CHAPTER II. 

 THE STATE. 



§ 0. "A state," said Maj. J. W. Powell, in his presidential address to 

 tbe Anthropological Society of Washington, in 18S2, " is a body politic, 

 an organized group of men with an established government, and a 

 body of determined law. In the organization of societies units of dif- 

 ferent orders are discovered." Among the Omahas and other tribes of 

 the Siouau family, the primary unit is the gens or clan, which is com- 

 posed of a number of consanguinei, claiming descent from a common an- 

 cestor, and Laving a common taboo or taboos. But starting from the 

 tribe or state as a whole, we find among the Omahas two half-tribes of 

 five geutes each, the first called " Haugacenu," and the second, "Icta- 

 sanda." (See § 10.) These half-tribes do not seem to be phratries, as 

 they do not possess the rights of the latter as stated by Morgan : the 

 Hanga-'cenu gentes never meet by themselves apart from the Icta-sanda 

 geutes. 



Next to the half-tribes are the geutes, of which the Omahas have ten. 

 Each gens in turn is divided into " ujp'g^asne," or subgentes. The 

 number of the latter varies, at present, according to the particular 

 gens; though the writer has found traces of the existence of four sub- 

 genus in each gens in former days. The subgentes seem to be com- 

 posed of a number of groups of a still lower order, which are provision- 

 ally termed "sections." The existence of sections among the Omahas 

 had been disputed by some, though other members of the tribe claim 

 that they are real units of the lowest order. We find among the Tito n - 

 wa n Dakotas, many of these groups, which were origiually sections, but 

 which have at length become gentes, as the marriage laws do not affect 

 the higher groups, the original phratries, gentes, and subgentes. 



The Ponka chiefs who were in Washington in 1880, claimed that in 

 their tribe there used to be eight gentes, one of which has become 

 extinct; and that now there are ten, three subgentes having become 

 gentes in recent times. According to Mr. Joseph La Fleche, a Ponka by 

 birth, who spent his boyhood with the tribe, there are but seven geutes, 

 one having become extinct ; while the Wajaje and Nuqe, which are now 

 the sixth and seventh geutes, were originally one. For a fuller discns- 

 sinn of the gentes see the next chapter. 



The state, as existing among the Omahas and cognate tribes, may be 

 termed a kinship state, that is, one in which "governmental functions 

 are performed by men whose positions in the government are deter- 

 mined by kinship, and rules relating to kinship and the reproduction of 



(215) 



