OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 139 



rather than repellent as blemishes upon the system. They also furnish some inde- 

 pendent testimony concerning the migrations of the Ganowanian family. 



A brief explanation of the tribal organization as it now prevails amongst the 

 American aborigines is necessary to a right understanding of the terms tribe and 

 nation, as used in American Ethnology. This organization has some connection 

 with the origin of some portion of the classificatory system of relationship. It is 

 generally found that all the people speaking the same dialect are under one inde- 

 pendent political government. For this reason they are called a nation, although 

 numbering but a few hundred, and at most but a few thousand persons. Dialect 

 and nation, therefore, are coextensive, as employed in Indian ethnography. Such 

 is usually the case with respect to civilized nations where language becomes the 

 basis of the distinction. The use of the term nation instead of tribe, to distinguish 

 such small communities was rendered the more necessary, because the greater pro- 

 portion of these so called Indian nations were each subdivided into a number of 

 tribes, which were such in the strict generic sense of the term. The Scr.eca- 

 Iroquois, for example, are subdivided into eight tribes, the Wolf, Bear, Beaver, 

 Turtle, Deer, Snipe, Heron, and Hawk. Each tribe is a great family of consan- 

 guinei, the tribal name preserving and proclaiming the fact that they are the lineal 

 descendants of the same person. It embraces, however, but a moiety of such 

 person's descendants. The separation of a portion, and their transference to other 

 tribes, were effected by the prohibition of intermarriage between individuals of 

 the same tribe, and by limiting tribal descent to the female line. None of the 

 members of the Wolf or other tribes were allowed to intermarry in their own 

 tribe. A woman of the Wolf tribe might marry a man of any other tribe 

 than her own, but the children of the marriage were of her tribe. If she married 

 a Cayuga or even an Alien, her children would be Senecas of the Wolf tribe, since 

 the mother confers both her nationality and her tribal name upon her children. In 

 like manner her daughters must marry out of the tribe, but the children would 

 nevertheless belong to the Wolf tribe. On the other hand, her sons must also 

 marry women of other tribes, and their children, belonging to the tribes of their 

 respective mothers, are lost to the Wolf connection. The eight tribes are, in this 

 manner, intermingled throughout the nation, two tribes being necessarily repre- 

 sented in the heads of every family. 



A tribe may be denned as a group of consanguinei, with descent limited either 

 to the male or to the female line. Where descent is limited to the male line, the 

 tribe would consist of a supposed male ancestor and his children, together with the 

 descendants of his sons in the male line forever. It would include this ancestor 

 and his children, the children of his sons, and all the children of his lineal male 

 descendants, whilst the children of the daughters of this ancestor, and all the chil- 

 dren of his female descendants would be transferred to the tribes of their respec- 

 tive fathers. Where descent is limited to the female line, the tribe would consist 

 of a supposed female ancestor and her children, together with the descendants of 

 her daughters in the female line forever. It would include the children of this 

 ancestor, the children of her daughters, and all the children of her lineal female 

 descendants, whilst the children of the sons of this ancestor, and all the children of 



