Where savage nations, as in most parts of America, mix with the practice of hunting some species of rude agriculture, they still follow, with respect to the soil and the fruits of the earth, the analogy of their principal object. As the men hunt, so the women labour together; and, after they have shared the toils of the seed time, they enjoy the fruits of the harvest in common. The field in which they have planted, like the district over which they are accustomed to hunt, is claimed as a property by the nation, but is not parcelled in lots to its members. They go forth in parties to prepare the ground, to plant and to reap. The harvest is gathered into the public granary, and from thence, at stated times, is divided into shares for the maintenance of separate families. [Footnote: History of the Caribbees.] Even the returns of the market, when they trade with foreigners, are brought home to the stock of the nation. [Footnote: Charlevoix. This account of Rude Nations, in most points of importance, so far as it relates to the original North Americans, is not founded so much on the testimony of this or the other writers cited, as it is on the concurring representations of living witnesses, who, in the course of trade, of war, and of treaties, have had ample occasion to observe the manners of that people. It is necessary however, for the sake of those who may not have conversed with the living witnesses, to refer to printed authorities.] As the fur and the bow pertain to the individual, the cabin and its utensils are appropriated to the family; and as the domestic cares are committed to the women, so the property of the household seems likewise to be vested in them. The children are considered as pertaining to the mother, with little regard to descent on the father's side. The males, before they are married, remain in the cabin in which they are born; but after they have formed a new connection with the other sex, they change their habitation, and become an accession to the family in which they have found their wives. The hunter and the warrior are numbered by the matron as a part of her treasure; they are reserved for perils and trying occasions; and in the recess of public councils, in the intervals of hunting or war, are maintained by the cares of the women, and loiter about in mere amusement or sloth. [Footnote: Lafitau.]