. A popular history of the United States of America, from the aboriginal times to the present day. ds. Hecommuned only /With himself andthe genius of sol-itude. He satapart. The forestwas better thanhis wigwam, andhis wigwam bet-ter than the vil-lage. The Indianwoman was a de-graded creature, adrudge, a beastof burden; andthe social prin-ciple was cor-respondingly low. The organizationof the Indian fam-ily was so peculiaras to require a special consideration. Among civilized nations thefamily is so constructed that the lines of kinship diverge constantlyfrom the line of descent, so that collat
. A popular history of the United States of America, from the aboriginal times to the present day. ds. Hecommuned only /With himself andthe genius of sol-itude. He satapart. The forestwas better thanhis wigwam, andhis wigwam bet-ter than the vil-lage. The Indianwoman was a de-graded creature, adrudge, a beastof burden; andthe social prin-ciple was cor-respondingly low. The organizationof the Indian fam-ily was so peculiaras to require a special consideration. Among civilized nations thefamily is so constructed that the lines of kinship diverge constantlyfrom the line of descent, so that collateral kinsmen with each gen-eration stand at a still greater remove from each other. The abovediagram will serve to show how in a European family the lines ofconsanguinity diverge until t\ic kinship becomes so feeble as to be nolono-er recognized. It will be observed that this fact of constant di-vergence is traceable to the establishment of a male line of descent. In the Indian family all this is reversed. The descent is es-tablished in the female line; and as a consequence the ties of kinship. DIAGRAM OF EUROPEAN KINSHIP. 46 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. converge upon each other until they all meet in the is, in the aboriginal nations of North America, every grandsonand granddaughter was the grandson and granddaughter of the wholetribe. This arose from the fact that all the uncles of a given personwere reckoned as his fathers also; all the mothers sisters were mothers ;all the cousins were sisters and brothers; all the nieces were daugh-ters; all the nephews, sons, etc. This peculiarity of the Indian familyorganization is illustrated in the annexed diagram. Civil governmentamong the Indian na-tions was in its primi-tive stages of develop-ment. Each tribe hadits own sachem, orchieftain, to whom inmatters of peace andwar a tolerable degreeof obedience was ren-dered. At times con-federations were form-ed, based either on tiesof kinship or the exi-
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