ntimate
acquaintance with the Indians in their villages has forced upon the
writer. The communal ownership of food and the great hospitality
practiced by the Indian have had a very much greater influence upon his
character than that indicated in the foregoing 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 the 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