.

their friendly behaviour into unkindness or hostility. The Canadian traders, for instance, when they first appeared among the Beaver and Rocky Mountain Indians, were treated by these people with the utmost hospitality and attention; but by their subsequent conduct they taught the natives to withdraw their respect, and sometimes to treat them with indignity.' Harmon writes, "I have always experienced the greatest hospitality and kindness among those Indians who have had the least intercourse with white people."2 Many facts seem to verify the statement made by a missionary who speaks from forty years' experience among the natives of New Guinea and Polynesia, that our conduct towards savages determines their conduct towards us.3

The friendly reception which white men have met with in savage countries is closely connected with a custom which, as it seems, prevails universally among the lower races while in their native state, as also among the

1 Mackenzie, Voyage to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, p. 149.

2 Harmon, Journal of Voyages and Travels in the Interior of North America, P. 315.

3 Murray, Forty Years' Mission Work in Polynesia and New Guinea, p. 499. For other instances of kindness displayed by savages towards white men, see von Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea, iii. 174 (people of Radack); Yate, Account of New Zealand, p. 102 sq.; Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 112; Keate, Account of the Pelew Islands, p. 329 sq.; Earl, Papuans, p. 79 (natives of Port Dory, New Guinea); Sarytschew, 'Voyage of the Discovery to the NorthEast of Siberia,' in Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages and Travels, vi. 78 (Aleuts); King and Fitzroy, Voyages of the "Adventure" and "Beagle," ii. 168, 174 (Patagonians); Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, i. 225.

4 Azara, Voyages dans l'Amérique méridionale, ii. 91 (Guanas). Southey, History of Brazil, i. 247 (Tupis). Davis, El Gringo, p. 421 (Pueblos). Lafitau, Meurs des sauvages ameriquains, i. 106; ii. 88. Heriot, Travels

4

through the Canadas, p. 318 sq. Buchanan, North American Indians, p. 6. Perrot, Memoire sur les mœurs, coustumes et relligion des sauvages de l'Amerique septentrionale, pp. 69, 202. Neighbors, in Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, ii. 132 (Comanches). James, Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, i. 321 sq. (Omahas). Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 327 sqq.; Loskiel, History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America, i. 15; Colden, in Schoolcraft, op. cit. iii. 190 (Iroquois). Powers, Tribes of California, p. 183. Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, p. 56 sqq. (Ahts). Boas, Report on the Indians of British Columbia,' in the Report read at the Meeting of the British Association, 1889, p. 36. Keating, Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River, i. 101 (Potawatomis); ii. 167 (Chippewas). Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, ii. 18 (Crees and Chippewas). Idem, in Franklin, Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, p. 66; Mackenzie, Voyages to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, p. xcvi. (Crees). Dall. Alaska, p. 397; Sarvtschew, loc.

peoples of culture at the earlier stages of their civilisa

tion --hospitality towards strangers. This custom pre-
sents several remarkable characteristics, which, to all
appearance, ill agree with their tribal or national exclusive-
ness generally. The stranger is often welcomed with
special marks of honour. The best seat is assigned to
him; the best food at the host's disposal is set before

him; he takes precedence over all the members of the household; he enjoys extraordinary privileges. M. Hyades says of the Fuegians, "Quelque encombrée que soit une hutte, et si réduite que soit la quantité d'aliments dont on dispose, le nouvel arrivant est toujours assuré d'avoir une place près du foyer et une part de la nourriture."1 The Mattoal of California, though they are sometimes heartlessly indifferent even to their parents, "will divide the last shred of dried salmon with any casual comer who has not a shadow of claim upon them, except the claim of that exaggerated and supererogatory hospitality that savages use." 2 A Creek Indian would not only receive into his house a traveller or sojourner of whatever nation or colour, but would treat him as a brother or as his own child, divide with him the last grain of corn or piece of flesh, and offer him the most valuable things in his possession.3 Among the Arawaks, "when a stranger, and particularly an European, enters the house of an Indian, every thing is at his command."4 Notwithstanding the Karen's suspicious nature, says Mr. Smeaton, his hospitality is unbounded. "He will entertain every stranger that comes, without asking a question. He feels himself disgraced if he does not receive all comers, and give them the very best cheer he has. The wildest Karen will

receive a guest with a grace and dignity and entertain him with a lavish hospitality that would become a duke. Hundreds of their old legends inculcate the duty of receiving strangers without regard to pecuniary circumstances either of host or guest. Among many uncivilised peoples it is customary for a man to offer even his wife, or one of his wives, to the stranger for the time he remains his guest." The Bedouins of Nejd have a

Hyades and Deniker, Mission scientifique du Cap Horn, vii. 243. 2 Powers, op. cit. p. 112.

3 Bartram, Creek and Cherokee Indians,' in Trans. American Ethn. Soc. iii. pt. i. 42.

Hilhouse, in Jour. Roy. Geo. Soc.

ii. 230. Idem, Indian Notices, p. 14. Cf. von Martius, Beiträge zur Ethnographie Amerika's, i. 692.

5 Smeaton, Loyal Karens of Burma, p. 144 sq.

6 Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 73 544.

1

saying that "the guest while in the house is its lord"; and in the Institutes of Vishnu we read that, as the Brahmanas are lords over all other castes, and as a husband is lord over his wives, so the guest is the lord of his host.2

Custom may require that hospitality should be shown even to an enemy. Captain Holm tells us of a Greenlander of bad character who, though he had murdered his step-father, was received, and for a long time entertained, when he paid a visit to the nearest kindred of the murdered man; and this, as it seems, was agreeable to old custom.3 Among the Aeneze Bedouins, says Burckhardt, all means are reckoned lawful to avenge the blood of a slain relative, "provided the homicide be not killed while he is a guest in the tent of a third person, or if he has taken refuge even in the tent of his deadly foe." + In Afghanistan "a man's bitterest enemy is safe while he is under his roof." We read in the Hitopadesa :-" On even an enemy arrived at the house becoming hospitality should be bestowed; the tree does not withdraw its sheltering shadow from the wood-cutter. . . . The guest The guest is everyone's superior." The old Norsemen considered it a duty to treat a guest hospitably even though it came out that he had killed the brother of his host." A mediæval

1 Palgrave, Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia, i. 345.

2 Institutes of Vishnu, lxvii. 31. For other instances of the precedence granted to guests, see Man, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 94, 148 (Andaman Islanders); Buchanan, North American Indians, p. 324 (Indians of Pennsylvania); Lyon, Private Journal, p. 350 (Eskimo of Igloolik); Seemann, Voyage of" Herald," ii. 65 (Western Eskimo); Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 211 (Kamchadales), Georgi, op. cit. iii. 153 sq. (Kamchadales), 183 sq. (Chukchi). Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, i. 86 (Sea Dyaks); Mariner, op. cit. ii. 154 (Tonga Islanders); New, op. cit. p. 102 (Wanika); Hanoteau and Letourneux, op. cit. ii. 45 (Kabyles); Wells Williams, op. cit. i. 540 (Chinese): Krauss, op. cit. p. 649 sq. (Southern Slavs).

6

Hitopadesa, Mitralâbhâ, 60, 62.

7 Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 400. Weinhold, Altnordisches Leben, p. 441. For other instances of hospitality towards enemies, see James, Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, i. 322 (Omahas); Bartram, in Trans. American Ethn. Soc. iii. pt. i. 42 (Creeks and Cherokees); Lomonaco, 'Sulle razze indigene del Brasile,' in Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia, xix. 57 (Tupis); Krauss, op. cit. p. 650 (Montenegrines).