if a wife is ill-treated by her husband, the mother-in-law has the right to take back her daughter; the husband's power must yield to hers.[1] Does the institution of filiation by women, or the maternal family, entail, as some have pretended, the régime of the matriarchate? North America being par excellence the country of exogamy and of the maternal family, the theorists of the primitive matriarchate have often drawn arguments from thence which it is interesting to weigh.
At the epoch during which the Seneca-Iroquois still lived in their "long houses," it seems that the influence of the women in the community was very great. The missionary, Arthur Wright, wrote in 1873:—"It was the custom for the women to govern the house. The provisions were in common; but woe to the unfortunate husband or lover too idle or clumsy to bring home from the chase a sufficient booty. Whatever the number of his children or the value of the goods he possessed in the house, he might be ordered at any moment to take up his blanket and pack off." After that, unless he obtained the intercession of some aunt or grandmother, he was forced to obey, return to his own clan, or contract an alliance elsewhere. "The women were the chief power in the clans, and they did not hesitate, when necessary, to depose a chief, and make him re-enter the ranks of simple warriors. The election of the chiefs always depended on them."[2]
Among the Wyandots there is in every clan a council composed of four women elected by the female chiefs of the family. These four women choose a chief of the clan from among the men; then the totem of the clan is painted on the face of this chief. The council of the tribe is formed by an assemblage of the clan councils; four-fifths of it, therefore, consist of women. The sachem, or chief of the tribe, is chosen by the chiefs of the clans.[3]
Charlevoix relates that in 1721 the Natchez Indians were governed by a very despotic chief, the Sun, who was
