k above cited, page 9, "But the main
stay of the Iroquois polity was the system of _totemship_. It was this
which gave the structure its elastic strength; and but for this, a mere
confederacy of jealous and warlike tribes must soon have been rent
asunder by shocks from without, or discord from within. At some early
period the Iroquois must have formed an individual nation; for the whole
people, irrespective of their separation into tribes, consisted of eight
totemic clans; and the members of each clan, to what nation soever they
belonged, were mutually bound to one another by those close ties of
fraternity which mark this singular institution. Thus the five nations
of the confederacy were bound together by an eight-fold band; and to
this hour their slender remnants cling to one another with invincible
tenacity."

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