COMMUNAL REGULATION. 437 



tions were ready-made friends, as they are now; while in 

 early days non-relations were either actual or potential foes. 

 Hence the result that the communal group was primarily an 

 aggregate of kindred, and its cohesion all along was main 

 tained for joint protection against those who did not belong 

 to the kindred. Cohesion was great in proportion as external 

 dangers were great, and diminished along with the diminu 

 tion of external dangers. 



Before proceeding to those illustrations which chiefly con 

 cern us, as being presented by the forefathers of civilized 

 peoples, let us contemplate those presented by the uncivi 

 lized; and chiefly by those among w r hom kinship through 

 females obtains. 



782. The first illustration may fitly be one in which the 

 origin of descent in the female line is made manifest, and in 

 which, while specific male parentage is undetermined, there 

 is male parentage within the group and a doubly-rooted 

 communism. Quoted by Morgan from Herrera, the account 

 concerns a people found on the coast of Venezuela when 

 first visited : 



&quot; The houses they dwelt in were common to all, and so spacious that 

 they contained one hundred and sixty persons, strongly built, though 

 covered with palm-tree leaves, and shaped like a bell.&quot; . . . &quot;They 

 observed no law or rule in matrimony, but took as many wives as they 

 would, and they as many husbands, quitting one another at pleasure, 

 without reckoning any wrong done on either part. There was no such 

 thing as jealousy among them, all living as best pleased them, without 

 taking offence at one another.&quot; 



This/ says Morgan, &quot; shows communism in husbands as 

 well as wives, and rendered communism in food a necessity 

 of their condition.&quot; Passing to those North Americans 

 among whom kinship was reckoned through females, and 

 who formed communal households composed of related 

 families, it will suffice if I string together some extracts con 

 cerning different tribes. Of those on the Columbia plains, 

 Lewis and Clarke say: 



