# Ancient Society

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Ancient Society
or
Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization
by
LEWIS H. MORGAN, LL. D.
Member of the National Academy of Sciences, Author of "The League of the Iroquois", "The American Beaver and his Works", "Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family", Etc.
CHICAGO CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY CO-OPERATIVE
(As soon as animals crept forth on the first lands, a speechless and degraded crowd, they battled for the acorn and for their lairs with claws and fists, then with clubs and at length with arms, which afterwards practice had made; until they learned to use words by which to indicate vocal sounds and thoughts and to use names. After that they began to refrain from war, and fortify walled towns, and to lay down laws that no one should be a thief, nor a robber nor an adulterer.)—Horace, Sat., I, iii, 99.
"Modern science claims to be proving, by the most careful and exhaustive study of man and his works, that our race began its existence on earth at the bottom of the scale, instead of at the top, and has been gradually working upward; that human powers have had a history of development; that all the elements of culture—as the arts of life, art, science, language, religion, philosophy—have been wrought out by slow and painful efforts, in the conflict between the soul and the mind of man on the one hand, and external nature on the other."—Whitney's "Oriental and Linguistic Studies," p. 341.
"These communities reflect the spiritual conduct of our ancestors thousands of times removed. We have passed through the same stages of development, physical and moral, and are what we are to-day because they lived, toiled, and endeavored. Our wondrous civilization is the result of the silent efforts of millions of unknown men, as the chalk cliffs of England are formed of the contributions of myriads of foraminifera."—Dr. J. Kaines, "Anthropologia," vol. i, No, 2, p. 233.
JOHN F. HIGGINS, PRINTER AND BINDER 376-380 WEST MONROE STREET, CHICAGO
PREFACE
The great antiquity of mankind upon the earth has been conclusively established. It seems singular that the proofs should have been discovered as recently as within the last thirty years, and that the present generation upon to recognize so important a fact.
Mankind are now known to have existed in Europe in the glacial period, and even back of its commencement, with every probability of their origination in a prior geological age. They have survived many races of animals with whom they were contemporaneous, and passed through a process of development, in the several branches of the human family, as remarkable in its courses as in its progress.
Since the probable length of their career is connected with geological periods, a limited measure of time is excluded. One hundred or two hundred thousand years would be an unextravagant estimate of the period from the disappearance of the glaciers in the northern hemisphere to the present time. Whatever doubts may attend any estimate of a period, the actual duration of which is unknown, the existence of mankind extends backward immeasurably, and loses itself in a vast and profound antiquity.
This knowledge changes materially the views which have prevailed respecting the relations of savages to barbarians, and of barbarians to civilized men. It can now be asserted upon convincing evidence that savagery preceded barbarism in all the tribes of mankind, as ​barbarism is known to have preceded civilization. The history of the human race is one in source, one in experience, one in progress.
It is both a natural and a proper desire to learn, if possible, how all these ages upon ages of past time have been expended by mankind; how savages, advancing by slow, almost imperceptible steps, attained the higher condition of barbarians; how barbarians, by similar progressive advancement, finally attained to civilization; and why other tribes and nations have been left behind in the race of progress—some in civilization, some in barbarism, and others in savagery. It is not too much to expect that ultimately these several questions will be answered.
Inventions and discoveries stand in serial relations along the lines of human progress, and register its successive stages; while social and civil institutions, in virtue of their connection with perpetual human wants, have been developed from a few primary germs of thought. They exhibit a similar register of progress. These institutions, inventions and discoveries have embodied and preserved the principal facts now remaining illustrative of this experience. When collated and compared they tend to show the unity of origin of mankind, the similarity of human wants in the same stage of advancement, and the uniformity of the operations of the human mind in similar conditions of society.
Throughout the latter part of the period of savagery, and the entire period of barbarism, mankind in general were organized in gentes, phratries and tribes. These organizations prevailed throughout the entire ancient world upon all the continents, and were the instrumentalities by means of which ancient society was organized and held together, Their structure, and relations as members of an organic series, and the rights, privileges and obligations of the members of the gens, and of the members of the phratry and tribe, illustrate the growth of the idea of government in the human mind. The principal institutions of mankind originated in savagery, were developed in barbarism, and are maturing in civilization.
In like manner, the family has passed through ​sive forms, and created great systems of consanguinity and affinity which have remained to the present time. These systems, which record the relationships existing in the family of the period, when each system respectively was formed, contain an instructive record of the experience of mankind while the family was advancing from the consanguine, through intermediate forms, to the monogamian.
The idea of property has undergone a similar growth and development. Commencing at zero in savagery, the passion for the possession of property, as the representative of accumulated subsistence, has now become dominant over the human mind in civilized races.
The four classes of facts above indicated, and which extend themselves in parallel lines along the pathways of human progress from savagery to civilization, form the principal subjects of discussion in this volume.
There is one field of labor in which, as Americans, we have a special interest as well as a special duty. Rich as the American continent is known to be in material wealth, it is also the richest of all the continents in ethnological, philological and archæological materials, illustrative of the great period of barbarism. Since mankind were one in origin, their career has been essentially one, running in different but uniform channels upon all continents, and very similarly in all the tribes and nations of mankind down to the same status of advancement. It follows that the history and experience of the American Indian tribes represent, more or less nearly, the history and experience of our own remote ancestors when in corresponding conditions. Forming a part of the human record, their institutions, arts, inventions and practical experience possess a high and special value reaching far beyond the Indian race itself.
When discovered, the American Indian tribes represented three distinct ethnical periods, and more completely than they were elsewhere then represented upon the earth. Materials for ethnology, philology and archæology were offered in unparalleled abundance; but as these sciences scarcely existed until the present cen​tury, and are but feebly prosecuted among us at the present time, the workmen have been unequal to the work. Moreover, while fossil remains buried in the earth will keep for the future student, the remains of Indian arts, languages and institutions will not. They are perishing daily, and have been perishing for upwards of three centuries. The ethnic life of the Indian tribes is declining under the influence of American civilization, their arts and languages are disappearing, and their institutions are dissolving. After a few more years, facts that may now be gathered with ease will become impossible of discovery. These circumstances appeal strongly to Americans to enter this great field and gather its abundant harvest.
Rochester, New York, March, 1877.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I
GROWTH OF INTELLIGENCE THROUGH INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES
CHAPTER I.
Ethnical Periods.
CHAPTER II.
Arts of Subsistence.
CHAPTER III.
Ratio of Human Progress.
PART II
GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER I.
Organization of Society upon the Basis of Sex.
CHAPTER II.
The Iroquois Gens.
CHAPTER III.
The Iroquois Phratry.
CHAPTER IV.
The Iroquois Tribe.
CHAPTER V.
The Iroquois Confederacy.
CHAPTER VI.
Gentes in Other Tribes of the Ganowánian Family.
CHAPTER VII.
The Aztec Confederacy.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Grecian Gens.
CHAPTER IX.
The Grecian Phratry, Tribe and Nation.
CHAPTER X.
The Institution of Grecian Political Society.
CHAPTER XI.
The Roman Gens.
CHAPTER XII.
The Roman Curia, Tribe and Populus.
CHAPTER XIII.
The Institution of Roman Political Society.
CHAPTER XIV.
Change of Descent from the Female to the Male Line.
CHAPTER XV.
Gentes in Other Tribes of the Human Family.
PART III
GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF THE FAMILY
CHAPTER I.
The Ancient Family.
CHAPTER II.
The Consanguine Family.
CHAPTER III.
The Punaluan Family.
CHAPTER IV.
The Syndyasmian and the Patriarchal Families.
CHAPTER V.
The Monogamian Family.
CHAPTER VI.
Sequence of Institutions Connected with the Family.
PART IV
GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF PROPERTY
CHAPTER I.
The Three Rules of Inheritance.
CHAPTER II.
The Three Rules of Inheritance—Continued.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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