This ascription of sex to groups—organic groups—of persons measurably explains the potent motive which underlies the apparently artificial rule of exogamy that controls certain groups of persons as against other like groups of persons.

By the prophet-statesmen of the early Iroquois and their cotribesmen the League of the Five Tribes as an institution—as an organic unity—was conceived at times as a bisexed being or person; i. e., as an organic unity formed by the union of two persons of opposite sexes. To those early prophet-statesmen life was omnipresent—obtrusively so, for, unconsciously, their ancestors had imputed it to all bodies and objects and processes of the complex world of human experience. But it must be noted that the life so imputed was human life, no other. And so as an institution the league was conceived as an animate being, endowed with definite biotic properties and functions, as the male and female sexes, fatherhood and motherhood, mind, eyesight, dream power, human blood, and the possession of guardian spirits for its two highest organic members.

In the ritual of the installation of chiefs in all the many addresses and chants and songs, each of the two constituent organic members, the father and the mother sides, is addressed as a single individual. In the famous so-called six songs of the mourning and installation council, which are so dramatically sung by a chief who represents the dead chief or chiefs to be resurrected, each of the two constituent persons is addressed, but in the fifth song, the totality, the league as a unity is addressed as a person, to whom is sung this farewell song of the departing chief. This is done evidently to secure the departure of the ghost in peace.

Again, the lamenting cry of “hai′i, hai′i,“ which is so tediously recurrent in all the chants and songs, but one, of the mourning and installation council, is employed, it is said, in order to console the spirits or spirit of the dead. The reason for using this particular cry is that it is reputed to be that made by spirits when moving from place to place. But it was believed that should this cry be omitted in the rituals the displeasure of the departed spirits would be manifested in an epidemic of diseases affecting the spine and the head.

The duties and obligations of the clan or sisterhood of clans of a father to the clan of his children were by the founders of the league made a part of the functions of the male member, or sisterhood of tribes, in the organic structure of the league. In like manner the duties and obligations of the clan or sisterhood of clans of a mother to the clan or sisterhood of clans of the father of the children were made a part of the functions of the female member, or sisterhood of tribes, in the organic structure of the league. Thus the two constituent members of the highest order in the structure of the league were the female group of two tribes and the male group of three tribes, respectively representing the mother and the father sides, the female and male principles, the whole representing the union of fatherhood and motherhood for the promotion of the life force and welfare of the community.

The term agadoñ′ni, meaning “my father’s clansmen,” has two very distinct applications—first, to the clan of one’s father, and, second, to the male or father side of the league. And the term kheya’da′wĕn, meaning “my offspring,” also has two very different applications—first, to the clan of the children’s mother, and, second, to the female or mother side of the league. There were three tribes which constituted the male or father side of the league structure—namely, the Mohawk, the Onondaga, and the Seneca; and two tribes, the Oneida and the Cayuga, originally constituted the female or mother side of the league. To the Onondaga, however, was given the noteworthy distinction of presiding over the deliberations of the federal council. This they did of course through their chiefs; but these chiefs did not have the right to discuss the question at issue. This apparent primacy of the Onondaga carried with it the office of fire keeper and the presiding officer of the federal council.

It must be noted that the mother or female complex of tribes and the father or male complex of tribes were held together by the exercise of certain rights and the performance of certain duties and obligations of the one to the other side.

The federal council, sitting as a court without a jury, heard and determined causes in accordance with established rules and principles of procedure, and with precedent.

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