Hew Morrison Collection > Leabhar Nan Gleann

Columba of Hi (lona), descended from the
house of O'Neill (lat. nepotes Nelli) — the
noblest among the Hiberno-Celts. The re-
jjorts of the Anglo-Saxon Bede and of the
Irish with regards to the peculiar social insti-
tiition of the as yet pohtically independent
Picts, date traditionally, at least, from the
beginning of the eighth centuiy (Bede wa3
born in 674, wrote in 731 his Historia Ecclesi-
astica Gentis Anglorum), otherwise from the
ninth century and later times. We must
accordingly note well, even if succession in
the fejnale line still existed, that among the
"Christian" Picts from the seventh to the
ninth century the social relations expressed
by the doctrine of succession above adduced
no longer existed in its purity (sit venia
verbo). There was only succession-in-the-
female-liue as modified by Christianity,
by Christian views of tiie world, and by the
Chiistianized Aryan-Celtic culture of the Irish
and of the Cymri. It would have been other-
wise among the non-Aryan aboriginals of
Britain in the times of transition towards
assimilation in reUgiou and in language to
the Aryan Celts, otherwise, too, in the days of
Paganism, and of the as yet unbroken
folkdom of the primitive non-Aryan inhabi-
tants of the British Isles. But, as a matter
of fact, since the days of the Caesars we have
a series of interesting notices which permit
us to take an instructive glance at the social
relations of the primitive non-xVryan inhabi-
tants of the British Isles before their assimi-
lation with tne Aryan Celts and before their
reception of Christianity. In face of these
notices one has heretofore been mostly some-
what perplexed: thev could not be got to
harmonize with what we otherwise from olden
time know about the social polity of the Celta,
one could not perceive how, upon the social
basis gleaming forth through these notices,
the social order which the Irish and Cymri La