If each clan had its leading sachem or chief, there were eight principal chiefs in each canton. Consequently, when the confederacy consisted of five cantons, there were forty Rakowanas,[51] or head chiefs. These were the recognized leaders and magistrates in the villages; but in effect, in a community thus constituted, each Rakowana or ruling chief of a clan, has a number of aids, Mishinawas[52] and minor officials, who were also regarded as semi-sachems, or chiefs. This number is always indefinite and fluctuating, but may be supposed to be, in relation to the ruling Rakowana, as at least five to one. [51] Mohawk. [52] Algonquin. This would give to each canton forty inferior chiefs, and to the five cantons, two hundred, denoting a distribution of power and civil organization, which acting in union must have been very efficacious; and the more so, when we consider that all their political movements were entirely of a popular cast, and carried with them the voice of every man in the canton. This appears to have been the standing civil organization; but it was entirely independent of the military system. War chiefs appear ever to have derived their authority from courage and capacity in war, and to have risen up as they were required in each canton. The Tekarahogea, or war captain, founded his rights and powers in the Indian camp, on former triumphs and present capacity; but the office does not appear to have been a general one recognized by their constitution. All males were bound to render military service by custom and opinion, but by nothing else. Disgrace and cowardice were the penalties, but they were penalties more binding than oaths or bonds among civilized communities, and always kept their ranks full. All war parties were, of course, volunteers. It seems that all able-bodied males over fourteen were esteemed capable of taking the war path; the early development of martial power being considered of all traits the most honorable. No title was more honored than that of Roskeahragehte,[53] or Warrior. [53] Mohawk. There was no baggage to encumber the march of an Iroquois army. The decision of Alexander and the policy of Bonaparte were alike unnecessary here. Each Iroquois warrior supplied and carried his own arms and provisions. He joined the war dance, the analogous term for enlistment, for the particular expedition in hand. If it failed, or another force was required, other captains called for other volunteers, and sung their war songs to inflame the ardor of the young. Taunts and irony of the deepest character were, on these occasions, flung at the character of the enemy. The war chief lifted his tomahawk as if actually engaged in combat, and in imagination he stamped his enemy under foot, while he symbolically tore off his scalp, and uttered his sharp Sasakwon,[54] or war whoop. [54] Algonquin.