508 SEMINOLE INDIANS OF FLORIDA. 
and the Horned Owl clans seem now to be extinct in Florida, and I am 
not altogether sure that the Alligator clan also has not disappeared. 
The gens is “‘a group of relatives tracing a common lineage to some 
remote ancestor. This lineage is traced by some tribes through the 
mother and by others through the father.” “The gens is the grand 
unit of social organization, and for many purposes is the basis of goy- 
ernmeptal organization.” To the gens belong also certain rights and 
duties. 
Of the characteristics of the gentes of the Florida Seminole, I know 
only that a man may not marry a woman of his own clan, that the 
children belong exclusively to the mother, aud that by birth they are 
members of her own gens. So far as duogamy prevails now among the 
Florida Indians, I observed that both the wives, in every case, were 
members of one gens. I understand also that there are certain games 
in which men selected from gentes as such are the contesting partici- 
pants, 
FELLOWHOOD. 
In this connection I may say that if I was understvod in my inquiries 
the Seminole have also the institution of “‘ Fellowhood” among them. 
Major Powell thus-describes this institution: ‘Two young men agree 
to be life friends, ‘more than brothers,’ confiding without reserve each 
in the other and protecting each the other from all harm.” 
THE SEMINOLE TRIBE. 
TRIBAL ORGANIZATION. 
The Florida Seminole, considered as a tribe, have a very imperfect 
organization. The complete tribal society of the past was much broken 
up through wars with the United States. These wars having ended in 
the transfer of nearly the whole of the population to the Indian Ter- 
ritory, the few Indians remaining in Florida were consequently left in 
a comparatively disorganized condition. There is, however, among 
these Indians a simple form of government, to which the inhabitants of 
at least the three southern settlements submit. The people of Cat Fish 
Lake and Cow Creek settlements live in a large measure independent 
of or without civil connection with the others. Teup-ko calls his peo- 
ple * Tallahassee Indians.” He says that they are not ‘“ the same” as 
the Fish Eating Creek, Big Cypress, and Miami people. I learned, 
moreover, that the ceremony of the Green Corn Dance may take place 
at the three last named settlements and not at those of the north. The 
“Tallahassee Indians” go to Fish Hating Creek if they desire to take 
part ip the festival. 
SEAT OF GOVERNMENT. 
So far as there is a common seat of government, it is located at Fish 
Eating Oreek, where reside the head chief and big medicine man of 

