Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines | Page 5

ORGANIZATION.
In a previous work I have considered the organization of the American
aborigines in gentes, phratries, and tribes, with the functions of each in
their social system. From the importance of this organization to a right
understanding of their social and governmental life, a recapitulation of
the principal features of each member of the organic series is necessary
in this connection. [Footnote: "Ancient Society" or "Researches in the
Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to
Civilization." Henry Holt & Co. 1877.]
The gentile organization opens to us one of the oldest and most
widely-prevalent institutions of mankind. It furnished the nearly
universal plan of government of ancient society, Asiatic, European,
African, American, and Australian. It was the instrumentality by means
of which society was organized and held together. Commencing in
savagery, and continuing through the three subperiods of barbarism, it
remained until the establishment of political society, which did not
occur until after civilization had Commenced. The Grecian gens,
phratry, and tribe, the Roman gens, curia, and tribe find their analogues
in the gens, phratry, and tribe of the American aborigines. In like
manner the Irish sept, the Scottish clan, the phratra of the Albanians,
and the Sanskrit ganas, without extending the comparison further, are
the same as the American Indian gens, which has usually been called a
clan. As far as our knowledge extends, this organization runs through
the entire ancient world upon all the continents, and it was brought
down to the historical period by such tribes as attained to civilization.
Nor is this all. Gentile society wherever found is the same in structural
organization and in principles of action; but changing from lower to
higher forms with the progressive advancement of the people. These
changes give the history of development of the same original
conceptions.

THE GENS.
Gens, [Greek: genos], and gattas in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit have
alike the primary signification of kin. They contain the same element as
gigno, [Greek: gignouas], and ganaman, in the same languages,
signifying to beget; thus implying in each an immediate common
descent of the members of a gens. A gens, therefore, is a body of

consanguinei descended from the same common ancestor,
distinguished by a gentile name, and bound together by affinities of
blood. It includes a moiety only of such descendants. Where descent is
in the female line, as it was universally in the archaic period, the gens is
composed of a supposed female ancestor and her children, together
with the children of her female descendants, through females, in
perpetuity; and where descent is in the male line--into which it was
changed after the appearance of property in masses--of a supposed
male ancestor and his children, together with the children of his male
descendants, through males, in perpetuity. The family name among
ourselves is a survival of the gentile name, with descent in the male line,
and passing in the same manner. The modern family, as expressed by
its name, is an unorganized gens, with the bond of kin broken, and its
members as widely dispersed as the family name is found.
Among the nations named, the gens indicated a social organization of a
remarkable character, which had prevailed from an antiquity so remote
that its origin was lost in the obscurity of far distant ages. It was also
the unit of organization of a social and governmental system, the
fundamental basis of ancient society. This organization was not
confined to the Latin, Grecian, and Sanskrit speaking tribes, with
whom it became such a conspicuous institution. It has been found in
other branches of the Aryan family of nations, in the Semitic, Uralian
and Turanian families, among the tribes of Africa and Australia, and of
the American aborigines.
The gens has passed through successive stages of development in its
transition from its archaic to its final form with the progress of mankind.
These changes were limited in the main to two, firstly, changing
descent from the female line, which was the archaic rule, as among the
Iroquois, to the male line, which was the final rule, as among the
Grecian and Roman gentes; and, secondly, changing the inheritance of
the property of a deceased member of the gens from his gentiles, who
took it in the archaic period, first to his agnatic kindred, and finally to
his children. These changes, slight as they may seem, indicate very
great changes of condition as well as a large degree of progressive
development.
The gentile organization, originating in the period of savagery,
enduring through the three subperiods of barbarism, finally gave way,

among the more advanced tribes, when they attained civilization--the
requirements of which it was unable to meet. Among the Greeks and
Romans political society supervened upon gentile society, but not until
civilization had commenced. The township (and