Previous to the European invasion the Amerind was not always at war, though many seem to think that he was. His territorial lines were generally well defined, and, as a rule, he stayed within them. Their villages, for the Amerind was always a village dweller, were far apart north of Mexico, and as long as there was no contention over property or water rights, things went smoothly, and even during hostilities intercourse was not always entirely broken off. So that there was frequently a large measure of security and periods of uninterrupted peace. He _worked_ at hunting, fishing, and, in all the tribes east of the Mississippi, in Mexico, and many tribes west, at agriculture. The arrival and the westward movement of the Europeans crowded back the tribes across boundaries and upon lands they had no right to, and frequent wars were the inevitable result. Finally the acquisition of the horse gave facility of movement never before possessed, and made quick journeys and night attacks feasible, while the desire to secure as many of the valuable animals as possible added a new and great incentive to theft and consequent warfare. The Amerind began to change, in fact, the moment he acquired the horse and the gun, adapting both to his needs and using them with consummate skill. The whites did not try to understand him, nor were they superior to him in the matter of patience or forgiveness. One thing was well understood by the whites, however, and continues to this day, and that was that an Amerind has no rights that a white man is bound to respect, or even to consider. The natives north of the Aztec country were regarded as vagabonds and vagrants who had no right to anything, while those of Mexico, whom the Spaniards had meanwhile reduced everywhere to abject slaves, were believed to be a different race, with former qualities that were greatly exaggerated by the Europeans. And then, later, in the effort to counteract the extravagant notions entertained of the Aztecs, their remarkable growth, and that of the Mayas, was by some writers reduced to the level of that of the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico and Arizona, which is undoubtedly a serious error in the other direction. Montezuma was probably not a king nor an emperor as those terms are understood by us, but it is difficult to accept him as little more than a Moki war-chief, especially as one can readily see that a few steps farther, even in the line of Moki development, might have produced a form of government partaking of the monarchical, but different from anything that we know about.[8] Ever since I saw one of our Arizona Pai Ute guides, a chief of his band, command a follower to take off his shoes as he reclined by the fire, I have suspected the existence among the Amerinds of a latent germ of aristocracy. [Illustration: A CORNER OF A MITLA RUIN, MEXICO From Bandelier’s _Archæological Tour_, published by the Archæological Institute of America ]