than that of marriage,
have already disposed of these questions, which are usually so
perplexing for the white man. So far as personal maintenance is
concerned, a woman is, as a rule, just as well off without a
husband as with one. What is hers, in the shape of property,
remains her own whether she is married or not. In fact,
marriage among these Indians seems to be but the natural mating
of the sexes, to cease at the option of either of the
interested parties." Clay MacCauley, "The Seminole Indians of
Florida", in _Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_,
Washington, 1887, p. 497. For a graphic account of the state of
things among the Cheyennes and Arrapahos, see Dodge, _Our Wild
Indians_, pp. 204-220.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Intimate connection of aboriginal architecture with social
life.]

I have been at some pains to elucidate this point because the house-life
of the American aborigines found visible, and in some instances very
durable, expression in a remarkable style of house-architecture. The
manner in which the Indians built their houses grew directly out of the
requirements of their life. It was an unmistakably characteristic
architecture, and while it exhibits manifold unlikenesses in detail,
due to differences in intelligence as well as to the presence or absence
of sundry materials, there is one underlying principle always manifest.
That underlying principle is adaptation to a certain mode of communal
living such as all American aborigines that have been carefully studied
are known to have practised. Through many gradations, from the sty of
the California savage up to the noble sculptured ruins of Uxmal and
Chichen-Itza, the principle is always present. Taken in connection with
evidence from other sources, it enables us to exhibit a gradation of
stages of culture in aboriginal North America, with the savages of the
Sacramento and Columbia valleys at the bottom, and the Mayas of Yucatan
at the top; and while in going from one end to the other a very long
interval was traversed, we feel that the progress of the aborigines in
crossing that interval was made along similar lines.[72]

[Footnote 72: See Morgan's _Houses and House-Life of the
American Aborigines_, Washington, 1881, an epoch-making book of
rare and absorbing interest.]

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