families, each distinguished by the name of some animal or vegetable, which served as their crest or kobong; the practice of reckoning clanship from the mother; and the prohibition of marriage within the clan, as all bearing a striking resemblance to similar usages found among the natives of North America. The Indian tribes are usually divided into clans, each distinguished by a totem (Algonquin, do-daim, that is "town mark"), which is commonly some animal, as a bear, wolf, deer, etc., and may be compared on the one hand to a crest, and on the other to a surname. The totem appears to be held as proof of descent from a common ancestor, and therefore the prohibition from marriage of two persons of the same totem must act as a bar on the side the totem descends on, which is generally, if not always, on the female side. Such a prohibition is often mentioned by writers on the North American Indians.[1] Morgan's account of the Iroquois' rules is particularly remarkable. The father and child can never be of the same clan, descent going in all cases by the female line. Each nation had eight tribes, in two sets of four each.
| 1. Wolf, | Bear, | Beaver, | Turtle. |
| 2. Deer, | Snipe, | Heron, | Hawk. |
Originally a Wolf might not marry a Bear, Beaver, or Turtle, reckoning himself their brother, but he might marry into the second set, Deer, etc., whom he considered his cousins, and so on with the rest. But in later times a man is allowed to marry into any tribe but his own.[2] A recent account from North-West America describes the custom among the Indians of Nootka Sound; "a Whale, therefore, may not marry a Whale, nor a Frog a Frog. A child, again, always takes the crest of the mother, so that if the mother be a Wolf, all her children will be
- ↑ Schoolcraft, part i. p. 52; part ii. p. 49. Loskiel, p. 72. Talbot, Disc. of Lederer, p. 4. Waitz, vol. iii. p. 106.
- ↑ L. H. Morgan, 'League of the Iroquois,' 1851, p. 79. This author has since, in two important works, attempted the task not only of tracing the position of the clan or gens in the history of society, but of framing a general theory of systems of marriage and kinship. See his 'Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity' (Smithsonian Contributions), Washington, 1871, and 'Ancient Society,' New York and London, 1877. [Note to 3rd Edition.]
