MORGAN.) GENERAL FEATURES OF THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY. 29 
IX. The Confederacy had no chief Executive Magistrate or official head. 
X. Experiencing the necessity for a General Military Commander, they 
ercated the office in a dual form, that one might neutralize the other. The two 
principal War-chiefs created were made equal in powers. 
These several propositions will be considered and illustrated, but with- 
out following the precise form or order in which they are stated. 
At the institution of the confederacy fifty permanent sachemships were 
created and named, and made perpetual in the gentes to which they were 
assigned. With the exception of two, which were filled but once, they 
have been held by as many different persons in succession as generations 
have passed away between that time and the present. ‘The name of each 
sachemship is also the personal name of each sachem while he holds the 
office, each one in succession taking the name of his predecessor. These 
sachems, when in session, formed the council of the confederacy in which 
the legislative, executive, and judicial powers were vested, although such a 
discrimination of functions had not come to be made. ‘To secure order in 
the succession, the several gentes in which these offices were made heredi- 
tary were empowered to elect successors from among their respective mem- 
bers when vacancies occurred, as elsewhere explained. As a further meas- 
ure of protection to their own body, each sachem, after his election and its 
confirmation, was invested with his office by a council of the confederacy. 
When thus installed his name was ‘‘taken away” and that of the sachem- 
ship was bestowed upon him. By this name he was afterwards known 
among them. They were all upon equality in rank, authority, and priv- 
ileges. 
These sachemships were distributed unequally among the five tribes; 
but without giving to either a preponderance of power ; and unequally 
among the gentes of the last three tribes. The Mohawks had nine sachems, 
the Oneidas nine, the Onondagas fourteen, the Cayugas ten, and the Sene- 
cas eight. This was the number at first, and it has remained the number 
to the present time. A table of these sachemships, founded at the institu- 
tion of the Confederacy, with the names which have been borne by their 
sachems in succession, from its formation to the present time, is subjoied, 
