Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 December 17, 1881) was an American ethnologist, anthropologist and writer. Nevertheless, his professional life was in the field of law. As an amateur scholar, he is best known for his work on cultural evolution and Native Americans. Born in rural Rochester, Morgan studied law at Union College in 1840 and began practicing in his home town of Aurora, New York as well as Rochester. Morgan became interested in the Native Americans of his region and helped form a club (Grand Order of the Iroquois) to promote the interests of the tribe, the Iroquois. He was formally incorporated into their society as an adopted member of the Iroquois tribe with the name Tayadaowuhkuh, meaning bridging the gap (between the Iroquois and the whites). With the help of his Seneca tribe friend Ely S. Parker of the Tonawanda Creek Reservation, he studied the culture of the Iroquois and produced the book, "The League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee or Iroquois" (1851). This work became one of the earliest examples of ethnography, and these initial researches led him to consider more specific questions of human social organization. Morgan set himself the task of collecting and sorting the systems of relationship terms used by tribes spanning the greater part of the United States of America. (wikipedia.org / 2-13-2009)