recites--to the Council House of the town. They seem, anciently at
least, to have advanced in the order of their clans. The towns belonging
to the Wolf clan were first enumerated--probably as the chiefs belonging
to them took their places--then the towns of the Tortoise clan (or
double clan, as it is styled), and finally those of the Bear clan. In
all, twenty-three towns are named. Five of them are expressly stated to
have been "added lately." The residue are supposed to be the names of
the towns in which the people of the Five Nations resided at the time
when the confederacy was formed, though this point is uncertain. That
few of these can now be identified, is what would naturally be
expected. It is well known that the Indians had the custom of removing
their towns from time to time, at intervals varying from ten to twenty
years, as the fuel in their neighborhood became exhausted, and as the
diminished crops under their primitive mode of agriculture showed the
need of fresher soil. Only those villages would be permanent whose
localities offered some special advantages, as fortresses, fishing
places, or harbors. [Footnote: See Appendix, note E.]

This list of towns has another peculiarity which arrests the
attention. It apparently comprises all the towns of the League, but
these are divided among only three clans, those of the Wolf, the
Tortoise and the Bear. The other clans of the confederacy are not once
named in the book. Yet there are indications which show that when the
list of chiefs which concludes the book was written, at a date long
after this list of towns was first recited, other clans existed in three
of the nations. This is an important point, which merits further
consideration. Those who have read the admirable account of the "League
of the Iroquois," by Morgan, and his philosophic work on "Ancient
Society," are aware that he has brought out and elucidated with much
clearness and force the nature and results of the remarkable clan system