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PICTS AS ABORIGINES OF IRELAND 123

by the Matriarchist Van origin of this race. The Pictish Chronicles, both of the Irish-Scots and the Picts of Scotland, make repeated and pointed reference to this custom and it is borne out by the lists of the Pictish kings. These show that the Pictish king was not succeeded by his own son, but by his brother, the next son of his mother, or by his sister’s son ; and many of the kings appear to be named after their mother, or specified as the son of their mother. The Picts in Scotland, probably to excuse themselves in the eyes of the Scots and Britons who were of the Aryan patrilinear society, statein their Chronicles that this custom was imposed on them by “‘ the women of Ireland,” with whom they appear to have kept up some kindred intermarriage. But it is significant that these aboriginal women of Ireland are not stated to be the “‘ wives’ of the men they consort with, but it is said “‘ each woman was with her brother,’ + which is suggestive of the primitive Matriarchist promiscuity before the institution of Marriage. These aboriginal women, called “ Ban,” (i.e. Van or “ Biani’’) are stated to have imposed the matrilinear contract by oath :—

“ They imposed oaths on them . By the stars, by the earth, That from the nobility of the Mother Should always be the right of reigning.’’?

It was probably Part-olon’s attempts to abolish this Matriarchist promiscuity and mother-right by the introduction of the Aryan custom of marriage with patrilinear succession, which is referred to in the Pictish Chronicles as one of the great offences of ‘‘ Cruithne’’ (7.c. Pruthne or Part-olon), that he “ took their women from them.”* Another vestige of this ancient matriarchy in Ireland appears in the custom in the first century B.c. by which a married woman retained her private fortune independent of her husband.'

It was this Pictish promiscuity presumably, regarding which

+ Books of Ballymote and Lecan, S.C.P., 39.

+ Ib. S.C.P. 40.

* Book of Lecan, S.C.P., 47. ‘Cf. Dunn Tain bo Cual. (xviii).