Morgan,Houses and House-Life, chap. vii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 95:For careful descriptions of the ruined pueblos and cliff-houses, see Nadaillac'sPrehistoric America, chap. v., and Short'sNorth Americans of Antiquity, chap. vii. The latter sees in them the melancholy vestiges of a people gradually "succumbing to their unpropitious surroundings—a land which is fast becoming a howling wilderness, with its scourging sands and roaming savage Bedouin—the Apaches."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 96:"La qual ciudad ... es muy mayor que Granada, y muy mas fuerte, y de tan buenos edificios, y de mucha mas gente, que Granada tenia al tiempo que se gaño." Cortes,Relacion segunda al Emperador, ap. Lorenzana, p. 58, cited in Prescott'sConquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 401 (7th ed., London, 1855).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 97:See Bandelier'sArchæological Tour in Mexico, Boston, 1885, pp. 160-164. Torquemada's words, cited by Bandelier, are "Quando entraron los Españoles, dicen que tenia mas de quarenta mil vecinos esta ciudad."Monarquía Indiana, lib. iii. cap. xix. p. 281. A prolific source of error is the ambiguity in the wordvecinos, which may mean either "inhabitants" or "householders." Where Torquemada meant 40,000 inhabitants, uncritical writers fond of the marvellous have understood him to mean 40,000 houses, and multiplying this figure by 5, the average number of personsin a modern family, have obtained the figure 200,000. But 40,000 houses peopled after the old Mexican fashion, with at least 200 persons in a house (to put it as low as possible), would make a city of 8,000,000 inhabitants! Las Casas, in hisDestruycion de las Indias, vii., puts the population of Cholula at about 30,000. I observe that Llorente (in hisŒuvres de Las Casas, tom. i. p. 38) translates the statement correctly. I shall recur to this point below, vol. ii. p. 264.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 98:Mariana,Historia de España, Valencia, 1795, tom. viii. p. 317.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 99:"Et io entrai piu di quattro volte in una casa del gran Signor non por altro effetto che per vederla, et ogni volta vi camminauo tanto che mi stancauo, et mai la fini di vedere tutta."Relatione fatta per un gentil' huomo del Signor Fernando Cortese, apud Ramusio,Navigationi et Viaggi, Venice, 1556, tom. iii. fol. 309.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 100:When Pocahontas visited London in 1616 she was received at court as befitted a "king's daughter," and the old Virginia historian, William Stith (born in 1689), says it was a "constant tradition" in his day that James I. "became jealous, and was highly offended at Mr. Rolfe for marrying a princess." The notion was that "if Virginia descended to Pocahontas, as it might do at Powhatan's death, at her own death the kingdom would be vested in Mr. Rolfe's posterity." Esten Cooke'sVirginia, p. 100. Powhatan (i. e. Wahunsunakok, chief of the Powhatan tribe) was often called "emperor" by the English settlers. To their intense bewilderment he told one of them that his office would descend to his [maternal] brothers, even though he had sons living. It was thought that this could not be true.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 101:The small states into which tribes were at first transformed have in many cases survived to the present time as portions of great states or nations. The shires or counties of England, which have been reproduced in the United States, originated in this way, as I have briefly explained in my little book onCivil Government in the United States, p. 49. When you look on the map of England, and see the town ofIcklinghamin the county ofSuffolk, it means that this place was once the "home" of the "Icklings" or "children of Ickel," a clan which formed part of the tribe of Angles known as "South folk." So the names of Gaulish tribes survived as names of French provinces, e. g.Auvergnefrom theArverni,Poitoufrom thePictavi,Anjoufrom theAndecavi,Béarnfrom theBigerrones, etc.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 102:"It was no easy task to accomplish such a fundamental change, however simple and obvious it may now seem.... Anterior to experience, a township, as the unit of a political system, was abstruse enough to tax the Greeks and Romans to the depths of their capacities before the conception was formed and set in practical operation." Morgan,Ancient Society, p. 218.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 103:Robertson'sHistory of America, 9th ed. vol. iii. pp. 274, 281.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 104:"Notes on the Semi-civilized Nations of Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America,"American Ethnological Society's Transactions, vol. i., New York, 1852. There is a brief account of Mr. Gallatin's pioneer work in American philology and ethnology in Stevens'sAlbert Gallatin, pp. 386-396.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 105:Cass, "Aboriginal Structures,"North Amer. Review, Oct., 1840.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 106:Mr. R. A. Wilson'sNew History of the Conquest of Mexico, Philadelphia, 1859, denounced the Spanish conquerors as wholesale liars, but as his book was ignorant, uncritical, and full of wild fancies, it produced little effect. It was demolished, with neatness and despatch, in two articles in theAtlantic Monthly, April and May, 1859, by the eminent historian John Foster Kirk, whoseHistory of Charles the Boldis in many respects a worthy companion to the works of Prescott and Motley. Mr. Kirk had been Mr. Prescott's secretary.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 107:A summary of Mr. Bandelier's principal results, with copious citation and discussion of original Spanish and Nahuatl sources, is contained in his three papers, "On the art of war and mode of warfare of the ancient Mexicans,"—"On the distribution and tenure of land, and the customs with respect to inheritance, among the ancient Mexicans,"—"On the social organization and mode of government of the ancient Mexicans,"Peabody Museum Reports, vol. ii., 1876-79, pp. 95-161, 385-448, 557-699.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 108:In the Iroquois confederacy the Mohawks enjoyed a certain precedence or seniority, the Onondagas had the central council-fire, and the Senecas, who had the two head war-chiefs, were much the most numerous. In the Mexican confederacy the various points of superiority seem to have been more concentrated in the Aztecs; but spoils and tribute were divided into five portions, of which Mexico and Tezcuco each took two, and Tlacopan one.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 109:The wretched prisoners were ordinarily compelled to carry the booty.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 110:Bandelier,op. cit.p. 563.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 111:The notion of an immense population groaning under the lash of taskmasters, and building huge palaces for idle despots must be dismissed. The statements which refer to such a vast population are apt to be accompanied by incompatible statements. Mr. Morgan is right in throwing the burden of proof upon those who maintain that a people without domestic animals or field agriculture could have been so numerous (Anc. Soc., p. 195). On the other hand, I believe Mr. Morgan makes a grave mistake in the opposite direction, in underestimating the numbers that could be supported upon Indian corn even under a system of horticulture without the use of the plough. Some pertinent remarks on the extraordinary reproductive power of maize in Mexico may be found in Humboldt,Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, Paris, 1811, tom. iii. pp. 51-60; the great naturalist is of course speaking of the yield of maize in ploughed lands, but, after making due allowances, the yield under the ancient system must have been well-nigh unexampled in barbaric agriculture.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 112:Compare this description with that of the institutions of Indians in the lower status, above, p.69.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 113:In this respect it seems to have had some resemblance to the Romancenturiaand Teutonichundred. So in prehistoric Greece we may perhaps infer from Nestor's advice to Agamemnon that a similar organization existed:—
κρῖν' ἄνδρας κατὰ φῦλα, κατὰ φρήτρας, Ἀγάμεμνον,ὡς φρήτρη φρήτρηφιν ἀρήγῃ, φῦλα δὲ φῦλοις.Iliad, ii. 362.
But the phratry seems never to have reached so high a development among the Greeks as among the Romans and the early English.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 114:Compareparliamentfromparler. These twenty were the "grandees," "counsellors," and "captains" mentioned by Bernal Diaz as always in Montezuma's company; "y siempre á la contina estaban en su compañía veinte grandes señores y consejeros y capitanes," etc.Historia verdadera, ii. 95. See Bandelier,op. cit.p. 646.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 115:Mr. Bandelier's note on this point gives an especially apt illustration of the confusion of ideas and inconsistencies of statement amid which the early Spanish writers struggled to understand and describe this strange society:op. cit.p. 651.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 116:In Aztec mythology Cihuacoatl was wife of the supreme night deity, Tezcatlipoca. Squier,Serpent Symbol in America, pp. 159-166, 174-183. On the connection between serpent worship and human sacrifices, see Fergusson'sTree and Serpent Worship, pp. 3-5, 38-41. Much evidence as to American serpent worship is collected in J. G. Müller'sGeschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen, Basel, 1855. The hieroglyphic emblem of the Aztec tribal sachem was a female head surmounted by a snake.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 117:Other tribes besides the Aztec had the "snake-woman." In the city of Mexico the Spaniards mistook him for a "second-king," or "royal lieutenant." In other towns they regarded him, somewhat more correctly, as "governor," and called himgobernador,—a title still applied to the tribal sachem of the pueblo Indians, as e. g. in Zuñi heretofore mentioned; see above p.89.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 118:This title seems precisely equivalent to ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, commonly applied to Agamemnon, and sometimes to other chieftains, in the Iliad.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 119:Ramsay'sRoman Antiquities, p. 64; Hermann'sPolitical Antiquities of Greece, p. 105; Morgan,Anc. Soc., p. 248.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 120:Such would naturally result from the desirableness of securing unity of command. If Demosthenes had been in sole command of the Athenian armament in the harbour of Syracuse, and had been abasileus, with priestly authority, who can doubt that some such theory of the eclipse as that suggested by Philochorus would have been adopted, and thus one of the world's great tragedies averted? See Grote,Hist. Greece, vol. vii. chap. lx. M. Fustel de Coulanges, in his admirable bookLa Cité antique, pp. 205-210, makes the priestly function of the king primitive, and the military function secondary; which is entirely inconsistent with what we know of barbarous races.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 121:It is worthy of note that the archon who retained the priestly function was calledbasileus, showing perhaps that at that time this had come to be most prominent among the royal functions, or more likely that it was the one with which reformers had some religious scruples about interfering. The Romans, too, retained part of the king's priestly function in an officer calledrex sacrorum, whose duty was at times to offer a sacrifice in the forum, and then run away as fast as legs could carry him,—ἣν θύσας ὁ βασιλεὺς, κατὰ τάχος ἄπεισι φεύγων ἐξ ἀγορᾶς (!) Plutarch,Quæst. Rom.63.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 122:Something of the priestly quality of "sanctity," however, surrounded the king's person; and the ceremony of anointing the king at his coronation was a survival of the ancient rite which invested the head war-chief with priestly attributes.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 123:They can be most conveniently stated in connection with the story of the conquest of Mexico; see below, vol. ii. p. 278. When Mr. Bandelier completes his long-promised paper on the ancient Mexican religion, perhaps it will appear that he has taken these facts into the account.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 124:I cannot follow Mr. Bandelier in discrediting Clavigero's statement that the office oftlacatecuhtli"should always remain in the house of Acamapitzin," inasmuch as the eleven who were actually elected were all closely akin to one another. In point of fact itdidremain "in the house of Acamapitzin."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 125:H. H. Bancroft,Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. ii. p. 145. Hence the accounts of the reverent demeanour of the people toward Montezuma, though perhaps overcoloured, are not so absurd as Mr. Morgan deemed them. Mr. Morgan was sometimes too anxious to reduce Montezuma to the level of an Iroquois war-chief.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 126:As I have elsewhere observed in a similar case:—"Each summer there came two Mohawk elders, secure in the dread that Iroquois prowess had everywhere inspired; and up and down the Connecticut valley they seized the tribute of weapons and wampum, and proclaimed the last harsh edict issued from the savage council at Onondaga."Beginnings of New England, p. 121.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 127:See Salmeron's letter of August 13, 1531, to the Council of the Indies, cited in Bandelier,op. cit.p. 696. The letter recommends that to increase the security of the Spanish hold upon the country the roads should be made practicable for beasts and wagons. They were narrow paths running straight ahead up hill and down dale, sometimes crossing narrow ravines upon heavy stone culverts.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 128:The priesthood was not hereditary, nor did it form a caste. There was no hereditary nobility in ancient Mexico, nor were there any hereditary vocations, as "artisans," "merchants," etc. See Bandelier,op. cit.p. 599.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 129:See the copious references in Tylor'sPrimitive Culture, ii. 340-371; Mackay,Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews, ii. 406-434; Oort and Hooykaas,The Bible for Young People, i. 30, 189-193; ii. 102, 220; iii. 21, 170, 316, 393, 395; iv. 85, 226. Ghillany,Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer, Nuremberg, 1842, treats the subject with much learning.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 130:Spencer,Princip. Sociol., i. 287; Tylor,op. cit.ii. 345.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 131:Mr. Prescott, to avoid shocking the reader with details, refers him to the twenty-first canto of Dante's Inferno,Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 64.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 132:See below, vol. ii. p. 283.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 133:The victim, by the offer of which the wrath of the god was appeased or his favour solicited, must always be some valued possession of the sacrificer. Hence, e. g., among the Hebrews "wild animals, as not being property, were generally considered unfit for sacrifice." (Mackay,op. cit.ii. 398.) Among the Aztecs (Prescott,loc. cit.) on certain occasions of peculiar solemnity the clan offered some of its own members, usually children. In the lack of prisoners such offerings would more often be necessary, hence one powerful incentive to war. The use of prisoners to buy the god's favour was to some extent a substitute for the use of the clan's own members, and at a later stage the use of domestic animals was a further substitution. The legend of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis, xxii. 1-14) preserves the tradition of this latter substitution among the ancient Hebrews. Compare the Bœotian legend of the temple of Dionysos Aigobolos:—θύοντες γὰρ τῷ θεῷ προήχθησάν ποτε ὑπὸ μέθης ἐς ὕβριν, ὥστε καὶ τοῦ Διονύσου τὸν ἱερέα ἀποκτείνουσιν· ἀποκτείναντας δὲ αὐτίκα ἐπέλαβε νόσος λοιμώδης· καί σφισιν ἀφίκετο ἅμα ἐκ Δελφῶν, τῷ Διονύσῳ θύειν παῖδα ὡραῖον· ἔτεσι δὲ οὐ πολλοῖς ὕστερον τὸν θεόν φασιν αἶγα ἱερεῖον ὑπαλλάξαι σφίσιν ἀντὶ τοῦ παιδός. Pausanias, ix. 8. A further stage of progress was the substitution of a mere inanimate symbol for a living victim, whether human or brute, as shown in the old Roman custom of appeasing "Father Tiber" once a year by the ceremony of drowning a lot of dolls in that river. Of this significant rite Mommsen aptly observes, "Die Ideen göttlicher Gnade und Versöhnbarkeit sind hier ununterscheidbar gemischt mit der frommen Schlauigkeit, welche es versucht den gefährlichen Herrn durch scheinhafte Befriedigung zu berücken und abzufinden."Römische Geschichte, 4eAufl., 1865, Bd. i. p. 176. After reading such a remark it may seem odd to find the writer, in a footnote, refusing to accept the true explanation of the custom; but that was a quarter of a century ago, when much less was known about ancient society than now.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 134:Bandelier,op. cit.p. 611.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 135:There was, however, in this extreme case, a right of sanctuary. If the doomed slave could flee and hide himself in thetecpanbefore the master or one of his sons could catch him, he became free and recovered his clan-rights; and no third person was allowed to interfere in aid of the pursuer. Torquemada,Monarquía indiana, ii. 564-566.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 136:Bancroft,Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. ii. p. 251.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 137:Bandelier,op. cit.pp. 429, 570, 620.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 138:I here use these world-famous names without any implication as to their historical character, or their precise date, which are in themselves interesting subjects for discussion. I use them as best symbolizing the state of society which existed about the northern and eastern shores of the eastern Mediterranean, several centuries before the Olympiads.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 139:Morgan,Ancient Society, p. 186, note.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 140:North Amer. Review, April, 1876. The substance of it was reproduced in hisHouses and House-Life, chap. x.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 141:Houses and House-Life, p. 241.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 142:Mr. Andrew Lang asks some similar questions in hisMyth, Ritual, and Religion, vol. ii. p. 349, but in a tone of impatient contempt which, as applied to a man of Mr. Morgan's calibre, is hardly becoming.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 143:For an excellent account of ancient Mexican knives and chisels, see Dr. Valentini's paper on "Semi-Lunar and Crescent-Shaped Tools," inProceedings of Amer. Antiq. Soc., New Series, vol. iii. pp. 449-474. Compare the very interesting Spanish observations on copper hatchets and flint chisels in Clavigero,Historia antigua, tom. i. p. 242; Mendieta,Historia ecclesiastica indiana, tom. iv. cap. xii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 144:It often happens that the followers of a great man are more likely to run to extremes than their master, as, for example, when we see the queen of pueblos rashly described as "a collection of mud huts, such as Cortes found and dignified with the name of a city."Smithsonian Report, 1887, part i. p. 691. This is quite inadmissible.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 145:This writing was at once recognized by learned Spaniards, like Las Casas, as entirely different from anything found elsewhere in America. He found in Yucatan "letreros de ciertos caracteres que en otra ninguna parte," Las Casas,Historia apologética, cap. cxxiii. For an account of the hieroglyphics, see the learned essays of Dr. Cyrus Thomas,A Study of the Manuscript Troano, Washington, 1882; "Notes on certain Maya and Mexican MSS.,"Third Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 7-153; "Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices,"Sixth Report, pp. 259-371. (The paper last mentioned ends with the weighty words, "The more I study these characters the stronger becomes the conviction that they have grown out of a pictographic system similar to that common among the Indians of North America." Exactly so; and this is typical of every aspect and every detail of ancient American culture. It is becoming daily more evident that the old notion of an influence from Asia has not a leg to stand on.) See also a suggestive paper by the astronomer, E. S. Holden, "Studies in Central American Picture-Writing,"First Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 205-245; Brinton,Ancient Phonetic Alphabet of Yucatan, New York, 1870;Essays of an Americanist, Philadelphia, 1890, pp. 193-304; Léon de Rosny,Les écritures figuratives, Paris, 1870;L'interprétation des anciens textes Mayas, Paris, 1875;Essai sur le déchiffrement de l'écriture hiératique de l'Amérique Centrale, Paris, 1876; Förstemann,Erläuterungen der Maya Handschrift, Dresden, 1886. The decipherment is as yet but partially accomplished. The Mexican system of writing is clearly developed from the ordinary Indian pictographs; it could not have arisen from the Maya system, but the latter might well have been a further development of the Mexican system; the Maya system had probably developed some characters with a phonetic value, i. e. was groping toward the alphabetical stage; but how far this groping had gone must remain very doubtful until the decipherment has proceeded further. Dr. Isaac Taylor is too hasty in saying that "the Mayas employed twenty-seven characters which must be admitted to be alphabetic" (Taylor,The Alphabet, vol. i. p. 24); this statement is followed by the conclusion that the Maya system of writing was "superior in simplicity and convenience to that employed ... by the great Assyrian nation at the epoch of its greatest power and glory." Dr. Taylor has been misled by Diego de Landa, whose work (Relation des choses de l'Yucatan, ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1864) has in it some pitfalls for the unwary.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 146:Stephens,Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, 2 vols., New York, 1841.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 147:It occurred in the drawings of the artist Fréderic de Waldeck, who visited Palenque before Stephens, but whose researches were published later. "His drawings," says Mr. Winsor, "are exquisite; but he was not free from a tendency to improve and restore, where the conditions gave a hint, and so as we have them in the final publication they have not been accepted as wholly trustworthy."Narr. and Crit. Hist., i. 194. M. de Charnay puts it more strongly. Upon his drawing of a certain panel at Palenque, M. de Waldeck "has seen fit to place three or four elephants. What end did he propose to himself in giving this fictitious representation? Presumably to give a prehistoric origin to these ruins, since it is an ascertained fact that elephants in a fossil state only have been found on the American continent. It is needless to add that neither Catherwood, who drew these inscriptions most minutely, nor myself who brought impressions of them away, nor living man, ever saw these elephants and their fine trunks. But such is the mischief engendered by preconceived opinions. With some writers it would seem that to give a recent date to these monuments would deprive them of all interest. It would have been fortunate had explorers been imbued with fewer prejudices and gifted with a little more common sense, for then we should have known the truth with regard to these ruins long since." Charnay,The Ancient Cities of the New World, London, 1887, p. 248. The gallant explorer's indignation is certainly quite pardonable.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 148:Some of his remarks are worth quoting in detail, especially in view of the time when they were written: "I repeat my opinion that we are not warranted in going back to any ancient nation of the Old World for the builders of these cities; that they are not the work of people who have passed away and whose history is lost, but that there are strong reasons to believe them the creations of the same races who inhabited the country at the time of the Spanish conquest, or some not very distant progenitors. And I would remark that we began our exploration without any theory to support.... Some are beyond doubt older than others; some are known to have been inhabited at the time of the Spanish conquest, and others, perhaps, were really in ruins before; ... but in regard to Uxmal, at least, we believe that it was an existing and inhabited city at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards." Stephens,Central America, etc., vol. ii. p. 455.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 149:Charnay,The Ancient Cities of the New World, p. 260.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 150:Lang,Myth, Ritual, and Religion, vol. ii. p. 348.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 151:Charnay,op. cit.p. 209. "I may remark that [the] virgin forests [here] have no very old trees, being destroyed by insects, moisture, lianas, etc.; and old monteros tell me that mahogany and cedar trees, which are most durable, do not live above 200 years," id. p. 447.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 152:The reader will find it suggestive to compare portions of Schliemann'sMycenæand M. de Charnay's book, just cited, with Morgan'sHouses and House-Life, chap. xi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 153:Charnay,op. cit.p. 411. Copan and Palenque may be two or three centuries older, and had probably fallen into ruins before the arrival of the Spaniards.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 154:Brinton,The Maya Chronicles, Philadelphia, 1882, "Chronicle of Chicxulub," pp. 187-259. This book is of great importance, and for the ancient history of Guatemala Brinton'sAnnals of the Cakchiquels, Philadelphia, 1885, is of like value and interest.
Half a century ago Mr. Stephens wrote in truly prophetic vein, "the convents are rich in manuscripts and documents written by the early fathers, caciques, and Indians, who very soon acquired the knowledge of Spanish and the art of writing. These have never been examined with the slightest reference to this subject;and I cannot help thinking that some precious memorial is now mouldering in the library of a neighbouring convent, which would determine the history of some one of these ruined cities." Vol. ii. p. 456. The italicizing, of course, is mine.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 155:For original researches in the mounds one cannot do better than consult the following papers in theReports of the Bureau of Ethnology:—1. by W. H. Holmes, "Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans," ii. 181-305; "The Ancient Pottery of the Mississippi Valley," iv. 365-436; "Prehistoric Textile Fabrics of the United States," iii. 397-431; followed by an illustrated catalogue of objects collected chiefly from mounds, iii. 433-515;—2. H. W. Henshaw, "Animal Carvings from the Mounds of the Mississippi Valley," ii. 121-166;—3. Cyrus Thomas, "Burial Mounds of the Northern Section of the United States," v. 7-119; also three of the Bureau's "Bulletins" by Dr. Thomas, "The Problem of the Ohio Mounds," "The Circular, Square, and Octagonal Earthworks of Ohio," and "Work in Mound Exploration of the Bureau of Ethnology;" also two articles by Dr. Thomas in theMagazine of American History:—"The Houses of the Mound-Builders," xi. 110-115; "Indian Tribes in Prehistoric Times," xx. 193-201. See also Horatio Hale, "Indian Migrations," inAmerican Antiquarian, v. 18-28, 108-124; M. F. Force,To What Race did the Mound-Builders belong?Cincinnati, 1875; Lucien Carr,Mounds of the Mississippi Valley historically considered, 1883; Nadaillac'sPrehistoric America, ed. W. H. Dall, chaps. iii., iv. The earliest work of fundamental importance on the subject was Squier'sAncient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, Philadelphia, 1848, being the first volume of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge.—For statements of the theory which presumes either a race connection or a similarity in culture between the mound-builders and the pueblo Indians, see Dawson,Fossil Men, p. 55; Foster,Prehistoric Races of the United States, Chicago, 1873, chaps. iii., v.-x.; Sir Daniel Wilson,Prehistoric Man, chap. x. The annualSmithsonian Reportsfor thirty years past illustrate the growth of knowledge and progressive changes of opinion on the subject. The bibliographical account in Winsor'sNarr. and Crit. Hist., i. 397-412, is full of minute information.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 156:Houses and House-Life, chap. ix.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 157:Work in Mound Exploration of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1887. For a sight of the thousands of objects gathered from the mounds, one should visit the Peabody Museum at Cambridge and the Smithsonian Institution at Washington.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 158:Heckewelder,History of the Indian Nations of Pennsylvania, etc., Philadelphia, 1818; cf. Squier,Historical and Mythological Traditions of the Algonquins, a paper read before the New York Historical Society in June, 1848; also Brinton,The Lenape and their Legends, Philadelphia, 1885.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 159:For a detailed account of their later history, see C. C. Royce, "The Cherokee Nation,"Reports of Bureau of Ethnology, v. 121-378.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 160:This notion of the Chinese visiting Mexico was set forth by the celebrated Deguignes in 1761, in theMémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. pp. 506-525. Its absurdity was shown by Klaproth, "Recherches sur le pays de Fou Sang,"Nouvelles annales des voyages, Paris, 1831, 2e série, tom. xxi. pp. 58-68; see also Klaproth's introduction toAnnales des empereurs du Japon, Paris, 1834, pp. iv.-ix.; Humboldt,Examen critique de l'histoire de la géographie du nouveau continent, Paris, 1837, tom. ii. pp. 62-84. The fancy was revived by C. G. Leland ("Hans Breitmann"), in hisFusang, London, 1875, and was again demolished by the missionary, S. W. Williams, in theJournal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xi., New Haven, 1881.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 161:On the noble work of the Irish church and its missionaries in the sixth and seventh centuries, see Montalembert,Les moines d'Occident, tom. ii. pp. 465-661; tom. iii. pp. 79-332; Burton'sHistory of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 234-277; and the instructive map in Miss Sophie Bryant'sCeltic Ireland, London, 1889, p. 60. The notice of the subject in Milman'sLatin Christianity, vol. ii. pp. 236-247, is entirely inadequate.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 162:The passion for solitude led some of the disciples of St. Columba to make their way from Iona to the Hebrides, and thence to the Orkneys, Shetlands, Færoes, and Iceland, where a colony of them remained until the arrival of the Northmen in 874. See Dicuil,Liber de mensura Orbis Terræ(A. D.825), Paris, 1807; Innes,Scotland in the Middle Ages, p. 101; Lanigan,Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, chap. iii.; Maurer,Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte des Germanischen Nordens, i. 35. For the legend of St. Brandan, see Gaffarel,Les voyages de St. Brandan, Paris, 1881.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 163:C. W. Brooks, of San Francisco, cited in Higginson,Larger History of the United States, p. 24.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 164:Desmarquets,Mémoires chronologiques pour servir à l'histoire de Dieppe, Paris, 1785, tom. i. pp. 91-98; Estancelin,Recherches sur les voyages et découvertes des navigateurs normands, etc., Paris, 1832, pp. 332-361.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 165:See below, vol. ii. p. 96.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 166:As Harrisse says, concerning the alleged voyages of Cousin and others, "Quant aux voyages du Dieppois Jean Cousin en 1488, de João Ramalho en 1490, et de João Vaz Cortereal en 1464 ou 1474, le lecteur nous pardonnera de les passer sous silence."Christophe Colomb, Paris, 1884, tom. i. p. 307.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 167:Winsor,Narr. and Crit. Hist., i. 59.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 168:Sufficiently full references may be found in Watson'sBibliography of the Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America, appended to Anderson'sAmerica not discovered by Columbus, 3d ed., Chicago, 1883, pp. 121-164; and see the learned chapters by W. H. Tillinghast on "The Geographical Knowledge of the Ancients considered in relation to the Discovery of America," and by Justin Winsor on "Pre-Columbian Explorations," inNarr. and Crit. Hist., vol. i.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 169:The proper division of this Old Norse word is not intovī-king, but intovĭk-ing. The first syllable means a "bay" or "fiord," the second is a patronymic termination, so that "vikings" are "sons of the fiord,"—an eminently appropriate and descriptive name.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 170:Curtius (Griechische Etymologie, p. 237) connects πόντος with πάτος; compare the Homeric expressions ὑγρὰ κέλευθα, ἰχθυόεντα κέλευθα, etc.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 171:The descendants of these Northmen formed a very large proportion of the population of the East Anglian counties, and consequently of the men who founded New England. The East Anglian counties have been conspicuous for resistance to tyranny and for freedom of thought. See myBeginnings of New England, p. 62.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 172:They were the Varangian guard at Constantinople, described by Sir Walter Scott inCount Robert of Paris. About this same time their kinsmen, the Russ, moving eastward from Sweden, were subjecting Slavic tribes as far as Novgorod and Kief, and laying the foundations of the power that has since, through many and strange vicissitudes, developed into Russia. See Thomsen,The Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia, Oxford, 1877.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 173:Fealty to Norway was not formally declared until 1262.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 174:The settlement of Iceland is celebrated by Robert Lowe in verses which show that, whatever his opinion may have been in later years as to the use of a classical education, his own early studies must always have been a source of comfort to him:—