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
- 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.
- 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