Nothing similar to the gross tribal marriage of the Australian Kamilaroi is to be found among the American Indians, whose familial organisation, however, strikingly recalls that of the Melanesian clans, though already in a higher degree of evolution. The tribes of the Redskins were, and are still, divided into phratries, which are again subdivided into clans. Now these clans are composed of real or fictitious relatives. In each phratry the corresponding clans have the same _totem_, and it is strictly forbidden to marry a woman belonging to the group bearing the same _totem_. This organisation is very ancient; it existed in Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest, and the French found it in the eighteenth century among the Redskins of Canada. The Hurons, Charlevoix tells us, were divided into three clans: the wolf, the tortoise, and the bear.[889] The _totem_, or emblem of the clan, served to sign treaties.[890] This is a general fact, and the subdivision of the tribe into clans or _gentes_ is observed among the Tinneh Indians, the Choctaws, the Iroquois, the Omahas, the Indians of Columbia, etc., etc. Each clan forms one large family, inhabiting sometimes a common house, as do still the Indians of the Pueblos, as did the Iroquois at the time they were first discovered, and as did the Mexicans at the epoch of the Spanish conquest. The “long houses” of the Iroquois were buildings a hundred feet in length. A large corridor, closed at the two extremities by a door, traversed its entire length. To the right and left of this central corridor, and opening on it, were stalls, or niches, each serving as the apartment of a family. The number of these families varied from five to twenty.[891] The members of a Redskin clan had common rights and duties. When a man died, any personal objects he might possess were deposited in his tomb, for they might be useful to him in the future life. The remaining property of the deceased belonged principally to the clan, or the _gentiles_; his near relatives, however, were considered first. Thus, among the Iroquois, the widow, the children, and the maternal uncles claimed the largest part, while a very small portion of the heritage came to the brothers. The general principle was that the property should remain in the clan. In the present day the old customs are modified, and with the Iroquois, the Creeks, the Cherokees, the Choctaws, the Crows, etc., there is no longer any gentile heritage; all passes to the children.[892] The political organisation was, or still is, republican. The members of a Redskin clan have the right to elect and to depose the chief of the community, and the liberty to adopt strangers. They are united by a strict solidarity, and have a mutual duty to help and to avenge each other. And lastly they have their council and their sepulture in common.[893]