Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

The gens is individualized by the following rights, privileges, and obligations conferred and imposed upon its members, and which made up the jus gentilicium.

I.	The right of electing its sachem and chiefs.
II.	The right of deposing its sachem and chiefs.
III.	The obligation not to marry in the gens.
IV.	Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased members.
V.	Reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress of injuries.
VI.	The right of bestowing names upon its members.
VII.	The right of adopting strangers into the gens.
VIII.	Common religious rites, query.
IX.	A common burial place.
X.	A council of the gens.

These functions and attributes gave vitality as well as individuality to the organization, and protected the personal rights of its members.

I. The right of electing its sachem and chiefs.

Nearly all the American Indian tribes had two grades of chiefs, who may be distinguished as sachems and common chiefs. Of these two primary grades all other grades were varieties. They were elected in each gens from among its members. A son could not be chosen to succeed his father, where descent was in the female line, because he belonged to a different gens, and no gens would have a chief or sachem from any gens but its own. The office of sachem was hereditary in the gens, in the sense that it was filled as often as a vacancy occurred; while the office of chief was non-hereditary, because it was bestowed in reward of personal merit, and died with the individual. Moreover, the duties of a sachem were confined to the affairs of peace. He could not go out to war as a sachem. On the other hand, the chiefs who were raised to office for personal bravery, for wisdom in affairs, or for eloquence in council, were usually the superior class in ability, though not in authority over the gens. The relation of the sachem was primarily to the gens, of which he was the official head; while that of the chief was primarily to the tribe, of the council of which he, as well as the sachem, were members.

The office of sachem had a natural foundation in the gens, as an organized body of consanguinei which, as such, needed a representative head. As an office, however, it is older than the gentile organization, since it is found among tribes not thus organized, but among whom it had a similar basis in the punaluan group, and even in the anterior horde. In the gens the constituency of the sachem was clearly defined, the basis of the relation was permanent, and its duties paternal. While the office was hereditary in the gens it was elective among its male members. When the Indian system of consanguinity is considered, it will be found that all the male members of a gens were either brothers to each other, own or collateral, uncles or nephews, own or collateral, or collateral grandfathers and grandsons.[53] This will explain the succession of the office of sachem which passed from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew, and very rarely from grandfather to grandson. The choice, which was by free suffrage of both males and females of adult age, usually fell upon a brother of the deceased sachem, or upon one of the sons of a sister; an own brother, or the son of an own sister being most likely to be preferred. As between several brothers, own and collateral, on the one hand, and the sons of several sisters, own and collateral, on the other, there was no priority of right, for the reason that all the male members of the gens were equally eligible. To make a choice between them was the function of the elective principle.

Upon the death of a sachem, for example among the Seneca-Iroquois, a council of his gentiles[54] was convened to name his successor. Two candidates, according to their usages, must be voted upon, both of them members of the gens. Each person of adult age was called upon to express his or her preference, and the one who received the largest number of affirmative declarations was nominated. It still required the assent of the seven remaining gentes before the nomination was complete. If these gentes, who met for the purpose by phratries, refused to confirm the nomination it was thereby set aside, and the gens proceeded to make another choice. When the person nominated by his gens was accepted by the remaining gentes the election was complete; but it was still necessary that the new sachem should be raised up, to use their expression, or invested with his office by a council of the confederacy, before he could enter upon its duties. It was their method of conferring the imperium. In this manner the rights and interests of the several gentes were consulted and preserved; for the sachem of a gens was ex officio a member of the council of the tribe, and of the higher council of the confederacy. The same method of election and of confirmation existed with respect to the office of chief, and for the same reasons. But a general council was never convened to raise up chiefs below the grade of a sachem. They awaited the time when sachems were invested.

The principle of democracy, which was born of the gentes, manifested itself in the retention by the gentiles of the right to elect their sachem and chiefs, in the safeguards thrown around the office to prevent usurpation, and in the check upon the election held by the remaining gentes.

The chiefs in each gens were usually proportioned to the number of its members. Among the Seneca-Iroquois there is one chief for about every fifty persons. They now number in New York some three thousand, and have eight sachems and about sixty chiefs. There are reasons for supposing that the proportionate number is now greater than in former times. With respect to the number of gentes in a tribe, the more numerous the people the greater, usually, the number of gentes. The number varied in the different tribes, from three among the Delawares and Munsees to upwards of twenty among the Ojibwas and Creeks; six, eight, and ten being common numbers.