There is really nothing here which resembles marriage by capture, so often classed with exogamy; but the latter may very easily co-exist with the former, and may even be the general rule in more savage tribes. It prevailed, we are told, among the Caribs[1] to such a degree that the wives did not speak the same language as their husbands.
How was the American tribe originally formed? Either consanguineous hordes have ranged themselves side by side, or, which is more probable, a horde, becoming too numerous, has swarmed. Analogous groups, proceeding from it, have formed large families, remaining all the while attached to the original stock, but constituting, nevertheless, distinct communities, confederated with each other and with the primitive clan, which at length became indistinguishable from the others. The whole of these clans taken together represent a tribe. If the clans are too numerous, they group themselves in twos, or threes, etc., within the bosom of the tribe, and thus form what in primitive Greece were called phratries, the bond between them being a lesser degree of kinship. At first, marriage was prohibited within the phratry, and afterwards exogamy was restricted to the clans. The clans composing the phratry had festivals in common, and considered themselves bound to aid each other in revenging wrongs.[2] The clan, or gens, is a group of persons united by a closer consanguinity, but in the female line. The children of the women of the clan remain in the clan of their mother. "The woman bears the clan," say the Wyandot Indians,[3] just as our ancestors said, "The womb dyes the child." Each clan has its totem (a tortoise, bear, eland, or fox, etc.). In the "long houses" of the Iroquois, or in the Pueblos, the members of each clan even had a common habitation, in which each family had its own cell; but the members of this cell-family belonged to different clans, as the husband was not of the same clan as his wife, and sometimes did not inhabit the same dwelling. We have heard it said many times that "the family is the social cellule." Now this is evidently false in regard to the American tribe, and to all
