tanglefoot (tangglfut)

[ I have already called it Tanistry , the system under which the grown men of the tribe elect their own chief, generally choosing a succe or before the ruling chief dies, and almost invariably electing his brother or nearest mature male relative. Maine , Early Law and Custom, p. 145. Soon after the acce ion of James I. a decision of the King's Bench, which had the force of law, pronounced the whole system of tanistry and gavelkind, which had grown out of the Brehon law, and which had hitherto been recognised in a great part of the island, to be illegal. Lecky , Eng. in 18th Cent., vi.