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Show POWKLL.] COMMUNALI8M OF INDIANS. 35 remarks. The peculiar institutions prevailing in this respect gave to each tribe or clan a profound interest in the skill, ability and industry of each member. He was the most valuable person in the community who supplied it with the most of its necessities. For this reason the successful hunter or fisherman was always held in high honor, and the woman who gathered great store of seeds, fruits, or roots, or who cultivated a good corn- field, was one who commanded the respect and received the highest approbation of the people. The simple and rude ethics of a tribal people are very important to them, the more so because of their communal institutions; and everywhere throughout the tribes of the United States it is discovered that their rules of conduct were deeply implanted in the minds of the people. An organized system of teaching is always found, as it is the duty of certain officers of the clan to instruct the young in all the industries necessary to their rude life, and simple maxims of industry abound among the tribes and are enforced in diverse and interesting ways. The power of the elder men in the clan over its young members is always very great, and the training of the youth is constant and rigid. Besides this, a moral sentiment exists in favor of primitive virtues which is very effective in molding character. This may be illustrated in two ways. Marriage among all Indian tribes is primarily by legal appointment, as the young woman receives a husband from some other prescribed clan or clans, and the elders of the clan, with certain exceptions, control these marriages, and personal choice has little to do with t} ie affair. When marriages are proposed, the virtues and industry of the candidates, and more than all, their ability to properly live as married couples and to supply the clan or tribe with a due amount of subsistence, are discussed long and earnestly, and the young man or maiden who fails in this respect may fail in securing an eligible and desirable match. And these motives are constantly presented to the savage youth. A simple democracy exists among these people, and they have a variety of tribal offices to fill. In this way the men of the tribe are graded, and they pass from grade to grade by a selection practically made by the people. And this leads to a constant discussion of the virtues and abilities of all the male members of the clan, from boyhood to old age. He is most successful in obtaining clan and tribal promotion who is most useful to the clan and the tribe. In this manner all of the ambitious are stimulated, and this incentive to industry is very great. When brought into close contact with the Indian, and into intimate acquaintance with his language, customs, and religious ideas, there is a curious tendency observable in students to overlook aboriginal vices and to exaggerate aboriginal virtues. It seems to |
