Descent, inheritance, and the rule with respect to marrying out of the gens are the same as among the Miamis. In 1869 the Shawnees numbered but seven hundred, which would give an average of about fifty persons to the gens. They once numbered three or four thousand persons, which was above the average among the American Indian tribes.
The Shawnees had a practice, common also to the Miamis and Sauks and Foxes, of naming children into the gens of the father or of the mother or any other gens, under certain restrictions, which deserves a moment’s notice. It has been shown that among the Iroquois each gens had its own special names for persons which no other gens had a right to use.[174] This usage was probably general. Among the Shawnees these names carried with them the rights of the gens to which they belonged, so that the name determined the gens of the person. As the sachem must, in all cases, belong to the gens over which he is invested with authority, it is not unlikely that the change of descent from the female line to the male commenced in this practice; in the first place to enable a son to succeed his father, and in the second to enable children to inherit property from their father. If a son when christened received a name belonging to the gens of his father it would place him in his father’s gens and in the line of succession, but subject to the elective principle. The father, however, had no control over the question. It was left by the gens to certain persons, most of them matrons, who were to be consulted when children were to be named, with power to determine the name to be given. By some arrangement between the Shawnee gentes these persons had this power, and the name when conferred in the prescribed manner, carried the person into the gens to which the name belonged.
There are traces of the archaic rule of descent among the Shawnees, of which the following illustration may be given as it was mentioned to the author. Lä-ho′-weh, a sachem of the
Wolf gens, when about to die, expressed a desire that a son of one of his sisters might succeed him in the place of his own son. But his nephew (Kos-kwa′-the) was of the Fish and his son of the Rabbit gens, so that neither could succeed him without first being transferred, by a change of name, to the Wolf gens, in which the office was hereditary. His wish was respected. After his death the name of his nephew was changed to Tep-a-tä-go-the′, one of the Wolf names, and he was elected to the office. Such laxity indicates a decadence of the gentile organization; but it tends to show that at no remote period descent among the Shawnees was in the female line.
3. Sauks and Foxes. These tribes are consolidated into one, and have the following gentes:
| 1. Wolf. | 2. Bear. | 3. Deer. | 4. Elk. |
| 5. Hawk. | 6. Eagle. | 7. Fish. | 8. Buffalo. |
| 9. Thunder. | 10. Bone. | 11. Fox. | 12. Sea. |
| 13. Sturgeon. | 14. Big Tree.[175] |
Descent, inheritance, and the rule requiring marriage out of the gens, are the same as among the Miamis. In 1869 they numbered but seven hundred, which would give an average of fifty persons to the gens. The number of gentes still preserved affords some evidence that they were several times more numerous within the previous two centuries.
4. Menominees and Kikapoos. These tribes, which are independent of each other, are organized in gentes, but their names have not been procured. With respect to the Menominees it may be inferred that, until a recent period, descent was in the female line, from the following statement made to the author, in 1859, by Antoine Gookie, a member of this tribe. In answer to a question concerning the rule of inheritance, he replied: “If I should die, my brothers and maternal uncles would rob my wife and children of my property. We now expect that our children will inherit our effects, but there is no certainty of it. The old law gives my property to my nearest kindred who are not my children, but my brothers and sisters, and maternal uncles.” It shows that property was hereditary in the gens, but restricted to the agnatic kindred in the female line.
Rocky Mountain Tribes. 1. Blood Blackfeet. This tribe is composed of the five following gentes: