With respect to the number of persons in a gens it varied with the number of the gentes, and with the prosperity or decadence of the tribe. Three thousand Senecas divided equally among eight gentes would give an average of three hundred and seventy-five persons to a gens. Fifteen thousand Ojibwas divided equally among twenty-three gentes would give six hundred and fifty persons to a gens. The Cherokees would average more than a thousand to a gens. In the present condition of the principal Indian tribes the number of persons in each gens would range from one hundred to a thousand.
One of the oldest and most widely prevalent institutions of mankind, the gentes have been closely identified with human progress upon which they have exercised a powerful influence. They have been found in tribes in the Status of savagery, in the Lower, in the Middle, and in the Upper Status of barbarism on different continents, and in full vitality in the Grecian and Latin tribes after civilization had commenced. Every family of mankind, except the Polynesian, seems to have come under the gentile organization, and to have been indebted to it for preservation, and for the means of progress. It finds its only parallel in length of duration in systems of consanguinity, which, springing up at a still earlier period, have remained to the present time, although the marriage usages in which they originated have long since disappeared.
From its early institution, and from its maintenance through such immense stretches of time, the peculiar adaptation of the gentile organization to mankind, while in a savage and in a barbarous state, must be regarded as abundantly demonstrated.
DEFINITION OF A PHRATRY.--KINDRED GENTES REUNITED IN A HIGHER ORGANIZATION.--PHRATRY OF THE IROQUOIS TRIBES.--ITS COMPOSITION.--ITS USES AND FUNCTIONS.--SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS.--ILLUSTRATIONS.--THE ANALOGUE OF THE GRECIAN PHRATRY; BUT IN ITS ARCHAIC FORM.--PHRATRIES OF THE CHOCTAS.--OF THE CHICKASAS.--OF THE MOHEGANS.--OF THE THLINKEETS.--THEIR PROBABLE UNIVERSALITY IN THE TRIBES OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES.
The phratry (phratria) is a brotherhood, as the term imports, and a natural growth from the organization into gentes. It is an organic union or association of two or more gentes of the same tribe for certain common objects. These gentes were usually such as had been formed by the segmentation of an original gens.