be read. While this author denies that the natives swear, yet the witness said, "I wish that the earth may swallow me up alive, as I stand, in case I speak not the truth."[1]
Finally, some note should be made of the ordeal, which also had its analogous forms in this hemisphere. Throughout the interior of Canada and even among some of the Eskimo the right to a woman and other privileges is decided by a wrestling match. In parts of the Amazon country an arm or leg is plunged into a vessel filled with vicious insects to test the integrity of the individual, and again, poisonous ants are allowed to bite one to show his remorse for injury to another. If space permitted, we could work out the distributions of these practices, but we have gone far enough to reveal the character of the phenomena. Thus, we find the principles of "life for life," indemnity, social control of settlements, tests by ordeals, and oaths, in the New World as well as in the Old. Where they differ is in the conventionalized forms of procedure. There are, however, no differences common to all parts of the New World, each geographical area manifesting some individuality.
CONCEPTIONS OF PROPERTY AND INHERITANCE
From our own point of view, property may be conveniently comprehended under the classes of real and personal. Real estate, or property in lands, is with us an individual matter, but such an idea seems to have been foreign to the New World. Here the land, in so far as it was owned at all, was the property of the family group. The Nahua, with all their complexity, never got above this idea, nor did the Inca. The one fact that makes this especially clear is the entire absence of the idea of selling or conveying title to lands.[2] Other kinds of property there were, which were freely given and exchanged and even levied upon by the organized governments of the central areas for taxes or tribute, yet in no case do we find evidence that this procedure extended to the land. On the other hand, the right to the exclusive use of certain plots by the social group, gens, clan, etc., was clearly recognized. Yet, the true communal character of the system appears
