Note 509 — Chapter I · - THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE.

The Rev. Samuel Gorman, a missionary among the Laguna Pueblo Indians, remarks in an address before the Historical Society of New Mexico (p. 12), that “the right of property belongs to the female part of the family, and descends in that line from mother to daughter. Their land is held in common, as the property of the community, but after a person cultivates a lot he has personal claim to it, which he can sell to one of the community.... Their women, generally, have control of the granary, and they are more provident than their Spanish neighbors about the future. Ordinarily they try to have a year’s provisions on hand. It is only when two years of scarcity succeed each other, that Pueblos, as a community, suffer hunger.”