from this source opposition sometimes appeared A council of each
phratry was held and pronounced upon the question of acceptance or
rejection. If the nomination made was accepted by both it became
complete, but if either refused it was thereby set aside and a new
election was made by the gens. When the choice made by the gens had
been accepted by the phratries it was still necessary, as before
stated, that the new sachem, or the new chief, should be invested by
the council of the confederacy, which alone had power to invest with
office.

The phratry was without governmental functions in the strict sense
of the phrase, these being confined to the gens tribe and confederacy;
but it entered into their social affairs with large administrative
powers, and would have concerned itself more and more with their
religious affairs as the condition of the people advanced. Unlike
the Grecian phratry and the Roman curia, it had no official head.
There was no chief of the phratry as such, and no religious
functionaries belonging to it as distinguished from the gene and
tribe. The phratric institution among the Iroquois was in its
rudimentary archaic form; but it grew into life by natural and
inevitable development, and remained permanent because it met
necessary wants Every institution of mankind which attained
permanence will be found linked with a perpetual want. With the gens
tribe and confederacy in existence the presence of the phratry was
substantially assured. It required time, however, and further
experience to manifest all the uses to which it might be made
subservient.

Among the Village Indians of Mexico and Central America the phratry
must have existed, reasoning upon general principles, and have been