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.
Throughout aboriginal America the gens took its name from some
animal or inanimate object and never from a person. In this early
condition of society the individuality of persons was lost in the
gens. It is at least presumable that the gentes of the Grecian and
Latin tribes were so named at some anterior period; but when they
first came under historical notice they were named after persons. In
some of the tribes, as the Moki Village Indians of Arizona, the
members of the gens claimed their descent from the animal whose name
they bore--their remote ancestors having been transformed by the
Great Spirit from the animal into the human form. The Crane gens of
the Ojibwas have a similar legend. In some tribes the members of a
gens will not eat the animal whose name they bear, in which they are
doubtless influenced by this consideration.

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