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The Iroquois Gens
Morgan's second great discovery: the gens — the kinship clan designated by animal names — as the unit of Indian society. Engels walks through the Seneca gens, phratry, tribe, and confederacy: a self-governing order with elected, deposable sachems and no state, no police, and no poor.
The gens as the primeval social unitSachems and war chiefs: elected and deposablePhratry, tribe, and the Iroquois confederacyA society without state, judges, or prisons