given nominally to the head war-chief, still was 'for all the Mexicans in common.'
"The various classes of lands which we have mentioned were, as far as their tenure is concerned, included in the 'calpulalli' or lands of the kinships. Since the kin, or 'calpulli,' was the unit of governmental organization, it also was the unit of landed tenure. Clavigero says: 'The lands called altepetlalli, that is, those who belonged to the communities of the towns and villages, were divided into as many parts as there were quarters in a town, and each quarter held its own for itself, and without the least connection with the rest. Such lands could in no manner be alienated.'[1] These 'quarters' were the 'calpulli'; hence it follows that the consanguine groups held the altepetlalli or soil of the tribe.
"We have, therefore, in Mexico the identical mode of the tenure of lands which Polo de Ondogardo had noted in Peru and reported to the King of Spain, as follows: * * * 'Although the crops and other produce of these lands were devoted to the tribute, the land itself belonged to the people themselves. Hence a thing will be apparent which has not hitherto been properly understood. When any one wants land, it is considered sufficient if it can be shown that it belonged to the Inca or to the sun. But in this the Indians are treated with great injustice; for in those days they paid the tribute, and the land was theirs.[2] * * *
"The expanse held and occupied by the calpulli, and therefore called 'calpulalli' was possessed by the kin in joint tenure.[3] It could neither be
- ↑ "Storia del Messico" (Lib. VII, cap. XVI).
- ↑ "Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yncas, translated from the original Spanish manuscripts, and edited by Clement R. Markham." Publication of the "Hackluyt Society," 1873. "Report of Polo de Ondegardo," who was "Regidor" of Cuzco in 1560, and a very important authority (see Prescott, "History of the Conquest of Peru," note to Book I, cap. V). Confirmed by Garcia ("El Origen de los Indios," Lib. IV, cap. XVI, p. 162).
- ↑ Zurita ("Rapport," etc., etc., p. 50): "The chiefs of the second class are yet called calpullec in the singular and chinancallec in the plural. (This is evidently incorrect, since the words 'calpulli' and 'chinancalli' can easily be distinguished from each other. "Chinancalli," however, after Molina means 'cercado de seto' (Parte IIa, p. 21), or an inclosed area, and if we connect it with the old original 'chinamitl' we are forcibly carried back to the early times, when the Mexicans but dwelt on a few flakes of more or less solid ground. This is an additional evidence in favor of the views we have taken of the growth of landed tenure among the Mexican tribe. We must never forget that the term is 'Nahuatl,' and as such recognized by all the other tribes, outside of the Mexicans proper. The interpretation as 'family' in the QQuiché tongue of Guatemala, which we have already mentioned, turns up here as of further importance; th. is chiefs of an old race or family, from the word calpulli or chinancalli, which is the same, and signifies a quarter (barrio), inhabited by a family known, or of old
