This system of clanship, with the rule of descent usually belonging to it,
was of very wide prevalence. Indeed, it is more than probable that close
observation would have detected it in every tribe east of the
Mississippi; while there is positive evidence of its existence in by far
the greater number. It is found also among the Dahcotah and other tribes
west of the Mississippi; and there is reason to believe it universally
prevalent as far as the Rocky Mountains, and even beyond them. The fact
that with most of these hordes there is little property worth
transmission, and that the most influential becomes chief, with little
regard to inheritance, has blinded casual observers to the existence of
this curious system.

It was found in full development among the Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees,
and other Southern tribes, including that remarkable people, the Natchez,
who, judged by their religious and political institutions, seem a
detached offshoot of the Toltec family. It is no less conspicuous among
the roving Algonquins of the extreme North, where the number of totems is
almost countless. Everywhere it formed the foundation of the polity of
all the tribes, where a polity could be said to exist.

The Franciscans and Jesuits, close students of the languages and
superstitions of the Indians, were by no means so zealous to analyze
their organization and government. In the middle of the seventeenth
century the Hurons as a nation had ceased to exist, and their political
portraiture, as handed down to us, is careless and unfinished. Yet some
decisive features are plainly shown. The Huron nation was a confederacy
of four distinct contiguous nations, afterwards increased to five by the
addition of the Tionnontates;--it was divided into clans;--it was
governed by chiefs, whose office was hereditary through the female;--the