Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/50

32 tribes far to the east, take a long and dangerous journey to join them, and, when their march is done, they are received by the Navahoes at once as brethren. On the other hand, the legend tells us of bands that camp long in the neighborhood of the Navahoes before they become incorporated with the latter (par. 394); of other clans descended from captives (pars. 406, 454, 455); and of others that seek refuge among the Navahoes only to escape starvation or persecution at home (pars. 403, 452). On the basis of their mode of adoption, the clans may be divided into the ready and the reluctant. The cause of this is probably one of language. Bands which we know to have been allied in language to the Navahoes—such as those derived from the Apaches—will be found among the ready; while bands which we know to have spoken languages very different to the Navaho—such as those derived from the Utes, from Zuñi, and Jemez—will be found among the reluctant. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the same rule applies to clans of whose original language we know nothing.

65. Phratries.—The gentes of the Navahoes are divided into a number of groups, each of which may be called a phratry. Authorities in the tribe differ as to the number of the phratries, and as to the gentes that compose them. Some make but eight phratries. Captain Bourke294 has obtained a list of eleven, with three independent gentes. Some of the Navahoes say there are twelve phratries, and suggest that they have some relation to the twelve tribes who dwelt in the first world. But the Navaho phratry seems not to be a homogeneous organization. A case is mentioned in the Legend where a gens has changed its phratral affinities (par. 451). Inquiry, too, has revealed that there are sub-groups. There may be closer bonds of alliance among some gentes in a group than there are among others in the same group. Authorities, then, may differ without invalidating each other's testimony.

66. These groups are indicated in the Legend when it says that one gens has become closely related or affiliated with another (pars. 385, 399, 403 et al.), or when it says that two gentes cannot intermarry (pars. 393, 401, 406). If the Navahoes have a term equivalent to "phratry," it has not been discovered. They have no special names for the different phratries; they often, but not always, speak of a phratry by the name of the most important gens in it.

67. If the Legend is to be taken as evidence, phratries have developed among the Navahoes both by segmentation of gentes and by the addition of new gentes from without; not by either method exclusively. But legendary evidence is not needed to show that gentes which bear to-day the names of alien tribes have been additions to the phratry.