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only material things, but intangible possessions like the exclusive 
right to a certain song or dance) followed either the male or the 
female line among the Nootka, passing from a man to his own 
children, or to his sister’s children, at willd Among the Kwakiutl 
it passed from a man to his son-in-law, and from the son-in-law to 
his son, a curious inversion of the ordinary rules of inheritance that 
is not yet clearly understood.- Xorth of Vancouver island the 
phratries (and consequently the clans) were exogamous, inheritance 
and descent rigidly followed the female line, and the whole structure 
of society was more systematized and sharply defined.'^ 
It might appear at first sight that among these northern Indians 
of the Pacific coast we have merely a repetition of the exogamous 
clans and phratries, with matrilinear descent, which we remarked 
a little earlier among the Iroquoians. But there were several striking 
differences. Among the Iroquoians the clan was the exogamic unit, 
and the more important politically; the phratry had mainly a 
ceremonial significance, and is more likely to have arisen from the 
clans by a process of federation than the clans from the phratries 
by division. In northern British Columbia, on the other hand, the 
phratry was the exogamic and important unit, the clans probably 
subdivisions, originally local in origin, that later acquired a ceremonial 
character. So in the general disintegration of native life that has 
resulted from the European occupation of Canada, the clans have 
outlived the phratries among the Iroquoians, whereas in British 
Columbia the ]>hratries are showing themselves more tenacious of 
existence than the clans. This contrast between the two regions 
will remind us that two institutions superficially alike may on closer 
observation prove very different, and that even institutions that 
apjiear identical may conceivably have different histories, and owe 
their origins to entirely dissimilar causes. 
1 Generally some of the property followetl one line, some the otl>cr. 
2 Sonic writers have ascribed it to the influence of matrilinear peoples in the north; but this is 
doubtful. 
3 The Carriers of Fort Fraser, who, like otlier Carrier groups, imperfectly adopted the organizations 
of the coast tribes, .seem to have reckoned clan and pliratry tlirough the female line, but rank through 
the male; whatever the rank of his mother, a man was not a nobleman unless his father was noble. 
At Stony Creek, near by, both parents had to be noble. 
■* The Troquoian pliratries were nameless; the British Columbia phratries all liad names derived 
(for the most part) from birds and animals, and these pliratric crests played a conspicuous role in 
tlie daily life. 
5 Thus there is not the slighte.st .shred of evidence (hat the various pliratric and clan systems of 
the American Indians, whatever may be their relation to eaeh other, are connected in any way with 
the pliratric and clan systems of the aborigines of Australia. 
