Note 21 — Chapter II · SUMMARY OF THE CYMRIC EVIDENCE.
Reading edition
Prof. Rhys informs me that da in Carnarvonshire local dialect still means ‘cattle,’ while in other parts of Wales it has the wider meaning of ‘goods.’
The allotment of cattle involved grazing rights, and often separate homesteads. Accordingly in the Denbigh Extent we find that so and so ‘habet domum’ or ‘non habet domum.’
This dependence for maintenance of the boy upon the higher chieftain is indirectly confirmed by the Extents, which mention among the chieftain’s rights the ‘fosterage of youths’ &c. See Tribal System in Wales, p. 169.
That the chieftain who gives the da was the ‘chief of kindred’ and not a mere territorial lord is shown by the fact that when a stranger family have lived in the land till they have formed a kindred by intermarriage with Cymraes, all the members of the family become ‘man and kin’ to the chief of kindred of the new kindred. Tribal System in Wales, p. 132.