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They reckon descent in the female line: they have 'phratries' and four matrimonial classes, with totems within the phratries. The arrangement is a very early attempt at a scientific system of classification.
And if a stranger calls there, he is treated with the greatest civility and hearty kindness he is sure to find plenty of their simple home fare, and a large cane-bed covered with the softened skins of bears or buffaloes to sleep on. All these tribes were organized in gentes or clans, and the gentes of each tribe were usually reintegrated in two or more phratries. It is the gens to which Mr.
After a day's debate the question was adjourned; and in the interval the festival of the APATURIA was celebrated, in which, according to annual custom, the citizens met together according to their families and phratries.
A writer in Harper's Magazine, speaking of the Aleutians, remarks: "When first discovered this people were living in large yurts, or dirt houses, partially underground ... having the entrances through a hole in the top or centre, going in and out on a rude ladder. Whether these tribes at this time were organized in gentes and phratries is not known.
Howitt regards these tribes as on the limits of what he calls the 'Four Sub-Class' system. The people, that is to say, have not only the division into two 'phratries, or 'exogamous moieties, intermarrying, but also the four 'Matrimonial Classes' further regulating marriage.
If the nomination made was accepted by both it became complete, but if either refused it was thereby set aside and a new election was made by the gens. When the choice made by the gens had been accepted by the phratries it was still necessary, as before stated, that the new sachem, or the new chief, should be invested by the council of the confederacy, which alone had power to invest with office.
In course of time this tribe falls into several by the process of segmentation, which in turn reunite in a confederacy. Such a confederacy is a growth, through the tribe and phratry, from a pair of gentes. The Chickasas are organized in two phratries, of which one contains four and the other eight gentes, as follows: I. Panther Phratry. Gentes. Wild Cat 2. Bird. 3. Fish. 4. Deer.
The head was on the left and the clans ran to the right in this way: The Bear, the Deer, the Highland Striped Turtle, the Highland Black Turtle, the Mud Turtle, the Large Smooth Turtle, the Hawk, the Beaver, the Wolf, the Snake and the Porcupine. These clans were also incorporated into four phratries, or larger divisions.
But a tradition of their former unity would remain and become the basis of their reorganization in a phratry. From the differences in the composition of the phratries in the several tribes it seems probable that the phratries are modified in their gentes at intervals of time to meet changes of condition.
They make pottery, cloth, and baskets, and are a busy people. There are seven villages built on three mesas in the northern desert. One of the largest, Orabi, has a thousand inhabitants. Walpi numbers about two hundred and thirty people, all living in this one great building of many rooms. They are divided into brotherhoods, or phratries, and each brotherhood has several large families.
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