Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/37

 force by phratries and by tribes was not unknown to the Homeric Greeks. Thus, Nestor advises Agamemnon to "separate the troops by phratries and by tribes, so that phatry may support phratry and tribe tribe." Under gentile institutions of the most advanced type the principle of kin became to a considerable extent the basis of the army organization. The Aztecs, in like manner, occupied the pueblo of Mexico in four distinct divisions, the people of each of which were more nearly related to each other than to the people of the other divisions. They were separate lineages, like the Tlascalan, and it seems highly probable were four phratries, separately organized as such. They were distinguished from each other by costumes and standards, and went out to war as separate divisions. Their geographical areas were called the four quarters of Mexico.

With respect to the prevalence of this organization among the Indian tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism, the subject has been but slightly investigated. It is probable that it was general in the principal tribes from the natural manner in which it springs up as a necessary member of the organic series, and from the uses, other than governmental, to which it was adapted.

In some of the tribes the phratries stand out prominently upon the face of their organization. Thus the Chocta gentes are united in two phratries, which must be mentioned first in order to show the relation of the gentes to each other. The first phratry is called "Divided People," and contains four gentes. The second is called "Beloved People," and also contains four gentes. This separation of the people into two divisions by gentes created two phratries. Some knowledge of the functions of these phratries is of course desirable; but without it, the fact of their existence is established by the divisions themselves. The evolution of a confederacy from a pair of gentesfor less than two are never found in any tribemay be deduced theoretically from the known facts of Indian experience. Thus the gens increases in the number of its members and divides into two; these again subdivide, and in time reunite in two or more phratries. These phratries form a tribe, and its members speak the same dialect. In course of time this tribe falls into several by the process of segmentation, which in turn