Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See https://archive.org/details/ancientsociety00morg Some tables in this text file might be too wide to be read easily on screen. If this is a problem for the reader, we recommend the html version, in which these tables are easier to read. See 45950-h.htm or 45950-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45950/45950-h/45950-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45950/45950-h.zip) Some characters might not display in this UTF-8 text version. If so, the reader should consult the html version referred to above or the iso-8859-1 (Latin-1) text file 45950-8.txt or 45950.zip: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45950/45950-8.txt or http://www.gutenberg.org/files/45950/45950-8.zip 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. _Nescit vox missa reverti._ HORACE. [Illustration] New York Henry Holt and Company 1877 Copyright, 1877, By Henry Holt. TO THE REVEREND J. H. McILVAINE, D.D., LATE PROFESSOR OF BELLES-LETTRES IN PRINCETON COLLEGE, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED, IN RECOGNITION OF HIS GENIUS AND LEARNING, AND IN APPRECIATION OF HIS FRIENDSHIP. Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris, Mutum et turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilia propter Unguibus et pugnis, dein fustibus, atque ita porro Pugnabant armis, quæ post fabricaverat usus: Donec verba, quibus voces sensusque notarent, Nominaque invenere: dehinc absistere bello, Oppida coeperunt munire, et ponere leges, Ne quis fur esset, neu latro, neu quis adulter. —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.