Their political state, mirroring their family life, was not less primitive. There was no central tribunal. Disputes were settled within the families in which they occurred, while, in the case of graver injuries, the injured party or his nearest relation could kill the culprit or exact a fine from him. As families increased in number, they became petty tribes, often at war with one another. A defeated tribe had to recognize the sovereignty of the head man of the conquering tribe, and a succession of such victories exalted him into the position of a chief of his district. But even then, though his decision was the whole of the law, he was little more than the mouthpiece of public opinion. ----- Footnote 9: Huxley: _On Some Fixed Points in British Ethnology_. 1871. Footnote 10: Sergi: _The Mediterranean Race_. Footnote 11: Gomme: _The Village Community_. Chap. IV—“The non-Aryan Elements in the English Village Community”. Footnote 12: Tacitus: _Agricola_, chap. XI. Footnote 13: Strabo: _Geographica_, Book IV, chap. V. Footnote 14: Tacitus, _op. cit._ Footnote 15: Rhys: _The Early Ethnology of the British Islands_. _Scottish Review._ April, 1890. Footnote 16: Caesar: _De Bello Gallico_, Book I, chap. I. Footnote 17: Rhys: _Scottish Review_. April, 1890. Footnote 18: Op. Caesar, _op. cit._ Footnote 19: Tacitus: _Agricola_, chap. XI. Footnote 20: Caesar: _De Bello Gallico_, Book V, chap. XII. Footnote 21: Elton: _Origins of English History_, chap. VII. Footnote 22: See “_La Civilisation des Celtes et celle de l’Épopée Homérique_”, by M. d’Arbois de Jubainville, _Cours de Littérature Celtique_, Vol. VI. Footnote 23: See Elton: _Origins of English History_, chap. VII. Footnote 24: Caesar: _De Bello Gallico_, Book IV, chap. XXXIII. Footnote 25: From the _Táin Bó Chuailgné_. The translator is Mr. Standish Hayes O’Grady. Footnote 26: _Tochmarc Emire_—the _Wooing of Emer_—an old Irish romance. Footnote 27: Sometimes spelt “Conachar”, and pronounced _Conhower_ or _Connor_. Footnote 28: The _Wooing of Emer_. Footnote 29: Caesar: _De Bello Gallico_, Book V, chap. XXI, and various passages in Book VII. Footnote 30: _Ibid._, chap. XIV. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS AND DRUIDISM