natives of Botany Bay, New South Wales, though a trivial offence in their ideas justifies the murder of a man, “highly reprobate the crime when committed without what they esteem a just cause.”24 According to Mr. Curr’s experience, the Australian Black undoubtedly feels that murder is wrong, and its committal brings remorse; even after the perpetration of infanticide or massacres, though both are practised without disguise, those engaged in them are subject to remorse and low spirits for some time.25
20 Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 162.
21 Prescott, in Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, ii. 195.
22 Hyades and Deniker, Mission scientifique du Cap Horn, vii. 374, 243.
23 Man, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 112.
24 Barrington, History of New South Wales, p. 19. Cf. Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 126 (natives of Northern Queensland).
25 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 100, 43 sq. For other instances, see Keating, Expedition to the Source of St. Peter’s River, i. 127 (Potawatomis); Harmon, Journal of Voyages in the Interior of North America, p. 348 (Indians on the east side of the Rocky Mountains); Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 572 (Eskimo); Mariner, Natives of the Tonga Islands, ii. 162; Macdonald, Oceania, p. 208 (Efatese); Yate, Account of New Zealand, p. 145; Arbousset and Daumas, Exploratory Tour to the North-East of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, p. 322 (Bechuanas); Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrikra’s, p. 322 (Hottentots).
It is of particular importance in this connection to note that, in early civilisation, blood-revenge is regarded not as a private matter only, but as a duty, and that, where this custom does not prevail, the community punishes the murderer, frequently with death. We may without hesitation accept Professor Tylor’s statement that “no known tribe, however low and ferocious, has ever admitted that men may kill one another indiscriminately.”26 In every society—even where human life is, generally speaking, held in low estimation—custom prohibits homicide within a certain circle of men. But the radius of the circle varies greatly.
26 Tylor, ‘Primitive Society,’ in Contemporary Review, xxi. 714.
Savages carefully distinguish between an act of homicide committed within their own community and one where the victim is a stranger. Whilst the former is under ordinary circumstances disapproved of, the latter is in most cases allowed, and often regarded as praiseworthy. It is a very common notion in savage ethics that the chief virtue of a man is to be successful in war and to slay many enemies.
Among the Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush “killing strangers might or might not be considered inexpedient, but it would hardly be considered a crime”; killing fellow-tribesmen, on the other hand, is looked upon in a very different light.27 The Koriaks do not regard murder as a great crime, unless it occur within their own tribe.28 The early Aleuts considered the killing of a companion a crime worthy of death, “but to kill an enemy was quite another thing.”29 To an Aht Indian the murder of a man is no more than the killing of a dog, provided that the victim is not a member of his own tribe.30 According to Humboldt, the natives of Guiana “detest all who are not of their family, or their tribe; and hunt the Indians of a neighbouring tribe, who live at war with their own, as we hunt game.”31 In the opinion of the Fuegians, “a stranger and an enemy are almost synonymous terms,” hence they dare not go where they have no friends, and where they are unknown, as they would most likely be destroyed.32 The Australian Black nurtures an intense hatred of every male at least of his own race who is a stranger to him, and would never neglect to assassinate such a person at the earliest moment that he could do so without risk to himself.33 In Melanesia, also, a stranger as such was generally throughout the islands an enemy to be killed.34
27 Scott Robertson, Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, p. 194.
28 Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 232.
29 Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, ‘Report on Alaska,’ in Tenth Census of the Untied States, p. 155.
30 Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, p. 152.
31 von Humboldt, Personal Narrative of Travels, v. 422.
32 Stirling, in South Ammerican Missionary Magazine, iv. 11. Bridges, in A Voice for South America, xiii. 210.
33 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 64, 85 sq. Mathew, in Jour. & Proceed. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, xviii. 398.
34 Codrington, Melanesians, p. 345.
In Savage Island the slaying of a member of another tribe—that is, a potential enemy—“was a virtue rather than a crime.”35 To a young Samoan it was the realisation of his highest ambition to be publicly thanked by the chiefs for killing a foe in mortal combat.36 “According to Fijian beliefs, men who have not slain any enemy are, in the other world, compelled to beat dirt with their clubs—the most degrading punishment the native mind can conceive—because they used their club to so little purpose;37 and in Futuna it was deemed no less necessary to have poured out blood on the field of battle in order to hold a part in the happy future life.38 In the Western islands of Torres Straits “it was a meritorious deed to kill foreigners either in fair fight or by treachery, and honour and glory were attached to the bringing home of the skulls of the inhabitants of other islands slain in battle.”39 In the Solomon Islands,40 New Guinea,41 and various parts of the Malay Archipelago, he who has collected the greatest number of human heads is honoured by his tribe as the bravest man; and some peoples do not allow a man to marry until he has cut off at least