142 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



ever very numerous, even in the most favored localities. Although spread over 

 immense areas and in the occupation of many fruitful regions, still, without field 

 agriculture, or flocks and herds, it was impossible that they should develop a large, 

 much more a dense population. They possessed neither flocks nor herds, and their 

 agricvdture never rose above garden-bed culture, performed with no better imple- 

 ments than those of wood and bone. In the valley of Mexico, where there are 

 reasons for supposing that irrigation upon a large scale was practised, production 

 was greater than in other areas. But notwithstanding the exception to some 

 extent of this region, the current statements Avith reference to the numbers of the 

 American aborigines are unsupported by trustworthy evidence. The history of the 

 human family does not afford an instance of a large population without ample 

 pastoral subsistence or field agriculture. It may also be safely affirmed that the 

 real distance in social condition between the Aztecs, as one of the highest represen- 

 tatives of the Village Indians, and the Iroquois, as one of the highest representa- 

 tives of the Northern Indians, Avas not as great as has been generally supposed, 

 although the former had reached a state considerably more advanced. If the civil 

 and domestic institutions, arts, inventions, usages, and customs of the Northern 

 Indians are compared with those of the Southern Village Indians, so far as the 

 latter are reliably ascertained, whatever differences exist will be found to consist 

 in the degree of development of the same homogeneous conceptions of a common 

 mind, and not of ideas springing from a different source. With the common origin 

 of the Village and Northern Indians established, there is no further problem of 

 much difficulty in American Ethnology. 



It now remains to present an analysis of the Indian system of relationship ; and 

 after that to take up in detail the system of the several nations represented in tlie 

 Table ; and to trace its radical characteristics as well as the extent of its distribu- 

 tion. It will be found that a common system prevails amongst all the nations 

 named therein, with the exception of the Eskimo. 



The system of relationship considered in Part I was characterized as descriptive 

 because, in its original form, the collateral and a portion of the lineal consanguinei 

 of every person were described by a combination of the primary terms. For 

 example, the phrase " father's brother" Avas used to designate an uncle on the 

 father's side ; " brother's son" for a nephew, and " father's brother's son" for one 

 of the four male cousins. The discrimination of these relationships, in the con- 

 crete, was an aftergrowth in point of time, and exceptional in the system. After 

 it was effected and special terms had been introduced to express those relationships, 

 in some of the branches of the great families named, they were sufficient for the 

 designation of but a small portion of the blood kindred of each individual. At 

 least four-fifths within the limits of the first five collateral lines, and within six 

 degrees from the common ancestor, could only be indicated by means of descriptive 

 phrases. At the present time, therefore, it is a descriptive system. It has also 

 been called a natural system, because it is founded upon a correct appreciation of 

 the distinction between the lineal and several collateral lines, and of the perpetual 

 divergence of the latter from the former. Each relationship is thus specialized 

 and separated from every other in such a manner as to decrease its nearness, and 



