818 



TRIBE 



[b. a. e. 



the w. the five tribal gentes whose inva- 

 riable place was on the n. side of the cir- 

 cle when actually oriented would still be 

 found on the n. side of the camp-circle 

 and the other five gentes on the s. But 

 it seems that this order was not always 

 punctiUously observed at home. This 

 persistent adjustment of the order in 

 which the gentes were placed in regard 

 to the real orient was a reflex of the cult 

 of the quarters and apparently rested on 

 a concept concerning the origin of life and 

 of the bodies of the environing world. 

 Like the Iroquois, and perhaps all the 

 other Indian peoples of North America, 

 the Omaha imputed life and human attri- 

 butes and qualities to the various bodies 

 and elements in nature. So regarding 

 them as anthropomorphic beings, even 

 social relations such as kinships and aflBni- 

 ties were attributed to them, and not the 

 least among these imputed properties was 

 sex. Like all living things these bodies 

 must need be apportioned to the two 

 sexes. And as the various regions and 

 quarters were regarded as beings, they 

 also were male or female by nature. 

 The Sky is male and a father, and the 

 Earth is female and a mother; the Above 

 is masculine, and the Below is feminine; 

 the Sun is male, the Moon female. Since 

 these two principles are necessary to the 

 propagation of the races of men and 

 animals, they were also made factors in 

 the propagation and conservation of the 

 necessaries of life. And as this dualism 

 appeared seemingly in all living things, 

 it was deemed needful to embody these 

 two so necessary principles symbolically 

 in the organic units of the tribal organi- 

 zation; and so it would appear that the 

 one side as the representative of the Sky 

 was made male and the other as repre- 

 senting the Earth was made female. 

 Therefore it would seem that marriage to 

 be fruitful must be between the male and 

 the female parts of the tribal unity. De- 

 scent being traced solely through the 

 father, it was he who sustained the gens 

 and kept it distinct from every other. By 

 birth the child derived his name, his 

 place, his taboo, and his share in the rites 

 of his gens solely from his father; but, on 

 the other hand, it was through his moth- 

 er' s gens that his kinship was projected 

 beyond the gens of his birth. So it is 

 clearthat it is thetieof maternal kinship — 

 the bond of affinity — that actually binds 

 together the gentes and that impresses 

 every individual with the cohesive senti- 

 ment that he is a member of an inter- 

 related kinship body of persons. 



According to Miss Fletcher (Nat. Mus. 

 Rep., 1897), from whom the data charac- 

 terizing the Omaha tribal organization 

 has been largely derived, the distinctive 

 features of the Omaha gens and those of 



its close cognates are, in general, that 

 descent is traced only through the father, 

 that the chieftainship is apparently not 

 hereditary, that its members do not de- 

 rive their lineage from a common ances- 

 tor, that it possesses a set of personal 

 names, that it practises a common rite, that 

 it is not named after any individual, and 

 that it is exogamous. So that the Omaha 

 tribe, having ten such gentes organized 

 in two exogamous associations, to each 

 of which belongs a tribal pipe and a 

 phratriarch who is one of the governing 

 council of seven chieftains, has, among 

 other things, ten religious rites, ten 

 taboos, ten sets of personal names, and a 

 governing council of seven chieftains. 

 Formerly marriage was permitted only 

 between members of the two exogamous 

 associations, but not between the mem- 

 bers of either among themselves. 



According to Boas thei-e are remark- 

 able differences in the complex social 

 organizations of the tribes of the N. W. 

 coast. Of these the Haida and the Tlin- 

 git, both having maternal descent, are 

 each composed of two exogamous organic 

 and organized halves or units, which 

 among the Tlingit are called the Raven 

 and the Wolf, respectively, while among 

 the Haida they are known by the names 

 Eagle and Raven. The sociology of these 

 two tribes, while approximating in gen- 

 eral structure that of the Tsimshian, hav- 

 ing likewise a definite maternal organiza- 

 tion, is less complex, for among the lat- 

 ter there are .apparently four exogamous 

 associations with subdivisions or sub- 

 clans. Before any satisfactory knowl- 

 edge of the tribal structure and its func- 

 tions can be obtained, it is necessary to 

 possess in addition to the foregoing gen- 

 eral statements a detailed and systemized 

 knowledge of the technique by which 

 these several organic units, singly and 

 jointly, transact the affairs of the tribe. 

 This kind of information is still in large 

 measure lacking for a great proportion 

 of the North American Indian tribes. 

 Among the Kwakiutl, Boas found a pecu- 

 liar social organization which closer study 

 may satisfactorily explain. Among the 

 northern Kwakiutl tribes there are a 

 number of exogamic clans in which 

 descent is traced preferably in the rna- 

 ternal line, but in certain cases a child 

 may be counted as a member of his 

 father's clan. Yet, Boas adds, "By a 

 peculiar arrangement, however, descent 

 is so regulated that it proceeds in the 

 maternal line." 



In speaking of the widely prevalent 

 dualism in the highest organic units of the 

 tribal structure, especially with reference 

 to these tribes of the N. W. , Boas remarks: 

 "Since the two-fold division of a whole 

 tribe into exogamic groups is a phenome- 



