Returning to the gwely, we find that when a child was born into it, whether boy or girl, it was formally acknowledged by the kindred. It remained ‘at the father’s platter’ to a certain age (generally 14), and then the father ceased to be responsible. The boy at 14 became the ‘man and kin’ of the chieftain of the family group, or it might be of the higher kindred embracing several of the gwelys. From that moment the boy obtained by ‘kin and descent’ a tribesman’s right of maintenance. That is to say, he received from the chieftain his _da_, probably in the form of an allotment of cattle,[21] and with it the right to join in the co-ploughing of the waste. He became thus a tribesman on his own hook, apart from his father. So that the unit of society was not simply the family in the modern sense of a parent and his children, but the wider kindred of the gwely or the group of related gwelys headed by the chieftain who provided the _da_. II. THE CONSTITUTION AND WORKING OF THE GWELY. Now, as the gwely was the unit of land-occupation, it is worth while to try to realise a little further what it was and how it worked. [Sidenote: The simplest form of the gwely. The landed rights vested in the chief, and he gives cattle out of the common herd to tribesmen for their maintenance.] Viewed in its simplest, and perhaps original form, it was a family group of four generations, the landed rights of which were vested in the great-grandfather as its chieftain. The tribesmen, his descendants, had only rights of maintenance. By right of ‘kin and descent’ they had received their _da_ from the chieftain. The flocks and herds of the chieftain were the common stock out of which the _da_ had been given, and there is reason to believe that under earlier custom, on the death of a tribesman, his _da_ went back into the common stock of the chieftain. [Sidenote: Probably at first no succession by representation on a tribesman’s death. But in the codes a _peculium_ admitted which went to children.] At the date of the codes it did so when the tribesman died _without issue_. But in the codes a _peculium_ of private property of which the _da_ was the kernel is recognised and allowed to descend to a tribesman’s children instead of falling into the common stock. [Sidenote: A redivision takes place _per capita_ as each generation dies off.] When the great-grandfather died, the chieftainship, with the landed rights and the herds, was divided between his sons, who as brothers thus became chiefs of sub-gwelys. But the original gwely did not then break up, because there would be a right of division _per capita_ when the brothers were dead between first cousins, and when the first cousins were dead between second cousins.