THE IROQUOIS GENS.
THE GENTILE ORGANIZATION.—ITS WIDE PREVALENCE.—DEFINITION OF
A GENS.—DESCENT IN THE FEMALE LINE THE ARCHAIC RULE.—RIGHTS,
PRIVILEGES AND OBLIGATIONS OF MEMBERS OF A GENS.—RIGHT OF
ELECTING AND DEPOSING ITS SACHEM AND CHIEFS.—OBLIGATION NOT
TO MARRY IN THE GENS.—MUTUAL RIGHTS OF INHERITANCE OF THE
PROPERTY OF DECEASED MEMBERS.—RECIPROCAL OBLIGATIONS OF
HELP, DEFENSE AND REDRESS OF INJURIES.—RIGHT OF NAMING ITS
MEMBERS.—RIGHT OF ADOPTING STRANGERS INTO THE GENS.—COMMON
RELIGIOUS RITES, QUERY.—A COMMON BURIAL PLACE.—COUNCIL OF THE
GENS.—GENTES NAMED AFTER ANIMALS.—NUMBER OF PERSONS IN A GENS.
The experience of mankind, as elsewhere remarked, has developed but
two plans of government, using the word _plan_ in its scientific
sense. Both were definite and systematic organizations of society.
The first and most ancient was a _social organization_, founded upon
gentes, phratries and tribes. The second and latest in time was a
_political organization_, founded upon territory and upon property.
Under the first a gentile society was created, in which the government
dealt with persons through their relations to a gens and tribe. These
relations were purely personal. Under the second a political society
was instituted, in which the government dealt with persons through
their relations to territory, _e. g._—the township, the county, and
the state. These relations were purely territorial. The two plans were
fundamentally different. One belongs to ancient society, and the other
to modern.
The gentile organization opens to us one of the oldest and most widely
prevalent institutions of mankind. It furnished the nearly universal
plan of government of ancient society, Asiatic, European, African,
American and Australian. It was the instrumentality by means of which
society was organized and held together. Commencing in savagery, and
continuing through the three sub-periods of barbarism, it remained
until the establishment of political society, which did not occur until
after civilization had commenced. The Grecian gens, phratry and tribe,
the Roman gens, _curia_ and tribe find their analogues in the gens,
phratry and tribe of the American aborigines. In like manner, the Irish
_sept_, the Scottish _clan_, the _phrara_ of the Albanians, and the
Sanskrit _ganas_, without extending the comparison further, are the
same as the American Indian gens, which has usually been called a clan.
As far as our knowledge extends, this organization runs through the
entire ancient world upon all the continents, and it was brought down
to the historical period by such tribes as attained to civilization.
Nor is this all. Gentile society wherever found is the same in
structural organization and in principles of action; but changing from
lower to higher forms with the progressive advancement of the people.
These changes give the history of development of the same original
conceptions.
_Gens_, γένος, and _ganas_ in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit have alike
the primary signification of _kin_. They contain the same element as
_gigno_, γίγνομαι, and _ganamai_, in the same languages, signifying
_to beget_; thus implying in each an immediate common descent of
the members of a gens. A gens, therefore, is a body of consanguinei
descended from the same common ancestor, distinguished by a gentile
name, and bound together by affinities of blood. It includes a moiety
only of such descendants. Where descent is in the female line, as
it was universally in the archaic period, the gens is composed of a
supposed female ancestor and her children, together with the children
of her female descendants, through females, in perpetuity; and where
descent is in the male line—into which it was changed after the
appearance of property in masses—of a supposed male ancestor and his
children, together with the children of his male descendants, through
males, in perpetuity. The family name among ourselves is a survival
of the gentile name, with descent in the male line, and passing in
the same manner. The modern family, as expressed by its name, is an
unorganized gens; with the bond of kin broken, and its members as
widely dispersed as the family name is found.
Among the nations named, the gens indicated a social organization of a
remarkable character, which had prevailed from an antiquity so remote
that its origin was lost in the obscurity of far distant ages. It was
also the unit of organization of a social and governmental system,
the fundamental basis of ancient society. This organization was not
confined to the Latin, Grecian and Sanskrit speaking tribes, with whom
it became such a conspicuous institution. It has been found in other
branches of the Aryan family of nations, in the Semitic, Uralian and
Turanian families, among the tribes of Africa and Australia, and of the
American aborigines.
An exposition of the elementary constitution of the gens, with its
functions, rights, and privileges, requires our first attention; after
which it will be traced, as widely as possible, among the tribes and
nations of mankind in order to prove, by comparisons, its fundamental
unity. It will then be seen that it must be regarded as one of the
primary institutions of mankind.
The gens has passed through successive stages of development in its
transition from its archaic to its final form with the progress of
mankind. These changes were limited, in the main, to two: firstly,
changing descent from the female line, which was the archaic rule,
as among the Iroquois, to the male line, which was the final rule,
as among the Grecian and Roman gentes; and, secondly, changing the
inheritance of the property of a deceased member of the gens from his
gentiles, who took it in the archaic period, first to his agnatic
kindred, and finally to his children. These changes, slight as they
may seem, indicate very great changes of condition as well as a large
degree of progressive development.
The gentile organization, originating in the period of savagery,
enduring through the three sub-periods of barbarism, finally gave way,
among the more advanced tribes, when they attained civilization, the
requirements of which it was unable to meet. Among the Greeks and
Romans, political society supervened upon gentile society, but not
until civilization had commenced. The township (and its equivalent, the
city ward), with its fixed property, and the inhabitants it contained,
organized as a body politic, became the unit and the basis of a new
and radically different system of government. After political society
was instituted, this ancient and time-honored organization, with
the phratry and tribe developed from it, gradually yielded up their
existence. It will be my object, in the course of this volume, to trace
the progress of this organization from its rise in savagery to its
final overthrow in civilization; for it was under gentile institutions
that barbarism was won by some of the tribes of mankind while in
savagery, and that civilization was won by the descendants of some of
the same tribes while in barbarism. Gentile institutions carried a
portion of mankind from savagery to civilization.
This organization may be successfully studied both in its living and in
its historical forms in a large number of tribes and races. In such an
investigation it is preferable to commence with the gens in its archaic
form, and then to follow it through its successive modifications among
advanced nations, in order to discover both the changes and the causes
which produced them. I shall commence, therefore, with the gens as
it now exists among the American aborigines, where it is found in its
archaic form, and among whom its theoretical constitution and practical
workings can be investigated more successfully than in the historical
gentes of the Greeks and Romans. In fact to understand fully the gentes
of the latter nations a knowledge of the functions, and of the rights,
privileges and obligations of the members of the American Indian gens
is imperatively necessary.
In American Ethnography _tribe_ and _clan_ have been used in the place
of gens as an equivalent term, from not perceiving its universality. In
previous works, and following my predecessors, I have so used them.[50]
A comparison of the Indian clan with the gens of the Greeks and Romans
reveals at once their identity in structure and functions. It also
extends to the phratry and tribe. If the identity of these several
organizations can be shown, of which there can be no doubt, there is a
manifest propriety in returning to the Latin and Grecian terminologies
which are full and precise as well as historical. I have made herein
the substitutions required, and propose to show the parallelism of
these several organizations.
The plan of government of the American aborigines commenced with the
gens and ended with the confederacy, the latter being the highest point
to which their governmental institutions attained. It gave for the
organic series: first, the gens, a body of consanguinei having a common
gentile name; second, the phratry, an assemblage of related gentes
united in a higher association for certain common objects; third, the
tribe, an assemblage of gentes, usually organized in phratries, all
the members of which spoke the same dialect; and fourth, a confederacy
of tribes, the members of which respectively spoke dialects of the
same stock language. It resulted in a gentile society (_societas_),
as distinguished from a political society or state (_civitas_). The
difference between the two is wide and fundamental. There was neither a
political society, nor a citizen, nor a state, nor any civilization in
America when it was discovered. One entire ethnical period intervened
between the highest American Indian tribes and the beginning of
civilization, as that term is properly understood.
In like manner the plan of government of the Grecian tribes, anterior
to civilization, involved the same organic series, with the exception
of the last member: first, the gens, a body of consanguinei bearing
a common gentile name; second, the phratry, an assemblage of gentes,
united for social and religious objects; third, the tribe, an
assemblage of gentes of the same lineage organized in phratries; and
fourth, a nation, an assemblage of tribes who had coalesced in a
gentile society upon one common territory, as the four tribes of the
Athenians in Attica, and the three Dorian tribes at Sparta. Coalescence
was a higher process than confederating. In the latter case the tribes
occupied independent territories.
The Roman plan and series were the same: First, the gens, a body of
consanguinei bearing a common gentile name; second, the _curia_, an
assemblage of gentes united in a higher association for the performance
of religious and governmental functions; third, the tribe, an
assemblage of gentes organized in _curiae_; and fourth, a nation, an
assemblage of tribes who had coalesced in a gentile society. The early
Romans styled themselves, with entire propriety, the _Populus Romanus_.
Wherever gentile institutions prevailed, and prior to the establishment
of political society, we find peoples or nations in gentile societies,
and nothing beyond. The _state_ did not exist. Their governments
were essentially democratical, because the principles on which the
gens, phratry and tribe were organized were democratical. This last
proposition, though contrary to received opinions, is historically
important. The truth of it can be tested as the gens, phratry and tribe
of the American aborigines, and the same organizations among the
Greeks and Romans are successively considered. As the gens, the unit
of organization, was essentially democratical, so necessarily was the
phratry composed of gentes, the tribe composed of phratries, and the
gentile society formed by the confederating, or coalescing of tribes.
The gens, though a very ancient social organization founded upon kin,
does not include all the descendants of a common ancestor. It was
for the reason that when the gens came in, marriage between single
pairs was unknown, and descent through males could not be traced with
certainty. Kindred were linked together chiefly through the bond
of their maternity. In the ancient gens descent was limited to the
female line. It embraced all such persons as traced their descent
from a supposed common female ancestor, through females, the evidence
of the fact being the possession of a common gentile name. It would
include this ancestor and her children, the children of her daughters,
and the children of her female descendants, through females, in
perpetuity; whilst the children of her sons, and the children of her
male descendants, through males, would belong to other gentes; namely,
those of their respective mothers. Such was the gens in its archaic
form, when the paternity of children was not certainly ascertainable,
and when their maternity afforded the only certain criterion of
descents.
This state of descents, which can be traced back to the Middle Status
of savagery, as among the Australians, remained among the American
aborigines through the Upper Status of savagery, and into and through
the Lower Status of barbarism, with occasional exceptions. In the
Middle Status of barbarism, the Indian tribes began to change descent
from the female line to the male, as the syndyasmian family of the
period began to assume monogamian characteristics. In the Upper Status
of barbarism, descent had become changed to the male line among the
Grecian tribes, with the exception of the Lycians, and among the
Italian tribes, with the exception of the Etruscans. The influence of
property and its inheritance in producing the monogamian family which
assured the paternity of children, and in causing a change of descent
from the female line to the male, will be considered elsewhere. Between
the two extremes, represented by the two rules of descent, three entire
ethnical periods intervene, covering many thousands of years.
With descent in the male line, the gens embraced all persons who traced
their descent from a supposed common male ancestor, through males only,
the evidence of the fact being, as in the other case, the possession of
a common gentile name. It would include this ancestor and his children,
the children of his sons, and the children of his male descendants,
through males, in perpetuity; whilst the children of his daughters, and
the children of his female descendants, through females, would belong
to other gentes; namely, those of their respective fathers. Those
retained in the gens in one case were those excluded in the other, and
_vice versâ_. Such was the gens in its final form, after the paternity
of children became ascertainable through the rise of monogamy. The
transition of a gens from one form into the other was perfectly simple,
without involving its overthrow. All that was needed was an adequate
motive, as will elsewhere be shown. The same gens, with descent changed
to the male line, remained the unit of the social system. It could not
have reached the second form without previously existing in the first.
As intermarriage in the gens was prohibited, it withdrew its members
from the evils of consanguine marriages, and thus tended to increase
the vigor of the stock. The gens came into being upon three principal
conceptions, namely the bond of kin, a pure lineage through descent in
the female line, and non-intermarriage in the gens. When the idea of a
gens was developed, it would naturally have taken the form of gentes in
pairs, because the children of the males were excluded, and because it
was equally necessary to organize both classes of descendants. With two
gentes started into being simultaneously the whole result would have
been attained, since the males and females of one gens would marry the
females and males of the other, and the children, following the gentes
of their respective mothers, would be divided between them. Resting on
the bond of kin as its cohesive principle the gens afforded to each
individual member that personal protection which no other existing
power could give.
After considering the rights, privileges and obligations of its members
it will be necessary to follow the gens in its organic relations to
a phratry, tribe and confederacy, in order to find the uses to which
it was applied, the privileges which it conferred, and the principles
which it fostered. The gentes of the Iroquois will be taken as the
standard exemplification of this institution in the Ganowánian family.
They had carried their scheme of government from the gens to the
confederacy, making it complete in each of its parts, and an excellent
illustration of the capabilities of the gentile organization in its
archaic form. When discovered the Iroquois were in the Lower Status
of barbarism, and well advanced in the arts of life pertaining to
this condition. They manufactured nets, twine and rope from filaments
of bark; wove belts and burden straps, with warp and woof, from the
same materials; they manufactured earthen vessels and pipes from clay
mixed with siliceous materials and hardened by fire, some of which
were ornamented with rude medallions; they cultivated maize, beans,
squashes, and tobacco, in garden beds, and made unleavened bread
from pounded maize which they boiled in earthern vessels;[51] they
tanned skins into leather with which they manufactured kilts, leggings
and moccasins; they used the bow and arrow and war-club as their
principal weapons; used flint stone and bone implements, wore skin
garments, and were expert hunters and fishermen. They constructed
long joint-tenement houses large enough to accommodate five, ten, and
twenty families, and each household practiced communism in living; but
they were unacquainted with the use of stone or adobe-brick in house
architecture, and with the use of the native metals. In mental capacity
and in general advancement they were the representative branch of the
Indian family north of New Mexico. General F. A. Walker has sketched
their military career in two paragraphs: “The career of the Iroquois
was simply terrific. They were the scourge of God upon the aborigines
of the continent.”[52]
From lapse of time the Iroquois tribes have come to differ slightly in
the number, and in the names of their respective gentes. The largest
number being eight, as follows:
_Senecas._—1. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5. Deer. 6. Snipe.
7. Heron. 8. Hawk.
_Cayugas._—1. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5. Deer. 6. Snipe.
7. Eel. 8. Hawk.
_Onondagas._—1. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5. Deer. 6. Snipe.
7. Eel. 8. Ball.
_Oneidas._—1. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Turtle.
_Mohawks._—1. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Turtle.
_Tuscaroras._—1. Gray Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Great Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5.
Yellow Wolf. 6. Snipe. 7. Eel. 8. Little Turtle.
These changes show that certain gentes in some of the tribes have
become extinct through the vicissitudes of time; and that others have
been formed by the segmentation of over-full gentes.
With a knowledge of the rights, privileges and obligations of the
members of a gens, its capabilities as the unit of a social and
governmental system will be more fully understood, as well as the
manner in which it entered into the higher organizations of the
phratry, tribe, and confederacy.
The gens is individualized by the following rights, privileges, and
obligations conferred and imposed upon its members, and which made up
the _jus gentilicium_.
I. _The right of electing its sachem and chiefs._
II. _The right of deposing its sachem and chiefs._
III. _The obligation not to marry in the gens._
IV. _Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased
members._
V. _Reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress
of injuries._
VI. _The right of bestowing names upon its members._
VII. _The right of adopting strangers into the gens._
VIII. _Common religious rites, query._
IX. _A common burial place._
X. _A council of the gens._
These functions and attributes gave vitality as well as individuality
to the organization, and protected the personal rights of its members.
I. _The right of electing its sachem and chiefs._
Nearly all the American Indian tribes had two grades of chiefs, who may
be distinguished as sachems and common chiefs. Of these two primary
grades all other grades were varieties. They were elected in each
gens from among its members. A son could not be chosen to succeed his
father, where descent was in the female line, because he belonged to
a different gens, and no gens would have a chief or sachem from any
gens but its own. The office of sachem was hereditary in the gens, in
the sense that it was filled as often as a vacancy occurred; while the
office of chief was non-hereditary, because it was bestowed in reward
of personal merit, and died with the individual. Moreover, the duties
of a sachem were confined to the affairs of peace. He could not go out
to war as a sachem. On the other hand, the chiefs who were raised to
office for personal bravery, for wisdom in affairs, or for eloquence
in council, were usually the superior class in ability, though not in
authority over the gens. The relation of the sachem was primarily to
the gens, of which he was the official head; while that of the chief
was primarily to the tribe, of the council of which he, as well as the
sachem, were members.
The office of sachem had a natural foundation in the gens, as an
organized body of consanguinei which, as such, needed a representative
head. As an office, however, it is older than the gentile organization,
since it is found among tribes not thus organized, but among whom it
had a similar basis in the punaluan group, and even in the anterior
horde. In the gens the constituency of the sachem was clearly defined,
the basis of the relation was permanent, and its duties paternal. While
the office was hereditary in the gens it was elective among its male
members. When the Indian system of consanguinity is considered, it will
be found that all the male members of a gens were either brothers to
each other, own or collateral, uncles or nephews, own or collateral,
or collateral grandfathers and grandsons.[53] This will explain the
succession of the office of sachem which passed from brother to
brother, or from uncle to nephew, and very rarely from grandfather to
grandson. The choice, which was by free suffrage of both males and
females of adult age, usually fell upon a brother of the deceased
sachem, or upon one of the sons of a sister; an own brother, or the son
of an own sister being most likely to be preferred. As between several
brothers, own and collateral, on the one hand, and the sons of several
sisters, own and collateral, on the other, there was no priority of
right, for the reason that all the male members of the gens were
equally eligible. To make a choice between them was the function of the
elective principle.
Upon the death of a sachem, for example among the Seneca-Iroquois, a
council of his gentiles[54] was convened to name his successor. Two
candidates, according to their usages, must be voted upon, both of
them members of the gens. Each person of adult age was called upon to
express his or her preference, and the one who received the largest
number of affirmative declarations was nominated. It still required
the assent of the seven remaining gentes before the nomination was
complete. If these gentes, who met for the purpose by phratries,
refused to confirm the nomination it was thereby set aside, and the
gens proceeded to make another choice. When the person nominated by his
gens was accepted by the remaining gentes the election was complete;
but it was still necessary that the new sachem should be _raised up_,
to use their expression, or invested with his office by a council of
the confederacy, before he could enter upon its duties. It was their
method of conferring the _imperium_. In this manner the rights and
interests of the several gentes were consulted and preserved; for
the sachem of a gens was _ex officio_ a member of the council of the
tribe, and of the higher council of the confederacy. The same method
of election and of confirmation existed with respect to the office
of chief, and for the same reasons. But a general council was never
convened to raise up chiefs below the grade of a sachem. They awaited
the time when sachems were invested.
The principle of democracy, which was born of the gentes, manifested
itself in the retention by the gentiles of the right to elect their
sachem and chiefs, in the safeguards thrown around the office to
prevent usurpation, and in the check upon the election held by the
remaining gentes.
The chiefs in each gens were usually proportioned to the number of
its members. Among the Seneca-Iroquois there is one chief for about
every fifty persons. They now number in New York some three thousand,
and have eight sachems and about sixty chiefs. There are reasons for
supposing that the proportionate number is now greater than in former
times. With respect to the number of gentes in a tribe, the more
numerous the people the greater, usually, the number of gentes. The
number varied in the different tribes, from three among the Delawares
and Munsees to upwards of twenty among the Ojibwas and Creeks; six,
eight, and ten being common numbers.
II. _The right of deposing its sachem and chiefs._
This right, which was not less important than that to elect, was
reserved by the members of the gens. Although the office was nominally
for life, the tenure was practically during good behavior, in
consequence of the power to depose. The installation of a sachem was
symbolized as “putting on the horns,” and his deposition as “taking
off the horns.” Among widely separated tribes of mankind horns have
been made the emblem of office and of authority, suggested probably,
as Tylor intimates, by the commanding appearance of the males among
ruminant animals bearing horns. Unworthy behavior, followed by a loss
of confidence, furnished a sufficient ground for deposition. When a
sachem or chief had been deposed in due form by a council of his gens,
he ceased thereafter to be recognized as such, and became thenceforth
a private person. The council of the tribe also had power to depose
both sachems and chiefs, without waiting for the action of the gens,
and even against its wishes. Through the existence and occasional
exercise of this power the supremacy of the gentiles over their sachem
and chiefs was asserted and preserved. It also reveals the democratic
constitution of the gens.
III. _The obligation not to marry in the gens._
Although a negative proposition it was fundamental. It was evidently
a primary object of the organization to isolate a moiety of the
descendants of a supposed founder, and prevent their intermarriage
for reasons of kin. When the gens came into existence brothers were
intermarried to each other’s wives in a group, and sisters to each
other’s husbands in a group, to which the gens interposed no obstacle.
But it sought to exclude brothers and sisters from the marriage
relation which was effected, as there are good reasons for stating,
by the prohibition in question. Had the gens attempted to uproot the
entire conjugal system of the period by its direct action, there is
not the slightest probability that it would have worked its way into
general establishment. The gens, originating probably in the ingenuity
of a small band of savages, must soon have proved its utility in the
production of superior men. Its nearly universal prevalence in the
ancient world is the highest evidence of the advantages it conferred,
and of its adaptability to human wants in savagery and in barbarism.
The Iroquois still adhere inflexibly to the rule which forbids persons
to marry in their own gens.
IV. _Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased members._
In the Status of savagery, and in the Lower Status of barbarism, the
amount of property was small. It consisted in the former condition of
personal effects, to which, in the latter, were added possessory rights
in joint-tenement houses and in gardens. The most valuable personal
articles were buried with the body of the deceased owner. Nevertheless,
the question of inheritance was certain to arise, to increase in
importance with the increase of property in variety and amount, and
to result in some settled rule of inheritance. Accordingly we find
the principle established low down in barbarism, and even back of
that in savagery, that the property should remain in the gens, and be
distributed among the gentiles of the deceased owner. It was customary
law in the Grecian and Latin gentes in the Upper Status of barbarism,
and remained as written law far into civilization, that the property
of a deceased person should remain in the gens. But after the time of
Solon among the Athenians it was limited to cases of intestacy.
The question, who should take the property, has given rise to three
great and successive rules of inheritance. First, that it should be
distributed among the gentiles of the deceased owner. This was the
rule in the Lower Status of barbarism, and so far as is known in the
Status of savagery. Second, that the property should be distributed
among the agnatic kindred of the deceased owner, to the exclusion of
the remaining gentiles. The germ of this rule makes its appearance
in the Lower Status of barbarism, and it probably became completely
established in the Middle Status. Third, that the property should be
inherited by the children of the deceased owner, to the exclusion of
the remaining agnates. This became the rule in the Upper Status of
barbarism.
Theoretically, the Iroquois were under the first rule; but,
practically, the effects of a deceased person were appropriated by
his nearest relations within the gens. In the case of a male his own
brothers and sisters and maternal uncles divided his effects among
themselves. This practical limitation of the inheritance to the nearest
gentile kin discloses the germ of agnatic inheritance. In the case of
a female her property was inherited by her children and her sisters,
to the exclusion of her brothers. In every case the property remained
in the gens. The children of the deceased males took nothing from
their father because they belonged to a different gens. It was for the
same reason that the husband took nothing from the wife, or the wife
from her husband. These mutual rights of inheritance strengthened the
autonomy of the gens.
V. _Reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress of injuries._
In civilized society the state assumes the protection of persons and
of property. Accustomed to look to this source for the maintenance
of personal rights, there has been a corresponding abatement of the
strength of the bond of kin. But under gentile society the individual
depended for security upon his gens. It took the place afterwards
held by the state, and possessed the requisite numbers to render its
guardianship effective. Within its membership the bond of kin was a
powerful element for mutual support. To wrong a person was to wrong his
gens; and to support a person was to stand behind him with the entire
array of his gentile kindred.
In their trials and difficulties the members of the gens assisted
each other. Two or three illustrations may be given from the Indian
tribes at large. Speaking of the Mayas of Yucatan, Herrera remarks,
that “when any satisfaction was to be made for damages, if he who
was adjudged to pay was like to be reduced to poverty, the kindred
contributed.”[55] By the term kindred, as here used, we are justified
in understanding the gens. And of the Florida Indians: “When a brother
or son dies the people of the house will rather starve than seek
anything to eat during three months, but the kindred and relations
send it all in.”[56] Persons who removed from one village to another
could not transfer their possessory right to cultivated lands or to a
section of a joint-tenement house to a stranger; but must leave them
to his gentile kindred. Herrera refers to this usage among the Indian
tribes of Nicaragua; “He that removed from one town to another could
not sell what he had, but must leave it to his nearest relation.”[57]
So much of their property was held in joint ownership that their plan
of life would not admit of its alienation to a person of another
gens. Practically, the right to such property was possessory, and
when abandoned it reverted to the gens. Garcilasso de la Vega remarks
of the tribes of the Peruvian Andes, that “when the commonalty, or
ordinary sort, married, the communities of the people were obliged to
build and provide them houses.”[58] For _communities_, as here used, we
are justified in understanding the gens. Herrera speaking of the same
tribes observes that “this variety of tongues proceed from the nations
being divided into races, tribes, or clans.”[59] Here the gentiles were
required to assist newly married pairs in the construction of their
houses.
The ancient practice of blood revenge, which has prevailed so widely
in the tribes of mankind, had its birthplace in the gens. It rested
with this body to avenge the murder of one of its members. Tribunals
for the trial of criminals and laws prescribing their punishment, came
late into existence in gentile society; but they made their appearance
before the institution of political society. On the other hand, the
crime of murder is as old as human society, and its punishment by the
revenge of kinsmen is as old as the crime itself. Among the Iroquois
and other Indian tribes generally, the obligation to avenge the murder
of a kinsman was universally recognized.[60]
It was, however, the duty of the gens of the slayer, and of the slain,
to attempt an adjustment of the crime before proceeding to extremities.
A council of the members of each gens was held separately, and
propositions were made in behalf of the murderer for a condonation
of the act, usually in the nature of expressions of regret and of
presents of considerable value. If there were justifying or extenuating
circumstances it generally resulted in a composition; but if the
gentile kindred of the slain person were implacable, one or more
avengers were appointed by his gens from among its members, whose
duty it was to pursue the criminal until discovered, and then to slay
him wherever he might be found. If they accomplished the deed it was
no ground of complaint by any member of the gens of the victim. Life
having answered for life the demands of justice were appeased.
The same sentiment of fraternity manifested itself in other ways in
relieving a fellow gentilis in distress, and in protecting him from
injuries.
VI. _The right of bestowing names upon its members._
Among savage and barbarous tribes there is no name for the family.
The personal names of individuals of the same family do not indicate
any family connection between them. The family name is no older than
civilization.[61] Indian personal names, however, usually indicate the
gens of the individual to persons of other gentes in the same tribe. As
a rule each gens had names for persons that were its special property,
and, as such, could not be used by other gentes of the same tribe. A
gentile name conferred of itself gentile rights. These names either
proclaimed by their signification the gens to which they belonged, or
were known as such by common reputation.[62]
After the birth of a child a name was selected by its mother from
those not in use belonging to the gens, with the concurrence of her
nearest relatives, which was then bestowed upon the infant. But the
child was not fully christened until its birth and name, together with
the name and gens of its mother and the name of its father, had been
announced at the next ensuing council of the tribe. Upon the death of a
person his name could not be used again in the life-time of his oldest
surviving son without the consent of the latter.[63]
Two classes of names were in use, one adapted to childhood, and the
other to adult life, which were exchanged at the proper period in the
same formal manner; one being taken away, to use their expression, and
the other bestowed in its place. _O-wi′-go, a canoe floating down the
stream_, and _Ah-wou′-ne-ont, hanging flower_, are names for girls
among the Seneca-Iroquois; and _Gä-ne-o-di′-yo, handsome lake_, and
_Do-ne-ho-gä′-weh, door-keeper_, are names of adult males. At the age of
sixteen or eighteen, the first name was taken away, usually by a chief
of the gens, and one of the second class bestowed in its place. At the
next council of the tribe the change of names was publicly announced,
after which the person, if a male, assumed the duties of manhood. In
some Indian tribes the youth was required to go out upon the war-path
and earn his second name by some act of personal bravery. After a
severe illness it was not uncommon for the person, from superstitious
considerations, to solicit and obtain a second change of name. It was
sometimes done again in extreme old age. When a person was elected a
sachem or a chief his name was taken away, and a new one conferred at
the time of his installation. The individual had no control over the
question of a change. It is the prerogative of the female relatives
and of the chiefs; but an adult person might change his name provided
he could induce a chief to announce it in council. A person having the
control of a particular name, as the eldest son of that of his deceased
father, might lend it to a friend in another gens; but after the death
of the person thus bearing it the name reverted to the gens to which it
belonged.
Among the Shawnees and Delawares the mother has now the right to name
her child into any gens she pleases; and the name given transfers
the child to the gens to which the name belongs. But this is a wide
departure from archaic usages, and exceptional in practice. It tends to
corrupt and confound the gentile lineage. The names now in use among
the Iroquois and among other Indian tribes are, in the main, ancient
names handed down in the gentes from time immemorial.
The precautions taken with respect to the use of names belonging to
the gens sufficiently prove the importance attached to them, and the
gentile rights they confer.
Although this question of personal names branches out in many
directions it is foreign to my purpose to do more than illustrate such
general usages as reveal the relations of the members of a gens. In
familiar intercourse and in formal salutation the American Indians
address each other by the term of relationship the person spoken to
sustains to the speaker. When related they salute by kin; when not
related “my friend” is substituted. It would be esteemed an act of
rudeness to address an Indian by his personal name, or to inquire his
name directly from himself.
Our Saxon ancestors had single personal names down to the Norman
conquest, with none to designate the family. This indicates the late
appearance of the monogamian family among them; and it raises a
presumption of the existence in an earlier period of a Saxon gens.
VII. _The right of adopting strangers into the gens._
Another distinctive right of the gens was that of admitting new members
by adoption. Captives taken in war were either put to death, or adopted
into some gens. Women and children taken prisoners usually experienced
clemency in this form. Adoption not only conferred gentile rights,
but also the nationality of the tribe. The person adopting a captive
placed him or her in the relation of a brother or sister; if a mother
adopted, in that of a son or daughter; and ever afterwards treated the
person in all respects as though born in that relation. Slavery, which
in the Upper Status of barbarism became the fate of the captive, was
unknown among tribes in the Lower Status in the aboriginal period. The
gauntlet also had some connection with adoption, since the person who
succeeded, through hardihood or favoritism, in running through the
lines in safety was entitled to this reward. Captives when adopted
were often assigned in the family the places of deceased persons
slain in battle, in order to fill up the broken ranks of relatives. A
declining gens might replenish its numbers, through adoption, although
such instances are rare. At one time the Hawk gens of the Senecas
were reduced to a small number of persons, and its extinction became
imminent. To save the gens a number of persons from the Wolf gens by
mutual consent were transferred in a body by adoption to that of the
Hawk. The right to adopt seems to be left to the discretion of each
gens.
Among the Iroquois the ceremony of adoption was performed at a public
council of the tribe, which turned it practically into a religious
rite.[64]
VIII. _Religious rites in the gens. Query._
Among the Grecian and Latin tribes these rites held a conspicuous
position. The highest polytheistic form of religion which had then
appeared seems to have sprung from the gentes in which religious rites
were constantly maintained. Some of them, from the sanctity they were
supposed to possess, were nationalized. In some cities the office
of high priest of certain divinities was hereditary in a particular
gens.[65] The gens became the natural centre of religious growth and
the birthplace of religious ceremonies.
But the Indian tribes, although they had a polytheistic system, not
much unlike that from which the Grecian and Roman must have sprung,
had not attained that religious development which was so strongly
impressed upon the gentes of the latter tribes. It can scarcely be said
any Indian gens had special religious rites; and yet their religious
worship had a more or less direct connection with the gentes. It was
here that religious ideas would naturally germinate and that forms of
worship would be instituted. But they would expand from the gens over
the tribe, rather than remain special to the gens. Accordingly we find
among the Iroquois six annual religious festivals, (Maple, Planting,
Berry, Green-Corn, Harvest, and New Years Festivals)[66] which were
common to all the gentes united in a tribe, and which were observed at
stated seasons of the year.
Each gens furnished a number of “Keepers of the Faith,” both male
and female, who together were charged with the celebration of these
festivals.[67] The number advanced to this office by each was regarded
as evidence of the fidelity of the gens to religion. They designated
the days for holding the festivals, made the necessary arrangements
for their celebration, and conducted the ceremonies in conjunction
with the sachems and chiefs of the tribe, who were, _ex officio_,
“Keepers of the Faith.” With no official head, and none of the marks
of a priesthood, their functions were equal. The female “Keepers of
the Faith” were more especially charged with the preparation of the
feast, which was provided at all councils at the close of each day for
all persons in attendance. It was a dinner in common. The religious
rites appertaining to these festivals, which have been described in a
previous work,[68] need not be considered further than to remark, that
their worship was one of thanksgiving, with invocations to the Great
Spirit, and to the Lesser Spirits to continue to them the blessings of
life.
With the progress of mankind out of the Lower into the Middle, and
more especially out of the latter into the Upper Status of barbarism,
the gens became more the centre of religious influence and the source
of religious development. We have only the grosser part of the Aztec
religious system; but in addition to national gods, there seem to have
been other gods, belonging to smaller divisions of the people than the
phratries. The existence of an Aztec ritual and priesthood would lead
us to expect among them a closer connection of religious rites with the
gentes than is found among the Iroquois; but their religious beliefs
and observances are under the same cloud of obscurity as their social
organization.
IX. _A common burial place._
An ancient but not exclusive mode of burial was by scaffolding the body
until the flesh had wasted, after which the bones were collected and
preserved in bark barrels in a house constructed for their reception.
Those belonging to the same gens were usually placed in the same house.
The Rev. Dr. Cyrus Byington found these practices among the Choctas
in 1827; and Adair mentions usages among the Cherokees substantially
the same. “I saw three of them,” he remarks, “in one of their towns
pretty near each other; * * * Each house contained the bones of one
tribe separately, with the hieroglyphical figures of each family [gens]
on each of the odd-shaped arks. They reckoned it irreligious to mix
the bones of a relative with those of a stranger, as bone of bone and
flesh of flesh should always be joined together.”[69] The Iroquois
in ancient times used scaffolds and preserved the bones of deceased
relatives in bark barrels, often keeping them in the house they
occupied. They also buried in the ground. In the latter case those of
the same gens were not always buried locally together unless they had
a common cemetery for the village. The late Rev. Ashur Wright, so long
a missionary among the Senecas, and a noble specimen of the American
missionary, wrote to the author as follows; “I find no trace of the
influence of clanship in the burial places of the dead. I believe that
they buried promiscuously. However, they say that formerly the members
of the different clans more frequently resided together than they do
at the present time. As one family they were more under the influence
of family feeling, and had less of individual interest. Hence, it
might occasionally happen that a large proportion of the dead in some
particular burying place might be of the same clan.” Mr. Wright is
undoubtedly correct that in a particular cemetery members of all the
gentes established in a village would be buried; but they might keep
those of the same gens locally together. An illustration in point is
now found at the Tuscarora reservation near Lewiston, where the tribe
has one common cemetery, and where individuals of the same gens are
buried in a row by themselves. One row is composed of the graves of
the deceased members of the Beaver gens, two rows of the members of
the Bear gens, one row of the Gray Wolf, one of the Great Turtle, and
so on to the number of eight rows. Husband and wife are separated from
each other and buried in different rows; fathers and their children
the same; but mothers and their children and brothers and sisters
are found in the same row. It shows the power of gentile feeling,
and the quickness with which ancient usages are reverted to under
favorable conditions; for the Tuscaroras are now christianized without
surrendering the practice. An Onondaga Indian informed the writer
that the same mode of burial by gentes now prevailed at the Onondaga
and Oneida cemeteries. While this usage, perhaps, cannot be declared
general among the Indian tribes, there was undoubtedly in ancient times
a tendency to, and preference for this mode of burial.
Among the Iroquois, and what is true of them is generally true of other
Indian tribes in the same status of advancement, all the members of the
gens are mourners at the funeral of a deceased gentilis. The addresses
at the funeral, the preparation of the grave, and the burial of the
body were performed by members of other gentes.
The Village Indians of Mexico and Central America practiced a slovenly
cremation, as well as scaffolding, and burying in the ground. The
former was confined to chiefs and prominent men.
X. _A council of the gens._
The council was the great feature of ancient society, Asiatic,
European and American, from the institution of the gens in savagery
to civilization. It was the instrument of government as well as the
supreme authority over the gens, the tribe, and the confederacy.
Ordinary affairs were adjusted by the chiefs; but those of general
interest were submitted to the determination of a council. As the
council sprang from the gentile organization the two institutions have
come down together through the ages. The Council of Chiefs represents
the ancient method of evolving the wisdom of mankind and applying it
to human affairs. Its history, gentile, tribal, and confederate, would
express the growth of the idea of government in its whole development,
until political society supervened into which the council, changed into
a senate, was transmitted.
The simplest and lowest form of the council was that of the gens. It
was a democratic assembly because every adult male and female member
had a voice upon all questions brought before it. It elected and
deposed its sachem and chiefs, it elected Keepers of the Faith, it
condoned or avenged the murder of a gentilis, and it adopted persons
into the gens. It was the germ of the higher council of the tribe, and
of that still higher of the confederacy, each of which was composed
exclusively of chiefs as representatives of the gentes.
Such were the rights, privileges and obligations of the members of an
Iroquois gens; and such were those of the members of the gentes of the
Indian tribes generally, as far as the investigation has been carried.
When the gentes of the Grecian and Latin tribes are considered, the
same rights privileges and obligations will be found to exist, with the
exception of the I, II, and VI; and with respect to these their ancient
existence is probable though the proof is not perhaps attainable.
All the members of an Iroquois gens were personally free, and they were
bound to defend each other’s freedom; they were equal in privileges and
in personal rights, the sachem and chiefs claiming no superiority; and
they were a brotherhood bound together by the ties of kin. Liberty,
equality, and fraternity, though never formulated, were cardinal
principles of the gens. These facts are material, because the gens
was the unit of a social and governmental system, the foundation upon
which Indian society was organized. A structure composed of such units
would of necessity bear the impress of their character, for as the unit
so the compound. It serves to explain that sense of independence and
personal dignity universally an attribute of Indian character.
Thus substantial and important in the social system was the gens as
it anciently existed among the American aborigines, and as it still
exists in full vitality in many Indian tribes. It was the basis of the
phratry, of the tribe, and of the confederacy of tribes. Its functions
might have been presented more elaborately in several particulars; but
sufficient has been given to show its permanent and durable character.
At the epoch of European discovery the American Indian tribes
generally were organized in gentes, with descent in the female line.
In some tribes, as among the Dakotas, the gentes had fallen out; in
others, as among the Ojibwas, the Omahas, and the Mayas of Yucatan,
descent had been changed from the female to the male line. Throughout
aboriginal America the gens took its name from some animal, or
inanimate object, and never from a person. In this early condition
of society, the individuality of persons was lost in the gens. It is
at least presumable that the gentes of the Grecian and Latin tribes
were so named at some anterior period; but when they first came under
historical notice, they were named after persons. In some of the
tribes, as the Moqui Village Indians of New Mexico, the members of the
gens claimed their descent from the animal whose name they bore—their
remote ancestors having been transformed by the Great Spirit from
the animal into the human form. The Crane gens of the Ojibwas have a
similar legend. In some tribes the members of a gens will not eat the
animal whose name they bear, in which they are doubtless influenced by
this consideration.
With respect to the number of persons in a gens it varied with the
number of the gentes, and with the prosperity or decadence of the
tribe. Three thousand Senecas divided equally among eight gentes would
give an average of three hundred and seventy-five persons to a gens.
Fifteen thousand Ojibwas divided equally among twenty-three gentes
would give six hundred and fifty persons to a gens. The Cherokees
would average more than a thousand to a gens. In the present condition
of the principal Indian tribes the number of persons in each gens would
range from one hundred to a thousand.
One of the oldest and most widely prevalent institutions of mankind,
the gentes have been closely identified with human progress upon
which they have exercised a powerful influence. They have been found
in tribes in the Status of savagery, in the Lower, in the Middle,
and in the Upper Status of barbarism on different continents, and in
full vitality in the Grecian and Latin tribes after civilization had
commenced. Every family of mankind, except the Polynesian, seems to
have come under the gentile organization, and to have been indebted to
it for preservation, and for the means of progress. It finds its only
parallel in length of duration in systems of consanguinity, which,
springing up at a still earlier period, have remained to the present
time, although the marriage usages in which they originated have long
since disappeared.
From its early institution, and from its maintenance through such
immense stretches of time, the peculiar adaptation of the gentile
organization to mankind, while in a savage and in a barbarous state,
must be regarded as abundantly demonstrated.