MORGAN.) HOUSES OF THE SENECA-IROQUOIS. 121 
mulations of provisions. Each house, as a rule, was occupied by related 
families, the mothers and their children belonging to the same gens, while 
their husbands and the fathers of these children belonged to other gentes; 
consequently the gens or clan of the mother largely predominated in the 
household. Whatever was taken in the hunt or raised by cultivation by 
any member of the household, as has elsewhere been stated, was for the 
common benefit. Provisions were made a common stock within the house- 
hold. 
Here was communism in living carried out in practical life, but limited 
to the household, and an expression of the principle in the plan of the 
house itself Having found it in one stock as well developed as the Iroquois, 
a presumption of its universality in the Indian family at once arises, because 
it was a law of their condition. Evidence of its general prevalence has 
elsewhere been presented. 
In a previous chapter the usages of the Iroquois in regard to eating 
have been given. It came practically to one cooked meal each day. The 
separate fires in each house were for convenience in cooking, all the stores 
in the house being common. ‘The plan of life within them was studied and 
economical. This is shown by the presence of a matron in each household, 
who made a division of the food from the kettle to each family according 
to their needs, and reserved what remained for future disposal. It shows 
system and organization in their long-houses, with a careful supervision of 
their stores, and forethought as well as equity in the management and dis- 
tribution of their food. In these households, formed on the principle of 
kin, was laid the foundation for that “mother power” which was even more 
conspicuous in the tribes of the Old World, and which Professor Bachofen 
was the first to discuss under the name of gyneocracy and mother-right * 
Since the mothers who dwelt together were usually sisters, own or collat- 
eral, and of the same gens, and since their children were also of the gens 
of their mother, the preponderating number in the household would be of 
gentile kin. The right and the influence of the mother were protected and 
strengthened through the maternal as well as the gentile bond. The hus- 
bands were in the minority as to kindred. In case of separation it was the 
1 Das Mutterrecht, Stuttgart, 1861. 
