Ancient Society

OR

RESEARCHES IN THE LINES OF HUMAN PROGRESS FROM SAVAGERY, THROUGH BARBARISM TO CIVILIZATION

BY

LEWIS H. MORGAN, LL.D.

Member of the National Academy of Sciences. Author of “The League of the Iroquois,” “The American Beaver and his Works,” “Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family,” Etc.

Nescit vox missa reverti.
Nescit vox missa reverti. HORACE.

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1877

Copyright, 1877,
By HENRY HOLT.

TO THE REVEREND

J. H. McILVAINE, D.D.,

LATE PROFESSOR OF BELLES-LETTRES IN PRINCETON COLLEGE,

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,

IN RECOGNITION OF HIS GENIUS AND LEARNING,

AND IN APPRECIATION OF HIS FRIENDSHIP.

“Modern science claims to be proving, by the most careful and exhaustive study of man and his works, that our race began its existence on earth at the bottom of the scale, instead of at the top, and has been gradually working upward; that human powers have had a history of development; that all the elements of culture—as the arts of life, art, science, language, religion, philosophy—have been wrought out by slow and painful efforts, in the conflict between the soul and the mind of man on the one hand, and external nature on the other.”—Whitney’s Oriental and Linguistic Studies, p. 341.

“These communities reflect the spiritual conduct of our ancestors thousands of times removed. We have passed through the same stages of development, physical and moral, and are what we are to-day because they lived, toiled, and endeavored. Our wondrous civilization is the result of the silent efforts of millions of unknown men, as the chalk cliffs of England are formed by contributions of myriads of foraminifera.”—Dr. J. Kaines, Anthropologia, vol. i, No. 2, p. 233.

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The great antiquity of mankind upon the earth has been conclusively established. It seems singular that the proofs should have been discovered as recently as within the last thirty years, and that the present generation should be the first called upon to recognize so important a fact.

Mankind are now known to have existed in Europe in the glacial period, and even back of its commencement, with every probability of their origination in a prior geological age. They have survived many races of animals with whom they were contemporaneous, and passed through a process of development, in the several branches of the human family, as remarkable in its courses as in its progress.

Since the probable length of their career is connected with geological periods, a limited measure of time is excluded. One hundred or two hundred thousand years would be an unextravagant estimate of the period from the disappearance of the glaciers in the northern hemisphere to the present time. Whatever doubts may attend any estimate of a period, the actual duration of which is unknown, the existence of mankind extends backward immeasurably, and loses itself in a vast and profound antiquity.

This knowledge changes materially the views which have prevailed respecting the relations of savages to barbarians, and of barbarians to civilized men. It can now be asserted upon convincing evidence that savagery preceded barbarism in all the tribes of mankind, as barbarism is known to[Pg vi] have preceded civilization. The history of the human race is one in source, one in experience, and one in progress.

It is both a natural and a proper desire to learn, if possible, how all these ages upon ages of past time have been expended by mankind; how savages, advancing by slow, almost imperceptible steps, attained the higher condition of barbarians; how barbarians, by similar progressive advancement, finally attained to civilization; and why other tribes and nations have been left behind in the race of progress—some in civilization, some in barbarism, and others in savagery. It is not too much to expect that ultimately these several questions will be answered.

Inventions and discoveries stand in serial relations along the lines of human progress, and register its successive stages; while social and civil institutions, in virtue of their connection with perpetual human wants, have been developed from a few primary germs of thought. They exhibit a similar register of progress. These institutions, inventions and discoveries have embodied and preserved the principal facts now remaining illustrative of this experience. When collated and compared they tend to show the unity of origin of mankind, the similarity of human wants in the same stage of advancement, and the uniformity of the operations of the human mind in similar conditions of society.

Throughout the latter part of the period of savagery, and the entire period of barbarism, mankind in general were organized in gentes, phratries and tribes. These organizations prevailed throughout the entire ancient world upon all the continents, and were the instrumentalities by means of which ancient society was organized and held together. Their structure, and relations as members of an organic series, and the rights, privileges and obligations of the members of the gens, and of the members of the phratry and tribe, illustrate the growth of the idea of government in the human mind. The principal institutions of mankind originated in savagery, were developed in barbarism, and are maturing in civilization.

[Pg vii]

In like manner, the family has passed through successive forms, and created great systems of consanguinity and affinity which have remained to the present time. These systems, which record the relationships existing in the family of the period, when each system respectively was formed, contain an instructive record of the experience of mankind while the family was advancing from the consanguine, through intermediate forms, to the monogamian.

The idea of property has undergone a similar growth and development. Commencing at zero in savagery, the passion for the possession of property, as the representative of accumulated subsistence, has now become dominant over the human mind in civilized races.

The four classes of facts above indicated, and which extend themselves in parallel lines along the pathways of human progress from savagery to civilization, form the principal subjects of discussion in this volume.

There is one field of labor in which, as Americans, we have a special interest as well as a special duty. Rich as the American continent is known to be in material wealth, it is also the richest of all the continents in ethnological, philological and archæological materials, illustrative of the great period of barbarism. Since mankind were one in origin, their career has been essentially one, running in different but uniform channels upon all continents, and very similarly in all the tribes and nations of mankind down to the same status of advancement. It follows that the history and experience of the American Indian tribes represent, more or less nearly, the history and experience of our own remote ancestors when in corresponding conditions. Forming a part of the human record, their institutions, arts, inventions and practical experience possess a high and special value reaching far beyond the Indian race itself.

When discovered, the American Indian tribes represented three distinct ethnical periods, and more completely than they were elsewhere then represented upon the earth. Materials for ethnology, philology and archæology were offered in unparalleled abundance; but as these sciences[Pg viii] scarcely existed until the present century, and are but feebly prosecuted among us at the present time, the workmen have been unequal to the work. Moreover, while fossil remains buried in the earth will keep for the future student, the remains of Indian arts, languages and institutions will not. They are perishing daily, and have been perishing for upwards of three centuries. The ethnic life of the Indian tribes is declining under the influence of American civilization, their arts and languages are disappearing, and their institutions are dissolving. After a few more years, facts that may now be gathered with ease will become impossible of discovery. These circumstances appeal strongly to Americans to enter this great field and gather its abundant harvest.

      Rochester, New York, March, 1877.

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ANCIENT SOCIETY

Progress of Mankind from the Bottom of the Scale.—Illustrated by Inventions Discoveries and Institutions.—Two Plans of Government—one Gentile and Social, giving a Society, (Societas); the other Political, giving a State, (Civitas).—The former founded upon Persons and Gentilism; the latter upon Territory and Property.—The First, the Plan of Government of Ancient Society.—The Second, that of Modern or Civilized Society.—Uniformity of Human Experience.—Proposed Ethnical Periods—I. Lower Status of Savagery; II. Middle Status of Savagery; III. Upper Status of Savagery; IV. Lower Status of Barbarism; V. Middle Status of Barbarism; VI. Upper Status of Barbarism; VII. Status of Civilization.

The latest investigations respecting the early condition of the human race, are tending to the conclusion that mankind commenced their career at the bottom of the scale and worked their way up from savagery to civilization through the slow accumulations of experimental knowledge.

As it is undeniable that portions of the human family have existed in a state of savagery, other portions in a state of barbarism, and still other portions in a state of civilization, it seems equally so that these three distinct conditions are connected with each other in a natural as well as necessary sequence of progress. Moreover, that this sequence has been historically true of the entire human family, up to[Pg 4] the status attained by each branch respectively, is rendered probable by the conditions under which all progress occurs, and by the known advancement of several branches of the family through two or more of these conditions.

An attempt will be made in the following pages to bring forward additional evidence of the rudeness of the early condition of mankind, of the gradual evolution of their mental and moral powers through experience, and of their protracted struggle with opposing obstacles while winning their way to civilization. It will be drawn, in part, from the great sequence of inventions and discoveries which stretches along the entire pathway of human progress; but chiefly from domestic institutions, which express the growth of certain ideas and passions.

As we re-ascend along the several lines of progress toward the primitive ages of mankind, and eliminate one after the other, in the order in which they appeared, inventions and discoveries on the one hand, and institutions on the other, we are enabled to perceive that the former stand to each other in progressive, and the latter in unfolding relations. While the former class have had a connection, more or less direct, the latter have been developed from a few primary germs of thought. Modern institutions plant their roots in the period of barbarism, into which their germs were transmitted from the previous period of savagery. They have had a lineal descent through the ages, with the streams of the blood, as well as a logical development.

Two independent lines of investigation thus invite our attention. The one leads through inventions and discoveries, and the other through primary institutions. With the knowledge gained therefrom, we may hope to indicate the principal stages of human development. The proofs to be adduced will be drawn chiefly from domestic institutions; the references to achievements more strictly intellectual being general as well as subordinate.

The facts indicate the gradual formation and subsequent development of certain ideas, passions, and aspirations. Those which hold the most prominent positions may be generalized[Pg 5] as growths of the particular ideas with which they severally stand connected. Apart from inventions and discoveries they are the following:

First. Subsistence has been increased and perfected by a series of successive arts, introduced at long intervals of time, and connected more or less directly with inventions and discoveries.

Second. The germ of government must be sought in the organization into gentes in the Status of savagery; and followed down, through the advancing forms of this institution, to the establishment of political society.

Third. Human speech seems to have been developed from the rudest and simplest forms of expression. Gesture or sign language, as intimated by Lucretius,1 must have preceded articulate language, as thought preceded speech. The monosyllabical preceded the syllabical, as the latter did that of concrete words. Human intelligence, unconscious of design, evolved articulate language by utilizing the vocal sounds. This great subject, a department of knowledge by itself, does not fall within the scope of the present investigation.

Fourth. With respect to the family, the stages of its growth are embodied in systems of consanguinity and affinity, and in usages relating to marriage, by means of which, collectively, the family can be definitely traced through several successive forms.

Fifth. The growth of religious ideas is environed with such intrinsic difficulties that it may never receive a perfectly satisfactory exposition. Religion deals so largely with the imaginative and emotional nature, and consequently with such uncertain elements of knowledge, that all primitive religions are [Pg 6]grotesque and to some extent unintelligible. This subject also falls without the plan of this work excepting as it may prompt incidental suggestions.

Sixth. House architecture, which connects itself with the form of the family and the plan of domestic life, affords a tolerably complete illustration of progress from savagery to civilization. Its growth can be traced from the hut of the savage, through the communal houses of the barbarians, to the house of the single family of civilized nations, with all the successive links by which one extreme is connected with the other. This subject will be noticed incidentally.

Lastly. The idea of property was slowly formed in the human mind, remaining nascent and feeble through immense periods of time. Springing into life in savagery, it required all the experience of this period and of the subsequent period of barbarism to develop the germ, and to prepare the human brain for the acceptance of its controlling influence. Its dominance as a passion over all other passions marks the commencement of civilization. It not only led mankind to overcome the obstacles which delayed civilization, but to establish political society on the basis of territory and of property. A critical knowledge of the evolution of the idea of property would embody, in some respects, the most remarkable portion of the mental history of mankind.

It will be my object to present some evidence of human progress along these several lines, and through successive ethnical periods, as it is revealed by inventions and discoveries, and by the growth of the ideas of government, of the family, and of property.

It may be here premised that all forms of government are reducible to two general plans, using the word plan in its scientific sense. In their bases the two are fundamentally distinct. The first, in the order of time, is founded upon persons, and upon relations purely personal, and may be distinguished as a society (societas). The gens is the unit of this organization; giving as the successive stages of integration, in the archaic period, the gens, the phratry, the tribe and the confederacy of tribes, which constituted a people or nation (populus). At a[Pg 7] later period a coalescence of tribes in the same area into a nation took the place of a confederacy of tribes occupying independent areas. Such, through prolonged ages, after the gens appeared, was the substantially universal organization of ancient society; and it remained among the Greeks and Romans after civilization supervened. The second is founded upon territory and upon property, and may be distinguished as a state (civitas). The township or ward, circumscribed by metes and bounds, with the property it contains, is the basis or unit of the latter, and political society is the result. Political society is organized upon territorial areas, and deals with property as well as with persons through territorial relations. The successive stages of integration are the township or ward, which is the unit of organization; the county or province, which is an aggregation of townships or wards; and the national domain or territory, which is an aggregation of counties or provinces; the people of each of which are organized into a body politic. It taxed the Greeks and Romans to the extent of their capacities, after they had gained civilization, to invent the deme or township and the city ward; and thus inaugurate the second great plan of government, which remains among civilized nations to the present hour. In ancient society this territorial plan was unknown. When it came in it fixed the boundary line between ancient and modern society, as the distinction will be recognized in these pages.

It may be further observed that the domestic institutions of the barbarous, and even of the savage ancestors of mankind, are still exemplified in portions of the human family with such completeness that, with the exception of the strictly primitive period, the several stages of this progress are tolerably well preserved. They are seen in the organization of society upon the basis of sex, then upon the basis of kin, and finally upon the basis of territory; through the successive forms of marriage and of the family, with the systems of consanguinity thereby created; through house life and architecture; and through progress in usages with respect to the ownership and inheritance of property.

The theory of human degradation to explain the existence[Pg 8] of savages and of barbarians is no longer tenable. It came in as a corollary from the Mosaic cosmogony, and was acquiesced in from a supposed necessity which no longer exists. As a theory, it is not only incapable of explaining the existence of savages, but it is without support in the facts of human experience.

The remote ancestors of the Aryan nations presumptively passed through an experience similar to that of existing barbarous and savage tribes. Though the experience of these nations embodies all the information necessary to illustrate the periods of civilization, both ancient and modern, together with a part of that in the Later period of barbarism, their anterior experience must be deduced, in the main, from the traceable connection between the elements of their existing institutions and inventions, and similar elements still preserved in those of savage and barbarous tribes.

It may be remarked finally that the experience of mankind has run in nearly uniform channels; that human necessities in similar conditions have been substantially the same; and that the operations of the mental principle have been uniform in virtue of the specific identity of the brain of all the races of mankind. This, however, is but a part of the explanation of uniformity in results. The germs of the principal institutions and arts of life were developed while man was still a savage. To a very great extent the experience of the subsequent periods of barbarism and of civilization have been expended in the further development of these original conceptions. Wherever a connection can be traced on different continents between a present institution and a common germ, the derivation of the people themselves from a common original stock is implied.

The discussion of these several classes of facts will be facilitated by the establishment of a certain number of Ethnical Periods; each representing a distinct condition of society, and distinguishable by a mode of life peculiar to itself. The terms “Age of Stone,” “of Bronze,” and “of Iron” introduced by Danish archæologists, have been extremely useful for certain purposes, and will remain so for the classification of objects of ancient art; but the progress of knowledge has rendered[Pg 9] other and different subdivisions necessary. Stone implements were not entirely laid aside with the introduction of tools of iron, nor of those of bronze. The invention of the process of smelting iron ore created an ethnical epoch, yet we could scarcely date another from the production of bronze. Moreover, since the period of stone implements overlaps those of bronze and of iron, and since that of bronze also overlaps that of iron, they are not capable of a circumscription that would leave each independent and distinct.

It is probable that the successive arts of subsistence which arose at long intervals will ultimately, from the great influence they must have exercised upon the condition of mankind, afford the most satisfactory bases for these divisions. But investigation has not been carried far enough in this direction to yield the necessary information. With our present knowledge the main result can be attained by selecting such other inventions or discoveries as will afford sufficient tests of progress to characterize the commencement of successive ethnical periods. Even though accepted as provisional, these periods will be found convenient and useful. Each of those about to be proposed will be found to cover a distinct culture, and to represent a particular mode of life.

The period of savagery, of the early part of which very little is known, may be divided, provisionally, into three sub-periods. These may be named respectively the Older, the Middle, and the Later period of savagery; and the condition of society in each, respectively, may be distinguished as the Lower, the Middle, and the Upper Status of savagery.

In like manner, the period of barbarism divides naturally into three sub-periods, which will be called, respectively, the Older, the Middle, and the Later period of barbarism; and the condition of society in each, respectively, will be distinguished as the Lower, the Middle, and the Upper Status of barbarism.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to find such tests of progress to mark the commencement of these several periods as will be found absolute in their application, and without exceptions upon all the continents. Neither is it necessary, for the purpose in hand, that exceptions should not exist. It will be[Pg 10] sufficient if the principal tribes of mankind can be classified, according to the degree of their relative progress, into conditions which can be recognized as distinct.

I. Lower Status of Savagery.

This period commenced with the infancy of the human race, and may be said to have ended with the acquisition of a fish subsistence and of a knowledge of the use of fire. Mankind were then living in their original restricted habitat, and subsisting upon fruits and nuts. The commencement of articulate speech belongs to this period. No exemplification of tribes of mankind in this condition remained to the historical period.

II. Middle Status of Savagery.

It commenced with the acquisition of a fish subsistence and a knowledge of the use of fire, and ended with the invention of the bow and arrow. Mankind, while in this condition, spread from their original habitat over the greater portion of the earth’s surface. Among tribes still existing it will leave in the Middle Status of savagery, for example, the Australians and the greater part of the Polynesians when discovered. It will be sufficient to give one or more exemplifications of each status.

III. Upper Status of Savagery.

It commenced with the invention of the bow and arrow, and ended with the invention of the art of pottery. It leaves in the Upper Status of Savagery the Athapascan tribes of the Hudson’s Bay Territory, the tribes of the valley of the Columbia, and certain coast tribes of North and South America; but with relation to the time of their discovery. This closes the period of Savagery.

IV. Lower Status of Barbarism.

The invention or practice of the art of pottery, all things considered, is probably the most effective and conclusive test that can be selected to fix a boundary line, necessarily arbitrary, between savagery and barbarism. The distinctness of the two conditions has long been recognized, but no criterion of progress out of the former into the latter has hitherto been brought forward. All such tribes, then, as never attained to the art of pottery will be classed as savages, and those possessing this art but who never attained a phonetic alphabet and the use of writing will be classed as barbarians.

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The first sub-period of barbarism commenced with the manufacture of pottery, whether by original invention or adoption. In finding its termination, and the commencement of the Middle Status, a difficulty is encountered in the unequal endowments of the two hemispheres, which began to be influential upon human affairs after the period of savagery had passed. It may be met, however, by the adoption of equivalents. In the Eastern hemisphere, the domestication of animals, and in the Western, the cultivation of maize and plants by irrigation, together with the use of adobe-brick and stone in house building have been selected as sufficient evidence of progress to work a transition out of the Lower and into the Middle Status of barbarism. It leaves, for example, in the Lower Status, the Indian tribes of the United States east of the Missouri River, and such tribes of Europe and Asia as practiced the art of pottery, but were without domestic animals.

V. Middle Status of Barbarism.

It commenced with the domestication of animals in the Eastern hemisphere, and in the Western with cultivation by irrigation and with the use of adobe-brick and stone in architecture, as shown. Its termination may be fixed with the invention of the process of smelting iron ore. This places in the Middle Status, for example, the Village Indians of New Mexico, Mexico, Central America and Peru, and such tribes in the Eastern hemisphere as possessed domestic animals, but were without a knowledge of iron. The ancient Britons, although familiar with the use of iron, fairly belong in this connection. The vicinity of more advanced continental tribes had advanced the arts of life among them far beyond the state of development of their domestic institutions.

VI. Upper Status of Barbarism.

It commenced with the manufacture of iron, and ended with the invention of a phonetic alphabet, and the use of writing in literary composition. Here civilization begins. This leaves in the Upper Status, for example, the Grecian tribes of the Homeric age, the Italian tribes shortly before the founding of Rome, and the Germanic tribes of the time of Cæsar.

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VII. Status of Civilization.

It commenced, as stated, with the use of a phonetic alphabet and the production of literary records, and divides into Ancient and Modern. As an equivalent, hieroglyphical writing upon stone may be admitted.

RECAPITULATION.

Each of these periods has a distinct culture and exhibits a mode of life more or less special and peculiar to itself. This specialization of ethnical periods renders it possible to treat a particular society according to its condition of relative advancement, and to make it a subject of independent study and discussion. It does not affect the main result that different tribes and nations on the same continent, and even of the same linguistic family, are in different conditions at the same time, since for our purpose the condition of each is the material fact, the time being immaterial.

Since the use of pottery is less significant than that of domestic animals, of iron, or of a phonetic alphabet, employed to mark the commencement of subsequent ethnical periods, the reasons for its adoption should be stated. The manufacture of pottery presupposes village life, and considerable progress in the simple arts.2 Flint and stone implements are older than pottery, remains of the former having been found in ancient repositories in numerous instances unaccompanied by the latter. A succession of inventions of greater need and adapted to a lower condition must have occurred before the want of pottery would be felt. The commencement of village life, with some degree of control over subsistence, wooden vessels and utensils, finger weaving with filaments of bark, basket making, and the bow and arrow make their appearance before the art of pottery. The Village Indians who were in the Middle Status of barbarism, such as the Zuñians, the Aztecs and the Cholulans, manufactured pottery in large quantities and in many forms of considerable excellence; the partially Village Indians [Pg 14]of the United States, who were in the Lower Status of barbarism, such as the Iroquois, the Choctas and the Cherokees, made it in smaller quantities and in a limited number of forms; but the Non-horticultural Indians, who were in the Status of savagery, such as the Athapascans, the tribes of California and of the valley of the Columbia, were ignorant of its use.3 In Lubbock’s Pre-Historic Times, in Tylor’s Early History of Mankind, and in Peschel’s Races of Man, the particulars respecting this art, and the extent of its distribution, have been collected with remarkable breadth of research. It was unknown in Polynesia (with the exception of the Islands of the Tongans and Fijians), in Australia, in California, and in the Hudson’s Bay Territory. Mr. Tylor remarks that “the art of weaving was unknown in most of the Islands away from Asia,” and that “in most of the South Sea Islands there was no knowledge of pottery.”4 The Rev. Lorimer Fison, an English missionary residing in Australia, informed the author in answer to inquiries, that “the Australians had no woven fabrics, no pottery, and were ignorant of the bow and arrow.” This last fact was also true in general of the Polynesians. The introduction of the ceramic art produced a new epoch in human progress in the direction of an improved living and increased domestic conveniences. While flint and stone implements—which came in earlier and required long periods of time to develop all their uses—gave the canoe, wooden vessels and utensils, and ultimately timber and plank in house architecture,5 pottery gave a durable vessel for boiling food, which before that had been rudely accomplished in [Pg 15]baskets coated with clay, and in ground cavities lined with skin, the boiling being effected with heated stones.6

Whether the pottery of the aborigines was hardened by fire or cured by the simple process of drying, has been made a question. Prof. E. T. Cox, of Indianapolis, has shown by comparing the analyses of ancient pottery and hydraulic cements, “that so far as chemical constituents are concerned it (the pottery) agrees very well with the composition of hydraulic stones.” He remarks further, that “all the pottery belonging to the mound-builders’ age, which I have seen, is composed of alluvial clay and sand, or a mixture of the former with pulverized fresh-water shells. A paste made of such a mixture possesses in a high degree the properties of hydraulic Puzzuolani and Portland cement, so that vessels formed of it hardened without being burned, as is customary with modern pottery. The fragments of shells served the purpose of gravel or fragments of stone as at present used in connection with hydraulic lime for the manufacture of artificial stone.”7 The composition of Indian pottery in analogy with that of hydraulic cement suggests the difficulties in the way of inventing the art, and tends also to explain the lateness of its introduction in the course of human experience. Notwithstanding the ingenious suggestion of Prof. Cox, it is probable that pottery was hardened by artificial heat. In some cases the fact is directly attested. Thus Adair, speaking of the Gulf Tribes, remarks that “they make earthern pots of very different sizes, so as to contain from two to ten gallons, large pitchers to carry water, bowls, dishes, platters, basins, and a prodigious number of other vessels of such antiquated forms as would be tedious to describe, and impossible to name. Their method of glazing [Pg 16]them is, they place them over a large fire of smoky pitch-pine, which makes them smooth, black and firm.”8

Another advantage of fixing definite ethnical periods is the direction of special investigation to those tribes and nations which afford the best exemplification of each status, with the view of making each both standard and illustrative. Some tribes and families have been left in geographical isolation to work out the problems of progress by original mental effort; and have, consequently, retained their arts and institutions pure and homogeneous; while those of other tribes and nations have been adulterated through external influence. Thus, while Africa was and is an ethnical chaos of savagery and barbarism, Australia and Polynesia were in savagery, pure and simple, with the arts and institutions belonging to that condition. In like manner, the Indian family of America, unlike any other existing family, exemplified the condition of mankind in three successive ethnical periods. In the undisturbed possession of a great continent, of common descent, and with homogeneous institutions, they illustrated, when discovered, each of these conditions, and especially those of the Lower and of the Middle Status of barbarism, more elaborately and completely than any other portion of mankind. The far northern Indians and some of the coast tribes of North and South America were in the Upper Status of savagery; the partially Village Indians east of the Mississippi were in the Lower Status of barbarism, and the Village Indians of North and South America were in the Middle Status. Such an opportunity to recover full and minute information of the course of human experience and progress in developing their arts and institutions through these successive conditions has not been offered within the historical period. It must be added that it has been indifferently improved. Our greatest deficiencies relate to the last period named.

Differences in the culture of the same period in the Eastern and Western hemispheres undoubtedly existed in consequence of the unequal endowments of the continents; but the condi[Pg 17]tion of society in the corresponding status must have been, in the main, substantially similar.

The ancestors of the Grecian, Roman and German tribes passed through the stages we have indicated, in the midst of the last of which the light of history fell upon them. Their differentiation from the undistinguishable mass of barbarians did not occur, probably, earlier than the commencement of the Middle Period of barbarism. The experience of these tribes has been lost, with the exception of so much as is represented by the institutions, inventions and discoveries which they brought with them, and possessed when they first came under historical observation. The Grecian and Latin tribes of the Homeric and Romulian periods afford the highest exemplification of the Upper Status of barbarism. Their institutions were likewise pure and homogeneous, and their experience stands directly connected with the final achievement of civilization.

Commencing, then, with the Australians and Polynesians, following with the American Indian tribes, and concluding with the Roman and Grecian, who afford the highest exemplifications respectively of the six great stages of human progress, the sum of their united experiences may be supposed fairly to represent that of the human family from the Middle Status of savagery to the end of ancient civilization. Consequently, the Aryan nations will find the type of the condition of their remote ancestors, when in savagery, in that of the Australians and Polynesians; when in the Lower Status of barbarism in that of the partially Village Indians of America; and when in the Middle Status in that of the Village Indians, with which their own experience in the Upper Status directly connects. So essentially identical are the arts institutions and mode of life in the same status upon all the continents, that the archaic form of the principal domestic institutions of the Greeks and Romans must even now be sought in the corresponding institutions of the American aborigines, as will be shown in the course of this volume. This fact forms a part of the accumulating evidence tending to show that the principal institutions of mankind have been developed from a few primary germs of thought; and that the course and manner of their development[Pg 18] was predetermined, as well as restricted within narrow limits of divergence, by the natural logic of the human mind and the necessary limitations of its powers. Progress has been found to be substantially the same in kind in tribes and nations inhabiting different and even disconnected continents, while in the same status, with deviations from uniformity in particular instances produced by special causes. The argument when extended tends to establish the unity of origin of mankind.

In studying the condition of tribes and nations in these several ethnical periods we are dealing, substantially, with the ancient history and condition of our own remote ancestors.

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Supremacy of Mankind over the Earth.—Control over Subsistence The Condition.—Mankind alone gained that Control.—Successive arts of Subsistence.—I. Natural Subsistence; II. Fish Subsistence; III. Farinaceous Subsistence; IV. Meat and Milk Subsistence; V. Unlimited Subsistence through Field Agriculture.—Long Intervals of Time between them.

The important fact that mankind commenced at the bottom of the scale and worked up, is revealed in an expressive manner by their successive arts of subsistence. Upon their skill in this direction, the whole question of human supremacy on the earth depended. Mankind are the only beings who may be said to have gained an absolute control over the production of food; which at the outset they did not possess above other animals. Without enlarging the basis of subsistence, mankind could not have propagated themselves into other areas not possessing the same kinds of food, and ultimately over the whole surface of the earth; and lastly, without obtaining an absolute control over both its variety and amount, they could not have multiplied into populous nations. It is accordingly probable that the great epochs of human progress have been identified, more or less directly, with the enlargement of the sources of subsistence.

We are able to distinguish five of these sources of human food, created by what may be called as many successive arts, one superadded to the other, and brought out at long separated intervals of time. The first two originated in the period of[Pg 20] savagery, and the last three, in the period of barbarism. They are the following, stated in the order of their appearance:

I. Natural Subsistence upon Fruits and Roots on a Restricted Habitat.

This proposition carries us back to the strictly primitive period of mankind, when few in numbers, simple in subsistence, and occupying limited areas, they were just entering upon their new career. There is neither an art, nor an institution, that can be referred to this period; and but one invention, that of language, which can be connected with an epoch so remote. The kind of subsistence indicated assumes a tropical or sub-tropical climate. In such a climate, by common consent, the habitat of primitive man has been placed. In fruit and nut-bearing forests under a tropical sun, we are accustomed, and with reason, to regard our progenitors as having commenced their existence.

The races of animals preceded the race of mankind, in the order of time. We are warranted in supposing that they were in the plenitude of their strength and numbers when the human race first appeared. The classical poets pictured the tribes of mankind dwelling in groves, in caves and in forests, for the possession of which they disputed with wild beasts9—while they sustained themselves with the spontaneous fruits of the earth. If mankind commenced their career without experience, without weapons, and surrounded with ferocious animals, it is not improbable that they were, at least partially, tree-livers, as a means of protection and security.

The maintenance of life, through the constant acquisition of food, is the great burden imposed upon existence in all species of animals. As we descend in the scale of structural organization, subsistence becomes more and more simple at each stage, until the mystery finally vanishes. But, in the ascending scale, it becomes increasingly difficult until the highest structural form, that of man, is reached, when it attains the maximum.

[Pg 21]

Intelligence from henceforth becomes a more prominent factor. Animal food, in all probability, entered from a very early period into human consumption; but whether it was actively sought when mankind were essentially frugivorous in practice, though omnivorous in structural organization, must remain a matter of conjecture. This mode of sustenance belongs to the strictly primitive period.

II. Fish Subsistence.

In fish must be recognized the first kind of artificial food, because it was not fully available without cooking. Fire was first utilized, not unlikely, for this purpose. Fish were universal in distribution, unlimited in supply, and the only kind of food at all times attainable. The cereals in the primitive period were still unknown, if in fact they existed, and the hunt for game was too precarious ever to have formed an exclusive means of human support. Upon this species of food mankind became independent of climate and of locality; and by following the shores of the seas and lakes, and the courses of the rivers could, while in the savage state, spread themselves over the greater portion of the earth’s surface. Of the fact of these migrations there is abundant evidence in the remains of flint and stone implements of the Status of Savagery found upon all the continents. In reliance upon fruits and spontaneous subsistence a removal from the original habitat would have been impossible.

Between the introduction of fish, followed by the wide migrations named, and the cultivation of farinaceous food, the interval of time was immense. It covers a large part of the period of savagery. But during this interval there was an important increase in the variety and amount of food. Such, for example, as the bread roots cooked in ground ovens, and in the permanent addition of game through improved weapons, and especially through the bow and arrow. This remarkable invention, which came in after the spear and war club, and gave the first deadly weapon for the hunt, appeared late in savagery.10

[Pg 22]

It has been used to mark the commencement of its Upper Status. It must have given a powerful upward influence to ancient society, standing in the same relation to the period of savagery, as the iron sword to the period of barbarism, and fire-arms to the period of civilization.

From the precarious nature of all these sources of food, outside of the great fish areas, cannibalism became the dire resort of mankind. The ancient universality of this practice is being gradually demonstrated.

III. Farinaceous Subsistence through Cultivation.

We now leave Savagery and enter the Lower Status of barbarism. The cultivation of cereals and plants was unknown in the Western hemisphere except among the tribes who had emerged from savagery; and it seems to have been unknown in the Eastern hemisphere until after the tribes of Asia and Europe had passed through the Lower, and had drawn near to the close of the Middle Status of barbarism. It gives us the singular fact that the American aborigines in the Lower Status of barbarism were in possession of horticulture one entire ethnical period earlier than the inhabitants of the Eastern hemisphere. It was a consequence of the unequal endowments of the two hemispheres; the Eastern possessing all the animals adapted to domestication, save one, and a majority of the cereals; while the Western had only one cereal fit for cultivation, but that the best. It tended to prolong the older period of barbarism in the former, to shorten it in the latter; and with the advantage of condition in this period in favor of the American aborigines. But when the most advanced tribes in the Eastern hemisphere, at the commencement of the Middle Period of barbarism, had domesticated animals which gave them meat and milk, their condition, without a knowledge of the cereals, was much superior to that of the American aborigines in the corresponding period, with maize and plants, but without domestic animals. The differentiation of the Semitic and [Pg 23] Aryan families from the mass of barbarians seems to have commenced with the domestication of animals.

That the discovery and cultivation of the cereals by the Aryan family was subsequent to the domestication of animals is shown by the fact, that there are common terms for these animals in the several dialects of the Aryan language, and no common terms for the cereals or cultivated plants. Mommsen, after showing that the domestic animals have the same names in the Sanskrit, Greek and Latin (which Max Müller afterwards extended to the remaining Aryan dialects11) thus proving that they were known and presumptively domesticated before the separation of these nations from each other, proceeds as follows: “On the other hand, we have as yet no certain proofs of the existence of agriculture at this period. Language rather favors the negative view. Of the Latin-Greek names of grain none occur in the Sanskrit with the single exception of ζέα, which philologically represents the Sanskrit yavas, but denotes in Indian, barley; in Greek, spelt. It must indeed be granted that this diversity in the names of cultivated plants, which so strongly contrasts with the essential agreement in the appellations of domestic animals, does not absolutely preclude the supposition of a common original agriculture. The cultivation of rice among the Indians, that of wheat and spelt among the Greeks, and that of rye and oats among the Germans and Celts, may all be traceable to a common system of original tillage.”12 This last conclusion is forced. Horticulture preceded field culture, as the garden (hortos) preceded the field (ager); and although the latter implies boundaries, the former signifies directly an “inclosed space.” Tillage, however, must have been older than the inclosed garden; the natural order being first, tillage of patches of open alluvial land, second of inclosed spaces or gardens, and third, of the field by means of the plow drawn by animal power. Whether the cultivation of such plants as the pea, bean, turnip, parsnip, beet, squash and melon, one or more of them, preceded the cultivation of the cereals, we have at present no means of knowing. Some of these have [Pg 24]common terms in Greek and Latin; but I am assured by our eminent philologist, Prof. W. D. Whitney, that neither of them has a common term in Greek or Latin and Sanskrit.

Horticulture seems to have originated more in the necessities of the domestic animals than in those of mankind. In the Western hemisphere it commenced with maize. This new era, although not synchronous in the two hemispheres, had immense influence upon the destiny of mankind. There are reasons for believing that it required ages to establish the art of cultivation, and render farinaceous food a principal reliance. Since in America it led to localization and to village life, it tended, especially among the Village Indians, to take the place of fish and game. From the cereals and cultivated plants, moreover, mankind obtained their first impression of the possibility of an abundance of food.

The acquisition of farinaceous food in America and of domestic animals in Asia and Europe, were the means of delivering the advanced tribes, thus provided, from the scourge of cannibalism, which as elsewhere stated, there are reasons for believing was practiced universally throughout the period of savagery upon captured enemies, and, in time of famine, upon friends and kindred. Cannibalism in war, practiced by war parties in the field, survived among the American aborigines, not only in the Lower, but also in the Middle Status of barbarism, as, for example, among the Iroquois and the Aztecs; but the general practice had disappeared. This forcibly illustrates the great importance which is exercised by a permanent increase of food in ameliorating the condition of mankind.

IV. Meat and Milk Subsistence.

The absence of animals adapted to domestication in the Western hemisphere, excepting the llama,13 and the specific differences in the cereals of the two hemispheres exercised an important influence upon the relative advancement of their inhab[Pg 25]itants. While this inequality of endowments was immaterial to mankind in the period of savagery, and not marked in its effects in the Lower Status of barbarism, it made an essential difference with that portion who had attained to the Middle Status. The domestication of animals provided a permanent meat and milk subsistence which tended to differentiate the tribes which possessed them from the mass of other barbarians. In the Western hemisphere, meat was restricted to the precarious supplies of game. This limitation upon an essential species of food was unfavorable to the Village Indians; and doubtless sufficiently explains the inferior size of the brain among them in comparison with that of Indians in the Lower Status of barbarism. In the Eastern hemisphere, the domestication of animals enabled the thrifty and industrious to secure for themselves a permanent supply of animal food, including milk; the healthful and invigorating influence of which upon the race, and especially upon children, was undoubtedly remarkable. It is at least supposable that the Aryan and Semitic families owe their pre-eminent endowments to the great scale upon which, as far back as our knowledge extends, they have identified themselves with the maintenance in numbers of the domestic animals. In fact, they incorporated them, flesh, milk, and muscle into their plan of life.14 No other family of mankind have done this to an equal extent, and the Aryan have done it to a greater extent than the Semitic.

The domestication of animals gradually introduced a new mode of life, the pastoral, upon the plains of the Euphrates and of India, and upon the steppes of Asia; on the confines of one or the other of which the domestication of animals was probably first accomplished. To these areas, their oldest traditions and their histories alike refer them. They were thus drawn to regions which, so far from being the cradle lands of the human race, were areas they would not have occupied as savages, or as barbarians in the Lower Status of barbarism, to [Pg 26]whom forest areas were natural homes. After becoming habituated to pastoral life, it must have been impossible for either of these families to re-enter the forest areas of Western Asia and of Europe with their flocks and herds, without first learning to cultivate some of the cereals with which to subsist the latter at a distance from the grass plains. It seems extremely probable, therefore, as before stated, that the cultivation of the cereals originated in the necessities of the domestic animals, and in connection with these western migrations; and that the use of farinaceous food by these tribes was a consequence of the knowledge thus acquired.

In the Western hemisphere, the aborigines were enabled to advance generally into the Lower Status of barbarism, and a portion of them into the Middle Status, without domestic animals, excepting the llama in Peru, and upon a single cereal, maize, with the adjuncts of the bean, squash, and tobacco, and in some areas, cacao, cotton and pepper. But maize, from its growth in the hill—which favored direct cultivation—from its useableness both green and ripe, and from its abundant yield and nutritive properties, was a richer endowment in aid of early human progress than all other cereals put together. It serves to explain the remarkable progress the American aborigines had made without the domestic animals; the Peruvians having produced bronze, which stands next, and quite near, in the order of time, to the process of smelting iron ore.

V. Unlimited Subsistence through Field Agriculture.

The domestic animals supplementing human muscle with animal power, contributed a new factor of the highest value. In course of time, the production of iron gave the plow with an iron point, and a better spade and axe. Out of these, and the previous horticulture, came field agriculture; and with it, for the first time, unlimited subsistence. The plow drawn by animal power may be regarded as inaugurating a new art. Now, for the first time, came the thought of reducing the forest, and bringing wide fields under cultivation.15 Moreover, [Pg 27]dense populations in limited areas now became possible. Prior to field agriculture it is not probable that half a million people were developed and held together under one government in any part of the earth. If exceptions occurred, they must have resulted from pastoral life on the plains, or from horticulture improved by irrigation, under peculiar and exceptional conditions.

In the course of these pages it will become necessary to speak of the family as it existed in different ethnical periods; its form in one period being sometimes entirely different from its form in another. In Part III these several forms of the family will be treated specially. But as they will be frequently mentioned in the next ensuing Part, they should at least be defined in advance for the information of the reader. They are the following:

I. The Consanguine Family.

It was founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters in a group. Evidence still remains in the oldest of existing systems of Consanguinity, the Malayan, tending to show that this, the first form of the family, was anciently as universal as this system of consanguinity which it created.

II. The Punaluan Family.

Its name is derived from the Hawaiian relationship of Punalua. It was founded upon the intermarriage of several brothers to each other’s wives in a group; and of several sisters to each other’s husbands in a group. But the term brother, as here used, included the first, second, third, and even more remote male cousins, all of whom were considered brothers to each other, as we consider own brothers; and the term sister included the first, second, third, and even more remote female cousins, all of whom were sisters to each other, the same as own sisters. This form of the family supervened upon the consanguine. It created the Turanian and Ganowánian systems of consanguinity. Both this and the previous form belong to the period of savagery.

III. The Syndyasmian Family.

The term is from συνδυάζω, to pair, συνδυασμός, a join[Pg 28]ing two together. It was founded upon the pairing of a male with a female under the form of marriage, but without an exclusive cohabitation. It was the germ of the Monogamian Family. Divorce or separation was at the option of both husband and wife. This form of the family failed to create a system of consanguinity.

IV. The Patriarchal Family.

It was founded upon the marriage of one man to several wives. The term is here used in a restricted sense to define the special family of the Hebrew pastoral tribes, the chiefs and principal men of which practiced polygamy. It exercised but little influence upon human affairs for want of universality.

V. The Monogamian Family.

It was founded upon the marriage of one man with one woman, with an exclusive cohabitation; the latter constituting the essential element of the institution. It is pre-eminently the family of civilized society, and was therefore essentially modern. This form of the family also created an independent system of consanguinity.

Evidence will elsewhere be produced tending to show both the existence and the general prevalence of these several forms of the family at different stages of human progress.

[Pg 29]

Retrospect on the Lines of Human Progress.—Principal Contributions of Modern Civilization.—Of Ancient Civilization.—Of Later Period of Barbarism.—Of Middle Period.—Of Older Period.—Of Period of Savagery.—Humble Condition of Primitive Man.—Human Progress in a Geometrical Ratio.—Relative Length of Ethnical Periods.—Appearance of Semitic and Aryan Families.

It is well to obtain an impression of the relative amount and of the ratio of human progress in the several ethnical periods named, by grouping together the achievements of each, and comparing them with each other as distinct classes of facts. This will also enable us to form some conception of the relative duration of these periods. To render it forcible, such a survey must be general, and in the nature of a recapitulation. It should, likewise, be limited to the principal works of each period.

Before man could have attained to the civilized state it was necessary that he should gain all the elements of civilization. This implies an amazing change of condition, first from a primitive savage to a barbarian of the lowest type, and then from the latter to a Greek of the Homeric period, or to a Hebrew of the time of Abraham. The progressive development which history records in the period of civilization was not less true of man in each of the previous periods.

By re-ascending along the several lines of human progress toward the primitive ages of man’s existence, and removing one by one his principal institutions, inventions and discoveries,[Pg 30] in the order in which they have appeared, the advance made in each period will be realized.

The principal contributions of modern civilization are the electric telegraph; coal gas; the spinning-jenny; and the power loom; the steam-engine with its numerous dependent machines, including the locomotive, the railway, and the steam-ship; the telescope; the discovery of the ponderability of the atmosphere and of the solar system; the art of printing; the canal lock; the mariner’s compass; and gunpowder. The mass of other inventions, such, for example, as the Ericsson propeller, will be found to hinge upon one or another of those named as antecedents: but there are exceptions, as photography, and numerous machines not necessary to be noticed. With these also should be removed the modern sciences; religious freedom and the common schools; representative democracy; constitutional monarchy with parliaments; the feudal kingdom; modern privileged classes; international, statute and common law.

Modern civilization recovered and absorbed whatever was valuable in the ancient civilizations; and although its contributions to the sum of human knowledge have been vast, brilliant and rapid, they are far from being so disproportionately large as to overshadow the ancient civilizations and sink them into comparative insignificance.

Passing over the mediæval period, which gave Gothic architecture, feudal aristocracy with hereditary titles of rank, and a hierarchy under the headship of a pope, we enter the Roman and Grecian civilizations. They will be found deficient in great inventions and discoveries, but distinguished in art, in philosophy, and in organic institutions. The principal contributions of these civilizations were imperial and kingly government; the civil law; Christianity; mixed aristocratical and democratical government, with a senate and consuls; democratical government with a council and popular assembly; the organization of armies into cavalry and infantry, with military discipline; the establishment of navies, with the practice of naval warfare; the formation of great cities, with municipal law; commerce on the seas; the coinage of money; and the[Pg 31] state, founded upon territory and upon property; and among inventions, fire-baked brick, the crane,16 the water-wheel for driving mills, the bridge, aqueduct and sewer; lead pipe used as a conduit with the faucet; the arch, the balance scale; the arts and sciences of the classical period, with their results, including the orders of architecture; the Arabic numerals, and alphabetic writing.

These civilizations drew largely from, as well as rested upon, the inventions and discoveries and the institutions of the previous period of barbarism. The achievements of civilized man, although very great and remarkable, are nevertheless very far from sufficient to eclipse the works of man as a barbarian. As such he had wrought out and possessed all the elements of civilization, excepting alphabetic writing. His achievements as a barbarian should be considered in their relation to the sum of human progress; and we may be forced to admit that they transcend, in relative importance, all his subsequent works.

The use of writing, or its equivalent in hieroglyphics upon stone, affords a fair test of the commencement of civilization.17 Without literary records neither history nor civilization can properly be said to exist. The production of the Homeric poems, whether transmitted orally or committed to writing at the time, fixes with sufficient nearness the introduction of civilization among the Greeks. These poems, ever fresh and ever marvelous, possess an ethnological value which enhances immensely their other excellences. This is especially true of the Iliad, which contains the oldest as well as the most circumstantial account now existing of the progress of mankind up to the time of its composition. Strabo compliments Homer as [Pg 32]the father of geographical science;18 but the great poet has given, perhaps without design, what was infinitely more important to succeeding generations: namely, a remarkably full exposition of the arts, usages, inventions and discoveries, and mode of life of the ancient Greeks. It presents our first comprehensive picture of Aryan society while still in barbarism, showing the progress then made, and of what particulars it consisted. Through these poems we are enabled confidently to state that certain things were known among the Greeks before they entered upon civilization. They also cast an illuminating light far backward into the period of barbarism.

Using the Homeric poems as a guide and continuing the retrospect into the Later Period of barbarism, let us strike off from the knowledge and experience of mankind the invention of poetry; the ancient mythology in its elaborate form, with the Olympian divinities; temple architecture; the knowledge of the cereals, excepting maize and cultivated plants, with field agriculture;19 cities encompassed with walls of stone, with battlements, towers and gates; the use of marble in architecture;20 ship-building with plank and probably with the use of nails;21 the wagon and the chariot;22 metallic plate armor;23 the copper-[Pg 33]pointed spear and embossed shield;24 the iron sword;25 the manufacture of wine, probably;26 the mechanical powers excepting the screw; the potter’s wheel and the hand-mill for grinding grain;27 woven fabrics of linen and woolen from the loom;28 the iron axe and spade;29 the iron hatchet and adz;30 the hammer and the anvil;31 the bellows and the forge;32 and the side-hill furnace for smelting iron ore, together with a knowledge of iron. Along with the above-named acquisitions must be removed the monogamian family; military democracies of the heroic age; the later phase of the organization into gentes phratries and tribes; the agora or popular assembly, probably; a knowledge of individual property in houses and lands; and the advanced form of municipal life in fortified cities. When this has been done, the highest class of barbarians will have surrendered the principal portion of their marvelous works, together with the mental and moral growth thereby acquired.

From this point backward through the Middle Period of barbarism the indications become less distinct, and the relative order in which institutions, inventions and discoveries appeared is less clear; but we are not without some knowledge to guide our steps even in these distant ages of the Aryan family. For reasons previously stated, other families, besides the Aryan, may now be resorted to for the desired information.

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Entering next the Middle Period, let us, in like manner, strike out of human experience the process of making bronze; flocks and herds of domestic animals;33 communal houses with walls of adobe, and of dressed stone laid in courses with mortar of lime and sand; cyclopean walls; lake dwellings constructed on piles; the knowledge of native metals,34 with the use of charcoal and the crucible for melting them; the copper axe and chisel; the shuttle and embryo loom; cultivation by irrigation, causeways, reservoirs and irrigating canals; paved roads; osier suspension bridges; personal gods, with a priesthood distinguished by a costume, and organized in a hierarchy; human sacrifices; military democracies of the Aztec type; woven fabrics of cotton and other vegetable fibre in the Western hemisphere, and of wool and flax in the Eastern; ornamental pottery; the sword of wood, with the edges pointed with flints; polished flint and stone implements; a knowledge of cotton and flax; and the domestic animals.

The aggregate of achievements in this period was less than in that which followed; but in its relations to the sum of human progress it was very great. It includes the domestication of animals in the Eastern hemisphere, which introduced in time a permanent meat and milk subsistence, and ultimately field agriculture; and also inaugurated those experiments with the native metals which resulted in producing bronze,35 as well [Pg 35]as prepared the way for the higher process of smelting iron ore. In the Western hemisphere it was signalized by the discovery and treatment of the native metals, which resulted in the production independently of bronze; by the introduction of irrigation in the cultivation of maize and plants, and by the use of adobe-brick and stone in the construction of great joint tenement houses in the nature of fortresses.

Resuming the retrospect and entering the Older Period of barbarism, let us next remove from human acquisitions the confederacy, based upon gentes, phratries and tribes under the government of a council of chiefs which gave a more highly organized state of society than before that had been known. Also the discovery and cultivation of maize and the bean, squash and tobacco, in the Western hemisphere, together with a knowledge of farinaceous food; finger weaving with warp and woof; the kilt, moccasin and leggin of tanned deer-skin; the blow-gun for bird shooting; the village stockade for defense; tribal games; element worship, with a vague recognition of the Great Spirit; cannibalism in time of war; and lastly, the art of pottery.

As we ascend in the order of time and of development, but descend in the scale of human advancement, inventions become more simple, and more direct in their relations to primary wants; and institutions approach nearer and nearer to the elementary form of a gens composed of consanguinei, under a chief of their own election, and to the tribe composed of kindred gentes, under the government of a council of chiefs. The condition of Asiatic and European tribes in this period, (for the

[Pg 36]

Aryan and Semitic families did not probably then exist), is substantially lost. It is represented by the remains of ancient art between the invention of pottery and the domestication of animals; and includes the people who formed the shell-heaps on the coast of the Baltic, who seem to have domesticated the dog, but no other animals.

In any just estimate of the magnitude of the achievements of mankind in the three sub-periods of barbarism, they must be regarded as immense, not only in number and in intrinsic value, but also in the mental and moral development by which they were necessarily accompanied.

Ascending next through the prolonged period of savagery, let us strike out of human knowledge the organization into gentes, phratries and tribes; the syndyasmian family; the worship of the elements in its lowest form; syllabical language; the bow and arrow; stone and bone implements; cane and splint baskets; skin garments; the punaluan family; the organization upon the basis of sex; the village, consisting of clustered houses; boat craft, including the bark and dug-out canoe; the spear pointed with flint, and the war club; flint implements of the ruder kinds; the consanguine family; monosyllabical language; fetishism; cannibalism; a knowledge of the use of fire; and lastly, gesture language.36 When this work [Pg 37]of elimination has been done in the order in which these several acquisitions were made, we shall have approached quite near the infantile period of man’s existence, when mankind were learning the use of fire, which rendered possible a fish subsistence and a change of habitat, and when they were attempting the formation of articulate language. In a condition so absolutely primitive, man is seen to be not only a child in the scale of humanity, but possessed of a brain into which not a thought or conception expressed by these institutions, inventions and discoveries had penetrated;—in a word, he stands at the bottom of the scale, but potentially all he has since become.

With the production of inventions and discoveries, and with the growth of institutions, the human mind necessarily grew and expanded; and we are led to recognize a gradual enlargement of the brain itself, particularly of the cerebral portion. The slowness of this mental growth was inevitable, in the period of savagery, from the extreme difficulty of compassing the simplest invention out of nothing, or with next to nothing to assist mental effort; and of discovering any substance or force in nature available in such a rude condition of life. It was not less difficult to organize the simplest form of society out of such savage and intractable materials. The first inventions and the first social organizations were doubtless the hardest to achieve, and were consequently separated from each other by the longest intervals of time. A striking illustration is found in the successive forms of the family. In this law of progress, which works in a geometrical ratio, a sufficient ex[Pg 38]planation is found of the prolonged duration of the period of savagery.

That the early condition of mankind was substantially as above indicated is not exclusively a recent, nor even a modern opinion. Some of the ancient poets and philosophers recognized the fact, that mankind commenced in a state of extreme rudeness from which they had risen by slow and successive steps. They also perceived that the course of their development was registered by a progressive series of inventions and discoveries, but without noticing as fully the more conclusive argument from social institutions.

The important question of the ratio of this progress, which has a direct bearing upon the relative length of the several ethnical periods, now presents itself. Human progress, from first to last, has been in a ratio not rigorously but essentially geometrical. This is plain on the face of the facts; and it could not, theoretically, have occurred in any other way. Every item of absolute knowledge gained became a factor in further acquisitions, until the present complexity of knowledge was attained. Consequently, while progress was slowest in time in the first period, and most rapid in the last, the relative amount may have been greatest in the first, when the achievements of either period are considered in their relations to the sum. It may be suggested, as not improbable of ultimate recognition, that the progress of mankind in the period of savagery, in its relations to the sum of human progress, was greater in degree than it was afterwards in the three sub-periods of barbarism; and that the progress made in the whole period of barbarism was, in like manner, greater in degree than it has been since in the entire period of civilization.

What may have been the relative length of these ethnical periods is also a fair subject of speculation. An exact measure is not attainable, but an approximation may be attempted. On the theory of geometrical progression, the period of savagery was necessarily longer in duration than the period of barbarism, as the latter was longer than the period of civilization. If we assume a hundred thousand years as the measure of man’s existence upon the earth in order to find the relative length of[Pg 39] each period,—and for this purpose, it may have been longer or shorter,—it will be seen at once that at least sixty thousand years must be assigned to the period of savagery. Three-fifths of the life of the most advanced portion of the human race, on this apportionment, were spent in savagery. Of the remaining years, twenty thousand, or one-fifth, should be assigned to the Older Period of barbarism. For the Middle and Later Periods there remain fifteen thousand years, leaving five thousand, more or less, for the period of civilization.

The relative length of the period of savagery is more likely under than over stated. Without discussing the principles on which this apportionment is made, it may be remarked that in addition to the argument from the geometrical progression under which human development of necessity has occurred, a graduated scale of progress has been universally observed in remains of ancient art, and this will be found equally true of institutions. It is a conclusion of deep importance in ethnology that the experience of mankind in savagery was longer in duration than all their subsequent experience, and that the period of civilization covers but a fragment of the life of the race.

Two families of mankind, the Aryan and Semitic, by the commingling of diverse stocks, superiority of subsistence or advantage of position, and possibly from all together, were the first to emerge from barbarism. They were substantially the founders of civilization.37 But their existence as distinct families was undoubtedly, in a comparative sense, a late event. Their progenitors are lost in the undistinguishable mass of earlier barbarians. The first ascertained appearance of the Aryan family was in connection with the domestic animals, at which time they were one people in language and nationality. It is not probable that the Aryan or Semitic families were developed into individuality earlier than the commencement of the Middle Period of barbarism, and that their differentiation from the mass of barbarians occurred through their acquisition of the domestic animals.

The most advanced portion of the human race were halted, so to express it, at certain stages of progress, until some great [Pg 40]invention or discovery, such as the domestication of animals or the smelting of iron ore, gave a new and powerful impulse forward. While thus restrained, the ruder tribes, continually advancing, approached in different degrees of nearness to the same status; for wherever a continental connection existed, all the tribes must have shared in some measure in each other’s progress. All great inventions and discoveries propagate themselves; but the inferior tribes must have appreciated their value before they could appropriate them. In the continental areas certain tribes would lead; but the leadership would be apt to shift a number of times in the course of an ethnical period. The destruction of the ethnic bond and life of particular tribes, followed by their decadence, must have arrested for a time, in many instances and in all periods, the upward flow of human progress. From the Middle Period of barbarism, however, the Aryan and Semitic families seem fairly to represent the central threads of this progress, which in the period of civilization has been gradually assumed by the Aryan family alone.

The truth of this general position may be illustrated by the condition of the American aborigines at the epoch of their discovery. They commenced their career on the American continent in savagery; and, although possessed of inferior mental endowments, the body of them had emerged from savagery and attained to the Lower Status of barbarism; whilst a portion of them, the Village Indians of North and South America, had risen to the Middle Status. They had domesticated the llama, the only quadruped native to the continent which promised usefulness in the domesticated state, and had produced bronze by alloying copper with tin. They needed but one invention, and that the greatest, the art of smelting iron ore, to advance themselves into the Upper Status. Considering the absence of all connection with the most advanced portion of the human family in the Eastern hemisphere, their progress in unaided self-development from the savage state must be accounted remarkable. While the Asiatic and European were waiting patiently for the boon of iron tools, the American Indian was drawing near to the possession of bronze, which stands next to iron in the order of time. During this[Pg 41] period of arrested progress in the Eastern hemisphere, the American aborigines advanced themselves, not to the status in which they were found, but sufficiently near to reach it while the former were passing through the last period of barbarism, and the first four thousand years of civilization. It gives us a measure of the length of time they had fallen behind the Aryan family in the race of progress: namely the duration of the Later Period of barbarism, to which the years of civilization must be added. The Aryan and Ganowánian families together exemplify the entire experience of man in five ethnical periods, with the exception of the first portion of the Later Period of savagery.

Savagery was the formative period of the human race. Commencing at zero in knowledge and experience, without fire, without articulate speech and without arts, our savage progenitors fought the great battle, first for existence, and then for progress, until they secured safety from ferocious animals, and permanent subsistence. Out of these efforts there came gradually a developed speech, and the occupation of the entire surface of the earth. But society from its rudeness was still incapable of organization in numbers. When the most advanced portion of mankind had emerged from savagery, and entered the Lower Status of barbarism, the entire population of the earth must have been small in numbers. The earliest inventions were the most difficult to accomplish because of the feebleness of the power of abstract reasoning. Each substantial item of knowledge gained would form a basis for further advancement; but this must have been nearly imperceptible for ages upon ages, the obstacles to progress nearly balancing the energies arrayed against them. The achievements of savagery are not particularly remarkable in character, but they represent an amazing amount of persistent labor with feeble means continued through long periods of time before reaching a fair degree of completeness. The bow and arrow afford an illustration.

The inferiority of savage man in the mental and moral scale, undeveloped, inexperienced, and held down by his low animal appetites and passions, though reluctantly recognized,[Pg 42] is, nevertheless, substantially demonstrated by the remains of ancient art in flint, stone and bone implements, by his cave life in certain areas, and by his osteological remains. It is still further illustrated by the present condition of tribes of savages in a low state of development, left in isolated sections of the earth as monuments of the past. And yet to this great period of savagery belongs the formation of articulate language and its advancement to the syllabical stage, the establishment of two forms of the family, and possibly a third, and the organization into gentes which gave the first form of society worthy of the name. All these conclusions are involved in the proposition, stated at the outset, that mankind commenced their career at the bottom of the scale; which “modern science claims to be proving by the most careful and exhaustive study of man and his works.”38

In like manner, the great period of barbarism was signalized by four events of pre-eminent importance: namely, the domestication of animals, the discovery of the cereals, the use of stone in architecture, and the invention of the process of smelting iron ore. Commencing probably with the dog as a companion in the hunt, followed at a later period by the capture of the young of other animals and rearing them, not unlikely, from the merest freak of fancy, it required time and experience to discover the utility of each, to find means of raising them in numbers and to learn the forbearance necessary to spare them in the face of hunger. Could the special history of the domestication of each animal be known, it would exhibit a series of marvelous facts. The experiment carried, locked up in its doubtful chances, much of the subsequent destiny of mankind. Secondly, the acquisition of farinaceous food by cultivation must be regarded as one of the greatest events in human experience. It was less essential in the Eastern hemisphere, after the domestication of animals, than in the Western, where it became the instrument of advancing a large portion of the American aborigines into the Lower, and another portion into the Middle Status of barbarism. If mankind had never advanced beyond this last condition, they had the means of a comparatively [Pg 43]easy and enjoyable life. Thirdly, with the use of adobe-brick and of stone in house building, an improved mode of life was introduced, eminently calculated to stimulate the mental capacities, and to create the habit of industry,—the fertile source of improvements. But, in its relations to the high career of mankind, the fourth invention must be held the greatest event in human experience, preparatory to civilization. When the barbarian, advancing step by step, had discovered the native metals, and learned to melt them in the crucible and to cast them in moulds; when he had alloyed native copper with tin and produced bronze; and, finally, when by a still greater effort of thought he had invented the furnace, and produced iron from the ore, nine-tenths of the battle for civilization was gained.39 Furnished with iron tools, capable of holding both an edge and a point, mankind were certain of attaining to civilization. The production of iron was the event of events in human experience, without a parallel, and without an equal, beside which all other inventions and discoveries were inconsiderable, or at least subordinate. Out of it came the metallic hammer and anvil, the axe and the chisel, the plow with an iron point, the iron sword; in fine, the basis of civilization, which may be said to rest upon this metal. The want of iron tools arrested the progress of mankind in barbarism. There they would have remained to the present hour, had they failed to bridge the chasm. It seems probable that the conception and the process of smelting iron ore came but once to man. It would be a singular satisfaction could it be known to what tribe and family we are indebted for this knowledge, and with it for civilization.

[Pg 44]

The Semitic family were then in advance of the Aryan, and in the lead of the human race. They gave the phonetic alphabet to mankind and it seems not unlikely the knowledge of iron as well.

At the epoch of the Homeric poems, the Grecian tribes had made immense material progress. All the common metals were known, including the process of smelting ores, and possibly of changing iron into steel; the principal cereals had been discovered, together with the art of cultivation, and the use of the plow in field agriculture; the dog, the horse, the ass, the cow, the sow, the sheep and the goat had been domesticated and reared in flocks and herds, as has been shown. Architecture had produced a house constructed of durable materials, containing separate apartments,40 and consisting of more than a single story;41 ship building, weapons, textile fabrics, the manufacture of wine from the grape, the cultivation of the apple, the pear, the olive and the fig,42 together with comfortable apparel, and useful implements and utensils, had been produced and brought into human use.43 But the early history of man[Pg 45]kind was lost in the oblivion of the ages that had passed away. Tradition ascended to an anterior barbarism through which it was unable to penetrate. Language had attained such development that poetry of the highest structural form was about to embody the inspirations of genius. The closing period of barbarism brought this portion of the human family to the threshold of civilization, animated by the great attainments of the past, grown hardy and intelligent in the school of experience, and with the undisciplined imagination in the full splendor of its creative powers. Barbarism ends with the production of grand barbarians. Whilst the condition of society in this period was understood by the later Greek and Roman writers, the anterior state, with its distinctive culture and experience, was as deeply concealed from their apprehension as from our own; except as occupying a nearer stand-point in time, they saw more distinctly the relations of the present with the past. It was evident to them that a certain sequence existed in the series of inventions and discoveries, as well as a certain order of development of institutions, through which mankind had advanced themselves from the status of savagery to that of the Homeric age; but the immense interval of time between the two conditions does not appear to have been made a subject even of speculative consideration.

[Pg 46]
[Pg 47]

[Pg 48]
[Pg 49]

Australian Classes.—Organized upon Sex.—Archaic Character of the Organization.—Australian Gentes.—The Eight Classes.—Rule of Marriage.—Descent in the Female Line.—Stupendous Conjugal System.—Two Male and Two Female Classes in each Gens.—Innovations upon the Classes.—Gens still Rudimentary.

In treating the subject of the growth of the idea of government, the organization into gentes on the basis of kin naturally suggests itself as the archaic frame-work of ancient society; but there is a still older and more archaic organization, that into classes on the basis of sex, which first demands attention. It will not be taken up because of its novelty in human experience, but for the higher reason that it seems to contain the germinal principle of the gens. If this inference is warranted by the facts it will give to this organization into male and female classes, now found in full vitality among the Australian aborigines, an ancient prevalence as wide spread, in the tribes of mankind, as the original organization into gentes.

It will soon be perceived that low down in savagery community of husbands and wives, within prescribed limits, was the central principle of the social system. The marital rights and privileges, (jura conjugialia,44) established in the group, grew into a stupendous scheme, which became the organic principle on which society was constituted. From the nature of the case these rights and privileges rooted themselves so [Pg 50]firmly that emancipation from them was slowly accomplished through movements which resulted in unconscious reformations. Accordingly it will be found that the family has advanced from a lower to a higher form as the range of this conjugal system was gradually reduced. The family, commencing in the consanguine, founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters in a group, passed into the second form, the punaluan, under a social system akin to the Australian classes, which broke up the first species of marriage by substituting groups of brothers who shared their wives in common, and groups of sisters who shared their husbands in common,—marriage in both cases being in the group. The organization into classes upon sex, and the subsequent higher organization into gentes upon kin, must be regarded as the results of great social movements worked out unconsciously through natural selection. For these reasons the Australian system, about to be presented, deserves attentive consideration, although it carries us into a low grade of human life. It represents a striking phase of the ancient social history of our race.

The organization into classes on the basis of sex, and the inchoate organization into gentes on the basis of kin, now prevail among that portion of the Australian aborigines who speak the Kamilaroi language. They inhabit the Darling River district north of Sydney. Both organizations are also found in other Australian tribes, and so wide spread as to render probable their ancient universal prevalence among them. It is evident from internal considerations that the male and female classes are older than the gentes: firstly, because the gentile organization is higher than that into classes; and secondly, because the former, among the Kamilaroi, are in process of overthrowing the latter. The class in its male and female branches is the unit of their social system, which place rightfully belongs to the gens when in full development. A remarkable combination of facts is thus presented; namely, a sexual and a gentile organization, both in existence at the same time, the former holding the central position, and the latter inchoate but advancing to completeness through encroachments upon the former.

[Pg 51]

This organization upon sex has not been found, as yet, in any tribes of savages out of Australia, but the slow development of these islanders in their secluded habitat, and the more archaic character of the organization upon sex than that into gentes, suggests the conjecture, that the former may have been universal in such branches of the human family as afterwards possessed the gentile organization. Although the class system, when traced out fully, involves some bewildering complications, it will reward the attention necessary for its mastery. As a curious social organization among savages it possesses but little interest; but as the most primitive form of society hitherto discovered, and more especially with the contingent probability that the remote progenitors of our own Aryan family were once similarly organized, it becomes important, and may prove instructive.

The Australians rank below the Polynesians, and far below the American aborigines. They stand below the African negro and near the bottom of the scale. Their social institutions, therefore, must approach the primitive type as nearly as those of any existing people.45

Inasmuch as the gens is made the subject of the next succeeding chapter, it will be introduced in this without discussion, and only for the necessary explanation of the classes.

The Kamilaroi are divided into six gentes, standing with reference to the right of marriage, in two divisions, as follows:

I. 1. Iguana, (Duli).  2. Kangaroo, (Murriira).46  3. Opossum, (Mute).

II. 4. Emu, (Dinoun).  5. Bandicoot, (Bilba).  6. Black-snake,  (Nurai).

[Pg 52]

Originally the first three gentes were not allowed to intermarry with each other, because they were subdivisions of an original gens; but they were permitted to marry into either of the other gentes, and vice versâ. This ancient rule is now modified, among the Kamilaroi, in certain definite particulars, but not carried to the full extent of permitting marriage into any gens but that of the individual. Neither males nor females can marry into their own gens, the prohibition being absolute. Descent is in the female line, which assigns the children to the gens of their mother. These are among the essential characteristics of the gens, wherever this institution is found in its archaic form. In its external features, therefore, it is perfect and complete among the Kamilaroi.

But there is a further and older division of the people into eight classes, four of which are composed exclusively of males, and four exclusively of females. It is accompanied with a regulation in respect to marriage and descent which obstructs the gens, and demonstrates that the latter organization is in process of development into its true logical form. One only of the four classes of males can marry into one only of the four classes of females. In the sequel it will be found that all the males of one class are, theoretically, the husbands of all the females of the class into which they are allowed to marry. Moreover, if the male belongs to one of the first three gentes the female must belong to one of the opposite three. Marriage is thus restricted to a portion of the males of one gens, with a portion of the females of another gens, which is opposed to the true theory of the gentile institution, for all the members of each gens should be allowed to marry persons of the opposite sex in all the gentes except their own.

The classes are the following:

All the Ippais, of whatever gens, are brothers to each other. Theoretically, they are descended from a supposed common[Pg 53] female ancestor. All the Kumbos are the same; and so are all the Murris and Kubbis, respectively, and for the same reason. In like manner, all the Ippatas, of whatever gens, are sisters to each other, and for the same reason; all the Butas are the same, and so are all the Matas and Kapotas, respectively. In the next place, all the Ippais and Ippatas are brothers and sisters to each other, whether children of the same mother or collateral consanguinei, and in whatever gens they are found. The Kumbos and Butas are brothers and sisters; and so are the Murris and Matas, and the Kubbis and Kapotas respectively. If an Ippai and Ippata meet, who have never seen each other before, they address each other as brother and sister. The Kamilaroi, therefore, are organized into four great primary groups of brothers and sisters, each group being composed of a male and a female branch; but intermingled over the areas of their occupation. Founded upon sex, instead of kin, it is older than the gentes, and more archaic, it may be repeated, than any form of society hitherto known.

The classes embody the germ of the gens, but fall short of its realization. In reality the Ippais and Ippatas form a single class in two branches, and since they cannot intermarry they would form the basis of a gens but for the reason that they fall under two names, each of which is integral for certain purposes, and for the further reason that their children take different names from their own. The division into classes is upon sex instead of kin, and has its primary relation to a rule of marriage as remarkable as it is original.

Since brothers and sisters are not allowed to intermarry, the classes stand to each other in a different order with respect to the right of marriage, or rather, of cohabitation, which better expresses the relation. Such was the original law, thus:

This exclusive scheme has been modified in one particular, as will hereafter be shown: namely, in giving to each class of males the right of intermarriage with one additional class of[Pg 54] females. In this fact, evidence of the encroachment of the gens upon the class is furnished, tending to the overthrow of the latter.

It is thus seen that each male in the selection of a wife, is limited to one-fourth part of all the Kamilaroi females. This, however, is not the remarkable part of the system. Theoretically every Kapota is the wife of every Ippai; every Mata is the wife of every Kumbo; every Buta is the wife of every Murri; and every Ippata of every Kubbi. Upon this material point the information is specific. Mr. Fison, before mentioned, after observing that Mr. Lance had “had much intercourse with the natives, having lived among them many years on frontier cattle-stations on the Darling River, and in the trans-Darling country,” quotes from his letter as follows: “If a Kubbi meets a stranger Ippata, they address each other as Goleer = Spouse.... A Kubbi thus meeting an Ippata, even though she were of another tribe, would treat her as his wife, and his right to do so would be recognized by her tribe.” Every Ippata within the immediate circle of his acquaintance would consequently be his wife as well.

Here we find, in a direct and definite form, punaluan marriage in a group of unusual extent; but broken up into lesser groups, each a miniature representation of the whole, united for habitation and subsistence. Under the conjugal system thus brought to light, one-quarter of all the males are united in marriage with one-quarter of all the females of the Kamilaroi tribes. This picture of savage life need not revolt the mind, because to them it was a form of the marriage relation, and therefore devoid of impropriety. It is but an extended form of polygyny and polyandry, which, within narrower limits, have prevailed universally among savage tribes. The evidence of the fact still exists, in unmistakable form, in their systems of consanguinity and affinity, which have outlived the customs and usages in which they originated. It will be noticed that this scheme of intermarriage is but a step from promiscuity, because it is tantamount to that with the addition of a method. Still, as it is made a subject of organic regulation, it is far removed from general promiscuity. Moreover, it reveals an ex[Pg 55]isting state of marriage and of the family of which no adequate conception could have been formed apart from the facts. It affords the first direct evidence of a state of society which had previously been deduced, as extremely probable, from systems of consanguinity and affinity.47

Whilst the children remained in the gens of their mother, they passed into another class, in the same gens, different from that of either parent. This will be made apparent by the following table:

If these descents are followed out it will be found that, in the female line, Kapota is the mother of Mata, and Mata in turn is the mother of Kapota; so Ippata is the mother of Buta, and the latter in turn is the mother of Ippata. It is the same with the male classes; but since descent is in the female line, the Kamilaroi tribes derive themselves from two supposed female ancestors, which laid the foundation for two original gentes. By tracing these descents still further it will be found that the blood of each class passes through all the classes.

Although each individual bears one of the class names above given, it will be understood that each has in addition the single personal name, which is common among savage as well as barbarous tribes. The more closely this organization upon sex is scrutinized, the more remarkable it seems as the work of savages. When once established, and after that transmitted through a few generations, it would hold society with such power as to become difficult of displacement. It would require a similar and higher system, and centuries of time, to accomplish this result; particularly if the range of the conjugal system would thereby be abridged.

The gentile organization supervened naturally upon the classes as a higher organization, by simply enfolding them unchanged. [Pg 56]That it was subsequent in point of time, is shown by the relations of the two systems, by the inchoate condition of the gentes, by the impaired condition of the classes through encroachments by the gens, and by the fact that the class is still the unit of organization. These conclusions will be made apparent in the sequel.

From the preceding statements the composition of the gentes will be understood when placed in their relations to the classes. The latter are in pairs of brothers and sisters derived from each other; and the gentes themselves, through the classes, are in pairs, as follows:

The connection of children with a particular gens is proven by the law of marriage. Thus, Iguana-Mata must marry Kumbo; her children are Kubbi and Kapota, and necessarily Iguana in gens, because descent is in the female line. Iguana-Kapota must marry Ippai; her children are Murri and Mata, and also Iguana in gens, for the same reason. In like manner Emu-Buta must marry Murri; her children are Ippai and Ippata, and of the Emu gens. So Emu-Ippata must marry Kubbi; her children are Kumbo and Buta, and also of the Emu gens. In this manner the gens is maintained by keeping in its membership the children of all its female members. The same is true in all respects of each of the remaining gentes. It will be noticed that each gens is made up, theoretically, of the descendants of two supposed female ancestors, and contains four of the eight classes. It seems probable that originally there were but two male, and two female classes, which were set opposite to each other in respect to the right of marriage; and that the four afterward subdivided into eight. The[Pg 57] classes as an anterior organization were evidently arranged within the gentes, and not formed by the subdivision of the latter.

Moreover, since the Iguana, Kangaroo and Opossum gentes are found to be counterparts of each other, in the classes they contain, it follows that they are subdivisions of an original gens. Precisely the same is true of Emu, Bandicoot and Blacksnake, in both particulars; thus reducing the six to two original gentes, with the right in each to marry into the other, but not into itself. It is confirmed by the fact that the members of the first three gentes could not originally intermarry; neither could the members of the last three. The reason which prevented intermarriage in the gens, when the three were one, would follow the subdivisions because they were of the same descent although under different gentile names. Exactly the same thing is found among the Seneca-Iroquois, as will hereafter be shown.

Since marriage is restricted to particular classes, when there were but two gentes, one-half of all the females of one were, theoretically, the wives of one-half of all the males of the other. After their subdivision into six the benefit of marrying out of the gens, which was the chief advantage of the institution, was arrested, if not neutralized, by the presence of the classes together with the restrictions mentioned. It resulted in continuous in-and-in marriages beyond the immediate degree of brother and sister. If the gens could have eradicated the classes this evil would, in a great measure, have been removed.48

[Pg 58]

The organization into classes seems to have been directed to the single object of breaking up the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, which affords a probable explanation of the origin of the system. But since it did not look beyond this special abomination it retained a conjugal system nearly as objectionable, as well as cast it in a permanent form.

It remains to notice an innovation upon the original constitution of the classes, and in favor of the gens, which reveals a movement, still pending, in the direction of the true ideal of the gens. It is shown in two particulars: firstly, in allowing each triad of gentes to intermarry with each other, to a limited extent; and secondly, to marry into classes not before permitted. Thus, Iguana-Murri can now marry Mata in the Kangaroo gens, his collateral sister, whereas originally he was restricted to Buta in the opposite three. So Iguana-Kubbi can now marry Kapota, his collateral sister. Emu-Kumbo can now marry Buta, and Emu-Ippai can marry Ippata in the Blacksnake gens, contrary to original limitations. Each class of males in each triad of gentes seems now to be allowed one additional class of females in the two remaining gentes of the same triad, from which they were before excluded. The memoranda sent by Mr. Fison, however, do not show a change to the full extent here indicated.49

This innovation would plainly have been a retrograde movement but that it tended to break down the classes. The line of progress among the Kamilaroi, so far as any is observable, was from classes into gentes, followed by a tendency to make the gens instead of the class the unit of the social organism. In this movement the overshadowing system of cohabitation was the resisting element. Social advancement was impossible [Pg 59]without diminishing its extent, which was equally impossible so long as the classes, with the privileges they conferred, remained in full vitality. The jura conjugialia, which appertained to these classes, were the dead weight upon the Kamilaroi, without emancipation from which they would have remained for additional thousands of years in the same condition, substantially, in which they were found.

An organization somewhat similar is indicated by the punalua of the Hawaiians which will be hereafter explained. Wherever the middle or lower stratum of savagery is uncovered, marriages of entire groups under usages defining the groups, have been discovered either in absolute form, or such traces as to leave little doubt that such marriages were normal throughout this period of man’s history. It is immaterial whether the group, theoretically, was large or small, the necessities of their condition would set a practical limit to the size of the group living together under this custom. If then community of husbands and wives is found to have been a law of the savage state, and, therefore, the essential condition of society in savagery, the inference would be conclusive that our own savage ancestors shared in this common experience of the human race.

In such usages and customs an explanation of the low condition of savages is found. If men in savagery had not been left behind, in isolated portions of the earth, to testify concerning the early condition of mankind in general, it would have been impossible to form any definite conception of what it must have been. An important inference at once arises, namely, that the institutions of mankind have sprung up in a progressive connected series, each of which represents the result of unconscious reformatory movements to extricate society from existing evils. The wear of ages is upon these institutions, for the proper understanding of which they must be studied in this light. It cannot be assumed that the Australian savages are now at the bottom of the scale, for their arts and institutions, humble as they are, show the contrary; neither is there any ground for assuming their degradation from a higher condition, because the facts of human experience afford[Pg 60] no sound basis for such an hypothesis. Cases of physical and mental deterioration in tribes and nations may be admitted, for reasons which are known, but they never interrupted the general progress of mankind. All the facts of human knowledge and experience tend to show that the human race, as a whole, have steadily progressed from a lower to a higher condition. The arts by which savages maintain their lives are remarkably persistent. They are never lost until superseded by others higher in degree. By the practice of these arts, and by the experience gained through social organizations, mankind have advanced under a necessary law of development, although their progress may have been substantially imperceptible for centuries. It was the same with races as with individuals, although tribes and nations have perished through the disruption of their ethnic life.

The Australian classes afford the first, and, so far as the writer is aware, the only case in which we are able to look down into the incipient stages of the organization into gentes, and even through it upon an anterior organization so archaic as that upon sex. It seems to afford a glimpse at society when it verged upon the primitive. Among other tribes the gens seems to have advanced in proportion to the curtailment of the conjugal system. Mankind rise in the scale and the family advances through its successive forms, as these rights sink down before the efforts of society to improve its internal organization.

The Australians might not have effected the overthrow of the classes in thousands of years if they had remained undiscovered; while more favored continental tribes had long before perfected the gens, then advanced it through its successive phases, and at last laid it aside after entering upon civilization. Facts illustrating the rise of successive social organizations, such as that upon sex, and that upon kin are of the highest ethnological value. A knowledge of what they indicate is eminently desirable, if the early history of mankind is to be measurably recovered.

Among the Polynesian tribes the gens was unknown; but traces of a system analogous to the Australian classes appear in[Pg 61] the Hawaiian custom of punalua. Original ideas, absolutely independent of previous knowledge and experience, are necessarily few in number. Were it possible to reduce the sum of human ideas to underived originals, the small numerical result would be startling. Development is the method of human progress.

In the light of these facts some of the excrescences of modern civilization, such as Mormonism, are seen to be relics of the old savagism not yet eradicated from the human brain. We have the same brain, perpetuated by reproduction, which worked in the skulls of barbarians and savages in by-gone ages; and it has come down to us ladened and saturated with the thoughts, aspirations and passions, with which it was busied through the intermediate periods. It is the same brain grown older and larger with the experience of the ages. These outcrops of barbarism are so many revelations of its ancient proclivities. They are explainable as a species of mental atavism.

Out of a few germs of thought, conceived in the early ages, have been evolved all the principal institutions of mankind. Beginning their growth in the period of savagery, fermenting through the period of barbarism, they have continued their advancement through the period of civilization. The evolution of these germs of thought has been guided by a natural logic which formed an essential attribute of the brain itself. So unerringly has this principle performed its functions in all conditions of experience, and in all periods of time, that its results are uniform, coherent and traceable in their courses. These results alone will in time yield convincing proofs of the unity of origin of mankind. The mental history of the human race, which is revealed in institutions, inventions and discoveries, is presumptively the history of a single species, perpetuated through individuals, and developed through experience. Among the original germs of thought, which have exercised the most powerful influence upon the human mind, and upon human destiny, are these which relate to government, to the family, to language, to religion, and to property. They had a definite beginning far back in savagery, and a logical progress, but can have no final consummation, because they are still progressing, and must ever continue to progress.

[Pg 62]

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[Pg 63] 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[Pg 64] 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[Pg 65] 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 [Pg 66]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 [Pg 67]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[Pg 68] 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[Pg 69] 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 to[Pg 70]bacco, 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 [Pg 71]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.

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,[Pg 72] 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 gentiles54 was convened to name his successor. Two candidates, according to their usages, must be voted upon, both of them members of the gens. Each per[Pg 73]son 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.

[Pg 74]

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[Pg 75] 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[Pg 76] 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 [Pg 77]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 [Pg 78]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 [Pg 79]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 [Pg 80]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,[Pg 81] 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 [Pg 82]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 [Pg 83] 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 fre[Pg 84]quently 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, Asi[Pg 85]atic, 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[Pg 86] 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[Pg 87] 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.

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Definition of a Phratry.—Kindred Gentes Reunited in a Higher Organization.—Phratry of the Iroquois Tribes.—Its Composition.—Its Uses and Functions.—Social and Religious.—Illustrations.—The Analogue of the Grecian Phratry; but in its Archaic Form.—Phratries of the Choctas.—Of the Chickasas.—Of the Mohegans.—Of the Thlin-keets.—Their Probable Universality in the Tribes of the American Aborigines.

The phratry (φρατρία) is a brotherhood, as the term imports, and a natural growth from the organization into gentes. It is an organic union or association of two or more gentes of the same tribe for certain common objects. These gentes were usually such as had been formed by the segmentation of an original gens.

Among the Grecian tribes, where the phratric organization was nearly as constant as the gens, it became a very conspicuous institution. Each of the four tribes of the Athenians was organized in three phratries, each composed of thirty gentes, making a total of twelve phratries and three hundred and sixty gentes. Such precise numerical uniformity in the composition of each phratry and tribe could not have resulted from the subdivision of gentes through natural processes. It must have been produced, as Mr. Grote suggests, by legislative procurement in the interests of a symmetrical organization. All the gentes of a tribe, as a rule, were of common descent and bore a common tribal name, consequently it would not require severe constraint to unite the specified number in each phra[Pg 89]try, and to form the specified number of phratries in each tribe. But the phratric organization had a natural foundation in the immediate kinship of certain gentes as subdivisions of an original gens, which undoubtedly was the basis on which the Grecian phratry was originally formed. The incorporation of alien gentes, and transfers by consent or constraint, would explain the numerical adjustment of the gentes and phratries in the Athenian tribes.

The Roman curia was the analogue of the Grecian phratry. It is constantly mentioned by Dionysius as a phratry.70 There were ten gentes in each curia, and ten curiae in each of the three Roman tribes, making thirty curiae and three hundred gentes of the Romans. The functions of the Roman curia are much better known than those of the Grecian phratry, and were higher in degree because the curia entered directly into the functions of government. The assembly of the gentes (comitia curiata) voted by curiae, each having one collective vote. This assembly was the sovereign power of the Roman People down to the time of Servius Tullius.

Among the functions of the Grecian phratry was the observance of special religious rites, the condonation or revenge of the murder of a phrator, and the purification of a murderer after he had escaped the penalty of his crime preparatory to his restoration to society.71 At a later period among the Athenians—for the phratry at Athens survived the institution of political society under Cleisthenes—it looked after the registration of citizens, thus becoming the guardian of descents and of the evidence of citizenship. The wife upon her marriage was enrolled in the phratry of her husband, and the children of the marriage were enrolled in the gens and phratry of their father. It was also the duty of this organization to prosecute the murderer of a phrator in the courts of justice. These are among its known objects and functions in the earlier and later periods. Were all the particulars fully ascertained, the phratry [Pg 90]would probably manifest itself in connection with the common tables, the public games, the funerals of distinguished men, the earliest army organization, and the proceedings of councils, as well as in the observance of religious rites and in the guardianship of social privileges.

The phratry existed in a large number of the tribes of the American aborigines, where it is seen to arise by natural growth, and to stand as the second member of the organic series, as among the Grecian and Latin tribes. It did not possess original governmental functions, as the gens, tribe and confederacy possessed them; but it was endowed with certain useful powers in the social system, from the necessity for some organization larger than a gens and smaller than a tribe, and especially when the tribe was large. The same institution in essential features and in character, it presents the organization in its archaic form and with its archaic functions. A knowledge of the Indian phratry is necessary to an intelligent understanding of the Grecian and the Roman.

The eight gentes of the Seneca-Iroquois tribe were reintegrated in two phratries as follows:

First Phratry.
Gentes.—1. Bear.  2. Wolf.  3. Beaver.  4. Turtle.
Second Phratry.
Gentes.—5. Deer.  6. Snipe.  7. Heron.  8. Hawk.

Each phratry (De-ă-non-dă′-a-yoh) is a brotherhood as this term also imports. The gentes in the same phratry are brother gentes to each other, and cousin gentes to those of the other phratry. They are equal in grade, character and privileges. It is a common practice of the Senecas to call the gentes of their own phratry brother gentes, and those of the other phratry their cousin gentes, when they mention them in their relation to the phratries. Originally marriage was not allowed between the members of the same phratry; but the members of either could marry into any gens of the other. This prohibition tends to show that the gentes of each phratry were subdivisions of an original gens, and therefore the prohibition against marrying into a person’s own gens had followed to its subdivisions. This restriction, however, was long since removed, except with[Pg 91] respect to the gens of the individual. A tradition of the Senecas affirms that the Bear and the Deer were the original gentes, of which the others were subdivisions. It is thus seen that the phratry had a natural foundation in the kinship of the gentes of which it was composed. After their subdivision from increase of numbers there was a natural tendency to their reunion in a higher organization for objects common to them all. The same gentes are not constant in a phratry indefinitely, as will appear when the composition of the phratries in the remaining Iroquois tribes is considered. Transfers of particular gentes from one phratry to the other must have occurred when the equilibrium in their respective numbers was disturbed. It is important to know the simple manner in which this organization springs up, and the facility with which it is managed, as a part of the social system of ancient society. With the increase of numbers in a gens, followed by local separation of its members, segmentation occurred, and the seceding portion adopted a new gentile name. But a tradition of their former unity would remain, and become the basis of their reorganization in a phratry.

In like manner the Cayuga-Iroquois have eight gentes in two phratries; but these gentes are not divided equally between them. They are the following:

First Phratry.
Gentes.—1. Bear.  2. Wolf.  3. Turtle.  4. Snipe.  5. Eel.
Second Phratry.
Gentes.—6. Deer.  7. Beaver.  8. Hawk.

Seven of these gentes are the same as those of the Senecas; but the Heron gens has disappeared, and the Eel takes its place, but transferred to the opposite phratry. The Beaver and the Turtle gentes also have exchanged phratries. The Cayugas style the gentes of the same phratry brother gentes to each other, and those of the opposite phratry their cousin gentes.

The Onondaga-Iroquois have the same number of gentes, but two of them differ in name from those of the Senecas. They are organized in two phratries as follows:

First Phratry.
Gentes.—1. Wolf.  2. Turtle.  3. Snipe.  4. Beaver.  5. Ball.

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Second Phratry.
Gentes.—6. Deer.  7. Eel.  8. Bear.

Here again the composition of the phratries is different from that of the Senecas. Three of the gentes in the first phratry are the same in each; but the Bear gens has been transferred to the opposite phratry and is now found with the Deer. The division of gentes is also unequal, as among the Cayugas. The gentes in the same phratry are called brother gentes to each other, and those in the other their cousin gentes. While the Onondagas have no Hawk, the Senecas have no Eel gens; but the members of the two fraternize when they meet, claiming that there is a connection between them.

The Mohawks and Oneidas have but three gentes, the Bear, the Wolf, and the Turtle, and no phratries. When the confederacy was formed, seven of the eight Seneca gentes existed in the several tribes as is shown by the establishment of sachemships in them; but the Mohawks and Oneidas then had only the three named. It shows that they had then lost an entire phratry, and one gens of that remaining, if it is assumed that the original tribes were once composed of the same gentes. When a tribe organized in gentes and phratries subdivides, it might occur on the line of the phratric organization. Although the members of a tribe are intermingled throughout by marriage, each gens in a phratry is composed of females with their children and descendants, through females, who formed the body of the phratry. They would incline at least to remain locally together, and thus might become detached in a body. The male members of the gens married to women of other gentes and remaining with their wives would not affect the gens since the children of the males do not belong to its connection. If the minute history of the Indian tribes is ever recovered it must be sought through the gentes and phratries, which can be followed from tribe to tribe. In such an investigation it will deserve attention whether tribes ever disintegrated by phratries. It is at least improbable.

The Tuscarora-Iroquois became detached from the main stock at some unknown period in the past, and inhabited the Neuse river region in North Carolina at the time of their dis[Pg 93]covery. About A. D. 1712 they were forced out of this area, whereupon they removed to the country of the Iroquois and were admitted into the confederacy as a sixth member. They have eight gentes organized in two phratries, as follows:

First Phratry.
Gentes.—1. Bear.  2. Beaver.  3. Great Turtle. 4.  Eel.
Second Phratry.
Gentes.—5. Gray Wolf.  6. Yellow Wolf.  7. Little Turtle. 8. Snipe.

They have six gentes in common with the Cayugas and Onondagas, five in common with the Senecas, and three in common with the Mohawks and Oneidas. The Deer gens, which they once possessed, became extinct in modern times. It will be noticed, also, that the Wolf gens is now divided into two, the Gray and the Yellow, and the Turtle into two, the Great and Little. Three of the gentes in the first phratry are the same with three in the first phratry of the Senecas and Cayugas, with the exception that the Wolf gens is double. As several hundred years elapsed between the separation of the Tuscaroras from their congeners and their return, it affords some evidence of permanence in the existence of a gens. The gentes in the same phratry are called brother gentes to each other, and those in the other phratry their cousin gentes, as among the other tribes.

From the differences in the composition of the phratries in the several tribes it seems probable that the phratries are modified in their gentes at intervals of time to meet changes of condition. Some gentes prosper and increase in numbers, while others through calamities decline, and others become extinct; so that transfers of gentes from one phratry to another were found necessary to preserve some degree of equality in the number of phrators in each. The phratric organization has existed among the Iroquois from time immemorial. It is probably older than the confederacy which was established more than four centuries ago. The amount of difference in their composition, as to the gentes they contain, represents the vicissitudes through which each tribe has passed in the interval. In any view of the matter it is small, tending to illustrate the permanence of the phratry as well as the gens.

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The Iroquois tribes had a total of thirty-eight gentes, and in four of the tribes a total of eight phratries.

In its objects and uses the Iroquois phratry falls below the Grecian, as would be supposed, although our knowledge of the functions of the latter is limited; and below what is known of the uses of the phratry among the Roman tribes. In comparing the latter with the former we pass backward through two ethnical periods, and into a very different condition of society. The difference is in the degree of progress, and not in kind; for we have the same institution in each race, derived from the same or a similar germ, and preserved by each through immense periods of time as a part of a social system. Gentile society remained of necessity among the Grecian and Roman tribes until political society supervened; and it remained among the Iroquois tribes because they were still two ethnical periods below civilization. Every fact, therefore, in relation to the functions and uses of the Indian phratry is important, because it tends to illustrate the archaic character of an institution which became so influential in a more developed condition of society.

The phratry, among the Iroquois, was partly for social and partly for religious objects. Its functions and uses can be best shown by practical illustrations. We begin with the lowest, with games, which were of common occurrence at tribal and confederate councils. In the ball game, for example, among the Senecas, they play by phratries, one against the other; and they bet against each other upon the result of the game. Each phratry puts forward its best players, usually from six to ten on a side, and the members of each phratry assemble together but upon opposite sides of the field in which the game is played. Before it commences, articles of personal property are hazarded upon the result by members of the opposite phratries. These are deposited with keepers to abide the event. The game is played with spirit and enthusiasm, and is an exciting spectacle. The members of each phratry, from their opposite stations, watch the game with eagerness, and cheer their respective players at every successful turn of the game.72

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In many ways the phratric organization manifested itself. At a council of the tribe the sachems and chiefs in each phratry usually seated themselves on opposite sides of an imaginary council-fire, and the speakers addressed the two opposite bodies as the representatives of the phratries. Formalities, such as these, have a a peculiar charm for the Red Man in the transaction of business.

Again; when a murder had been committed it was usual for the gens of the murdered person to meet in council; and, after ascertaining the facts, to take measures for avenging the deed. The gens of the criminal also held a council, and endeavored to effect an adjustment or condonation of the crime with the gens of the murdered person. But it often happened that the gens of the criminal called upon the other gentes of their phratry, when the slayer and the slain belonged to opposite phratries, to unite with them to obtain a condonation of the crime. In such a case the phratry held a council, and then addressed itself to the other phratry to which it sent a delegation with a belt of white wampum asking for a council of the phratry, and for an adjustment of the crime. They offered reparation to the family and gens of the murdered person in expressions of regret and in presents of value. Negotiations were continued between the two councils until an affirmative or a negative conclusion was reached. The influence of a phratry composed of several gentes would be greater than that of a single gens; and by calling into action the opposite phratry the probability of a condonation would be increased, especially if there were extenuating circumstances. We may thus see how naturally the Grecian phratry, prior to civilization, assumed the principal though not exclusive management of cases of murder, and also of the purification of the murderer if he escaped punishment; and, after the institution of political society, with what propriety the phratry assumed the duty of prosecuting the murderer in the courts of justice.

At the funerals of persons of recognized importance in the tribe, the phratric organization manifested itself in a conspicuous manner. The phrators of the decedent in a body were the mourners, and the members of the opposite phratry conducted[Pg 96] the ceremonies. In the case of a sachem it was usual for the opposite phratry to send, immediately after the funeral, the official wampum belt of the deceased ruler to the central council fire at Onondaga, as a notification of his demise. This was retained until the installation of his successor, when it was bestowed upon him as the insignia of his office. At the funeral of Handsome Lake (Gä-ne-o-di′-yo), one of the eight Seneca sachems (which occurred some years ago), there was an assemblage of sachems and chiefs to the number of twenty-seven, and a large concourse of members of both phratries. The customary address to the dead body, and the other addresses before the removal of the body, were made by members of the opposite phratry. After the addresses were concluded, the body was borne to the grave by persons selected from the last named phratry, followed, first, by the sachems and chiefs, then by the family and gens of the decedent, next by his remaining phrators, and last by the members of the opposite phratry. After the body had been deposited in the grave the sachems and chiefs formed in a circle around it for the purpose of filling it with earth. Each in turn, commencing with the senior in years, cast in three shovelfuls, a typical number in their religious system; of which the first had relation to the Great Spirit, the second to the Sun, and the third to Mother Earth. When the grave was filled the senior sachem, by a figure of speech, deposited “the horns” of the departed sachem, emblematical of his office, upon the top of the grave over his head, there to remain until his successor was installed. In that subsequent ceremony, “the horns” were said to be taken from the grave of the deceased ruler, and placed upon the head of his successor.73 The social and religious functions of the phratry, and its naturalness in the organic system of ancient society, are rendered apparent by this single usage.

[Pg 97]

The phratry was also directly concerned in the election of sachems and chiefs of the several gentes, upon which they had a negative as well as a confirmative vote. After the gens of a deceased sachem had elected his successor, or had elected a chief of the second grade, it was necessary, as elsewhere stated, that their choice should be accepted and confirmed by each phratry. It was expected that the gentes of the same phratry would confirm the choice almost as a matter of course; but the opposite phratry also must acquiesce, and from this source opposition sometimes appeared. A council of each phratry was held and pronounced upon the question of acceptance or rejection. If the nomination made was accepted by both it became complete; but if either refused it was thereby set aside, and a new election was made by the gens. When the choice made by the gens had been accepted by the phratries, it was still necessary, as before stated, that the new sachem, or the new chief, should be invested by the council of the confederacy, which alone had power to invest, with office.

The Senecas have now lost their Medicine Lodges which fell out in modern times; but they formerly existed and formed a prominent part of their religious system. To hold a Medicine Lodge was to observe their highest religious rites, and to practice their highest religious mysteries. They had two such organizations, one in each phratry, which shows still further the natural connection of the phratry with religious observances. Very little is now known concerning these lodges or their ceremonies. Each was a brotherhood, into which new members were admitted by a formal initiation.

The phratry was without governmental functions in the strict sense of the phrase, these being confined to the gens, tribe and confederacy; but it entered into their social affairs with large administrative powers, and would have concerned itself more and more with their religious affairs as the condition of the people advanced. Unlike the Grecian phratry and the Roman curia it had no official head. There was no chief of the phratry as such, and no religious functionaries belonging to it as distinguished from the gens and tribe. The phratric institution among the Iroquois was in its rudimentary archaic form;[Pg 98] but it grew into life by natural and inevitable development, and remained permanent because it met necessary wants. Every institution of mankind which attained permanence will be found linked with a perpetual want. With the gens, tribe and confederacy in existence the presence of the phratry was substantially assured. It required time, however, and further experience to manifest all the uses to which it might be made subservient.

Among the Village Indians of Mexico and Central America the phratry must have existed, reasoning upon general principles; and have been a more fully developed and influential organization than among the Iroquois. Unfortunately, mere glimpses at such an institution are all that can be found in the teeming narratives of the Spanish writers within the first century after the Spanish conquest. The four “lineages” of the Tlascalans who occupied the four quarters of the pueblo of Tlascala, were, in all probability, so many phratries. They were sufficiently numerous for four tribes; but as they occupied the same pueblo and spoke the same dialect the phratric organization was apparently a necessity. Each lineage, or phratry so to call it, had a distinct military organization, a peculiar costume and banner, and its head war-chief (Teuctli), who was its general military commander. They went forth to battle by phratries. The organization of a military force by phratries and by tribes was not unknown to the Homeric Greeks. Thus; Nestor advises Agamemnon to “separate the troops by phratries and by tribes, so that phratry may support phratry and tribe tribe.”74 Under gentile institutions of the most advanced type the principle of kin became, to a considerable extent, the basis of the army organization. The Aztecs, in like manner, occupied the pueblo of Mexico in four distinct divisions, the people of each of which were more nearly related to each other than to the people of the other divisions. They were separate lineages, like the Tlascalan, and it seems highly probable were four phratries, separately organized as such. They were distinguished from each other by costumes and standards, and went out to war as separate divisions. Their [Pg 99]geographical areas were called the four quarters of Mexico. This subject will be referred to again.

With respect to the prevalence of this organization, among the Indian tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism, the subject has been but slightly investigated. It is probable that it was general in the principal tribes, from the natural manner in which it springs up as a necessary member of the organic series, and from the uses, other than governmental, to which it was adapted.

In some of the tribes the phratries stand out prominently upon the face of their organization. Thus, the Chocta gentes are united in two phratries which must be mentioned first in order to show the relation of the gentes to each other. The first phratry is called “Divided People,” and contains four gentes. The second is called “Beloved People,” and also contains four gentes. This separation of the people into two divisions by gentes created two phratries. Some knowledge of the functions of these phratries is of course desirable; but without it, the fact of their existence is established by the divisions themselves. The evolution of a confederacy from a pair of gentes, for less than two are never found in any tribe, may be deduced, theoretically, from the known facts of Indian experience. Thus, the gens increases in the number of its members and divides into two; these again subdivide, and in time reunite in two or more phratries. These phratries form a tribe, and its members speak the same dialect. In course of time this tribe falls into several by the process of segmentation, which in turn reunite in a confederacy. Such a confederacy is a growth, through the tribe and phratry, from a pair of gentes.

The Chickasas are organized in two phratries, of which one contains four, and the other eight gentes, as follows:

I. Panther Phratry.
Gentes.—1. Wild Cat.  2. Bird.  3. Fish.  4. Deer.
II. Spanish Phratry.
Gentes.—5. Raccoon.  6. Spanish.  7. Royal.  8. Hush-ko′-ni.  9. Squirrel.  10. Alligator,  11. Wolf.  12. Blackbird.

The particulars with respect to the Chocta and Chickasa phratries I am unable to present. Some fourteen years ago[Pg 100] these organizations were given to me by Rev. Doctor Cyrus Byington and Rev. Charles C. Copeland, but without discussing their uses and functions.

A very complete illustration of the manner in which phratries are formed by natural growth, through the subdivision of gentes, is presented by the organization of the Mohegan tribe. It had three original gentes, the Wolf, the Turtle, and the Turkey.

Each of these subdivided, and the subdivisions became independent gentes; but they retained the names of the original gentes as their respective phratric names. In other words the subdivisions of each gens reorganized in a phratry. It proves conclusively the natural process by which, in course of time, a gens breaks up into several, and these remain united in a phratric organization, which is expressed by assuming a phratric name. They are as follows:

I. Wolf Phratry.
Gentes.—1. Wolf.  2. Bear.  3. Dog.  4. Opossum.
II. Turtle Phratry.
Gentes.—5. Little Turtle.  6. Mud Turtle.  7. Great Turtle.  8. Yellow Eel.
III. Turkey Phratry.
Gentes.—9. Turkey.  10. Crane.  11. Chicken.

It is thus seen that the original Wolf gens divided into four gentes, the Turtle into four, and the Turkey into three. Each new gens took a new name, the original retaining its own, which became, by seniority, that of the phratry. It is rare among the American Indian tribes to find such plain evidence of the segmentation of gentes in their external organization, followed by the formation into phratries of their respective subdivisions. It shows also that the phratry is founded upon the kinship of the gentes. As a rule the name of the original gens out of which others had formed is not known; but in each of these cases it remains as the name of the phratry. Since the latter, like the Grecian, was a social and religious rather than a governmental organization, it is externally less conspicuous than a gens or tribe which were essential to the government of society. The name of but one of the twelve Athenian phratries has come down to us in history. Those of the Iroquois had no name but that of a brotherhood.

[Pg 101]

The Delawares and Munsees have the same three gentes, the Wolf, the Turtle, and the Turkey. Among the Delawares there are twelve embryo gentes in each tribe, but they seem to be lineages within the gentes and had not taken gentile names. It was a movement, however, in that direction.

The phratry also appears among the Thlinkeets of the Northwest coast, upon the surface of their organization into gentes. They have two phratries, as follows:

I. Wolf Phratry.
Gentes.—1. Bear.  2. Eagle.  3. Dolphin.  4. Shark.  5. Alca.
II. Raven Phratry.
Gentes.—6. Frog.  7. Goose.  8. Sea-lion.  9. Owl.  10. Salmon.

Intermarriage in the phratry is prohibited, which shows, of itself, that the gentes of each phratry were derived from an original gens.75 The members of any gens in the Wolf phratry could marry into any gens of the opposite phratry, and vice versâ.

From the foregoing facts the existence of the phratry is established in several linguistic stocks of the American aborigines. Its presence in the tribes named raises a presumption of its general prevalence in the Ganowánian family. Among the Village Indians, where the numbers in a gens and tribe were greater, it would necessarily have been more important and consequently more fully developed. As an institution it was still in its archaic form, but it possessed the essential elements of the Grecian and the Roman. It can now be asserted that the full organic series of ancient society exists in full vitality upon the American continent; namely, the gens, the phratry, the tribe, and the confederacy of tribes. With further proofs yet to be adduced, the universality of the gentile organization upon all the continents will be established.

If future investigation is directed specially to the functions of the phratric organization among the tribes of the American aborigines, the knowledge gained will explain many peculiarities of Indian life and manners not well understood, and throw additional light upon their usages and customs, and upon their plan of life and government.

[Pg 102]

The Tribe as an Organization.—Composed of Gentes Speaking the same Dialect.—Separation in area led to Divergence of Speech, and Segmentation.—The Tribe a Natural Growth.—Illustrations.—Attributes of a Tribe.—A Territory and Name.—An Exclusive Dialect.—The Right to Invest and Depose its Sachems and Chiefs.—A Religious Faith and Worship.—A Council of Chiefs.—A Head-Chief of Tribe in some Instances.—Three Successive Forms of Gentile Government: First, a Government of One Power; Second, of Two Powers; Third, of Three Powers.

It is difficult to describe an Indian tribe by the affirmative elements of its composition. Nevertheless it is clearly marked, and the ultimate organization of the great body of the American aborigines. The large number of independent tribes into which they had fallen by the natural process of segmentation, is the striking characteristic of their condition. Each tribe was individualized by a name, by a separate dialect, by a supreme government, and by the possession of a territory which it occupied and defended as its own. The tribes were as numerous as the dialects, for separation did not become complete until dialectical variation had commenced. Indian tribes, therefore, are natural growths through the separation of the same people in the area of their occupation, followed by divergence of speech, segmentation, and independence.

We have seen that the phratry was not so much a governmental as a social organization, while the gens, tribe, and confederacy, were necessary and logical stages of progress in the[Pg 103] growth of the idea of government. A confederacy could not exist, under gentile society, without tribes as a basis; nor could tribes exist without gentes, though they might without phratries. In this chapter I will endeavor to point out the manner in which these numerous tribes were formed, and, presumptively out of one original people; the causes which produced their perpetual segmentation; and the principal attributes which distinguished an Indian tribe as an organization.

The exclusive possession of a dialect and of a territory has led to the application of the term nation to many Indian tribes, notwithstanding the fewness of the people in each. Tribe and nation, however, are not strict equivalents. A nation does not arise, under gentile institutions, until the tribes united under the same government have coalesced into one people, as the four Athenian tribes coalesced in Attica, three Dorian tribes at Sparta, and three Latin and Sabine tribes at Rome. Federation requires independent tribes in separate territorial areas; but coalescence unites them by a higher process in the same area, although the tendency to local separation by gentes and by tribes would continue. The confederacy is the nearest analogue of the nation, but not strictly equivalent. Where the gentile organization exists, the organic series gives all the terms which are needed for a correct description.

An Indian tribe is composed of several gentes, developed from two or more, all the members of which are intermingled by marriage, and all of whom speak the same dialect. To a stranger the tribe is visible, and not the gens. The instances are extremely rare, among the American aborigines, in which the tribe embraced peoples speaking different dialects. When such cases are found, it resulted from the union of a weaker with a stronger tribe speaking a closely related dialect, as the union of the Missouris with the Otoes after the overthrow of the former. The fact that the great body of the aborigines were found in independent tribes illustrates the slow and difficult growth of the idea of government under gentile institutions. A small portion only had attained to the ultimate stage known among them, that of a confederacy of tribes speaking dialects of the same stock language. A coalescence of tribes into a nation had not occurred in any case in any part of America.

[Pg 104]

A constant tendency to disintegration, which has proved such a hinderance to progress among savage and barbarous tribes, existed in the elements of the gentile organization. It was aggravated by a further tendency to divergence of speech, which was inseparable from their social state and the large areas of their occupation. A verbal language, although remarkably persistent in its vocables, and still more persistent in its grammatical forms, is incapable of permanence. Separation of the people in area was followed in time by variation in speech; and this, in turn, led to separation in interests and ultimate independence. It was not the work of a brief period, but of centuries of time, aggregating finally into thousands of years. The great number of dialects and stock languages in North and South America, which presumptively were derived, the Eskimo excepted, from one original language, require for their formation the time measured by three ethnical periods.

New tribes as well as new gentes were constantly forming by natural growth; and the process was sensibly accelerated by the great expanse of the American continent. The method was simple. In the first place there would occur a gradual outflow of people from some overstocked geographical centre, which possessed superior advantages in the means of subsistence. Continued from year to year, a considerable population would thus be developed at a distance from the original seat of the tribe. In course of time the emigrants would become distinct in interests, strangers in feeling, and last of all, divergent in speech. Separation and independence would follow, although their territories were contiguous. A new tribe was thus created. This is a concise statement of the manner in which the tribes of the American aborigines were formed, but the statement must be taken as general. Repeating itself from age to age in newly acquired as well as in old areas, it must be regarded as a natural as well as inevitable result of the gentile organization, united with the necessities of their condition. When increased numbers pressed upon the means of subsistence, the surplus removed to a new seat where they established themselves with facility, because the government was perfect in every gens, and in any number of gentes united in a band.[Pg 105] Among the Village Indians the same thing repeated itself in a slightly different manner. When a village became overcrowded with numbers, a colony went up or down on the same stream and commenced a new village. Repeated at intervals of time several such villages would appear, each independent of the other and a self-governing body; but united in a league or confederacy for mutual protection. Dialectical variation would finally spring up, and thus complete their growth into tribes.

The manner in which tribes are evolved from each other can be shown directly by examples. The fact of separation is derived in part from tradition, in part from the possession by each of a number of the same gentes, and deduced in part from the relations of their dialects. Tribes formed by the subdivisions of an original tribe would possess a number of gentes in common, and speak dialects of the same language. After several centuries of separation they would still have a number of the same gentes. Thus, the Hurons, now Wyandotes, have six gentes of the same name with six of the gentes of the Seneca-Iroquois, after at least four hundred years of separation. The Potawattamies have eight gentes of the same name with eight among the Ojibwas, while the former have six, and the latter fourteen, which are different; showing that new gentes have been formed in each tribe by segmentation since their separation. A still older offshoot from the Ojibwas, or from the common parent tribe of both, the Miamis, have but three gentes in common with the former, namely, the Wolf, the Loon, and the Eagle. The minute social history of the tribes of the Ganowánian family is locked up in the life and growth of the gentes. If investigation is ever turned strongly in this direction, the gentes themselves would become reliable guides, both in respect to the order of separation from each other of the tribes of the same stock, and possibly of the great stocks of the aborigines.

The following illustrations are drawn from tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism. When discovered, the eight Missouri tribes occupied the banks of the Missouri river for more than a thousand miles; together with the banks of its tributaries, the Kansas and the Platte; and also the smaller rivers of Iowa. They also occupied the west bank of the Mississippi down to the[Pg 106] Arkansas. Their dialects show that the people were in three tribes before the last subdivisions; namely, first, the Punkas and Omahas, second, the Iowas, Otoes and Missouris, and third, the Kaws, Osages and Quappas. These three were undoubtedly subdivisions of a single original tribe, because their several dialects are still much nearer to each other than to any other dialect of the Dakotian stock language to which they belong. There is, therefore, a linguistic necessity for their derivation from an original tribe. A gradual spread from a central point on this river along its banks, both above and below, would lead to a separation in interests with the increase of distance between their settlements, followed by divergence of speech, and finally by independence. A people thus extending themselves along a river in a prairie country might separate, first into three tribes, and afterwards into eight, and the organization of each subdivision remain complete. Division was neither a shock, nor an appreciated calamity; but a separation into parts by natural expansion over a larger area, followed by a complete segmentation. The uppermost tribe on the Missouri were the Punkas at the mouth of the Niobrara river, and the lowermost the Quappas at the mouth of the Arkansas on the Mississippi, with an interval of near fifteen hundred miles between them. The intermediate region, confined to the narrow belt of forest upon the Missouri, was held by the remaining six tribes. They were strictly River Tribes.

Another illustration may be found in the tribes of Lake Superior. The Ojibwas, Otawas76 and Potawattamies are subdivisions of an original tribe; the Ojibwas representing the stem, because they remained at the original seat at the great fisheries upon the outlet of the lake. Moreover, they are styled “Elder Brother” by the remaining two; while the Otawas were styled “Next Older Brother,” and the Potawattamies “Younger Brother.” The last tribe separated first, and the Otawas last, as is shown by the relative amount of dialectical variation, that of the former being greatest. At the time of their discovery, A. D. 1641, the Ojibwas were seated at the Rapids on the outlet of Lake Superior, from which point they had spread along [Pg 107]the southern shore of the lake to the site of Ontonagon, along its northeastern shore, and down the St. Mary River well toward Lake Huron. Their position possessed remarkable advantages for a fish and game subsistence, which, as they did not cultivate maize and plants, was their main reliance.77 It was second to none in North America, with the single exception of the Valley of the Columbia. With such advantages they were certain to develop a large Indian population, and to send out successive bands of emigrants to become independent tribes. The Potawattamies occupied a region on the confines of Upper Michigan and Wisconsin, from which the Dakotas in 1641, were in the act of expelling them. At the same time the Otawas, whose earlier residence is supposed to have been on the Otawa river of Canada, had drawn westward and were then seated upon the Georgian Bay, the Manitouline Islands and at Mackinaw, from which points they were spreading southward over Lower Michigan. Originally one people, and possessing the same gentes, they had succeeded in appropriating a large area. Separation in place, and distance between their settlements, had long before their discovery resulted in the formation of dialects, and in tribal independence. The three tribes, whose territories were contiguous, had formed an alliance for mutual protection, known among Americans as “the Otawa Confederacy.” It was a league, offensive and defensive, and not, probably, a close confederacy like that of the Iroquois.

Prior to these secessions another affiliated tribe, the Miamis, had broken off from the Ojibwa stock, or the common parent tribe, and migrated to central Illinois and western Indiana. Following in the track of this migration were the Illinois, another and later offshoot from the same stem, who afterwards subdivided into the Peorias, Kaskaskias, Weaws, and Piankeshaws. Their dialects, with that of the Miamis, find their nearest affinity with the Ojibwa, and next with the Cree.78 The [Pg 108]outflow of all these tribes from the central seat at the great fisheries of Lake Superior is a significant fact, because it illustrates the manner in which tribes are formed in connection with natural centres of subsistence. The New England, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Carolina Algonkins were, in all probability, derived from the same source. Several centuries would be required for the formation of the dialects first named, and for the production of the amount of variation they now exhibit.

The foregoing examples represent the natural process by which tribes are evolved from each other, or from a parent tribe established in an advantageous position. Each emigrating band was in the nature of a military colony, if it may be so strongly characterized, seeking to acquire and hold a new area; preserving at first, and as long as possible, a connection with the mother tribe. By these successive movements they sought to expand their joint possessions, and afterward to resist the intrusion of alien people within their limits. It is a noticeable fact that Indian tribes speaking dialects of the same stock language have usually been found in territorial continuity, however extended their common area. The same has, in the main, been true of all the tribes of mankind linguistically united. It is because the people, spreading from some geographical centre, and maintaining an arduous struggle for subsistence, and for the possession of their new territories, have preserved their connection with the mother land as a means of succor in times of danger, and as a place of refuge in calamity.

It required special advantages in the means of subsistence to render any area an initial point of migration through the gradual development of a surplus population. These natural centres were few in number in North America. There are but three. First among them is the Valley of the Columbia, the most extraordinary region on the face of the earth in the variety and amount of subsistence it afforded, prior to the cultivation of maize and plants;79 second, the peninsula between Lakes Supe[Pg 109]rior, Huron and Michigan, the seat of the Ojibwas, and the nursery land of many Indian tribes; and third, the lake region in Minnesota, the nursery ground of the present Dakota tribes. These are the only regions in North America that can be called natural centres of subsistence, and natural sources of surplus numbers. There are reasons for believing that Minnesota was a part of the Algonkin area before it was occupied by the Dakotas. When the cultivation of maize and plants came in, it tended to localize the people and support them in smaller areas, as well as to increase their numbers; but it failed to transfer the control of the continent to the most advanced tribes of Village Indians, who subsisted almost entirely by cultivation. Horticulture spread among the principal tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism and greatly improved their condition. They held, with the non-horticultural tribes, the great areas of North America when it was discovered, and from their ranks the continent was being replenished with inhabitants.80

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The multiplication of tribes and dialects has been the fruitful source of the incessant warfare of the aborigines upon each other. As a rule the most persistent warfare has been waged between tribes speaking different stock languages; as, for example, between the Iroquois and Algonkin tribes, and between the Dakota tribes and the same. On the contrary the Algonkin and Dakota tribes severally have, in general, lived at peace among themselves. Had it been otherwise they would not have been found in the occupation of continuous areas. The worst exception were the Iroquois, who pursued a war of extermination against their kindred tribes, the Eries, the Neutral Nation, the Hurons and the Susquehannocks. Tribes speaking dialects of the same stock language are able to communicate orally and thus compose their differences. They also learned, [Pg 111]in virtue of their common descent, to depend upon each other as natural allies.

Numbers within a given area were limited by the amount of subsistence it afforded. When fish and game were the main reliance for food, it required an immense area to maintain a small tribe. After farinaceous food was superadded to fish and game, the area occupied by a tribe was still a large one in proportion to the number of the people. New York, with its forty-seven thousand square miles, never contained at any time more than twenty-five thousand Indians, including with the Iroquois the Algonkins on the east side of the Hudson and upon Long Island, and the Eries and Neutral Nation in the western section of the state. A personal government founded upon gentes was incapable of developing sufficient central power to follow and control the increasing numbers of the people, unless they remained within a reasonable distance from each other.

Among the Village Indians of New Mexico, Mexico, and Central America an increase of numbers in a small area did not arrest the process of disintegration. Each pueblo was usually an independent self-governing community. Where several pueblos were seated near each other on the same stream, the people were usually of common descent, and either under a tribal or confederate government. There are some seven stock languages in New Mexico alone, each spoken in several dialects. At the time of Coronado’s expedition, 1540-1542, the villages found were numerous but small. There were seven each of Cibola, Tucayan, Quivira, and Hemez, and twelve of Tiguex;81 and other groups indicating a linguistic connection of their members. Whether or not each group was confederated we are not informed. The seven Moqui Pueblos (the Tucayan Villages of Coronado’s expedition), are said to be confederated at the present time, and probably were at the time of their discovery.

The process of subdivision, illustrated by the foregoing examples, has been operating among the American aborigines for thousands of years, until upwards of forty stock languages, [Pg 112]as near as is known, have been developed in North America alone; each spoken in a number of dialects, by an equal number of independent tribes. Their experience, probably, was but a repetition of that of the tribes of Asia, Europe and Africa, when they were in corresponding conditions.

From the preceding observations, it is apparent that an American Indian tribe is a very simple as well as humble organization. It required but a few hundreds, and, at most, a few thousand people to form a tribe, and place it in a respectable position in the Ganowánian family.

It remains to present the functions and attributes of an Indian tribe, which may be discussed under the following propositions:

It will be sufficient to make a brief reference to each of these several attributes of a tribe.

I. The possession of a territory and a name.

Their territory consisted of the area of their actual settlements, and so much of the surrounding region as the tribe ranged over in hunting and fishing, and were able to defend against the encroachments of other tribes. Without this area was a wide margin of neutral grounds, separating them from their nearest frontegers if they spoke a different language, and claimed by neither; but less wide, and less clearly marked, when they spoke dialects of the same language. The country thus imperfectly defined, whether large or small, was the domain of the tribe, recognized as such by other tribes, and defended as such by themselves.

In due time the tribe became individualized by a name, which, from their usual character, must have been in many cases accidental rather than deliberate. Thus, the Senecas[Pg 113] styled themselves the “Great Hill People” (Nun-da′-wä-o-no), the Tuscaroras, “Shirt-wearing People” (Dus-ga′-o-weh-o-no′), the Sissetons, “Village of the Marsh” (Sis-se′-to-wän), the Ogalallas, “Camp Movers” (O-ga-lal′-lä), the Omahas, “Upstream People” (O-mä′-hä), the Iowas, “Dusty Noses” (Pa-ho′-cha), the Minnitarees, “People from Afar” (E-năt′-zä), the Cherokees, “Great People” (Tsä-lo′-kee), the Shawnees, “Southerners” (Sä-wan-wä-kee′), the Mohegans, “Sea-side People” (Mo-he-kun-e-uk), the Slave Lake Indians, “People of the Lowlands” (A-cha′-o-tin-ne). Among the Village Indians of Mexico, the Sochimilcos styled themselves “Nation of the Seeds of Flowers,” the Chalcans, “People of Mouths,” the Tepanecans, “People of the Bridge,” the Tezcucans or Culhuas, “A Crooked People,” and the Tlascalans, “Men of Bread.”82 When European colonization began in the northern part of America, the names of Indian tribes were obtained, not usually from the tribe direct, but from other tribes who had bestowed names upon them different from their own. As a consequence, a number of tribes are now known in history under names not recognized by themselves.

II. The exclusive possession of a dialect.

Tribe and dialect are substantially co-extensive, but there are exceptions growing out of special circumstances. Thus, the twelve Dakota bands are now properly tribes, because they are distinct in interests and in organization; but they were forced into premature separation by the advance of Americans upon their original area which forced them upon the plains. They had remained in such intimate connection previously that but one new dialect had commenced forming, the Tecton, on the Missouri; the Isauntie on the Mississippi being the original speech. A few years ago the Cherokees numbered twenty-six thousand, the largest number of Indians ever found within the limits of the United States speaking the same dialect. But in the mountain districts of Georgia a slight divergence of speech had occurred, though not sufficient to be distinguished as a dialect. There are a few other similar cases, but they do not [Pg 114]break the general rule during the aboriginal period which made tribe and dialect co-extensive. The Ojibwas, who are still in the main non-horticultural, now number about fifteen thousand, and speak the same dialect; and the Dakota tribes collectively about twenty-five thousand who speak two very closely related dialects, as stated. These several tribes are exceptionally large. The tribes within the United States and British America would yield, on an average, less than two thousand persons to a tribe.

III. The right of investing sachems and chiefs elected by the gentes.

Among the Iroquois the person elected could not become a chief until his investiture by a council of chiefs. As the chiefs of the gentes composed the council of the tribe, with power over common interests, there was a manifest propriety in reserving to the tribal council the function of investing persons with office. But after the confederacy was formed, the power of “raising up” sachems and chiefs was transferred from the council of the tribe to the council of the confederacy. With respect to the tribes generally, the accessible information is insufficient to explain their usages in relation to the mode of investiture. It is one of the numerous subjects requiring further investigation before the social system of the Indian tribes can be fully explained. The office of sachem and chief was universally elective among the tribes north of Mexico; with sufficient evidence, as to other parts of the continent, to leave no doubt of the universality of the rule.

Among the Delawares each gens had one sachem, (Sä-ke′-mä), whose office was hereditary in the gens, besides two common chiefs, and two war-chiefs—making fifteen in three gentes—who composed the council of the tribe. Among the Ojibwas, the members of some one gens usually predominated at each settlement. Each gens had a sachem, whose office was hereditary in the gens, and several common chiefs. Where a large number of persons of the same gens lived in one locality they would be found similarly organized. There was no prescribed limit to the number of chiefs. A body of usages, which have never been collected, undoubtedly existed in the several Indian[Pg 115] tribes respecting the election and investiture of sachems and chiefs. A knowledge of them would be valuable. An explanation of the Iroquois method of “raising up” sachems and chiefs will be given in the next chapter.

IV. The right to depose these sachems and chiefs.

This right rested primarily with the gens to which the sachem and chief belonged. But the council of the tribe possessed the same power, and could proceed independently of the gens, and even in opposition to its wishes. In the Status of savagery, and in the Lower and also in the Middle Status of barbarism, office was bestowed for life, or during good behavior. Mankind had not learned to limit an elective office for a term of years. The right to depose, therefore, became the more essential for the maintenance of the principle of self-government. This right was a perpetual assertion of the sovereignty of the gens and also of the tribe; a sovereignty feebly understood, but nevertheless a reality.

V. The possession of a religious faith and worship.

After the fashion of barbarians the American Indians were a religious people. The tribes generally held religious festivals at particular seasons of the year, which were observed with forms of worship, dances and games. The Medicine Lodge, in many tribes, was the centre of these observances. It was customary to announce the holding of a Medicine Lodge weeks and months in advance to awaken a general interest in its ceremonies. The religious system of the aborigines is another of the subjects which has been but partially investigated. It is rich in materials for the future student. The experience of these tribes in developing their religious beliefs and mode of worship is a part of the experience of mankind; and the facts will hold an important place in the science of comparative religion.

Their system was more or less vague and indefinite, and loaded with crude superstitions. Element worship can be traced among the principal tribes, with a tendency to polytheism in the advanced tribes. The Iroquois, for example, recognized a Great, and an Evil Spirit, and a multitude of inferior spiritual beings, the immortality of the soul, and a future state.[Pg 116] Their conception of the Great Spirit assigned to him a human form; which was equally true of the Evil Spirit, of He′-no, the Spirit of Thunder, of Gă′-oh, the Spirit of the Winds, and of the Three Sisters, the Spirit of Maize, the Spirit of the Bean, and the Spirit of the Squash. The latter were styled, collectively, “Our Life,” and also “Our Supporters.” Beside these were the spirits of the several kinds of trees and plants, and of the running streams. The existence and attributes of these numerous spiritual beings were but feebly imagined. Among the tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism idolatry was unknown.83 The Aztecs had personal gods, with idols to represent them, and a temple worship. If the particulars of their religious system were accurately known, its growth out of the common beliefs of the Indian tribes would probably be made apparent.

Dancing was a form of worship among the American aborigines, and formed a part of the ceremonies at all religious festivals. In no part of the earth, among barbarians, has the dance received a more studied development. Every tribe has from ten to thirty set dances; each of which has its own name, songs, musical instruments, steps, plan and costume for persons. Some of them, as the war-dance, were common to all the tribes. Particular dances are special property, belonging either to a gens, or to a society organized for its maintenance, into which new members were from time to time initiated. The dances of the Dakotas, the Crees, the Ojibwas, the Iroquois, and of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, are the same in general character, in step, plan, and music; and the same is true of the dances of the Aztecs so far as they are accurately known. It is one system throughout the Indian tribes, and bears a direct relation to their system of faith and worship.

VI. A supreme government through a council of chiefs.

The council had a natural foundation in the gentes of whose chiefs it was composed. It met a necessary want, and was certain to remain as long as gentile society endured. As the [Pg 117]gens was represented by its chiefs, so the tribe was represented by a council composed of the chiefs of the gentes. It was a permanent feature of the social system, holding the ultimate authority over the tribe. Called together under circumstances known to all, held in the midst of the people, and open to their orators, it was certain to act under popular influence. Although oligarchical in form, the government was a representative democracy; the representative being elected for life, but subject to deposition. The brotherhood of the members of each gens, and the elective principle with respect to office, were the germ and the basis of the democratic principle. Imperfectly developed, as other great principles were in this early stage of advancement, democracy can boast a very ancient pedigree in the tribes of mankind.

It devolved upon the council to guard and protect the common interests of the tribe. Upon the intelligence and courage of the people, and upon the wisdom and foresight of the council, the prosperity and the existence of the tribe depended. Questions and exigencies were arising, through their incessant warfare with other tribes, which required the exercise of all these qualities to meet and manage. It was unavoidable, therefore, that the popular element should be commanding in its influence. As a general rule the council was open to any private individual who desired to address it on a public question. Even the women were allowed to express their wishes and opinions through an orator of their own selection. But the decision was made by the council. Unanimity was a fundamental law of its action among the Iroquois; but whether this usage was general I am unable to state.

Military operations were usually left to the action of the voluntary principle. Theoretically, each tribe was at war with every other tribe with which it had not formed a treaty of peace. Any person was at liberty to organize a war-party and conduct an expedition wherever he pleased. He announced his project by giving a war-dance and inviting volunteers. This method furnished a practical test of the popularity of the undertaking. If he succeeded in forming a company, which would consist of such persons as joined him in the dance, they[Pg 118] departed immediately, while enthusiasm was at its height. When a tribe was menaced with an attack, war-parties were formed to meet it in much the same manner. Where forces thus raised were united in one body, each was under its own war-captain, and their joint movements were determined by a council of these captains. If there was among them a war-chief of established reputation he would naturally become their leader. These statements relate to tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism. The Aztecs and Tlascalans went out by phratries, each subdivision under its own captain, and distinguished by costumes and banners.

Indian tribes, and even confederacies, were weak organizations for military operations. That of the Iroquois, and that of the Aztecs, were the most remarkable for aggressive purposes. Among the tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism, including the Iroquois, the most destructive work was performed by inconsiderable war-parties, which were constantly forming and making expeditions into distant regions. Their supply of food consisted of parched corn reduced to flour, carried in a pouch attached to the belt of each warrior, with such fish and game as the route supplied. The going out of these war-parties, and their public reception on their return, were among the prominent events in Indian life. The sanction of the council for these expeditions was not sought, neither was it necessary.

The council of the tribe had power to declare war and make peace, to send and receive embassies, and to make alliances. It exercised all the powers needful in a government so simple and limited in its affairs. Intercourse between independent tribes was conducted by delegations of wise-men and chiefs. When such a delegation was expected by any tribe, a council was convened for its reception, and for the transaction of its business.

VII. A head-chief of the tribe in some instances.

In some Indian tribes one of the sachems was recognized as its head-chief; and as superior in rank to his associates. A need existed, to some extent, for an official head of the tribe to represent it when the council was not in session; but the duties[Pg 119] and powers of the office were slight. Although the council was supreme in authority it was rarely in session, and questions might arise demanding the provisional action of some one authorized to represent the tribe, subject to the ratification of his acts by the council. This was the only basis, so far as the writer is aware, for the office of head-chief. It existed in a number of tribes, but in a form of authority so feeble as to fall below the conception of an executive magistrate. In the language of some of the early writers they have been designated as kings, which is simply a caricature. The Indian tribes had not advanced far enough in a knowledge of government to develop the idea of a chief executive magistrate. The Iroquois tribe recognized no head-chief, and the confederacy no executive officer. The elective tenure of the office of chief, and the liability of the person to deposition, settle the character of the office.

A council of Indian chiefs is of little importance by itself; but as the germ of the modern parliament, congress, and legislature, it has an important bearing in the history of mankind.

The growth of the idea of government commenced with the organization into gentes in savagery. It reveals three great stages of progressive development between its commencement and the institution of political society after civilization had been attained. The first stage was the government of a tribe by a council of chiefs elected by the gentes. It may be called a government of one power; namely, the council. It prevailed generally among tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism. The second stage was a government co-ordinated between a council of chiefs, and a general military commander; one representing the civil, and the other the military functions. This second form began to manifest itself in the Lower Status of barbarism, after confederacies were formed, and it became definite in the Middle Status. The office of general, or principal military commander, was the germ of that of a chief executive magistrate, the king, the emperor, and the president. It may be called a government of two powers, namely, the council of chiefs, and the general. The third stage was the government of a people or nation by a council of chiefs, an[Pg 120] assembly of the people, and a general military commander. It appeared among the tribes who had attained to the Upper Status of barbarism; such, for example, as the Homeric Greeks, and the Italian tribes of the period of Romulus. A large increase in the number of people united in a nation, their establishment in walled cities, and the creation of wealth in lands and in flocks and herds, brought in the assembly of the people as an instrument of government. The council of chiefs, which still remained, found it necessary, no doubt through popular constraint, to submit the most important public measures to an assembly of the people for acceptance or rejection; whence the popular assembly. This assembly did not originate measures. It was its function to adopt or reject, and its action was final. From its first appearance it became a permanent power in the government. The council no longer passed important public measures, but became a pre-considering council, with power to originate and mature public acts, to which the assembly alone could give validity. It may be called a government of three powers; namely, the pre-considering council, the assembly of the people, and the general. This remained until the institution of political society, when, for example, among the Athenians, the council of chiefs became the senate, and the assembly of the people the ecclesia or popular assembly. The same organizations have come down to modern times in the two houses of parliament, of congress, and of legislatures. In like manner the office of general military commander, as before stated, was the germ of the office of the modern chief executive magistrate.

Recurring to the tribe, it was limited in the numbers of the people, feeble in strength, and poor in resources; but yet a completely organized society. It illustrates the condition of mankind in the Lower Status of barbarism. In the Middle Status there was a sensible increase of numbers in a tribe, and an improved condition; but with a continuance of gentile society without essential change. Political society was still impossible from want of advancement. The gentes organized into tribes remained as before; but confederacies must have been more frequent. In some areas, as in the Valley of Mexico, larger numbers were developed under a common government,[Pg 121] with improvements in the arts of life; but no evidence exists of the overthrow among them of gentile society and the substitution of political. It is impossible to found a political society or a state upon gentes. A state must rest upon territory and not upon persons, upon the township as the unit of a political system, and not upon the gens which is the unit of a social system. It required time and a vast experience, beyond that of the American Indian tribes, as a preparation for such a fundamental change of systems. It also required men of the mental stature of the Greeks and Romans, and with the experience derived from a long chain of ancestors to devise and gradually introduce that new plan of government under which civilized nations are living at the present time.

Following the ascending organic series, we are next to consider the confederacy of tribes, in which the gentes, phratries and tribes will be seen in new relations. The remarkable adaptation of the gentile organization to the condition and wants of mankind, while in a barbarous state, will thereby be further illustrated.

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Confederacies Natural Growths.—Founded upon Common Gentes, and a Common Language.—The Iroquois Tribes.—Their Settlement in New York.—Formation of the Confederacy.—Its Structure and Principles.—Fifty Sachemships Created.—Made Hereditary in certain Gentes.—Number assigned to each Tribe.—These Sachems formed the Council of the Confederacy.—The Civil Council.—Its Mode of Transacting Business.—Unanimity Necessary to its Action.—The Mourning Council.—Mode of Raising up Sachems.—General Military Commanders.—This Office the Germ of that of a Chief Executive Magistrate.—Intellectual Capacity of the Iroquois.

A tendency to confederate for mutual defense would very naturally exist among kindred and contiguous tribes. When the advantages of a union had been appreciated by actual experience the organization, at first a league, would gradually cement into a federal unity. The state of perpetual warfare in which they lived would quicken this natural tendency into action among such tribes as were sufficiently advanced in intelligence and in the arts of life to perceive its benefits. It would be simply a growth from a lower into a higher organization by an extension of the principle which united the gentes in a tribe.

As might have been expected, several confederacies existed in different parts of North America when discovered, some of which were quite remarkable in plan and structure. Among the number may be mentioned the Iroquois Confederacy of five independent tribes, the Creek Confederacy of six, the Otawa Confederacy of three, the Dakota League of the “Seven Council-Fires,” the Moqui Confederacy in New Mexico of Seven Pueb[Pg 123]los, and the Aztec Confederacy of three tribes in the Valley of Mexico. It is probable that the Village Indians in other parts of Mexico, in Central and in South America, were quite generally organized in confederacies consisting of two or more kindred tribes. Progress necessarily took this direction from the nature of their institutions, and from the law governing their development. Nevertheless, the formation of a confederacy out of such materials, and with such unstable geographical relations, was a difficult undertaking. It was easiest of achievement by the Village Indians from the nearness to each other of their pueblos, and from the smallness of their areas; but it was accomplished in occasional instances by tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism, and notably by the Iroquois. Wherever a confederacy was formed it would of itself evince the superior intelligence of the people.

The two highest examples of Indian confederacies in North America were those of the Iroquois and of the Aztecs. From their acknowledged superiority as military powers, and from their geographical positions, these confederacies, in both cases, produced remarkable results. Our knowledge of the structure and principles of the former is definite and complete, while of the latter it is far from satisfactory. The Aztec confederacy has been handled in such a manner historically as to leave it doubtful whether it was simply a league of three kindred tribes, offensive and defensive, or a systematic confederacy like that of the Iroquois. That which is true of the latter was probably in a general sense true of the former, so that a knowledge of one will tend to elucidate the other.

The conditions under which confederacies spring into being and the principles on which they are formed are remarkably simple. They grow naturally, with time, out of pre-existing elements. Where one tribe had divided into several and these subdivisions occupied independent but contiguous territories, the confederacy re-integrated them in a higher organization, on the basis of the common gentes they possessed, and of the affiliated dialects they spoke. The sentiment of kin embodied in the gens, the common lineage of the gentes, and their dialects still mutually intelligible, yielded the material elements for[Pg 124] a confederation. The confederacy, therefore, had the gentes for its basis and centre, and stock language for its circumference. No one has been found that reached beyond the bounds of the dialects of a common language. If this natural barrier had been crossed it would have forced heterogeneous elements into the organization. Cases have occurred where the remains of a tribe, not cognate in speech, as the Natchez,84 have been admitted into an existing confederacy; but this exception would not invalidate the general proposition. It was impossible for an Indian power to arise upon the American continent through a confederacy of tribes organized in gentes, and advance to a general supremacy unless their numbers were developed from their own stock. The multitude of stock languages is a standing explanation of the failure. There was no possible way of becoming connected on equal terms with a confederacy excepting through membership in a gens and tribe, and a common speech.

It may here be remarked, parenthetically, that it was impossible in the Lower, in the Middle, or in the Upper Status of barbarism for a kingdom to arise by natural growth in any part of the earth under gentile institutions. I venture to make this suggestion at this early stage of the discussion in order to call attention more closely to the structure and principles of ancient society, as organized in gentes, phratries and tribes. Monarchy is incompatible with gentilism. It belongs to the later period of civilization. Despotisms appeared in some instances among the Grecian tribes in the Upper Status of barbarism; but they were founded upon usurpation, were considered illegitimate by the people, and were, in fact, alien to the ideas of gentile society. The Grecian tyrannies were despotisms founded upon usurpation, and were the germ out of which the later kingdoms arose; while the so-called kingdoms of the heroic age were military democracies, and nothing more.

The Iroquois have furnished an excellent illustration of the manner in which a confederacy is formed by natural growth assisted by skillful legislation. Originally emigrants from beyond [Pg 125]the Mississippi, and probably a branch of the Dakota stock, they first made their way to the valley of the St. Lawrence and settled themselves near Montreal. Forced to leave this region by the hostility of surrounding tribes, they sought the central region of New York. Coasting the eastern shore of Lake Ontario in canoes, for their numbers were small, they made their first settlement at the mouth of the Oswego river, where, according to their traditions, they remained for a long period of time. They were then in at least three distinct tribes, the Mohawks, the Onondagas, and the Senecas. One tribe subsequently established themselves at the head of the Canandaigua lake and became the Senecas. Another tribe occupied the Onondaga Valley and became the Onondagas. The third passed eastward and settled first at Oneida near the site of Utica, from which place the main portion removed to the Mohawk Valley and became the Mohawks. Those who remained became the Oneidas. A portion of the Onondagas or Senecas settled along the eastern shore of the Cayuga lake and became the Cayugas. New York, before its occupation by the Iroquois, seems to have been a part of the area of the Algonkin tribes. According to Iroquois traditions they displaced its anterior inhabitants as they gradually extended their settlements eastward to the Hudson, and westward to the Genesee. Their traditions further declare that a long period of time elapsed after their settlement in New York before the confederacy was formed, during which they made common cause against their enemies and thus experienced the advantages of the federal principle both for aggression and defense. They resided in villages, which were usually surrounded with stockades, and subsisted upon fish and game, and the products of a limited horticulture. In numbers they did not at any time exceed 20,000 souls, if they ever reached that number. Precarious subsistence and incessant warfare repressed numbers in all the aboriginal tribes, including the Village Indians as well. The Iroquois were enshrouded in the great forests, which then overspread New York, against which they had no power to contend. They were first discovered A. D. 1608. About 1675, they attained their culminating point when their dominion reached[Pg 126] over an area remarkably large, covering the greater parts of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio,85 and portions of Canada north of Lake Ontario. At the time of their discovery they were the highest representatives of the Red Race north of New Mexico in intelligence and advancement, though perhaps inferior to some of the Gulf tribes in the arts of life. In the extent and quality of their mental endowments they must be ranked among the highest Indians in America. Although they have declined in numbers there are still four thousand Iroquois in New York, about a thousand in Canada, and near that number in the West; thus illustrating the efficiency as well as persistency of the arts of barbarous life in sustaining existence. It is now said that they are slowly increasing.

When the confederacy was formed, about A. D. 1400-1450,86 the conditions previously named were present. The Iroquois was in five independent tribes, occupied territories contiguous to each other, and spoke dialects of the same language which were mutually intelligible. Beside these facts certain gentes were common in the several tribes as has been shown. In their relations to each other, as separated parts of the same gens, these common gentes afforded a natural and enduring basis for a confederacy. With these elements existing, the formation of a confederacy became a question of intelligence and skill. Other tribes in large numbers were standing in precisely the same relations in different parts of the continent without confederating. The fact that the Iroquois tribes accomplished the work affords evidence of their superior capacity. Moreover, as the confederacy was the ultimate stage of organization among the American aborigines its existence would be expected in the most intelligent tribes only.

It is affirmed by the Iroquois that the confederacy was formed by a council of wise-men and chiefs of the five tribes which [Pg 127]met for that purpose on the north shore of Onondaga lake, near the site of Syracuse; and that before its session was concluded the organization was perfected, and set in immediate operation. At their periodical councils for raising up sachems they still explain its origin as the result of one protracted effort of legislation. It was probably a consequence of a previous alliance for mutual defense, the advantages of which they had perceived and which they sought to render permanent.

The origin of the plan is ascribed to a mythical, or, at least, traditionary person, Hä-yo-went′-hä, the Hiawatha of Longfellow’s celebrated poem, who was present at this council and the central person in its management. In his communications with the council he used a wise-man of the Onondagas, Da-gä-no-we′-dä, as an interpreter and speaker to expound the structure and principles of the proposed confederacy. The same tradition further declares that when the work was accomplished Hä-yo-went′-hä miraculously disappeared in a white canoe, which arose with him in the air and bore him out of their sight. Other prodigies, according to this tradition, attended and signalized the formation of the confederacy, which is still celebrated among them as a masterpiece of Indian wisdom. Such in truth it was; and it will remain in history as a monument of their genius in developing gentile institutions. It will also be remembered as an illustration of what tribes of mankind have been able to accomplish in the art of government while in the Lower Status of barbarism, and under the disadvantages this condition implies.

Which of the two persons was the founder of the confederacy it is difficult to determine. The silent Hä-yo-went′-hä was, not unlikely, a real person of Iroquois lineage;87 but tradition has enveloped his character so completely in the supernatural that he loses his place among them as one of their number. If Hiawatha were a real person, Da-gä-no-we′-dä must hold a subordinate place; but, if a mythical person invoked for the occasion, then to the latter belongs the credit of planning the confederacy.

[Pg 128]

The Iroquois affirm that the confederacy as formed by this council, with its powers, functions and mode of administration, has come down to them through many generations to the present time with scarcely a change in its internal organization. When the Tuscaroras were subsequently admitted, their sachems were allowed by courtesy to sit as equals in the general council, but the original number of sachems was not increased, and in strictness those of the Tuscaroras formed no part of the ruling body.

The general features of the Iroquois Confederacy may be summarized in the following propositions:

I. The confederacy was a union of Five Tribes, composed of common gentes, under one government on the basis of equality; each Tribe remaining independent in all matters pertaining to local self-government.

II. It created a General Council of Sachems, who were limited in number, equal in rank and authority, and invested with supreme powers over all matters pertaining to the Confederacy.

III. Fifty Sachemships were created and named in perpetuity in certain gentes of the several Tribes; with power in these gentes to fill vacancies, as often as they occurred, by election from among their respective members, and with the further power to depose from office for cause; but the right to invest these Sachems with office was reserved to the General Council.

IV. The Sachems of the Confederacy were also Sachems in their respective Tribes, and with the Chiefs of these Tribes formed the Council of each, which was supreme over all matters pertaining to the Tribe exclusively.

V. Unanimity in the Council of the Confederacy was made essential to every public act.

VI. In the General Council the Sachems voted by Tribes, which gave to each Tribe a negative upon the others.

VII. The Council of each Tribe had power to convene the General Council; but the latter had no power to convene itself.

VIII. The General Council was open to the orators of the people for the discussion of public questions; but the Council alone decided.

IX. The Confederacy had no chief Executive Magistrate, or official head.

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X. Experiencing the necessity for a General Military Commander they created the office in a dual form, that one might neutralize the other. The two principal War-chiefs created were made equal in powers.

These several propositions will be considered and illustrated, but without following the precise form or order in which they are stated.

At the institution of the confederacy fifty permanent sachemships were created and named, and made perpetual in the gentes to which they were assigned. With the exception of two, which were filled but once, they have been held by as many different persons in succession as generations have passed away between that time and the present. The name of each sachemship is also the personal name of each sachem while he holds the office, each one in succession taking the name of his predecessor. These sachems, when in session, formed the council of the confederacy in which the legislative, executive, and judicial powers were vested, although such a discrimination of functions had not come to be made. To secure order in the succession, the several gentes in which these offices were made hereditary were empowered to elect successors from among their respective members when vacancies occurred, as elsewhere explained. As a further measure of protection to their own body each sachem, after his election and its confirmation, was invested with his office by a council of the confederacy. When thus installed his name was “taken away” and that of the sachemship was bestowed upon him. By this name he was afterwards known among them. They were all upon equality in rank, authority, and privileges.

These sachemships were distributed unequally among the five tribes; but without giving to either a preponderance of power; and unequally among the gentes of the last three tribes. The Mohawks had nine sachems, the Oneidas nine, the Onondagas fourteen, the Cayugas ten, and the Senecas eight. This was the number at first, and it has remained the number to the present time. A table of these sachemships is subjoined, with their names in the Seneca dialect, and their arrangement in classes to facilitate the attainment of unanimity in council. In[Pg 130] foot-notes will be found the signification of these names, and the gentes to which they belonged.

Table of sachemships of the Iroquois, founded at the institution of the Confederacy; with the names which have been borne by their sachems in succession, from its formation to the present time:

Two of these sachemships have been filled but once since their creation. Hä-yo-went′-hä and Da-gä-no-we′-da consented to take the office among the Mohawk sachems, and to leave their names in the list upon condition that after their demise the two should remain thereafter vacant. They were installed upon these terms, and the stipulation has been observed to the present day. At all councils for the investiture of sachems their names are still called with the others as a tribute of respect to their memory. The general council, therefore, consisted of but forty-eight members.

Each sachem had an assistant sachem, who was elected by the gens of his principal from among its members, and who was installed with the same forms and ceremonies. He was styled an “aid.” It was his duty to stand behind his superior [Pg 132]on all occasions of ceremony, to act as his messenger, and in general to be subject to his directions. It gave to the aid the office of chief, and rendered probable his election as the successor of his principal after the decease of the latter. In their figurative language these aids of the sachems were styled “Braces in the Long House,” which symbolized the confederacy.

The names bestowed upon the original sachems became the names of their respective successors in perpetuity. For example, upon the demise of Gä-ne-o-di′-yo, one of the eight Seneca sachems, his successor would be elected by the Turtle gens in which this sachemship was hereditary, and when raised up by the general council he would receive this name, in place of his own, as a part of the ceremony. On several different occasions I have attended their councils for raising up sachems both at the Onondaga and Seneca reservations, and witnessed the ceremonies herein referred to. Although but a shadow of the old confederacy now remains, it is fully organized with its complement of sachems and aids, with the exception of the Mohawk tribe which removed to Canada about 1775. Whenever vacancies occur their places are filled, and a general council is convened to install the new sachems and their aids. The present Iroquois are also perfectly familiar with the structure and principles of the ancient confederacy.

For all purposes of tribal government the five tribes were independent of each other. Their territories were separated by fixed boundary lines, and their tribal interests were distinct. The eight Seneca sachems, in conjunction with the other Seneca chiefs, formed the council of the tribe by which its affairs were administered, leaving to each of the other tribes the same control over their separate interests. As an organization the tribe was neither weakened nor impaired by the confederate compact. Each was in vigorous life within its appropriate sphere, presenting some analogy to our own states within an embracing republic. It is worthy of remembrance that the Iroquois commended to our forefathers a union of the colonies similar to their own as early as 1755. They saw in the common interests and common speech of the several colonies the[Pg 133] elements for a confederation, which was as far as their vision was able to penetrate.

The tribes occupied positions of entire equality in the confederacy, in rights, privileges and obligations. Such special immunities as were granted to one or another indicate no intention to establish an unequal compact, or to concede unequal privileges. There were organic provisions apparently investing particular tribes with superior power; as, for example, the Onondagas were allowed fourteen sachems and the Senecas but eight; and a larger body of sachems would naturally exercise a stronger influence in council than a smaller. But in this case it gave no additional power, because the sachems of each tribe had an equal voice in forming a decision, and a negative upon the others. When in council they agreed by tribes, and unanimity in opinion was essential to every public act. The Onondagas were made “Keepers of the Wampum,” and “Keepers of the Council Brand,” the Mohawks, “Receivers of Tribute” from subjugated tribes, and the Senecas “Keepers of the Door” of the Long House. These and some other similar provisions were made for the common advantage.

The cohesive principle of the confederacy did not spring exclusively from the benefits of an alliance for mutual protection, but had a deeper foundation in the bond of kin. The confederacy rested upon the tribes ostensibly, but primarily upon common gentes. All the members of the same gens, whether Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, or Senecas, were brothers and sisters to each other in virtue of their descent from the same common ancestor; and they recognized each other as such with the fullest cordiality. When they met the first inquiry was the name of each other’s gens, and next the immediate pedigree of their respective sachems; after which they were usually able to find, under their peculiar system of consanguinity,136 the relationship in which they stood to each [Pg 134]other. Three of the gentes, namely, the Wolf, Bear and Turtle, were common to the five tribes; these and three others were common to three tribes. In effect the Wolf gens, through the division of an original tribe into five, was now in five divisions, one of which was in each tribe. It was the same with the Bear and the Turtle gentes. The Deer, Snipe and Hawk gentes were common to the Senecas, Cayugas and Onondagas. Between the separated parts of each gens, although its members spoke different dialects of the same language, there existed a fraternal connection which linked the nations together with indissoluble bonds. When the Mohawk of the Wolf gens recognized an Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga or Seneca of the same gens as a brother, and when the members of the other divided gentes did the same, the relationship was not ideal, but a fact founded upon consanguinity, and upon faith in an assured lineage older than their dialects and coeval with their unity as one people. In the estimation of an Iroquois every member of his gens in whatever tribe was as certainly a kinsman as an own brother. This cross-relationship between persons of the same gens in the different tribes is still preserved and recognized among them in all its original force. It explains the tenacity with which the fragments of the old confederacy still cling together. If either of the five tribes had seceded from the confederacy it would have severed the bond of kin, although this would have been felt but slightly. But had they fallen into collision it would have turned the gens of the Wolf against their gentile kindred, Bear against Bear, in a word brother against brother. The history of the Iroquois demonstrates the reality as well as persistency of the bond of kin, and the fidelity with which it was respected. During the long period through which the confederacy endured, they never fell into anarchy, nor ruptured the organization.

The “Long House” (Ho-de′-no-sote) was made the symbol of the confederacy; and they styled themselves the “People of the Long House” (Ho-de′-no-sau-nee). This was the name, and the only name, with which they distinguished themselves. The confederacy produced a gentile society more complex than that of a single tribe, but it was still distinctively a gentile society.[Pg 135] It was, however, a stage of progress in the direction of a nation, for nationality is reached under gentile institutions. Coalescence is the last stage in this process. The four Athenian tribes coalesced in Attica into a nation by the intermingling of the tribes in the same area, and by the gradual disappearance of geographical lines between them. The tribal names and organizations remained in full vitality as before, but without the basis of an independent territory. When political society was instituted on the basis of the deme or township, and all the residents of the deme became a body politic, irrespective of their gens or tribe, the coalescence became complete.

The coalescence of the Latin and Sabine gentes into the Roman people and nation was a result of the same processes. In all alike the gens, phratry and tribe were the first three stages of organization. The confederacy followed as the fourth. But it does not appear, either among the Grecian or Latin tribes in the Later Period of barbarism, that it became more than a loose league for offensive and defensive purposes. Of the nature and details of organization of the Grecian and Latin confederacies our knowledge is limited and imperfect, because the facts are buried in the obscurity of the traditionary period. The process of coalescence arises later than the confederacy in gentile society; but it was a necessary as well as vital stage of progress by means of which the nation, the state, and political society were at last attained. Among the Iroquois tribes it had not manifested itself.

The valley of Onondaga, as the seat of the central tribe, and the place where the Council Brand was supposed to be perpetually burning, was the usual though not the exclusive place for holding the councils of the confederacy. In ancient times it was summoned to convene in the autumn of each year; but public exigencies often rendered its meetings more frequent. Each tribe had power to summon the council, and to appoint the time and place of meeting at the council-house of either tribe, when circumstances rendered a change from the usual place at Onondaga desirable. But the council had no power to convene itself.

Originally the principal object of the council was to raise up[Pg 136] sachems to fill vacancies in the ranks of the ruling body occasioned by death or deposition; but it transacted all other business which concerned the common welfare. In course of time, as they multiplied in numbers and their intercourse with foreign tribes became more extended, the council fell into three distinct kinds, which may be distinguished as Civil, Mourning and Religious. The first declared war and made peace, sent and received embassies, entered into treaties with foreign tribes, regulated the affairs of subjugated tribes, and took all needful measures to promote the general welfare. The second raised up sachems and invested them with office. It received the name of Mourning Council because the first of its ceremonies was the lament for the deceased ruler whose vacant place was to be filled. The third was held for the observance of a general religious festival. It was made an occasion for the confederated tribes to unite under the auspices of a general council in the observance of common religious rites. But as the Mourning Council was attended with many of the same ceremonies it came, in time, to answer for both. It is now the only council they hold, as the civil powers of the confederacy terminated with the supremacy over them of the state.

Invoking the patience of the reader, it is necessary to enter into some details with respect to the mode of transacting business at the Civil and Mourning Councils. In no other way can the archaic condition of society under gentile institutions be so readily illustrated.

If an overture was made to the confederacy by a foreign tribe, it might be done through either of the five tribes. It was the prerogative of the council of the tribe addressed to determine whether the affair was of sufficient importance to require a council of the confederacy. After reaching an affirmative conclusion, a herald was sent to the nearest tribes in position, on the east and on the west, with a belt of wampum, which contained a message to the effect that a civil council (Ho-de-os′-seh) would meet at such a place and time, and for such an object, each of which was specified. It was the duty of the tribe receiving the message to forward it to the tribe[Pg 137] next in position, until the notification was made complete.137 No council ever assembled unless it was summoned under the prescribed forms.

[Pg 138]

When the sachems met in council, at the time and place appointed, and the usual reception ceremony had been performed, they arranged themselves in two divisions and seated themselves upon opposite sides of the council-fire. Upon one side were the Mohawk, Onondaga and Seneca sachems. The tribes they represented were, when in council, brother tribes to each other and father tribes to the other two. In like manner their sachems were brothers to each other and fathers to those opposite. They constituted a phratry of tribes and of sachems, by an extension of the principle which united gentes in a phratry. On the opposite side of the fire were the Oneida and Cayuga, and, at a later day, the Tuscarora sachems. The tribes they represented were brother tribes to each other, and son tribes to the opposite three. Their sachems also were brothers to each other, and sons of those in the opposite division. They formed a second tribal phratry. As the Oneidas were a subdivision of the Mohawks, and the Cayugas a subdivision of the Onondagas or Senecas, they were in reality junior tribes; whence their relation of seniors and juniors, and the application of the phratric principle. When the tribes are named in council the Mohawks by precedence are mentioned first. Their tribal epithet was “The Shield” (Da-gä-e-o′-dä). The Onondagas came next under the epithet of “Name-Bearer” (Ho-de-san-no′-ge-tä), because they had been appointed to select and name the fifty original sachems.138 Next in the order of precedence were the Senecas, under the epithet of “Door-Keeper” (Ho-nan-ne-ho′-ont). They were made perpetual keepers of the western door of the Long House. The Oneidas, under the epithet of “Great Tree” (Ne-ar′-de-on-dar′-go-war), and the Cayugas, under that [Pg 139]of “Great Pipe” (So-nus′-ho-gwar-to-war), were named fourth and fifth. The Tuscaroras, who came late into the confederacy, were named last, and had no distinguishing epithet. Forms, such as these, were more important in ancient society than we would be apt to suppose.

It was customary for the foreign tribe to be represented at the council by a delegation of wise-men and chiefs, who bore their proposition and presented it in person. After the council was formally opened and the delegation introduced, one of the sachems made a short address, in the course of which he thanked the Great Spirit for sparing their lives and permitting them to meet together; after which he informed the delegation that the council was prepared to hear them upon the affair for which it had convened. One of the delegates then submitted their proposition in form, and sustained it by such arguments as he was able to make. Careful attention was given by the members of the council that they might clearly comprehend the matter in hand. After the address was concluded, the delegation withdrew from the council to await at a distance the result of its deliberations. It then became the duty of the sachems to agree upon an answer, which was reached through the ordinary routine of debate and consultation. When a decision had been made, a speaker was appointed to communicate the answer of the council, to receive which the delegation were recalled. The speaker was usually chosen from the tribe at whose instance the council had been convened. It was customary for him to review the whole subject in a formal speech, in the course of which the acceptance, in whole or in part, or the rejection of the proposition were announced with the reasons therefor. Where an agreement was entered upon, belts of wampum were exchanged as evidence of its terms. With these proceedings the council terminated.

“This belt preserves my words” was a common remark of an Iroquois chief in council. He then delivered the belt as the evidence of what he had said. Several such belts would be given in the course of a negotiation to the opposite party. In the reply of the latter a belt would be returned for each proposition accepted. The Iroquois experienced the necessity for[Pg 140] an exact record of some kind of a proposition involving their faith and honor in its execution, and they devised this method to place it beyond dispute.

Unanimity among the sachems was required upon all public questions, and essential to the validity of every public act. It was a fundamental law of the confederacy.139 They adopted a method for ascertaining the opinions of the members of the council which dispensed with the necessity of casting votes. Moreover, they were entirely unacquainted with the principle of majorities and minorities in the action of councils. They voted in council by tribes, and the sachems of each tribe were required to be of one mind to form a decision. Recognizing unanimity as a necessary principle, the founders of the confederacy divided the sachems of each tribe into classes as a means for its attainment. This will be seen by consulting the table, (supra p. 130). No sachem was allowed to express an opinion in council in the nature of a vote until he had first agreed with the sachem or sachems of his class upon the opinion to be expressed, and had been appointed to act as speaker for the class. Thus the eight Seneca sachems being in four classes could have but four opinions, and the ten Cayuga sachems, being in the same number of classes, could have but four. In this manner the sachems in each class were first brought to unanimity among themselves. A cross-consultation was then held between the four sachems appointed to speak for the four classes; and when they had agreed, they designated one of their number to express their resulting opinion, which was the answer of their tribe. When the sachems of the several tribes had, by this ingenious method, become of one mind separately, it remained to compare their several opinions, and if they agreed the decision of the council was made. If they failed of agree[Pg 141]ment the measure was defeated, and the council was at an end. The five persons appointed to express the decision of the five tribes may possibly explain the appointment and the functions of the six electors, so called, in the Aztec confederacy, which will be noticed elsewhere.

By this method of gaining assent the equality and independence of the several tribes were recognized and preserved. If any sachem was obdurate or unreasonable, influences were brought to bear upon him, through the preponderating sentiment, which he could not well resist; so that it seldom happened that inconvenience or detriment resulted from their adherence to the rule. Whenever all efforts to procure unanimity had failed, the whole matter was laid aside because further action had become impossible.

The induction of new sachems into office was an event of great interest to the people, and not less to the sachems who retained thereby some control over the introduction of new members into their body. To perform the ceremony of raising up sachems the general council was primarily instituted. It was named at the time, or came afterwards to be called, the Mourning Council (Hen-nun-do-nuh′-seh), because it embraced the twofold object of lamenting the death of the departed sachems and of installing his successor. Upon the death of a sachem, the tribe in which the loss had occurred had power to summon a general council, and to name the time and place of its meeting. A herald was sent out with a belt of wampum, usually the official belt of the deceased sachem given to him at his installation, which conveyed this laconic message;—“the name” (mentioning that of the late ruler) “calls for a council.” It also announced the day and place of convocation. In some cases the official belt of the sachem was sent to the central council-fire at Onondaga immediately after his burial, as a notification of his demise, and the time for holding the council was determined afterwards.

The Mourning Council, with the festivities which followed the investiture of sachems, possessed remarkable attractions for the Iroquois. They flocked to its attendance from the most distant localities with zeal and enthusiasm. It was opened and[Pg 142] conducted with many forms and ceremonies, and usually lasted five days. The first was devoted to the prescribed ceremony of lamentations for the deceased sachem, which, as a religious act, commenced at the rising of the sun. At this time the sachems of the tribe, with whom the council was held, marched out followed by their tribesmen, to receive formally the sachems and people of the other tribes, who had arrived before and remained encamped at some distance waiting for the appointed day. After exchanging greetings, a procession was formed and the lament was chanted in verse, with responses, by the united tribes, as they marched from the place of reception to the place of council. The lament, with the responses in chorus, was a tribute of respect to the memory of the departed sachem, in which not only his gens, but his tribe, and the confederacy itself participated. It was certainly a more delicate testimonial of respect and affection than would have been expected from a barbarous people. This ceremonial, with the opening of the council, concluded the first day’s proceedings. On the second day, the installation ceremony commenced, and it usually lasted into the fourth. The sachems of the several tribes seated themselves in two divisions, as at the civil council. When the sachem to be raised up belonged to either of the three senior tribes the ceremony was performed by the sachems of the junior tribes, and the new sachem was installed as a father. In like manner, if he belonged to either of the three junior tribes the ceremony was performed by the sachems of the senior tribes, and the new sachem was installed as a son. These special circumstances are mentioned to show the peculiar character of their social and governmental life. To the Iroquois these forms and figures of speech were full of significance.

Among other things, the ancient wampum belts, into which the structure and principles of the confederacy “had been talked,” to use their expression, were produced and read or interpreted for the instruction of the newly inducted sachem. A wise-man, not necessarily one of the sachems, took these belts one after the other and walking to and fro between the two divisions of sachems, read from them the facts which they recorded. According to the Indian conception, these belts can[Pg 143] tell, by means of an interpreter, the exact rule, provision or transaction talked into them at the time, and of which they were the exclusive record. A strand of wampum consisting of strings of purple and white shell beads, or a belt woven with figures formed by beads of different colors, operated on the principle of associating a particular fact with a particular string or figure; thus giving a serial arrangement to the facts as well as fidelity to the memory. These strands and belts of wampum were the only visible records of the Iroquois; but they required those trained interpreters who could draw from their strings and figures the records locked up in their remembrance. One of the Onondaga sachems (Ho-no-we-nă′-to) was made “Keeper of the Wampum,” and two aids were raised up with him who were required to be versed in its interpretation as well as the sachem. The interpretation of these several belts and strings brought out, in the address of the wise-man, a connected account of the occurrences at the formation of the confederacy. The tradition was repeated in full, and fortified in its essential parts by reference to the record contained in these belts. Thus the council to raise up sachems became a teaching council, which maintained in perpetual freshness in the minds of the Iroquois the structure and principles of the confederacy, as well as the history of its formation. These proceedings occupied the council until noon each day; the afternoon being devoted to games and amusements. At twilight each day a dinner in common was served to the entire body in attendance. It consisted of soup and boiled meat cooked near the council-house, and served directly from the kettle in wooden bowls, trays and ladles. Grace was said before the feast commenced. It was a prolonged exclamation by a single person on a high shrill note, falling down in cadences into stillness, followed by a response in chorus by the people. The evenings were devoted to the dance. With these ceremonies, continued for several days, and with the festivities that followed, their sachems were inducted into office.

By investing their sachems with office through a general council, the framers of the confederacy had in view the threefold object of a perpetual succession in the gens, the benefits[Pg 144] of a free election among its members, and a final supervision of the choice through the ceremony of investiture. To render the latter effective it should carry with it the power to reject the nominee. Whether the right to invest was purely functional, or carried with it the right to exclude, I am unable to state. No case of rejection is mentioned. The scheme adopted by the Iroquois to maintain a ruling body of sachems may claim, in several respects, the merit of originality, as well as of adaptation to their condition. In form an oligarchy, taking this term in its best sense, it was yet a representative democracy of the archaic type. A powerful popular element pervaded the whole organism and influenced its action. It is seen in the right of the gentes to elect and depose their sachems and chiefs, in the right of the people to be heard in council through orators of their own selection, and in the voluntary system in the military service. In this and the next succeeding ethnical period democratic principles were the vital element of gentile society.

The Iroquois name for a sachem (Ho-yar-na-go′-war), which signifies “a counselor of the people,” was singularly appropriate to a ruler in a species of free democracy. It not only defines the office well, but it also suggests the analogous designation of the members of the Grecian council of chiefs. The Grecian chiefs were styled “councilors of the people.”140 From the nature and tenure of the office among the Iroquois the sachems were not masters ruling by independent right, but representatives holding from the gentes by free election. It is worthy of notice that an office which originated in savagery, and continued through the three sub-periods of barbarism, should reveal so much of its archaic character among the Greeks after the gentile organization had carried this portion of the human family to the confines of civilization. It shows further how deeply inwrought in the human mind the principle of democracy had become under gentilism.

The designation for a chief of the second grade, Ha-sa-no-wä′-na, [Pg 145] “an elevated name,” indicates an appreciation by barbarians of the ordinary motives for personal ambition. It also reveals the sameness of the nature of man, whether high up or low down upon the rounds of the ladder of progress. The celebrated orators, wise-men, and war-chiefs of the Iroquois were chiefs of the second grade almost without exception. One reason for this may be found in the organic provision which confined the duties of the sachem to the affairs of peace. Another may have been to exclude from the ruling body their ablest men, lest their ambitious aims should disturb its action. As the office of chief was bestowed in reward of merit, it fell necessarily upon their ablest men. Red-Jacket, Brandt, Garangula, Cornplanter, Farmer’s Brother, Frost, Johnson, and other well known Iroquois, were chiefs as distinguished from sachems. None of the long lines of sachems have become distinguished in American annals, with the exception of Logan,141 Handsome Lake,142 and at a recent day, Ely S. Parker.143 The remainder have left no remembrance behind them extending beyond the Iroquois.

At the time the confederacy was formed To-do-dä′-ho was the most prominent and influential of the Onondaga chiefs. His accession to the plan of a confederacy, in which he would experience a diminution of power, was regarded as highly meritorious. He was raised up as one of the Onondaga sachems and his name placed first in the list. Two assistant sachems were raised up with him to act as his aids and to stand behind him on public occasions. Thus dignified, this sachemship has since been regarded by the Iroquois as the most illustrious of the forty-eight, from the services rendered by the first To-do-dä′-ho. The circumstance was early seized upon by the inquisitive colonists to advance the person who held this office to the position of king of the Iroquois; but the misconception was refuted, and the institutions of the Iroquois were relieved of the burden of an impossible feature. In the general council he sat among his equals. The confederacy had no chief executive magistrate.

[Pg 146]

Under a confederacy of tribes the office of general, (Hos-gä-ä-geh′-da-go-wä) “Great War Soldier,” makes its first appearance. Cases would now arise when the several tribes in their confederate capacity would be engaged in war; and the necessity for a general commander to direct the movements of the united bands would be felt. The introduction of this office as a permanent feature in the government was a great event in the history of human progress. It was the beginning of a differentiation of the military from the civil power, which, when completed, changed essentially the external manifestation of the government. But even in later stages of progress, when the military spirit predominated, the essential character of the government was not changed. Gentilism arrested usurpation. With the rise of the office of general, the government was gradually changed from a government of one power, into a government of two powers. The functions of government became, in course of time, co-ordinated between the two. This new office was the germ of that of a chief executive magistrate; for out of the general came the king, the emperor, and the president, as elsewhere suggested. The office sprang from the military necessities of society, and had a logical development. For this reason its first appearance and subsequent growth have an important place in this discussion. In the course of this volume I shall attempt to trace the progressive development of this office, from the Great War Soldier of the Iroquois through the Teuctli of the Aztecs, to the Basileus of the Grecian, and the Rex of the Roman tribes; among all of whom, through three successive ethnical periods, the office was the same, namely, that of a general in a military democracy. Among the Iroquois, the Aztecs, and the Romans the office was elective, or confirmative, by a constituency. Presumptively, it was the same among the Greeks of the traditionary period. It is claimed that the office of basileus among the Grecian tribes in the Homeric period was hereditary from father to son. This is at least doubtful. It is such a wide and total departure from the original tenure of the office as to require positive evidence to establish the fact. An election, or confirmation by a constituency, would still be necessary under[Pg 147] gentile institutions. If in numerous instances it were known that the office had passed from father to son this might have suggested the inference of hereditary succession, now adopted as historically true, while succession in this form did not exist. Unfortunately, an intimate knowledge of the organization and usages of society in the traditionary period is altogether wanting. Great principles of human action furnish the safest guide when their operation must have been necessary. It is far more probable that hereditary succession, when it first came in, was established by force, than by the free consent of the people; and that it did not exist among the Grecian tribes in the Homeric period.

When the Iroquois confederacy was formed, or soon after that event, two permanent war-chiefships were created and named, and both were assigned to the Seneca tribe. One of them (Ta-wan′-ne-ars, signifying needle-breaker) was made hereditary in the Wolf, and the other (So-no′-so-wä, signifying great oyster shell) in the Turtle gens. The reason assigned for giving them both to the Senecas was the greater danger of attack at the west end of their territories. They were elected in the same manner as the sachems, were raised up by a general council, and were equal in rank and power. Another account states that they were created later. They discovered immediately after the confederacy was formed that the structure of the Long House was incomplete because there were no officers to execute the military commands of the confederacy. A council was convened to remedy the omission, which established the two perpetual war-chiefs named. As general commanders they had charge of the military affairs of the confederacy, and the command of its joint forces when united in a general expedition. Governor Blacksnake, recently deceased, held the office first named, thus showing that the succession has been regularly maintained. The creation of two principal war-chiefs instead of one, and with equal powers, argues a subtle and calculating policy to prevent the domination of a single man even in their military affairs. They did without experience precisely as the Romans did in creating two consuls instead of one, after they had abolished the office of rex. Two consuls would[Pg 148] balance the military power between them, and prevent either from becoming supreme. Among the Iroquois this office never became influential.

In Indian Ethnography the subjects of primary importance are the gens, phratry, tribe and confederacy. They exhibit the organization of society. Next to these are the tenure and functions of the office of sachem and chief, the functions of the council of chiefs, and the tenure and functions of the office of principal war-chief. When these are ascertained, the structure and principles of their governmental system will be known. A knowledge of their usages and customs, of their arts and inventions, and of their plan of life will then fill out the picture. In the work of American investigators too little attention has been given to the former. They still afford a rich field in which much information may be gathered. Our knowledge, which is now general, should be made minute and comparative. The Indian tribes in the Lower, and in the Middle Status of barbarism, represent two of the great stages of progress from savagery to civilization. Our own remote forefathers passed through the same conditions, one after the other, and possessed, there can scarcely be a doubt, the same, or very similar institutions, with many of the same usages and customs. However little we may be interested in the American Indians personally, their experience touches us more nearly, as an exemplification of the experience of our own ancestors. Our primary institutions root themselves in a prior gentile society in which the gens, phratry and tribe were the organic series, and in which the council of chiefs was the instrument of government. The phenomena of their ancient society must have presented many points in common with that of the Iroquois and other Indian tribes. This view of the matter lends an additional interest to the comparative institutions of mankind.

The Iroquois confederacy is an excellent exemplification of a gentile society under this form of organization. It seems to realize all the capabilities of gentile institutions in the Lower Status of barbarism; leaving an opportunity for further development, but no subsequent plan of government until the institutions of political society, founded upon territory and upon prop[Pg 149]erty, with the establishment of which the gentile organization would be overthrown. The intermediate stages were transitional, remaining military democracies to the end, except where tyrannies founded upon usurpation were temporarily established in their places. The confederacy of the Iroquois was essentially democratical; because it was composed of gentes each of which was organized upon the common principles of democracy, not of the highest but of the primitive type, and because the tribes reserved the right of local self-government. They conquered other tribes and held them in subjection, as for example the Delawares; but the latter remained under the government of their own chiefs, and added nothing to the strength of the confederacy. It was impossible in this state of society to unite tribes under one government who spoke different languages, or to hold conquered tribes under tribute with any benefit but the tribute.

This exposition of the Iroquois confederacy is far from exhaustive of the facts, but it has been carried far enough to answer my present object. The Iroquois were a vigorous and intelligent people, with a brain approaching in volume the Aryan average. Eloquent in oratory, vindictive in war, and indomitable in perseverance, they have gained a place in history. If their military achievements are dreary with the atrocities of savage warfare, they have illustrated some of the highest virtues of mankind in their relations with each other. The confederacy which they organized must be regarded as a remarkable production of wisdom and sagacity. One of its avowed objects was peace; to remove the cause of strife by uniting their tribes under one government, and then extending it by incorporating other tribes of the same name and lineage. They urged the Eries and the Neutral Nation to become members of the confederacy, and for their refusal expelled them from their borders. Such an insight into the highest objects of government is creditable to their intelligence. Their numbers were small, but they counted in their ranks a large number of able men. This proves the high grade of the stock.

From their position and military strength they exercised a marked influence upon the course of events between the En[Pg 150]glish and the French in their competition for supremacy in North America. As the two were nearly equal in power and resources during the first century of colonization, the French may ascribe to the Iroquois, in no small degree, the overthrow of their plans of empire in the New World.

With a knowledge of the gens in its archaic form and of its capabilities as the unit of a social system, we shall be better able to understand the gentes of the Greeks and Romans yet to be considered. The same scheme of government composed of gentes, phratries and tribes in a gentile society will be found among them as they stood at the threshold of civilization, with the superadded experience of two entire ethnical periods. Descent among them was in the male line, property was inherited by the children of the owner instead of the agnatic kindred, and the family was now assuming the monogamian form. The growth of property, now becoming a commanding element, and the increase of numbers gathered in walled cities were slowly demonstrating the necessity for the second great plan of government—the political. The old gentile system was becoming incapable of meeting the requirements of society as it approached civilization. Glimpses of a state, founded upon territory and property, were breaking upon the Grecian and Roman minds before which gentes and tribes were to disappear. To enter upon the second plan of government, it was necessary to supersede the gentes by townships and city wards—the gentile by a territorial system. The going down of the gentes and the uprising of organized townships mark the dividing line, pretty nearly, between the barbarian and the civilized worlds—between ancient and modern society.

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Divisions of American Aborigines.—Gentes in Indian Tribes; with their Rules of Descent and Inheritance.—I. Hodenosaunian Tribes.—II. Dakotian.—III. Gulf.—IV. Pawnee.—V. Algonkin.—VI. Athapasco-Apache.—VII. Tribes of Northwest Coast.—Eskimos, a Distinct Family.—VIII. Salish, Sahaptin, and Kootenay Tribes.—IX. Shoshonee.—X. Village Indians of New Mexico, Mexico and Central America.—XI. South American Indian Tribes.—Probable Universality of the Organization in Gentes in the Ganowánian Family.

When America was first discovered in its several regions, the Aborigines were found in two dissimilar conditions. First were the Village Indians, who depended almost exclusively upon horticulture for subsistence; such were the tribes in this status in New Mexico, Mexico and Central America, and upon the plateau of the Andes. Second, were the Non-horticultural Indians, who depended upon fish, bread-roots and game; such were the Indians of the Valley of the Columbia, of the Hudson’s Bay Territory, of parts of Canada, and of some other sections of America. Between these tribes, and connecting the extremes by insensible gradations, were the partially Village, and partially Horticultural Indians; such were the Iroquois, the New England and Virginia Indians, the Creeks, Choctas, Cherokees, Minnitarees, Dakotas and Shawnees. The weapons, arts, usages, inventions, dances, house architecture, form of government, and plan of life of all alike bear the impress of a common mind, and reveal, through their wide range, the successive stages of development of the same original conceptions.[Pg 152] Our first mistake consisted in overrating the comparative advancement of the Village Indians; and our second in underrating that of the Non-horticultural, and of the partially Village Indians: whence resulted a third, that of separating one from the other and regarding them as different races. There was a marked difference in the conditions in which they were severally found; for a number of the Non-horticultural tribes were in the Upper Status of savagery; the intermediate tribes were in the Lower Status of barbarism, and the Village Indians were in the Middle Status. The evidence of their unity of origin has now accumulated to such a degree as to leave no reasonable doubt upon the question, although this conclusion is not universally accepted. The Eskimos belong to a different family.

In a previous work I presented the system of consanguinity and affinity of some seventy American Indian tribes; and upon the fact of their joint possession of the same system, with evidence of its derivation from a common source, ventured to claim for them the distinctive rank of a family of mankind, under the name of the Ganowánian, the “Family of the Bow and Arrow.”144

Having considered the attributes of the gens in its archaic form, it remains to indicate the extent of its prevalence in the tribes of the Ganowánian family. In this chapter the organization will be traced among them, confining the statements to the names of the gentes in each tribe, with their rules of descent and inheritance as to property and office. Further explanations will be added when necessary. The main point to be established is the existence or non-existence of the gentile organization among them. Wherever the institution has been found in these several tribes it is the same in all essential respects as the gens of the Iroquois, and therefore needs no further exposition in this connection. Unless the contrary is stated, it may be understood that the existence of the organization was ascertained by the author from the Indian tribe or some of its members. The classification of tribes follows that adopted in “Systems of Consanguinity.”

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I. Hodenosaunian Tribes.

1. Iroquois. The gentes of the Iroquois have been considered.145

2. Wyandotes. This tribe, the remains of the ancient Hurons, is composed of eight gentes, as follows:

Descent is in the female line, with marriage in the gens prohibited. The office of sachem, or civil chief, is hereditary in the gens, but elective among its members. They have seven sachems and seven war-chiefs, the Hawk gens being now extinct. The office of sachem passes from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew; but that of war-chief was bestowed in reward of merit, and was not hereditary. Property was hereditary in the gens, consequently children took nothing from their father; but they inherited their mother’s effects. Where the rule is stated hereafter it will be understood that unmarried as well as married persons are included. Each gens had power to depose as well as elect its chiefs. The Wyandotes have been separated from the Iroquois at least four hundred years; but they still have five gentes in common, although their names have either changed beyond identification, or new names have been substituted by one or the other.

The Eries, Neutral Nation, Nottoways, Tutelos,147 and Susquehannocks148 now extinct or absorbed in other tribes, belong to the same lineage. Presumptively they were organized in gentes, but the evidence of the fact is lost.

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II. Dakotian Tribes.

A large number of tribes are included in this great stock of the American aborigines. At the time of their discovery they had fallen into a number of groups, and their language into a number of dialects; but they inhabited, in the main, continuous areas. They occupied the head waters of the Mississippi, and both banks of the Missouri for more than a thousand miles in extent. In all probability the Iroquois, and their cognate tribes, were an offshoot from this stem.

1. Dakotas or Sioux. The Dakotas, consisting at the present time of some twelve independent tribes, have allowed the gentile organization to fall into decadence. It seems substantially certain that they once possessed it because their nearest congeners, the Missouri tribes, are now thus organized. They have societies named after animals analogous to gentes, but the latter are now wanting. Carver, who was among them in 1767, remarks that “every separate body of Indians is divided into bands or tribes; which band or tribe forms a little community with the nation to which it belongs. As the nation has some particular symbol by which it is distinguished from others, so each tribe has a badge from which it is denominated; as that of the eagle, the panther, the tiger, the buffalo, etc. One band of the Naudowissies [Sioux] is represented by a Snake, another a Tortoise, a third a Squirrel, a fourth a Wolf, and a fifth a Buffalo. Throughout every nation they particularize themselves in the same manner, and the meanest person among them will remember his lineal descent, and distinguish himself by his respective family.”149 He visited the eastern Dakotas on the Mississippi. From this specific statement I see no reason to doubt that the gentile organization was then in full vitality among them. When I visited the eastern Dakotas in 1861, and the western in 1862, I could find no satisfactory traces of gentes among them. A change in the mode of life among the Dakotas occurred between these dates when they were forced upon the plains, and fell into nomadic bands, which may, perhaps, explain the decadence of gentilism among them.

Carver also noticed the two grades of chiefs among the [Pg 155]western Indians, which have been explained as they exist among the Iroquois. “Every band,” he observes, “has a chief who is termed the Great Chief, or the Chief Warrior, and who is chosen in consideration of his experience in war, and of his approved valor, to direct their military operations, and to regulate all concerns belonging to that department. But this chief is not considered the head of the state; besides the great warrior who is elected for his warlike qualifications, there is another who enjoys a pre-eminence as his hereditary right, and has the more immediate management of their civil affairs. This chief might with greater propriety be denominated the sachem; whose assent is necessary to all conveyances and treaties, to which he affixes the mark of the tribe or nation.”150

2. Missouri tribes. 1. Punkas. This tribe is composed of eight gentes, as follows:

In this tribe, contrary to the general rule, descent is in the male line, the children belonging to the gens of their father. Intermarriage in the gens is prohibited. The office of sachem is hereditary in the gens, the choice being determined by election; but the sons of a deceased sachem are eligible. It is probable that the change from the archaic form was recent, from the fact that among the Otoes and Missouris, two of the eight Missouri tribes, and also among the Mandans, descent is still in the female line. Property is hereditary in the gens.

2. Omahas. This tribe is composed of the following twelve gentes:

Descent, inheritance, and the law of marriage are the same as among the Punkas.

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3. Iowas. In like manner the Iowas have eight gentes, as follows:

A gens of the Beaver Pä-kuh′-thä once existed among the Iowas and Otoes, but it is now extinct. Descent, inheritance, and the prohibition of intermarriage in the gens are the same as among the Punkas.

4. Otoes and Missouris. These tribes have coalesced into one, and have the eight following gentes:

Descent among the Otoes and Missouris is in the female line, the children belonging to the gens of their mother. The office of sachem, and property are hereditary in the gens, in which intermarriage is prohibited.

5. Kaws. The Kaws (Kaw′-ză) have the following fourteen gentes:

The Kaws are among the wildest of the American aborigines, but are an intelligent and interesting people. Descent, inheritance and marriage regulations among them are the same as among the Punkas. It will be observed that there are two Eagle gentes, and two of the Deer, which afford a good illustration of the segmentation of a gens; the Eagle gens having probably divided into two and distinguished themselves by [Pg 157]the names of white and black. The Turtle will be found hereafter as a further illustration of the same fact. When I visited the Missouri tribes in 1859 and 1860, I was unable to reach the Osages and Quappas. The eight tribes thus named speak closely affiliated dialects of the Dakotian stock language, and the presumption that the Osages and Quappas are organized in gentes is substantially conclusive. In 1869, the Kaws, then much reduced, numbered seven hundred, which would give an average of but fifty persons to a gens. The home country of these several tribes was along the Missouri and its tributaries from the mouth of the Big Sioux river to the Mississippi, and down the west bank of the latter river to the Arkansas.

3. Winnebagoes. When discovered this tribe resided near the lake of their name in Wisconsin. An offshoot from the Dakotian stem, they were apparently following the track of the Iroquois eastward to the valley of the St. Lawrence, when their further progress in that direction was arrested by the Algonkin tribes between Lakes Huron and Superior. Their nearest affiliation is with the Missouri tribes. They have eight gentes as follows:

Descent, inheritance, and the law of marriage are the same among them as among the Punkas. It is surprising that so many tribes of this stock should have changed descent from the female line to the male, because when first known the idea of property was substantially undeveloped, or but slightly beyond the germinating stage, and could hardly, as among the Greeks and Romans, have been the operative cause. It is probable that it occurred at a recent period under American and missionary influences. Carver found traces of descent in the female line in 1787 among the Winnebagoes. “Some nations,” he remarks, “when the dignity is hereditary, limit the succession to the female line. On the death of a chief his sisters’ son succeeds him in preference to his own son; and if he [Pg 158]happens to have no sister the nearest female relation assumes the dignity. This accounts for a woman being at the head of the Winnebago nation, which, before I was acquainted with their laws, appeared strange to me.”157 In 1869, the Winnebagoes numbered fourteen hundred, which would give an average of one hundred and fifty persons to the gens.

4. Upper Missouri Tribes.

1. Mandans. In intelligence and in the arts of life the Mandans were in advance of all their kindred tribes, for which they were probably indebted to the Minnitarees. They are divided into seven gentes as follows:

Descent is in the female line, with office and property hereditary in the gens. Intermarriage in the gens is not permitted. Descent in the female line among the Mandans would be singular where so many tribes of the same stock have it in the male, were it not in the archaic form from which the other tribes had but recently departed. It affords a strong presumption that it was originally in the female line in all the Dakotian tribes. This information with respect to the Mandans was obtained at the old Mandan Village in the Upper Missouri, in 1862, from Joseph Kip, whose mother was a Mandan woman. He confirmed the fact of descent by naming his mother’s gens, which was also his own.

2. Minnitarees. This tribe and the Upsarokas (Up-sar′-o-kas) or Crows, are subdivisions of an original people. They are doubtful members of this branch of the Ganowánian family: although from the number of words in their dialects and in those of the Missouri and Dakota tribes which are common, they have been placed with them linguistically. They have had an antecedent experience of which but little is known. Minnitarees carried horticulture, the timber-framed house, and a peculiar religious system into this area which they taught to [Pg 159]the Mandans. There is a possibility that they are descendants of the Mound-Builders. They have the seven following gentes:

Descent is in the female line, intermarriage in the gens is forbidden, and the office of sachem as well as property is hereditary in the gens. The Minnitarees and Mandans now live together in the same village. In personal appearance they are among the finest specimens of the Red Man now living in any part of North America.

3. Upsarokas or Crows. This tribe has the following gentes:

Descent, inheritance and the prohibition of intermarriage in the gens, are the same as among the Minnitarees. Several of the names of the Crow gentes are unusual, and more suggestive of bands than of gentes. For a time I was inclined to discredit them. But the existence of the organization into gentes was clearly established by their rules of descent, and marital usages, and by their laws of inheritance with respect to property. My interpreter when among the Crows was Robert Meldrum, then one of the factors of the American Fur Company, who had lived with the Crows forty years, and was one of their chiefs. He had mastered the language so completely that he thought in it. The following special usages with respect to inheritance [Pg 160] were mentioned by him. If a person to whom any article of property had been presented died with it in his possession, and the donor was dead, it reverted to the gens of the latter. Property made or acquired by a wife descended after her death to her children; while that of her husband after his decease belonged to his gentile kindred. If a person made a present to a friend and died, the latter must perform some recognized act of mourning, such as cutting off the joint of a finger at the funeral, or surrender the property to the gens of his deceased friend.161

The Crows have a custom with respect to marriage, which I have found in at least forty other Indian tribes, which may be mentioned here, because some use will be made of it in a subsequent chapter. If a man marries the eldest daughter in a family he is entitled to all her sisters as additional wives when they attain maturity. He may waive the right, but if he insists, his superior claim would be recognized by her gens. Polygamy is allowed by usage among the American aborigines generally; but it was never prevalent to any considerable extent from the inability of persons to support more than one family. Direct proof of the existence of the custom first mentioned was afforded by Meldrum’s wife, then at the age of twenty-five. She was captured when a child in a foray upon the Blackfeet, and became Meldrum’s captive. He induced his mother-in-law to adopt the child into her gens and family, which made the captive the younger sister of his then wife, and gave him the right to take her as another wife when she reached maturity. He availed himself of this usage of the tribe to make his claim paramount. This usage has a great antiquity in the human family. It is a survival of the old custom of punalua.

III. Gulf Tribes.

1. Muscokees or Creeks. The Creek Confederacy consisted of six Tribes; namely, the Creeks, Hitchetes, Yoochees, Ala[Pg 161]bamas, Coosatees, and Natches, all of whom spoke dialects of the same language, with the exception of the Natches, who were admitted into the confederacy after their overthrow by the French.

The Creeks are composed of twenty-two gentes as follows:

The remaining tribes of this confederacy are said to have had the organization into gentes, as the author was informed by the Rev. S. M. Loughridge, who was for many years a missionary among the Creeks, and who furnished the names of the gentes above given. He further stated that descent among the Creeks was in the female line; that the office of sachem and the property of deceased persons were hereditary in the gens, and that intermarriage in the gens was prohibited. At the present time the Creeks are partially civilized with a changed plan of life. They have substituted a political in place of the old social system, so that in a few years all traces of their old gentile institutions will have disappeared. In 1869 they numbered about fifteen thousand, which would give an average of five hundred and fifty persons to the gens.

2. Choctas. Among the Choctas the phratric organization appears in a conspicuous manner, because each phratry is named, and stands out plainly as a phratry. It doubtless existed in a majority of the tribes previously named, but the subject has not been specially investigated. The tribe of the

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Creeks consists of eight gentes arranged in two phratries, composed of four gentes each, as among the Iroquois.

The gentes of the same phratry could not intermarry; but the members of either of the first gentes could marry into either gens of the second, and vice versâ. It shows that the Choctas, like the Iroquois, commenced with two gentes, each of which afterwards subdivided into four, and that the original prohibition of intermarriage in the gens had followed the subdivisions. Descent among the Choctas was in the female line. Property and the office of sachem were hereditary in the gens. In 1869 they numbered some twelve thousand, which would give an average of fifteen hundred persons to a gens. The foregoing information was communicated to the author by the late Dr. Cyrus Byington, who entered the missionary service in this tribe in 1820 while they still resided in their ancient territory east of the Mississippi, who removed with them to the Indian Territory, and died in the missionary service about the year 1868, after forty-five years of missionary labors. A man of singular excellence and purity of character, he has left behind him a name and a memory of which humanity may be proud.

A Chocta once expressed to Dr. Byington a wish that he might be made a citizen of the United States, for the reason that his children would then inherit his property instead of his gentile kindred under the old law of the gens. Chocta usages would distribute his property after his death among his brothers and sisters and the children of his sisters. He could, however, give his property to his children in his life-time, in which case they could hold it against the members of his gens. Many

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Indian tribes now have considerable property in domestic animals and in houses and lands owned by individuals, among whom the practice of giving it to their children in their life-time has become common to avoid gentile inheritance. As property increased in quantity the disinheritance of children began to arouse opposition to gentile inheritance; and in some of the tribes, that of the Choctas among the number, the old usage was abolished a few years since, and the right to inherit was vested exclusively in the children of the deceased owner. It came, however, through the substitution of a political system in the place of the gentile system, an elective council and magistracy being substituted in place of the old government of chiefs. Under the previous usages the wife inherited nothing from her husband, nor he from her; but the wife’s effects were divided among her children, and in default of them, among her sisters.

3. Chickasas. In like manner the Chickasas were organized in two phratries, of which the first contains four, and the second eight gentes, as follows:

Descent was in the female line, intermarriage in the gens was prohibited, and property as well as the office of sachem were hereditary in the gens. The above particulars were obtained from the Rev. Charles C. Copeland, an American missionary residing with this tribe. In 1869 they numbered some five thousand, which would give an average of about four hundred persons to the gens. A new gens seems to have been formed after their intercourse with the Spaniards commenced, or this name, for reasons, may have been substituted in the place of an original name. One of the phratries is also called the Spanish.

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4. Cherokees. This tribe was anciently composed of ten gentes, of which two, the Acorn, Ah-ne-dsŭ′-la, and the Bird, Ah-ne-dse′-skwä, are now extinct. They are the following:

Descent is in the female line, and intermarriage in the gens prohibited. In 1869 the Cherokees numbered fourteen thousand, which would give an average of seventeen hundred and fifty persons to each gens. This is the largest number, so far as the fact is known, ever found in a single gens among the American aborigines. The Cherokees and Ojibwas at the present time exceed all the remaining Indian tribes within the United States in the number of persons speaking the same dialect. It may be remarked further, that it is not probable that there ever was at any time in any part of North America a hundred thousand Indians who spoke the same dialect. The Aztecs, Tezcucans and Tlascalans were the only tribes of whom so large a number could, with any propriety, be claimed; and with respect to them it is difficult to perceive how the existence of so large a number in either tribe could be established, at the epoch of the Spanish Conquest, upon trustworthy evidence. The unusual numbers of the Creeks and Cherokees is due to the possession of domestic animals and a well-developed field agriculture. They are now partially civilized, having substituted an elective constitutional government in the place of the ancient gentes, under the influence of which the latter are rapidly falling into decadence.

5. Seminoles. This tribe is of Creek descent. They are said to be organized into gentes, but the particulars have not been obtained.

IV. Pawnee Tribes.

Whether or not the Pawnees are organized in gentes has not been ascertained. Rev. Samuel Allis, who had formerly been a missionary among them, expressed to the author his belief that they were, although he had not investigated the matter [Pg 165]specially. He named the following gentes of which he believed they were composed:

I once met a band of Pawnees on the Missouri, but was unable to obtain an interpreter.

The Arickarees, whose village is near that of the Minnitarees, are the nearest congeners of the Pawnees, and the same difficulty occurred with them. These tribes, with the Huecos and some two or three other small tribes residing on the Canadian river, have always lived west of the Missouri, and speak an independent stock language. If the Pawnees are organized in gentes, presumptively the other tribes are the same.

V. Algonkin Tribes.

At the epoch of their discovery this great stock of the American aborigines occupied the area from the Rocky Mountains to Hudson’s Bay, south of the Siskatchewun, and thence eastward to the Atlantic, including both shores of Lake Superior, except at its head, and both banks of the St. Lawrence below Lake Champlain. Their area extended southward along the Atlantic coast to North Carolina, and down the east bank of the Mississippi in Wisconsin and Illinois to Kentucky. Within the eastern section of this immense region the Iroquois and their affiliated tribes were an intrusive people, their only competitor for supremacy within its boundaries.

Gitchigamian167 Tribes. 1. Ojibwas. The Ojibwas speak the same dialect, and are organized in gentes, of which the names of twenty-three have been obtained without being certain that they include the whole number. In the Ojibwa dialect the word totem, quite as often pronounced dodaim, signifies the symbol or device of a gens; thus the figure of a wolf was the totem of the Wolf gens. From this Mr. Schoolcraft used the words “totemic system,” to express the gentile organization, which would be perfectly acceptable were it not that we have both in the Latin and the Greek a terminology for every quality and character of the system which is already historical. It [Pg 166]may be used, however, with advantage. The Ojibwas have the following gentes:

Descent is in the male line, the children belonging to their father’s gens. There are several reasons for the inference that it was originally in the female line, and that the change was comparatively recent. In the first place, the Delawares, who are recognized by all Algonkin tribes as one of the oldest of their lineage, and who are styled “Grandfathers” by all alike, still have descent in the female line. Several other Algonkin tribes have the same. Secondly, evidence still remains that within two or three generations back of the present, descent was in the female line, with respect to the office of chief.169 Thirdly, American and missionary influences have generally opposed it. A scheme of descent which disinherited the sons seemed to the early missionaries, trained under very different conceptions, without justice or reason; and it is not improbable that in a number of tribes, the Ojibwas included, the change was made under their teachings. And lastly, since several Algonkin [Pg 167]tribes now have descent in the female line, it leads to the conclusion that it was anciently universal in the Ganowánian family, it being also the archaic form of the institution.

Intermarriage in the gens is prohibited, and both property and office are hereditary in the gens. The children, however, at the present time, take the most of it to the exclusion of their gentile kindred. The property and effects of the mother pass to her children, and in default of them, to her sisters, own and collateral. In like manner the son may succeed his father in the office of sachem; but where there are several sons the choice is determined by the elective principle. The gentiles not only elect, but they also retain the power to depose. At the present time the Ojibwas number some sixteen thousand, which would give an average of about seven hundred to each gens.

2. Potawattamies. This tribe has fifteen gentes, as follows:

Descent, inheritance, and the law of marriage are the same as among the Ojibwas.

3. Otawas.171 The Ojibwas, Otawas and Potawattamies were subdivisions of an original tribe. When first known they were confederated. The Otawas were undoubtedly organized in gentes, but their names have not been obtained.

4. Crees. This tribe, when discovered, held the northwest shore of Lake Superior, and spread from thence to Hudson’s Bay, and westward to the Red River of the North. At a later day they occupied the region of the Siskatchewun, and south of it. Like the Dakotas they have lost the gentile organization which presumptively once existed among them. Lin[Pg 168]guistically their nearest affiliation is with the Ojibwas, whom they closely resemble in manners and customs, and in personal appearance.

Mississippi Tribes. The western Algonkins, grouped under this name, occupied the eastern banks of the Mississippi in Wisconsin and Illinois, and extended southward into Kentucky, and eastward into Indiana.

1. Miamis. The immediate congeners of the Miamis, namely, the Weas, Piankeshaws, Peorias, and Kaskaskias, known at an early day, collectively, as the Illinois, are now few in numbers, and have abandoned their ancient usages for a settled agricultural life. Whether or not they were formerly organized in gentes has not been ascertained, but it is probable that they were. The Miamis have the following ten gentes:

Under their changed condition and declining numbers the gentile organization is rapidly disappearing. When its decline commenced descent was in the male line, intermarriage in the gens was forbidden, and the office of sachem together with property were hereditary in the gens.

2. Shawnees. This remarkable and highly advanced tribe, one of the highest representatives of the Algonkin stock, still retain their gentes, although they have substituted in place of the old gentile system a civil organization with a first and second head-chief and a council, each elected annually by popular suffrage. They have thirteen gentes, which they still maintain for social and genealogical purposes, as follows:

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Descent, inheritance, and the rule with respect to marrying out of the gens are the same as among the Miamis. In 1869 the Shawnees numbered but seven hundred, which would give an average of about fifty persons to the gens. They once numbered three or four thousand persons, which was above the average among the American Indian tribes.

The Shawnees had a practice, common also to the Miamis and Sauks and Foxes, of naming children into the gens of the father or of the mother or any other gens, under certain restrictions, which deserves a moment’s notice. It has been shown that among the Iroquois each gens had its own special names for persons which no other gens had a right to use.174 This usage was probably general. Among the Shawnees these names carried with them the rights of the gens to which they belonged, so that the name determined the gens of the person. As the sachem must, in all cases, belong to the gens over which he is invested with authority, it is not unlikely that the change of descent from the female line to the male commenced in this practice; in the first place to enable a son to succeed his father, and in the second to enable children to inherit property from their father. If a son when christened received a name belonging to the gens of his father it would place him in his father’s gens and in the line of succession, but subject to the elective principle. The father, however, had no control over the question. It was left by the gens to certain persons, most of them matrons, who were to be consulted when children were to be named, with power to determine the name to be given. By some arrangement between the Shawnee gentes these persons had this power, and the name when conferred in the prescribed manner, carried the person into the gens to which the name belonged.

There are traces of the archaic rule of descent among the Shawnees, of which the following illustration may be given as it was mentioned to the author. Lä-ho′-weh, a sachem of the

[Pg 170]

Wolf gens, when about to die, expressed a desire that a son of one of his sisters might succeed him in the place of his own son. But his nephew (Kos-kwa′-the) was of the Fish and his son of the Rabbit gens, so that neither could succeed him without first being transferred, by a change of name, to the Wolf gens, in which the office was hereditary. His wish was respected. After his death the name of his nephew was changed to Tep-a-tä-go-the′, one of the Wolf names, and he was elected to the office. Such laxity indicates a decadence of the gentile organization; but it tends to show that at no remote period descent among the Shawnees was in the female line.

3. Sauks and Foxes. These tribes are consolidated into one, and have the following gentes:

Descent, inheritance, and the rule requiring marriage out of the gens, are the same as among the Miamis. In 1869 they numbered but seven hundred, which would give an average of fifty persons to the gens. The number of gentes still preserved affords some evidence that they were several times more numerous within the previous two centuries.

4. Menominees and Kikapoos. These tribes, which are independent of each other, are organized in gentes, but their names have not been procured. With respect to the Menominees it may be inferred that, until a recent period, descent was in the female line, from the following statement made to the author, in 1859, by Antoine Gookie, a member of this tribe. In answer to a question concerning the rule of inheritance, he replied: “If I should die, my brothers and maternal uncles would rob my wife and children of my property. We now expect that our children will inherit our effects, but there is no certainty [Pg 171]of it. The old law gives my property to my nearest kindred who are not my children, but my brothers and sisters, and maternal uncles.” It shows that property was hereditary in the gens, but restricted to the agnatic kindred in the female line.

Rocky Mountain Tribes. 1. Blood Blackfeet. This tribe is composed of the five following gentes:

Descent is in the male line, but intermarriage in the gens is not allowed.

2. Piegan Blackfeet. This tribe has the eight following gentes:

Descent is in the male line, and intermarriage in the gens is prohibited. Several of the names above given are more appropriate to bands than to gentes; but as the information was obtained from the Blackfeet direct, through competent interpreters, (Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Culbertson, the latter a Blackfeet woman) I believe it reliable. It is possible that nicknames for gentes in some cases may have superseded the original names.

Atlantic Tribes.

1. Delawares. As elsewhere stated the Delawares are, in the duration of their separate existence, one of the oldest of the Algonkin tribes. Their home country, when discovered, was the region around and north of Delaware Bay. They are comprised in three gentes, as follows:

These subdivisions are in the nature of phratries, because [Pg 172]each is composed of twelve sub-gentes, each having some of the attributes of a gens.178 The names are personal, and mostly, if not in every case, those of females. As this feature was unusual I worked it out as minutely as possible at the Delaware reservation in Kansas, in 1860, with the aid of William Adams, an educated Delaware. It proved impossible to find the origin of these subdivisions, but they seemed to be the several eponymous ancestors from whom the members of the gentes respectively derived their descent. It shows also the natural growth of the phratries from the gentes.

Descent among the Delawares is in the female line, which renders probable its ancient universality in this form in the Algonkin tribes. The office of sachem was hereditary in the gens, but elective among its members, who had the power both to elect and depose. Property also was hereditary in the gens. Originally the members of the three original gentes could not intermarry in their own gens; but in recent years the prohibition has been confined to the sub-gentes. Those of the same name in the Wolf gens, now partially become a phratry, for example, cannot intermarry, but those of different names marry. The practice of naming children into the gens of their father also [Pg 173]prevails among the Delawares, and has introduced the same confusion of descents found among the Shawnees and Miamis. American civilization and intercourse necessarily administered a shock to Indian institutions under which the ethnic life of the people is gradually breaking down.

Examples of succession in office afford the most satisfactory illustrations of the aboriginal law of descent. A Delaware woman, after stating to the author that she, with her children, belonged to the Wolf gens, and her husband to the Turtle, remarked that when Captain Ketchum (Tä-whe′-lä-na), late head chief or sachem of the Turtle gens, died, he was succeeded by his nephew, John Conner (Tä-tä-ne′-shă), a son of one of the sisters of the deceased sachem, who was also of the Turtle gens. The decedent left a son, but he was of another gens and consequently incapable of succeeding. With the Delawares, as with the Iroquois, the office passed from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew, because descent was in the female line.

2. Munsees. The Munsees are an offshoot from the Delawares, and have the same gentes, the Wolf, the Turtle and the Turkey. Descent is in the female line, intermarriage in the gens is not permitted, and the office of sachem, as well as property, are hereditary in the gens.

3. Mohegans. All of the New England Indians, south of the river Kennebeck, of whom the Mohegans formed a part, were closely affiliated in language, and could understand each other’s dialects. Since the Mohegans are organized in gentes, there is a presumption that the Pequots, Narragansetts, and other minor bands were not only similarly organized, but had the same gentes. The Mohegans have the same three with the Delawares, the Wolf, the Turtle and the Turkey, each of which is composed of a number of gentes. It proves their immediate connection with the Delawares and Munsees by descent, and also reveals, as elsewhere stated, the process of subdivision by which an original gens breaks up into several, which remain united in a phratry. In this case also it may be seen how the phratry arises naturally under gentile institutions. It is rare among the American aborigines to find preserved the evidence of the segmentation of original gentes as clearly as in the present case.

[Pg 174]

The Mohegan phratries stand out more conspicuously than those of any other tribe of the American aborigines, because they cover the gentes of each, and the phratries must be stated to explain the classification of the gentes; but we know less about them than of those of the Iroquois. They are the following:

Descent is in the female line, intermarriage in the gens is forbidden, and the office of sachem is hereditary in the gens, the office passing either from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew. Among the Pequots and Narragansetts descent was in the female line, as I learned from a Narragansett woman whom I met in Kansas.

4. Abenakis. The name of this tribe, Wä-be-nă′-kee, signifies “Rising Sun People.”180 They affiliate more closely with the Micmacs than with the New England Indians south of the Kennebeck. They have fourteen gentes, as follows:

[Pg 175]

Descent is now in the male line, intermarriage in the gens was anciently prohibited, but the prohibition has now lost most of its force. The office of sachem was hereditary in the gens. It will be noticed that several of the above gentes are the same as among the Ojibwas.

VI. Athapasco-Apache Tribes.

Whether or not the Athapascans of Hudson’s Bay Territory, and the Apaches of New Mexico, who are subdivisions of an original stock, are organized in gentes has not been definitely ascertained. When in the former territory, in 1861, I made an effort to determine the question among the Hare and Red Knife Athapascans, but was unsuccessful for want of competent interpreters; and yet it seems probable that if the system existed, traces of it would have been discovered even with imperfect means of inquiry. The late Robert Kennicott made a similar attempt for the author among the A-chä′-o-ten-ne, or Slave Lake Athapascans, with no better success. He found special regulations with respect to marriage and the descent of the office of sachem, which seemed to indicate the presence of gentes, but he could not obtain satisfactory information. The Kutchin (Louchoux) of the Yukon river region are Athapascans. In a letter to the author by the late George Gibbs, he remarks: “In a letter which I have from a gentleman at Fort Simpson, Makenzie river, it is mentioned that among the Louchoux or Kutchin there are three grades or classes of society—undoubtedly a mistake for totem, though the totems probably differ in rank, as he goes on to say—that a man does not marry into his own class, but takes a wife from some other; and that a chief from the highest may marry with a woman of the lowest without loss of caste. The children belong to the grade of the mother; and the members of the same grade in the different tribes do not war with each other.”

Among the Kolushes of the Northwest Coast, who affiliate linguistically though not closely with the Athapascans, the organization into gentes exists. Mr. Gallatin remarks that they are “like our own Indians, divided into tribes or clans; a distinction of which, according to Mr. Hale, there is no trace among the Indians of Oregon. The names of the tribes [gen[Pg 176]tes] are those of animals, namely: Bear, Eagle, Crow, Porpoise and Wolf.... The right of succession is in the female line, from uncle to nephew, the principal chief excepted, who is generally the most powerful of the family.”182

VII. Indian Tribes of the Northwest Coast.

In some of these tribes, beside the Kolushes, the gentile organization prevails. “Before leaving Puget’s Sound,” observes Mr. Gibbs, in a letter to the author, “I was fortunate enough to meet representatives of three principal families of what we call the Northern Indians, the inhabitants of the Northwest Coast, extending from the Upper end of Vancouver’s Island into the Russian Possessions, and the confines of the Esquimaux. From them I ascertained positively that the totemic system exists at least among these three. The families I speak of are, beginning at the northwest, Tlinkitt, commonly called the Stikeens, after one of their bands; the Tlaidas; and Chimsyans, called by Gallatin, Weas. There are four totems common to these, the Whale, the Wolf, the Eagle, and the Crow. Neither of these can marry into the same totem, although in a different nation or family. What is remarkable is that these nations constitute entirely different families. I mean by this that their languages are essentially different, having no perceptible analogy.” Mr. Dall, in his work on Alaska, written still later, remarks that “the Tlinkets are divided into four totems: the Raven (Yehl), the Wolf (Kanu′kh), the Whale, and the Eagle (Chethl).... Opposite totems only can marry, and the child usually takes the mother’s totem.”183

Mr. Hubert H. Bancroft presents their organization still more fully, showing two phratries, and the gentes belonging to each. He remarks of the Thlinkeets that the “nation is separated into two great divisions or clans, one of which is called the Wolf and the other the Raven.... The Raven trunk is again divided into sub-clans, called the Frog, the Goose, the Sea-Lion, the Owl, and the Salmon. The Wolf family comprises the Bear, Eagle, Dolphin, Shark, and Alca.... Tribes of the same clan may not war on each other, but at the same time members of [Pg 177]the same clan may not marry with each other. Thus, the young Wolf warrior must seek his mate among the Ravens.”184

The Eskimos do not belong to the Ganowánian family. Their occupation of the American continent in comparison with that of the latter family was recent or modern. They are also without gentes.

VIII. Salish, Sahaptin and Kootenay Tribes.

The tribes of the Valley of the Columbia, of whom those above named represent the principal stocks, are without the gentile organization. Our distinguished philologists, Horatio Hale and the late George Gibbs, both of whom devoted special attention to the subject, failed to discover any traces of the system among them. There are strong reasons for believing that this remarkable area was the nursery land of the Ganowánian family, from which, as the initial point of their migrations, they spread abroad over both divisions of the continent. It seems probable, therefore, that their ancestors possessed the organization into gentes, and that it fell into decay and finally disappeared.

IX. Shoshonee Tribes.

The Comanches of Texas, together with the Ute tribes, the Bonnaks, the Shoshonees, and some other tribes, belong to this stock. Mathew Walker, a Wyandote half-blood, informed the author, in 1859, that he had lived among the Comanches, and that they had the following gentes:

If the Comanches are organized in gentes, there is a presumption that the other tribes of this stock are the same.

This completes our review of the social system of the Indian tribes of North America, north of New Mexico. The greater portion of the tribes named were in the Lower Status of barbarism at the epoch of European discovery, and the remainder in the Upper Status of savagery. From the wide and nearly universal prevalence of the organization into gentes, its ancient universality among them with descent in the female line may with reason be assumed. Their system was purely social, hav[Pg 178]ing the gens as its unit, and the phratry, tribe and confederacy as the remaining members of the organic series. These four successive stages of integration and re-integration express the whole of their experience in the growth of the idea of government. Since the principal Aryan and Semitic tribes had the same organic series when they emerged from barbarism, the system was substantially universal in ancient society, and inferentially had a common origin. The punaluan group, hereafter to be described more fully in connection with the growth of the idea of the family, evidently gave birth to the gentes, so that the Aryan, Semitic, Uralian, Turanian and Ganowánian families of mankind point with a distinctiveness seemingly unmistakable to a common punaluan stock, with the organization into gentes engrafted upon it, from which each and all were derived, and finally differentiated into families. This conclusion, I believe, will ultimately enforce its own acceptance, when future investigation has developed and verified the facts on a minuter scale. Such a great organic series, able to hold mankind in society through the latter part of the period of savagery, through the entire period of barbarism, and into the early part of the period of civilization, does not arise by accident, but had a natural development from pre-existing elements. Rationally and rigorously interpreted, it seems probable that it can be made demonstrative of the unity of origin of all the families of mankind who possessed the organization into gentes.

X. Village Indians.

1. Moqui Pueblo Indians. The Moqui tribes are still in undisturbed possession of their ancient communal houses, seven in number, near the Little Colorado in Arizona, once a part of New Mexico. They are living under their ancient institutions, and undoubtedly at the present moment fairly represent the type of Village Indian life which prevailed from Zuñi to Cuzco at the epoch of Discovery. Zuñi, Acoma, Taos, and several other New Mexican pueblos are the same structures which were found there by Coronado in 1540-1542. Notwithstanding their apparent accessibility we know in reality but little concerning their mode of life or their domestic institutions. No systematic investigation has ever been made. What little information has found its way into print is general and accidental.

[Pg 179]

The Moquis are organized in gentes, of which they have nine, as follows:

Dr. Ten Broeck, Assistant Surgeon, U. S. A., furnished to Mr. Schoolcraft the Moqui legend of their origin which he obtained at one of their villages. They said that “many years ago their Great Mother185 brought from her home in the West nine races of men in the following form. First, the Deer race; second, the Sand race; third, the Water [Rain] race; fourth, the Bear race; fifth, the Hare race; sixth, the Prairie Wolf race; seventh, the Rattlesnake race; eighth, the Tobacco Plant race; and ninth, the Reed Grass race. Having planted them on the spot where their villages now stand, she transformed them into men who built up the present pueblos; and the distinction of race is still kept up. One told me that he was of the Sand race, another, the Deer, etc. They are firm believers in metempsychosis, and say that when they die they will resolve into their original forms, and become bears, deers, etc., again.... The government is hereditary, but does not necessarily descend to the son of the incumbent; for if they prefer any other blood relative, he is chosen.”186 Having passed, in this case, from the Lower into the Middle Status of barbarism, and found the organization into gentes in full development, its adaptation to their changed condition is demonstrated. Its existence among the Village Indians in general is rendered probable; but from this point forward in the remainder of North, and in the whole of South America, we are left without definite information except with respect to the Lagunas. It shows how incompletely the work has been done in American Ethnology, that the unit of their social system has been but partially discovered, and its significance not understood. Still, there are traces of it in the early Spanish authors, and direct knowledge of it in a few later writers, which when brought together will leave but little [Pg 180]doubt of the ancient universal prevalence of the gentile organizations throughout the Indian family.

There are current traditions in many gentes, like that of the Moquis, of the transformation of their first progenitors from the animal, or inanimate object, which became the symbol of the gens, into men and women. Thus, the Crane gens of the Ojibwas have a legend that a pair of cranes flew over the wide area from the Gulf to the Great Lakes and from the prairies of the Mississippi to the Atlantic in quest of a place where subsistence was most abundant, and finally selected the Rapids on the outlet of Lake Superior, since celebrated for its fisheries. Having alighted on the bank of the river and folded their wings the Great Spirit immediately changed them into a man and woman, who became the progenitors of the Crane gens of the Ojibwas. There are a number of gentes in the different tribes who abstain from eating the animal whose name they bear; but this is far from universal.

2. Lagunas. The Laguna Pueblo Indians are organized in gentes, with descent in the female line, as appears from an address of Rev. Samuel Gorman before the Historical Society of New Mexico in 1860. “Each town is classed into tribes or families, and each of these groups is named after some animal, bird, herb, timber, planet, or one of the four elements. In the pueblo of Laguna, which is one of above one thousand inhabitants, there are seventeen of these tribes; some are called bear, some deer, some rattlesnake, some corn, some wolf, some water, etc., etc. The children are of the same tribe as their mother. And, according to ancient custom, two persons of the same tribe are forbidden to marry; but, recently, this custom begins to be less rigorously observed than anciently.”

“Their land is held in common, as the property of the community, but after a person cultivates a lot he has a personal claim to it, which he can sell to any one of the same community; or else when he dies it belongs to his widow or daughters; or, if he were a single man, it remains in his father’s family.”187 That wife or daughter inherit from the father is doubtful.

[Pg 181]

3. Aztecs, Tezcucans and Tlacopans. The question of the organization of these, and the remaining Nahuatlac tribes of Mexico, in gentes will be considered in the next ensuing chapter.

4. Mayas of Yucatan. Herrera makes frequent reference to the “kindred,” and in such a manner with regard to the tribes in Mexico, Central and South America as to imply the existence of a body of persons organized on the basis of consanguinity much more numerous than would be found apart from gentes. Thus: “He that killed a free man was to make satisfaction to the children and kindred.”188 It was spoken of the aborigines of Nicaragua, and had it been of the Iroquois, among whom the usage was the same, the term kindred would have been equivalent to gens. And again, speaking generally of the Maya Indians of Yucatan, he 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.”189 In this another gentile usage may be recognized. Again, speaking of the Aztecs; “if they were guilty, no favor or kindred could save them from death.”190 One more citation to the same effect may be made, applied to the Florida Indians who were organized in gentes. He observes “that they were extravagantly fond of their children, and cherished them, the parents and kindred lamenting such as died a whole year.”191 The early observers noticed, as a peculiarity of Indian society, that large numbers of persons were bound together by the bond of kin, and therefore the group came to be mentioned as “the kindred.” But they did not carry the scrutiny far enough to discover, what was probably the truth, that the kindred formed a gens, and, as such, the unit of their social system.

Herrera remarks further of the Mayas, that “they were wont to observe their pedigrees very much, and therefore thought themselves all related, and were helpful to one another.... They did not marry mothers, or sisters-in-law, nor any that bore the same name as their father, which was looked upon as unlawful.”192 The pedigree of an Indian under their system of [Pg 182]consanguinity could have no significance apart from a gens; but leaving this out of view, there was no possible way, under Indian institutions, by which a father and his children could bear the same name except through a gens, which conferred a common gentile name upon all its members. It would also require descent in the male line to bring father and children into the same gens. The statement shows, moreover, that intermarriage in the gens among the Mayas was prohibited. Assuming the correctness of Herrera’s words, it is proof conclusive of the existence of gentes among the Mayas, with descent in the male line. Tylor, in his valuable work on the Early History of Mankind, which is a repository of widely-drawn and well-digested ethnological information, cites the same fact from another source, with the following remarks: “The analogy of the North American Indian custom is therefore with that of the Australian in making clanship on the female side a bar to marriage, but if we go down further south into Central America, the reverse custom, as in China, makes its appearance. Diego de Landa says of the people of Yucatan, that no one took a wife of his name, on the father’s side, for this was a very vile thing among them; but they might marry cousins german on the mother’s side.”193

XI. South American Indian Tribes.

Traces of the gens have been found in all parts of South America, as well as the actual presence of the Ganowánian system of consanguinity, but the subject has not been fully investigated. Speaking of the numerous tribes of the Andes brought by the Incas under a species of confederation, Herrera observes that “this variety of tongues proceeded from the nations being divided into races, tribes, or clans.”194 Here in the clans the existence of gentes is recognized. Mr. Tylor, discussing the rules with respect to marriage and descent, remarks that “further south, below the Isthmus, both the clanship and the prohibition re-appear on the female side. Bernau says that among the Arrawaks of British Guiana, ‘Caste is derived from the mother, and children are allowed to marry into their father’s family, [Pg 183]but not into that of their mother.’ Lastly, Father Martin Dobrizhoffer says that the Guaranis avoid, as highly criminal, marriage with the most distant relations; and speaking of the Abipones, he makes the following statement: ... ‘The Abipones, instructed by nature and the example of their ancestors, abhor the very thought of marrying any one related to them by the most distant tie of relationship.’”195 These references to the social system of the aborigines are vague; but in the light of the facts already presented the existence of gentes with descent in the female line, and with intermarriage in the gens prohibited, renders them intelligible. Brett remarks of the Indian tribes in Guiana that they “are divided into families, each of which has a distinct name, as the Siwidi, Karuafudi, Onisidi, etc. Unlike our families, these all descend in the female line, and no individual of either sex is allowed to marry another of the same family name. Thus a woman of the Siwidi family bears the same name as her mother, but neither her father nor her husband can be of that family. Her children and the children of her daughters will also be called Siwidi, but both her sons and daughters are prohibited from an alliance with any individual bearing the same name; though they may marry into the family of their father, if they choose. These customs are strictly observed, and any breach of them would be considered as wicked.”196 In the family of this writer may at once be recognized the gens in its archaic form. All the South American tribes above named, with the exception of the Andean, were when discovered either in the Lower Status of barbarism, or in the Status of savagery. Many of the Peruvian tribes concentrated under the government established by the Inca Village Indians were in the Lower Status of barbarism, if an opinion may be formed from the imperfect description of their domestic institutions found in Garcillasso de la Vega.

To the Village Indians of North and South America, whose indigenous culture had advanced them far into, and near the end of, the Middle Period of barbarism, our attention naturally turns for the transitional history of the gentes. The archaic [Pg 184]constitution of the gens has been shown; its latest phases remain to be presented in the gentes of the Greeks and Romans; but the intermediate changes, both of descent and inheritance, which occurred in the Middle Period, are essential to a complete history of the gentile organization. Our information is quite ample with respect to the earlier and later condition of this great institution, but defective with respect to the transitional stage. Where the gentes are found in any tribe of mankind in their latest form, their remote ancestors must have possessed them in the archaic form; but historical criticism demands affirmative proofs rather than deductions. These proofs once existed among the Village Indians. We are now well assured that their system of government was social and not political. The upper members of the series, namely, the tribe and the confederacy, meet us at many points; with positive evidence of the gens, the unit of the system, in a number of the tribes of Village Indians. But we are not able to place our hands upon the gentes among the Village Indians in general with the same precise information afforded by the tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism. The golden opportunity was presented to the Spanish conquerers and colonists, and lost, from apparent inability to understand a condition of society from which civilized man had so far departed in his onward progress. Without a knowledge of the unit of their social system, which impressed its character upon the whole organism of society, the Spanish histories fail entirely in the portrayal of their governmental institutions.

A glance at the remains of ancient architecture in Central America and Peru sufficiently proves that the Middle Period of barbarism was one of great progress in human development, of growing knowledge, and of expanding intelligence. It was followed by a still more remarkable period in the Eastern hemisphere after the invention of the process of making iron had given that final great impulse to human progress which was to bear a portion of mankind into civilization. Our appreciation of the grandeur of man’s career in the Later Period of barbarism, when inventions and discoveries multiplied with such rapidity, would be intensified by an accurate knowl[Pg 185]edge of the condition of society in the Middle Period, so remarkably exemplified by the Village Indians. By a great effort, attended with patient labor, it may yet be possible to recover a large portion at least of the treasures of knowledge which have been allowed to disappear. Upon our present information the conclusion is warrantable that the American Indian tribes were universally organized in gentes at the epoch of European discovery, the few exceptions found not being sufficient to disturb the general rule.

[Pg 186]

Misconception of Aztec Society.—Condition of Advancement.—Nahuatlac Tribes.—Their Settlement in Mexico.—Pueblo of Mexico founded, A. D., 1325.—Aztec Confederacy Established, A. D., 1426.—Extent of Territorial Domination.—Probable Number of the People.—Whether or not the Aztecs were organized in Gentes and Phratries.—The Council of Chiefs.—Its probable Functions.—Office held by Montezuma.—Elective in Tenure.—Deposition of Montezuma.—Probable Functions of the Office.—Aztec Institutions essentially Democratical—The Government a Military Democracy.

The Spanish adventurers, who captured the Pueblo of Mexico, adopted the erroneous theory that the Aztec government was a monarchy, analogous in essential respects to existing monarchies in Europe. This opinion was adopted generally by the early Spanish writers, without investigating minutely the structure and principles of the Aztec social system. A terminology not in agreement with their institutions came in with this misconception which has vitiated the historical narrative nearly as completely as though it were, in the main, a studied fabrication. With the capture of the only stronghold the Aztecs possessed, their governmental fabric was destroyed, Spanish rule was substituted in its place, and the subject of their internal organization and polity was allowed substantially to pass into oblivion.197

[Pg 187]

The Aztecs and their confederate tribes were ignorant of iron and consequently without iron tools; they had no money, and traded by barter of commodities; but they worked the native metals, cultivated by irrigation, manufactured coarse fabrics of cotton, constructed joint-tenement houses of adobe-bricks and of stone, and made earthenware of excellent quality. They had, therefore, attained to the Middle Status of barbarism. They still held their lands in common, lived in large households composed of a number of related families; and, as there are strong reasons for believing, practiced communism in living in the household. It is rendered reasonably certain that they had but one prepared meal each day, a dinner; at which they separated, the men eating first and by themselves, and the women and children afterwards. Having neither tables nor chairs for dinner service they had not learned to eat their single daily meal in the manner of civilized nations. These features of their social condition show sufficiently their relative status of advancement.

In connection with the Village Indians of other parts of Mexico and Central America, and of Peru, they afforded the best exemplification of this condition of ancient society then existing on the earth. They represented one of the great stages of progress toward civilization in which the institutions derived from a previous ethnical period are seen in higher advancement, and which were to be transmitted, in the course of human experience, to an ethnical condition still higher, and undergo still further development before civilization was possible. But the Village Indians were not destined to attain the Upper Status of barbarism so well represented by the Homeric Greeks.

The Indian pueblos in the valley of Mexico revealed to Europeans a lost condition of ancient society, which was so remarkable and peculiar that it aroused at the time an insatiable curiosity. More volumes have been written, in the propor[Pg 188]tion of ten to one, upon the Mexican aborigines and the Spanish Conquest, than upon any other people of the same advancement, or upon any event of the same importance. And yet, there is no people concerning whose institutions and plan of life so little is accurately known. The remarkable spectacle presented so inflamed the imagination that romance swept the field, and has held it to the present hour. The failure to ascertain the structure of Aztec society which resulted was a serious loss to the history of mankind. It should not be made a cause of reproach to any one, but rather for deep regret. Even that which has been written, with such painstaking industry, may prove useful in some future attempt to reconstruct the history of the Aztec confederacy. Certain facts remain of a positive kind from which other facts may be deduced; so that it is not improbable that a well-directed original investigation may yet recover, measurably at least, the essential features of the Aztec social system.

The “kingdom of Mexico” as it stands in the early histories, and the “empire of Mexico” as it appears in the later, is a fiction of the imagination. At the time there was a seeming foundation for describing the government as a monarchy, in the absence of a correct knowledge of their institutions; but the misconception can no longer be defended. That which the Spaniards found was simply a confederacy of three Indian tribes, of which the counterpart existed in all parts of the continent, and they had no occasion in their descriptions to advance a step beyond this single fact. The government was administered by a council of chiefs, with the co-operation of a general commander of the military bands. It was a government of two powers; the civil being represented by the council, and the military by a principal war-chief. Since the institutions of the confederate tribes were essentially democratical, the government may be called a military democracy, if a designation more special than confederacy is required.

Three tribes, the Aztecs or Mexicans, the Tezcucans and the Tlacopans, were united in the Aztec confederacy, which gives the two upper members of the organic social series. Whether or not they possessed the first and the second, namely,[Pg 189] the gens and the phratry, does not appear in a definite form in any of the Spanish writers; but they have vaguely described certain institutions which can only be understood by supplying the lost members of the series. Whilst the phratry is not essential, it is otherwise with the gens, because it is the unit upon which the social system rests. Without entering the vast and unthreadable labyrinth of Aztec affairs as they now stand historically, I shall venture to invite attention to a few particulars only of the Aztec social system, which may tend to illustrate its real character. Before doing this, the relations of the confederated to surrounding tribes should be noticed.

The Aztecs were one of seven kindred tribes who had migrated from the north and settled in and near the valley of Mexico; and who were among the historical tribes of that country at the epoch of the Spanish Conquest. They called themselves collectively the Nahuatlacs in their traditions. Acosta, who visited Mexico in 1585, and whose work was published at Seville in 1589, has given the current native tradition of their migrations, one after the other, from Aztlan, with their names and places of settlement. He states the order of their arrival as follows: 1. Sochimilcas, “Nation of the Seeds of Flowers,” who settled upon Lake Xochimilco, on the south slope of the valley of Mexico; 2. Chalcas, “People of Mouths,” who came long after the former and settled near them, on Lake Chalco; 3. Tepanecans, “People of the Bridge,” who settled at Azcopozalco, west of Lake Tezcuco, on the western slope of the valley; 4. Culhuas, “A Crooked People,” who settled on the east side of Lake Tezcuco, and were afterwards known as Tezcucans; 5. Tlatluicans, “Men of the Sierra,” who, finding the valley appropriated around the lake, passed over the Sierra southward and settled upon the other side; 6. Tlascalans, “Men of Bread,” who, after living for a time with the Tepanecans, finally settled beyond the valley eastward, at Tlascala; 7. The Aztecs, who came last and occupied the site of the present city of Mexico.198 Acosta further observes that they came “from far countries which lie toward the north, where now [Pg 190] they have found a kingdom which they call New Mexico.”199 The same tradition is given by Herrera,200 and also by Clavigero.201 It will be noticed that the Tlacopans are not mentioned. They were, in all probability, a subdivision of the Tepanecans who remained in the original area of that tribe, while the remainder seem to have removed to a territory immediately south of the Tlascalans, where they were found under the name of the Tepeacas. The latter had the same legend of the seven caves, and spoke a dialect of the Nahuatlac language.202

This tradition embodies one significant fact of a kind that could not have been invented; namely, that the seven tribes were of immediate common origin, the fact being confirmed by their dialects; and a second fact of importance, that they came from the north. It shows that they were originally one people, who had fallen into seven and more tribes by the natural process of segmentation. Moreover, it was this same fact which rendered the Aztec confederacy possible as well as probable, a common language being the essential basis of such organizations.

The Aztecs found the best situations in the valley occupied, and after several changes of position they finally settled upon a small expanse of dry land in the midst of a marsh bordered with fields of pedregal and with natural ponds. Here they founded the celebrated pueblo of Mexico (Tenochtitlan), A. D. 1325, according to Clavigero, one hundred and ninety-six years prior to the Spanish Conquest.203 They were few in number and poor in condition. But fortunately for them, the outlet of Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco and rivulets from the western hills flowed past their site into Lake Tezcuco. Having the sagacity to perceive the advantages of the location they succeeded, by means of causeways and dikes, in surrounding their pueblo with an artificial pond of large extent, the waters being furnished from the sources named; and the level of Lake Tezcuco being higher then than at present, it gave them, when [Pg 191]the whole work was completed, the most secure position of any tribe in the valley. The mechanical engineering by which they accomplished this result was one of the greatest achievements of the Aztecs, and one without which they would not probably have risen above the level of the surrounding tribes. Independence and prosperity followed, and in time a controlling influence over the valley tribes. Such was the manner, and so recent the time of founding the pueblo according to Aztec traditions which may be accepted as substantially trustworthy.

At the epoch of the Spanish Conquest five of the seven tribes, namely, the Aztecs, Tezcucans, Tlacopans, Sochimilcas, and Chalcans resided in the valley, which was an area of quite limited dimensions, about equal to the state of Rhode Island. It was a mountain or upland basin having no outlet, oval in form, being longest from north to south, one hundred and twenty miles in circuit, and embracing about sixteen hundred square miles excluding the surface covered by water. The valley, as described, is surrounded by a series of hills, one range rising above another with depressions between, encompassing the valley with a mountain barrier. The tribes named resided in some thirty pueblos, more or less, of which that of Mexico was the largest. There is no evidence that any considerable portion of these tribes had colonized outside of the valley and the adjacent hill-slopes; but, on the contrary, there is abundant evidence that the remainder of modern Mexico was then occupied by numerous tribes who spoke languages different from the Nahuatlac, and the majority of whom were independent. The Tlascalans, the Cholulans, a supposed subdivision of the former, the Tepeacas, the Huexotzincos, the Meztitlans, a supposed subdivision of the Tezcucans, and the Tlatluicans were the remaining Nahuatlac tribes living without the valley of Mexico, all of whom were independent excepting the last, and the Tepeacas. A large number of other tribes, forming some seventeen territorial groups, more or less, and speaking as many stock languages, held the remainder of Mexico. They present, in their state of disintegration and independence, a nearly exact repetition of the tribes of the United States and British America, at the time of their discovery, a century or more later.

[Pg 192]

Prior to A. D. 1426, when the Aztec confederacy was formed, very little had occurred in the affairs of the valley tribes of historical importance. They were disunited and belligerent, and without influence beyond their immediate localities. About this time the superior position of the Aztecs began to manifest its results in a preponderance of numbers and of strength. Under their war-chief, Itzcoatl, the previous supremacy of the Tezcucans and Tlacopans was overthrown, and a league or confederacy was established as a consequence of their previous wars against each other. It was an alliance between the three tribes, offensive and defensive, with stipulations for the division among them, in certain proportions, of the spoils, and the after tributes of subjugated tribes.204 These tributes, which consisted of the manufactured fabrics and horticultural products of the villages subdued, seem to have been enforced with system, and with rigor of exaction.

The plan of organization of this confederacy has been lost. From the absence of particulars it is now difficult to determine whether it was simply a league to be continued or dissolved at pleasure; or a consolidated organization, like that of the Iroquois, in which the parts were adjusted to each other in permanent and definite relations. Each tribe was independent in whatever related to local self-government; but the three were externally one people in whatever related to aggression or defense. While each tribe had its own council of chiefs, and its own head war-chief, the war-chief of the Aztecs was the commander-in-chief of the confederate bands. This may be inferred from the fact that the Tezcucans and Tlacopans had a voice either in the election or in the confirmation of the Aztec war-chief. The acquisition of the chief command by the Aztecs tends to show that their influence predominated in establishing the terms upon which the tribes confederated.

Nezahualcojotl had been deposed, or at least dispossessed of his office, as principal war-chief of the Tezcucans, to which he was at this time (1426) restored by Aztec procurement. The event may be taken as the elate of the formation of the confederacy or league whichever it was.

[Pg 193]

Before discussing the limited number of facts which tend to illustrate the character of this organization, a brief reference should be made to what the confederacy accomplished in acquiring territorial domination during the short period of its existence.

From A. D. 1426 to 1520, a period of ninety-four years, the confederacy was engaged in frequent wars with adjacent tribes, and particularly with the feeble Village Indians southward from the valley of Mexico to the Pacific, and thence eastward well toward Guatemala. They began with those nearest in position whom they overcame, through superior numbers and concentrated action, and subjected to tribute. The villages in this area were numerous but small, consisting in many cases of a single large structure of adobe-brick or of stone, and in some cases of several such structures grouped together. These joint-tenement houses interposed serious hinderances to Aztec conquest, but they did not prove insuperable. These forays were continued from time to time for the avowed object of gathering spoil, imposing tribute, and capturing prisoners for sacrifice;205 until the principal tribes within the area named, with some exceptions, were subdued and made tributary, including the scattered villages of the Totonacs near the present Vera Cruz.

No attempt was made to incorporate these tribes in the Aztec confederacy, which the barrier of language rendered [Pg 194]impossible under their institutions. They were left under the government of their own chiefs, and to the practice of their own usages and customs. In some cases a collector of tribute resided among them. The barren results of these conquests reveal the actual character of their institutions. A domination of the strong over the weak for no other object than to enforce an unwilling tribute, did not even tend to the formation of a nation. If organized in gentes, there was no way for an individual to become a member of the government except through a gens, and no way for the admission of a gens except by its incorporation among the Aztec, Tezcucan, or Tlacopan gentes. The plan ascribed to Romulus of removing the gentes of conquered Latin tribes to Rome might have been resorted to by the Aztec confederacy with respect to the tribes overrun; but they were not sufficiently advanced to form such a conception, even though the barrier of language could have been obviated. Neither could colonists for the same reason, if sent among them, have so far assimilated the conquered tribes as to prepare them for incorporation in the Aztec social system. As it was, the confederacy gained no strength by the terrorism it created; or by holding these tribes under burdens, inspired with enmity and ever ready to revolt. It seems, however, that they used the military bands of subjugated tribes in some cases, and shared with them the spoils. All the Aztecs could do, after forming the confederacy, was to expand it over the remaining Nahuatlac tribes. This they were unable to accomplish. The Xochimilcas and Chalcans were not constituent members of the confederacy, but they enjoyed a nominal independence, though tributary.

This is about all that can now be discovered of the material basis of the so-called kingdom or empire of the Aztecs. The confederacy was confronted by hostile and independent tribes on the west, northwest, northeast, east, and southeast sides: as witness, the Mechoacans on the west, the Otomies on the northwest, (scattered bands of the Otomies near the valley had been placed under tribute), the Chichimecs or wild tribes north of the Otomies, the Meztitlans on the northeast, the Tlascalans on the east, the Cholulans and Huexotzincos on the southeast,[Pg 195] and beyond them the tribes of the Tabasco, the tribes of Chiapas, and the Zapotecs. In these several directions the dominion of the Aztec confederacy did not extend a hundred miles beyond the valley of Mexico, a portion of which surrounding area was undoubtedly neutral ground separating the confederacy from perpetual enemies. Out of such limited materials the kingdom of Mexico of the Spanish chronicles was fabricated, and afterwards magnified into the Aztec empire of current history.

A few words seem to be necessary concerning the population of the valley and of the pueblo of Mexico. No means exist for ascertaining the number of the people in the five Nahuatlac tribes who inhabited the valley. Any estimate must be conjectural. As a conjecture then, based upon what is known of their horticulture, their means of subsistence, their institutions, their limited area, and not forgetting the tribute they received, two hundred and fifty thousand persons in the aggregate would probably be an excessive estimate. It would give about a hundred and sixty persons to the square mile, equal to nearly twice the present average population of the state of New York, and about equal to the average population of Rhode Island. It is difficult to perceive what sufficient reason can be assigned for so large a number of inhabitants in all the villages within the valley, said to have been from thirty to forty. Those who claim a higher number will be bound to show how a barbarous people, without flocks and herds, and without field agriculture, could have sustained in equal areas a larger number of inhabitants than a civilized people can now maintain armed with these advantages. It cannot be shown for the simple reason that it could not have been true. Out of this population thirty thousand may, perhaps, be assigned to the pueblo of Mexico.206

[Pg 196]

It will be unnecessary to discuss the position and relations of the valley tribes beyond the suggestions made. The Aztec monarchy should be dismissed from American aboriginal history, not only as delusive, but as a misrepresentation of the Indians, who had neither developed nor invented monarchical institutions. The government they formed was a confederacy of tribes, and nothing more; and probably not equal in plan and symmetry with that of the Iroquois. In dealing with this organization, War-chief, Sachem, and Chief will be sufficient to distinguish their official persons.

The pueblo of Mexico was the largest in America. Romantically situated in the midst of an artificial lake, its large joint-tenement houses plastered over with gypsum, which made them a brilliant white, and approached by causeways, it presented to the Spaniards, in the distance, a striking and enchanting spectacle. It was a revelation of an ancient society lying two ethnical periods back of European society, and eminently calculated, from its orderly plan of life, to awaken curiosity and inspire enthusiasm. A certain amount of extravagance of opinion was unavoidable.

A few particulars have been named tending to show the extent of Aztec advancement to which some others may now be added. Ornamental gardens were found, magazines of weapons and of military costumes, improved apparel, manufactured fabrics of cotton of superior workmanship, improved implements and utensils, and an increased variety of food; picture-writing, used chiefly to indicate the tribute in kind each subjugated village was to pay; a calendar for measuring time, and open markets for the barter of commodities.

[Pg 197]

Administrative offices had been created to meet the demands of a growing municipal life; a priesthood, with a temple worship and a ritual including human sacrifices, had been established. The office of head war-chief had also risen into increased importance. These, and other circumstances of their condition, not necessary to be detailed, imply a corresponding development of their institutions. Such are some of the differences between the Lower and the Middle Status of barbarism, as illustrated by the relative conditions of the Iroquois and the Aztecs, both having doubtless the same original institutions.

With these preliminary suggestions made, the three most important and most difficult questions with respect to the Aztec social system, remain to be considered. They relate first, to the existence of Gentes and Phratries; second, the existence and functions of the Council of Chiefs; and, third, the existence and functions of the office of General Military Commander, held by Montezuma.

I. The Existence of Gentes and Phratries.

It may seem singular that the early Spanish writers did not discover the Aztec gentes, if in fact they existed; but the case was nearly the same with the Iroquois under the observation of our own people more than two hundred years. The existence among them of clans, named after animals, was pointed out at an early day, but without suspecting that it was the unit of a social system upon which both the tribe and the confederacy rested.207 The failure of the Spanish investigators to notice the existence of the gentile organization among the tribes of Spanish America would afford no proof of its non-existence; but if it did exist, it would simply prove that their work was superficial in this respect.

There is a large amount of indirect and fragmentary evidence in the Spanish writers pointing both to the gens and the phratry, some of which will now be considered. Reference has been made to the frequent use of the term “kindred” by Herrera, showing that groups of persons were noticed who were bound together by affinities of blood. This, from the size of the group, [Pg 198]seems to require a gens. The term “lineage” is sometimes used to indicate a still larger group, and implying a phratry.

The pueblo of Mexico was divided geographically into four quarters, each of which was occupied by a lineage, a body of people more nearly related by consanguinity among themselves than they were to the inhabitants of the other quarters. Presumptively, each lineage was a phratry. Each quarter was again subdivided, and each local subdivision was occupied by a community of persons bound together by some common tie.208 Presumptively, this community of persons was a gens. Turning to the kindred tribe of Tlascalans, the same facts nearly re-appear. Their pueblo was divided into four quarters, each occupied by a lineage. Each had its own Teuctli or head war-chief, its distinctive military costume, and its own standard and blazon.209 As one people they were under the government of a council of chiefs, which the Spaniards honored with the name of the Tlascalan senate.210 Cholula, in like manner, was divided into six quarters, called wards by Herrera, which leads to the same inference.211 The Aztecs in their social subdivisions having arranged among themselves the parts of the pueblo they were severally to occupy, these geographical districts would result from their mode of settlement. If the brief account of these quarters at the foundation of Mexico, given by Herrera, who follows Acosta, is read in the light of this explanation, the truth of the matter will be brought quite near. After mentioning the building of a “chapel of lime and stone for the idol,” Herrera proceeds as follows: “When this was done, the idol ordered a priest to bid the chief men divide themselves, with their kindred and followers, into four wards or quarters, leaving the house that had been built for him to rest in the middle, and each party to build as they liked best. These are the four quarters of Mexico now called St. John, St. Mary the Round, St. Paul and St. Sebastian. That division being accordingly made, their idol again directed them to distribute among them[Pg 199]selves the gods he should name, and each ward to appoint peculiar places where the gods should be worshiped; and thus every quarter has several smaller wards in it according to the number of their gods this idol called them to adore.... Thus Mexico, Tenochtitlan, was founded.... When the aforesaid partition was made, those who thought themselves injured, with their kindred and followers, went away to seek some other place,”212 namely, Tlatelulco, which was adjacent. It is a reasonable interpretation of this language that they divided by kin, first into four general divisions, and these into smaller subdivisions, which is the usual formula for stating results. But the actual process was the exact reverse; namely, each body of kindred located in an area by themselves, and the several bodies in such a way as to bring those most nearly related in geographical connection with each other. Assuming that the lowest subdivision was a gens, and that each quarter was occupied by a phratry, composed of related gentes, the primary distribution of the Aztecs in their pueblo is perfectly intelligible. Without this assumption it is incapable of a satisfactory explanation. When a people, organized in gentes, phratries and tribes, settled in a town or city, they located by gentes and by tribes, as a necessary consequence of their social organization. The Grecian and Roman tribes settled in their cities in this manner. For example, the three Roman tribes were organized in gentes and curiæ, the curia being the analogue of the phratry; and they settled at Rome by gentes, by curias and by tribes. The Ramnes occupied the Palatine Hill. The Tities were mostly on the Quirinal, and the Luceres mostly on the Esquiline. If the Aztecs were in gentes and phratries, having but one tribe, they would of necessity be found in as many quarters as they had phratries, with each gens of the same phratry in the main locally by itself. As husband and wife were of different gentes, and the children were of the gens of the father or mother as descent was in the male or the female line, the preponderating number in each locality would be of the same gens.

Their military organization was based upon these social di[Pg 200]visions. As Nestor advised Agamemnon to arrange the troops by phratries and by tribes, the Aztecs seem to have arranged themselves by gentes and by phratries. In the Mexican Chronicles, by the native author Tezozomoc (for a reference to the following passage, in which I am indebted to my friend Mr. Ad. F. Bandelier, of Highland, Illinois, who is now engaged upon its translation), a proposed invasion of Michoacan is referred to. Axaycatl “spoke to the Mexican captains Tlacatecatl and Tlacochcalcatl, and to all the others, and inquired whether all the Mexicans were prepared, after the usages and customs of each ward, each one with its captains; and if so that they should begin to march, and that all were to reunite at Matlatzinco Toluca.”213 It indicates that the military organization was by gentes and by phratries.

An inference of the existence of Aztec gentes arises also from their land tenure. Clavigero remarks that “the lands which were called Altepetlalli [altepetl = pueblo] that is, those of the communities of cities and villages, were divided into as many parts as there were districts in a city, and every district possessed its own part entirely distinct from, and independent of every other. These lands could not be alienated by any means whatever.”214 In each of these communities we are led to recognize a gens, whose localization was a necessary consequence of their social system. Clavigero puts the districts for the community, whereas it was the latter which made the district, and which owned the lands in common. The element of kin which united each community, omitted by Clavigero, is supplied by Herrera. “There were other lords, called major parents [sachems], whose landed property all belonged to one lineage [gens], which lived in one district, and there were many of them when the lands were distributed at the time New Spain was peopled; and each lineage received its own, and have possessed them until now; and these lands did not belong to any one in particular, but to all in common, and he who possessed them could not sell them, although he enjoyed them for life [Pg 201]and left them to his sons and heirs; and if a house died out they were left to the nearest parent to whom they were given and to no other, who administered the same district or lineage.”215 In this remarkable statement our author was puzzled to harmonize the facts with the prevailing theory of Aztec institutions. He presents to us an Aztec lord who held the fee of the land as a feudal proprietor, and a title of rank pertaining to it, both of which he transmitted to his son and heir. But in obedience to truth he states the essential fact that the lands belonged to a body of consanguinei of whom he is styled the major parent, i. e., he was the sachem, it may be supposed, of the gens, the latter owning these lands in common. The suggestion that he held the lands in trust means nothing. They found Indian chiefs connected with gentes, each gens owning a body of lands in common, and when the chief died, his place was filled by his son, according to Herrera. In so far it may have been analogous to a Spanish estate and title; and the misconception resulted from a want of knowledge of the nature and tenure of the office of chief. In some cases they found the son did not succeed his father, but the office went to some other person; hence the further statement, “if a house (alguna casa, another feudal feature) died out, they [the lands] were left to the nearest major parent;” i. e., another person was elected sachem, as near as any conclusion can be drawn from the language. What little has been given to us by the Spanish writers concerning Indian chiefs, and the land tenure of the tribes is corrupted by the use of language adapted to feudal institutions that had no existence among them. In this lineage we are warranted in recognizing an Aztec gens; and in this lord an Aztec sachem, whose office was hereditary in the gens, in the sense elsewhere stated, and elective among its members. If descent was in the male line, the choice would fall upon one of the sons of the deceased sachem, own or collateral, upon a grandson, through one of his sons, or upon a brother, own or collateral. But if in the female line it would fall upon a brother or nephew, own or collateral, as elsewhere explained.

[Pg 202]

The sachem had no title whatever to the lands, and therefore none to transmit to any one. He was thought to be the proprietor because he held an office which was perpetually maintained, and because there was a body of lands perpetually belonging to a gens over which he was a sachem. The misconception of this office and of its tenure has been the fruitful source of unnumbered errors in our aboriginal histories. The lineage of Herrera, and the communities of Clavigero were evidently organizations, and the same organization. They found in this body of kindred, without knowing the fact, the unit of their social system—a gens, as we must suppose.

Indian chiefs are described as lords by Spanish writers, and invested with rights over lands and over persons they never possessed. It is a misconception to style an Indian chief a lord in the European sense, because it implies a condition of society that did not exist. A lord holds a rank and a title by hereditary right, secured to him by special legislation in derogation of the rights of the people as a whole. To this rank and title, since the overthrow of feudalism, no duties are attached which may be claimed by the king or the kingdom as a matter of right. On the contrary, an Indian chief holds an office, not by hereditary right, but by election from a constituency, which retained the right to depose him for cause. The office carried with it the obligation to perform certain duties for the benefit of the constituency. He had no authority over the persons or property or lands of the members of the gens. It is thus seen that no analogy exists between a lord and his title, and an Indian chief and his office. One belongs to political society, and represents an aggression of the few upon the many; while the other belongs to gentile society and is founded upon the common interests of the members of the gens. Unequal privileges find no place in the gens, phratry or tribe.

Further traces of the existence of Aztec gentes will appear. A prima facie case of the existence of gentes among them is at least made out. There was also an antecedent probability to this effect, from the presence of the two upper members of the organic series, the tribe, and the confederacy, and from the general prevalence of the organization among other tribes. A[Pg 203] very little close investigation by the early Spanish writers would have placed the question beyond a doubt, and, as a consequence, have given a very different complexion to Aztec history.

The usages regulating the inheritance of property among the Aztecs have come down to us in a confused and contradictory condition. They are not material in this discussion, except as they reveal the existence of bodies of consanguinei, and the inheritance by children from their fathers. If the latter were the fact it would show that descent was in the male line, and also an extraordinary advance in a knowledge of property. It is not probable that children enjoyed an exclusive inheritance, or that any Aztec owned a foot of land which he could call his own, with power to sell and convey to whomsoever he pleased.

II. The Existence and Functions of the Council of Chiefs.

The existence of such a council among the Aztecs might have been predicted from the necessary constitution of Indian society. Theoretically, it would have been composed of that class of chiefs, distinguished as sachems, who represented bodies of kindred through an office perpetually maintained. Here again, as elsewhere, a necessity is seen for gentes, whose principal chiefs would represent the people in their ultimate social subdivisions as among the Northern tribes. Aztec gentes are fairly necessary to explain the existence of Aztec chiefs. Of the presence of an Aztec council there is no doubt whatever; but of the number of its members and of its functions we are left in almost total ignorance. Brasseur de Bourbourg remarks generally that “nearly all the towns or tribes are divided into four clans or quarters whose chiefs constitute the great council.”216 Whether he intended to limit the number to one chief from each quarter is not clear; but elsewhere he limits the Aztec council to four chiefs. Diego Duran, who wrote his work in 1579-1581, and thus preceded both Acosta and Tezozomoc, remarks as follows: “First we must know, that in Mexico after having elected a king they elected four lords of the brothers or near relations of this king to whom they gave the titles of princes, and from whom they had to choose the king. [To the offices he gives the names of Tlacachcalcatl, Tlacatecal, [Pg 204] Ezuauacatl, and Fillancalque].... These four lords and titles after being elected princes, they made them the royal council, like the presidents and judges of the supreme council, without whose opinion nothing could be done.”217 Acosta, after naming the same offices, and calling the persons who held them “electors,” remarks that “all these four dignities were of the great council, without whose advice the king might not do anything of importance.”218 And Herrera, after placing these offices in four grades, proceeds: “These four sorts of noblemen were of the supreme council, without whose advice the king was to do nothing of moment, and no king could be chosen but what was of one of these four orders.”219 The use of the term king to describe a principal war-chief and of princes to describe Indian chiefs cannot create a state or a political society where none existed; but as misnomers they stilt up and disfigure our aboriginal history and for that reason ought to be discarded. When the Huexotzincos sent delegates to Mexico proposing an alliance against the Tlascalans, Montezuma addressed them, according to Tezozomoc, as follows: “Brothers and sons, you are welcome, rest yourselves awhile, for although I am king indeed I alone cannot satisfy you, but only together with all the chiefs of the sacred Mexican senate.”220 The above accounts recognize the existence of a supreme council, with authority over the action of the principal war-chief, which is the material point. It tends to show that the Aztecs guarded themselves against an irresponsible despot, by subjecting his action to a council of chiefs, and by making him elective and deposable. If the limited and incomplete statements of these authors intended to restrict this council to four members, which Duran seems to imply, the limitation is improbable. As such the council would represent, not the Aztec tribe, but the small body of kinsmen from whom the military [Pg 205]commander was to be chosen. This is not the theory of a council of chiefs. Each chief represents a constituency, and the chiefs together represent the tribe. A selection from their number is sometimes made to form a general council; but it is through an organic provision which fixes the number, and provides for their perpetual maintenance. The Tezcucan council is said to have consisted of fourteen members,221 while the council at Tlascala was a numerous body. Such a council among the Aztecs is required by the structure and principles of Indian society, and therefore would be expected to exist. In this council may be recognized the lost element in Aztec history. A knowledge of its functions is essential to a comprehension of Aztec society.

In the current histories this council is treated as an advisory board of Montezuma’s, as a council of ministers of his own creation; thus Clavigero: “In the history of the conquest we shall find Montezuma in frequent deliberation with his council on the pretensions of the Spaniards. We do not know the number of each council, nor do historians furnish us with the lights necessary to illustrate such a subject.”222 It was one of the first questions requiring investigation, and the fact that the early writers failed to ascertain its composition and functions is proof conclusive of the superficial character of their work. We know, however, that the council of chiefs is an institution which came in with the gentes, which represents electing constituencies, and which from time immemorial had a vocation as well as original governing powers. We find a Tezcucan and Tlacopan council, a Tlascalan, a Cholulan and a Michoacan council, each composed of chiefs. The evidence establishes the existence of an Aztec council of chiefs; but so far as it is limited to four members, all of the same lineage, it is presented in an improbable form. Every tribe in Mexico and Central America, beyond a reasonable doubt, had its council of chiefs. It was the governing body of the tribe, and a constant phenomenon in all parts of aboriginal America. The council of chiefs is the oldest institution of government of mankind. It can show an unbroken succession on the several continents from the

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Upper Status of savagery through the three sub-periods of barbarism to the commencement of civilization, when, having been changed into a preconsidering council with the rise of the assembly of the people, it gave birth to the modern legislature in two bodies.

It does not appear that there was a general council of the Aztec confederacy, composed of the principal chiefs of the three tribes, as distinguished from the separate councils of each. A complete elucidation of this subject is required before it can be known whether the Aztec organization was simply a league, offensive and defensive, and as such under the primary control of the Aztec tribe, or a confederacy in which the parts were integrated in a symmetrical whole. This problem must await future solution.

III. The Tenure and Functions of the Office of Principal War-chief.

The name of the office held by Montezuma, according to the best accessible information, was simply Teuctli, which signifies a war-chief. As a member of the council of chiefs he was sometimes called Tlatoani, which signifies speaker. This office of a general military commander was the highest known to the Aztecs. It was the same office and held by the same tenure as that of principal war-chief in the Iroquois confederacy. It made the person, ex officio, a member of the council of chiefs, as may be inferred from the fact that in some of the tribes the principal war-chief had precedence in the council both in debate and in pronouncing his opinion.223 None of the Spanish writers apply this title to Montezuma or his successors. It was superseded by the inappropriate title of king. Ixtlilxochitl, who was of mixed Tezcucan and Spanish descent, describes the head war-chiefs of Mexico, Tezcuco and Tlacopan, by the simple title of war-chief, with another to indicate the tribe. After speaking of the division of powers between the three chiefs when the con[Pg 207]federacy was formed, and of the assembling of the chiefs of the three tribes on that occasion, he proceeds: “The king of Tezcuco was saluted by the title of Aculhua Teuctli, also by that of Chichimecatl Teuctli which his ancestors had worn, and which was the mark of the empire; Itzcoatzin, his uncle, received the title of Culhua Teuctli, because he reigned over the Toltecs-Culhuas; and Totoquihuatzin that of Tecpanuatl Teuctli, which had been the title of Azcaputzalco. Since that time their successors have received the same title.”224 Izcoatzin (Itzcoatl), here mentioned, was war-chief of the Aztecs when the confederacy was formed. As the title was that of war-chief, then held by many other persons, the compliment consisted in connecting with it a tribal designation. In Indian speech the office held by Montezuma was equivalent to head war-chief, and in English to general.

Clavigero recognizes this office in several Nahuatlac tribes, but never applies it to the Aztec war-chief. “The highest rank of nobility in Tlascala, in Huexotzinco and in Cholula was that of Teuctli. To obtain this rank it was necessary to be of noble birth, to have given proofs in several battles of the utmost courage, to have arrived at a certain age, and to command great riches for the enormous expenses which were necessary to be supported by the possessor of such a dignity.”225 After Montezuma had been magnified into an absolute potentate, with civil as well as military functions, the nature and powers of the office he held were left in the background—in fact uninvestigated. As their general military commander he possessed the means of winning the popular favor, and of commanding the popular respect. It was a dangerous but necessary office to the tribe and to the confederacy. Throughout human experience, from the Lower Status of barbarism to the present time, it has ever been a dangerous office. Constitutions and laws furnish the present security of civilized nations, so far as they have any. A body of usages and customs grew up, in all probability, among the advanced Indian tribes and among the tribes of the valley of Mexico, regulating the pow[Pg 208]ers and prescribing the duties of this office. There are general reasons warranting the supposition that the Aztec council of chiefs was supreme, not only in civil affairs, but over military affairs, the person and direction of the war-chief included. The Aztec polity under increased numbers and material advancement, had undoubtedly grown complex, and for that reason a knowledge of it would have been the more instructive. Could the exact particulars of their governmental organization be ascertained they would be sufficiently remarkable without embellishment.

The Spanish writers concur generally in the statement that the office held by Montezuma was elective, with the choice confined to a particular family. The office was found to pass from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew. They were unable, however, to explain why it did not in some cases pass from father to son. Since the mode of succession was unusual to the Spaniards there was less possibility of a mistake with regard to the principal fact. Moreover, two successions occurred under the immediate notice of the conquerors. Montezuma was succeeded by Cuitlahua. In this case the office passed from brother to brother, although we cannot know whether they were own or collateral brothers without a knowledge of their system of consanguinity. Upon the death of the latter Guatemozin was elected to succeed him. Here the office passed from uncle to nephew, but we do not know whether he was an own or a collateral nephew. (See Part Third, ch. iii.) In previous cases the office had passed from brother to brother and also from uncle to nephew.226 An elective office implies a constituency; but who were the constituents in this case? To meet this question the four chiefs mentioned by Duran (supra] are introduced as electors, to whom one elector from Tezcuco and one from Tlacopan are added, making six, who are then invested with power to choose from a particular family the principal war-chief. This is not the theory of an elective Indian office, and it may be dismissed as improbable. Sahagun indicates a much larger constituency. “When the king or lord died,” he remarks, “all the senators called Tecutlatoques, [Pg 209] and the old men of the tribe called Achcacauhiti, and also the captains and old warriors called Yautequioaques, and other prominent captains in warlike matters, and also the priests called Tlenamacaques, or Papasaques—all these assembled in the royal houses. Then they deliberated upon and determined who had to be lord, and chose one of the most noble of the lineage of the past lords, who should be a valiant man, experienced in warlike matters, daring and brave.... When they agreed upon one they at once named him as lord, but this election was not made by ballot or votes, but all together conferring at last agreed upon the man. The lord once elected they also elected four others which were like senators, and had to be always with the lord, and be informed of all the business of the kingdom.”227 This scheme of election by a large assembly, while it shows the popular element in the government which undoubtedly existed, is without the method of Indian institutions. Before the tenure of this office and the mode of election can be made intelligible, it is necessary to find whether or not they were organized in gentes, whether descent was in the female line or the male, and to know something of their system of consanguinity. If they had the system found in many other tribes of the Ganowánian family, which is probable, a man would call his brother’s son his son, and his sister’s son his nephew; he would call his father’s brother his father, and his mother’s brother his uncle; the children of his father’s brother his brothers and sisters, and the children of his mother’s brother his cousins, and so on. If organized into gentes with descent in the female line, a man would have brothers, uncles and nephews, collateral grandfathers and grandsons within his own gens; but neither own father, own son, or lineal grandson. His own sons and his brother’s sons would belong to other gentes. It cannot as yet be affirmed that the Aztecs were organized in gentes; but the succession to the office of principal war-chief is of itself strong proof of the fact, because it would explain this succession completely. Then with descent in the female line the office would be hereditary in a particular gens, but elective among its members. In that case the office [Pg 210]would pass, by election within the gens, from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew, precisely as it did among the Aztecs, and never from father to son. Among the Iroquois at that same time the offices of sachem and of principal war-chief were passing from brother to brother or from uncle to nephew, as the choice might happen to fall, and never to the son. It was the gens, with descent in the female line, which gave this mode of succession, and which could have been secured in no other conceivable way. It is difficult to resist the conclusion, from these facts alone, that the Aztecs were organized in gentes, and that in respect to this office at least descent was still in the female line.

It may therefore be suggested, as a probable explanation, that the office held by Montezuma was hereditary in a gens (the eagle was the blazon or totem on the house occupied by Montezuma), by the members of which the choice was made from among their number; that their nomination was then submitted separately to the four lineages or divisions of the Aztecs (conjectured to be phratries), for acceptance or rejection; and also to the Tezcucans and Tlacopans, who were directly interested in the selection of the general commander. When they had severally considered and confirmed the nomination each division appointed a person to signify their concurrence; whence the six miscalled electors. It is not unlikely that the four high chiefs of the Aztecs, mentioned as electors by a number of authors, were in fact the war-chiefs of the four divisions of the Aztecs, like the four war-chiefs of the four lineages of the Tlascalans. The function of these persons was not to elect, but to ascertain by a conference with each other whether the choice made by the gens had been concurred in, and if so to announce the result. The foregoing is submitted as a conjectural explanation, upon the fragments of evidence remaining, of the mode of succession to the Aztec office of principal war-chief. It is seen to harmonize with Indian usages, and with the theory of the office of an elective Indian chief.

The right to depose from office follows as a necessary consequence of the right to elect, where the term was for life. It is thus turned into an office during good behavior. In these two[Pg 211] principles of electing and deposing, universally established in the social system of the American aborigines, sufficient evidence is furnished that the sovereign power remained practically in the hands of the people. This power to depose, though seldom exercised, was vital in the gentile organization. Montezuma was no exception to the rule. It required time to reach this result from the peculiar circumstances of the case, for a good reason was necessary. When Montezuma allowed himself, through intimidation, to be conducted from his place of residence to the quarters of Cortes where he was placed under confinement, the Aztecs were paralyzed for a time for the want of a military commander. The Spaniards had possession both of the man and of his office.228 They waited some weeks, hoping the Spaniards would retire; but when they found the latter intended to remain they met the necessity, as there are sufficient reasons for believing, by deposing Montezuma for want of resolution, and elected his brother to fill his place. Immediately thereafter they assaulted the Spanish quarters with great fury, and finally succeeded in driving them from their pueblo. This conclusion respecting the deposition of Montezuma is fully warranted by Herrera’s statement of the facts. After the assault commenced, Cortes, observing the Aztecs obeying a new commander, at once suspected the truth of the matter, and “sent Marina to ask Montezuma whether he thought they had put the government into his hands,”229 i. e., the hands of the new commander. Montezuma is said to have replied “that they would not presume to choose a king in Mexico whilst he was living.”230 He then went upon the roof of the house and addressed his countrymen, saying among other things, “that he [Pg 212]had been informed they had chosen another king because he was confined and loved the Spaniards;” to which he received the following ungracious reply from an Aztec warrior: “Hold your peace, you effeminate scoundrel, born to weave and spin; these dogs keep you a prisoner, you are a coward.”231 Then they discharged arrows upon him and stoned him, from the effects of which and from deep humiliation he shortly afterwards died. The war-chief in the command of the Aztecs in this assault was Cuitlahua, the brother of Montezuma and his successor.232

Respecting the functions of this office very little satisfactory information can be derived from the Spanish writers. There is no reason for supposing that Montezuma possessed any power over the civil affairs of the Aztecs. Moreover, every presumption is against it. In military affairs when in the field he had the powers of a general; but military movements were probably decided upon by the council. It is an interesting fact to be noticed that the functions of a priest were attached to the office of principal war-chief, and, as it is claimed, those of a judge.233 The early appearance of these functions in the natural growth of the military office will be referred to again in connection with that of basileus. Although the government was of two powers it is probable that the council was supreme, in case of a conflict of authority, over civil and military affairs. It should be remembered that the council of chiefs was the oldest in time, and possessed a solid basis of power in the needs of society and in the representative character of the office of chief.

The tenure of the office of principal war-chief and the presence of a council with power to depose from office, tend to show that the institutions of the Aztecs were essentially democratical. The elective principle with respect to war-chief, and which we must suppose existed with respect to sachem and chief, and the presence of a council of chiefs, determine the material fact. A pure democracy of the Athenian type was unknown in the Lower, in the Middle, or even in the Upper [Pg 213]Status of barbarism; but it is very important to know whether the institutions of a people are essentially democratical, or essentially monarchical, when we seek to understand them. Institutions of the former kind are separated nearly as widely from those of the latter, as democracy is from monarchy. Without ascertaining the unit of their social system, if organized in gentes as they probably were, and without gaining a knowledge of the system that did exist, the Spanish writers boldly invented for the Aztecs an absolute monarchy with high feudal characteristics, and have succeeded in placing it in history. This misconception has stood, through American indolence, quite as long as it deserves to stand. The Aztec organization presented itself plainly to the Spaniards as a league or confederacy of tribes. Nothing but the grossest perversion of obvious facts could have enabled the Spanish writers to fabricate the Aztec monarchy out of a democratic organization.

Theoretically, the Aztecs, Tezcucans and Tlacopans should severally have had a head-sachem to represent the tribe in civil affairs when the council of chiefs was not in session, and to take the initiative in preparing its work. There are traces of such an officer among the Aztecs in the Ziahuacatl, who is sometimes called the second chief, as the war-chief is called the first. But the accessible information respecting this office is too limited to warrant a discussion of the subject.

It has been shown among the Iroquois that the warriors could appear before the council of chiefs and express their views upon public questions; and that the women could do the same through orators of their own selection. This popular participation in the government led in time to the popular assembly, with power to adopt or reject public measures submitted to them by the council. Among the Village Indians there is no evidence, so far as the author is aware, that there was an assembly of the people to consider public questions with power to act upon them. The four lineages probably met for special objects, but this was very different from a general assembly for public objects. From the democratic character of their institutions and their advanced condition the Aztecs were drawing near the time when the assembly of the people might be expected to appear.

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The growth of the idea of government among the American aborigines, as elsewhere remarked, commenced with the gens and ended with the confederacy. Their organizations were social and not political. Until the idea of property had advanced very far beyond the point they had attained, the substitution of political for gentile society was impossible. There is not a fact to show that any portion of the aborigines, at least in North America, had reached any conception of the second great plan of government founded upon territory and upon property. The spirit of the government and the condition of the people harmonize with the institutions under which they live. When the military spirit predominates, as it did among the Aztecs, a military democracy rises naturally under gentile institutions. Such a government neither supplants the free spirit of the gentes, nor weakens the principles of democracy, but accords with them harmoniously.

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Early condition of Grecian Tribes.—Organized into Gentes.—Changes in the Character of the Gens.—Necessity for a Political System.—Problem to be Solved.—The Formation of a State.—Grote’s Description of the Grecian Gentes.—Of Their Phratries and Tribes.—Attributes of the Gens.—Similar to those of the Iroquois Gentes.—The Office of Chief of the Gens.—Whether Elective or Hereditary.—The Gens the Basis of the Social System.—Antiquity of the Gentile Lineage.—Inheritance of Property.—Archaic and Final Rule.—Relationships between the Members of a Gens.—The Gens the Centre of Social and Religious Influence.

Civilization may be said to have commenced among the Asiatic Greeks with the composition of the Homeric poems about 850 B. C.; and among the European Greeks about a century later with the composition of the Hesiodic poems. Anterior to these epochs, there was a period of several thousand years during which the Hellenic tribes were advancing through the Later Period of barbarism, and preparing for their entrance upon a civilized career. Their most ancient traditions find them already established in the Grecian peninsula, upon the eastern border of the Mediterranean, and upon the intermediate and adjacent islands. An older branch of the same stock, of which the Pelasgians were the chief representatives, had preceded them in the occupation of the greater part of these areas, and were in time either Hellenized by them, or forced into emigration. The anterior condition of the Hellenic tribes and of their predecessors, must be deduced from the arts and[Pg 216] inventions which they brought down from the previous period, from the state of development of their language, from their traditions and from their social institutions, which severally survived into the period of civilization. Our discussion will be restricted, in the main, to the last class of facts.

Pelasgians and Hellenes alike were organized in gentes, phratries234 and tribes; and the latter united by coalescence into nations. In some cases the organic series was not complete. Whether in tribes or nations their government rested upon the gens as the unit of organization, and resulted in a gentile society or a people, as distinguished from a political society or a state. The instrument of government was a council of chiefs, with the co-operation of an agora or assembly of the people, and of a basileus or military commander. The people were free, and their institutions democratical. Under the influence of advancing ideas and wants the gens had passed out of its archaic into its ultimate form. Modifications had been forced upon it by the irresistible demands of an improving society; but, notwithstanding the concessions made, the failure of the gentes to meet these wants was constantly becoming more apparent. The changes were limited, in the main, to three particulars: firstly, descent was changed to the male line; secondly, intermarriage in the gens was permitted in the case of female orphans and heiresses; and thirdly, children had gained an exclusive inheritance of their father’s property. An attempt will elsewhere be made to trace these changes, briefly, and the causes by which they were produced.

The Hellenes in general were in fragmentary tribes, presenting the same characteristics in their form of government as the barbarous tribes in general, when organized in gentes and in the same stage of advancement. Their condition was precisely such as might have been predicted would exist under gentile institutions, and therefore presents nothing remarkable.

When Grecian society came for the first time under historical observation, about the first Olympiad (776 B. C.) and down to the legislation of Cleisthenes (509 B. C.), it was [Pg 217]engaged upon the solution of a great problem. It was no less than a fundamental change in the plan of government, involving a great modification of institutions. The people were seeking to transfer themselves out of gentile society, in which they had lived from time immemorial, into political society based upon territory and upon property, which had become essential to a career of civilization. In fine, they were striving to establish a state, the first in the experience of the Aryan family, and to place it upon a territorial foundation, such as the state has occupied from that time to the present. Ancient society rested upon an organization of persons, and was governed through the relations of persons to a gens and tribe; but the Grecian tribes were outgrowing this old plan of government, and began to feel the necessity of a political system. To accomplish this result it was only necessary to invent a deme or township, circumscribed with boundaries, to christen it with a name, and organize the people therein as a body politic. The township, with the fixed property it contained, and with the people who inhabited it for the time being, was to become the unit of organization in the new plan of government. Thereafter the gentilis, changed into a citizen, would be dealt with by the state through his territorial relations, and not through his personal relations to a gens. He would be enrolled in the deme of his residence, which enrollment was the evidence of his citizenship; would vote and be taxed in his deme; and from it be called into the military service. Although apparently a simple idea, it required centuries of time and a complete revolution of pre-existing conceptions of government to accomplish the result. The gens, which had so long been the unit of a social system, had proved inadequate, as before suggested, to meet the requirements of an advancing society. But to set this organization aside, together with the phratry and tribe, and substitute a number of fixed areas, each with its community of citizens, was, in the nature of the case, a measure of extreme difficulty. The relations of the individual to his gens, which were personal, had to be transferred to the township and become territorial; the demarch of the township taking, in some sense, the place of the chief of the gens. A township with its fixed property would[Pg 218] be permanent, and the people therein sufficiently so; while the gens was a fluctuating aggregate of persons, more or less scattered, and now growing incapable of permanent establishment in a local circumscription. Anterior to experience, a township, as the unit of a political system, was abstruse enough to tax the Greeks and Romans to the depths of their capacities before the conception was formed and set in practical operation. Property was the new element that had been gradually remoulding Grecian institutions to prepare the way for political society, of which it was to be the mainspring as well as the foundation. It was no easy task to accomplish such a fundamental change, however simple and obvious it may now seem; because all the previous experience of the Grecian tribes had been identified with the gentes whose powers were to be surrendered to the new political bodies.

Several centuries elapsed, after the first attempts were made to found the new political system, before the problem was solved. After experience had demonstrated that the gentes were incapable of forming the basis of a state, several distinct schemes of legislation were tried in the various Grecian communities, who copied more or less each other’s experiments, all tending to the same result. Among the Athenians, from whose experience the chief illustrations will be drawn, may be mentioned the legislation of Theseus, on the authority of tradition; that of Draco (624 B. C.); that of Solon (594 B. C.); and that of Cleisthenes (509 B. C.), the last three of which were within the historical period. The development of municipal life and institutions, the aggregation of wealth in walled cities, and the great changes in the mode of life thereby produced, prepared the way for the overthrow of gentile society, and for the establishment of political society in its place.

Before attempting to trace the transition from gentile into political society, with which the closing history of the gentes is identified, the Grecian gens and its attributes will be first considered.

Athenian institutions are typical of Grecian institutions in general, in whatever relates to the constitution of the gens and tribe, down to the end of ancient society among them. At[Pg 219] the commencement of the historical period, the Ionians of Attica were subdivided, as is well known, into four tribes (Geleontes, Hopletes, Aegicores, and Argades), speaking the same dialect, and occupying a common territory. They had coalesced into a nation as distinguished from a confederacy of tribes; but such a confederacy had probably existed in anterior times.235 Each Attic tribe was composed of three phratries, and each phratry of thirty gentes, making an aggregate of twelve phratries, and of three hundred and sixty gentes in the four tribes. Such is the general form of the statement, the fact being constant with respect to the number of tribes, and the number of phratries in each, but liable to variation in the number of gentes in each phratry. In like manner the Dorians were generally found in three tribes (Hylleis, Pamphyli, and Dymanes), although forming a number of nationalities; as at Sparta, Argos, Sicyon, Corinth, Epidaurus and Troezen; and beyond the Peloponnesus at Megara, and elsewhere. One or more non-Dorian tribes were found in some cases united with them, as at Corinth, Sicyon and Argos.

In all cases the Grecian tribe presupposes the gentes, the bond of kin and of dialect forming the basis upon which they united in a tribe; but the tribe did not presuppose the phratry, which, as an intermediate organization, although very common among all these tribes, was liable to be intermitted. At Sparta, there were subdivisions of the tribes called obês (ὠβαί), each tribe containing ten, which were analogous to phratries; but concerning the functions of these organizations some uncertainty prevails.236

The Athenian gentes will now be considered as they appeared in their ultimate form and in full vitality; but with the [Pg 220]elements of an incipient civilization arrayed against them, before which they were yielding step by step, and by which they were to be overthrown with the social system they created. In some respects it is the most interesting portion of the history of this remarkable organization, which had brought human society out of savagery, and carried it through barbarism into the early stages of civilization.

The social system of the Athenians exhibits the following series: first, the gens (γένος) founded upon kin; second, the phratry (φράτρα and φρατρία), a brotherhood of gentes derived by segmentation, probably, from an original gens; third, the tribe (φῦλον, later φυλὴ), composed of several phratries, the members of which spoke the same dialect; and fourth, a people or nation, composed of several tribes united by coalescence into one gentile society, and occupying the same territory. These integral and ascending organizations exhausted their social system under the gentes, excepting the confederacy of tribes occupying independent territories, which, although it occurred in some instances in the early period and sprang naturally out of gentile institutions, led to no important results. It is likely that the four Athenian tribes confederated before they coalesced, the last occurring after they had collected in one territory under pressure from other tribes. If true of them, it would be equally true of the Dorian and other tribes. When such tribes coalesced into a nation, there was no term in the language to express the result, beyond a national name. The Romans, under very similar institutions, styled themselves the Populus Romanus, which expressed the fact exactly. They were then simply a people, and nothing more; which was all that could result from an aggregation of gentes, curiæ and tribes. The four Athenian tribes formed a society or people, which became completely autonomous in the legendary period under the name of the Athenians. Throughout the early Grecian communities, the gens phratry and tribe were constant phenomena of their social systems, with the occasional absence of the phratry.

Mr. Grote has collected the principal facts with respect to the Grecian gentes with such critical ability that they cannot[Pg 221] be presented in a more authoritative manner than in his own language, which will be quoted where he treats the subject generally. After commenting upon the tribal divisions of the Greeks, he proceeds as follows: “But the Phratries and Gentes are a distribution completely different from this. They seem aggregations of small primitive unities into larger; they are independent of, and do not presuppose, the tribe; they arise separately and spontaneously, without preconcerted uniformity, and without reference to a common political purpose; the legislator finds them pre-existing, and adapts or modifies them to answer some national scheme. We must distinguish the general fact of the classification, and the successive subordination in the scale, of the families to the gens, of the gentes to the phratry, and of the phratries to the tribe—from the precise numerical symmetry with which this subordination is invested, as we read it,—thirty families to a gens, thirty gentes to a phratry, three phratries to each tribe. If such nice equality of numbers could ever have been procured, by legislative constraint, operating upon pre-existent natural elements, the proportions could not have been permanently maintained. But we may reasonably doubt whether it did ever so exist.... That every phratry contained an equal number of gentes, and every gens an equal number of families, is a supposition hardly admissible without better evidence than we possess. But apart from this questionable precision of numerical scale, the Phratries and Gentes themselves were real, ancient, and durable associations among the Athenian people, highly important to be understood. The basis of the whole was the house, hearth, or family,—a number of which, greater or less, composed the Gens or Genos. This gens was therefore a clan, sept, or enlarged, and partly factitious, brotherhood, bound together by,—1. Common religious ceremonies, and exclusive privilege of priesthood, in honor of the same god, supposed to be the primitive ancestor, and characterized by a special surname. 2. By a common burial place.237 3. By mutual rights of succession to property. 4. By [Pg 222]reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress of injuries. 5. By mutual right and obligation to intermarry in certain determinate cases, especially where there was an orphan daughter or heiress. 6. By possession, in some cases, at least, of common property, an archon and treasurer of their own. Such were the rights and obligations characterizing the gentile union. The phratric union, binding together several gentes, was less intimate, but still included some mutual rights and obligations of an analogous character; especially a communion of particular sacred rites, and mutual privileges of prosecution in the event of a phrator being slain. Each phratry was considered as belonging to one of the four tribes, and all the phratries of the same tribe enjoyed a certain periodical communion of sacred rites under the presidency of a magistrate called the Phylo-Basileus or tribe-king selected from the Eupatrids.”238

The similarities between the Grecian and the Iroquois gens will at once be recognized. Differences in characteristics will also be perceived, growing out of the more advanced condition of Grecian society, and a fuller development of their religious system. It will not be necessary to verify the existence of the several attributes of the gens named by Mr. Grote, as the proof is plain in the classical authorities. There were other characteristics which doubtless pertained to the Grecian gens, although it may be difficult to establish the existence of all of them; such as: 7. The limitation of descent to the male line; 8. The prohibition of intermarriage in the gens excepting in the case of heiresses; 9. The right of adopting strangers into the gens; and 10. The right of electing and deposing its chiefs.

The rights, privileges and obligations of the members of the Grecian gens may be recapitulated, with the additions named, as follows:

A brief reference to the added characteristics should be made.

7. The limitation of descent to the male line. There is no doubt that such was the rule, because it is proved by their genealogies. I have not been able to find in any Greek author a definition of a gens or of a gentilis that would furnish a sufficient test of the right of a given person to the gentile connection. Cicero, Varro and Festus have defined the Roman gens and gentilis, which were strictly analogous to the Grecian, with sufficient fullness to show that descent was in the male line. From the nature of the gens, descent was either in the female line or the male, and included but a moiety of the descendants of the founder. It is precisely like the family among ourselves. Those who are descended from the males bear the family name, and they constitute a gens in the full sense of the term, but in a state of dispersion, and without any bond of union excepting those nearest in degree. The females lose, with their marriage, the family name, and with their children are transferred to another family. Grote remarks that Aristotle was the “son of the physician Nikomachus who belonged to the gens of the Asklepiads.”239 Whether Aristotle was of the gens of his father depends upon the further question whether they both derived their descent from Aesculapius, through males exclusively. This is shown by Laertius, who states that “Aristotle was the son of Nikomachus ... and Nikomachus was descended from Nikomachus the son of Machaon, the son of Aesculapius.”240 Although the higher members of the series may be [Pg 224]fabulous, the manner of tracing the descent would show the gens of the person. The statement of Hermann, on the authority of Isaeus, is also to the point. “Every infant was registered in the phratria and clan (γένος) of its father.”241 Registration in the gens of the father implies that his children were of his gens.

8. The obligation not to marry in the gens excepting in specified cases. This obligation may be deduced from the consequences of marriage. The wife by her marriage lost the religious rites of her gens, and acquired those of her husband’s gens. The rule is stated as so general as to imply that marriage was usually out of the gens. “The virgin who quits her father’s house,” Wachsmuth remarks, “is no longer a sharer of the paternal sacrificial hearth, but enters the religious communion of her husband, and this gave sanctity to the marriage tie.”242 The fact of her registration is stated by Hermann as follows: “Every newly married woman, herself a citizen, was on this account enrolled in the phratry of her husband.”243 Special religious rites (sacra gentilicia) were common in the Grecian and Latin gens. Whether the wife forfeited her agnatic rights by her marriage, as among the Romans, I am unable to state. It is not probable that marriage severed all connection with her gens, and the wife doubtless still counted herself of the gens of her father.

The prohibition of intermarriage in the gens was fundamental in the archaic period; and it undoubtedly remained after descent was changed to the male line, with the exception of heiresses and female orphans for whose case special provision was made. Although a tendency to free marriage, beyond certain degrees of consanguinity, would follow the complete establishment of the monogamian family, the rule requiring persons to marry out of their own gens would be apt to remain so long as the gens was the basis of the social system. The special provision in respect to heiresses tends to confirm this supposition. Becker remarks upon this question, that “rela[Pg 225]tionship was, with trifling limitations, no hinderance to marriage, which could take place within all degrees of [ἀγχιστεία Greek: agchisteia], or συγγένεια, though naturally not in the [γένος Greek: genos] itself.”244

9. The right to adopt strangers into the gens. This right was practiced at a later day, at least in families; but it was done with public formalities, and was doubtless limited to special cases.245 Purity of lineage became a matter of high concern in the Attic gentes, interposing no doubt serious obstacles to the use of the right except for weighty reasons.

10. The right to elect and depose its chiefs. This right undoubtedly existed in the Grecian gentes in the early period. Presumptively it was possessed by them while in the Upper Status of barbarism. Each gens had its archon (ἀρχὸς), which was the common name for a chief. Whether the office was elective, for example, in the Homeric period, or was transmitted by hereditary right to the eldest son, is a question. The latter was not the ancient theory of the office; and a change so great and radical, affecting the independence and personal rights of all the members of the gens, requires positive proof to override the presumption against it. Hereditary right to an office, carrying with it authority over, and obligations from, the members of a gens is a very different thing from an office bestowed by a free election, with the reserved power to depose for unworthy behavior. The free spirit of the Athenian gentes down to the time of Solon and Cleisthenes forbids the supposition, as to them, that they had parted with a right so vital to the independence of the members of the gens. I have not been able to find any satisfactory explanation of the tenure of this office. Hereditary succession, if it existed, would indicate a remarkable development of the aristocratical element in ancient society, in derogation of the democratical constitution of the gentes. Moreover, it would be a sign of the commencement, at least, of their decadence. All the members of a gens were free and equal, the rich and the poor enjoying equal [Pg 226]rights and privileges, and acknowledging the same in each other. We find liberty, equality and fraternity, written as plainly in the constitution of the Athenian gentes as in those of the Iroquois. Hereditary right to the principal office of the gens is totally inconsistent with the older doctrine of equal rights and privileges.

Whether the higher offices of anax, koiranos, and basileus were transmitted by hereditary right from father to son, or were elective or confirmative by a larger constituency, is also a question. It will be considered elsewhere. The former would indicate the subversion, as the latter the conservation, of gentile institutions. Without decisive evidence to the contrary every presumption is adverse to hereditary right. Some additional light will be gained on this subject when the Roman gentes are considered. A careful re-investigation of the tenure of this office would, not unlikely, modify essentially the received accounts.

It may be considered substantially assured that the Grecian gentes possessed the ten principal attributes named. All save three, namely, descent in the male line, marrying into the gens in the case of heiresses, and the possible transmission of the highest military office by hereditary right, are found with slight variations in the gentes of the Iroquois. It is thus rendered apparent that in the gentes, both the Grecian and the Iroquois tribes possessed the same original institution, the one having the gens in its later, and the other in its archaic form.

Recurring now to the quotation from Mr. Grote, it may be remarked that had he been familiar with the archaic form of the gens, and with the several forms of the family anterior to the monogamian, he would probably have modified essentially some portion of his statement. An exception must be taken to his position that the basis of the social system of the Greeks “was the house, hearth, or family.” The form of the family in the mind of the distinguished historian was evidently the Roman, under the iron-clad rule of a pater familias, to which the Grecian family of the Homeric period approximated in the complete domination of the father over the household. It would have been equally untenable had other and anterior[Pg 227] forms of the family been intended. The gens, in its origin, is older than the monogamian family, older than the syndyasmian, and substantially contemporaneous with the punaluan. In no sense was it founded upon either. It does not recognize the existence of the family of any form as a constituent of itself. On the contrary, every family in the archaic as well as in the later period, was partly within and partly without the gens, because husband and wife must belong to different gentes. The explanation is both simple and complete; namely, that the family springs up independently of the gens with entire freedom to advance from a lower into a higher form, while the gens is constant, as well as the unit of the social system. The gens entered entire into the phratry, the phratry entered entire into the tribe, and the tribe entered entire into the nation; but the family could not enter entire into the gens because husband and wife must belong to different gentes.

The question here raised is important, since not only Mr. Grote, but also Niebuhr, Thirlwall, Maine, Mommsen, and many other able and acute investigators have taken the same position with respect to the monogamian family of the patriarchal type as the integer around which society integrated in the Grecian and Roman systems. Nothing whatever was based upon the family in any of its forms, because it was incapable of entering a gens as a whole. The gens was homogeneous and to a great extent permanent in duration, and as such, the natural basis of a social system. A family of the monogamian type might have become individualized and powerful in a gens, and in society at large; but the gens nevertheless did not and could not recognize or depend upon the family as an integer of itself. The same remarks are equally true with respect to the modern family and political society. Although individualized by property rights and privileges, and recognized as a legal entity by statutory enactment, the family is not the unit of the political system. The state recognizes the counties of which it is composed, the county its townships, but the township takes no note of the family; so the nation recognized its tribes, the tribes its phratries, and the phratries its gentes; but the gens took no note of the family. In dealing[Pg 228] with the structure of society, organic relations alone are to be considered. The township stands in the same relation to political society that the gens did to gentile society. Each is the unit of a system.

There are a number of valuable observations by Mr. Grote, upon the Grecian gentes, which I desire to incorporate as an exposition of them; although these observations seem to imply that they are no older than the then existing mythology, or hierarchy of the gods from the members of which some of the gentes claimed to have derived their eponymous ancestor. In the light of the facts presented, the gentes are seen to have existed long before this mythology was developed—before Jupiter or Neptune, Mars or Venus were conceived in the human mind.

Mr. Grote proceeds: “Thus stood the primitive religious and social union of the population of Attica in its gradually ascending scale—as distinguished from the political union, probably of later introduction, represented at first by the trittyes and naukraries, and in after times by the ten Kleisthenean tribes, subdivided into trittyes and demes. The religious and family bond of aggregation is the earlier of the two; but the political bond, though beginning later, will be found to acquire constantly increasing influence throughout the greater part of this history. In the former, personal relation is the essential and predominant characteristic—local relation being subordinate: in the latter, property and residence become the chief considerations, and the personal element counts only as measured along with these accompaniments. All these phratric and gentile associations, the larger as well as the smaller, were founded upon the same principles and tendencies of the Grecian mind—a coalescence of the idea of worship with that of ancestry, or of communion in certain special religious rites with communion of blood, real or supposed. The god or hero, to whom the assembled members offered their sacrifices, was conceived as the primitive ancestor to whom they owed their origin; often through a long list of intermediate names, as in the case of the Milesian Hekatæus, so often before referred to. Each family had its own sacred rites and funeral[Pg 229] commemorations of ancestors, celebrated by the master of the house, to which none but members of the family were admissible.... The larger associations, called gens, phratry, tribe, were formed by an extension of the same principle—of the family considered as a religious brotherhood, worshiping some common god or hero with an appropriate surname, and recognizing him as their joint ancestor; and the festival of Theoenia, and Apaturia (the first Attic, the second common to all the Ionian race) annually brought together the members of these phratries and gentes for worship, festivity, and maintenance of special sympathies; thus strengthening the larger ties without effacing the smaller.... But the historian must accept as an ultimate fact the earliest state of things which his witnesses make known to him, and in the case now before us, the gentile and phratric unions are matters into the beginning of which we cannot pretend to penetrate.”246

“The gentes both at Athens, and in other parts of Greece, bore a patronymic name, the stamp of their believed common paternity.247 ... But at Athens, at least after the revolution of Kleisthenês, the gentile name was not employed: a man was described by his own single name, followed first by the name of his father, and next by that of the deme to which he belonged,—as Aeschinês son of Atromêtus, a Kothôkid.... The gens constituted a close incorporation, both as to property and as to persons. Until the time of Solon, no man had any power of testamentary disposition. If he died without children, his gennêtes succeeded to his property, and so they continued to do even after Solon, if he died intestate. An orphan girl might be claimed in marriage of right by any member of the gens, the nearest agnates being preferred; if she [Pg 230]was poor, and he did not choose to marry her himself, the law of Solon compelled him to provide her with a dowry proportional to his enrolled scale of property, and to give her out in marriage to another.... If a man was murdered, first his near relations, next his gennêtes and phrators, were both allowed and required to prosecute the crime at law; while his fellow demots, or inhabitants of the same deme, did not possess the like right of prosecuting. All that we hear of the most ancient Athenian laws is based upon the gentile and phratric divisions, which are treated throughout as extensions of the family. It is to be observed that this division is completely independent of any property qualification—rich men as well as poor being comprehended in the same gens. Moreover, the different gentes were very unequal in dignity, arising chiefly from the religious ceremonies of which each possessed the hereditary and exclusive administration, and which, being in some cases considered of pre-eminent sanctity in reference to the whole city, were therefore nationalized. Thus the Eumolpidæ and Kêrykes, who supplied the hierophant and superintendent of the mysteries of the Eleusinian Dêmêtêr—and the Butadæ, who furnished the priestess of Athênê Polias, as well as the priest of Poseidôn Erechtheus in the Acropolis—seem to have been reverenced above all the other gentes.”248

Mr. Grote speaks of the gens as an extension of the family, and as presupposing its existence; treating the family as primary and the gens as secondary. This view, for the reasons stated, is untenable. The two organizations proceed upon different principles and are independent of each other. The gens embraces a part only of the descendants of a supposed common ancestor, and excludes the remainder; it also embraces a part only of a family, and excludes the remainder. In order to be a constituent of the gens, the family should enter entire within its folds, which was impossible in the archaic period, and constructive only in the later. In the organization of gentile society the gens is primary, forming both the basis and the unit of the system. The family also is primary, and older than the gens; the punaluan and the consanguine families having pre[Pg 231]ceded it in the order of time; but it was not a member of the organic series in ancient society any more than it is in modern.

The gens existed in the Aryan family when the Latin, Grecian and Sanskrit speaking tribes were one people, as is shown by the presence in their dialects of the same term (gens, [γένος Greek: genos], and ganas) to express the organization. They derived it from their barbarous ancestors, and more remotely from their savage progenitors. If the Aryan family became differentiated as early as the Middle Period of barbarism, which seems probable, the gens must have been transmitted to them in its archaic form. After that event, and during the long periods of time which elapsed between the separation of these tribes from each other and the commencement of civilization, those changes in the constitution of the gens, which have been noticed hypothetically, must have occurred. It is impossible to conceive of the gens as appearing, for the first time, in any other than its archaic form; consequently the Grecian gens must have been originally in this form. If, then, causes can be found adequate to account for so great a change of descent as that from the female line to the male, the argument will be complete, although in the end it substituted a new body of kindred in the gens in place of the old. The growth of the idea of property, and the rise of monogamy, furnished motives sufficiently powerful to demand and obtain this change in order to bring children into the gens of their father, and into a participation in the inheritance of his estate. Monogamy assured the paternity of children, which was unknown when the gens was instituted, and the exclusion of children from the inheritance was no longer possible. In the face of the new circumstances, the gens would be forced into reconstruction or dissolution. When the gens of the Iroquois, as it appeared in the Lower Status of barbarism, is placed beside the gens of the Grecian tribes as it appeared in the Upper Status, it is impossible not to perceive that they are the same organization, the one in its archaic and the other in its ultimate form. The differences between them are precisely those which would have been forced upon the gens by the exigencies of human progress.

Along with these mutations in the constitution of the gens[Pg 232] are found the parallel mutations in the rule of inheritance. Property, always hereditary in the gens, was first hereditary among the gentiles; secondly, hereditary among the agnates, to the exclusion of the remaining gentiles; and now, thirdly, hereditary among the agnates in succession, in the order of their nearness to the decedent, which gave an exclusive inheritance to the children as the nearest agnates. The pertinacity with which the principle was maintained down to the time of Solon, that the property should remain in the gens of the deceased owner, illustrates the vitality of the organization through all these periods. It was this rule which compelled the heiress to marry in her own gens to prevent a transfer of the property by her marriage to another gens. When Solon allowed the owner of property to dispose of it by will, in case he had no children, he made the first inroad upon the property rights of the gens.

How nearly the members of a gens were related, or whether they were related at all, has been made a question. Mr. Grote remarked that “Pollux informs us distinctly that the members of the same gens at Athens were not commonly related by blood,—and even without any express testimony we might have concluded such to be the fact. To what extent the gens, at the unknown epoch of its formation was based upon actual relationship, we have no means of determining, either with regard to the Athenian or the Roman gentes, which were in the main points analogous. Gentilism is a tie by itself; distinct from the family ties, but presupposing their existence and extending them by an artificial analogy, partly founded in religious belief, and partly on positive compact, so as to comprehend strangers in blood. All the members of one gens, or even of one phratry, believed themselves to be sprung, not indeed from the same grandfather or great-grandfather, but from the same divine or heroic ancestor.... And this fundamental belief, into which the Greek mind passed with so much facility, was adopted and converted by positive compact into the gentile and phratric principle of union.... Doubtless Niebuhr, in his valuable discussion of the ancient Roman gentes, is right in supposing that they were not real families, procreated from any common his[Pg 233]torical ancestor. Still it is not the less true (although he seems to suppose otherwise) that the idea of the gens involved the belief in a common first father, divine or heroic—a genealogy which we may properly call fabulous, but which was consecrated and accredited among the members of the gens itself; and served as one important bond of union between them.... The natural families of course changed from generation to generation, some extending themselves, while others diminished or died out; but the gens received no alterations, except through the procreation, extinction, or subdivision of these component families. Accordingly the relations of the families with the gens were in perpetual course of fluctuation, and the gentile ancestorial genealogy, adapted as it doubtless was to the early condition of the gens, became in process of time partially obsolete and unsuitable. We hear of this genealogy but rarely, because it is only brought before the public in certain cases pre-eminent and venerable. But the humbler gentes had their common rites, and common superhuman ancestor and genealogy, as well as the more celebrated: the scheme and ideal basis was the same in all.”249

The several statements of Pollux, Niebuhr and Grote are true in a certain sense, but not absolutely so. The lineage of a gens ran back of the acknowledged ancestor, and therefore the gens of ancient date could not have had a known progenitor; neither could the fact of a blood connection be proved by their system of consanguinity; nevertheless the gentiles not only believed in their common descent, but were justified in so believing. The system of consanguinity which pertained to the gens in its archaic form, and which the Greeks probably once possessed, preserved a knowledge of the relationships of all the members of a gens to each other. This fell into desuetude with the rise of the monogamian family, as I shall endeavor elsewhere to show. The gentile name created a pedigree beside which that of a family was insignificant. It was the function of this name to preserve the fact of the common descent of those who bore it; but the lineage of the gens was so ancient that its members could not prove the actual relation[Pg 234]ship existing between them, except in a limited number of cases through recent common ancestors. The name itself was the evidence of a common descent, and conclusive, except as it was liable to interruption through the adoption of strangers in blood in the previous history of the gens. The practical denial of all relationship between its members made by Pollux and Niebuhr, which would change the gens into a purely fictitious association, has no ground to rest upon. A large proportion of the number could prove their relationship through descent from common ancestors within the gens, and as to the remainder the gentile name they bore was sufficient evidence of common descent for practical purposes. The Grecian gens was not usually a large body of persons. Thirty families to a gens, not counting the wives of the heads of families, would give, by the common rule of computation, an average of one hundred and twenty persons to the gens.

As the unit of the organic social system, the gens would naturally become the centre of social life and activity. It was organized as a social body, with its archon or chief, and treasurer; having common lands to some extent, a common burial place, and common religious rites. Beside these were the rights, privileges and obligations which the gens conferred and imposed upon all its members. It was in the gens that the religious activity of the Greeks originated, which expanded over the phratries, and culminated in periodical festivals common to all the tribes. This subject has been admirably treated by M. De Coulanges in his recent work on “The Ancient City.”

In order to understand the condition of Grecian society, anterior to the formation of the state, it is necessary to know the constitution and principles of the Grecian gens; for the character of the unit determines the character of its compounds in the ascending series, and can alone furnish the means for their explanation.

[Pg 235]

The Athenian Phratry.—How Formed.—Definition of Dikæarchus.—Objects chiefly Religious.—The Phratriarch.—The Tribe.—Composed of Three Phratries.—The Phylo-basileus.—The Nation.—Composed of Four Tribes.—Boule, or Council of Chiefs.—Agora, or Assembly of the People.—The Basileus.—Tenure of the Office.—Military and Priestly Functions.—Civil Functions not shown.—Governments of the Heroic Age, Military Democracies.—Aristotle’s Definition of a Basileus.—Later Athenian Democracy.—Inherited From the Gentes.—Its powerful Influence upon Athenian Development.

The phratry, as we have seen, was the second stage of organization in the Grecian social system. It consisted of several gentes united for objects, especially religious, which were common to them all. It had a natural foundation in the bond of kin, as the gentes in a phratry were probably subdivisions of an original gens, a knowledge of the fact having been preserved by tradition. “All the contemporary members of the phratry of Hekatæus,” Mr. Grote remarks, “had a common god for their ancestor at the sixteenth degree,”250 which could not have been asserted unless the several gentes comprised in the phratry of Hekatæus, were supposed to be derived by segmentation from an original gens. This genealogy, although in part fabulous, would be traced according to gentile usages. Dikæarchus supposed that the practice of certain gentes in supplying each other with wives, led to the phratric organization for the performance of common religious rites.

[Pg 236]

This is a plausible explanation, because such marriages would intermingle the blood of the gentes. On the contrary, gentes formed, in the course of time, by the division of a gens and by subsequent subdivisions, would give to all a common lineage, and form a natural basis for their re-integration in a phratry. As such the phratry would be a natural growth, and as such only can it be explained as a gentile institution. The gentes thus united were brother gentes, and the association itself was a brotherhood as the term imports.

Stephanus of Byzantium has preserved a fragment of Dikæarchus, in which an explanation of the origin of the gens, phratry and tribe is suggested. It is not full enough, with respect to either, to amount to a definition; but it is valuable as a recognition of the three stages of organization in ancient Grecian society. He uses patry (πάτρᾶ) in the place of gens (γένος), as Pindar did in a number of instances, and Homer occasionally. The passage may be rendered: “Patry is one of three forms of social union among the Greeks, according to Dikæarchus, which we call respectively, patry, phratry, and tribe. The patry comes into being when relationship, originally solitary, passes over into the second stage [the relationship of parents with children and children with parents], and derives its eponym from the oldest and chief member of the patry, as Aicidas, Pelopidas.”

“But it came to be called phatria and phratria when certain ones gave their daughters to be married into another patry. For the woman who was given in marriage participated no longer in her paternal sacred rites, but was enrolled in the patry of her husband; so that for the union, formerly subsisting by affection between sisters and brothers, there was established another union based on community of religious rites, which they denominated a phratry; and so that again, while the patry took its rise in the way we have previously mentioned, from the blood relation between parents and children and children and parents, the phratry took its rise from the relationship between brothers.”

“But tribe and tribesmen were so called from the coalescence[Pg 237] into communities and nations so called, for each of the coalescing bodies was called a tribe.”251

It will be noticed that marriage out of the gens is here recognized as a custom, and that the wife was enrolled in the gens, rather than the phratry, of her husband. Dikæarchus, who was a pupil of Aristotle, lived at a time when the gens existed chiefly as a pedigree of individuals, its powers having been transferred to new political bodies. He derived the origin of the gens from primitive times; but his statement that the phratry originated in the matrimonial practices of the gentes, while true doubtless as to the practice, is but an opinion as to the origin of the organization. Intermarriages, with common religious rites, would cement the phratric union; but a more satisfactory foundation of the phratry may be found in the common lineage of the gentes of which it was composed. It must be remembered that the gentes have a history running back through the three sub-periods of barbarism into the previous period of savagery, antedating the existence even of the Aryan and Semitic families. The phratry has been shown to have appeared among the American aborigines in the Lower Status of barbarism; while the Greeks were familiar with so much only of their former history as pertained to the Upper Status of barbarism.

Mr. Grote does not attempt to define the functions of the phratry, except generally. They were doubtless of a religious character chiefly; but they probably manifested themselves, as among the Iroquois, at the burial of the dead, at public games, at religious festivals, at councils, and at the agoras of the people, where the grouping of chiefs and people would be by phratries rather than by gentes. It would also naturally show itself in the array of the military forces, of which a memorable example is given by Homer in the address of Nestor to Agamemnon.252 “Separate the troops by tribes and by phratries, Agamemnon, so that phratry may support phratry, and tribes, tribes (κρῖν' ἄνδρας κατὰ φῦλα, κατὰ φρήτρας, Ἀγάμεμνον, ὡς φρήτρη φρήτρηφιν ἀρήγῃ, φῦλα δὲ φύλοις). If thou [Pg 238]wilt thus act, and the Greeks obey, thou wilt then ascertain which of the commanders and which of the soldiers is a coward, and which of them may be brave, for they will fight their best.” The number from the same gens in a military force would be too small to be made a basis in the organization of an army; but the larger aggregations of the phratries and tribes would be sufficient. Two things may be inferred from the advice of Nestor: first, that the organization of armies by phratries and tribes had then ceased to be common; and secondly, that in ancient times it had been the usual plan of army organization, a knowledge of which had not then disappeared. We have seen that the Tlascalans and Aztecs, who were in the Middle Status of barbarism, organized and sent out their military bands by phratries which, in their condition, was probably the only method in which a military force could be organized. The ancient German tribes organized their armies for battle on a similar principle.253 It is interesting to notice how closely shut in the tribes of mankind have been to the theory of their social system.

The obligation of blood revenge, which was turned at a later day into a duty of prosecuting the murderer before the legal tribunals, rested primarily upon the gens of the slain person; but it was also shared in by the phratry, and became a phratric obligation.254 In the Eumenides of Aeschylus, the Erinnys, after speaking of the slaying of his mother by Orestes, put the question: “What lustral water of his phrators shall await him?”255 which seems to imply that if the criminal escaped punishment final purification was performed by his phratry instead of his gens. Moreover, the extension of the obligation from the gens to the phratry implies a common lineage of all the gentes in a phratry.

Since the phratry was intermediate between the gens and the tribe, and not invested with governmental functions, it was less fundamental and less important than either of the others; but it was a common, natural and perhaps necessary stage [Pg 239]of re-integration between the two. Could an intimate knowledge of the social life of the Greeks in that early period be recovered, the phenomena would centre probably in the phratric organization far more conspicuously than our scanty records lead us to infer. It probably possessed more power and influence than is usually ascribed to it as an organization. Among the Athenians it survived the overthrow of the gentes as the basis of a system, and retained, under the new political system, some control over the registration of citizens, the enrollment of marriages and the prosecution of the murderer of a phrator before the courts.

It is customary to speak of the four Athenian tribes as divided each into three phratries, and of each phratry as divided into thirty gentes; but this is merely for convenience in description. A people under gentile institutions do not divide themselves into symmetrical divisions and subdivisions. The natural process of their formation was the exact reverse of this method; the gentes fell into phratries, and ultimately into tribes, which reunited in a society or a people. Each was a natural growth. That the number of gentes in each Athenian phratry was thirty is a remarkable fact incapable of explanation by natural causes. A motive sufficiently powerful, such as a desire for a symmetrical organization of the phratries and tribes, might lead to a subdivision of gentes by consent until the number was raised to thirty in each of these phratries; and when the number in a tribe was in excess, by the consolidation of kindred gentes until the number was reduced to thirty. A more probable way would be by the admission of alien gentes into phratries needing an increase of number. Having a certain number of tribes, phratries and gentes by natural growth, the reduction of the last two to uniformity in the four tribes could thus have been secured. Once cast in this numerical scale of thirty gentes to a phratry and three phratries to a tribe, the proportion might easily have been maintained for centuries, except perhaps as to the number of gentes in each phratry.

The religious life of the Grecian tribes had its centre and source in the gentes and phratries. It must be supposed that[Pg 240] in and through these organizations, was perfected that marvelous polytheistic system, with its hierarchy of gods, its symbols and forms of worship, which impressed so powerfully the mind of the classical world. In no small degree this mythology inspired the great achievements of the legendary and historical periods, and created that enthusiasm which produced the temple and ornamental architecture in which the modern world has taken so much delight. Some of the religious rites, which originated in these social aggregates, were nationalized from the superior sanctity they were supposed to possess; thus showing to what extent the gentes and phratries were nurseries of religion. The events of this extraordinary period, the most eventful in many respects in the history of the Aryan family, are lost, in the main, to history. Legendary genealogies and narratives, myths and fragments of poetry, concluding with the Homeric and Hesiodic poems, make up its literary remains. But their institutions, arts, inventions, mythological system, in a word the substance of civilization which they wrought out and brought with them, were the legacy they contributed to the new society they were destined to found. The history of the period may yet be reconstructed from these various sources of knowledge, reproducing the main features of gentile society as they appeared shortly before the institution of political society.

As the gens had its archon, who officiated as its priest in the religious observances of the gens, so each phratry had its phratriarch (φρατριάρχος), who presided at its meetings, and officiated in the solemnization of its religious rites. “The phratry,” observes M. De Coulanges, “had its assemblies and its tribunals, and could pass decrees. In it, as well as in the family, there was a god, a priesthood, a legal tribunal and a government.”256 The religious rites of the phratries were an expansion of those of the gentes of which it was composed. It is in these directions that attention should be turned in order to understand the religious life of the Greeks.

Next in the ascending scale of organization was the tribe, consisting of a number of phratries, each composed of gentes. The persons in each phratry were of the same common lineage,[Pg 241] and spoke the same dialect. Among the Athenians as before stated each tribe contained three phratries, which gave to each a similar organization. The tribe corresponds with the Latin tribe, and also with those of the American aborigines, an independent dialect for each tribe being necessary to render the analogy with the latter complete. The concentration of such Grecian tribes as had coalesced into a people, in a small area, tended to repress dialectical variation, which a subsequent written language and literature tended still further to arrest each tribe from antecedent habits, however, was more or less localized in a fixed area, through the requirements of a social system resting on personal relations. It seems probable that each tribe had its council of chiefs, supreme in all matters relating to the tribe exclusively. But since the functions and powers of the general council of chiefs, who administered the general affairs of the united tribes, were allowed to fall into obscurity, it would not be expected that those of an inferior and subordinate council would be preserved. If such a council existed, which was doubtless the fact from its necessity under their social system, it would have consisted of the chiefs of the gentes.

When the several phratries of a tribe united in the commemoration of their religious observances it was in their higher organic constitution as a tribe. As such, they were under the presidency, as we find it expressed, of a phylo-basileus, who was the principal chief of the tribe. Whether he acted as their commander in the military service I am unable to state. He possessed priestly functions, always inherent in the office of basileus, and exercised a criminal jurisdiction in cases of murder; whether to try or to prosecute a murderer, I am unable to state. The priestly and judicial functions attached to the office of basileus tend to explain the dignity it acquired in the legendary and heroic periods. But the absence of civil functions, in the strict sense of the term, of the presence of which we have no satisfactory evidence, is sufficient to render the term king, so constantly employed in history as the equivalent of basileus, a misnomer. Among the Athenians we have the tribe-basileus, where the term is used by the Greeks themselves as legitimately as when applied to the general military commander of the four[Pg 242] united tribes. When each is described as a king it makes the solecism of four tribes each under a king separately, and the four tribes together under another king. There is a larger amount of fictitious royalty here than the occasion requires. Moreover, when we know that the institutions of the Athenians at the time were essentially democratical it becomes a caricature of Grecian society. It shows the propriety of returning to simple and original language, using the term basileus where the Greeks used it, and rejecting king as a false equivalent. Monarchy is incompatible with gentilism, for the reason that gentile institutions are essentially democratical. Every gens, phratry and tribe was a completely organized self-governing body; and where several tribes coalesced into a nation the resulting government would be constituted in harmony with the principles animating its constituent parts.

The fourth and ultimate stage of organization was the nation united in a gentile society. Where several tribes, as those of the Athenians and the Spartans, coalesced into one people, it enlarged the society, but the aggregate was simply a more complex duplicate of a tribe. The tribes took the same place in the nation which the phratries held in the tribe, and the gentes in the phratry. There was no name for the organism257 which was simply a society (societas), but in its place a name sprang up for the people or nation. In Homer’s description of the forces gathered against Troy, specific names are given to these nations, where such existed, as Athenians, Ætolians, Locrians; but in other cases they are described by the name of the city or country from which they came. The ultimate fact is thus reached, that the Greeks, prior to the times of Lycurgus and Solon, had but the four stages of social organization (gens, phratry, tribe and nation), which was so nearly universal in ancient society, and which has been shown to exist, in part, in the Status of savagery, and complete in the Lower, in the Middle and in the Upper Status of barbarism, and still subsisting after civilization had commenced. This organic series expresses the extent of the growth of the idea of government among man[Pg 243]kind down to the institution of political society. Such was the Grecian social system. It gave a society, made up of a series of aggregates of persons, with whom the government dealt through their personal relations to a gens, phratry or tribe. It was also a gentile society as distinguished from a political society, from which it was fundamentally different and easily distinguishable.

The Athenian nation of the heroic age presents in its government three distinct, and in some sense co-ordinate, departments or powers, namely: first, the council of chiefs (βουλή); second, the agora (ἀγορά), or assembly of the people; and third, the basileus (βασιλεύς), or general military commander. Although municipal and subordinate military offices in large numbers had been created, from the increasing necessities of their condition, the principal powers of the government were held by the three instrumentalities named. I am unable to discuss in an adequate manner the functions and powers of the council, the agora or the basileus, but will content myself with a few suggestions upon subjects grave enough to deserve reinvestigation at the hands of professed Hellenists.

I. The Council of Chiefs. The office of basileus in the Grecian tribes has attracted far more attention than either the council or the agora. As a consequence it has been unduly magnified while the council and the agora have either been depreciated or ignored. We know, however, that the council of chiefs was a constant phenomenon in every Grecian nation from the earliest period to which our knowledge extends down to the institution of political society. Its permanence as a feature of their social system is conclusive evidence that its functions were substantial, and that its powers, at least presumptively, were ultimate and supreme. This presumption arises from what is known of the archaic character and functions of the council of chiefs under gentile institutions, and from its vocation. How it was constituted in the heroic age, and under what tenure the office of chief was held, we are not clearly informed; but it is a reasonable inference that the council was composed of the chiefs of the gentes. Since the number who formed the council was usually less than the number[Pg 244] of gentes, a selection must have been made in some way from the body of chiefs. In what manner the selection was made we are not informed. The vocation of the council as a legislative body representing the principal gentes, and its natural growth under the gentile organization, rendered it supreme in the first instance, and makes it probable that it remained so to the end of its existence. The increasing importance of the office of basileus, and the new offices created in their military and municipal affairs with their increase in numbers and in wealth, would change somewhat the relations of the council to public affairs, and perhaps diminish its importance; but it could not be overthrown without a radical change of institutions. It seems probable, therefore, that every office of the government, from the highest to the lowest, remained accountable to the council for their official acts. The council was fundamental in their social system;258 and the Greeks of the period were free self-governing peoples, under institutions essentially democratical. A single illustration of the existence of the council may be given from Aeschylus, simply to show that in the Greek conception it was always present and ready to act. In The Seven against Thebes, Eteocles is represented in command of the city, and his brother Polynices as one of the seven chiefs who had invested the place. The assault was repelled, but the brothers fell in a personal combat at one of the gates. After this occurrence a herald says: “It is necessary for me to announce the decree and good pleasure of the councilors of the people of this city of Cadmus. It is resolved,”259 etc. A council which can make and promulgate a decree at any moment, which the people are expected to obey, possesses the supreme[Pg 245] powers of government. Aeschylus, although dealing in this case with events in the legendary period, recognizes the council of chiefs as a necessary part of the system of government of every Grecian people. The boulê of ancient Grecian society was the prototype and pattern of the senate under the subsequent political system of the state.

II. The Agora. Although an assembly of the people became established in the legendary period, with a recognized power to adopt or reject public measures submitted by the council, it is not as ancient as the council. The latter came in at the institution of the gentes; but it is doubtful whether the agora existed, with the functions named, back of the Upper Status of barbarism. It has been shown that among the Iroquois, in the Lower Status, the people presented their wishes to the council of chiefs through orators of their own selection, and that a popular influence was felt in the affairs of the confederacy; but an assembly of the people, with the right to adopt or reject public measures, would evince an amount of progress in intelligence and knowledge beyond the Iroquois. When the agora first appears, as represented in Homer, and in the Greek Tragedies, it had the same characteristics which it afterwards maintained in the ecclesia of the Athenians, and in the comitia curiata of the Romans. It was the prerogative of the council of chiefs to mature public measures, and then submit them to the assembly of the people for acceptance or rejection, and their decision was final. The functions of the agora were limited to this single act. It could neither originate measures, nor interfere in the administration of affairs; but nevertheless it was a substantial power, eminently adapted to the protection of their liberties. In the heroic age certainly, and far back in the legendary period, the agora is a constant phenomenon among the Grecian tribes, and, in connection with the council, is conclusive evidence of the democratical constitution of gentile society throughout these periods. A public sentiment, as we have reason to suppose, was created among the people on all important questions, through the exercise of their intelligence, which the council of chiefs found it desirable as well as necessary to consult, both for the public good and[Pg 246] for the maintenance of their own authority. After hearing the submitted question discussed, the assembly of the people, which was free to all who desired to speak,260 made their decision in ancient times usually by a show of hands.261 Through participation in public affairs, which affected the interests of all, the people were constantly learning the art of self-government, and a portion of them, as the Athenians, were preparing themselves for the full democracy subsequently established by the constitutions of Cleisthenes. The assembly of the people to deliberate upon public questions, not unfrequently derided as a mob by writers who were unable to understand or appreciate the principle of democracy, was the germ of the ecclesia (ἐκκλησία) of the Athenians, and of the lower house of modern legislative bodies.

III. The Basileus. This officer became a conspicuous character in the Grecian society of the heroic age, and was equally prominent in the legendary period. He has been placed by historians in the centre of the system. The name of the office (βασιλεύς) was used by the best Grecian writers to characterize the government, which was styled a basileia (βᾶσίλειᾶ). Modern writers, almost without exception, translate basileus by the term king, and basileia by the term kingdom, without qualification, and as exact equivalents. I wish to call attention to this office of basileus, as it existed in the Grecian tribes, and to question the correctness of this interpretation. There is no similarity whatever between the basileia of the ancient Athenians and the modern kingdom or monarchy; certainly not enough to justify the use of the same term to describe both. Our idea of a kingly government is essentially of a type in which a king, surrounded by a privileged and titled class in the ownership and possession of the lands, rules according to his own will and pleasure by edicts and decrees; claiming an hereditary right to rule, because he cannot allege the consent of the governed. Such governments have been self-imposed[Pg 247] through the principle of hereditary right, to which the priesthood have sought to superadd a divine right. The Tudor kings of England and the Bourbon kings of France are illustrations. Constitutional monarchy is a modern development, and essentially different from the basileia of the Greeks. The basileia was neither an absolute nor a constitutional monarchy; neither was it a tyranny or a despotism. The question then is, what was it.

Mr. Grote claims that “the primitive Grecian government is essentially monarchical, reposing on personal feeling and divine right;”262 and to confirm this view he remarks further, that “the memorable dictum in the Iliad is borne out by all that we hear in actual practice: ‘the rule of many is not a good thing; let us have one ruler only—one king—him to whom Zeus has given the sceptre, with the tutelary sanctions.’”263 This opinion is not peculiar to Mr. Grote, whose eminence as a historian all delight to recognize; but it has been steadily and generally affirmed by historical writers on Grecian themes, until it has come to be accepted as historical truth. Our views upon Grecian and Roman questions have been moulded by writers accustomed to monarchical government and privileged classes, who were perhaps glad to appeal to the earliest known governments of the Grecian tribes for a sanction of this form of government, as at once natural, essential and primitive.

The true statement, as it seems to an American, is precisely the reverse of Mr. Grote’s; namely, that the primitive Grecian government was essentially democratical, reposing on gentes, phratries and tribes, organized as self-governing bodies, and on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. This is borne out by all we know of the gentile organization, which has been shown to rest on principles essentially democratical. The question then is, whether the office of basileus passed in reality from father to son by hereditary right; which, if true, would tend to show a subversion of these principles. We have seen that in the Lower Status of barbarism the office of chief was hereditary in a gens, by which is meant that the va[Pg 248]cancy was filled from the members of the gens as often as it occurred. Where descent was in the female line, as among the Iroquois, an own brother was usually selected to succeed the deceased chief, and where descent was in the male line, as among the Ojibwas and Omahas, the oldest son. In the absence of objections to the person such became the rule; but the elective principle remained, which was the essence of self-government. It cannot be claimed, on satisfactory proof, that the oldest son of the basileus took the office, upon the demise of his father, by absolute hereditary right. This is the essential fact; and it requires conclusive proof for its establishment. The fact that the oldest, or one of the sons, usually succeeded, which is admitted, does not establish the fact in question; because by usage he was in the probable line of succession by a free election from a constituency. The presumption, on the face of Grecian institutions, is against succession to the office of basileus by hereditary right; and in favor either of a free election, or of a confirmation of the office by the people through their recognized organizations, as in the case of the Roman rex.264 With the office of basileus transmitted in the manner last named, the government would remain in the hands of the people. Because without an election or confirmation he could not assume the office; and because further, the power to elect or confirm implies the reserved right to depose.

The illustration of Mr. Grote, drawn from the Iliad, is without significance on the question made. Ulysses, from whose address the quotation is taken, was speaking of the command of an army before a besieged city. He might well say: “All the Greeks cannot by any means rule here. The rule of many is not a good thing. Let us have one koiranos, one basileus, to whom Zeus has given the sceptre, and the divine sanctions in order that he may command us.”265 Koiranos and basileus are [Pg 249]used as equivalents, because both alike signified a general military commander. There was no occasion for Ulysses to discuss or endorse any plan of government; but he had sufficient reasons for advocating obedience to a single commander of the army before a besieged city.

Basileia may be defined as a military democracy, the people being free, and the spirit of the government, which is the essential thing, being democratical. The basileus was their general, holding the highest, the most influential and the most important office known to their social system. For the want of a better term to describe the government, basileia was adopted by Grecian writers, because it carried the idea of a generalship which had then become a conspicuous feature in the government. With the council and the agora both existing with the basileus, if a more special definition of this form of government is required, military democracy expresses it with at least reasonable correctness; while the use of the term kingdom, with the meaning it necessarily conveys, would be a misnomer.

In the heroic age the Grecian tribes were living in walled cities, and were becoming numerous and wealthy through field agriculture, manufacturing industries, and flocks and herds. New offices were required, as well as some degree of separation of their functions; and a new municipal system was growing up apace with their increasing intelligence and necessities. It was also a period of incessant military strife for the possession of the most desirable areas. Along with the increase of property the aristocratic element in society undoubtedly increased, and was the chief cause of those disturbances which prevailed in Athenian society from the time of Theseus to the times of Solon and Cleisthenes. During this period, and until the final abolition of the office some time before the first Olympiad, (776 B. C.) the basileus, from the character of his office and from the state of the times, became more prominent and more [Pg 250]powerful than any single person in their previous experience. The functions of a priest and of a judge were attached to or inherent in his office; and he seems to have been ex officio a member of the council of chiefs. It was a great as well as a necessary office, with the powers of a general over the army in the field, and over the garrison in the city, which gave him the means of acquiring influence in civil affairs as well. But it does not appear that he possessed civil functions. Prof. Mason remarks, that “our information respecting the Grecian kings in the more historical age is not ample or minute enough to enable us to draw out a detailed scheme of their functions.”266 The military and priestly functions of the basileus are tolerably well understood, the judicial imperfectly, and the civil functions cannot properly be said to have existed. The powers of such an office under gentile institutions would gradually become defined by the usage of experience, but with a constant tendency in the basileus to assume new ones dangerous to society. Since the council of chiefs remained as a constituent element of the government, it may be said to have represented the democratic principles of their social system, as well as the gentes, while the basileus soon came to represent the aristocratic principle. It is probable that a perpetual struggle was maintained between the council and the basileus, to hold the latter within the limits of powers the people were willing to concede to the office. Moreover, the abolition of the office by the Athenians makes it probable that they found the office unmanageable, and incompatible with gentile institutions, from the tendency to usurp additional powers.

Among the Spartan tribes the ephoralty was instituted at a very early period to limit the powers of the basileis in consequence of a similar experience. Although the functions of the council in the Homeric and the legendary periods are not accurately known, its constant presence is evidence sufficient that its powers were real, essential and permanent. With the simultaneous existence of the agora, and in the absence of proof of a change of institutions, we are led to the conclusion that the council, under established usages, was supreme over gentes,[Pg 251] phratries, tribes and nation, and that the basileus was amenable to this council for his official acts. The freedom of the gentes, of whom the members of the council were representatives, presupposes the independence of the council, as well as its supremacy.

Thucydides refers incidentally to the governments of the traditionary period, as follows: “Now when the Greeks were becoming more powerful, and acquiring possession of property still more than before, many tyrannies were established in the cities, from their revenues becoming greater; whereas before there had been hereditary basileia with specified powers.” (πρότερον δὲ ἦσαν ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς γέρασι πατρικαὶ βασιλεῖαι)267 The office was hereditary in the sense of perpetual because it was filled as often as a vacancy occurred, but probably hereditary in a gens, the choice being by a free election by his gennêtes, or by nomination possibly by the council, and confirmation of the gentes, as in the case of the rex of the Romans.

Aristotle has given the most satisfactory definition of the basileia and of the basileus of the heroic period of any of the Grecian writers. These then are the four kinds of basileia he remarks: the first is that of the heroic times, which was a government over a free people, with restricted rights in some particulars; for the basileus was their general, their judge and their chief priest. The second, that of the barbarians, which is an hereditary despotic government, regulated by laws; the third is that which they call Aesymnetic, which is an elective tyranny. The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is nothing more than an hereditary generalship.268 Whatever may be said of the last three forms, the first does not answer to the idea of a kingdom of the absolute type, nor to any recognizable form of monarchy. Aristotle enumerates with striking clearness the[Pg 252] principal functions of the basileus, neither of which imply civil powers, and all of which are consistent with an office for life, held by an elective tenure. They are also consistent with his entire subordination to the council of chiefs. The “restricted rights,” and the “specified powers” in the definitions of these authors, tend to show that the government had grown into this form in harmony with, as well as under, gentile institutions. The essential element in the definition of Aristotle is the freedom of the people, which in ancient society implies that the people held the powers of the government under their control, that the office of basileus was voluntarily bestowed, and that it could be recalled for sufficient cause. Such a government as that described by Aristotle can be understood as a military democracy, which, as a form of government under free institutions, grew naturally out of the gentile organization when the military spirit was dominant, when wealth and numbers appeared, with habitual life in fortified cities, and before experience had prepared the way for a pure democracy.

Under gentile institutions, with a people composed of gentes, phratries and tribes, each organized as independent self-governing bodies, the people would necessarily be free. The rule of a king by hereditary right and without direct accountability in such a society was simply impossible. The impossibility arises from the fact that gentile institutions are incompatible with a king or with a kingly government. It would require, what I think cannot be furnished, positive proof of absolute hereditary right in the office of basileus, with the presence of civil functions, to overcome the presumption which arises from the structure and principles of ancient Grecian society. An Englishman, under his constitutional monarchy, is as free as an American under the republic, and his rights and liberties are as well protected; but he owes that freedom and protection to a body of written laws, created by legislation and enforced by courts of justice. In ancient Grecian society, usages and customs supplied the place of written laws, and the person depended for his freedom and protection upon the institutions of his social system. His safeguard was pre-eminently in such institutions as the elective tenure of office implies.

[Pg 253]

The reges of the Romans were, in like manner, military commanders, with priestly functions attached to their office; and this so-called kingly government falls into the same category of a military democracy. The rex, as before stated, was nominated by the senate, and confirmed by the comitia curiata; and the last of the number was deposed. With his deposition the office was abolished, as incompatible with what remained of the democratic principle, after the institution of Roman political society.

The nearest analogues of kingdoms among the Grecian tribes were the tyrannies, which sprang up here and there, in the early period, in different parts of Greece. They were governments imposed by force, and the power claimed was no greater than that of the feudal kings of mediæval times. A transmission of the office from father to son through a few generations in order to superadd hereditary right was needed to complete the analogy. But such governments were so inconsistent with Grecian ideas, and so alien to their democratic institutions, that none of them obtained a permanent footing in Greece. Mr. Grote remarks that “if any energetic man could by audacity or craft break down the constitution and render himself permanent ruler according to his own will and pleasure—even though he might rule well—he could never inspire the people with any sentiment of duty towards him. His sceptre was illegitimate from the beginning, and even the taking of his life, far from being interdicted by that moral feeling which condemned the shedder of blood in other cases, was considered meritorious.”269 It was not so much the illegitimate sceptre which aroused the hostility of the Greeks, as the antagonism of democratical with monarchical ideas, the former of which were inherited from the gentes.

When the Athenians established the new political system, founded upon territory and upon property, the government was a pure democracy. It was no new theory, or special invention of the Athenian mind, but an old and familiar system, with an antiquity as great as that of the gentes themselves. Democratic ideas had existed in the knowledge and practice of their[Pg 254] forefathers from time immemorial, and now found expression in a more elaborate, and, in many respects, in an improved government. The false element, that of aristocracy, which had penetrated the system and created much of the strife in the transitional period connected itself with the office of basileus, and remained after this office was abolished; but the new system accomplished its overthrow. More successfully than the remaining Grecian tribes, the Athenians were able to carry forward their ideas of government to their logical results. It is one reason why they became, for their numbers, the most distinguished, the most intellectual and the most accomplished race of men the entire human family has yet produced. In purely intellectual achievements they are still the astonishment of mankind. It was because the ideas which had been germinating through the previous ethnical period, and which had become interwoven with every fibre of their brains, had found a happy fruition in a democratically constituted state. Under its life-giving impulses their highest mental development occurred.

The plan of government instituted by Cleisthenes rejected the office of a chief executive magistrate, while it retained the council of chiefs in an elective senate, and the agora in the popular assembly. It is evident that the council, the agora and the basileus of the gentes were the germs of the senate, the popular assembly, and the chief executive magistrate (king, emperor and president) of modern political society. The latter office sprang from the military necessities of organized society, and its development with the upward progress of mankind is instructive. It can be traced from the common war-chief, first to the Great War Soldier, as in the Iroquois Confederacy; secondly, to the same military commander in a confederacy of tribes more advanced, with the functions of a priest attached to the office, as the Teuctli of the Aztec Confederacy; thirdly, to the same military commander in a nation formed by a coalescence of tribes, with the functions of a priest and of a judge attached to the office, as in the basileus of the Greeks; and finally, to the chief magistrate in modern political society. The elective archon of the Athenians, who succeeded[Pg 255] the basileus, and the president of modern republics, from the elective tenure of the office, were the natural outcome of gentilism. We are indebted to the experience of barbarians for instituting and developing the three principal instrumentalities of government now so generally incorporated in the plan of government in civilized states. The human mind, specifically the same in all individuals in all the tribes and nations of mankind, and limited in the range of its powers, works and must work, in the same uniform channels, and within narrow limits of variation. Its results in disconnected regions of space, and in widely separated ages of time, articulate in a logically connected chain of common experiences. In the grand aggregate may still be recognized the few primary germs of thought, working upon primary human necessities, which, through the natural process of development, have produced such vast results.

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Failure of the Gentes as a Basis of Government.—Legislation of Theseus.—Attempted Substitution of Classes.—Its Failure.—Abolition of the Office of Basileus.—The Archonship.—Naucraries and Tryttyes.—Legislation of Solon.—The Property Classes.—Partial Transfer of Civil Power from the Gentes to the Classes.—Persons Unattached to any Gens.—Made Citizens.—The Senate.—The Ecclesia.—Political Society Partially Attained.—Legislation of Cleisthenes.—Institution Of Political Society.—The Attic Deme or Township.—Its Organization and Powers.—Its Local Self-government.—The Local Tribe or District.—The Attic Commonwealth.—Athenian Democracy.

The several Grecian communities passed through a substantially similar experience in transferring themselves from gentile into political society; but the mode of transition can be best illustrated from Athenian history, because the facts with respect to the Athenians are more fully preserved. A bare outline of the material events will answer the object in view, as it is not proposed to follow the growth of the idea of government beyond the inauguration of the new political system.

It is evident that the failure of gentile institutions to meet the now complicated wants of society originated the movement to withdraw all civil powers from the gentes, phratries and tribes, and re-invest them in new constituencies. This movement was gradual, extending through a long period of time, and was embodied in a series of successive experiments by means of which a remedy was sought for existing evils. The coming in of the new system was as gradual as the going out of[Pg 257] the old, the two for a part of the time existing side by side. In the character and objects of the experiments tried we may discover wherein the gentile organization had failed to meet the requirements of society, the necessity for the subversion of the gentes, phratries and tribes as sources of power, and the means by which it was accomplished.

Looking backward upon the line of human progress, it may be remarked that the stockaded village was the usual home of the tribe in the Lower Status of barbarism. In the Middle Status joint-tenement houses of adobe-bricks and of stone, in the nature of fortresses, make their appearance. But in the Upper Status, cities surrounded with ring embankments, and finally with walls of dressed stone, appear for the first time in human experience. It was a great step forward when the thought found expression in action of surrounding an area ample for a considerable population with a defensive wall of dressed stone, with towers, parapets and gates, designed to protect all alike and to be defended by the common strength. Cities of this grade imply the existence of a stable and developed field agriculture, the possession of domestic animals in flocks and herds, of merchandise in masses and of property in houses and lands. The city brought with it new demands in the art of government by creating a changed condition of society. A necessity gradually arose for magistrates and judges, military and municipal officers of different grades, with a mode of raising and supporting military levies which would require public revenues. Municipal life and wants must have greatly augmented the duties and responsibilities of the council of chiefs, and perhaps have overtaxed its capacity to govern.

It has been shown that in the Lower Status of barbarism the government was of one power, the council of chiefs; that in the Middle Status it was of two powers, the council of chiefs and the military commander; and that in the Upper Status it was of three powers, the council of chiefs, the assembly of the people and the military commander. But after the commencement of civilization, the differentiation of the powers of the government had proceeded still further. The military power, first devolved upon the basileus, was now exercised by[Pg 258] generals and captains under greater restrictions. By a further differentiation the judicial power had now appeared among the Athenians. It was exercised by the archons and dicasts. Magisterial powers were now being devolved upon municipal magistrates. Step by step, and with the progress of experience and advancement, these several powers had been taken by differentiation from the sum of the powers of the original council of chiefs, so far as they could be said to have passed from the people into this council as a representative body.

The creation of these municipal offices was a necessary consequence of the increasing magnitude and complexity of their affairs. Under the increased burden gentile institutions were breaking down. Unnumbered disorders existed, both from the conflict of authority, and from the abuse of powers not as yet well defined. The brief and masterly sketch by Thucydides of the condition of the Grecian tribes in the transitional period,270 and the concurrent testimony of other writers to the same effect, leave no doubt that the old system of government was failing, and that a new one had become essential to further progress. A wider distribution of the powers of the government, a clearer definition of them, and a stricter accountability of official persons were needed for the welfare as well as safety of society; and more especially the substitution of written laws, enacted by competent authority, in the place of usages and customs. It was through the experimental knowledge gained in this and the previous ethnical period that the idea of political society or a state was gradually forming in the Grecian mind. It was a growth running through centuries of time, from the first appearance of a necessity for a change in the plan of government, before the entire result was realized.

The first attempt among the Athenians to subvert the gentile organization and establish a new system is ascribed to Theseus, and therefore rests upon tradition; but certain facts remained to the historical period which confirm some part at least of his supposed legislation. It will be sufficient to regard Theseus as representing a period, or a series of events. From the time of Cecrops to Theseus, according to Thucydides, the

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Attic people had always lived in cities, having their own prytaneums and archons, and when not in fear of danger did not consult their basileus, but governed their own affairs separately according to their own councils. But when Theseus was made basileus, he persuaded them to break up the council-houses and magistracies of their several cities and come into relation with Athens, with one council-house (βουλευτήριος), and one prytaneum (πρυτανεῖον), to which all were considered as belonging.271 This statement embodies or implies a number of important facts, namely; that the Attic population were organized in independent tribes, each having its own territory in which the people were localized, with its own council-house and prytaneum; and that while they were self-governing societies they were probably confederated for mutual protection, and elected their basileus or general to command their common forces. It is a picture of communities democratically organized, needing a military commander as a necessity of their condition, but not invested with civil functions which their gentile system excluded. Under Theseus they were brought to coalesce into one people, with Athens as their seat of government, which gave them a higher organization than before they had been able to form. The coalescence of tribes into a nation in one territory is later in time than confederations, where the tribes occupy independent territories. It is a higher organic process. While the gentes had always been intermingled by marriage, the tribes were now intermingled by obliterating territorial lines, and by the use of a common council-hall and prytaneum. The act ascribed to Theseus explains the advancement of their gentile society from a lower to a higher organic form, which must have occurred at some time, and probably was effected in the manner stated.

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But another act is ascribed to Theseus evincing a more radical plan, as well as an appreciation of the necessity for a fundamental change in the plan of government. He divided the people into three classes, irrespective of gentes, called respectively the Eupatridæ or “well-born,” the Geomori or “husbandmen,” and the Demiurgi or “artisans.” The principal offices were assigned to the first class both in the civil administration and in the priesthood. This classification was not only a recognition of property and of the aristocratic element in the government of society, but it was a direct movement against the governing power of the gentes. It was the evident intention to unite the chiefs of the gentes with their families, and the men of wealth in the several gentes, in a class by themselves, with the right to hold the principal offices in which the powers of society were vested. The separation of the remainder into two great classes traversed the gentes again. Important results might have followed if the voting power had been taken from the gentes, phratries and tribes, and given to the classes, subject to the right of the first to hold the principal offices. This does not appear to have been done, although absolutely necessary to give vitality to the classes. Moreover, it did not change essentially the previous order of things with respect to holding office. Those now called Eupatrids were probably the men of the several gentes who had previously been called into office. This scheme of Theseus died out, because there was in reality no transfer of powers from the gentes, phratries and tribes to the classes, and because such classes were inferior to the gentes as the basis of a system.

The centuries that elapsed from the unknown time of Theseus to the legislation of Solon (594 B. C.) formed one of the most important periods in Athenian experience; but the succession of events is imperfectly known. The office of basileus was abolished prior to the first Olympiad (776 B. C.), and the archonship established in its place. The latter seems to have been hereditary in a gens, and it is stated to have been hereditary in a particular family within the gens, the first twelve archons being called the Medontidæ, from Medon, the first ar[Pg 261]chon, claimed to have been the son of Codrus, the last basileus. In the case of these archons, who held for life, the same question exists which has elsewhere been raised with respect to the basileus; that an election or confirmation by a constituency was necessary before the office could be assumed. The presumption is against the transmission of the office by hereditary right. In 711 B. C. the office of archon was limited to ten years, and bestowed by free election upon the person esteemed most worthy of the position. We are now within the historical period, though near its threshold, where we meet the elective principle with respect to the highest office in the gift of the people clearly and completely established. It is precisely what would have been expected from the constitution and principles of the gentes, although the aristocratical principle, as we must suppose, had increased in force with the increase of property, and was the source through which hereditary right was introduced wherever found. The existence of the elective principle with respect to the later archons is not without significance in its relation to the question of the previous practice of the Athenians. In 683 B. C. the office was made elective annually, the number was increased to nine, and their duties were made ministerial and judicial.272 We may notice, in these events, evidence of a gradual progress in knowledge with respect to the tenure of office. The Athenian tribes had inherited from their remote ancestors the office of archon (ἀρχός) as chief of the gens. It was hereditary in the gens, as may fairly be supposed, and elective among its members. After descent was changed to the male line the sons of the deceased chief were within the line of succession, and one of their number would be apt to be chosen[Pg 262] in the absence of personal objections. But now they reverted to this original office for the name of their highest magistrate, made it elective irrespective of any gens, and limited its duration, first to ten years, and finally to one. Prior to this, the tenure of office to which they had been accustomed was for life. In the Lower and also in the Middle Status of barbarism we have found the office of chief, elective and for life; or during good behavior, for this limitation follows from the right of the gens to depose from office. It is a reasonable inference that the office of chief in a Grecian gens was held by a free election and by the same tenure. It must be regarded as proof of a remarkable advancement in knowledge at this early period that the Athenian tribes substituted a term of years for their most important office, and allowed a competition of candidates. They thus worked out the entire theory of an elective and representative office, and placed it upon its true basis.

In the time of Solon, it may be further noticed, the Court of Areopagus, composed of ex-archons, had come into existence with power to try criminals and with a censorship over morals, together with a number of new offices in the military, naval and administrative services. But the most important event that occurred about this time was the institution of the naucraries (ναυκραρίαι), twelve in each tribe, and forty-eight in all; each of which was a local circumscription of householders from which levies were drawn into the military and naval service, and from which taxes were probably collected. The naucrary was the incipient deme or township which, when the idea of a territorial basis was fully developed, was to become the foundation of the second great plan of government. By whom the naucraries were instituted is unknown. “They must have existed even before the time of Solon,” Boeckh remarks, “since the presiding officers of the naucraries (πρυτάνεις τῶν ναυκράρων) are mentioned before the time of his legislation; and when Aristotle ascribes their institution to Solon, we may refer this account only to their confirmation by the political constitution of Solon.”273 Twelve naucraries formed a trittys (τριττύς) a larger territorial circumscription, but they were not[Pg 263] necessarily contiguous. It was, in like manner, the germ of the county, the next territorial aggregate above the township.

Notwithstanding the great changes that had occurred in the instrumentalities by which the government was administered, the people were still in a gentile society, and living under gentile institutions. The gens, phratry and tribe were in full vitality, and the recognized sources of power. Before the time of Solon no person could become a member of this society except through connection with a gens and tribe. All other persons were beyond the pale of the government. The council of chiefs remained, the old and time-honored instrument of government; but the powers of the government were now coordinated between itself, the agora or assembly of the people, the Court of Areopagus, and the nine archons. It was the prerogative of the council to originate and mature public measures for submission to the people, which enabled it to shape the policy of the government. It doubtless had the general administration of the finances, and it remained to the end, as it had been from the beginning, the central feature of the government. The assembly of the people had now come into increased prominence. Its functions were still limited to the adoption or rejection of public measures submitted to its decision by the council; but it began to exercise a powerful influence upon public affairs. The rise of this assembly as a power in the government is the surest evidence of the progress of the Athenian people in knowledge and intelligence. Unfortunately the functions and powers of the council of chiefs and of the assembly of the people in this early period have been imperfectly preserved, and but partially elucidated.

In 624 B. C. Draco had framed a body of laws for the Athenians which were chiefly remarkable for their unnecessary severity; but this code demonstrated that the time was drawing near in Grecian experience when usages and customs were to be superseded by written laws. As yet the Athenians had not learned the art of enacting laws as the necessity for them appeared, which required a higher knowledge of the functions of legislative bodies than they had attained. They were in that stage in which lawgivers appear, and legislation is in a scheme[Pg 264] or in gross, under the sanction of a personal name. Thus slowly the great sequences of human progress unfold themselves.

When Solon came into the archonship (594 B. C.) the evils prevalent in society had reached an unbearable degree. The struggle for the possession of property, now a commanding interest, had produced singular results. A portion of the Athenians had fallen into slavery, through debt,—the person of the debtor being liable to enslavement in default of payment; others had mortgaged their lands and were unable to remove the encumbrances; and as a consequence of these and other embarrassments society was devouring itself. In addition to a body of laws, some of them novel, but corrective of the principal financial difficulties, Solon renewed the project of Theseus of organizing society into classes, not according to callings as before, but according to the amount of their property. It is instructive to follow the course of these experiments to supersede the gentes and substitute a new system, because we shall find the Roman tribes, in the time of Servius Tullius, trying the same experiment for the same purpose. Solon divided the people into four classes according to the measure of their wealth, and going beyond Theseus, he invested these classes with certain powers, and imposed upon them certain obligations. It transferred a portion of the civil powers of the gentes, phratries and tribes to the property classes. In proportion as the substance of power was drawn from the former and invested in the latter, the gentes would be weakened and their decadence would commence. But so far as classes composed of persons were substituted for gentes composed of persons, the government was still founded upon person, and upon relations purely personal. The scheme failed to reach the substance of the question. Moreover, in changing the council of chiefs into the senate of four hundred, the members were taken in equal numbers from the four tribes, and not from the classes. But it will be noticed that the idea of property, as the basis of a system of government, was now incorporated by Solon in the new plan of property classes. It failed, however, to reach the idea of political society, which must rest upon territory as well as property, and deal with persons through their territorial[Pg 265] relations. The first class alone were eligible to the high offices, the second performed military service on horseback, the third as infantry, and the fourth as light-armed soldiers. This last class were the numerical majority. They were disqualified from holding office, and paid no taxes; but in the popular assembly of which they were members, they possessed a vote upon the election of all magistrates and officers, with power to bring them to an account. They also had power to adopt or reject all public measures submitted by the senate to their decision. Under the constitution of Solon their powers were real and durable, and their influence upon public affairs was permanent and substantial. All freemen, though not connected with a gens and tribe, were now brought into the government, to a certain extent, by becoming citizens and members of the assembly of the people with the powers named. This was one of the most important results of the legislation of Solon.

It will be further noticed that the people were now organized as an army, consisting of three divisions; the cavalry, the heavy-armed infantry, and the light-armed infantry, each with its own officers of different grades. The form of the statement limits the array to the last three classes, which leaves the first class in the unpatriotic position of appropriating to themselves the principal offices of the government, and taking no part in the military service. This undoubtedly requires modification. The same plan of organization, but including the five classes, will re-appear among the Romans under Servius Tullius, by whom the body of the people were organized as an army (exercitus) fully officered and equipped in each subdivision. The idea of a military democracy, different in organization but the same theoretically as that of the previous period, re-appears in a new dress both in the Solonian and in the Servian constitution.

In addition to the property element, which entered into the basis of the new system, the territorial element was partially incorporated through the naucraries before adverted to, in which it is probable there was an enrollment of citizens and of their property to form a basis for military levies and for taxa[Pg 266]tion. These provisions, with the senate, the popular assembly now called the ecclesia, the nine archons, and the Court of Areopagus, gave to the Athenians a much more elaborate government than they had before known, and requiring a higher degree of intelligence for its management. It was also essentially democratical in harmony with their antecedent ideas and institutions; in fact a logical consequence of them, and explainable only as such. But it fell short of a pure system in three respects: firstly, it was not founded upon territory; secondly, all the dignities of the state were not open to every citizen; and thirdly, the principle of local self-government in primary organizations was unknown, except as it may have existed imperfectly in the naucraries. The gentes, phratries and tribes still remained in full vitality, but with diminished powers. It was a transitional condition, requiring further experience to develop the theory of a political system toward which it was a great advance. Thus slowly but steadily human institutions are evolved from lower into higher forms, through the logical operations of the human mind working in uniform but predetermined channels.

There was one weighty reason for the overthrow of the gentes and the substitution of a new plan of government. It was probably recognized by Theseus, and undoubtedly by Solon. From the disturbed condition of the Grecian tribes and the unavoidable movements of the people in the traditionary period and in the times prior to Solon, many persons transferred themselves from one nation to another, and thus lost their connection with their own gens without acquiring a connection with another. This would repeat itself from time to time, through personal adventure, the spirit of trade, and the exigencies of warfare, until a considerable number with their posterity would be developed in every tribe unconnected with any gens. All such persons, as before remarked, would be without the pale of the government with which there could be no connection excepting through a gens and tribe. The fact is noticed by Mr. Grote. “The phratries and gentes,” he remarks, “probably never at any time included the whole population of the country—and the population not included in them tended to become[Pg 267] larger and larger in the times anterior to Kleisthenes, as well as afterwards.”274 As early as the time of Lycurgus there was a considerable immigration into Greece from the islands of the Mediterranean, and from the Ionian cities of its eastern coasts, which increased the number of persons unattached to any gens. When they came in families they would bring a fragment of a new gens with them; but they would remain aliens unless the new gens was admitted into a tribe. This probably occurred in a number of cases, and it may assist in explaining the unusual number of gentes in Greece. The gentes and phratries were close corporations, both of which would have been adulterated by the absorption of these aliens through adoption into a native gens. Persons of distinction might be adopted into some gens, or secure the admission of their own gens into some tribe; but the poorer class would be refused either privilege. There can be no doubt that as far back as the time of Theseus, and more especially in the time of Solon, the number of the unattached class, exclusive of the slaves, had become large. Having neither gens nor phratry they were also without direct religious privileges, which were inherent and exclusive in these organizations. It is not difficult to see in this class of persons a growing element of discontent dangerous to the security of society.

The schemes of Theseus and of Solon made imperfect provision for their admission to citizenship through the classes; but as the gentes and phratries remained from which they were excluded, the remedy was still incomplete. Mr. Grote further remarks, that “it is not easy to make out distinctly what was the political position of the ancient Gentes and Phratries, as Solon left them. The four tribes consisted altogether of gentes and phratries, insomuch that no one could be included in any one of the tribes who was not also a member of some gens and phratry. Now the new probouleutic or pre-considering senate consisted of 400 members,—100 from each of the tribes: persons not included in any gens and phratry could therefore have had no access to it. The conditions of eligibility were similar, according to ancient custom, for the nine archons—of course, also, for the senate of Areopagus. So that there[Pg 268] remained only the public assembly, in which an Athenian, not a member of these tribes, could take part: yet he was a citizen, since he could give his vote for archons and senators, and could take part in the annual decision of their accountability, besides being entitled to claim redress for wrong from the archons in his own person—while the alien could only do so through the intervention of an avouching citizen, or Prostatês. It seems therefore that all persons not included in the four tribes, whatever their grade or fortune might be, were on the same level in respect to political privilege as the fourth and poorest class of the Solonian census. It has already been remarked, that even before the time of Solon, the number of Athenians not included in the gentes or phratries was probably considerable: it tended to become greater and greater, since these bodies were close and unexpansive, while the policy of the new lawgiver tended to invite industrious settlers from other parts of Greece to Athens.”275 The Roman Plebeians originated from causes precisely similar. They were not members of any gens, and therefore formed no part of the Populus Romanus. We may find in the facts stated one of the reasons of the failure of the gentile organization to meet the requirements of society. In the time of Solon, society had outgrown their ability to govern, its affairs had advanced so far beyond the condition in which the gentes originated. They furnished a basis too narrow for a state, up to the measure of which the people had grown.

There was also an increasing difficulty in keeping the members of a gens, phratry and tribe locally together. As parts of a governmental organic series, this fact of localization was highly necessary. In the earlier period, the gens held its lands in common, the phratries held certain lands in common for religious uses, and the tribe probably held other lands in common. When they established themselves in country or city, they settled locally together by gentes, by phratries and by tribes, as a consequence of their social organization. Each gens was in the main by itself—not all of its members, for two gentes were represented in every family, but the body who propa[Pg 269]gated the gens. Those gentes belonging to the same phratry naturally sought contiguous or at least near areas, and the same with the several phratries of the tribe. But in the time of Solon, lands and houses had come to be owned by individuals in severalty, with power of alienation as to lands, but not of houses out of the gens. It doubtless became more and more impossible to keep the members of a gens locally together, from the shifting relations of persons to land, and from the creation of new property by its members in other localities. The unit of their social system was becoming unstable in place, and also in character. Without stopping to develop this fact of their condition further, it must have proved one of the reasons of the failure of the old plan of government. The township, with its fixed property and its inhabitants for the time being, yielded that element of permanence now wanting in the gens. Society had made immense progress from its former condition of extreme simplicity. It was very different from that which the gentile organization was instituted to govern. Nothing but the unsettled condition and incessant warfare of the Athenian tribes, from their settlement in Attica to the time of Solon, could have preserved this organization from overthrow. After their establishment in walled cities, that rapid development of wealth and numbers occurred which brought the gentes to the final test, and demonstrated their inability to govern a people now rapidly approaching civilization. But their displacement even then required a long period of time.

The seriousness of the difficulties to be overcome in creating a political society are strikingly illustrated in the experience of the Athenians. In the time of Solon, Athens had already produced able men; the useful arts had attained a very considerable development; commerce on the sea had become a national interest; agriculture and manufactures were well advanced; and written composition in verse had commenced. They were in fact a civilized people, and had been for two centuries; but their institutions of government were still gentile, and of the type prevalent throughout the Later Period of barbarism. A great impetus had been given to the Athenian commonwealth by the new system of Solon; nevertheless, nearly a century[Pg 270] elapsed, accompanied with many disorders, before the idea of a state was fully developed in the Athenian mind. Out of the naucrary, a conception of a township as the unit of a political system was finally elaborated; but it required a man of the highest genius, as well as great personal influence, to seize the idea in its fullness, and give it an organic embodiment. That man finally appeared in Cleisthenes (509 B. C.), who must be regarded as the first of Athenian legislators—the founder of the second great plan of human government, that under which modern civilized nations are organized.

Cleisthenes went to the bottom of the question, and placed the Athenian political system upon the foundation on which it remained to the close of the independent existence of the commonwealth. He divided Attica into a hundred demes, or townships, each circumscribed by metes and bounds, and distinguished by a name. Every citizen was required to register himself, and to cause an enrollment of his property in the deme in which he resided. This enrollment was the evidence as well as the foundation of his civil privileges. The deme displaced the naucrary. Its inhabitants were an organized body politic with powers of local self-government, like the modern American township. This is the vital and the remarkable feature of the system. It reveals at once its democratic character. The government was placed in the hands of the people in the first of the series of territorial organizations. The demotæ elected a demarch (δήμαρχος), who had the custody of the public register; he had also power to convene the demotæ for the purpose of electing magistrates and judges, for revising the registry of citizens, and for the enrollment of such as became of age during the year. They elected a treasurer, and provided for the assessment and collection of taxes, and for furnishing the quota of troops required of the deme for the service of the state. They also elected thirty dicasts or judges, who tried all causes arising in the deme where the amount involved fell below a certain sum. Besides these powers of local self-government, which is the essence of a democratic system, each deme had its own temple and religious worship, and its own priest, also elected by the demotæ. Omitting minor par[Pg 271]ticulars, we find the instructive and remarkable fact that the township, as first instituted, possessed all the powers of local self-government, and even upon a fuller and larger scale than an American township. Freedom in religion is also noticeable, which was placed where it rightfully belongs, under the control of the people. All registered citizens were free, and equal in their rights and privileges, with the exception of equal eligibility to the higher offices. Such was the new unit of organization in Athenian political society, at once a model for a free state, and a marvel of wisdom and knowledge. The Athenians commenced with a democratic organization at the point where every people must commence who desire to create a free state, and place the control of the government in the hands of its citizens.

The second member of the organic territorial series consisted of ten demes, united in a larger geographical district. It was called a local tribe (φῦλον τοπικὸν), to preserve some part of the terminology of the old gentile system.276 Each district was named after an Attic hero, and it was the analogue of the modern county. The demes in each district were usually contiguous, which should have been true in every instance to render the analogy complete; but in a few cases one or more of the ten were detached, probably in consequence of the local separation of portions of the original consanguine tribe who desired to have their deme incorporated in the district of their immediate kinsmen. The inhabitants of each district or county were also a body politic, with certain powers of local self-government. They elected a phylarch (φύλαρχος), who commanded the cavalry; a taxiarch (ταξίαρχος), who commanded the foot-soldiers, and a general (στρατηγός), who commanded both; and as each district was required to furnish five triremes, they probably elected as many trierarchs (τριήραρχος) to command them. Cleisthenes increased the senate to five hun[Pg 272]dred, and assigned fifty to each district. They were elected by its inhabitants. Other functions of this larger body politic doubtless existed, but they have been imperfectly explained.

The third and last member of the territorial series was the Athenian commonwealth or state, consisting of ten local tribes or districts. It was an organized body politic, embracing the aggregate of Athenian citizens. It was represented by a senate, an ecclesia, the court of Areopagus, the archons, and judges, and the body of elected military and naval commanders.

Thus the Athenians founded the second great plan of government upon territory and upon property. They substituted a series of territorial aggregates in the place of an ascending series of aggregates of persons. As a plan of government it rested upon territory which was necessarily permanent, and upon property which was more or less localized; and it dealt with its citizens, now localized in demes through their territorial relations. To be a citizen of the state it was necessary to be a citizen of a deme. The person voted and was taxed in his deme, and he was called into the military service from his deme. In like manner he was called by election into the senate, and to the command of a division of the army or navy from the larger district of his local tribe. His relations to a gens or phratry ceased to govern his duties as a citizen. The contrast between the two systems is as marked as their difference was fundamental. A coalescence of the people into bodies politic in territorial areas now became complete.

The territorial series enters into the plan of government of modern civilized nations. Among ourselves, for example, we have the township, the county, the state, and the United States; the inhabitants of each of which are an organized body politic with powers of local self-government. Each organization is in full vitality and performs its functions within a definite sphere in which it is supreme. France has a similar series in the commune, the arrondissement, the department, and the empire, now the republic. In Great Britain the series is the parish, the shire, the kingdom, and the three kingdoms. In the Saxon period the hundred seems to have been the analogue of the town[Pg 273]ship;277 but already emasculated of the powers of local self-government, with the exception of the hundred court. The inhabitants of these several areas were organized as bodies politic, but those below the highest with very limited powers. The tendency to centralization under monarchical institutions has atrophied, practically, all the lower organizations.

As a consequence of the legislation of Cleisthenes, the gentes, phratries and tribes were divested of their influence, because their powers were taken from them and vested in the deme, the local tribe and the state, which became from thenceforth the sources of all political power. They were not dissolved, however, even after this overthrow, but remained for centuries as a pedigree and lineage, and as fountains of religious life. In certain orations of Demosthenes, where the cases involved personal or property rights, descents or rights of sepulture, both the gens and phratry appear as living organizations in his time.278 They were left undisturbed by the new system so far as their connection with religious rites, with certain criminal proceedings, and with certain social practices were concerned, which arrested their total dissolution. The classes, however, both those instituted by Theseus and those afterwards created by Solon, disappeared after the time of Cleisthenes.279

Solon is usually regarded as the founder of Athenian democracy, while some writers attribute a portion of the work to Cleisthenes and Theseus. We shall draw nearer the truth of the matter by regarding Theseus, Solon and Cleisthenes as standing connected with three great movements of the Athenian people, not to found a democracy, for Athenian democracy was older than either, but to change the plan of government from a gentile into a political organization. Neither sought to change the existing principles of democracy which had been inherited from the gentes. They contributed in their respective times to the great movement for the formation of a state, which required the substitution of a political in the place of gentile society. The invention of a township, and the organization of its inhabitants[Pg 274] as a body politic, was the main feature in the problem. It may seem to us a simple matter; but it taxed the capacities of the Athenians to their lowest depths before the idea of a township found expression in its actual creation. It was an inspiration of the genius of Cleisthenes; and it stands as the master work of a master mind. In the new political society they realized that complete democracy which already existed in every essential principle, but which required a change in the plan of government to give it a more ample field and a fuller expression. It is precisely here, as it seems to the writer, that we have been misled by the erroneous assumption of the great historian, Mr. Grote, whose general views of Grecian institutions are so sound and perspicuous, namely, that the early governments of the Grecian tribes were essentially monarchical.280 On this assumption it requires a revolution of institutions to explain the existence of that Athenian democracy under which the great mental achievements of the Athenians were made. No such revolution occurred, and no radical change of institutions was ever effected, for the reason that they were and always had been essentially democratical. Usurpations not unlikely occurred, followed by controversies for the restoration of the previous order; but they never lost their liberties, or those ideas of freedom and of the right of self-government which had been their inheritance in all ages.

Recurring for a moment to the basileus, the office tended to make the man more conspicuous than any other in their affairs. He was the first person to catch the mental eye of the historian by whom he has been metamorphosed into a king, notwithstanding he was made to reign, and by divine right, over a rude democracy. As a general in a military democracy, the basileus becomes intelligible, and without violating the institutions that actually existed. The introduction of this office did not change the principles of the gentes, phratries and tribes, which in their organization were essentially democratical, and which of necessity impressed that character on their gentile system. Evidence is not wanting that the popular element was constantly[Pg 275] active to resist encroachments on personal rights. The basileus belongs to the traditionary period, when the powers of government were more or less undefined; but the council of chiefs existed in the centre of the system, and also the gentes, phratries and tribes in full vitality. These are sufficient to determine the character of the government.281

The government as reconstituted by Cleisthenes contrasted strongly with that previous to the time of Solon. But the transition was not only natural but inevitable if the people followed their ideas to their logical results. It was a change of plan, but not of principles nor even of instrumentalities. The council of chiefs remained in the senate, the agora in the ecclesia; the three highest archons were respectively ministers of state, of religion, and of justice as before, while the six inferior archons exercised judicial functions in connection with the courts, and the large body of dicasts now elected annually for judicial service. No executive officer existed under the system, which is one of its striking peculiarities. The nearest approach to it was the president of the senate, who was elected by lot for a single day, without the possibility of a re-election during the year. For a single day he presided over the popular assembly, and held the keys of the citadel and of the treasury. Under the new government the popular assembly held the substance of power, and guided the destiny of Athens. The new element which gave stability and order to the state was the deme or township, with its complete autonomy, and local self-government. A hundred demes similarly organized would determine the general movement of the commonwealth. As the unit, so the compound. It is here that the people, as before remarked, must begin if they would learn the art of self-government, and maintain equal laws, and equal rights and privileges. They must retain in their hands all the powers of[Pg 276] society not necessary to the state to insure an efficient general administration, as well as the control of the administration itself.

Athens rose rapidly into influence and distinction under the new political system. That remarkable development of genius and intelligence, which raised the Athenians to the highest eminence among the historical nations of mankind, occurred under the inspiration of democratic institutions.

With the institution of political society under Cleisthenes, the gentile organization was laid aside as a portion of the rags of barbarism. Their ancestors had lived for untold centuries in gentilism, with which they had achieved all the elements of civilization, including a written language, as well as entered upon a civilized career. The history of the gentile organization will remain as a perpetual monument of the anterior ages, identified as it has been with the most remarkable and extended experience of mankind. It must ever be ranked as one of the most remarkable institutions of the human family.

In this brief and inadequate review the discussion has been confined to the main course of events in Athenian history. Whatever was true of the Athenian tribes will be found substantially true of the remaining Grecian tribes, though not exhibited on so broad or so grand a scale. The discussion tends to render still more apparent one of the main propositions advanced—that the idea of government in all the tribes of mankind has been a growth through successive stages of development.

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Italian Tribes Organized in Gentes.—Founding of Rome.—Tribes Organized into a Military Democracy.—The Roman Gens.—Definition of a Gentilis by Cicero.—By Festus.—By Varro.—Descent in Male Line.—Marrying out of the Gens.—Rights and Obligations of the Members of a Gens.—Democratic Constitution of Ancient Latin Society.—Number of Persons in a Gens.