MORGAN] SIMILAR TO LAND TENURES IN PERU. 91 
given nominally to the head war-chief, still was ‘for all the Mexicans in 
common.’ 
“The various classes of lands which we have mentioned were, as far 
as their tenure is concerned, included in the ‘calpulalli’ or lands of the 
kinships. Since the kin, or ‘ calpulli,” was the unit of governmental organi- 
zation, it also was the unit of landed tenure. Clavigero says: ‘The lands 
called altepetlalli, that is, those who belonged to the communities of the 
towns and villages, were divided into as many parts as there were quarters 
in a town, and each quarter held its own for itself, and without the least 
connection with the rest. Such lands could in no manner be alienated.” 
These ‘quarters’ were the ‘calpulli’; hence it follows that the consanguine 
groups held the altepetlalli or soil of the tribe. 
“We have, therefore, in Mexico the identical mode of the tenure of 
lands which Polo de Ondogardo had noted in Peru and reported to the 
King of Spain, as follows: * * * ‘Although the crops and other pro- 
duce of these lands were devoted to the tribute, the land itself belonged to 
the people themselves. Hence a thing will be apparent which has not 
hitherto been properly understood. When any one wants land, it is con- 
sidered sufficient if it can be shown that it belonged to the Inca or to the 
sun. But in this the Indians are treated with great injustice; for in those 
days they paid the tribute, and the land was theirs’”  * -* * 
he expanse held and occupied by the calpulli, and therefore called 
‘ealpulalli’ was possessed by the kin in joint tenure.* It could neither be 
1 Storia del Messico” (Lib. VII, cap. XVI). 
2 ‘Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yneas, translated from the original Spanish manu- 
scripts, and edited by Clement R. Markham.” Publication of the ‘‘Hackluyt Society,” 1873. “Report 
of Polo de Ondegardo,” who was ‘“ Regidor” of Cuzco in 1560, and a very important authority (see 
Prescott, ‘“‘History of the Conquest of Peru,” note to Book I, cap. V). Confirmed by Garcia (“El 
Origen de los Indios,” Lib. IV, cap. XVI, p. 162). 
3 Zurita (‘‘ Rapport,” ete., ete., p. 50): “The chiefs of the second class are yet called calpullec 
in the singular and chinancallec in the plural. (This is evidently incorrect, since the words ‘calpulli’ 
and ‘chinancalli’ can easily be distinguished from each other. ‘‘Chinanealli,” however, after Molina 
means ‘cercado de seto’ (Parte Ha, p. 21), or an inclosed area, and if we conneet it with the old origi- 
nal ‘chinamitl’ we are forcibly carried back to the early times, when the Mexicans but dwelt on a 
few flakes of more or less solid ground. This is an additional evidence in favor of the views we have 
taken of the growth of landed tenure among the Mexican tribe. We must never forget that the term 
is ‘Nahuatl,’ and as such recognized by all the other tribes, outside of the Mexicans proper. The inter- 
pretation as ‘family’ in the QQuiché tongue of Guatemala, which we have already mentioned, turns 
up here as of further importance ; th. is chiefs of an old race or family, from the word ealpulli or chi- 
nancalli, which is the same, and signifies a quarter (barrio), inhabited by a family known, or of old 
