Crossword clues for phratry
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Phratry \Phra"try\, n.; pl. Phratries. [Gr. ?, ?.] (Gr. Antiq.) A subdivision of a phyle, or tribe, in Athens.
Wiktionary
n. (context anthropology dated English) A former kinship division consisting of two or more distinct clans with separate identity but considered to be a single unit.
WordNet
Wikipedia
In ancient Greece, a phratry (phratria, )ατρία, "brotherhood", "kinfolk", derived from φρατήρ meaning "brother") was a social division of the Greek tribe ( phyle). The nature of these phratries is, in the words of one historian, "the darkest problem among the [Greek] social institutions." Little is known about the role they played in Greek social life, but they existed from the Greek Dark Ages until the 2nd century BC; Homer refers to them several times, in passages that appear to describe the social environment of his times.
In Athens, enrollment in a phratry seems to have been the basic requirement for citizenship in the state before the reforms of Cleisthenes in 508 BC. From their peak of prominence in the Dark Ages, when they appear to have been a substantial force in Greek social life, phratries gradually declined in significance throughout the classical period as other groups (such as political parties) gained influence at their cost.
Phratries contained smaller kin groups called gene; these appear to have arisen later than phratries, and it appears that not all members of phratries belonged to a genos; membership in these smaller groups may have been limited to elites. On an even smaller level, the basic kinship group of ancient Greek societies was the oikos (household).
Usage examples of "phratry".
Other tribes are composed of phratries, and each subtribe or phratry comprises a number of gentes.
Any man can win a name and rank in the section, gens, phratry, tribe, or nation by bravery in war or by generosity in the bestowal of presents and the frequent giving of feasts.
Dakota the phratry was never a permanent organization, but it was resorted to on special occasions and for various purposes, such as war or the buffalo hunt.
There is no doubt, however, that in the earlier villages each gens, and where practicable, the whole of the phratry, built their houses together.
There are very few representatives of this phratry existing now, and very little tradition extant concerning its early history.
Water or Rain phratry proper, but allied to them are the two following phratries, who also came to this region with the Water phratry.
Horn House is so called because tradition connects this village with some of the people of the Horn phratry of the Hopituh or Tusayan.
So the members of each phratry have their own store of traditions, relating to the wanderings of their own ancestors, which differ from those of other clans, and refer to villages successively built and occupied by them.
The four generations, including the original pairs, formed phratries, which have no names.
Among the Teton many groups which were originally sections have become gentes, for the marriage laws do not affect the original phratries, gentes, and subgentes.
Iowa camping circle was divided into two half-circles, occupied by two phratries of four gentes each.
At times tribes split up and separate, and again phratries or distant groups meet and band together.
The Hopituh certainly marry within phratries, and occasionally with the same gens.
The tribe to-day seems to be made up of a collection or a confederacy of many enfeebled remnants of independent phratries and groups once more numerous and powerful.
This is rendered the more probable by the fact that the Kansa have grouped their gentes in seven phratries, just the number of the degrees in the society.