Nowhere do we find among them any form of government. Their chiefs are chosen without formality, either on account of their daring in war or for their generosity in distributing presents. The office is not hereditary, there is rarely even any war chief, their campaigns being merely hurried raids. A singular difference exists as to their gentile systems, and their laws of consanguinity. Usually it is counted in the female line only. Thus among the Takullies of the north a son does not consider his father any relation, but only his mother and her people. When a man dies, all his property passes to his wife’s family. The totems are named from animals, and as usual a wife must be selected from another totem. This does not stand in the way of a son being united to his father’s sister, and such a marriage is often effected for property reasons. Among the Sarcees the respect for a mother-in-law is so great that her son-in-law dares not sit at a meal with her, or even touch her, without paying a fine. Among the Navajo and Apache tribes the son also follows the gens of the mother, while in the Umpqua and Tutu branches in Oregon he belongs to that of his father. In all the southern tribes the gens is named from a place, not an animal.[83] Marriage is polygamous at will, wives are obtained by purchase, and among the Slave Indians the tie is so lax that friends will occasionally exchange wives as a sign of amity. Usually the position of the woman is abject, and marital affection is practically unknown; although it is said that the Nahaunies, a tribe of eastern Alaska, at one time obeyed a female chief. The arts were in a primitive condition. Utensils were of wood, horn or stone, though the Takully women manufactured a coarse pottery, and also spun and wove yarn from the hair of the mountain goat. Agriculture was not practised either in the north or south, the only exception being the Navajos and with them the inspiration came from other stocks.[84] The Kuchin of the Yukon make excellent bark canoes, and both they and their neighbors live in skin tents of neatly dressed hides. Many of the tribes of the far north are improvident in both clothing and food, and cannibalism was not at all uncommon among them. The most cultured of their bands were the Navajos, whose name is said to signify “large cornfields,” from their extensive agriculture. When the Spaniards first met them in 1541 they were tillers of the soil, erected large granaries for their crops, irrigated their fields by artificial water courses or _acequias_, and lived in substantial dwellings, partly underground; but they had not then learned the art of weaving the celebrated “Navajo blankets,” that being a later acquisition of their artisans.[85]