mutual obligations. These latter were in process of time clearly defined, and the neglect of them entailed popular odium, and in some cases even fine and punishment. The duties in question were like the Roman obligatio in contract strictly bilateral, and so not infrequently onerous, if sometimes profitable and clearly advantageous. Their twofold character, i.e. towards the body politic and towards each other, has been already indicated. If further illustration on the latter head were required, it might be gathered from such different obligations, as the universal duty of nearest neighbours' daughters to be bridesmaids, and the right of the neighbour, derived perhaps from that of the vicinus in Roman times, to the pre-emption of adjoining immovable property. In the larger sense, the whole law of servitudes, as in operation in the Pyrenees, was rather the outcome of the vicinal system than taken bodily from Roman law. In like manner, the church bell owed its importance not so much to its ecclesiastical usefulness as to being the chief means of communication among the inhabitants of a neighbourhood." They were, by its different sounds, not only summoned to services of their common church, but informed too of periodical visits of the veterinary surgeon and blacksmith, the time to cut the communal wood, and the hour at which to go to bed. Thus it might be shown that in reality the whole life of the people centred round the vicinal system, for which hitherto not even a name has been found, and upon which as yet no monograph exists, though it was discovered by Mr. Webster some years ago.1 Its light shines, if somewhat less brightly than of yore, in Béarn, Bigorre, and Basque land to this hour, and goes far to account for the comparatively happy lives the people live, and ever have lived, in and about the western Pyrenees. In brief, the survival of this system is due to its eminent fitness, just as its evolution was to the imperious wants it so well supplied. But as these wants have now lessened, so likewise has its influence. There 1 Mr. Webster on "Le mot Republique," Bulletin de la Société des Sciences et Arts de Bayonne, 2me semestre, 1898, p. 157. fore, now that it is on the wane, neighbour may with reason say to neighbour, "Damnosa quid non imminuit dies?" ADDENDA. The following is the latest published definition of Vecino, Voisin : De como es vecino. Todo ome que faze fuego en alguna vecindat é oviere peynnos dalbarda, o X puercos o ovejas o cabras, o herdat oviere alguna en el lugar, puede ser fiador en toda cosa. "How one is a neighbour. Every man who lights his fire (i.e. has his hearth and home) in any neighbourhood (vicinity) or should have ? or ten hogs, or sheep, or goats, or should have any inheritance in the place, can be security (bail) in everything." peynnos It is difficult to find any translation for " dalbarda." It is either some dress or weapon qualification, or else one of property, the former most probably. But the thing to observe is, how the being a neighbour brings with it the idea of mutual obligation, as the very essence of the condition "puede ser fiador en toda cosa. "Fueros inéditos de Viguera y de Val de Funes (in 482 Articles) otorgados por Don Alfonso el Batallador (King of Navarre 1104-1134)" in the Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia, November, 1900, 368-430. The Vecino is said to mean villager in Quarterly Review, No. 364 (October, 1895), quoting a passage from Siculus Flaccus, where Vicinus (vicus, village) would seem to bear the same meaning. The strength of the idea of the Voisin in the Pyrenees is well seen in a kind of versified catechism. (not in question and answer), Le Tableau de la bido del parfait Chrestia en berses (“The Picture of the Life of the Perfect Christian in Verse"), by Père Amilia, of the Order of St. Augustin, written in 1673 (reprint, Foix, 1897). In the chapter at p. 272, we find L'injustice faito al gazailhat inoucen de la mort del bestial. ("The injustice to the metayer, insured person, or hirer on cheptel-gazailhat covers all these-innocent of the death of his cattle.") L'amour que cadun a de sa propro natura E qui n'aimo l'proutchen, qu'es un os de nostre os ? "The love which each has (to himself) of his own nature Should be the measure of the love of the neighbour. Whoever wishes himself ill, who loves not his own body, And who loves not the neighbour, who is a bone of our bone?" This injustice was attempted to be got over by insurance, as we learn from Mr. Webster's Les Assurances mutuelles de Bétail et le Cheptel, Bayonne, 1894. Of those who put the law in force against the gazailhat contrary to the contume we have the striking verses-— La coustumo n'es pas uno le pla foundado, "The custom is not one well founded If it has not been approved by people of worth. Is not so much a law as it is a source of corruption." Gazailhat, gazaille, miey-goa-danheric (Custom of Soule, Rubr. XX) nodic, migodein' is a very important word; it was certainly in use among the Visigoths. In its Latin form gasalianus it is found in Galicia in 572, and in other forms in medieval charters in Latin and other dialects from Languedoc to Galicia (cf. Ducange, s. v.). It is probably connected with the German gesell, yesellschaft. In his lately published Historia de España y de la Civilizacion Española (Barcelona, 1900) Don Rafael Altamira says, speaking of the administrative organisation of the Visigoths (p. 198), that the country population "se reunia tambien en assembleas de vecinos (Godos y Romanos) llamados conventus publicos vicinorum, para decidir acerca de las cuestiones de propiedad rural, division de tierras, ganaderia, persecucion de siervos huidos y otras de interés local." This is distinctly the beziau in action. It is certainly as much Gothic as Keltic. 1 Harispe, Recherches Historiques sur le Pays Basque, II, 416, note. ON THE NATURAL FORMS WHICH HAVE SUGGESTED SOME OF THE COMMONEST IMPLEMENTS OF STONE, BONE, AND WOOD. By T. McKENNY HUGHES, M.A., F.R.S., F.S.A., F.G.S. INTRODUCTION. There are few questions of greater interest than those raised by an investigation of the various methods by which primæval man has tried to supplement the appliances with which nature had endowed him in common with the lower animals. I have been approaching the question in a tentative way for many years, and have from time to time brought forward instances in which it appeared to me that the forms of certain instruments were originally suggested by natural objects. I have now gained so much additional knowledge respecting it that I have thought that I might bring the whole subject forward before the Institute. When, with a view to such an inquiry, we are examining the instruments which are in use among races of low civilisation, we must consider whether they are works of art involving thought and experiment, or are merely an adaptation from natural objects, the use of which may easily have been suggested by accident; whether they are common appliances necessary to meet the requirements of every-day life, or articles of luxury or dignity, the manufacture of which would demand exceptional skill and direction. In tracing the migration of man by the implements which he has left behind him, one of the first questions to be asked in respect of any work of art upon which we rely as evidence is this: Was it imported or made on the spot? In dealing with objects commonly made of wood, 1 Camb. Ant. Soc., October 21st, 1895, "On the derivation of a boomerang from a cetacean rib." Soc. Ant. Lond., February 4th, 1897, "On the derivation of the battle-axe, the throwing-stick, and the boomerang from the ribs of the cetacea." or bone, or stone, we must inquire whether the trees, or animals, or rocks from which they were manufactured were native or foreign. As I have elsewhere shown,' this line of inquiry leads to very important generalisations respecting the distribution of neolithic implements in the British Isles, where a difference of form confirms the inferences that would be drawn from the difference of material, and enables us in certain cases to distinguish imported from indigenous. specimens. THE IMITATIVE FACULTY AMONG RACES IN A LOW STAGE OF CIVILISATION. From observation of the habits of races in an early stage of development we can often explain the origin of forms which have been modified and adapted to special uses in later times and under higher conditions of life. We can understand the cause of the conservatism which has been observed among savages, the conservatism of the more advanced in checking the unreasoning or careless experiments of the undeveloped intelligence, to which, nevertheless, much of the manipulation of the routine work of daily life must be left. The imitative faculty was thus strongly developed. There are many instruments and manufactured vessels the form of which has been obviously suggested by natural objects. For instance, the gourd is obviously the original of many primeval water-bottles. Baron von Hügel has pointed out to me the resemblance of some stone drills and arrow-heads to sharks' teeth, and informs me that sharks' teeth are actually used by some tribes in the same way as the stone instruments; and it has often been shown that the earliest forms of metal weapons seem to be merely copies of those which had previously been made in stone. When, then, we find a battle-axe or bâton de commandement resembling a cetacean rib, not only in general outline, but also in many details of form, we may fairly indulge in the speculation as to whether this implement may not have originated in the bone from which it seems to be so closely copied, and we may, in 1 Cambridge Review, XII, 44. |