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. 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.
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 12.
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.
The phratry also appears among the Thlinkits 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. The members of any gens in the Wolf phratry could marry into any gens of the opposite phratry, and vice versa.
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 Ganowanian 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.
THE TRIBE.
It is difficult to describe an Indian tribe by the affirmative elements of its composition. Nevertheless it is clearly marked, and is 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.
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 has resulted from the union of a weaker with a stronger tribe speaking a closely related dialect, as the union of the Missouris with the Otoet, 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.
A constant tendency to disintegration, which has proved such a hindrance 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. An oral 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