488 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 2 



Although the male federal chieftains were chosen by her from 

 among her brothers and sons to consider and decide public affairs, 

 they did not act for themselves but only as the representatives and 

 delegates of the woman in those matters which did not seemingly 

 require her presence. Even the names of her children came 

 from her. 



In striking contrast with these powers of woman, the Iroquois men 

 were quite apart and restricted to themselves; they perpetuated 

 nothing; their own children were aliens to them. With their pass- 

 ing everything ceased to be — the ohwacliira or uterine family brood 

 became extinct. Nothing was passed on by them. If there were 

 only men left constituting the remnant of an ohwachira, in what- 

 ever number they might be, or whatever the number of the children 

 they might have, this ohwachira was already extinct. 



This was true because the children of these men would belong to 

 the ohwachira of their mothers. The woman alone through her 

 progeny preserved the continuity of the blood of the ohwachira to 

 which she belonged. 



With the destruction and subversion of organic kinship institu- 

 tions of the Iroquois state through direct impact with the white 

 man, the Iroquois woman quickly lost her unmatched pristine 

 status and her plenary social and political power, and so her dis- 

 persed descendants to-day are groping among those ruins perchance 

 to find her lost jewels. 



