THE EEGULATION OF NUMBERS 207 



obliged to wait until another family was through before picking 

 berries, and had to pay for the privilege. Any family might pick 

 berries on the land belonging to another after the owners had 

 finished picking, if it obtained the consent of the latter and paid 

 a certain price.' ^ Referring to the Sitkin Indians, Elhot says 

 that ' the coasthne, and especially the margins of streams and 

 rivers, are duly divided up among the different famihes. These 

 tracts are regarded as strictly private property.' ^ Krause further 

 gives an account of what can only be called individual private 

 property in land among the Thhnkeets.' The remarkable system 

 in vogue among the Veddahs deserves notice. ' The whole Veddah 

 country was divided into small hunting regions, of which each 

 family possessed one.' The arrangements were most elaborate ; 

 the size of the tracts varied in accordance with the goodness of 

 the land, and each included a portion of hill country to which 

 each family thus had access during the rainy season without 

 trespassing upon the ground of other famihes.' * Cooper has 

 very fully reviewed the evidence for the Fuegians. It has been 

 stated that communism existed among them. This is not correct. 

 ' While all Fuegians are nomads,' he says, ' yet a Yaghan, for 

 instance, is chary of poaching on Alacalufan or Onan territory. 

 Even within recognized tribal territory the existence of more or 

 less definitely marked off family hunting grounds is explicitly 

 attested for the Onas by Professor Furlong and Dr. Dabbene and 

 implicitly by Dr. Gallardo.' ^ 



4. Passing now to the races of the second group it is everywhere 

 found that tribal territories are recognized, and it has been shown 

 that, compared with hunting and fishing races, there is an increase 

 in the number of cases in which land is held by smaller groups, 

 if not by individuals, and a corresponding decrease in the number 

 of cases in which communal ownership is recognized.^ The details 

 of the variation in land tenure are not relevant, and a few descrip- 

 tions of the conditions among different tribes will serve as examples 



' Swanton, Jesuji North Pacific Expedition, vol. v, p. 71. ^ Elliot, Arctic 



Province, p. 54. 



^ Krause, loc. cit., p. 167. Before leaving the Indians it is worth noticing that 

 each family had, as a rule, its own store of food. Many different methods of storing 

 food are known ; the more migratory tribes of the Salish and the Tinneh stored 

 food either in detached sheds elevated on posts several feet from the ground, 

 or where the soil was unusually dry in well-like holes. See Hill Tout, British 

 North Airvrica, p. 108. 



'' Sarasins, loc. cit., vol. iii, pp. 475 ff. See also Seligman, loc. cit., p. 106. 

 ' Cooper, loc. cit., p. 178. * Hobhouse, Wheeler, and Ginsberg, Inslituiions 



oj the Simpler Peoples, pp. 24.3 ff. 



