[28] The important feature of camping was left to the women, according to the Indian custom. Occasion often controlled circumstances as to the form of this particular ceremony. Hunting, visiting, or war parties were usually carefully organized. The tribal circle, each segment composed of a clan, gens or band, made a living picture of tribal organization and responsibilities. The usual opening through the circle was toward the east, which calls to mind religious rites and obligations of an earlier people, being further exemplified in the position which was usually given to the ceremonial tents. See A. C. Fletcher in _Pub. of the Peabody Museum_. [29] The clan or gens among the American Indians is an intertribal, exogamic group of persons actually or theoretically consanguine. See J. N. B. Hewitt in BUL. 30, B. A. E., and J. W. Powell in the 17TH REP., B. A. E., Part I, 1898, page 29 _passim_. Throughout all of the American tribes of savagery it has been found that peculiar groups of persons are organized and known as shamanistic societies or phratries, viz: banded religious bodies. The term however must be extended that it may include the ceremonies which the savage believed to be religious. Peace and warfare, health and disease, welfare and want, pleasure and pain, all, whether good or evil, are believed to be under control of such societies as noted. The gens is to be found in Greek and Roman history, where it is known as the agnatic kindred. The tribe remains a body of consanguineal kindred: it is composed of groups of gentes that are incest groups, and the mates in marriage must belong to different gentes. See appendix A. [30] For an account of the mythical origin of each of the Iowa gens, see J. O. Dorsey, SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE SIOUAN TRIBE in the _Journal of American Folklore_, Vol. IV, 1891, No. XV, page 338. This was recorded by Rev. William Hamilton in 1848 and was published from a letter by him to the children of the Presbyterian Sunday schools. Dorsey also obtained from the Iowa, during a visit to that tribe in 1880, a list of the gentes and later perfected this with a list of the subgentes. This list is included herewith as an appendix from the 15TH REP., B. A. E., 1897. [31] Dorsey. SIOUAN SOCIOLOGY. [32] See Cyrus Thomas. MOUND EXPLORATIONS, 12TH REP., B. A. E., 1894, page 111. A plan of the section noted above is given in this report, which is the most complete on mound exploration ever attempted. It may well be termed definitive.