Page:Siouan Sociology.djvu/15

 SIOUAN SOCIOLOGY

BY JAMES OWEN DORSEY

GENERAL FEATURES OF ORGANIZATION

In the study of the organization of societies, units of different orders are discovered. Among the tribes of the Siouan family the primary unit is the clan or gens, which is composed of a number of consanguinei, claiming descent from a common ancestor and having common taboos, the term clan implying descent in the female line, while gens implies descent in the male line. Among the Dakota, as among the ¢egiha and other groups, the man is the head of the family.

Several of the Siouan tribes are divided into two, and one (the Osage) is divided into three subtribes. Other tribes are composed of phratries, and each subtribe or phratry comprises a number of gentes. In some tribes each gens is made up of subgentes, and these in turn of a lower order of groups, which are provisionally termed sections for want of a better designation. The existence of these minor groups among the Omaha has been disputed by