264 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
in the Lower and in the Middle Status of barbarism. Among the Iroquois, 
one regular meal each day was all their mode of life permitted; hunger 
being allayed by hominy kept constantly prepared, or such other food 
as their domestic resources allowed. It is not probable that the Aborigines 
‘of Yucatan were able to suparadd either a regular breakfast or a supper. 
These belong to the more highly developed house-keeping of the mono- 
gamian family in civilization. 
Another custom, usual in the Lower Status of barbarism, seems to have 
been continued in the Middle Status; namely, of the men eating first and 
by themselves, and the women and children afterwards. Without a knowl- 
edge of tables or of chairs, the dinner was of necessity a solitary affair 
between the person and his earthen bowl or platter. The time, however, 
for the dinner was the same to all the men, and afterwards to the women 
and children. Herrera, in his summary of the habits of the people of 
Yucatan, drops the remark incidentally, that at their festivals the women 
“did eat apart from the men.”' This is precisely what would have been 
expected had nothing been said on the subject. 
There are some proofs bearing directly upon the question of the ancient 
practice of communism in these Uxmal houses. They are found in the 
present usages of the Maya Indians of Yucatan, the descendants of the 
builders of these houses, which they may reasonably be supposed to have 
derived from their ancestors. At Nohcacab, a short distance east of the 
ruins of Uxmal, there was a settlement of Maya Indians, whose commun- 
ism in living was accidentally discovered by Mr. Stephens, when among 
them to employ laborers. He remarks us follows: “Their community con- 
sists of a hundred labradores or working men; their lands are held in 
common, and the products are shared by all. Their food is prepared at 
one hut, and every family sends for its portion; which explains a singular 
spectacle we had seen on our arrival [in 1841], a procession of women and 
children, each carrying an earthen bowl containing a quantity of smoking 
hot broth, all coming down the same road, and dispersing among different 
huts * * * From our ignorance of the language, and the number of 
other and more pressing matters claiming our attention, we could not learn 
1 Mistory of America, iv, 175. 
