﻿240 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. /S 



of four and five clans each, the one unit embodying the Male, and the 

 other, the Female Principle. 



The highest unit of organization of the federal League of the Iro- 

 quois was the Sisterhood or Phratry of Tribes. Two Sisterhoods of 

 Tribes composed the League. The five tribes mentioned above com- 

 posed these Sisterhoods ; in the one were three tribes, namely the 



Fig. 234.— Chief (Merit) John " Smoke " Johnson, ^^lohawk, 

 Iroquoian stock, annaHst and ritualist. 



Mohawk, the Seneca and the Onondaga, in the other were two tribes, 

 namely, the Oneida and the Cayuga ; the first Phratry embodied the 

 Father or Male Principle, and the second the INIother or Female 

 Principle. 



Viewed from the federal standpoint, what affects the integrity or 

 the welfare of a clan of a tribe affects in like manner the entire Sis- 

 terhood or Phratry of Tribes to which that tribe belongs. So the 

 death of a Chief of a clan of a tribe makes mourners of the entire 



