| 1. Blood. | 2. Fish Eaters. | 3. Skunk. |
| 4. Extinct Animal. | 5. Elk.[176] |
Descent is in the male line, but intermarriage in the gens is not allowed.
2. Piegan Blackfeet. This tribe has the eight following gentes:
| 1. Blood. | 2. Skunk. | 3. Web Fat. |
| 4. Inside Fat. | 5. Conjurers. | 6. Never Laugh. |
| 7. Starving. | 8. Half Dead Meat.[177] |
Descent is in the male line, and intermarriage in the gens is prohibited. Several of the names above given are more appropriate to bands than to gentes; but as the information was obtained from the Blackfeet direct, through competent interpreters, (Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Culbertson, the latter a Blackfeet woman) I believe it reliable. It is possible that nicknames for gentes in some cases may have superseded the original names.
Atlantic Tribes.
1. Delawares. As elsewhere stated the Delawares are, in the duration of their separate existence, one of the oldest of the Algonkin tribes. Their home country, when discovered, was the region around and north of Delaware Bay. They are comprised in three gentes, as follows:
| I. Wolf. | Took′-seat. | Round Paw. |
| II. Turtle. | Poke-koo-un′-go. | Crawling. |
| III. Turkey. | Pul-la′-ook. | Non-chewing. |
These subdivisions are in the nature of phratries, because each is composed of twelve sub-gentes, each having some of the attributes of a gens.[178] The names are personal, and mostly, if not in every case, those of females. As this feature was unusual I worked it out as minutely as possible at the Delaware reservation in Kansas, in 1860, with the aid of William Adams, an educated Delaware. It proved impossible to find the origin of these subdivisions, but they seemed to be the several eponymous ancestors from whom the members of the gentes respectively derived their descent. It shows also the natural growth of the phratries from the gentes.
Descent among the Delawares is in the female line, which renders probable its ancient universality in this form in the Algonkin tribes. The office of sachem was hereditary in the gens, but elective among its members, who had the power both to elect and depose. Property also was hereditary in the gens. Originally the members of the three original gentes could not intermarry in their own gens; but in recent years the prohibition has been confined to the sub-gentes. Those of the same name in the Wolf gens, now partially become a phratry, for example, cannot intermarry, but those of different names marry. The practice of naming children into the gens of their father also prevails among the Delawares, and has introduced the same confusion of descents found among the Shawnees and Miamis. American civilization and intercourse necessarily administered a shock to Indian institutions under which the ethnic life of the people is gradually breaking down.