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The circles were adapted to open-air councils, after the fashion of the American Indian tribes. As there are two of these connected with each other, and two not connected, it is not improbable that the Mound-Builders at this village were organized in two and perhaps four phratries, and that they performed their religious ceremonies and public business in these open estufas.
I have, again, refrained from pointing out that sometimes there are exogamous divisions some would call them moieties to distinguish them from phratries which have no clans grouped under them, and, on the other hand, have themselves little or no resemblance to totemic clans. These, and ever so many other exceptional cases, I have simply passed by.
The name of but one of the twelve Athenian phratries has come down to us in history. Those of the Iroquois had no name but that of a brotherhood. The phratry also appears among the Thlinkits of the Northwest coast upon the surface of their organization into gentes. They have two phratries, as follows: I. Wolf Phratry. Gentes. 1. Bear 2. Eagle. 3. Dolphin. 4. Shark. 5. Alca. II. Raven Phratry.
Each of these components probably housed not more than a few families, while several phratries could readily be accommodated in Honanki.
It is a common practice of the Senecas to call the gentes of their own phratry brother gentes and those of the other phratry their cousin gentes, when they mention them in their relation to the phratries. Originally marriage was not allowed between the members of the same phratry but the members of either could marry into any gens of the other.
From this place the original nucleus of Walpians moved to the present site about the close of the seventeenth century. Later the original population was joined by other phratries, some of which, as the Asa, had lived in the cliff-houses of Tségi, or Canyon de Chelly, as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century.
A tribe contained three phratries, or fraternities a phratry contained three genes or clans a genos or clan was composed of thirty heads of families. It has been conjectured indeed by some, that from a class not included in these families, vacancies in the phratries were filled up; but this seems to be a less probable supposition than that which I have stated above.
Where clan exogamy exists without phratries it is possible that these also formerly existed and have been dropped in the interests of freedom that is, they limited the choice of a wife to an extent that proved inconvenient. +425+. An almost universal feature of the marriage rules of low tribes is the classificatory system of relationship.
The same gentes are not constant in a phratry indefinitely, as appears from the composition of the phratries in the remaining Iroquois tribes. Transfers of particular gentes from one phratry to the other must have occurred when the equilibrium in their respective numbers was disturbed.
In the ball game, for example, among the Senecas, they play by phratries, one against the other, and they bet against each other upon the result of the game. Each phratry puts forward its best players, usually from six to ten on a side, and the members of each phratry assemble together, but upon opposite sides of the field in which the game is played.
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