HILL. 30] 



SOCIAL OKGANIZATION 



609 



of the N. Pacific coast, based on property 

 and the institution of slavery, does not 

 seem to have had a parallel elsewhere n. 

 of Mexico except perhapa among the 

 Natchez, bravery in war, wisdom in 

 council, oratorical, poetical, or artistic 

 talents, real or supposed psychic powers — 

 in short, any variety of excellence what- 

 ever served in all Indian tribes to give 

 one prominence among his fellows, and 

 it is not strange that popular recognition 

 of a man's ability sometimes reacted to 

 the benefit of his descendants. Although 

 it was always a position of great conse- 

 quence, leadership in war was generally 

 separate from and secondary to the civil 

 chieftainship. Civil leadership and cer- 

 emonial primacy were much more com- 

 monly combined. Among the Pueblos 

 all three are united, forming a theocracy. 

 Councils of a democratic, unconventional 

 kind, in which wealthy persons or those 

 of most use to the tribe had the greatest 

 influence,- were universal where no special 

 form of council was established. 



An Eskimo tribe consisted of those 

 households that hunted or fished in the 

 same geographical region and wintered 

 in one village, or in several villages not 

 far apart. Government was carried on 

 by the heads of houses, and usually there 

 was a headman in the tribe whose word 

 had weight in matters connected with 

 hunting and fishing. A class of helpers 

 was composed of "bachelors without any 

 relations, cripples who were not able to 

 provide for themselves, or men who had 

 lost their sledges and dogs" (Boas, Cen- 

 tral Eskimo, 1888). A young man gen- 

 erally lived with his wife's family, much 

 under their control, until the death of 

 his parents-in-law. If he or his wife 

 died meantime, their children remained 

 with her people. When a man had once 

 established his household independently, 

 however, he was the head of it, and on 

 his death his principal possessions went 

 to the eldest of his sons, born to him or 

 adopted, who had not an independent 

 position. In so simple an organization 

 as this we see the basis on which very 

 important structures were elsewhere 

 built. Nelson claims to have found traces 

 of totemism among the Alaskan Eskimo, 

 but it was probably imported from the 

 Indians to the s. and does not appear to 

 have taken deep root in the social life. 



Among the more eastern Athapascan 

 tribes the social organization is said to 

 have been of a similar loose, paternal type. 

 The Paiute and some other Shoshoiiean 

 tribes consisted of bands, each governed 

 by a chief, which occupied and took their 

 names from particular localities. There 

 werealso chiefs whoseauthority extended, 

 probably in a very indefinite form, over a 

 number of others. 



3456— Bull. 30, pt 2—07 .39 



Throughout California, except in one 

 small area, subdivisions were also local, 

 and descent was paternal, so far as it 

 was distinguished at all. Hupa men, 

 for instance, usually resided throughout 

 life in the town where they were born, 

 while the women went elsewhere to 

 live with their husbands, the towns be- 

 ing in practice chiefly exogamic, though 

 there was no recognized requii-ement of 

 exogamy. A man more often married a 

 woman from outside of his village than 

 one born there, only because the chances 

 were that the majority of women in his 

 own village were his actual blood-rela- 

 tions. Headship among them depended 

 on wealth, and might be lost with it. 

 Amount of property also determined 

 headship over the villages of an entire 

 district when they united for war or 

 for ceremonial observances. The Mohave 

 also reckoned descent through the father, 

 and there are indications of a nascent or 

 decadent gentile system. Among the 

 Hupa, Yurok, Karok, and other tribes of 

 N. w. California slavery was a recognized 

 institution, though the number of slaves 

 was small. 



The coast people of Oregon and Wash- 

 ington were organized on the basis of 

 village communities similar to those of 

 California, but slavery occupied a more 

 prominent position in the social fabric and 

 its importance increased northward, the 

 institution extending as far, at least, as 

 Copper r., Alaska (see Slaver i/). The Sa- 

 lish tribes of the interior of British Colum- 

 bia consisted of many village communities, 

 for the greater part independent of one 

 another. Civil, military, and religious 

 matters were each directed by different 

 persons whose special fitness had been 

 recognized, and though the succession 

 usually passed from father to son, the 

 actual selection rested with the people. 

 In the selection of a civil chief, property 

 was the determining factor. The few 

 totemic devices or crests found in this 

 region were inherited by all of the origi- 

 nal owner's blood relations in both the 

 male and female lines. A chief, like the 

 noted Seattle, was sometimes found ruling 

 over his mother's instead of his father's 

 people, and a man was often known by 

 a different name in his mother's tow^n 

 from that he bore in his father's. 



Freemen among the coast Salish were 

 divided into nobles, middle-class men, 

 and servants. Below the last w'ere the 

 slaves captured in war. Servants W'ere 

 either poor relations of the better classes 

 or members of formerly independent di- 

 visions reduced by war or otherwise to a 

 servile condition, yet not actually en- 

 slaved. A chief might be displaced, but 

 his office was usually hereditary from 

 father to son, and it carried with it lead- 



