The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
THE GENS AMONG CELTS AND GERMANS.
Space forbids a consideration of the gentile institutions found in a more or less pure form among the savage and barbarian races of the present day; or of the traces of such institutions, discovered in the ancient history of civilized nations in Asia. One or the other are met everywhere. A few illustrations may suffice: Even before the gens had been recognized, it was pointed out and accurately described in its main outlines by the man who took the greatest pains to misunderstand it, MacLennan, who wrote of this institution among the Kalmucks, the Circassians, the Samoyeds and three Indian nations: the Warals, the Magars and the Munnipurs. Recently it was described by M. Kovalevsky, who discovered it among the Pshavs, Shevsurs, Svanets and other Caucasian tribes. A few short notes about the existence of the gens among Celts and Germans may find a place here.
The oldest Celtic laws preserved for us still show the gens in full bloom. In Ireland, it is alive in the popular instinct to this day, after it has been forced out of actual existence by the English. It was in full force in Scotland until the middle of the eighteenth century, and here it also succumbed only to the weapons, laws and courts of the English.
The old Welsh laws, written several centuries before the English invasion, not later than the 11th century, still show collective agriculture of whole villages, although only exceptionally and as the survival of a former universal custom. Every family had five acres for its special use; another lot was at the same time cultivated collectively and its yield divided among the different families. In view of Irish and Scotch analogies it cannot be doubted that these village communities represent gentes or subdivisions of gentes, even though a repeated investigation of the Welsh laws, which I cannot undertake from lack of time (my notes are from 1869), should not directly corroborate this. One thing, however, is plainly proven by the Welsh and Irish laws, namely that the pairing family had not yet given way to monogamy among the Celts of the 11th century. In Wales, marriage did not become indissoluble by divorce, or rather by notification, until after seven years. Even if no more than three nights were lacking to make up the seven years, a married couple could still separate. Their property was divided among them: the woman made the division, the man selected his share. The furniture was divided according to certain very funny rules. If the marriage was dissolved by the man, he had to return the woman's dowry and a few other articles; if the woman wished a separation, then she received less. Of three children the man took two, the woman one, viz., the second child. If the woman married again after her divorce, and her first husband claimed her back, she was obliged to follow him, even if she had one foot in her new husband's bed. But if two had lived together for seven years, they were considered man and wife, even without the preliminaries of a formal marriage. Chasteness of the girls before marriage was by no means strictly observed, nor was it required. The regulations regarding this subject are of an extremely frivolous nature and in contradiction with civilized morals. When a woman committed adultery, her husband had a right to beat her—this was one of three cases when he could do so without incurring a penalty—but after that he could not demand any other satisfaction, for "the same crime shall either be atoned for or avenged, but not both." The reasons that entitled a woman to a divorce without curtailing her claims to a fair settlement were of a very diverse nature: bad breath of the man was sufficient. The ransom to be paid to the chief or king for the right of the first night (gobr merch, hence the medieval name marcheta, French marquette) plays a conspicuous part in the code of laws. The women had the right to vote in the public meetings. Add to this that similar conditions are vouched for in Ireland; that marriage on time was also quite the custom there, and that the women were assured of liberal and well defined privileges in case of divorce, even to the point of remuneration for domestic services; that a "first wife" existed by the side of others, and that legal and illegal children without distinction received a share of their deceased parent's property—and we have a picture of the pairing family among the Celts. The marriage laws of the American Indians seem strict in comparison to the Celtic, but this is not surprising when we remember that the Celts were still living in group marriage at Cesar's time.
The Irish gens (Sept; the tribe was called clainne, clan) is confirmed and described not alone by the ancient law codes, but also by the English jurists of the 17th century who were sent across for the purpose of transforming the clan lands into royal dominions. Up to this time, the soil had been the collective property of the gens or the clan, except where the chiefs had already claimed it as their private dominion. When a gentile died, and a household was thus dissolved, the gentile chief (called caput cognationis by the English jurists) made a new assignment of the whole gentile territory to the rest of the household. This division of land probably took place according to such rules as were observed in Germany. Until about fifty years ago, village marks were quite frequent, and some of these so-called rundales may be found to this day. The farmers of a rundale, individual tenants on the soil that once was the collective property of the gens, but had been confiscated by the English conquerors, each pay the rent for his respective parcel. But they all combine their lands and parcel it off according to situation and quality. These parcels, called "Gewanne" on the German river Mosel, are cultivated collectively and their yield is divided into shares. Marshland and pastures are used in common. Fifty years ago, new divisions were still made occasionally, sometimes annually. The field map of such a rundale villege looks exactly like that of a German "Gehöferschaft" (farming commune) on the Mosel or in the Hochwald. The gens also survives in the "factions." The Irish farmers often form parties that seem to be founded on absolutely contradictory or senseless distinctions, quite incomprehensible to Englishmen. The only purpose of these factions is apparently to rally for the popular sport of hammering the life out of one another. They are artificial reincarnations, modern substitutes for the dispersed gentes that demonstrate the continuation of the old gentile instinct in their own peculiar manner. By the way, in some localities the gentiles are still living together on what is practically their old territory. During the thirties, for instance, the great majority of the inhabitants of the old county of Monaghan had only four family names, i. e., they were descended from four gentes or tribes (clans). [1]
The downfall of the gentile order in Scotland dates from the suppression of the revolt in 1745. What link of this order the Scotch clan represented remains to be investigated; that it is a link, is beyond doubt. Walter Scott's novels bring this Scotch highland clan vividly before our eyes. It is, as Morgan says, "an excellent type of the gens in organization and in spirit, and an extraordinary illustration of the power of the gentile life over its members.… We find in their feuds and blood revenge, in their localization by gentes, in their use of lands in common, in the fidelity of the clansman to his chief and of the members of the clan to each other, the usual and persistent features of gentile society.… Descent was in the male line, the children of the males remaining members of the clan, while the children of its female members belonged to the clans of their respective fathers." The fact that matriarchal law was formerly in force in Scotland is proved by the royal family of the Picts, who according to Beda observed female lineage. Even a survival of the Punaluan family had been preserved among the Scots, as among the Welsh. For until the middle ages, the chief of the clan or king, the last representatives of the former common husbands, had the right to claim the first night with every bride, unless a ransom was given.
It is an indisputable fact, that the Germans were
organized in gentes up to the time of the great migrations. The territory between the Danube, the Rhine, the Vistula and the northern seas was evidently occupied by them only a few centuries before Christ. The Cimbri and Teutons were then still in full migration, and the Suebi did not settle down until Cesar's time. Cesar expressly states that they settled down in gentes and kins (gentibus cognatibusque), and in the mouth of a Roman of the gens Julia this term gentibus has a definite meaning, that no amount of disputation can obliterate. This holds good for all Germans. It seems that even the provinces talien by them from the Romans were settled by distribution to gentes. The Alemanian code of laws affirms that the people settled in gentes (genealogiae) on the conquered land south of the Danube. Genealogia is used in exactly the same sense as was later on Mark—or Dorfgenossenschaft (mark or village community). Kovalevsky recently maintained that these genealogiae were the great household communities among which the land was divided, and from which the village communities developed later on. The same may be true of the fara, by which term the Burgundians and Langobards—a Gothic and a Herminonian or High German tribe—designated nearly. If not exactly, the same thing as the Alemanian genealogiae. Whether this is really the gens or the household community, must be settled by further investigation.
The language records leave us in doubt, whether all the Germans had a common expression for gens or not, and as to what this term was. Etymologically, the Gothic, kuni, middle High German künne, corresponds to the Grecian genos and the Latin gens, and is used in the same sense. We are led back to the time of matriarchy by the terms for "woman" which are derived from the same root: Greek gyng, Slav zena, Gothic qvino, Norse kona, kuna.
Among Langobards and Burgundians, I repeat, we find the term fara which Grimm derives from the hypothetical root fisan, to beget. I should prefer to trace it to the more obvious root faran, German fahren, to ride or to wander, in order to designate a certain well defined section of the wandering corps, composed quite naturally of relatives. As a result of centuries of wanderings from West to East and back again, this term was gradually applied to the sex group itself.
There is furthermore the Gothic sibja, Anglosaxon sib, old High German sippia, sippa, High German sippe. Old Norse has only the plural sifjar, the relatives; the singular occurs only as the name of a goddess, Sif.
Finally, another expression occurs in the Hildebrand Song, where Hildebrand asks Hadubrand "who is your father among the men of the nation … or what is your kin?" (eddo huêllihhes cnuosles du sīs).
If there was a common German term for gens, it was presumably the Gothic kuni. This is not only indicated by its identity with the corresponding term in related languages, but also by the fact that the word kuning, German Konig, English king, is derived from It, all of which originally signified chief of gens or tribe. Sibja, German Sippe (relationship), does not appear worthy of consideration. In old Norse, at least, sifjar signifies not alone kin by blood, but also kin through marriage; hence It comprises the members of at least two gentes, and the term sif cannot have been applied to the gens itself.
In the order of battle, the Germans, like the Mexicans and Greeks, arranged the horsemen as well as the wedge-like columns of the troops on foot by gentes. Tacitus' indefinite expression, "by families and kinships," is explained by the fact that at his time the gens had long ceased to be a living body in Rome.
Another passage of Tacitus is decisive. There he says: "The mother's brother regards his nephew aa his son; some even hold that the bond of blood between the maternal uncle and the nephew is more sacred and close than that between father and son, so that when persons are demanded as securities, the sister's son is considered a better security than the natural son of the man whom they desire to place under bonds." Here we have a living proof of the matriarchal, and hence natural, gens, and it is described as a characteristic mark of the Germans.[2] If a member of such a gens gave his own son as a security for the fulfillment of a vow and this son became the victim of his father's breach of faith, that was the concern of the father alone. But when the son of a sister was sacrificed, then the most sacred gentile law was violated. The next relative who was bound above all others to protect the boy or young man, was held responsible for his death; either he should not have given the boy in bail or he should have kept the contract. If we had no other trace of gentile law among the Germans, this one passage would be sufficient proof of its existence. But there is another passage in the Old Norse song of the "Dawn of the Gods" and the "End of the World," the Yöluspâ, which is still stronger evidence, because it is 800 years younger. In this "Vision of the Seeress," in which Bang and Bugge have now demonstrated the existence of Christian elements, also, the description of the time of general degeneration and corruption inaugurating the great catastrophe contains this passage:
Broedhr munu berjask ok at bönum verdask
Munu systrungar sifjum spilla.
"Brothers will wage war against one another and become each other's murderers, and sisters' children will break the bonds of blood." Systrungr means the son of the mother's sister, and an abnegation of the blood kinship from that side surpasses in the eyes of the poet even the crime of fratricide. There is a deliberate climax in that systrungar, emphasizing the maternal kinship. If the term syskina-born, brother's and sister's children, or syskina-synir, brother's and sister's sons, had been used, there would have been a weakening of the effect, instead of a climax. That shows that even at the time of the Vikings, when the Yöluspâ was composed, the recollection of maternal law was not yet blotted out.
Among the Germans with whom Tacitus was familiar maternal law had already given way to paternal lineage. The children were the next heirs of the father; in the absence of children, the brothers and uncles on both sides were next in line. The admission of the mother's brother to the inheritance is a relic of maternal law and proves that paternal law had only recently been introduced by the Germans. Traces of maternal law were preserved until late in the middle ages. It seems that even at this late date people still felt certain misgivings about the reliability of fatherhood, especially among serfs. For when a feudal lord demanded the return of a fugitive serf from a city, it was first required, for instance in Augsburg, Basel and Kaisersiautern, that the fact of his serfdom should be established by the oaths of six of his next blood relations, all of whom had to belong to his mother's kin. (Maurer, Städteverfassung, I, page 381.)
Another relic of declining matriarchy was the (from the Roman standpoint) almost inexplicable respect of the Germans for the female sex. Young girls of noble family were considered the safest bonds to secure the keeping of contracts with Germans. In battle, nothing stimulated their courage so much as the horrible thought that their wives and daughters might be captured and carried into slavery. A woman was to them something holy and prophetical, and they listened to her advice in the most important matters. Veleda, the Bructerian priestess on the river Lippe, was the soul of the insurrection of the Batavians, in which Civilis at the head of German and Belgian tribes shook the foundations of Roman rule in Gaul. The women held undisputed sway in the house. If we may believe Tacitus, they, together with the old men and children, had to do all the work, for the men went hunting, drank and loafed. But as Tacitus does not say who cultivated the fields, and as according to his explicit statement the slaves paid only tithes, but did not work under compulsion, it seems that the adult men would have had to do what little agricultural work was required.
The form of marriage, as stated above, was the pairing family in gradual transition to monogamy. It was not yet strict monogamy, for polygamy was permitted for the wealthy. Chasteness of the girls was in general carefully maintained, different from the custom of the Celts. Tacitus speaks with special ardor of the sacredness of the matrimonial bond among the Germans. Adultery of the woman is alone quoted by him as a reason for a divorce. But his treatment of this subject leaves many a flaw and besides, it too openly holds up the mirror of virtue to the dissipated Romans. So much is certain: Granted that the Germans were such exceptional models of virtue in their forests, it required only a short contact with the outer world to bring them down to the level of the other average Europeans. In the whirl of Roman life the last trace of pure morals disappeared even faster than the German language. Just read Gregorius of Tours. It is obvious that in the primeval forests of Germany no such hyper-refined voluptuousness could exist as in Rome. That implies fully enough superiority of the Germans over the Roman world, and there is no necessity for ascribing to them a moderation and chastity that have never been the qualities of any nation as a whole.
A result of gentile law is the obligation to inherit the enmities as well as the friendships of one's father and relatives; so is furthermore the displacement of blood revenge by the Wergeld, a fine to be paid in atonement of manslaughter and injuries. A generation ago this Wergeld was considered a specifically German institution, but it has since been found that hundreds of nations introduced this mitigation of gentile blood revenge. Like the obligatory hospitality, it is found, for instance, among the American Indians. Tacitus' description of the manner in which hospitality was observed (Germania, chapt. 21) is almost identical with Morgan's.
The hot and ceaseless controversy as to whether or not the Germans had already made a definite repartition of the cultivated land at Tacitus' time, and how the passages relating to this question should be interpreted, is now a thing of the past. After the following facts had been established: that the cultivated land of nearly all nations was tilled collectively by the gens and later on by communistic family groups, a practice which Cesar still found among the Suebi; that as a result of this practice the land was re-apportioned periodically; and that this periodical repartition of the cultivated land was preserved in Germany down to our days—after such evidence we need not waste any more breath on the subject. A transition within 150 years from collective cultivation, such as Cesar expressly attributes to the Suebi, to individual cultivation with annual repartition of the soil, such as Tacitus found among the Germans, is surely progress enough for any one. The further transition from this stage to complete private ownership of land during such a short period and without any external intervention would involve an absolute impossibility. Hence I can only read in Tacitus what he states in so many words: They change (or re-divide) the cultivated land every year, and enough land is left for common use. It is the stage of agriculture and appropriation of the soil which exactly tallies with the contemporaneous gentile constitution of the Germans.
I leave the preceding paragraph unchanged, Just as it stood in former editions. Meantime the question has assumed another aspect. Since Kovalevsky has demonstrated that the patriarchal household community existed nearly everywhere, perhaps even everywhere, as the connecting link between the matriarchal communistic and the modern isolated family, the question is no longer "Collective property or private property?" as discussed between Maurer and Waitz, but "What was the form of that collective property?" Not alone is there no doubt whatever, that the Suebi were the collective owners of their land at Cesar's time, but also that they tilled the soil collectively. The questions, whether their economic unit was the gens, or the household, or an intermediate communistic group, or whether all three of these groups existed at the same time as a result of different local conditions, may remain undecided for a long while yet Kovalevsky maintains that the conditions described by Tacitus were not founded on the mark or village community, but on the household community, which developed much later into the village community by the growth of the population.
Hence the settlements of the Germans on the territory they occupied at the time of the Romans, and on territory later taken by them from the Romans, would not have consisted of villages, but of large co-operative families comprising several generations, who cultivated a sufficient piece of land and used the surrounding wild land in common with their neighbors. If this was the case, then the passage in Tacitus regarding the changing of the cultivated land would indeed have an agronomic meaning, viz., that the co-operative household cultivated a different piece of land every year, and the land cultivated during the previous year was left untilled or entirely abandoned. The scarcity of the population would have left enough spare wild lands to make all dispute about land unnecessary. Only after the lapse of centuries, when the members of the family had increased so that the collective cultivation became incompatible with the prevailing conditions of production, the household communities were dissolved. The former common fields and meadows were then divided in the well-known manner among the various individual families that had now formed. The division of farm lands was first periodical, but later final, while forest, pasture and watercourses remained common property.
It seems that this process of development has been fully established for Russia by historical investigation. As for Germany and, in the second place, for other German countries, it cannot be denied that this view affords in many instances a better interpretation of historical authorities and a readier solution of difficulties than the idea of tracing the village community to the time of Tacitus. The oldest documents, e. g. of the Codex Laureshamensis, are easier explained by the help of the household than of the village community. On the other hand, new difficulties now arise and new questions pose themselves. It will require further investigations to arrive at definite conclusions. However, I cannot deny that the probability is very much in favor of the intermediate stage of the household community.[3]
While the Germans of Cesar's time had either just taken up settled abodes, or were still looking for them, they had been settled for a full century at the time of Tacitus. As a result there is a manifest progress in the production of necessities. The Germans lived in block houses; their clothing was still as primitive as their forests, consisting of rough woolen cloaks, animal skins and linen underclothing for the women and the wealthy. They lived on milk, meat, wild fruit and, as Pliny adds, oatmeal porridge which is the Celtic national dish in Ireland and Scotland to-day. Their wealth consisted in cattle of an inferior race. The kine were small, of unattractive appearance and without horns; the horses, little ponies, were not fast runners. Money, Roman coin only, was rarely used. They did not make ornaments of gold and silver, nor did they value these metals. Iron was scarce and, at least among the tribes on the Rhine and the Danube, was apparently only imported, not mined by themselves. The Runen script (imitations of Greek and Latin letters) was only used as a cipher and exclusively for religious sorcery. Human sacrifices were still in vogue. In short, they were a nation just emerged out of the middle stage of barbarism into the upper stage. But while the tribes whose immediate contact with the Romans facilitated the import of Roman products, were thereby prevented from acquiring a metal and textile industry of their own, there is not the least doubt that the tribes of the Northeast, on the Baltic, developed these industries. The pieces of armor found in the bogs of Sleswick—a long iron sword, a coat of mail, a silver helmet, etc., together with Roman coins from the close of the second century—, and the German metal ware spread by the migrations represent a peculiar type of a superior finish, even such as were modeled after Roman originals. With the exception of England, the emigration into the civilized Roman empire everywhere put an end to this home industry. How simultaneously this industry arose and developed, is shown e. g. by the bronze spangles. The specimens found in Burgundy, in Roumania and on the Sea of Asow, might have been manufactured in the same shop with those found in England or Sweden and are of undoubted German origin.
The German constitution was also in keeping with the upper stage of barbarism. According to Tacitus, the council of chiefs (principes) universally decided matters of minor importance and prepared important matters for the decision of the public meetings. So far as we know anything of the public meeting in the lower stage of barbarism, viz., among the American Indians, it was only held by gentes, not by tribes or leagues of tribes. The chiefs of peace (principes) were still sharply distinguished from the chiefs of war (duces), just as among the Iroquois. The peace chiefs were already living in part on honorary donations of the gentiles, such as cattle, grain, etc. They were generally elected from the same family, analogous to America. The transition to paternal law favored, as in Greece and Rome, the gradual transformation of office by election into hereditary office. A "noble" family was thus gradually raised in each gens. Most of this hereditary nobility came to grief during the migrations or shortly after. The military leaders were elected solely on their merits. They had little power and were obliged to rely on the force of their example. The actual disciplinary power in the army was held by the priests, as Tacitus implicitly states. The public meeting was the real executive. The king or chief of the tribe presided. The people decided. A murmur signified "No," acclamation and clanging of weapons meant "Yes." The public meeting was at the same time a court of justice. Complaints were here brought forth and decided, and death sentences pronounced. Only cowardice, treason and unnatural lust were capital crimes. The gentes and other subdivisions decided in a body under the chairmanship of the chief, who in all original German courts was only the manager of the transactions and questioner. Among Germans, the sentence has ever and everywhere been pronounced by the community.
Leagues of tribes came into existence since Cesar's time. Some of them already had kings. The first chief of war began to covet the usurper's place, as among Greeks and Romans, and sometimes succeeded in obtaining it. Such successful usurpers were by no means absolute rulers. But still they began to break through the bonds of the gens. While freed slaves generally occupied an inferior position, because they could not be members of any gens, they often gained rank, wealth and honors as favorites of the new kings. The same thing took place after the conquest of the Roman empire by those military leaders who had now become kings of great countries. Among the Frankons, slaves and freed slaves of the king played a leading role first at the court, then in the state. A large part of the new nobility were descended from them.
There was one institution that especially favored the rise of royalty: the military following. We have already seen, how among the American redskins private war groups were formed independently of the gens. Among the Germans, these private groups had developed into standing bodies. The military leader who had acquired fame, gathered around his person a host of booty loving young warriors. They were pledged to personal faithfulness by their leader who In return pledged himself to them. He fed them, gave them presents and organized them on hierarchic principles: a body guard and a troop for immediate emergencies and short expeditions, a trained corps of officers for larger enterprises. These followings must have been rather insignificant, in fact we find them so later under Odoaker in Italy, still they portended the decay of the old gentile liberty, and the events during and after the migrations proved that military retainers were heralds of evil. For in the first place, they fostered the growth of royalty. In the second place, Tacitus affirms that they could only be held together by continual warfare and plundering expeditions. Robbery became their life purpose. If the leader found nothing to do in his neighborhood, he marched his troops to other countries, where a prospect of war and booty allured him. The German auxiliaries, many of whom fought under the Roman standard even against Germans, had been largely recruited among such followings. They represent the first germs of the "Landsknecht" profession, the shame and curse of the Germans. After the conquest of the Roman empire, these retainers of kings together with the unfree Roman courtiers formed the other half of the nobility of later days.
In general, then, the German tribes combined into nations had the same constitution that had developed among the Greeks of the heroic era and the Romans at the time of the so-called kings: public meetings, councils of gentile chiefs and military leaders who coveted actual royal power. It was the highest constitution which the gentile order could produce; it was the standard constitution of the higher stage of barbarism. If society passed the limits for which this constitution sufficed, then the end of the gentile order had come. It collapsed and the state took its place.
- ↑ Author's note to the fourth edition. During a few days passed in Ireland, I once more became
conscious to what extent the rural population Is still living In the conceptions of the gentile period. The great landholder, whose tenant the farmer is, still enjoys a position similar to that of a clan chief, who has to supervise the cultivation of the soil in the interest of all, who is entitled to a tribute from the farmer in the form of rent, but who also has to assist the farmer in cases of need. Likewise everyone in comfortable circumstances is considered under obligation to help his poorer neighbors whenever they are in need. Such assistance is not charity, it is simply the prerogative of the poor gentile, which the rich gentile or the chief of the clan must respect. This explains why the professors of political economy and the jurists complain of the impossibility of imparting the idea of the modern private property to the Irish farmers. Property that has only rights, but no duties, is absolutely beyond the ken of the Irishman. No wonder that so many Irishmen who are suddenly cast into one of the modern great cities of England and America, among a population with entirely different moral and legal standards, despair of all morals and justice, lose all hold and become an easy prey to demoralization.
- ↑ Author's note. ((dhr)) The Greeks know this special sacredness of the bond between the mother's brother and his nephew, a relic of maternal law found among many nations, only in the mythology of heroic times. According to Diodorus IV., 34, Meleagros kills the sons of Thestius, the brother of his mother Althaia. The latter regards this deed as such a heinous crime that she curses the murderer, her own son, and prays for his death. "It is said that the gods fulfilled her wish and ended the life of Meleagros." According to the same Diordorus, IV., 44, the Argonauts under Herakles land in Thracia and there find that Phineus, at the instigation of his second wife, shamefully maltreats his two sons, the offspring of his first deserted wife, the Boread Kleopatra. But among the Argonauts there are also some Boreads, the brothers of Kleopatra, the uncles of the maltreated boys. They at once champion their nephews, set them free and kill their guards.
- ↑ Translator's note,
The household community is still a distinct stage of production in Georgia (South Russia). The northern boundary of Georgia is the Caucasus. The Georgians, a people of high intelligence, have for centuries maintained their Independence against Persians, Arabs, Turcs and Tartars. Dr. Philipp Gogitshayshvili gives the following interesting description of their condition in an article, entitled "Das Gewerbe in Georgien" (Zeitschrift fur die gesammte Staatswissenschaft, Erganzungsheft I., Tubingen, 1901). "The Swanians (a district of Georgia is called Swania) have all the necessities of life. They weave their own clothing, make their own weapons, powder and even silver, and gold ornaments. There is no modern trading … They are acquainted with exchange, but only of products for products. Money does not circulate and there are neither shops nor markets … There is not a single beggar, not a single man who asks for charity. With the exception of iron, salt and chintz, the Swanians produce all they need themselves. They prepare their linen from hemp, their clothing from skins of wild animals and wool, their footwear from hides and leather. They make feltcaps, household goods, weapons, saddles, bridles'and agricultural implements."