14 



the perpetual disinheritance of the male line. Since all titles aa 

 well as property descended in the female line, and were heredi- 

 tary, in strictness, in the tribe itself, a son could never succeed to 

 his father's title of Sachem, nor inherit even his medal or his 

 tomahawk. If the Sachem, for example, was of the Wolf tribe, 

 the title must remain in that tribe, and his son, who was neces- 

 sarily of the tribe of his mother, would be out of the line of suc- 

 cession ; but the brothers of the deceased Sachem would be of the 

 Wolf tribe, being of the same mother, and so would the sons of 

 his sisters : hence we find that the succession fell either upon a 

 brother of the deceased ruler or upon a nephew. Between a 

 brother of the deceased, and the son of a sister, there was no law 

 establishing a preference ; neither as between several brothers on 

 one side, or several sisters on the other, was there any law of 

 primogeniture. They were all equally eligible, and the law of 

 election came in to decide between them. 



The tribal organization, and the system of relationship lie at 

 the foundation of Indian society. They represent and express 

 ideas as old as the race itself, which are freighted with testimony 

 of the highest ethnological value. Upon precisely such ideas as 

 these, which have been deposited in the family life of a race, we 

 may yet be able to ascend through the generations far back upon 

 the covered footsteps of the human race, and re-associate nations 

 and races, whose original connection has passed from human 

 knowledge. Along the pathway of these generations, which is 

 marked with epochs of migration from age to age, every divergence 

 of a family from the parent stock would carry with it the same 

 ideas, spreading them upon the track of each new migration, per- 

 chance into the most distant parts of the earth. It is not impos- 

 sible that we may, at no distant day, be able to re-ascend the sev- 

 eral lines of the out-flow of the generations, and reach and identify 

 that parent stock, from which, we believe, we are all alike de- 

 scended. 



Yours, respectfully, 



LEWIS H. MORGAN. 



