There is no place in a
tribe for any person whose kinship is not fixed, and only those
persons can be adopted into the tribe who are adopted into some family
with artificial kinship specified. The fabric of Indian society is a
complex tissue of kinship. The warp is made of streams of kinship
blood, and the woof of marriage ties.
With most tribes military and civil affairs are differentiated. The
functions of civil government are in general differentiated only to
this extent, that executive functions are performed by chiefs and
sachems, but these chiefs and sachems are also members of the council.
The council is legislature and court. Perhaps it were better to say
that the council is the court whose decisions are law, and that the
legislative body properly has not been developed.
In general, crimes are well defined. Procedure is formal, and forms
are held as of such importance that error therein is _prima facie_
evidence that the subject-matter formulated was false.
When one gens charges crime against a member of another, it can of its
own motion proceed only to retaliation. To prevent retaliation, the
gens of the offender must take the necessary steps to disprove the
crime, or to compound or punish it. The charge once made is held as
just and true until it has been disproved, and in trial the cause of
the defendant is first stated. The anger of the prosecuting gens must
be placated.
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