While the early population of the Siouan stock, when first the huntsmen crossed the Appalachians, may not be known, the lines of migration indicate that the people increased and multiplied amain during their long journey, and that their numbers culminated, despite external conflict and internal strife, about the beginning of written history, when the Siouan population may have been 100,000 or more. Then came war against the whites and the still more deadly smallpox, whereby the vigorous stock was checked and crippled and the population gradually reduced; but since the first shock, which occurred at different dates in different parts of the great region, the Siouan people have fairly held their own, and some branches are perhaps gaining in strength. SOME FEATURES OF INDIAN SOCIOLOGY As shown by Powell, there are two fundamentally distinct classes or stages in human society—(1) tribal society and (2) national society. National society characterizes civilization; primarily it is organized on a territorial basis, but as enlightenment grows the bases are multiplied. Tribal society is characteristic of savagery and barbarism; so far as known, all tribal societies are organized on the basis of kinship. The transfer from tribal society to national society is often, perhaps always, through feudalism, in which the territorial motive takes root and in which the kinship motive withers. All of the American aborigines north of Mexico and most of those farther southward were in the stage of tribal society when the continents were discovered, though feudalism was apparently budding in South America, Central America, and parts of Mexico. The partly developed transitional stage may, for the present, be neglected, and American Indian sociology may be considered as representing tribal society or kinship organization. The fundamental principles of tribal organization through kinship have been formulated by Powell; they are as follows:(55)