not at any time exceed 20,000 people. They lived in the great forests of New York. A long period elapsed after their settlement in New York before the confederacy was formed. During this time they made common cause against their enemies and experienced the advantages of coöperation both for aggression and defense. They were first discovered by white men in 1608 and about the year 1675 attained the culminating point of their power and influence.11 While this confederation of Indian tribes was ostensibly for purposes of mutual protection, there was a deeper basis for it in the bond of kin. The real tie was the existence of certain clans which the tribes had in common. All members of the same clan, whether Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, or Senecas, were brothers and sisters to each other in virtue of their descent from the same common ancestor. Three clans, the Wolf, Bear, and Turtle, were common to the five tribes. Between the separated parts of each clan, although its members spoke different dialects of the same language, there existed a fraternal connection which linked the nations together with indissoluble bonds. In the estimation of an Iroquois Indian every member of his clan in whatever tribe, was as certainly a kinsman as his brother. This system of cross-relationship between persons of the same clan in different tribes is still preserved and recognized among the Iroquois in all its old force. Dissensions between component tribes in the confederacy were thus guarded against, for if the Mohawks fell upon the Oneidas, since the Bear clan was common to both tribes, there would be conflict between brother kinsmen, an unthinkable situation in the mind of primitive man. 11 Morgan, op. cit., ch. v, pt. ii. TRIBAL SOCIETY 241 Another important bond of union was the possession of The tribes 12 occupied positions of entire equality in the confederacy, in rights, privileges, and obligations. Each tribe remained independent in all matters pertaining to local self-government. The confederacy created a general council of fifty sachems,13 equal in rank and Each tribe authority and invested with supreme powers over all matters pertaining to the confederacy. The sachems were elected by clans. The clans also had the right to remove a sachem from office for just cause. had a council composed of its chiefs and sachems with supreme power over matters which pertained to the tribe exclusively. Unanimity in the council of the confederacy was essential to every public act, and in this council the sachems voted by tribes. The tribal councils alone had the power to convene the general council of the confederacy. The people had the right to participate directly in the discussion of public questions in the council by having orators represent them. The weak point in the confederacy was that there was no executive head, no chief magistrate. There were two equi-powerful warchiefs with veto power over each other's acts. This provision, however, did not do away with the serious deficiency in administrative power. In this remarkable organization of a primitive people still in the cultural stage of stone implements and rudimentary agriculture, public opinion was very important. The distinctly democratic form of this system of social organization shows 12 A tribe is a community of people occupying a definite territory, speaking one language or dialect, and having many customs and traditions in common; it is usually subdivided into several clans. 13 Civil leaders as distinct from chiefs who were military leaders. that the aptitude for democratic government is not in the exclusive possession of the Greek, the Roman, and the Anglo-Saxon peoples, but is quite likely to crop out wherever the circumstances are favorable. The Iroquois called themselves "The People of the Long House" (Ho-dé-no-sau-nee). The Iroquois In dians lived in a community house which was long and narrow, with compartments for each family of the clan. The clan dominated the long house because it was primarily the clan house, and the clan was the most important body in local affairs. Since the clans were metronymic, the oldest woman in the long house was the matron who ran the house with supreme authority over all its inmates in domestic affairs. If a mere man offended, he was thrust out by the order of the house matron. All adults, men and women, had equal voice in the clan council, but in the tribal council women had no voice. Thus we see that among the Iroquois Indians the position of woman was on an equality with that of man. The rather widespread notion that among primitive peoples woman had a degraded position is not borne out by the study of many tribal groups. Among the Iroquois clans there was general recognition of the obligation not to marry within the clan. That is, men of the Bear clan must seek for wives, women of the Turtle clan or of some other clan, they must not marry women of their own clan, the Bear clan. This usage is connected with the idea that all persons bearing the same crest, or totem, or clan name, are related by blood and hence marriage between them is tabooed. A clan which follows the custom of requiring its members to marry individuals in another clan is called an exogamous clan. The usage is called exogamy. One further unit of organization in the structure of Iroquois society must be mentioned. It is the phratry. The Iroquois tribes had a total of thirty-eight clans, and in four of these tribes the clans were combined into a total of eight phratries. The phratry was a brotherhood of clans, probably originally one clan, which, be coming overlarge, had subdivided.1 Originally, marriage was not allowed between the members of the same phratry; but the members of either could marry into any clans of the other. Morgan regards this prohibition as an indication that the clans of each phratry were subdivisions of an original clan, and that, therefore, the prohibition against marrying into a person's own clan had followed to its subdivisions. The phratry was partly for social and partly for religious purposes. At the tribal council of chiefs and sachems members of each phratry usually seated themselves on opposite sides of an imaginary council-fire, and the speakers addressed the two opposite bodies as the representatives of the phratries. While blood feuds were ordinarily the concern of the two clans involved, it often happened that the clan of the murdered person called upon the other clans of their phratry to unite with them in avenging the deed. The phratry participated in funeral ceremonials and was also concerned in the election of the sachems and chiefs of several clans. In ball games the Senecas played by phratries, one against the other; and they bet against each other upon the result of the game. As to the religious ideas of the Iroquois Indians, we know now that their conception of a "Great Spirit" has been misunderstood by those who first described them as believing in a single all-powerful deity identified with the Christian concept of one God. The Indian word "Manitou," which has been considered by many as an Indian name for God, does not mean the "Great Spirit" in the sense of an all-powerful ruling spirit; it is merely an adjectival concept containing the idea of the "big," the "powerful." Manitou means strange, wonderful; it does 14 Morgan, op. cit., ch. iii; Giddings, op. cit., p. 461. |