CHAPTER XX BLOOD-REVENGE AND COMPENSATION-THE PUNISH- 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.1 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. 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. all the Arabs that whoever sheds the blood of a man owes blood on that account to the family of the slain person.' 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." 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 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 Blood-revenge is regarded not only as a right, but as a duty. We are told that the holiest 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."7 Among the tribes of 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 soon as he attains puberty." Among the Dacotahs "no one no one can escape this law of retaliation; public opinion would brand with disgrace whoever fled under such circumstances." 10 The Brazilian aborigines 1 Cherry, Growth of Criminal Law in Ancient Communities, p. 85. 2 Günther, Idee der Wiedervergeltung, i. 207 sq. Frauenstädt, Blutrache und Todtschlagsühne im Deutschen Mittelalter, p. 21. Cf. Arnold, Deutsche Urzeit, p. 342. Simonde de Sismondi, Histoire des républiques italiennes du moyen âge, xvi. 456. 4 Gregorovius, Wanderings in Corsica, i. 176 sqq. • Gopčević, Oberalbanien und seine Liga, p. 322 sqq. 6 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. 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. "4 consider it a moral obligation, a matter of conscience, for a son, a brother, or a nephew, to avenge the death of his relative. Speaking of the Guiana Indians, Sir E. F. Im Thurn observes that, "in all primitive societies where there are no written laws and no supreme authority to enforce justice, such vengeance has been held as a sacred duty."2 Confucius affirmed, in the strongest and most unrestricted terms, the duty of avenging the murder of a father or a brother. In Japan " the man who was weak enough not to try to put to death the murderer of his father or his lord, was obliged to flee into hiding; from that day, he was despised by his own companions." The Lord said to Moses:-"The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer; when he meeteth him, he shall slay him." 5 A similar rule, as we have seen, is laid down in the Koran. The idea that blood-revenge is a sacred duty incumbent on the kindred of the deceased was probably held by all so-called Aryan peoples. It still prevails in Albania, Montenegro," and Corsica. "Not to take revenge is considered by the genuine Corsicans as degrading. . . . Any one who shrinks from avenging himself is allowed no rest by his relations, and all his acquaintances upbraid him with pusillanimity." 8 1 von Martius, Beiträge zur Ethnographie Amerika's, i. 128. 2 Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 329 sq. 3 Legge, Chinese Classics, i. III. Douglas, Confucianism and Taouism, p. 145. 4 Dautremer, loc. cit. p. 83. Cf. Griffis, Corea, p. 227 (Coreans). 5 Numbers, xxxv. 19. 6 For modern Arabs, see Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, P. 313 sq.; Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, ii. 207. 7 Geiger, op. cit. ii. 32 (Avesta people). Leist, Alt-arisches Jus Gentium, p. 422. Idem, Græco-italische Rechtsgeschichte, p. 323 sqq. de Valroger, op. cit. p. 472 (Celts). Nordström, Bidrag till den svenska samhällsförfattningens historia, ii. 229; Stemann, Den Danske Retshistorie indtil "10 Christian V's Lov, p. 574; Keyser, 9 Popović, op. cit. p. 69. Kohl, op. cit. i. 409, 413 sqq. Miklosich, loc. cit. p. 145. 10 Gregorovius, op. cit. i. 180 sq. For other instances of blood-revenge as a duty, see Boas, Central Eskimo,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 582; Petroff, Report on Alaska,' in Tenth Census of the United States, p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts); Kohler, in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. vii. 376 (Papuans of New The duty of blood-revenge is, in the first place, regarded as a duty to the dead, not merely because he has been deprived of his highest good, his life, but because his spirit is believed to find no rest after death until the injury has been avenged.' The disembodied soul carries into its new existence an eager longing for revenge, and, till the crime has been duly expiated, hovers about the earth, molesting the manslayer or trying to compel its own relatives to take vengeance on him. According to Yakut beliefs, a person who is murdered becomes a yor, that is, his ghost never comes to rest.2 The Cheremises imagine that the spirits of persons who have died a violent death cause illness, especially fever and ague. The Saoras of India seem to have most fear of the spirits of those who have died violent deaths.4 The Burmese believe that persons who meet a violent death become "nats" and haunt the place where they were killed. The Hudson Bay Eskimo regard the island of Akpatok as tabooed since the murder of part of the crew of a wrecked vessel, who camped on that island; "not a soul visits that locality lest the ghosts of the victims should appear and supplicate relief from the natives, who have not the proper offerings to make to appease them." The Omahas believe that the spirits of those who have been killed reappear after death, their errand being "to solicit vengeance on the perpetrators of the deed." According to Genesis, the voice of 82 Guinea); Modigliani, Viaggio a Nías, VOL. I Archipelago). 1 See Kohler, Shakespeare vor dem Forum der Jurisprudenz, p. 131 sq.; Steinmetz, Ethnol. Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe, i. 291 sqq.; Idem, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 49 (Banaka and Bapuku); Nicole, ibid. p. 132 (Diakité-Sarrakolese); Lang, ibid. p. 257 (Washambala). Sumner, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. IOI. 3 Abercromby, Pre- and Proto-historic Finns, i. 168 sq. Fawcett, in Jour. Anthrop. Soc. Bombay, i. 59. 5 Schway Yoe, The Burman, i. 286. 6 Turner, Ethnology of the Ungava District,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 186. 7 James, Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, i. 267. I I |