MORGAN,] TRIBES OF PERU. ad 
seats; * * * and they gave them boiled roots to eat, which tasted like 
chestnuts.’ One of the first expeditions which touched the main land on the 
coast of Venezuela in South America found much larger houses than these 
last described. “The houses they dwelt ih 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”” Herrera 
further remarks of the same tribe, that ‘‘they observed no law or rule in 
matrimony, but took as many wives as they would, and they as many hus- 
bands, 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 offense at one another.”’ This shows 
communism in husbands as well as wives, and rendered communism in food 
anecessity of their condition Elsewhere the same author speaks of the 
habitations of the tribes on the coast of Carthagena. ‘Their houses were 
like long arbors, with several apartments, and they had no beds but ham- 
mocks”* Many similar statements are scattered through his work. 
Among the more advanced tribes of Peru the lands were divided, and 
allotted to different uses; one part was for the support of the government, 
another for the support of religion, and another for the support of individu- 
als. The first two parts were cultivated by the people under established 
regulations, and the crops were placed in public storehouses. This is the 
statement of Garcilasso.’ Herrera, however, says generally that the people 
lived from common stores ‘The Spaniards drawing near to Caxamalea 
begun to have a view of the Inca army lying near the bottom of a mount- 
ain. * * * They were pleased to see the beauty of the fields, most 
regularly cultivated, for it was an ancient law among these people that all 
should be fed from common stores, and none should touch the standing 
corn.”> The discrepancy between Herrera and Garcilasso may perhaps be 
explained by the reservation of the crops grown on lands set apart for the 
government and for religion. 
The reason for presenting the foregoing observations of different authors 
concerning the households, the houses, and the practice of communism in 
1 Herrera, i, 55. 2Tb., 216. 3Ib., 1, 216. , 4Tb., 348. 
5 Royal Com. 1. ¢., pp. 154, 157. 6 Herrera, iv, 249. 
