The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished Races

by Emory Adams Allen

In the Arizona pueblo we have a great fortress-built house, three and four stories high, and no mode of access to the lower story. This is in strict accord with Indian principles of defense, which consists in elevated positions. Sometimes this elevated position was a natural hill, as at Quemada, Tezcocingo, and Xochicalco. Where no hill was at hand they formed a terraced pyramidal foundation, as at Copan, Palenque, and Uxmal. In the highest forms of this architecture this elevation is faced with stone, or even composed throughout of stone, as in the case of the House of Nuns at Chichen-Itza. In the construction of houses progress seems to have taken place in two directions. The rooms increased in size. In some of the oldest pueblo structures in Arizona the rooms were more like a cluster of cells than any thing else.⁹

They grow larger towards the South. In the house at Teotihuacan M. Charney found a room twenty-seven feet wide by forty-one feet long. Two of the rooms in the Governor’s House at Uxmal are sixty feet long. But the buildings themselves diminish in size. In Mexico the majority of the houses were but one story high, and but very few more than two stories. In Yucatan but few instances are recorded of houses two stories high. We must remember that throughout the entire territory we are considering the tribes had no domestic animals, their agriculture was in a rude state, and they were practically destitute of metals.¹⁰ They could have been no farther advanced on the road to civilization than were the various tribes of Europe during the Bronze Age. Remembering this, we can not fail to be impressed with the ingenuity, patient toil, and artistic taste they displayed in the construction and decoration of their edifices.

It may seem somewhat singular that we should treat of their architecture before we do of their system of government, but we were already acquainted with the ruins of the former. When we turn to the latter we find ourselves involved in very great difficulties. The description given of Mexican society by the majority of writers on these topics represent it as that of a powerful monarchy. The historian Prescott, in his charming work¹¹ draws a picture that would not suffer by comparison with the despotic magnificence of Oriental lands. At a later date Mr. Bancroft, supporting himself by an appeal to a formidable list of authorities, regilds the scene.¹² But protests against such views are not wanting. Robertson, in his history, though bowing to the weight of authority can not forbear expressing his conviction that there had been some exaggeration in the splendid description of their government and manners.¹³ Wilson, more skeptical, and bolder, utterly repudiates the old accounts, and refuses to believe the Aztecs were any thing more than savages.¹⁴

With such divergent and conflicting views, we at once perceive the necessity of carefully scanning all the accounts given, and make them conform, if possible, to what is known of Indian institutions and manners. The Mexicans are but one of several tribes that are the subjects of our research; but their institutions are better known than the others, and, in a general way, whatever is true of them will be true of the rest. We have seen the efforts of the Spanish explorers to explain whatever they found new or strange in America by Spanish words, and the results of such procedure. We are at full liberty to reject their conclusions and start anew.

What the Spaniards found around the lakes of Mexico was a union or confederacy of three tribes. Very late investigations by Mr. Bandelier have established the presence of the usual subdivisions of the tribes. So we have here a complete organization according to the terms of ancient society: that is, the gens, phratry, tribe, and confederacy of tribes. It is necessary that we spend some time with each of these subdivisions before we can understand the condition of society among the Mexicans, and, in all probability, the society among all of the civilized nations of Central America.

We will begin with the gens, or the lowest division of the tribe. We must understand its organization before we can understand that of a tribe, and we must master the tribal organization before attempting to learn the workings of the confederacy. To neglect this order, and commence at the top of the series, is to make the same mistake that the older writers did in their studies into this culture. A gens has certain rights, duties, and privileges which belong to the whole gens, and we will consider some of the more important in their proper place. We must understand by a gens a collection of persons who are considered to be all related to each other. An Indian could not, of his own will, transfer himself from one gens to another. He remained a member of the gens into which he was born. He might, by a formal act of adoption, become a member of another gens; or he might, in certain contingencies, lose his connection with a gens and become an outcast. There is no such thing as privileged classes in a gens. All its members stand on an equal footing. The council of the gens is the supreme ruling power in the gens. Among some of the northern tribes, all the members in the gens, both male and female, had a voice in this council. In the Mexican gens, the council itself was more restricted. The old men, medicine men, and distinguished men met in council—but even here, on important occasions, the whole gens met in council.

Each gens would, of course, elect its own officers. They could remove them from office as well, whenever occasion required. The Mexican gentes elected two officers. One of these corresponded to the sachem among northern tribes. His residence was the official house of the gens. He had in charge the stores of the gens; and, in unimportant cases, he exercised the powers of a judge. The other officer was the war-chief. In times of war he commanded the forces of the gens. In times of peace he was, so to speak, the sheriff of the gens.

The next division of the tribe was the phratry—the word properly meaning a brotherhood. Referring to the outline below, we notice that the eight gentes were reunited into two phratries. Mr. Morgan tells us that the probable origin of phratries was from the subdivision of an original gens. Thus a tradition of the Seneca Indians affirms that the Bear and the Deer gentes were the original gentes of that tribe.¹⁵ In process of time they split up into eight gentes, which would each have all the rights and duties of an original gens—but, for certain purposes, they were still organized into two divisions.

TRIBE.	First Phratry, or Brotherhood.	Bear Wolf Beaver Turtle	Gens.
	Second Phratry, or Brotherhood.	Deer Snipe Heron Hawk	Gens.

Each of these larger groups is called a phratry. All of the Iroquois tribes were organized into phratries, and the same was, doubtless, true of the majority of the tribes of North America. The researches of Mr. Bandelier have quite conclusively established the fact, that the ancient Mexican tribe consisted of twenty gentes reunited as four phratries, which constituted the four quarters of the Pueblo of Mexico.