There are current traditions in many gentes, like that of the Moquis, of the transformation of their first progenitors from the animal, or inanimate object, which became the symbol of the gens, into men and women. Thus, the Crane gens of the Ojibwas have a legend that a pair of cranes flew over the wide area from the Gulf to the Great Lakes and from the prairies of the Mississippi to the Atlantic in quest of a place where subsistence was most abundant, and finally selected the Rapids on the outlet of Lake Superior, since celebrated for its fisheries. Having alighted on the bank of the river and folded their wings the Great Spirit immediately changed them into a man and woman, who became the progenitors of the Crane gens of the Ojibwas. There are a number of gentes in the different tribes who abstain from eating the animal whose name they bear; but this is far from universal.
2. Lagunas. The Laguna Pueblo Indians are organized in gentes, with descent in the female line, as appears from an address of Rev. Samuel Gorman before the Historical Society of New Mexico in 1860. "Each town is classed into tribes or families, and each of these groups is named after some animal, bird, herb, timber, planet, or one of the four elements. In the pueblo of Laguna, which is one of above one thousand inhabitants, there are seventeen of these tribes; some are called bear, some deer, some rattlesnake, some corn, some wolf, some water, etc., etc. The children are of the same tribe as their mother. And, according to ancient custom, two persons of the same tribe are forbidden to marry; but, recently, this custom begins to be less rigorously observed than anciently."
"Their land is held in common, as the property of the community, but after a person cultivates a lot he has a personal claim to it, which he can sell to any one of the same community; or else when he dies it belongs to his widow or daughters; or, if he were a single man, it remains in his father's family."[187] That wife or daughter inherit from the father is doubtful.
3. Aztecs, Tezcucans and Tlacopans. The question of the organization of these, and the remaining Nahuatlac tribes of Mexico, in gentes will be considered in the next ensuing chapter.