MORGAN] PHRATRY IN THE MILITARY ORGANIZATION. 15 
force by phratries and by tribes was not unknown to the Homeric Greeks. 
Thus, Nestor advises Agamemnon to “separate the troops by phratries and 
by tribes, so that phratry may support phratry and tribe tribe.”* Under 
gentile institutions of the most advanced type the principle of kin became 
to a considerable extent the basis of the army organization. The Aztecs, 
in like manner, occupied the pueblo of Mexico in four distinct divisions, the 
people of each of which were more nearly related to each other than to the 
people of the other divisions. They were separate lineages, like the Tlas- 
calan, and it seems highly probable were four phratries, separately organ- 
ized as such. They were distinguished from each other by costumes and 
standards, and went out to war as separate divisions. Their geographical 
areas were called the four quarters of Mexico. 
With respect to the prevalence of this organization among the Indian 
tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism, the subject has been but slightly 
investigated. Itis probable that it was general in the principal tribes from 
the natural manner in which it springs up as a necessary member of the 
organic series, and from the uses, other than governmental, to which it was 
adapted. 
In some of the tribes the phratries stand out prominently upon the face 
of their organization. Thus the Chocta gentes are united in two phra- 
tries, which must be mentioned first in order to show the relation of the 
gentes to each other. The first phratry is called “Divided People,” and 
contains four gentes. The second is called “Beloved People,” and also 
contains four gentes. This separation of the people into two divisions 
by gentes created two phratries. Some knowledge of the functions of these 
phratries is of course desirable; but without it, the fact of their existence 
is established by the divisions themselves. The evolution of a confederacy 
from a pair of gentes—for less than two are never found in any tribe—may 
be deduced theoretically from the known facts of Indian experience. Thus 
the gens increases in the number of its members and divides into two; these 
again subdivide, and in time reunite in two or more phratries. These phratries 
form a tribe, and its members speak the same dialect. In course of time 
this tribe falls into several by the process of segmentation, which in turn 
* Tliad, ii, 362. 
