24 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
easiest of achievement by the Village Indians from the nearness to each other 
of their pueblos and from the smallness of their areas; but it was accom- 
plished in occasional instances by tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism, 
and notably by the Iroquois. Wherever a confederacy was formed it would 
of itself evince the superior intelligence of the people. — 
The two highest examples of Indian confederacies in North America 
were those of the Iroquois and of the Aztecs. From their acknowledged 
superiority as military powers, and from their geographical positions, these 
confederacies in both cases produced remarkable results. Our knowledge 
of the structure and principles of the former is definite and complete, while 
of the latter it is far from satisfactory. The Aztec Confederacy has been 
handled in such a manner historically as to leave it doubtful whether it was 
simply a league of three kindred tribes, offensive and defensive, or a sys- 
tematic confederacy like that of the Iroquois. That which is true of the 
latter was probably in a general sense true of the former, so that a knowl- 
edge of one will tend to elucidate the other. 
The conditions under which confederacies spring into being and the 
principles on which they are formed are remarkably simple. They grow 
naturally with time out of pre-existing elements. Where one tribe had 
divided into several, and these subdivisions occupied independent but con- 
tiguous territories, the confederacy reintegrated them in a higher organiza- 
tion on the basis of the common gentes they possessed and of the affiliated 
dialects they spoke. The sentiment of kin embodied in the gens, the com= 
mon lineage of the gentes, and their dialects, still mutually intelligible, 
yielded the material elements for a confederation. The confederacy, there- 
fore, had the gentes for its basis and center, and stock language for its cir- 
cumference. No one has been found that reached beyond the bounds of 
the dialects of a common language. If this natural barrier had been 
crossed it would have forced heterogeneous elements into the organization. 
Cases have occurred where the remains of a tribe, not cognate in speech, 
as the Natchez,* have been admitted into an existing confederacy; but this 
exception would not invalidate the general proposition. It was impossible 
for an Indian power to arise upon the American continent through a con- 
*They were admitted into the Creek Confederacy after their overthrow by the French. 
