Most systems of sociology treat man as if he were in some way detached from the earth's surface; they ignore the land basis of society. The anthropo-geographer recognizes the various social forces, economic and psychologic, which sociologists regard as the cement of societies; but he has something to add. He sees in the land occupied by a primitive tribe or a highly organized state the underlying material bond holding society together, the ultimate basis of their fundamental social activities, which are therefore derivatives from the land. He sees the common territory exercising an integrating force,—weak in primitive communities where the group has established only a few slight and temporary relations with its soil, so that this low social complex breaks up readily like its organic counterpart, the low animal organism found in an amoeba; he sees it growing stronger with every advance in civilization involving more complex relations to the land,—with settled habitations, with increased density of population, with a discriminating and highly differentiated use of the soil, with the exploitation of mineral resources, and finally with that far-reaching exchange of commodities and ideas which means the establishment of varied extra-territorial relations. Finally, the modern society or state has grown into every foot of its own soil, exploited its every geographic advantage, utilized its geographic location to enrich itself by international trade, and when possible, to absorb outlying territories by means of colonies. The broader this geographic base, the richer, more varied its resources, and the more favorable its climate to their exploitation, the more numerous and complex are the connections which the members of a social group can establish with it, and through it with each other; or in other words, the greater may be its ultimate historical significance. The polar regions and the subtropical deserts, on the other hand, permit man to form only few and intermittent relations with any one spot, restrict economic methods to the lower stages of development, produce only the small, weak, loosely organized horde, which never evolves into a state so long as it remains in that retarding environment.
Morgan's Societas.
Man in his larger activities, as opposed to his mere physiological or psychological processes, cannot be studied apart from the land which he inhabits. Whether we consider him singly or in a group—family, clan, tribe or state—we must always consider him or his group in relation to a piece of land. The ancient Irish sept, Highland clan, Russian mir, Cherokee hill-town, Bedouin tribe, and the ancient Helvetian canton, like the political state of history, have meant always a group of people and a bit of land. The first presupposes the second. In all cases the form and size of the social group, the nature of its activities, the trend and limit of its development will be strongly influenced by the size and nature of its habitat. The land basis is always present, in spite of Morgan's artificial distinction between a theoretically landless societas, held together only by the bond of common blood, and the political civitas based upon land.[82] Though primitive society found its conscious bond in common blood, nevertheless the land bond was always there, and it gradually asserted its fundamental character with the evolution of society.
The savage and barbarous groups which in Morgan's classification would fall under the head of societas have nevertheless a clear conception of their ownership of the tribal lands which they use in common. This idea is probably of very primitive origin, arising from the association of a group with its habitat, whose food supply they regard as a monopoly.[83] This is true even of migratory hunting tribes. They claim a certain area whose boundaries, however, are often ill-defined and subject to fluctuations, because the lands are not held by permanent occupancy and cultivation. An exceptional case is that of the Shoshone Indians, inhabiting the barren Utah basin and the upper valleys of the Snake and Salmon Rivers, who are accredited with no sense of ownership of the soil. In their natural state they roved about in small, totally unorganized bands or single families, and changed their locations so widely, that they seemed to lay no claim to any particular portion. The hopeless sterility of the region and its poverty of game kept its destitute inhabitants constantly on the move to gather in the meager food supply, and often restricted the social group to the family.[84] Here the bond between land and tribe, and hence between the members of the tribe, was the weakest possible.
Land bond in hunter tribes.
The usual type of tribal ownership was presented by the Comanches, nomadic horse Indians who occupied the grassy plains of northern Texas. They held their territory and the game upon it as the common property of the tribe, and jealously guarded the integrity of their domain.[85] The chief Algonquin tribes, who occupied the territory between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, had each its separate domain, within which it shifted its villages every few years; but its size depended upon the power of the tribe to repel encroachment upon its hunting grounds. Relying mainly on the chase and fishing, little on agriculture, for their subsistence, their relations to their soil were superficial and transitory, their tribal organization in a high degree unstable.[86] Students of American ethnology generally agree that most of the Indian tribes east of the Mississippi were occupying definite areas at the time of the discovery, and were to a considerable extent sedentary and agricultural. Though nomadic within the tribal territory, as they moved with the season in pursuit of game, they returned to their villages, which were shifted only at relatively long intervals.[87]
The political organization of the native Australians, low as they were in the social scale, seems to have been based chiefly on the claim of each wretched wandering tribe to a definite territory.[88] In north central Australia, where even a very sparse population has sufficed to saturate the sterile soil, tribal boundaries have become fixed and inviolable, so that even war brings no transfer of territory. Land and people are identified. The bond is cemented by their primitive religion, for the tribe's spirit ancestors occupied this special territory.[89] In a like manner a very definite conception of tribal ownership of land prevails among the Bushmen and Bechuanas of South Africa; and to the pastoral Hereros the alienation of their land is inconceivable.[90] [See map page 105.]
A tribe of hunters can never be more than a small horde, because the simple, monotonous savage economy permits no concentration of population, no division of labor except that between the sexes, and hence no evolution of classes. The common economic level of all is reflected in the simple social organization,[91] which necessarily has little cohesion, because the group must be prepared to break up and scatter in smaller divisions, when its members increase or its savage supplies decrease even a little. Such primitive groups cannot grow into larger units, because these would demand more roots sent down into the sustaining soil; but they multiply by fission, like the infusorial monads, and thereafter lead independent existences remote from each other. This is the explanation of multiplication of dialects among savage tribes.