periods intervene, covering many thousands of years.
As intermarriage in the gens was prohibited, it withdrew its members
from the evils of consanguine marriages, and thus tended to increase
the vigor of the stock. The gens came into being upon three principal
conceptions, namely, the bond of kin, a pure lineage through descent in
the female line, and non-intermarriage in the gens. When the idea of a
gens was developed, it would naturally have taken the form of gentes in
pairs, because the children of the males were excluded, and because it
was equally necessary to organize both classes of descendants. With
two gentes started into being simultaneously the whole result would
have been attained, since the males and females of one gens would
marry the females and males of the other, and the children, following
the gentes of their respective mothers, would be divided between them.
Resting on the bond of kin as its cohesive principal the gens afforded to
each individual member that personal protection which no other
existing power could give.
After enumerating the rights, privileges, and obligations of its members,
it will be necessary to follow the gens in its organic relations to a
phratry tribe and confederacy, in order to find the uses to which it was
applied, the privileges which it conferred, and the principles which it
fostered. The gentes of the Iroquois will be taken as the standard
exemplification of this institution in the Ganowaman family. They had
carried their scheme of government from the gens to the confederacy,
making it complete in each of its parts, and an excellent illustration of
the capabilities of the gentile organization in its archaic form.
When discovered the Iroquois were in the Lower Status of barbarism,
and well advanced in the arts of life pertaining to this condition. They
manufactured nets, twine, and rope from filaments of bark, wove belts
and burden straps, with warp and woof from the same materials, they
manufactured earthen vessels and pipes from clay mixed with silicious
materials and hardened by fire, some of which were ornamented with
rude medallions, they cultivated maize, beans, squashes, and tobacco in
garden beds, and made unleavened bread from pounded maize, which
they boiled in earthen vessels, [Footnote: These loaves or cakes were
about six inches in diameter and an inch thick] they tanned skins into
leather, with which they manufactured kilts leggins, and moccasins,
they used the bow and arrow and war-club as their principal weapons,
used flint-stone and bone implements, wore skin garments, and were
expert hunters and fishermen They constructed long joint tenement
houses large enough to accommodate five, ten, and twenty families,
and each household practiced communism in living, but they were
unacquainted with the use of stone or adobe brick in house architecture,
and with the use of the native metals. In mental capacity and in general
advancement they were the representative branch of the Indian family
north of New Mexico General F A. Walker has sketched their military
career in two paragraphs "The career of the Iroquois was simply terrific.
They were the scourge of God upon the continent." [Footnote: North
American Review April No. 1873 p. 360 Note.] From lapse of time the
Iroquois tribes have come to differ slightly in the number and in the
names of their respective gentes, the largest number being eight, as
follows:
Seneca Cayuga Onondaga Oneida Mohawks Tuscarora 1 Wolf Wolf
Wolf Wolf Wolf Gray Wolf 2 Bear Bear Bear Bear Bear Bear 3 Turtle
Turtle Turtle Turtle Turtle Great Turtle 4 Beaver Beaver Beaver Beaver
5 Deer Deer Deer Yellow Wolf 6 Snipe Snipe Snipe Snipe 7 Heron Eel
Eel Eel 8 Hawk Hawk Ball Little Turtle
These changes show that certain gentes in some of the tribes have
become extinct through the vicissitudes of time, and that others have
been formed by the segmentation of over full gentes.
With a knowledge of the rights, privileges, and obligations of the
members of a gens, its capabilities as the unit of a social and
governmental system will be more fully understood, as well as the
manner in which it entered into the higher organizations of the phratry
tribe, and confederacy.
The gens is individualized by the following rights, privileges, and
obligations conferred and imposed upon its members, and which made
up the jus gentilicium:
I The right of electing its sachem and chiefs
II The right of deposing its sachem and chiefs
III The obligation not to marry in the gens
IV Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased members
V Reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress of injuries
VI The right of bestowing names upon its members
VII The right of adopting strangers into the gens
VIII Common religious rites
IX A common burial place.
X A council of the
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the
Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.