Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

The following illustrations are drawn from tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism. When discovered, the eight Missouri tribes occupied the banks of the Missouri river for more than a thousand miles; together with the banks of its tributaries, the Kansas and the Platte; and also the smaller rivers of Iowa. They also occupied the west bank of the Mississippi down to the Arkansas. Their dialects show that the people were in three tribes before the last subdivisions; namely, first, the Punkas and Omahas, second, the Iowas, Otoes and Missouris, and third, the Kaws, Osages and Quappas. These three were undoubtedly subdivisions of a single original tribe, because their several dialects are still much nearer to each other than to any other dialect of the Dakotian stock language to which they belong. There is, therefore, a linguistic necessity for their derivation from an original tribe. A gradual spread from a central point on this river along its banks, both above and below, would lead to a separation in interests with the increase of distance between their settlements, followed by divergence of speech, and finally by independence. A people thus extending themselves along a river in a prairie country might separate, first into three tribes, and afterwards into eight, and the organization of each subdivision remain complete. Division was neither a shock, nor an appreciated calamity; but a separation into parts by natural expansion over a larger area, followed by a complete segmentation. The uppermost tribe on the Missouri were the Punkas at the mouth of the Niobrara river, and the lowermost the Quappas at the mouth of the Arkansas on the Mississippi, with an interval of near fifteen hundred miles between them. The intermediate region, confined to the narrow belt of forest upon the Missouri, was held by the remaining six tribes. They were strictly River Tribes.

Another illustration may be found in the tribes of Lake Superior. The Ojibwas, Otawas[76] and Potawattamies are subdivisions of an original tribe; the Ojibwas representing the stem, because they remained at the original seat at the great fisheries upon the outlet of the lake. Moreover, they are styled “Elder Brother” by the remaining two; while the Otawas were styled “Next Older Brother,” and the Potawattamies “Younger Brother.” The last tribe separated first, and the Otawas last, as is shown by the relative amount of dialectical variation, that of the former being greatest. At the time of their discovery, A. D. 1641, the Ojibwas were seated at the Rapids on the outlet of Lake Superior, from which point they had spread along the southern shore of the lake to the site of Ontonagon, along its northeastern shore, and down the St. Mary River well toward Lake Huron. Their position possessed remarkable advantages for a fish and game subsistence, which, as they did not cultivate maize and plants, was their main reliance.[77] It was second to none in North America, with the single exception of the Valley of the Columbia. With such advantages they were certain to develop a large Indian population, and to send out successive bands of emigrants to become independent tribes. The Potawattamies occupied a region on the confines of Upper Michigan and Wisconsin, from which the Dakotas in 1641, were in the act of expelling them. At the same time the Otawas, whose earlier residence is supposed to have been on the Otawa river of Canada, had drawn westward and were then seated upon the Georgian Bay, the Manitouline Islands and at Mackinaw, from which points they were spreading southward over Lower Michigan. Originally one people, and possessing the same gentes, they had succeeded in appropriating a large area. Separation in place, and distance between their settlements, had long before their discovery resulted in the formation of dialects, and in tribal independence. The three tribes, whose territories were contiguous, had formed an alliance for mutual protection, known among Americans as “the Otawa Confederacy.” It was a league, offensive and defensive, and not, probably, a close confederacy like that of the Iroquois.

Prior to these secessions another affiliated tribe, the Miamis, had broken off from the Ojibwa stock, or the common parent tribe, and migrated to central Illinois and western Indiana. Following in the track of this migration were the Illinois, another and later offshoot from the same stem, who afterwards subdivided into the Peorias, Kaskaskias, Weaws, and Piankeshaws. Their dialects, with that of the Miamis, find their nearest affinity with the Ojibwa, and next with the Cree.[78] The outflow of all these tribes from the central seat at the great fisheries of Lake Superior is a significant fact, because it illustrates the manner in which tribes are formed in connection with natural centres of subsistence. The New England, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Carolina Algonkins were, in all probability, derived from the same source. Several centuries would be required for the formation of the dialects first named, and for the production of the amount of variation they now exhibit.

The foregoing examples represent the natural process by which tribes are evolved from each other, or from a parent tribe established in an advantageous position. Each emigrating band was in the nature of a military colony, if it may be so strongly characterized, seeking to acquire and hold a new area; preserving at first, and as long as possible, a connection with the mother tribe. By these successive movements they sought to expand their joint possessions, and afterward to resist the intrusion of alien people within their limits. It is a noticeable fact that Indian tribes speaking dialects of the same stock language have usually been found in territorial continuity, however extended their common area. The same has, in the main, been true of all the tribes of mankind linguistically united. It is because the people, spreading from some geographical centre, and maintaining an arduous struggle for subsistence, and for the possession of their new territories, have preserved their connection with the mother land as a means of succor in times of danger, and as a place of refuge in calamity.

It required special advantages in the means of subsistence to render any area an initial point of migration through the gradual development of a surplus population. These natural centres were few in number in North America. There are but three. First among them is the Valley of the Columbia, the most extraordinary region on the face of the earth in the variety and amount of subsistence it afforded, prior to the cultivation of maize and plants;[79] second, the peninsula between Lakes Superior, Huron and Michigan, the seat of the Ojibwas, and the nursery land of many Indian tribes; and third, the lake region in Minnesota, the nursery ground of the present Dakota tribes. These are the only regions in North America that can be called natural centres of subsistence, and natural sources of surplus numbers. There are reasons for believing that Minnesota was a part of the Algonkin area before it was occupied by the Dakotas. When the cultivation of maize and plants came in, it tended to localize the people and support them in smaller areas, as well as to increase their numbers; but it failed to transfer the control of the continent to the most advanced tribes of Village Indians, who subsisted almost entirely by cultivation. Horticulture spread among the principal tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism and greatly improved their condition. They held, with the non-horticultural tribes, the great areas of North America when it was discovered, and from their ranks the continent was being replenished with inhabitants.[80]

The multiplication of tribes and dialects has been the fruitful source of the incessant warfare of the aborigines upon each other. As a rule the most persistent warfare has been waged between tribes speaking different stock languages; as, for example, between the Iroquois and Algonkin tribes, and between the Dakota tribes and the same. On the contrary the Algonkin and Dakota tribes severally have, in general, lived at peace among themselves. Had it been otherwise they would not have been found in the occupation of continuous areas. The worst exception were the Iroquois, who pursued a war of extermination against their kindred tribes, the Eries, the Neutral Nation, the Hurons and the Susquehannocks. Tribes speaking dialects of the same stock language are able to communicate orally and thus compose their differences. They also learned, in virtue of their common descent, to depend upon each other as natural allies.

Numbers within a given area were limited by the amount of subsistence it afforded. When fish and game were the main reliance for food, it required an immense area to maintain a small tribe. After farinaceous food was superadded to fish and game, the area occupied by a tribe was still a large one in proportion to the number of the people. New York, with its forty-seven thousand square miles, never contained at any time more than twenty-five thousand Indians, including with the Iroquois the Algonkins on the east side of the Hudson and upon Long Island, and the Eries and Neutral Nation in the western section of the state. A personal government founded upon gentes was incapable of developing sufficient central power to follow and control the increasing numbers of the people, unless they remained within a reasonable distance from each other.

Among the Village Indians of New Mexico, Mexico, and Central America an increase of numbers in a small area did not arrest the process of disintegration. Each pueblo was usually an independent self-governing community. Where several pueblos were seated near each other on the same stream, the people were usually of common descent, and either under a tribal or confederate government. There are some seven stock languages in New Mexico alone, each spoken in several dialects. At the time of Coronado’s expedition, 1540-1542, the villages found were numerous but small. There were seven each of Cibola, Tucayan, Quivira, and Hemez, and twelve of Tiguex;[81] and other groups indicating a linguistic connection of their members. Whether or not each group was confederated we are not informed. The seven Moqui Pueblos (the Tucayan Villages of Coronado’s expedition), are said to be confederated at the present time, and probably were at the time of their discovery.

The process of subdivision, illustrated by the foregoing examples, has been operating among the American aborigines for thousands of years, until upwards of forty stock languages, as near as is known, have been developed in North America alone; each spoken in a number of dialects, by an equal number of independent tribes. Their experience, probably, was but a repetition of that of the tribes of Asia, Europe and Africa, when they were in corresponding conditions.