the ethnological notebooks of karl marx - Marxists Internet Archive

Captives w hen adopted w ere often assigned in the fam ily the places o fdeceased persons slain in battle, in order to fill up the broken ranks o frelatives. Ausnahmsweise declining gens so replenished, z.B. A t certaintime die H awk gens der Senecas so m uch thinned, dass dem Erlöschen nah;to save the gens a number o f persons from the W olf gens by mutual consentw ere transferred in a body by adoption to that o f 101 the H aw k. D .Adoptionsrecht left to the discretion o f each gens. Unter d. Iroquois d.Adoptionscerem onie perform ed at a public council o f the tribe, w dchturned practically in (to ) a religious rite.1028) Religious rites10* in the G ens?K ann kaum gesagt w den, dass any Indian gens had special religious rites; abertheir religious worship mehr od. minder direct connection with the gentes;religious ideas germ inated u. form s o f w orship instituted in gens,36 expanded from the gens over the | tribe, statt special to remain to the gens.So bei den Iroquois 6 annual religious festivals [M aple, Planting, Berry,Green-Corn, Harvest u. New Year's Festivals] com m on to all the gentesunited in a tribe, observed at stated seasons o f the year.Jede gens furnished a number o f “ Keepers o f the F aith” , male and female,charged m it celebration jener festivals; conducted in selben d. ceremonieszus. mit d. Sachems u. Chiefs der Tribes w ho, ex officio, “ Keepers o f theFaith.” W ith no official head, none o f the marks o f a priesthood, theirfunctions equal. D ie “female keepers o f the fa ith " bes. charged m it preparationo f the feast, provided at all councils at the close o f each day for allpersons in attendance. D as dinner in common. T heir w orship was one o fthanksgiving, w ith invocations der Great S p irit u. der Lesser Spirits tocontinue to them the blessings o f life. (C f. Morgan's: League o f the Iroquois,p. 182)9) A common burial place.A ncient - aber nicht exclusive- m ode o f b u rial: by scaffolding the body untilthe flesh had wasted, danach d. bones collected u. preserved in bark barrelsin a house constructed fo r their reception. D ie belonging zur selben gensusually placed in the same house. Rev. D r . Cyrus Byington found thesepractices unter d. Choctas, 1827; so sagt A d a ir [H ist, o f the Americ. Indiansp. 183] vo n d. Cherokees: “ I saw three o f them, in one o f their tow nspretty near each o th er... Each house contained the bones o f one tribeseparately, w ith the hieroglyphical figures o f each fam ily (gens) on eacho f the oddshaped arks." D . Iroquois in ancient times used scaffolds u.preserved the bones o f deceased relatives in bark barrels, often keeping them inthe house they occupied. T h ey also buried in the ground; im letzten Fall diesame gens not always buried locally together, unless they had a commoncemetery fo r the village. Rev. A sh er104 Wright, a missionary am ong theSenecas, w rote to M organ: “ I find no trace o f the influence o f clanship inthe burial places o f the dead buried prom iscuously ... they say thatformerly the members o f the different clans more frequently resided together than149