Fishing tribes have their chief occupation determined by their habitats,
which are found along well stocked rivers, lakes, or coastal fishing
grounds. Conditions here encourage an early adoption of sedentary life,
discourage wandering except for short periods, and facilitate the
introduction of agriculture wherever conditions of climate and soil
permit. Hence these fisher folk develop relatively large and permanent
social groups, as testified by the ancient lake-villages of Switzerland,
based upon a concentrated food-supply resulting from a systematic and
often varied exploitation of the local resources. The coöperation and
submission to a leader necessary in pelagic fishing often gives the
preliminary training for higher political organization.[92] All the
primitive stocks of the Brazilian Indians, except the mountain Ges, are
fishermen and agriculturists; hence their annual migrations are kept
within narrow limits. Each linguistic group occupies a fixed and
relatively well defined district.[93] Stanley found along the Congo
large permanent villages of the natives, who were engaged in fishing and
tilling the fruitful soil, but knew little about the country ten miles
back from the river. These two generous means of subsistence are
everywhere combined in Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia: there they
are associated with dense populations and often with advanced political
organization, as we find it in the feudal monarchy of Tonga and the
savage Fiji Islands.[94] Fisher tribes, therefore, get an early impulse
forward in civilization;[95] and even where conditions do not permit the
upward step to agriculture, these tribes have permanent relations with
their land, form stable social groups, and often utilize their location
on a natural highway to develop systematic trade. For instance, on the
northwest coast of British Columbia and Southern Alaska, the Haida,
Tlingit and Tsimshean Indians have portioned out all the land about
their seaboard villages among the separate families or households as
hunting, fishing, and berrying grounds. These are regarded as private