disappear, partly, perhaps, on account of a change of ideas as regards the state after death, but chiefly, I presume, because it becomes revolting to public feelings. It then dwindles into a survival. As a probable instance of this may be mentioned a custom prevalent among the Tacullies of North America: the widow is compelled by the kinsfolk of the deceased to lie on the funeral pile where the body of her husband is placed, whilst the fire is lighting, until the heat becomes intolerable.1 In ancient Egypt little images of clay, or wood, or stone, or bronze, made in human likeness and inscribed with a certain formula, were placed within the tomb, presumably in the hopes that they would there attain to life and become the useful servants of the dead. So also the Japanese and Chinese, already in early times, placed images in, or at, the tombs of their dead as substitutes for human victims; and these images have always been considered to have no less virtual existence in the next world than living servitors, wives, or concubines. In China the original immolations were, moreover, replaced by the custom of allowing the nearest relatives and slaves of the deceased simply to settle on the tomb, instead of entering it, there to sacrifice to the manes, and by prohibiting widows from remarrying.*

The practice of sacrificing human beings to the dead is not exclusively based on the idea that they require servants and companions. It is extremely probable that the funeral sacrifice of men and animals in many cases involves an intention to vivify the spirits of the deceased with the warm, red sap of life." of life. This seems to be the meaning of the Dahoman custom of pouring blood over the graves of the ancestors of the king. So, also, in Ashanti "human sacrifices are frequent and ordinary, to

1 Wilkes, U. S. Exploring Expedition, iv. 453.

2 Wiedemann, Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, p. 63.

3 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 463. 4 de Groot, op. cit. (vol. ii. book) i. 794 sqq.

5 Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 288 sq.; Rockholz, Deutscher Glaube und Brauch, i. 55; Sepp, Volkerbrauch bei Hochzeit, Geburt und Tod, p. 154; Trumbull, Blood Covenant, p. IIO sqq.

Reade, Savage Africa, p. 51 sq.

water the graves of the Kings." In the German folk-tale known under the name of Faithful John,' the statue said to the King, "If you, with your own hand, cut off the heads of both your children, and sprinkle me with their blood, I shall be brought to life again.' According to primitive ideas, blood is life; to receive blood is to receive life; the soul of the dead wants to live, and consequently loves blood. The shades in Hades are eager to drink the blood of Odysseus' sacrifice, that their life may be renewed for a time. And it is all the more important that the soul should get what it desires as it otherwise may come and attack the living. The belief that the bloodless shades leave their graves at night and seek renewed life by drawing the blood of the living, is prevalent in many parts of the world. As late as the eighteenth century this belief caused an epidemic of fear in Hungary, resulting in a general disinterment, and the burning or staking of the suspected bodies. It is also possible that the mutilations and self-bleedings which accompany funerals are partly practised for the purpose of refreshing the departed soul." The Samoans called it "an offering of blood" for the dead when the mourners beat their heads with stones till the blood ran.7

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Finally, as offenders are sacrificed to gods in order to appease their wrath, so manslayers are in many cases killed in order to satisfy their victims' craving for revenge. In the next chapter we shall see that the execution of bloodrevenge largely falls under the heading of "human sacrifice for the dead."

1 Bowdich, Mission from Cape Castle to Ashantee, p. 289.

2 Grimm, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, p. 29 sq.

3 Odyssey, xi. 153.

4 Trumbull, Blood Covenant, p. 114

5 Farrer, Primitive Manners and Customs, p. 23 sq.

6 Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 181 sq.

7 Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 227.

sq.

CHAPTER XX

BLOOD-REVENGE AND COMPENSATION-THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH

ACCORDING to early custom, a person who takes the life of another may himself be killed by the relatives of his victim, or some other member of his family, clan, or tribe may be killed in his stead.' The custom of bloodrevenge is found among a host of existing savages and barbarians, and has long survived among many peoples who have reached a higher degree of culture.

We meet with blood-revenge in the midst of Japanese civilisation, not as a mere fact, but as a legally permitted custom. The avenger had only to observe certain prescribed formalities and regulations: there was a regular official to whom he must announce his resolve, and he must fix the time within which he would carry it out. The way in which the enemy was killed was of no importance, except that, even in ancient times, the man who had recourse to assassination was reprehensible.2 Among the Hebrews blood-revenge continued to exist during the periods of the Judges and Kings, and even later; under the Old Kingdom, says Wellhausen, “the administration of justice was at best but a scanty supplement to the practice of self-help." It is a rule among

1 The collective responsibility usually involved in the blood-feud has been discussed supra, p. 30 sqq.

6

2 Rein, Japan, p. 326. Dautremer, The Vendetta or Legal Revenge in

Japan,' in Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan, xiii. 84 sq.

3 Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, p. 467.

4

all the Arabs that whoever sheds the blood of a man owes blood on that account to the family of the slain person.1 Says the Koran :-"O ye who believe! Retaliation is prescribed for you for the slain." 2 In ancient Eran blood-revenge survived the establishment of tribunals.3 There is evidence left of its prevalence in early times among the Aryan population of India, though no mention. is made in the Sutras of blood-revenge as an existing custom. Among the Greeks it was only in the postHomeric age that it was given up as a fundamental principle, the avenger being transformed into an accuser.5 In Gaul and Ireland, though justice was administered by 'Druids or Brehons, their judgments seem to have been merely awards founded upon a submission to arbitration, the injured person being at liberty to take the law into his own hands and redress himself. In the preface to the Senchus Mór we read that retaliation prevailed in Erin before Patrick, and that Patrick brought forgiveness with him. Among the clans of Scotland, as is well known, the blood-feud has existed up to quite modern times; in the Catholic period even the Church recognised its power by leaving the right hand of male children unchristened, that it might deal the more unhallowed and deadly a blow to the enemy. In England it was at least theoretically possible down to the middle of the tenth century for a manslayer to elect to bear the feud of the kindred of the slain, instead of paying the wer; and long after the Conquest we still meet with a law against the system of

8

9

2

private revenge.1 In Frisland, Lower Saxony, and parts of Switzerland, the blood-feud was practised as late as the sixteenth century. In Italy it prevailed extensively, even among the upper classes, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, & In Corsica, Albania, and Montenegro," it exists even to this day.

3

4

5

Blood-revenge is regarded not only as a right, but as a duty. We are told that the holiest duty duty a West Australian native is called on to perform is that of avenging the death of his nearest relation. "Until he has fulfilled this task, he is constantly taunted by the old women; his wives, if he be married, would soon quit him; if he is unmarried, not a single young woman would speak to him; his mother would constantly cry, and lament she should ever have given birth to so degenerate a son; his father would treat him with contempt, and reproaches would constantly be sounded in his ear. Among the tribes of

7

Western Victoria "a man would consider it his bounden duty to kill his most intimate friend for the purpose of avenging a brother's death, and would do so without the slightest hesitation." 8 In his description of the Eskimo about Behring Strait, Mr. Nelson states that blood-revenge is considered a sacred duty among all the Eskimo, a duty incumbent on the nearest male relative; if the son of the murdered man is an infant, it rests with him to seek revenge as soon as he attains puberty. Among the Dacotahs "no one can escape this law of retaliation; public opinion would brand with disgrace whoever fled under such circumstances." 10 The Brazilian aborigines

9

Kohl, Reise nach Istrien, i. 406 sqq. Popović, Recht und Gericht in Montenegro, p. 69.

7 Grey, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, ii. 240.

71.

8 Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p.

9 Nelson, 'Eskimo about Bering Strait,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. p. 292 sq.

10 Domenech, Seven Years' Residence in the Great Deserts of North America, ii. 338.