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It proves conclusively the natural process by which in course of time a gens breaks up into several, and these remain united in a phratric organization, which is expressed by assuming a phratric name. They are as follows: I. Wolf Phratry Gentes. 1. Wolf 2. Bear 3. Dog. 4 Opossum. II. Turtle Phratry Gentes 5 Little Turtle. 6. Mud Turtle. 7. Great Turtle 8. Yellow Eel. III. Turkey Phratry Gentes 9.
The four "lineages" of the Tlascalans who occupied the four quarters of the pueblo of Tlascalan were, in all probability, so many phratries. They were sufficiently numerous for four tribes, but as they occupied the same pueblo and spoke the same dialect the phratric organization was apparently a necessity. They went forth to battle by phratries.
Each of these subdivided, and the subdivisions became independent gentes; but they retained the names of the original gentes as their respective phratric names In other words, the subdivisions of each gens reorganized in a phratry.
Some gentes prosper and increase in numbers, while others, through calamities, decline, and others become extinct; so that transfers of gentes from one phratry to another were found necessary to preserve some degree of equality in the number of phrators in each. The phratric organization has existed among the Iroquois from time immemorial.
As the Oneidas were a subdivision of the Mohawks, and the Cayugas a subdivision of the Onondagas or Senecas, they were in reality junior tribes; whence their relation of seniors and juniors, and the application of the phratric principle. When the tribes are named in council the Mohawks, by precedence, are mentioned first. They were made perpetual keepers of the western door of the Long House.
At the funerals of persons of recognized importance in the tribe the phratric organization manifested itself in a conspicuous manner The phrators of the decedent in a body were the mourners, and the members of the opposite phratry conducted the ceremonies.
The phratric institution among the Iroquois was in its rudimentary archaic form; but it grew into life by natural and inevitable development, and remained permanent because it met necessary wants Every institution of mankind which attained permanence will be found linked with a perpetual want. With the gens tribe and confederacy in existence the presence of the phratry was substantially assured.
In his earliest days of unconscious infancy, the stamp of the national, gentile, phratric, God, or Gods, is imprinted upon him by his elders; and if the future man, in the exercise of his own independent reason, acquires such convictions as compel him to renounce those Gods, proclaiming openly that he does so he must count upon such treatment as will go far to spoil the value of the present life to him, even before he passes to those ulterior liabilities which Mr Mill indicates in the distance.
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