GILD REGULATION. 453 



Presented as these facts are by societies unlike in race and 

 remote from one another in place and time, we cannot but 

 infer that gilds germinated from some structure common to 

 them all; and the multiplying family-group is the only such 

 structure. 



789. Of evidences that the gild in its primitive form 

 arose out of the cluster of relatives, perhaps the strongest is 

 the religious bond which held together its members; implied 

 by periodical meetings for joint worship. Among Christian 

 nations this points back to the pre-Christian times in which 

 there doubtless existed among the peoples of Northern Eu 

 rope, as among those of Southern Europe, and as still among 

 the Hindus, occasions on which the eldest ascendant male of 

 the family-group made sacrifices to the spirits of ancestors. 

 Naturally this habit survived when the worship came to be 

 of another kind. 



Whether the members of the group formed a rural com 

 munity or an urban community, essentially similar connex 

 ions were thus formed and maintained among them. Of 

 course perpetual conquests of people by people, and conse 

 quent social dislocations, have tended to confuse the evi 

 dence. Some, however, may here be given. Writing of 

 Mexico, Prescott says: 



&quot;The different trades were arranged into something like guilds ; 

 having each a particular district of the city appropriated to it, with its 

 own chief, its own tutelar deity, its peculiar festivals, and the like.&quot; 



Movers account of a far-distant people, the Phoenicians, 

 yields facts of allied meaning. 



&quot;Where many Phoenician merchants resided, they had obtained 

 landed property with corporative rights and privileges; such was the 

 case at Memphis and at Jerusalem, where they possessed distinct 

 quarters with sanctuaries of their national gods.&quot; 



* These corporations, as far as we know, were formed by citizens 

 only of the same Phoenician state. . . . Where there resided Pho3niciana 

 of different towns, they formed as many corporations.&quot; 



