62 HWOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMBRICAN ABORIGINES. 
lage hospitality, are necessary to explain the custom. It could have been 
maintained on such a basis, and it is difficult to see how it could have been 
maintained on any other. The common and substantially universal prac- 
tice of this custom, among the American Indian Tribes, at the period of 
their discovery, among whom the procurement of subsistence was their 
vital need, must be regarded as evidence of a generous disposition, and as 
exhibiting a trait of character highly creditable to the race. 
