Speaking of the West Australians, who are probably better known to him than to any other civilized man, Bishop Salvado says that they “au lieu de se gouverner par tribus, paraissent se gouverner à la manière patriarchale: chaque famille, qui généralement ne compte pas plus de six à neuf individus, forme comme une petite société, sous la seule dépendance de son propre chef.... Chaque famille s’approprie une espèce de district, dont cependant les families voisines jouissent en commun si l’on vit en bonne harmonie.”[224]
Mr. Stanbridge, who spent eighteen years in the wilds of Victoria, tells us that the savages there are associated in tribes or families, the members of which vary much in number. Each tribe has its own boundaries, the land of which is parcelled out amongst families and carefully transmitted by direct descent; these boundaries being so sacredly maintained that the member of no single family will venture on the lands of a neighbouring one without invitation.[225] And touching the Gournditch-mara, Mr. Howitt states that “each family camped by itself.”[226]
The Bushmans of South Africa, according to Dr. Fritsch, are almost entirely devoid of a tribal organization. Even when a number of families occasionally unite in a larger horde, this association is more or less accidental, and not regulated by any laws.[227] But a horde commonly consists of the different members of one family only, at least if the children are old and strong enough to help their parents to find food.[228] “Sexual feelings, the instinctive love to children, or the customary attachment among relations,” says Lichtenstein, “are the only ties that keep them in any sort of union.”[229]
The like is stated to be true of several peoples in Brazil. According to v. Martius, travellers often meet there with a language “used only by a few individuals connected with each other by relationship, who are thus completely isolated, and can hold no communication with any of their other countrymen far or near.”[230] With reference to the Botocudos, v. Tschudi says that “the family is the only tie which joins these rude children of nature with each other.”[231] The Guachís, Mauhés, and Guatós for the most part live scattered in families,[232] and the social condition of the Caishánas, among whom each family has its own solitary hut, “is of a low type, very little removed, indeed, from that of the brutes living in the same forests.”[233] The Marauá Indians live likewise in separate families or small hordes, and so do some other of the tribes visited by Mr. Bates.[234] According to Mr. Southey, the Cayáguas or Wood-Indians, who inhabited the forests between the Paraná and the Uruguay, were not in a social state; “one family lived at a distance from another, in a wretched hut composed of boughs; they subsisted wholly by prey, and when larger game failed, were contented with snakes, mice, pismires, worms, and any kind of reptile or vermin.”[235] Again, speaking of the Coroados, v. Spix and v. Martius say that “they live without any bond of social union, neither under a republican nor a patriarchal form of government. Even family ties are very loose among them.”[236]
The Togiagamutes, an Eskimo tribe, never visited by white men in their own country until the year 1880, who lead a thoroughly nomadic life, wandering from place to place in search of game or fish, appear, according to Petroff, “to live in the most perfect state of independence of each other. Even the communities do not seem bound together in any way; families and groups of families constantly changing their abode, leaving one community and joining another, or perhaps forming one of their own. The youth, as soon as he is able to build a kaiak and to support himself, no longer observes any family ties, but goes where his fancy takes him, frequently roaming about with his kaiak for thousands of miles before another fancy calls him to take a wife, to excavate a miserable dwelling, and to settle down for a time.”[237]
The ancient Finns, too, according to the linguistic researches of Professor Ahlqvist, were without any kind of tribal organization. In his opinion, such a state would have been almost impossible among them, as they lived in scattered families for the sake of the chase and in order to have pastures for their reindeer.[238]
That the comparatively solitary life which the families of these peoples live, is due to want of sufficient food, appears from several facts. Lichtenstein tells us that the hardships experienced by the Bushmans in satisfying the most urgent necessities of life, preclude the possibility of their forming larger societies. Even the families that form associations in small separate hordes are sometimes obliged to disperse, as the same spot will not afford sufficient sustenance for all. “The smaller the number, the easier is a supply of food procured.”[239]
“Scarcity of food, and the facility with which they move from one place to another in their canoes,” says Admiral Fitzroy, “are, no doubt, the reasons why the Fuegians are always so dispersed among the islands in small family parties, why they never remain long in one place, and why a large number are not seen many days in society.”[240]
The natives of Port Jackson, New South Wales, when visited a hundred years ago by Captain Hunter, were associated in tribes of many families living together, apparently without a fixed residence, the different families wandering in different directions for food, but uniting on occasions of disputes with another tribe.[241] The Rev. A. Meyer assures us likewise, as regards the Encounter Bay tribe, that “the whole tribe does not always move in a body from one place to another, unless there should be abundance of food to be obtained at some particular spot; but generally they are scattered in search of food.”[242] Again, with reference to the Australians more generally, Mr. Brough Smyth remarks that “in any large area occupied by a tribe, where there was not much forest land, and where kangaroos were not numerous, it is highly probable that the several families composing the tribe would withdraw from their companions for short periods, at certain seasons, and betake themselves to separate portions of the area, ... and it is more than probable—it is almost certain—that each head of a family would betake himself, if practicable, to that portion which his father had frequented.”[243]
Finally, from Mr. Wyeth’s account in Schoolcraft’s great work on the Indian Tribes of the United States, I shall make the following characteristic quotation with reference to the Snakes inhabiting the almost desert region which extends southward from the Snake River as far as the southern end of the Great Salt Lake, and eastward from the Rocky to the Blue Mountains:—“The paucity of game in this region is, I have little doubt, the cause of the almost entire absence of social organization among its inhabitants; no trace of it is ordinarily seen among them, except during salmon-time, when a large number of the Snakes resort to the rivers, chiefly to the Fishing Falls, and at such places there seems some little organization.... Prior to the introduction of the horse, no other tribal arrangement existed than such as is now seen in the management of the salmon fishery.... The organization would be very imperfect, because the remainder of the year would be spent by them in families widely spread apart, to eke out the year’s subsistence on the roots and limited game of their country. After a portion of them, who are now called Bonaks, had obtained horses, they would naturally form bands and resort to the Buffalo region to gain their subsistence, retiring to the most fertile places in their own, to avoid the snows of the mountains and feed their horses. Having food from the proceeds of the Buffalo hunt, to enable them to live together, they would annually do so, for the protection of their horses, lodges, &c., &c. These interests have caused an organization among the Bonaks, which continues the year through, because the interests which produce it continue; and it is more advanced than that of the other Snakes.”[244]