MORGAN.) NUMBER OF PERSONS IN A GENS. 9 
the Ojibwas have a similar legend. In some tribes the members of a gens 
will not eat the animal whose name they bear, in which they are doubtless 
influenced by this consideration. 
With respect to the number of persons in a gens, it varied with the 
number of the gentes, and with the prosperity or decadence of the tribe. 
Three thousand Senecas divided equally among eight gentes would give an 
average of three hundred and seventy-five persons to a gens. Fifteen 
thousand Ojibwas divided equally among twenty-three gentes would give 
six hundred and fifty persons to a gens. The Cherokees would average 
more than a thousand to a gens In the present condition of the principal 
Indian tribes the number of persons in each gens would range from one 
hundred to a thousand. 
One of the oldest and most widely prevalent institutions of mankind, 
the gentes have been closely identified with human progress upon which 
they have exercised a powerful influence. They have been found in tribes 
in the Status of savagery, in the Lower, in the Middle, and in the U pper 
Status of barbarism on different continents, and in full vitality in the Gre- 
cian and Latin tribes after civilization had commenced. Every family of 
mankind, except the Polynesian, seems to have come under the gentile 
organization, and to have been indebted to it for preservation and for the 
means of progress. It finds its only parallel in length of duration in sys- 
tems of consanguinity, which, springing up at a still earlier period, have 
remained to the present time, although the marriage usages in which they 
originated have long since disappeared. 
From its early institution, and from its maintenance through such 
immense stretches of time, the peculiar adaptation of the gentile organiza- 
tion to mankind, while in a savage and in a barbarous state, must be 
regarded as abundantly demonstrated. 
THE PHRATRY. 
The phratry (gparpz@) is a brotherhood, as the term imports, and a 
natural growth from the organization into gentes. It is an organie union 
or association of two or more gentes of the same tribe for certain common 
