once was the collective property of the gens, but had been
confiscated by the English conquerors, each pay the rent for his
respective parcel. But they all combine their lands and parcel it off
according to situation and quality. These parcels, called "Gewanne" on
the German river Mosel, are cultivated collectively and their yield is
divided into shares. Marshland and pastures are used in common. Fifty
years ago, new divisions were still made occasionally, sometimes
annually. The field map of such a rundale village looks exactly like
that of a German "Gehoeferschaft" (farming commune) on the Mosel or in
the Hochwald. The gens also survives in the "factions." The Irish
farmers often form parties that seem to be founded on absolutely
contradictory or senseless distinctions, quite incomprehensible to
Englishmen. The only purpose of these factions is apparently to rally
for the popular sport of hammering the life out of one another. They are
artificial reincarnations, modern substitutes for the dispersed gentes
that demonstrate the continuation of the old gentile instinct in their
own peculiar manner. By the way, in some localities the gentiles are
still living together on what is practically their old territory. During
the thirties, for instance, the great majority of the inhabitants of the
old county of Monaghan had only four family names, i. e., they were
descended from four gentes or tribes (clans).[27]

The downfall of the gentile order in Scotland dates from the
suppression of the revolt in 1745. What link of this order the Scotch
clan represented remains to be investigated; that it is a link, is
beyond doubt. Walter Scott's novels bring this Scotch highland clan
vividly before our eyes. It is, as Morgan says, "an excellent type of
the gens in organization and in spirit, and an extraordinary
illustration of the power of the gentile life over its members.... We
find in their feuds and blood revenge, in their localization by gentes,
in their use of lands in common, in the fidelity of the clansman to his
chief and of the members of the clan to each other, the usual and
persistent features of gentile society.... Descent was in the male line,
the children of the males remaining members of the clan, while the
children of its female members belonged to the clans of their respective
fathers." The fact that matriarchal law was formerly in force in
Scotland is proved by the royal family of the Picts, who according to
Beda obser