SKETCH OF LEWIS H. MORGAN. 115 



Stephen Goodwin, of Chicago ; Rev. James S. Bush, of Staten Island ; 

 and George S. Riley, of Rochester. 



The society seems to have greatly flourished for a time, and to 

 have been very pojDular throughout that poi'tion of New York Avest of 

 the Hudson River. Its ceremonies were picturesque and attractive. 

 The meetings of the society were called councils, and were held in the 

 woods. The Grand Council w^as held in a forest near Aurora by night, 

 and the forest aisles were illuminated by huge camp-fires, and the 

 sachems and chiefs who there assembled came in Indian panoply, with 

 chaplets of eagle-feathers, Indian tunics, scarlet leggins, and decorated 

 moccasins. It was wild sport, in which the young men engaged in 

 merry mood. 



Morgan and his young associates soon became absorbed in active 

 business, and found that the society they had organized could not be 

 operated without consuming too great a portion of their time, and it 

 died by premeditated neglect. But the discoveries made by Morgan 

 were of such importance and interest that he continued his investiga- 

 tions from time to time, and, in order to obtain a deeper insight into 

 the home life and customs of the Indians, and their social and govern- 

 mental organization, he spent much time among them and was adopted 

 into a gens of the Senecas. 



In 1847 he published in the "American Review" a series of " Let- 

 ters on the Iroquois," over the signature of " Skenandoah." In the 

 mean time he was building up a legal practice, and found that he 

 must neglect it or abandon his studies of Indian life and govern- 

 ment ; and so he determined to publish the materials on hand, and 

 then devote himself exclusively to the practice of his profession. 

 This resiilted in the publication in 1851 of "The League of the Iro- 

 quois," in which the social organization and government of this won- 

 derful confederacy were carefully and thoroughly exj^lained. The 

 volume also contains interesting accounts of the daily life, customs, 

 and superstitions of these Indians, and was the first scientific account 

 of an Indian tribe ever given to the world. 



The work is not entirely free from the nomenclature of sociology 

 previously, and to some extent since, used by writers on our North 

 American Indians, in which tribes are described as nations, and the 

 institutions of tribal or barbaric life defined in terms used in national 

 or civilized life. But the series of oro-anic units was discovered 

 among the Iroquois and was correctly defined, though the confederacy 

 was called a league, the tribe a nation, and the gens a tribe. In like 

 manner, kinship as the bond of union was fully recognized. 



In 1856 Morgan attended the Albany meeting of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, and read a paper called 

 " The Laws of Descent of the Iroquois." The reading of the paper 

 awakened great interest in the subject, and a number of the leading 

 members of the Association ursred Mi-. Morsxan to continue his studies 



