38 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INDIAN LANGUAGES. 
§18.—SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 
In this paper the term family will be used as synonymous with house- 
hold; that is, it will designate the group of persons occupying one lodge, or 
one set of compartments in a pueblo. Among some of the tribes of North 
America the head of the family is a woman; among other tribes the head 
of a family is a man, and these distinctions enter largely into tribal society 
and government. ‘Is fatherhood or motherhood the source of authority ?” 
is the first question to be asked in the study of the sociology of an Indian 
tribe. 
A group of relatives tracing a common lineage to some remote ances- 
tor constitutes a gens or clan. In the tribes where mother-right prevails 
this lineage is traced through the female; where father-right prevails, 
through the male. In the first case the children belong to the gens of the 
mother; in the second to the gens of the father. The gens is the grand 
unit of social organization, and, for many purposes, is the basis of govern- 
mental organization. The gentile organization is widely spread and may 
be universal. It has often been overlooked even by those well acquainted 
with the Indians among tribes where we now know that it prevails. Many 
rights and duties inhere in the gens. 
The following lines of inquiry will generally lead to the discovery of 
the gens and the words called for. 
It is the duty of the gens to avenge the murder of or personal injuries 
to any of its members. Again, a man may not marry in his own gens. 
With Indians skilled in picture-writing, the emblem of the gentile name, 
that is, the totem, is usually painted or carved on their lodges and on valu- 
able articles of property, and it is often inscribed on documents, such as 
messages, treaties, &c. The larger tribes of the United States usually 
camp in gentile groups arranged in some definite order. So far as our 
knowledge now extends, every gens takes the name of its tutelar god— 
some ancestor deified, ancient mythical animal, or nature-god. As the prin- 
cipal gods of most of the Indian tribes are animals, that is, mythical animals, 
the progenitors or prototypes of the present animals, the gentes are usually 
given animal names; thus bear-gens, wolf-gens, rabbit-gens, eagle-gens, 
hawk-gens, &e., are common. The flesh of the animal for which the gens was 
