80 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
Seneca-Iroquois, a portion of the lands are divided into separate farms, 
which are fenced and occupied in severalty, while the remainder are owned 
by the tribe in common. When a young man marries and has no land on 
which to subsist, the chiefs may allot him a portion of these reserved Jands. 
The title to all these lands, occupied and unoccupied, remains in the tribe 
in common. Individuals may sell or rent their possessory rights to each 
other, or rent them to a white man. No white man can now acquire a title 
from an Indian to Indian lands in any part of the United States. A person 
could transfer his possessions to another, but apartments in a house must 
remain to his gentile kindred. In the time of James II the right to acquire 
lands was vested in the Crown exclusively as a royal prerogative, to which 
prerogative our State and National Governments succeeded. 
The same usages prevail on the Tuscarora Reservation, near the Niag- 
ara River, where this Iroquois tribe owns in common about 8,000 acres of 
fine agricultural land in one body. <A part of this reservation has long 
been parceled out to individuals in small farms, fenced, and cultivated by 
the possessors. ‘The remainder is unparceled and under the control of the 
chiefs. The people are allowed to remove from the wood-land of the reserve 
the dead wood and litter, but are not permitted to touch the standing tim- 
ber. When a young man marries, if he has no land, the chiefs allot him 
forty acres to cultivate for his subsistence; but, before giving him posses- 
sion, the lot is first open to all the tribe to cut off the timber for fire-wood. 
Thus, the double object is gained of supplying the people with fire-wood 
and of clearing the land for cultivation for the new family. These possess- 
ory rights pass by inheritance to the recognized heirs. A person may 
transfer or rent his possession to another person; he may rent to a white 
man, but in no case can he sell to a white man. 
And here I may be allowed a brief digression, to notice a recent opin- 
ion of the late Secretary of the Interior, Hon. Carl Schurz, shared in to 
some extent by the National Government, in relation to the division of our 
Indian reservations into lots or tracts, and their conveyance in severalty to 
the Indians themselves, with power of alienation to white men after a short 
period, say twenty-five years. Itis to be hoped that this policy will never be 
adopted by any National Administration, as it is fraught with nothing but 
