83 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
tion was (by removing the tribal council farther from the calpules) the 
necessity for an official building, exclusively devoted to the business of the 
whole tribe alone. 
“This building was the ‘feepan’ called, even by Torquemada, ‘house of 
the community’; it was, therefore, since the council of chiefs was the high- 
est authority in the government, the ‘council house’ proper. It was erected 
near the center of the ‘pueblo,’ and fronting the open space reserved for 
public celebrations. But, whereas formerly occasional, gradually merging 
into regular, meetings of the chiefs were sufficient, constant daily attendance 
at the ‘‘teepan’ became required, even to such an extent that a permanent 
residence of the head-chief there resulted from it and was one of the duties of 
the office. Consequently the ‘tlacatecuhtli,’ his family, and such assistants 
as he needed (like runners), dwelt at the ‘official house’ But this occu- 
pancy was in no manner connected with a possessory right by the occupant, 
whose family relinquished the abode as soon as the time of office expired 
through death of itsincumbent. The ‘teepan’ was occupied by the head war- 
chiefs only as long as they exercised the functions of that office.” * * * 
“Of those tracts whose products were exclusively applied to the gov- 
ernmental needs of the pueblo or tribe itself (taken as an independent unit) 
there were, as we have already seen, two particular classes : 
“The first was the ‘teepan-tlalli,’ land of the house of the community, 
whose crops were applied to the sustenance of such as employed themselves 
in the construction, ornamentation, and repairs of the public house. Of 
these there were sometimes several within the tribal area. They were tilled 
in common by special families who resided on them, using the crops in com- 
pensation for the work they performed-on the official buildings. 
1Compare Duran (Cap. XI, p. 87). Acosta (Lib. VII, cap, XXXI, p. 470). It appears as if the 
“teepan” had not been constructed previous to the middle of the 14th century, the meetings of the 
tribe being previously called together by priests, and probably in the open space around the main house 
of worship. The fact of the priests calling the public meetings is proved by Duran (Cap. IV, p. 42). 
Acosta (Lib. VII, cap. VII, p. 468). Veytia (Lib. II, cap. XVIII, pp. 156,159. Cap. XXI, p. 186). 
Acosta first mentions ‘‘unos palacios, aunque harto pobres.” (Lib. VII, cap. 8, p. 470), on the occasion 
of the election of the first regular ‘‘tlacatecuhtli:” Acamapichtli—Torquemada says (Lib. XII, cap. 
XXII, p. 290) that they lived in miserable huts of reeds and straw, erected around the open space 
where the altar or place of worship of Huitzilopochtli was built. The publie building was certainly 
their latest kind of construction. 
*Nearly every author who attempts to describe minutely the ‘‘ chief-house” (teepan) mentions it 
as containing great halls (council-roors). See the description of the teepan of Tezeuco by Ixtlilxochitl 
(‘‘ Hist. des Chichiméques,” cap. XXXVI, p. 247). 
