Lewis Morgan's vision for transforming Iroquois institutions and society

¶ … Institutions to Change Culture and Society

The objective of this work is to review Morgan's "Ancient Society" and "League of the Iroquois" and to examine how the use of institutions may allow for change of culture and society. This work will note how Morgan wished to change the Iroquois institutions of his day and how those change would have reshaped Iroquois society and challenge Iroquois culture and further this will discuss the standards used by Morgan to judge societies and link those standards to the change he championed for the Iroquois society and culture. This work will consider the dangers to the preservation of Iroquois culture that might have sprung from Morgan's proposals and suggest how institutions play a dual role by not only transmitting culture to society but also in reshaping culture.

INTRODUCTION

Lewis H. Morgan spent a great deal of time documenting the life of the Iroquois and recorded this information in the work entitled: "The League of the Iroquois." In this work, Morgan reflects his thoughts upon the Iroquois society, both in terms of the Indians, as they existed and in terms of his hopes for the Iroquois nation of Indians.

II. EDUCATION and EMPLOYMENT

Morgan believed that education and employment of these: "...Indian youth whose acquired capacities would enable them to fill stations of trust and profit among ourselves, is another species of encouragement which commends itself to the generous mind." P. 118 (Morgan, 1901) it was the belief of Morgan that the Iroquois would join in the community of civilization on equal footing and with equal respect as evidence in his statement of: "When the Iroquois reach such a stable position, as agriculturists, as to make it safe to divide their lands among the several families of each nation, with the power of alienation, it will give to them that stimulus and ambition which separate rights of property are so well calculated to produce. P.119 (Morgan, 1901) it was Morgan's firm belief that: "The progressive elevation of our Indian population, here indicated, if carried to a successful result, would save but a portion of the Indian family; but that portion would become, in every respect, as useful and respectable as any other portion of our people. They would neither be wanting in ability, nor morality, nor public spirit...On the other hand, if they are left, unencouraged and unassisted, to struggle against their adverse destiny - or, more fatal still, if they are subjected to a false and unjust system of superintendence, the whole Indian family will ere long fade away, and finally become enshrouded in the same regretful sepulcher in which the races of New England lie entombed." P. 120 (Morgan, 1901) Therefore, Morgan envisioned that the Iroquois nation would assimilate itself into the very culture and civilization of the white men.

III. FOX'S VIEW on MORGAN'S POSITION on the IROQUOIS

Robin Fox states in the "Introduction" to Lewis Henry Morgan's "Ancient Society" that: "There was a "sophisticated form of political confederation" p. xliii (Fox, nd) among the tribes of the Iroquois, however "they never advanced to the state of a nation, city-state or empire." P. xliii (Fox, nd) According to Fox (nd) "...for Morgan, the stage of 'gentile society' could not do this. Superordinate political authority belonged to a stage beyond the gentile, it was the next stage of 'political society'. This worked for the League of the Iroquois which had the correct combination of kinship and politics, but it caused Morgan to indulge in some shaky special pleading when he came to more complex forms of political organization which were nevertheless still at the 'gentile' stage." (Fox, nd) Fox states that Morgan attempted and in fact, quite successfully "...to influence law and legislation on behalf of the Indians in his state." p. xvi (Fox, nd) Morgan posits in the work "Ancient Civilization" that the 'ethnical periods' through which mankind passes in the evolutionary progression toward civilization are: (1) Subsistence; (2) Government; (3) Language; (4) the Family; (5) Religion; (6) House life and architecture; and (7) Property. Subsistence is stated of Morgan to have "been increased and perfected by a series of successive arts, introduced at long intervals of time, and connected more or less directly with inventions and discoveries." p.5 (Morgan, 2000) Morgan states that government "must be sought in the organization into gentes in the Status of savagery; and followed down, through the advancing forms of this institution to the establishment of political society." P. 6 (Morgan, 2000) Human speech, according to Morgan, "seems to have been developed from the rudest and simplest forms of expression." p. 6 (2000) in relation to the family, "the stages of its growth are embodied in systems of consanguinity and affinity, and in usages relating to marriage, by means of which, collectively, the family can be definitely traced through several successive forms." P. 5 (Morgan, 2000) Morgan relates that religious ideas are:."..envisioned with such intrinsic difficulties that it may never receive a perfectly satisfactory exposition. Religion deals so largely with the imaginative and emotional nature, and consequently with such uncertain elements of knowledge, that all primitive religions are grotesque and to some extent unintelligible." p. 6 (Morgan) in relation to house architecture, "which connects itself with the form of the family and the plan of domestic life, affords a tolerably complete illustration of progress from savagery to civilization. Its growth can be traced from the hut of the savage, through the communal houses of the barbarians, to the house of the single family of civilized nations, with all the successive links by which one extreme is connected with the other." p. 6 (Morgan, 2000) Finally, the idea of property was slowly formed in the human mind, remaining nascent and feeble through immense periods of time. Springing into life in savagery, it required the experience of this period and of the subsequent period of barbarism to develop the germ (of civilization) and prepare the human brain for the acceptance of its controlling influence. Its dominance as a passion over all other passions marks the commencement of civilization..." p.6 (Morgan, 2000) Therefore, it is the ownership of property that is the final step into full civilization, and this was what Morgan envisioned for the Iroquois nation. Morgan states that the first and most ancient form of government was "a social organization, founded upon gentes, phriatries and tribes" p. 62 with the second and latest being a "political organization founded upon territory and upon property." p. 62 According to Morgan, the former "belongs to ancient society, and the other to modern." p. 62 (Morgan, 2000)

SUMMARY and CONCLUSION

Morgan judged individuals according to their education, their ability or capacity for change and as to whether they were capable in the latest technology, in this instance, agricultural technology. Had Morgan's vision for the Iroquois become reality much of the rich culture of the Iroquois would have simply been assimilated into civilization. Morgan was however more forward looking as is evidenced in his statement of: "Since the advent of civilization, the outgrowth of property has been so immense, its forms so diversified, its uses so expanding and its management so intelligent in the interests of its owners, that it has become, on the part of the people, an unmanageable power. The time will come, nevertheless, when human intelligence will rise to the mastery over property and define the relations of the state to the property it protects, as well as the obligations and the limits of the rights of its owners. A mere property career is not the final destiny of mankind." p.233 (Holmes, 1907)