ETHNOLOGY. 



231 



pum," was the name given to one of the fourteen original Onondaga sachems. All 

 of his successors, through many generations, down to the present Ho-no-we-na-to, 

 now at Onondaga, have held the same title, and borne the game name, Do-ne- 

 ho-ga-weh, the " Keeper of the Door," was the name of one of the eight original 

 Seneca sachems. This title, in like manner, has been held by all of his successors, 

 down to the present day. Ely S. Parker, an educated Seneca, at the present time 

 in the civil service of the United States, now holds this sachemship. When he 

 was raised up, a few years since, his former name, Ha-seh-no-an-da, was " taken 

 away,'' to use again their mode of expression, and the name Do-ne-ho-ga-weh 

 bestowed in its place, by which alone he is now known. The office of sachem, 

 therefore, is a title of nobility, but descending in the female line, instead of the 

 male, and having attached to it the authority and powers of an hereditary ruler of 

 the Iroquois." 



Having thus set forth the Iroquois laws of descent, and the singular polity based 

 upon them, Mr. Morgan proceeds to show in what ways it may aid as an instru- 

 ment towards solving the great problem of the origin of the Indian races of this 

 continent. Believing in the inevitable permanency of the primary institutions of 

 a people, unless under the influence of such a revolution as the transmutation of 

 the wild hunter-tribe into a civilized community. Mr. Morgan conceives that he 

 has thus mastered the fundamental element of Indian society ; and he is now in 

 searcli of the same, or some corresponding social elements, along the supposed 

 Asiatic path of migration to the New "World. 



" Nearly all of our Indian races," he observes, " are divided into tribes. The 

 theory of the tribe is, that all of its members are consanguinii. It is a method of 

 preserving, under a general name, the relationship which subsists among them. 

 But since several tribes are united in one nation, and these are mingled by inter- 

 marriage, a system of relationship was still necessary to render definite the 

 kindred ties. Among the European races, as we have seen, every remove from 

 the common ancestor separated the collateral lines farther and farther, until, after 

 a few generations, relationship ceased — terminating in a total dispersion of blood, 

 except as it was preserved by the national tie. With the Iroquois it was the 

 reverse. By merging the collateral lines in the lineal, the integrity of the bond 

 of kindred blood was maintained, in a sensible form, through all generations. A 

 confusion of kindred would appear to be inevitable ; but in practice it was other- 

 wise, as is demonstrated by the fact, that it is at the present moment a practiiiial 

 working system, perfectly and readily understood. 



" Descent in the female line does not appear to have been universal among our 

 Indian races. It had special reference to the descent of the office of sachem, or 

 civil chief. It obtained among the Aztecs, where the sachem was succeeded either 

 by a brother or a nephew, to the exclusion of the son ; also among the Iroquois, 

 and the Wyandotts. There are glimpses of it in several other races, but it does 

 not appear to have been made a subject of special examination. Dr. Gulick found 

 the same system in the Micronesian Islands — (Missionary Herald, 1853, p 90); it 

 is said also to prevail in New Grenada in South America, and in Australia. Dr. 

 Livingstone furnishes some evidence of its existence in the tribes of the Banyi, on 



