The Origin of the Family Private Property and the State by Frederick Engels (classic novels .txt) 📕

essentially identical with the genea of the Greeks and the gentes of the Romans; that the American form is the original from which the Greek and Roman forms were later derived; that the whole organization of Greek and Roman society during primeval times in gens, phratry and tribe finds its faithful parallel in that of the American Indians; that the gens is an institution common to all barbarians up to the time of civilization—at least so far as our present sources of information reach. This demonstration has cleared at a single stroke the most difficult passages of remotest ancient Greek and Roman history. At the same time it has given us unexpected information concerning the fundamental outlines of the constitution of society in primeval times—before the introduction of the state. Simple as the matter is after we have once found it out, still it was only lately discovered by Morgan. In his work of 1871 he had not yet unearthed this mystery. Its revelation has completely silenced for the time being those generally so overconfident English authorities on primeval history.

The Latin word gens, used by Morgan generally for the designation of this sex organization, is derived, like the equivalent Greek word genos, from the common Aryan root gan, signifying to beget. Gens, genos, Sanskrit dschanas, Gothic kuni, ancient Norse and Anglesaxon kyn, English kin, Middle High German künne, all signify lineage, descent. Gens in Latin, genos in Greek, specially designate that sex organization which boasted of common descent (from a common sire) and was united into a separate community by certain social and religious institutions, but the origin and nature of which nevertheless remained obscure to all our historians.

Elsewhere, in speaking of the Punaluan family, we saw how the gens was constituted in its original form. It consisted of all individuals who by means of the Punaluan marriage and in conformity with the conceptions necessarily arising in it made up the recognized offspring of a certain ancestral mother, the founder of that gens. Since fatherhood is uncertain in this form of the family, female lineage is alone valid. And as brothers must not marry their sisters, but only women of foreign descent, the children bred from these foreign women do not belong to the gens, according to maternal law. Hence only the offspring of the daughters of every generation remain in the same sex organization. The descendants of the sons are transferred to the gentes of the new mothers. What becomes of this group of kinship when it constitutes itself a separate group, distinct from similar groups in the same tribe?

As the classical form of this original gens Morgan selects that of the Iroquois, more especially that of the Seneca tribe. This tribe has eight gentes named after animals: 1. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5. Deer. 6. Snipe. 7. Heron. 8. Hawk. Every gens observes the following customs:

1. The gens elects its sachem (official head during peace) and its chief (leader in war). The sachem must be selected within the gens and his office was in a sense hereditary. It had to be filled immediately after a vacancy occurred. The chief could be selected outside of the gens, and his office could even be temporarily vacant. The son never followed his father in the office of sachem, because the Iroquois observed maternal law, in consequence of which the son belonged to another gens. But the brother or the son of a sister was often elected as a successor. Men and women both voted in elections. The election, however, had to be confirmed by the other seven gentes, and then only the sachem-elect was solemnly invested, by the common council of the whole Iroquois federation. The significance of this will be seen later. The power of the sachem within the tribe was of a paternal, purely moral nature. He had no means of coercion at his command. He was besides by virtue of his office a member of the tribal council of the Senecas and of the federal council of the whole Iroquois nation. The Chief had the right to command only in times of war.

2. The gens can retire the sachem and the chief at will. This again is done by men and women jointly. The retired men are considered simple warriors and private persons like all others. The tribal council, by the way, can also retire the sachems, even against the will of the tribe.

3. No member is permitted to marry within the gens. This is the fundamental rule of the gens, the tie that holds it together. It is the negative expression of the very positive blood relationship, by virtue of which the individuals belonging to it become a gens. By the discovery of this simple fact Morgan for the first time revealed the nature of the gens. How little the gens had been understood before him is proven by former reports on savages and barbarians, in which the different organizations of which the gentile order is composed are jumbled together without understanding and distinction as tribe, clan, thum, etc. Sometimes it is stated that intermarrying within these organizations is forbidden. This gave rise to the hopeless confusion, in which McLennan could pose as Napoleon and establish order by the decree: All tribes are divided into those that forbid intermarrying (exogamous) and those that permit it (endogamous). And after he had thus made confusion worse confounded, he could indulge in deep meditations which of his two preposterous classes was the older: exogamy or endogamy. By the discovery of the gens founded on affinity of blood and the resulting impossibility of its members to intermarry, this nonsense found a natural end. It is self understood that the marriage interdict within the gens was strictly observed at the stage in which we find the Iroquois.

4. The property of deceased members fell to the share of the other gentiles; it had to remain in the gens. In view of the insignificance of the objects an Iroquois could leave behind, the nearest gentile relations divided the heritage. Was the deceased a man, then his natural brothers, sisters and the brothers of the mother shared in his property. Was it a woman, then her children and natural sisters shared, but not her brothers. For this reason husband and wife could not inherit from one another, nor the children from the father.

5. The gentile members owed to each other help, protection and especially assistance in revenging injury inflicted by strangers. The individual relied for his protection on the gens and could be assured of it. Whoever injured the individual, injured the whole gens. From this blood kinship arose the obligation to blood revenge that was unconditionally recognized by the Iroquois. If a stranger killed a gentile member, the whole gens of the slain man was pledged to revenge his death. First mediation was tried. The gens of the slayer deliberated and offered to the gentile council of the slain propositions for atonement, consisting generally in expressions of regret and presents of considerable value. If these were accepted, the matter was settled. In the opposite case the injured gens appointed one or more avengers who were obliged to pursue the slayer and to kill him. If they succeeded, the gens of the slayer had no right to complain. The account was squared.

6. The gens had certain distinct names or series of names, which no other gens in the whole tribe could use, so that the name of the individual indicated to what gens he belonged. A gentile name at the same time bestowed gentile rights.

7. The gens may adopt strangers who thereby are adopted into the whole tribe. The prisoners of war who were not killed became by adoption into a gens tribal members of the Senecas and thus received full gentile and tribal rights. The adoption took place on the motion of some gentile members, of men who accepted the stranger as a brother or sister, of women who accepted him as a child. The solemn introduction into the gens was necessary to confirm the adoption. Frequently certain gentes that had shrunk exceptionally were thus strengthened by mass adoptions from another gens with the consent of the latter. Among the Iroquois the solemn introduction into the gens took place in a public meeting of the tribal council, whereby it actually became a religious ceremony.

The existence of special religious celebrations among Indian gentes can hardly be demonstrated. But the religious rites of the Indians are more or less connected with the gens. At the six annual religious festivals of the Iroquois the sachems and chiefs of the different gentes were added to the "Keepers of the Faith" and had the functions of priests.

9. The gens had a common burial place. Among the Iroquois of the State of New York, who are crowded by white men all around them, the burial place has disappeared, but it existed formerly. Among other Indians it is still in existence, e. g., among the Tuscaroras, near relatives of the Iroquois, where every gens has a row by itself in the burial place, although they are Christians. The mother is buried in the same row as her children, but not the father. And among the Iroquois the whole gens of the deceased attends the funeral, prepares the grave and provides the addresses, etc.

10. The gens had a council, the democratic assembly of all male and female gentiles of adult age, all with equal suffrage. This council elected and deposed its sachems and chiefs; likewise the other "Keepers of the Faith." It deliberated on gifts of atonement or blood revenge for murdered gentiles and it adopted strangers into the gens. In short, it was the sovereign power in the gens.

The following are the rights and privileges of the typical Indian gens, according to Morgan: "All the members of an Iroquois gens were personally free, and they were bound to defend each other's freedom; they were equal in privileges and in personal rights, the sachems and chiefs claiming no superiority; and they were a brotherhood bound together by ties of kin. Liberty, equality and fraternity, though never formulated, were cardinal principles of the gens. These facts are material, because the gens was the unit of a social and governmental system, the foundation upon which Indian society was organized. A structure composed of such units would of necessity bear the impress of their character, for as the unit, so the compound. It serves to explain that sense of independence and personal dignity universally an attribute of Indian character."

At the time of the discovery the Indians of entire North America were organized in gentes by maternal law. Only "in some tribes, as among the Dakotas, the gentes had fallen out; in others as among the Ojibwas, the Omahas and the Mayas of Yucatan, descent had been changed from the female to the male line."

Among many Indian tribes with more than five or six gentes we find three, four or more gentes united into a separate group, called phratry by Morgan in accurate translation of the Indian name by its Greek equivalent. Thus the Senecas have two phratries, the first comprising gentes one to four, the second gentes five to eight. Closer investigation shows that these phratries generally represent the original gentes that formed the tribe in the beginning. For the marriage interdict necessitated the existence of at least two gentes in a tribe in order to realize its separate existence. As the tribe increased, every gens segmented into two or more new gentes, while the original gens comprising all the daughter gentes, lived on in the phratry. Among the Senecas and most of the other Indians "the gentes in the same phratry are brother gentes to each other, and cousin gentes to those of the other phratry"—terms that have a very real and expressive meaning in the American system of kinship, as we have