a more fully developed and influential organization than among the
Iroquois Unfortunately mere glimpses at such an institution are all
that can be found in the teeming narratives of the Spanish writers
within the first century after the Spanish conquest. The four
"lineages" of the Tlascalans who occupied the four quarters of the
pueblo of Tlascalan were, in all probability, so many phratries. They
were sufficiently numerous for four tribes, but as they occupied the
same pueblo and spoke the same dialect the phratric organization was
apparently a necessity. Each lineage or phratry, so to call it, had
a distinct military organization, a peculiar costume and banner, and
its head war-chief (Teuctli), who was its general military commander.
They went forth to battle by phratries. The organization of a
military force by phratries and by tribes was not unknown to the
Homeric Greeks Thus, Nestor advised Agamemnon to "separate the
troops by phratries and by tribes, so that phratry may support
phratry and tribe" [Footnote: Illiad]

Under gentile institutions of the most advanced type the principle
of kin became to a considerable extent the basis of the army
organization. The Aztecs, in like manner occupied the pueblo of
Mexico in four distinct divisions, the people of each of which were
more nearly related to each other than to the people of the other
divisions. They were separate lineages, like the Tlas-calan, and it
seems highly probable were four phratries, separately organized as
such They were distinguished from each--other by costumes and
standards, and went out to war as separate divisions. Their
geographical areas were called the four quarters of Mexico.

With respect to the prevalence of this organization among the Indian
tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism the subject has been but