STATUS OF IKOQUOIS WOMAN — HEWITT 481 



comforting sympathy to the mourning ohwachira, and also at the 

 grave. The mourning ohwachira was by custom relieved of all obli- 

 gation to work or perform any public business until after the burial 

 and the expiration of the tenth day of the greater mourning. 



So, by duties and obligations of affinity like these the several ohwa- 

 chira were bound together for mutual aid and support, thus forming 

 a congeries of interrelated ohwachira, the essential elements of the 

 Iroquois commonwealth. Thus, the blood stream of descent of the 

 ohwachira was kept flowing unbroken by the mothers in it; and the 

 ohwachira was bound through affinity to alien ohwachira firmly 

 by the bonds of marriage with the men and women of the alien 

 ohwachira. 



So strong was the taboo of incest aniiong the members of an ohwa- 

 chira that, in the event that a child was engendered by an incestuous 

 act, it was declared to have no father's kinsmen, and so could not 

 share in the rights due it from a father's clansmen and clanswomen. 

 Its reproach was that of being an outlaw; for example, it could claim 

 from no kinship group the rites of burial. In earlier times incest was 

 said to be punishable with death for both culprits, since the breaking 

 of the taboo provoked the hostilit}'^ of the guardian spirits of the 

 ohwachira concerned. 



The ohwachira as an organic unit maintained its power and 

 integrity even when incorporated into higher units of organization, 

 thus vindicating and conserving fully the plenary power exercised 

 by the Iroquois woman in the political institutions of her people. 



In the league as originally instituted there were just 47 ohwachira 

 which had official representatives in the federal council; that is to 

 say, there were 47 woman federal trustee chieftains and 47 man fed- 

 eral chieftains. At a later date this number was increased to 49 by 

 the incorporation of the last two federal chieftains, named in the 

 modern Seneca roster. This then made a federal council of 98 peers. 



The astute founders of the league had made the experiment of 

 entrusting their government to a representative body of men and 

 women chosen by the mothers of the community; they did not en- 

 trust it to a hereditary body, nor to a purely democratic body, nor 

 even to a body of religious leaders. The founders of the league 

 adopted this principle and with wise adjustments made it the under- 

 lying principle of the league institutions. 



The officers of the ohwachira thus chosen by the mothers in it were, 

 in the order of their importance, first, the woman federal trustee 

 chief (named Akoydnef-rho'wd'- in Mohawk and Goydnego' nd* in 

 Onondaga), and her aid who was a chief warrior; second, a man fed- 

 eral chief (named Royd'ne'-r), and his aid or messenger, also a chief 

 warrior; third, two or four women officials who with their warrior 



