84 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFH OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
stood to mean that all the lands of the original grant have been parcelled 
out. The further statement of Mr. Miller, that if a father dies his land is 
divided between his widow and children, and that if a mother dies, leaving 
no husband, her land is divided equally between her sons and daughters, is 
important, because it shows an inheritance by the children from both father 
and mother, a total departure from the principles of gentile inheritance. 
While visiting the Taos pueblo in the summer of !878 I was unable to find 
among them the gentile organization, and from lack of sufficient time could 
not inquire into their rules of descent and inheritance. 
My friend, Mr. Ad. F. Bandelier, now recognized as our most eminent 
scholar in Spanish American history, has recently investigated the subject 
of the tenure of lands among the ancient Mexicans with great thoroughness 
of research. The results are contained in an essay published in the Eleventh 
Annual Report of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, p. 
385 (Cambridge, 1878). It gives me great pleasure to incorporate verbatim 
in this chapter, and with his permission, so much of this essay as relates to 
the kinds or classes of land recognized among them, the manner in which 
they were held, and his general conclusions. 
In the pueblo of Mexico (Tenochtitlan), he remarks: ‘Four quarters 
had been formed by the localizing of four relationships composing them 
respectively, and it is expressly stated that each one ‘might build in its 
quarter (barrio) as it liked.’'| The term for these relationships, in the Na- 
huatl tongue, and used among all the tribes speaking it, was ‘calpulli.’ 
It is also used to designate a great hall or house, and we may therefore 
infer that, originally at least, all the members of one kinship dwelt under 
one common roof.” The ground thus occupied by the ‘ealpulli’ was nov, as 
1 Duran (Cap. V, p. 42). Acosta (Lib. VII, cap. VII, p. 467). Herrera (Dee. III, Lib. II, cap. 
XI, p. 61). 
2 Torquemada (Lib. I, cap. LX VIII, p.194. ‘‘Estaba de ordinario, recogido en una grande Sala 
(6 calpul).” (Lib, ILI, cap. XXVII, p. 305. Lib. IV, cap. XIX, p. 396 (que asi Jlaman las Salas grandes 
de Comunidad, i de Cabildo). We find, under the corrupted name of ‘galpon,” the “calpulli” in 
Nicaragua among the Niquirans, which speak a dialect of the Mexican (Nahuatl) language. See E.G. 
Squier (‘‘ Nicaragua,” Vol. II, p. 342). ‘‘The council-houses were called grepons, surrounded by broad 
corridors called galpons, beneath which the arms were kept, protected by a guard of young men”). 
Mr. Squier evidently bases upon Oviedo (‘ Hist. general,” Lib. XLII, cap. III, p.52. ‘* Esta casa de 
cabildo llaman galpon . . . .” It is another evidence in favor of our statements, that the kinship 
formed the original unit of the tribe, and at the same time a hint that, as in New Mexico, originally 
an entire kin inhabited a single large house. See Molina’s Vocab. (p. 11). 
