of the early Jesuits 1 speaks of three classes of slaves among the Iroquois; and General Ely S. Parker, himself an educated Iroquois, says the captives helped the women.

Let us turn now to the mental and moral characteristics of people in this stage, so far as they have an economic bearing. Professor Franklin H. Giddings has called attention to their unbusinesslike way of doing things, and certainly one cannot read the constant references by missionaries and travellers to the large part that magic and ceremony played in their lives, without agreeing that this is a most prominent characteristic. Charlevoix gives the following instance: "When a Bear is killed, the Hunter puts the End of his lighted Pipe between his Teeth, blows into the Bowl; and thus filling the Mouth and Throat of the Beast with Smoak, he conjures its Spirit to bear no Malice for what he has just done to the Body, and not to oppose him in his future Huntings." 4 In September the Karoks have a great dance to propitiate the spirits of the earth and the forest in order to prevent disastrous land-slides, forest fires, earthquakes, drought, and other calamities. The Ojibway Indians, in

1"The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents," Vol. XLIII, p. 293. 2 In a letter quoted by Carr, loc cit. The Political Science Quarterly, in an article entitled, "The Economic Ages," June, 1901, Vol. XVI, p. 202.

4" Voyage to Canada," p. 57.

Powers, "The Tribes of California," United States Geographical and Geological Survey, "Contributions to North American Ethnology," Vol. III, p. 28.

Canada, make a feast before commencing to gather the rice, and none are allowed to gather the grain until after it.1 The Dakotas set apart the first corn or wild rice of the season, and the first duck or goose killed when they appear in the spring, for a holy feast, at which those Indians only who are entitled to wear the badge of having slain an enemy are invited.2 Lumholtz 3 found a village of Mexican Indians having twenty-five shamans or priest-doctors for only 180 households. Loskiel 1 says that before an Indian sets out for a long hunt, he usually shoots one or more deer and keeps a feast of sacrifice, inviting the old men to assist him in praying for success. If he shoots nothing for several days, he swallows a small dose of a preparation made by the old men who are no longer able to hunt. Father Le Petit says of the Natchez: "They never plant their fields without having first presented the seed in the temple with the accustomed ceremonies." 5

Another prominent characteristic is their childish lack of forethought. A missionary among the Ojibways says that from January to March is

6

1 Jenks, "Wild Rice Gatherers of the Upper Lakes," p. 1091. Reprinted from Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. 2 Ibid.

3 Lumholtz, "Unknown Mexico," New York, 1902, p. 312. Loskiel, "History of the Missions of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America," translated from the German, London, 1794, p. 76.

5"The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents," Vol. LXVIII, p. 139. 6 Minnesota Historical Society Collections, Vol. IX, p. 72.

their starving time, although a very few days' labor would have raised all the corn and potatoes they could use. Often when suffering severely from hunger in the dead of winter, they bitterly lament their own improvidence, and vow that if they live till spring they will do differently. But when the abundance of summer comes the starving of the past winter is forgotten; the time is passed in dancing and pleasure, with no thought for the future and no provision made for it. All the Indians who are middle-aged recall the severe starvation to which when young they were periodically subjected, and through which they hardly lived. Loskiel says the Iroquois preserved their crops in round holes dug in the earth at some distance from the houses, lined and covered with dry leaves or grass; but if the winter happened to be severe, and the snow prevented them from hunting, a general famine ensued, by which many died.1 An Apache woman at one of the military posts in eastern Arizona, on receiving her rations for the week, consumed all of them at a sitting, trusting to her ability to find sufficient food to sustain her until next ration day.2 "I told them that they did not manage well," says Father Le Jeune, of the Canadian Indians, "and that it would be better to reserve these feasts for future days, and in doing this they would not be so pressed with hunger. They laughed

1 Loc. cit., p. 68.

2 Hoffman, "The Menomini Indians," Fourteenth Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, Pt. I, p. 287.

at me.

'To-morrow (they said) we shall make another feast with what we shall capture.' Yes, but more often they captured only cold and wind."1 Of course, thought for the future was not entirely lacking. The more advanced tribes had made evident progress in this direction. The Indians. of North Carolina had corn-cribs,2 and the villages of the Cherokees are said to have abounded with "hogs, poultry, and every thing sufficient for the support of a reasonable life."3 But man's forethought had to undergo a tremendous development before a modern civilized life was possible. To this we shall recur again.

4

Another thing that we must notice about this early stage is communal life. There were no starving poor among them, unless they all were starving. "Every citizen," says Bartram, "has free access to the public granary when his own private stores are consumed." Private property in land was not thought of, although possibly a slight beginning in this direction may be seen in the separation of the patch cultivated by one family from the next adjacent one by a strip of grass or other boundary.5 Articles of personal

1 "The Jesuit Relations," Vol. VI, p. 283.

2 Lawson, "History of North Carolina (1714)," Raleigh, 1860,

P. 35.

Adair, "History of the North American Indians," London 1775, p. 230.

4 "Travels through North and South Carolina, etc.," Philadelphia, 1791, p. 512, and La Hontan, loc. cit., Vol. II, p. 7.

5 Bartram, p. 512.

use were, however, recognized as belonging to their users. This does not necessarily indicate a conception of ownership such as ours, but the things were looked upon as a part of the personality of the user.1 "They are accustomed," one writer remarks, "to take everything that belongs to the deceased, skins, bow, utensils, wigwams, etc., and burn them all, howling and shouting certain cries, sorceries, and invocations to the evil spirit."2 Living in common has often appealed to people as something unselfish, and a condition to which we should, if possible, return. But whatever the future may make possible, whether or not a man might some day, as John Stuart Mill suggests, dig and weave for his country as eagerly as he fights for it, it is clear that in this early stage some powerful incentive was necessary to encourage men to labor steadily and take thought for the future. That incentive was to be furnished above all by the institution of private property.

When people live on what they find, as in the purely hunting stage, there is little occasion for the development of trade. On the contrary, war with the surrounding tribes is the rule. The development of commerce and the diminishing frequency of war have steadily accompanied an advancing civilization. It is interesting to note, in passing, the close connection between gift-giving

1 See Veblen, "The Beginnings of Ownership," American Journal of Sociology, November, 1898.

2"The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents," Vol. I, p. 169.