other as such with the
fullest cordiality. When they met, the first inquiry was the name of
each other's gens, and next the immediate pedigree of each other's
sachems; after which they were able to find, under their peculiar system
of consanguinity, the relationship in which they stood to each other....
This cross-relationship between persons of the same gens in the
different tribes is still preserved and recognized among them in all its
original force. It explains the tenacity with which the fragments of the
old confederacy still cling together."[82] Acknowledged consanguinity
is to the barbarian a sound reason, and the only one conceivable, for
permanent political union; and the very existence of such a confederacy
as that of the Five Nations was rendered possible only through the
permanence of the clans or communal households which were its ultimate
units. We have here a clue to the policy of these Indians toward the
kindred tribes who refused to join their league. These tribes, too, so
far as is known, would seem to have contained the same clans. After a
separation of at least four hundred years the Wyandots have still five
of their eight clans in common with the Iroquois. When the Eries and
other tribes would not join the league of their kindred, the refusal
smacked of treason to the kin, and we can quite understand the deadly
fury with which the latter turned upon them and butchered every man,
woman, and child except such as they saw fit to adopt into their own
clans.

[Footnote 81: In his _League of the Iroquois_, Rochester, 1851,
a book now out of print and excessively rare. A brief summary
is given in his _Ancient Society_, chap. v., and in his _Houses
and House-Life_, pp. 23-41. Mr. Morgan was adopted into the
Seneca tribe, and his life work was begun by a profound and
exhaustive study of this interesting people.]

[Footnote 82: _Houses and House-Life_, p. 33. At the period of
its greatest power, about 1675, the people of the confederacy
were about 25,000 in number. In 1875, according to official
statistics (see table appended to Dodge's _Plains of the Great
West_, pp. 441-448), there were in the state of New York 198
Oneidas, 203 Onondagas, 165 Cayugas, 3,043 Senecas, and 448
Tuscaroras,--in all 4,057. Besides these there were 1,279
Oneidas on a reservation in Wisconsin, and 207 Senec