{*} [This subject Mr. Morgan treats with a master’s hand in his Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines.]
In the communal house woman ruled. To her belonged the personal property. Because it was derived through her, this property remained always with the exogamous clan. Thus, marriage made very little difference to woman’s maintenance. If the husband who had come into the house proved to be lazy and otherwise worthless, divorce was easy, and he was sent back to his own.
From its own members the clan elected a sachem to attend to civil matters, and a chief to direct its military affairs.
The son could not succeed his father in these offices, but a brother might succeed a brother. (This was true of the Indian tribe to which Powhatan belonged. Had James I of England been aware of this fact, he would not have looked with such jealous eyes upon his subject Rolfe who had married the Indian princess Pocahontas.) The clan was always known by some distinctive name, usually that of some animal—beaver, fox, wolf, etc.
When the clan became so large as to be unwieldy, it split up into phratries. The “phratry” was at first a religious and social organization; and one of its chief duties was the prosecution of criminals. (The Teutonic hundred was ever ready to exact “wehrgeld.”) “The tribe” was usually the highest attainment in organization of which the aborigines of America were capable. The Mexican confederacy was the most interesting and important of their permanent organizations. The Spaniards did not understand the principles on which this confederacy was founded, because it was entirely unlike anything with which they were familiar.—M.]
CHAPTER II
SUCCESSION TO THE CROWN—AZTEC NOBILITY—JUDICIAL SYSTEM—LAWS AND REVENUES—MILITARY INSTITUTIONS
THE form of government differed in the different states of Anahuac. With the Aztecs and Tezcucans it was monarchical and nearly absolute. The two nations resembled each other so much in their political institutions that one of their historians has remarked, in too unqualified a manner indeed, that what is told of one may be always understood as applying to the other.[41] I shall direct my inquiries to the Mexican polity, borrowing an illustration occasionally from that of the rival kingdom.[42]
The government was an elective monarchy. Four of the principal nobles, who had been chosen by their own body in the preceding reign, filled the office of electors, to whom were added, with merely an honorary rank, however, the two royal allies of Tezcuco and Tlacopan. The sovereign was selected from the brothers of the deceased prince, or, in default of them, from his nephews. Thus the election was always restricted to the same family. The candidate preferred must have distinguished himself in war, though, as in the case of the last Montezuma, he were a member of the priesthood.[43] This singular mode of supplying the throne had some advantages. The candidates received an education which fitted them for the royal dignity, while the age at which they were chosen not only secured the nation against the evils of minority, but afforded ample means for estimating their qualifications for the office. The result, at all events, was favorable; since the throne, as already noticed, was filled by a succession of able princes, well qualified to rule over a warlike and ambitious people. The scheme of election, however defective, argues a more refined and calculating policy than was to have been expected from a barbarous nation.[44]