PARTS:
Part 1
Part 2
SEARCH
0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Prev | Current Page 4 | Next

Powell, John Wesley, 1834-1902

"Wyandot Government: A Short Study of Tribal Society Bureau of American Ethnology"


The eleven gentes, as four phratries, constitute the tribe.
Each gens is a body of consanguineal kindred in the female line, and
each gens is allied to other gentes by consanguineal kinship through
the male line, and by affinity through marriage.
To be a member of the tribe it is necessary to be a member of a gens;
to be a member of a gens it is necessary to belong to some family; and
to belong to a family a person must have been born in the family so
that his kinship is recognized, or he must be adopted into a family
and become a son, brother, or some definite relative; and this
artificial relationship gives him the same standing as actual
relationship in the family, in the gens, in the phratry, and in the
tribe.
Thus a tribe is a body of kindred.
Of the four groups thus described, the gens, the phratry, and the
tribe constitute the series of organic units; the family, or household
as here described, is not a unit of the gens or phratry, as two gentes
are represented in each--the father must belong to one gens, and the
mother and, her children to another.

_GOVERNMENT._
Society is maintained by the establishment of government, for rights
must be recognized and duties performed.
In this tribe there is found a complete differentiation of the
military from the civil government.

_CIVIL GOVERNMENT._
The civil government inheres in a system of councils and chiefs.


Pages:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25