1878. | Anthropology. 755 
the only copies of which in the United States perhaps are in the 
private ary of Mr. Bandelier. The conclusions of the paper are : 
notion of abstract ownership of the soil, either by a n 
tion or a or by the head of its government, or by adiri dials. 
was unknown to the ancient Mexicans. 
2. Definite possessory rights was vested in the kinships com- 
posing the tribe; but the idea of sale, barter, or conveyance or 
alienation of such by the kin had not been conceive 
3. Individuals, whatever might be their position or ‘office, with- 
out any exception, held but the right to use certain defined lots for 
their sustenance, which right, although hereditary in the male 
line, was nevertheless limited to the conditions of residence with- 
in the area held by the kin, and of cultivation either by or in the 
ei of him to whom the said lots were assigned. 
No possessory rights to land were attached to any office or 
chieftain ncy. As members of a kin, each chief had the use of a 
certain lot, which he could rent or farm to others, = his benefit. 
the requirements of tribal business and of the govern- 
mental features of the kinship (public hospitality included) cer- 
tain tracts were set apart as official lands, out of which the official 
households were supplied and sustained ; but these lands and 
their products were totally independent from the persons or 
families of the chiefs themselves. 
6. Conquest of any tribe by the Mexicans was not followed by 
annexation of that tribe’s territory, nor by an apportionment of 
its soil among the conquerors. Tribute was enacted, and for the 
purpose of raising that tribute (in part) special e were set off, 
, the crops of which were gathered for the storehou s of Mexico. 
7. Consequently, as our previous investigation (of the warlike 
. institutions and customs of the ancient Mexicans) have disproved 
the generally received notion of a military despotism prevailing 
among them, so the results of this review of tenure and distribu- 
tion of lands tended to establish, “that the principle and institu- 
tion of feudality did not exist in aboriginal Mexico. 
In Nature, for August 22d, is a review, by Mr. W. B. Dawkins, 
of a work entitled, “ British Barrows; a record of the examina- 
tion of Sepulchral Mounds in various parts of England, by 
William Greenwell, M.A., F.S.A., together with Description of 
Figures of Skulls, General Remarks, Prehistoric Crania and an 
Appendix. By George Rolleston, M.D., F.R.S. The observa- 
tions of Mr. Dawkins are so practical, and the results resemble 
so nearly many of our own remains that we give a lengthy 
extract from his review: 
“The barrows vary in size and shape very much as the graves 
and tombs in our own graveyards, where the rich man’s memory 
is preserved by the large mausoleum, while the poor man’s rest- 
ing place is marked merely by the little mound of earth, soon to 
be lost in the general surface. Those in the Yorkshire wolds are 
VOL. XI —NO, XI. A 5r 
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