BULL. 30] 



TRIBE 



817 



and the female — the father and the 

 mother. It would seem, then, that ex- 

 ogamy is not an inhibition arising from 

 any influence of the clan or gentile tute- 

 lary, as some hold, but is rather the result 

 of the expression or the typifying of the 

 male and the female principles in na- 

 ture — the dualism of the fatherhood and 

 the motherhood of nature expressed in 

 the social fabric. 



In pursuing the study of this dualism 

 in organic tribal structure it is important 

 to note the appellations appUed by the 

 Iroquois to these two esoteric divisions. 

 When the Five Tribes, or the Five 

 Nations as they were sometimes called, 

 united in the formation of their famous 

 League of the Iroquois, this dualistic con- 

 cept was carefully incorporated into the 

 structure of the organic federal law. The 

 Mohawk, the Onondaga, and the Seneca 

 were organized into a phratry of three 

 tribes, ceremonially called the "Father's 

 Brothers," while the Oneida and the Ca- 

 yuga were organized into a phratry of two 

 tribes, ceremonially called "My Off- 

 spring," or the phratry of the "Mother's 

 Sisters. ' ' These esoteric designations are 

 echoed and reechoed in the long and in- 

 teresting chants of the Condolence Coun- 

 cil, whose functions are constructive and 

 preservative of the unity of the League, 

 and of course adversative to the destruc- 

 tive activity of death in its myriad forma. 

 It is equally important and interesting 

 to note the fact thatthe name for " father" 

 in the tongues of the Iroquois is the term 

 which in the cognate Tuscarora dialect 

 signifies 'male,' but not 'father,' without 

 a characteristic dialectic change. It is 

 thus shown that fundamentally the con- 

 cepts ' ' father ' ' and ' ' male ' ' are identical. 

 In the autumn at the Green Corn Dance, 

 and in the second month after the winter 

 solstice at the extensive New Year cere- 

 monies, the chiefs and the elders in each 

 phratry receive from those of the other 

 the enigmatic details of dreams dreamed 

 by fasting children, to be interpreted by 

 them in order to ascertain the personal 

 tutelary (? totem, q. v.) of the dreamer. 

 And in the earlier time, because the pro- 

 creation of life and the preservation of it 

 must originate with the paternal clan or 

 association of clans, the members of such 

 a clan should in a reasonable time replace 

 a person killed or captured by enemies in 

 the clan of their offspring. The paternal 

 clan and the phratry to which it belonged 

 was called, with reference to a third 

 person, hondonnis^'hen', i.e. 'his father's 

 brothers f and kindred).' Since the clan, 

 and therefore the tribe of which it is a 

 component part, is supported by the num- 

 bers of those who compose it, whether 

 men or women (for its power and wealth 

 lie chiefly in the numbers of its constitu- 



ents), it followed that the loss of a single 

 person was a great one and one that it was 

 necessary to restore by replacing the lack- 

 ing person by one or many according to 

 the esteem and the standing in which he 

 was held. This peculiar duty and obli- 

 gation of the members of the paternal 

 clans to their offspring in the other clans 

 is still typified among the modern Tusca- 

 rora and other Iroquois tribes on the first 

 day of the new year. On this day it is 

 customary to make calls of congratulation 

 and for the purpose of receiving a present, 

 usually some article of food, such as small 

 cakes, doughnuts, apples, pieces of pie, 

 etc. But every person on entering the 

 house of a clansman of his or her father 

 may demand, in addition to the ordinary 

 presents provided, "a baby," using for 

 this purpose the ordinary term for a baby, 

 oivi^rd'a'. To comply with these appre- 

 hended demands, the thrifty housewife, 

 to aid her good man in fulfilling his obli- 

 gations, usually has prepared in advance 

 a goodly number of small mummy-like 

 figures of pastry, 8 or 10 inches in length, 

 to represent symbolically the "babies" 

 demanded. 



So it would seem that marriage, to be 

 fruitful, must be contracted between mem- 

 bers of the male and the female parts of 

 the tribal unity. In primitive thought, 

 kinship, expressed in terms of agiaaticand 

 enatic kinship, of consanguinity and affin- 

 ity, was the one basis recognized in the 

 structure of the social organization. At 

 first all social relations and political and 

 religious affiliations were founded on ties 

 of blood kinship of varying degrees of 

 closeness; but later, where such actual 

 blood kinship was wanting, it was assumed 

 by legal fictions (see Adoption). Within 

 the family as well as outside of it the in- 

 dividual was governed by obligations 

 based primarily on kinship of blood and 

 on certain fundamental cosmical concepts 

 consonant therewith. 



The Omaha tribe is constituted of ten 

 gentes organized into two divisions of five 

 gentes each, and this dualism in the or- 

 ganization of the tribal gentes into two 

 constituent exogamnus bodies is appar- 

 ently prevalent in all the tribes cognate 

 with the Omaha, with perhaps the excep- 

 tion of the Ponca. When on the great 

 annual tribal hunt, the Omaha tribe 

 camped ceremonially in the form of an 

 open or broken circle. When the tribe 

 performed its religious rites this circle 

 was always circumspectly oriented. But 

 when the tribe was moving, the opening 

 of the camp-circle always faced the direc- 

 tion in which the tribe was marching, 

 although the opening was symbolically 

 toward the e. This symbolic fiction was 

 accomplished by turning the circle in such 

 manner that if the actual opening faced 



3456— Bull. 30, pt 2—07- 



-52 



