Graeber / Wengrow 122-3: "In earlier centuries, forms of regional organization might extend thousands of miles [...] a North American 500 years ago could travel from the shores of the Great Lakes to the Louisian bayous and still find settlements--speaking languages entriely unrelated to their own--with members of their own Bear, Elk, or Beaver clans who were obliged to host and feed them"
Footnote 547: "This was one reason for the North Americans' famous development of sign language" [!]