432 LEWIS HENRY MORGAN, LL.D. 



in fact a resume of his great work which was then passing through the 

 press, and appeared as a thick quarto volume of the Smithsonian 

 Conti'ibutioDs to Knowledge, published in 1870, under the title of 

 " Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family." 

 This volume is literally one of facts, from which most important con- 

 clusions are constantly being drawn. As Mr. Morgan states, it con- 

 tains the systems of relationship of " four-fifths, numerically, of the 

 entire human family." 



Duriug the years in which these materials were being collected Mr. 

 Morgan was not idle, but was gradually obtaining information for future 

 contributions, both by study in his well-stored library and by personal 

 expeditions among the Indian tribes of the West and of Hudson Bay 

 Territory. This also was the most active period of his literary life, 

 several of the papers which were afterwards revised and printed having 

 been sketched during this time. Among the most important of these 

 were contributions to the "North American Review," from 1869 to 

 1876, under the titles of "The Seven Cities of Cibola," "Indian Migra- 

 tions," " Montezuma's Dinner," and the " Houses of the Mound-Build- 

 ers." Probably the paper of 1876, entitled "Montezuma's Dinner," 

 is the most characteristic of what has been called the " Morgan school " 

 of ethnology. In it he showed that the commonly received statements 

 relating to the Aztec civilization were founded on misconceptions and 

 exaggerations, and that the Mexican confederacy, reviewed in the 

 light of knowledge derived from a study of the social and tribal insti- 

 tutions of the Indians of America, would be found to form no excep- 

 tion to the democratic military and priestly government founded on 

 the gentile system common to the American tribes. 



Mr. Morgan always chose forcible language in expressing his ideas, 

 and he held fast to theories which he believed to be well founded. 

 The recent extended investigations which have brought many addi- 

 tional facis to light will naturally lead to the criticism of some of the 

 theories which he formed, from the facts at his disposal, during the 

 active period of his literary work ; but while such as were constructed 

 of loose materials will fall, and none would have been more ready 

 than he to pull them down in the cause of truth, the great principles 

 which his researches have brought out are so apparently beyond con- 

 troversy that they will ever stand as the rocks against which the wild 

 and sensational theories will be dashed, and as foundations upon which 

 to build in the further study of American archaeology and ethnology- 

 Mr. Morgan's last excursion was to the ancient and modern pueblos 

 of Colorado and New Mexico in 1878, and was undertaken primarily 



