the ethnological notebooks of karl marx - Marxists Internet Archive

Notes to Morgan, p. 241. Notes to Phear, pp. 245-249.mon magistrate, but the chiefs of the regions and districts give thelaw and settle disputes.284 Tacitus, Germania, c. 26. “They do not know of moneylending andof interest, which is preferable to the prohibition of the practice.The lands for cultivation (arvd) are occupied by all the people (abmiversis) in succession (in vices or per vices)pro numéro, according to thenumber of cultivators (confiées à tous les bras), thereupon they divide(partiuntur) it among themselves (inter se) according to worth (secundumdignationem) [according to Caesar all Germans were still equal],the division being easy (partiendi facilitatem) because there are spaciousfields unimproved (qui ne sont pas implantés). They change (mutant)the arable land (arvd) annually (per annos) and ager (unoccupied, commonland: see below) remains over (superest). There is so much goodland to till that they do not plant orchards, divide up meadows andwater gardens. They ask of the earth only fields of corn.” In a letterto Engels of March 25, 1868, Marx wrote: “ Arva per annos mutantet superest ager, was heisst: sie wechseln (durch Los, daher auchsortes in allen Leges Barbarorum später) die Felder (arva), und esbleibt Gemeindeland (ager im Gegensatz von arva als ager publicus)übrig__ ” (MEW 32, 1965, p. 52).According to Marx, the Germans alternated, changed, but did notexchange the fields; whereby they occupied the fields successively,which he read as per vices, and which other editions have rendered asin vices, with the same meaning (Lewis and Short, op. cit., s.v.). Marxconceived this process as following several stages : all the cultivatorstook part in the annual redistribution of the fields ; the repartition wasmade according to worth or social position (secundum dignationem).Caesar was not aware of any social distinctions among the Germans,his observations having been made at a period 15 o years before thoseof Tacitus, and perhaps did not bear upon the same Germanicpeoples.The fields were referred to by Tacitus as arva when they had beendivided, and were occupied by those who cultivated them; ager, agriwere the lands to be divided. Marx had interpreted this distinction asindicating ager to be common land or Gemeindeland in 1868.N O T E S T O P A R T II1 Ms.: with2 Ms.: selbst3 Ms.: mood4 Ms.: Mörtel5 Ms.: bundel6 as] repeated.7 Ms.: muster414