It is thus seen that the original Wolf gens divided into four gentes, the Turtle into four, and the Turkey into three. Each new gens took a new name, the original retaining its own, which became, by seniority, that of the phratry. It is rare among the American Indian tribes to find such plain evidence of the segmentation of gentes in their external organization, followed by the formation into phratries of their respective subdivisions. It shows also that the phratry is founded upon the kinship of the gentes. As a rule the name of the original gens out of which others had formed is not known; but in each of these cases it remains as the name of the phratry. Since the latter, like the Grecian, was a social and religious rather than a governmental organization, it is externally less conspicuous than a gens or tribe which were essential to the government of society. The name of but one of the twelve Athenian phratries has come down to us in history. Those of the Iroquois had no name but that of a brotherhood.
The Delawares and Munsees have the same three gentes, the Wolf, the Turtle, and the Turkey. Among the Delawares there are twelve embryo gentes in each tribe, but they seem to be lineages within the gentes and had not taken gentile names. It was a movement, however, in that direction.
The phratry also appears among the Thlinkeets of the Northwest coast, upon the surface of their organization into gentes. They have two phratries, as follows:
I. Wolf Phratry.
Gentes.—1. Bear. 2. Eagle. 3. Dolphin. 4. Shark. 5. Alca.
II. Raven Phratry.
Gentes.—6. Frog. 7. Goose. 8. Sea-lion. 9. Owl. 10. Salmon.
Intermarriage in the phratry is prohibited, which shows, of itself, that the gentes of each phratry were derived from an original gens.[75] The members of any gens in the Wolf phratry could marry into any gens of the opposite phratry, and vice versâ.
From the foregoing facts the existence of the phratry is established in several linguistic stocks of the American aborigines. Its presence in the tribes named raises a presumption of its general prevalence in the Ganowánian family. Among the Village Indians, where the numbers in a gens and tribe were greater, it would necessarily have been more important and consequently more fully developed. As an institution it was still in its archaic form, but it possessed the essential elements of the Grecian and the Roman. It can now be asserted that the full organic series of ancient society exists in full vitality upon the American continent; namely, the gens, the phratry, the tribe, and the confederacy of tribes. With further proofs yet to be adduced, the universality of the gentile organization upon all the continents will be established.
If future investigation is directed specially to the functions of the phratric organization among the tribes of the American aborigines, the knowledge gained will explain many peculiarities of Indian life and manners not well understood, and throw additional light upon their usages and customs, and upon their plan of life and government.