Footnote 105: Cass, "Aboriginal Structures," North Amer. Review, Oct., 1840.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 106: Mr. R. A. Wilson's New 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 the Atlantic Monthly, April and May, 1859, by the eminent historian John Foster Kirk, whose History of Charles the Bold is 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 Roman centuria and Teutonic hundred. 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.