Chapter 1

ANCIENT AMERICA.

PAGE The American aborigines 1

Question as to their origin 2, 3

Antiquity of man in America 4

Shell-mounds, or middens 4, 5

The Glacial Period 6, 7

Discoveries in the Trenton gravel 8

Discoveries in Ohio, Indiana, and Minnesota 9

Mr. Cresson's discovery at Claymont, Delaware 10

The Calaveras skull 11

Pleistocene men and mammals 12, 13

Elevation and subsidence 13, 14

Waves of migration 15

The Cave men of Europe in the Glacial Period 16

The Eskimos are probably a remnant of the Cave men 17-19

There was probably no connection or intercourse by water between ancient America and the Old World 20

There is one great American red race 21

Different senses in which the word "race" is used 21-23

No necessary connection between differences in culture and differences in race 23

Mr. Lewis Morgan's classification of grades of culture 24-32

Distinction between Savagery and Barbarism 25

Origin of pottery 25

Lower, middle, and upper status of savagery 26

Lower status of barbarism; it ended differently in the two hemispheres; in ancient America there was no pastoral stage of development 27

Importance of Indian corn 28

Tillage with irrigation 29

Use of adobe-brick and stone in building 29

Middle status of barbarism 29, 30

Stone and copper tools 30

Working of metals; smelting of iron 30

Upper status of barbarism 31

The alphabet and the beginnings of civilization 32

So-called "civilizations" of Mexico and Peru 33, 34

Loose use of the words "savagery" and "civilization" 35

Value and importance of the term "barbarism" 35, 36

The status of barbarism is most completely exemplified in ancient America 36, 37

Survival of bygone epochs of culture; work of the Bureau of Ethnology 37, 38

Tribal society and multiplicity of languages in aboriginal America 38, 39

Tribes in the upper status of savagery; Athabaskans, Apaches, Shoshones, etc. 39

Tribes in the lower status of barbarism; the Dakota group or family 40

The Minnitarees and Mandans 41

The Pawnee and Arickaree group 42

The Maskoki group 42

The Algonquin group 43

The Huron-Iroquois group 44

The Five Nations 45-47

Distinction between horticulture and field agriculture 48

Perpetual intertribal warfare, with torture and cannibalism 49-51

Myths and folk-lore 51

Ancient law 52, 53

The patriarchal family not primitive 53

"Mother-right" 54

Primitive marriage 55

The system of reckoning kinship through females only 56

Original reason for the system 57

The primeval human horde 58, 59

Earliest family-group; the clan 60

"Exogamy" 60

Phratry and tribe 61

Effect of pastoral life upon property and upon the family 61-63

The exogamous clan in ancient America 64

Intimate connection of aboriginal architecture with social life 65

The long houses of the Iroquois 66, 67

Summary divorce 68

Hospitality 68

Structure of the clan 69, 70

Origin and structure of the phratry 70, 71

Structure of the tribe 72

Cross-relationships between clans and tribes; the Iroquois Confederacy 72-74

Structure of the confederacy 75, 76

The "Long House" 76

Symmetrical development of institutions in ancient America 77, 78

Circular houses of the Mandans 79-81

The Indians of the pueblos, in the middle status of barbarism 82, 83

Horticulture with irrigation, and architecture with adobe 83, 84

Possible origin of adobe architecture 84, 85

Mr. Cushing's sojourn at Zuni 86

Typical structure of the pueblo 86-88

Pueblo society 89

Wonderful ancient pueblos in the Chaco valley 90-92

The Moqui pueblos 93

The cliff-dwellings 93

Pueblo of Zuni 93, 94

Pueblo of Tlascala 94-96

The ancient city of Mexico was a great composite pueblo 97

The Spanish discoverers could not be expected to understand the state of society which they found there 97, 98

Contrast between feudalism and gentilism 98

Change from gentile society to political society in Greece and Rome 99, 100

First suspicions as to the erroneousness of the Spanish accounts 101

Detection and explanation of the errors, by Lewis Morgan 102

Adolf Bandelier's researches 103

The Aztec Confederacy 104, 105

Aztec clans 106

Clan officers 107

Rights and duties of the clan 108

Aztec phratries 108

The _tlatocan_, or tribal council 109

The _cihuacoatl_, or "snake-woman" 110

The _tlacatecuhtli_, or "chief-of-men" 111

Evolution of kingship in Greece and Rome 112

Mediaeval kingship 113

Montezuma was a "priest-commander" 114

Mode of succession to the office 114, 115

Manner of collecting tribute 116

Mexican roads 117

Aztec and Iroquois confederacies contrasted 118

Aztec priesthood; human sacrifices 119, 120

Aztec slaves 121, 122

The Aztec family 122, 123

Aztec property 124

Mr. Morgan's rules of criticism 125

He sometimes disregarded his own rules 126

Amusing illustrations from his remarks on "Montezuma's Dinner" 126-128

The reaction against uncritical and exaggerated statements was often carried too far by Mr. Morgan 128, 129

Great importance of the middle period of barbarism 130

The Mexicans compared with the Mayas 131-133

Maya hieroglyphic writing 132

Ruined cities of Central America 134-138

They are probably not older than the twelfth century 136

Recent discovery of the Chronicle of Chicxulub 138

Maya culture very closely related to Mexican 139

The "Mound-Builders" 140-146

The notion that they were like the Aztecs 142

Or, perhaps, like the Zunis 143

These notions are not well sustained 144

The mounds were probably built by different peoples in the lower status of barbarism, by Cherokees, Shawnees, and other tribes 144, 145

It is not likely that there was a "race of Mound Builders" 146

Society in America at the time of the Discovery had reached stages similar to stages reached by eastern Mediterranean peoples fifty or sixty centuries earlier 146, 147