Yet there were towns where savages lived together in thousands with a harmony which civilization might envy. This was in good measure due to peculiarities of Indian character and habits. This intractable race were, in certain external respects, the most pliant and complaisant of mankind. The early missionaries were charmed by the docile acquiescence with which their dogmas were received, but they soon discovered that their facile auditors neither believed nor understood that to which they had so promptly assented. They assented out of a kind of courtesy, which, while it vexed the priests, tended greatly to keep the Indians in mutual accord. That well-known self-control, which, originating in a form of pride, covered the savage nature of the man with a veil, opaque though thin, contributed not a little to the same end. Though vain, arrogant, boastful, and vindictive, the Indian bore abuse and sarcasm with an astonishing patience. Though greedy and grasping, he was lavish without stint, and would give away his all to soothe the manes of a departed relative, gain influence and applause, or ingratiate himself with his neighbors. In his dread of public opinion he rivalled some of his civilized

successors.

All Indians, and especially these populous and sedentary tribes, had their code of courtesy, whose requirements were rigid and exact; nor might any infringe them without the ban of public censure. Indian nature, inflexible and unmalleable, was peculiarly under the control of custom. Established usage took the place of law,-was, in fact, a sort of common law with no tribunal to expound or enforce it. In these wild. democracies-democracies in spirit though not in form-a respect for native superiority, and a willingness to yield to it, were always conspicuous. All were prompt to aid each other in distress, and a neighborly spirit was often exhibited among them. When a young woman was permanently married, the other women of the village supplied her with fire-wood for the year, each contributing an armful. When one or more families were without shelter, the men of the village joined in building them a house. In return, the recipients of the favor gave a feast, if they could; if not, their thanks were sufficient. Among the Iroquois and Hurons and doubtless among their

kindred tribes-there were marked distinctions of noble and base, prosperous and poor; yet while there was food in the village, the meanest and the poorest need not suffer want. He had but to enter the nearest house, and seat himself by the fire; when, without a word on either side, food was placed before him by the women.*

Contrary to received opinion, these Indians, like others of their race when living in communities, were of a very social disposition. Besides their incessant dances and feasts, great and small, they were continually visiting each other, spending the most of their time in their neighbors' houses, chatting, joking, bantering each other with witticisms sharp, broad, and in no sense delicate, yet always taken in good part. Every village had its adepts in these wordy tournaments, while the shrill laugh of young squaws, untaught to blush, echoed each hardy jest or rough sarcasm.

In the organization of the savage communities of the continent, one feature, more or less conspicious, continually appears. Each nation or tribe-to adopt the names by which these communities are usually known is subdivided into several clans. These clans are not locally separate, but are mingled throughout the nation. All the members of each clan are, or are assumed to be, intimately joined in consanguinity. Hence it is held an abomination for two persons of the same clan to intermarry; and hence, again, it follows that every family must contain members of at least two clans. Each clan has its name, as the clan of the Hawk, of the Wolf, or of the Tortoise; and each has for its emblem the figure of the beast, bird, reptile, plant, or other object from which its name is derived. This emblem, called totem by the Algonquins, is often tattooed on the clansman's body, or rudely painted over the entrance of

The Jesuit Brebeuf, than whom no one better knew the Hurons, is very emphatic in praise of their harmony and social spirit. Speaking of one of the four nations of which the Hurons were composed, he says: "Ils ont vne douceur et vne affabilité quasi incroyable pour des Sauvages; ils ne se picquent pas aisément..... Ils se maintiennent dans cette si par faite intelligence par les frequentes visites, les secours qu'ils se donnent mutuellement dans leurs maladies, par les festins et les alliances. . . . . Ils sont moins en leurs Cabanes que chez leurs amis..... S'ils ont un bon morceau ils en font festin à leurs amis, et ne le mangent quasi jamais en leur particulier," etc. Rel. des Hurons, 1636, 118 (Quebec, 1858).

his lodge. The child belongs to the clan, not of the father, but of the mother. In other words, descent is through the female, not of the totem alone, but of all rank, titles, and possessions. The son of a chief can never be a chief by hereditary title, though he may become so by force of personal influence or achievement. Neither can he inherit from his father so much as a tobacco-pipe. All possessions alike pass of right to the brothers of the chief or to the sons of his sisters, since these are all sprung from a common mother. This rule of descent was first noticed by Champlain among the Hurons in 1615. That excellent observer refers it to an origin which is doubtless its true one. The child may not be the son of his reputed father, but must be the son of his mother, a consideration of more than ordinary force in an Indian community.*

This system of clanship, with the rule of descent inseparable from it, was of very wide prevalence. Indeed, it is more than probable that close observation would have detected it in every tribe east of the Mississippi, while there is positive evidence of its existence in by far the greater number. It is found also among the Dahcotah and other tribes west of the Mississippi, and there is reason to believe it universally prevalent as far as the Rocky Mountains, and even beyond them. The fact that with most of these hordes there is little property worth transmission, and that the most influential becomes chief, with little regard to inheritance, has blinded casual observers to the existence of this curious system.

It was found in full development among the Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees, and other Southern tribes, including that remarkable people, the Natchez, who, judged by their religious and political institutions, seem a detached offshoot of the Toltec family. It is no less conspicuous among the roving Algonquins of the extreme North, where the number of totems is almost countless. Everywhere it formed the foundation of the polity of all the tribes, where a polity could be said to exist.

The Franciscans and Jesuits, close students of the languages

.... les enfans ne succedent iamais aux biens, & dignitez, de leurs peres, doubtant comme i'ay dit de leur geniteur, mais bien font-ils leurs successeurs, & heritiers, les enfans de leurs sœurs, & desquels ils sont asseurez d'estre yssus, & sortis." -Champlain (1627), 91.

and superstitions of the Indians, were by no means so zealous to analyze their organization and government. At the middle of the seventeenth century, the Hurons as a nation had ceased to exist, and their political portraiture as handed down to us is careless and unfinished. Yet some decisive features are plainly shown. The Huron nation was a confederacy of four distinct contiguous nations, afterwards increased to five by the addition of the Tionnontates;—it was divided into clans; - it was governed by chiefs, whose office was hereditary through the female; the power of these chiefs, though great, was wholly of a persuasive or advisory character;- there were two principal chiefs, one for peace, the other for war; there were numerous other chiefs, equal in rank but very unequal in influence, since the measure of their influence depended on the measure of their personal ability;- each nation of the confederacy had a distinct and separate organization, but at certain periods grand councils of the united nations were held, at which were present, not chiefs only, but also a great concourse of the people;-and at these and other councils the chiefs and principal men voted on proposed measures by means of small sticks or reeds, the opinion of the plurality ruling.*

The Iroquois were a people far more conspicuous in history, and their institutions are not yet extinct. In early and recent times they have been closely studied, and no little light has been cast upon a subject difficult and obscure as it is curious. By comparing the statements of observers old and recent, the character of their singular organization becomes sufficiently clear.†

*These facts are gathered here and there from Champlain, Sagard, Bressani, and the Jesuit Relations prior to 1650. Of the Jesuits, Brebeuf is the most full and satisfactory. Lafitau and Charlevoix knew the Huron institutions only through others.

The names of the four confederate Huron nations were the Ataronchronons, Attinquenongnahac, Attignaouentan, and Ahrendaronons. They all bore also the name of some animal: thus the Ahrendaronous were the Nation of the Bear. As the clans are usually named after animals, this makes confusion, and may easily lead to error. The Bear Nation was the principal member of the league.

† Among modern students of Iroquois institutions, a place far in advance of all others is due to Lewis H. Morgan, Esq., himself an Iroquois by adoption, and intimate with the race from boyhood. His work, the "League of the Iroquois," is a production of most thorough and able research, conducted under peculiar advantages, and with the aid of an efficient co-laborer, Hasanoanda (Ely S. Parker), an educated and highly intelligent Iroquois of the Seneca nation. Though often differ

Both reason and tradition point to the couclusion that the Iroquois formed originally one undivided people. Sundered, like countless other tribes, by dissension, caprice, or the necessities of the hunter life, they separated into five distinct nations, cantoned from east to west along the centre of New York, in the following order: Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas. There was discord among them; wars followed, and they lived in mutual fear, each ensconced in its palisaded villages. At length, says tradition, a celestial being, incarnate on earth, counselled them to compose their strife and unite in a league of defence and aggression. Another personage, wholly mortal, yet wonderfully endowed, a renowned warrior and a mighty magician, stands, with his hair of writhing snakes, grotesquely conspicuous through the dim light of tradition at this birth of Iroquois nationality. He was Atotarho, a chief of the Onondagas; and from this honored source has sprung a long line of chieftains, heirs not to the blood alone, but to the name of their great precursor. A few years since there lived in Onondaga Hollow a handsome Indian boy, on whom the dwindled remnant of the nation looked with pride as their destined Atotarho. With earthly and celestial aid, the league was consummated, and through all the land the forests trembled at the name of the Iroquois.

The Iroquois people was divided into eight clans. When the original stock was sundered into five parts, each of these clans was also sundered into five parts; and as, by the principle already indicated, the clans were intimately mingled in every village, hamlet, and cabin, each one of the five divided nations had its portion of each of the eight clans. When the league ing widely from Mr. Morgan's conclusions, we cannot bear a too emphatic testimony to the value of his researches. The "Notes on the Iroquois" of Mr. H. R. Schoolcraft also contains some interesting facts; but here, as in all Mr. Schoolcraft's productions, the reader must scrupulously reserve his right of private judgment. None of the old writers are so satisfactory as Lafitau. His work, "Mœurs des Sauvages Ameriquains comparées aux Moeurs des Premiers Temps," relates chiefly to the Iroquois and Hurons; the basis for his account of the former being his own observations and those of Father Julien Garnier, who was a missionary among them more than sixty years, from his novitiate to his death.

⚫ With a view to clearness, the above statement is made categorical. It requires, however, to be qualified. It is not quite certain that, at the formation of the confederacy, there were eight clans, though there is positive proof of the existence of