ÀҾ˹éÒ˹ѧÊ×Í
PDF
ePub

or grown-up son of the murderer, "so as to inflict upon him a very heavy and painful loss "; and only when this has been tried in vain, are more distant relatives attacked.' The Bedouins of the Euphrates even prefer killing the chief man among the murderer's relations within the second degree to taking his own life, on the principle, "You have killed my cousin, I will kill yours. "2 And the Californian Nishinam "consider that the keenest and most bitter revenge which a man can take is, not to slay the murderer himself, but his dearest friend." 3 In these instances vengeance is exacted with reference rather to the loss suffered by the survivors than to the injury committed against the murdered man, the culprit being subjected to a deprivation similar to that which he has inflicted himself. So, also, among the Marea, if a commoner is slain by a nobleman, his death is not avenged directly on the slayer, but on some commoner who is subservient to him.4 If, again, among the Quianganes of Luzon, a noble is killed by a plebeian, another nobleman, of the kin of the murderer, must be killed, while the murderer himself is ignored." If, among the Igorrotes, a man slays a woman of another house, her nearest kinsman endeavours to slay a woman belonging to the household of the homicide, but to the guilty man himself he does nothing. In all these cases the culprit is not lost. sight of; vengeance is invariably wreaked upon somebody connected with him. But any consideration of guilt or innocence is overshadowed by the blind subordination to that powerful rule which requires strict equivalence between injury and punishment-an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth-and which, when strained to the utmost, cannot allow the life of a man to be sacrificed for that of a woman, or the life of a nobleman to be

[blocks in formation]

sacrificed for that of a commoner, or the life of a commoner to expiate the death of a noble. This rule, as we shall see later on, is not suggested by revenge itself, but is due to the influence of other factors which intermingle with this feeling, and help, with it, to determine the

action.

Nevertheless, the strong tendency to discrimination which characterises resentment, is not wholly lost even. behind the veil of common responsibility. Mr. Howitt has come to the conclusion that, among the Australian Kurnai, if a homicide has been committed by an alien tribe, the feud "cannot be satisfied but by the death of the offender," although it is carried on, not against him alone, but against the whole group of which he is a member.1 It is only "if they fail to secure the guilty person " that the natives of Western Victoria consider it their duty to kill one of his nearest relatives. Concerning the West Australian aborigines, Sir George Grey observes, "The first great principle with regard to punishments is, that all the relations of a culprit, in the event of his not being found, are implicated in his guilt; if, therefore, the principal cannot be caught, his brother or father will answer nearly as well, and, failing these, any other male or female relative, who may fall into the hands of the avenging party." 3 Among the Papuans of the Tami Islands, revenge may be taken on some other member of the murderer's family only if it is absolutely impossible to catch the guilty person himself. That the bloodrevenge is in the first place directed against the malefactor, and against some relative of his only if he cannot be found out, is expressly stated with reference to various peoples in different parts of the world;

1 Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 221.

2 Dawson, Australian Aborigines, P. 71.

Grey, Journals of Expeditions, ii. 239.

Bamler, quoted by Kohler, in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. xiv. 380.

and it is

5 Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 434 (natives of Wetter). Chalmers, Pioneering in New Guinea, p. 179. Kohler, in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. xiv. 446 (some Marshall Islanders). Merker, quoted by Kohler, ibid. xv. 53 sq. (Wadshagga). Brett, Inaian

probable that much more to the same effect might have been discovered, if the observers of savage life had paid more attention to this particular aspect of the matter. Among the Fuegians, the most serious riots take place when a manslayer, whom some one wishes to punish, takes refuge with his relations or friends.1 Von Martius remarks of the Brazilian Indians in general that, even when an intertribal war ensues from the committing of homicide, the nearest relations of the killed person endeavour, if possible, to destroy the culprit himself and his family. With reference to the Creek Indians, Mr. Hawkins says that though, if a murderer flies and cannot be caught, they will take revenge upon some innocent individual belonging to his family, they are "generally earnest of themselves, in their endeavours to put the

guilty to death." 3 The same is decidedly the

in those parts of Morocco where the blood-feud still prevails.

Not only has Dr. Steinmetz failed to prove his hypothesis that revenge was originally "undirected," but this hypothesis is quite opposed to all the most probable ideas we can form with regard to the revenge of early man. For my own part I am convinced that we may obtain a good deal of knowledge about the primitive condition of the human race, but not by studying modern savages only. I have dealt with this question at some length in another place, and wish now merely to point out that those general physical and psychical qualities which are not only common to all races of mankind, but which are shared by them with the animals most allied to man, may be assumed to have been present also in the earlier stages of

Tribes of Guiana, p. 357. Bernau, Missionary Labours in British Guiana, P. 57. Dall, Alaska, p. 416. Boas, The Central Eskimo,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 582. Jacob, Leben der vorislamischen Beduinen, p. 144. Kovalewsky, Coutume contemporaine, p. 248 (Ossetes). Popović, Recht und Gericht in Montenegro, p. 69; Lago, op. cit. ii. 90 (Montenegrines). Miklos.

ich, loc. cit. p. 131 (Slavs). Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 173 sq. (ancient Teutons).

1 Hyades and Deniker, Mission scientifique du Cap Horn, vii. 375.

2

von Martius, op. cit. i. 128.

3 Hawkins, in Trans. American Ethn. Sec. iii. 67.

History of Human Marriage, p. 3 sqq.

human development. Now, concerning revenge among animals, more especially among monkeys, many anecdotes have been told by trustworthy authorities, and in every case the revenge has been clearly directed against the offender.

478.

[ocr errors]

On the authority of a zoologist "whose scrupulous accuracy was known to many persons," Darwin relates the following story" At the Cape of Good Hope an officer had often plagued a certain baboon, and the animal, seeing him approaching one Sunday for parade, poured water into a hole and hastily made some thick mud, which he skilfully dashed over the officer as he passed by, to the amusement of many bystanders. For long afterwards the baboon rejoiced and triumphed whenever he saw his victim."1 Prof. Romanes considers this to be a good instance of "what may be called brooding resentment deliberately preparing a satisfactory revenge. This, I think, is to put into the statement somewhat more than it really contains; but at all events it records a case of revenge, in the sense in which Dr. Steinmetz uses the word. The same may be said of other instances mentioned by so accurate observers as Brehm and Rengger in their descriptions of African and American monkeys, and of various examples of resentment in elephants and even in camels. According to Palgrave, the camel possesses the passion of revenge, and in carrying it out "shows an unexpected degree of far-thoughted malice, united meanwhile with all the cold stupidity of his usual character." The following instance, which occurred in a small Arabian town, deserves to be quoted, since it seems to have escaped the notice of the students of animal psychology. "A lad of about fourteen had conducted a large camel, laden with wood, from that very village to another at half an hour's distance or so.

Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 69.
Romanes, Animal Intelligence, p.

3 Brehm, Thierleben, i. 156. Idem, From North Pole to Equator, p. 305. Rengger (Naturgeschichte der Säugethiere von Paraguay, p. 52) gives the following information about the Cay :"Fürchtet er . . . seinen Gegner, so nimmt er seine Zuflucht zur Verstellung, und sucht sich erst dann an ihm zu rachen, wenn er ihn unvermuthet überfallen kann. So hatte ich einen Cay, welcher mehrere Personen die ihn oft

As the

auf eine grobe Art geneckt hatten, in einem Augenblicke biss, wo sie im besten Vernehmen mit ihm zu sein glaubten. Nach verübter That kletterte er schnell auf einen hohen Balken, wo man ihm nicht beikommen konnte, und grinste schadenfroh den Gegenstand seiner Rache an." See, moreover, Watson, The Reasoning Power in Animals, especially pp. 20, 21, 24, 156 sq.; Romanes, op. cit. p. 387 sqq.; but also Morgan, Animal Life and Intelligence, p. 401 sq.

animal loitered or turned out of the way, its conductor struck it repeatedly, and harder than it seems to have thought he had a right to do. But not finding the occasion favourable for taking immediate quits, it 'bode its time;' nor was that time long in coming. A few days later the same lad had to reconduct the beast, but unladen, to his own village. When they were about half-way on the road, and at some distance from any habitation, the camel suddenly stopped, looked deliberately round in every direction to assure itself that no one was within sight, and, finding the road far and near clear of passers-by, made a step forward, seized the unlucky boy's head in its monstrous mouth, and lifting him up in the air Aung him down again on the earth with the upper part of his skull completely torn off, and his brains scattered on the ground." We are also told that elephants, though very sensitive to insults, are never provoked, even under the most painful or distracting circumstances, to hurt those from whom they have received no harm.2 Sometimes animals show a remarkable degree of discrimination in finding out the proper object for their resentment. It is hardly surprising to read that a baboon, which was molested in its cage with a stick, tried to seize, not the stick, but the hand of its tormentor. More interesting is the "revenge" which an elephant at Versailles inflicted upon a certain artist who had employed his servant to tease the animal by making a feint of throwing apples into its mouth :-"This conduct enraged the elephant; and, as if it knew that the painter was the cause of this teasing impertinence, instead of attacking the servant, it eyed the master, and squirted at him from its trunk such a quantity of water as spoiled the paper on which he was drawing."

"4

I find it inconceivable that anybody, in the face of such facts, could still believe that the revenge of early man was at first essentially indiscriminating, and became gradually discriminating from considerations of social expediency. But by this I certainly do not mean to deny that violation of the "self-feeling" is an extremely common and powerful incentive to resentment. It is so

1 Palgrave, Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia, i. 40.

2 Watson, op. cit. p. 26 sq.

3 Aas, Sjaeleliv og intelligens hos Dyr, i. 72.

Smellie, Philosophy of Natural History, i. 448.

« ¡è͹˹éÒ´Óà¹Ô¹¡ÒõèÍ
 »