MCGEE] SIOUAN MIGRATIONS 199 



plains 500 or 800 miles away. All of tlie moveinents were consistent 

 and, despite intertril)al frii'tiou and strife, measurably liarmoiiions. The 

 lines of movement, so far as they can be restored, are in full accord 

 with the lines of linguistic evolution traced by Hale and Dorsey and 

 Gatschet, and indicate that some five hundred or possibly one thousand 

 years ago the tribesmen i)ushed over the Appalacliiaus to the Ohio and 

 followed that stream and its tributaries to the Mississippi (though there 

 are faint indications that some of the early emigrants ascended the 

 nortliern tributaries to the region of the tlreat Lakes); and that the 

 human flood gained volume as it advanced and expanded to cover 

 the entire region of the plains. The records concerning the movement 

 of this great human stream find support in the manifest reason for the 

 movement; the reason was the food quest by which all xu'iniitive men 

 are led, and its end was the abundant fauna of the prairieland, with the 

 buffalo at its head. 



Wliile the early population of the Siouau stock, when first the hunts- 

 men crossed the Appalachians, may not be known, the lines of migra- 

 tion indicate that the people increased and multiplied amain during 

 their long journey, and that their numbers culminated, despite external 

 conflict and internal strife, about the beginning of written history, 

 when the Siouan population may have been 100,000 or more. Then 

 came war against the whites and the still more deadly smallpox, 

 whereby the vigorous stock was checked and crippled and the popula- 

 tion gradually reduced; but since the first shock, which occurred at 

 different dates in different parts of the great region, the Siouan people 

 have fairly held their own, and some branches are perhaps gaining in 

 strength. 



SOME FEATURES OF INDIAN SOCIOLOGY 



' As shown by Powell, there are two fundamentally distinct classes or 

 stages in human society — (1) tribal society and (2) national society. 

 National society characterizes civilization ; primarily it is organized on 

 a territorial basis, but as enlightenment grows the bases are multi- 

 iflied. Tribal society is characteristic of savagery and barbarism; so 

 far as known, all tribal societies are organized on the basis of kinship. 

 The transfer from tribal society to national society is often, perhaps 

 always, through feudalism, in which the territorial motive takes root 

 and in which the kinship motive withers. 



All of the American aborigines north of Mexico and most of those 

 farther southward were in the stage of tribal society when the conti- 

 nents were discovered, though feudalism was apitarently budding in 

 South America, Central America, and parts of Mexico. The partly 

 developed transitional stage may, for the present, be neglected, and 

 American Indian sociology may be cousidered as rexiresenting tribal 

 society or kinship organization. 



