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Perhaps the most peculiar feature in the organisation of the Euahlayi is the existence of Matrimonial Classes, which are named as in the Kamilaroi tongue, while the phratry names are not those of the Kamilaroi, and alone among phratry names in Australia which can be translated, are not names of animals.
The members of the Greek phratry, of the Roman fatria, or gens, of the Germanic and Anglo-Saxon guild, and of the mediaeval sworn commune, were all solemnly bound to avenge the blood of any of their brethren, unlawfully slain. So that the repulsive repetition of reprisals, which so disgusts the modern reader in our old annals, is by no means a phenomenon peculiar to the Irish state of society.
As a rule, the name of the original gens out of which others had formed is not known; but in each of these cases it remains as the name of the phratry. Since the latter, like the Grecian, was a social and religious rather than a governmental organization, it is externally less conspicuous than a gens or tribe, which were essential to the government of society.
In like manner their sachems were brothers to each other and fathers to those opposite. They constituted a phratry of tribes and of sachems, by an extension of the principle which united gentes in a phratry. On the opposite side of the fire were the Oneida and Cayuga and at a later day the Tuscarora sachems.
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.
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.
The Coyote people were, I believe, akin to the Kokop or Firewood phratry, and as the pueblo of Sikyatki was settled by the latter, it is highly probable that the inhabitants of the two villages were friendly and naturally combined against the Snake pueblo of Walpi.
Among the Greeks and Romans political society supervened upon gentile society, but not until civilization had commenced. After political society was instituted this ancient and time-honored organization, with the phratry and tribe developed from it, gradually yielded up their existence.
Thus substantial and important in the social system was the gens as it anciently existed among the American aborigines, and as it still exists in full vitality in many Indian tribes. It was the basis of the phratry, of the tribe, and of the confederacy of tribes. At the epoch of European discovery the American Indian tribes generally were organized in gentes, with descent in the female line.
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