French Pathfinders in North America | Page 6

common designation, so that the
members of a clan might know each other as such, however widely
they might be scattered. This lack was supplied by the clan-symbol,
called a totem. This was always an animal of some kind, and an image
of it was often rudely painted over a lodge-entrance or tattooed on the
clansman's body. All who belonged to the clan of the Wolf, or the Bear,
or the Tortoise, or any other, were supposed to be descended from a
common ancestress; and this kinship was the tie that held them together
in a certain alliance, though living far apart. It mattered not that the
original clan had been split up and its fragments scattered among
several different tribes. The bond of clanship still held. If, for example,
a Cayuga warrior of the Wolf clan met a Seneca warrior of the same

clan, their totem was the same, and they at once acknowledged each
other as brothers.
{22}
Perhaps we might illustrate this peculiar relation by our system of
college fraternities. Suppose that a Phi-Beta-Kappa man of Cornell
meets a Phi-Beta-Kappa man of Yale. Immediately they recognize a
certain brotherhood. Only the tie of clanship is vastly stronger, because
it rests not on an agreement, but on a real blood relationship.
According to Indian ideas, a man and a woman of the same clan were
too near kindred to marry. Therefore a man must always seek a wife in
some other clan than his own; and thus each family contained members
of two clans.
The clan was not confined to one neighborhood. As it grew, sections of
it drifted away and took up their abode in different localities. Thus,
when the original single Iroquois stock became split into five distinct
tribes, each contained portions of eight clans in common. Sometimes it
happened that, when a clan divided, a section chose to take a new totem.
Thus arose a fresh centre of grouping. But the new clan was closely
united to the old by the sense of kinship and by constant intermarriages.
This process of splitting and forming new clans had gone on for a long
time among the Indians--for how {23} many hundreds of years, we
have no means of knowing. In this way there had arisen groups of clans,
closely united by kinship. Such a group we call a phratry.
A number of these groups living in the same region and speaking a
common dialect constituted a larger union which we sometimes call a
nation, more commonly a tribe.
This relation may be illustrated by the familiar device of a family-tree,
thus:
[Illustration: Indian Family Tree.]
{24} Here we see eleven clans, all descended from a common stock

and speaking a common dialect, composing the Mohegan Tribe. Some
of the smaller tribes, however, had not more than three clans.
The point that we need to get clear in our minds is that an Indian tribe
was simply a huge family, extended until it embraced hundreds or even
thousands of souls. In many cases organization never got beyond the
tribe. Not a few tribes stood alone and isolated. But among some of the
most advanced peoples, such as the Iroquois, the Creeks, and the
Choctaws, related tribes drew together and formed a confederacy or
league, for mutual help. The most famous league in Northern America
was that of the Iroquois. We shall describe it in the next chapter. It
deserves careful attention, both because of its deep historical interest,
and because it furnishes the best-known example of Indian
organization.

{27}
Chapter III
THE IROQUOIS LEAGUE
History of the League.--Natural Growth of Indian Government.--How
Authority was exercised, how divided.--Popular Assemblies.--Public
Speaking.--Community Life.
Originally the Iroquois people was one, but as the parent stock grew
large, it broke up into separate groups.
Dissensions arose among these, and they made war upon one another.
Then, according to their legend, Hayawentha, or Hiawatha, whispered
into the ear of Daganoweda, an Onondaga sachem, that the cure for
their ills lay in union. This wise counsel was followed. The five tribes
known to Englishmen as the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas,
the Cayugas, and the Senecas--their Indian names are different and
much longer--buried the hatchet and formed a confederacy which grew
to be, after the Aztec League in Mexico, the most powerful Indian

organization in North America. It was then known as "The Five
Nations."
{28}
About 1718, one of the original branches, the Tuscaroras, which had
wandered away as far as North Carolina, pushed by white men hungry
for their land, broke up their settlements, took up the line of march,
returned northward, and rejoined the other branches of the parent stem.
From this time forth the League is known in history as "The Six
Nations," the constant foe of the French and ally of