be “sufficiently respected to protect criminated persons, until their cases have been lawfully examined.”94 Among the Californian Gallinomero the avenger of blood has his option between money and the murderer’s life; “but he does not seem to be allowed to wreak on him a personal and irresponsible vengeance,” the chief taking the criminal and executing the punishment.95
90 Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 268 sq.
91 Raffles, History of Java, ii. p. ccxxxvii.
92 Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, iii. 120.
93 Mason, in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. li. 145. Cf. MacMahon, Far Cathay and Farther India, p. 188.
94 Casalis, op. cit. p. 226.
95 Powers, Tribes of California, p. 177.
Besides the desire that the offender shall suffer and the desire that his suffering shall correspond to his guilt, there is a third factor of importance which has contributed to the substitution of punishment for revenge and to the rise of a judicial organisation. For every society it is a matter of great consequence that there should be peace between its various members. Though the system of revenge helps to keep down crime,96 it also has a tendency to cause disturbance and destruction. Any act of vengeance which goes beyond the limits fixed by custom is apt to call forth retaliation in return. Among the Ossetes, says Baron von Haxthausen, “if the retaliation does not exceed the original injury the affair terminates; but if the wound given is greater than the one received, the feud begins afresh from the other side.”97 The custom of blood-revenge certainly does not imply that the avenger of unjustifiable homicide may himself be a proper object of retaliation;98 but in the absence of a tribunal it may be no easy thing to decide the question of guilt, and, besides, the dictate of custom may be overruled by passion. As a matter of fact, the blood-feud often consists of a whole series of murders, the revenge itself calling forth a new act of redress, and so on, until the state or hostility may become more or less permanent.99 In the long run this will prove injurious both to the families implicated in the feud and to society as a whole, and some method of putting a stop to the feud will readily be adopted. One such method is to substitute the payment of blood-money for revenge; another is to submit the cause to an authority invested with judicatory power. Casalis tells us that the Basutos are often heard to say, “If we were to revenge ourselves, the town or community would soon be dispersed”; and he adds that the instinctive fear of the disorders that might arise from the exercise of individual law has induced them to allow the chief of the tribe a certain right over the person of every member of the community.100
96 Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, p. 96 (Maori). Im Thurn, op. cit. pp. 213, 330 (Guiana Indians). Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahábys, p. 84, sq.; Blunt, Bedouins of the Euphrates, ii. 207; Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, p. 305 sq. (Bedouins). Kohl, Reise nach Istrien, i. 409 sq. (Montenegrines). Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, i. 60 (Anglo-Saxons). Nordström, Svenska samhälls-författningens historia, ii. 228 (ancient Scandinavians). Steinmetz, Ethnol. Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe, ii. 125 sqq.
97 von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 411.
98 Among the aborigines of Western Victoria, when life has been taken for life, the feud is ended (Dawson, op. cit. p. 70). Among the Greenlanders, if the victim of revenge “be a notorious offender, or hated for his bloody deeds, or if he have no relations, the matter rests”; but more frequently the act of vengeance costs the avenger himself his life (Cranz, op. cit. i. 178). Among the Bedouins, “if the family of the man killed should in revenge kill two of the homicide’s family, the latter retaliate by the death of one. If one only be killed, the affair rests there and all is quiet; but the quarrel is soon revived by hatred and revenge” (Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahábys, p. 86). In his book, Das Leben der vorislâmischen Beduinen, Dr. Jacob likewise observes (p. 144):—“Irrtümlich ist die Ansicht, dass Blut immer neues Blut fordere. Was für einen Getödteten ein Anderer erschlagen, so galt die Sache in der Regel damit für erledigt und abgetan.” Cf. Achelis, Moderne Völkerkunde, p. 407, n. 1.
99 Nelson, ‘Eskimo about Bering Strait,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 293. Miklosich. ‘Blutrache bei den Slaven,’ in Denkschriften d. kaiserl. Akademie d. Wissensch. Phil.-hist. Classe, Vienna, xxxvi. 132; &c.
100 Casalis, op. cit. p. 225. Cf. Boyle, Adventures among the Dyaks of Borneo, p. 217; Marsden, op. cit. p. 249 sq. (Rejangs).
As may be expected, it is only by slow degrees that revenge has yielded to punishment, and the private avenger has been succeeded by the judge and the public executioner of his sentence. Among many savages the chief is said to have nothing whatever to do with jurisdiction.101 Among others he acts merely as an adviser, or is appealed to as an arbiter;102 or the injured party may choose between avenging himself and appealing to the chief for redress;103 or the judicial power with which the chief is invested is stated to be more nominal than real.104 It is also interesting to note that in several cases the injured party or the accuser acts as executioner, but not as judge.
101 Keating, Expedition to the Source of St. Peter’s River, i. 123 (Potawatomis). Richardson, Arctic Searching Expedition, ii. 27 (Chippewyans), Carver, Travels, p. 259 (Naudowessies). Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abipones, ii. 163; &c.
102 Lewis and Clarke, Travels to the Source of the Missouri River, p. 306 sq. (Shoshones). Powers, Tribes of California, p. 45 (Karok and Yurok). Dunbar, ‘Pawnee Indians’ in Magazine of American History, iv. 261. Arbousset and Daumas, op. cit. p. 67 (Mantetis). Ellis, Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 300 (Tshi- and Ew̔e-speaking peoples of the African West Coast). Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahábys, pp. 68, 70. Blunt, op. cit. ii. 232 sq. (Bedouins of the Euphrates). von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 415 (Ossetes).
103 Ellis, Tour through Hawaii, p. 429. Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, p. 23. Forbes, A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago, p. 473 (Timorese).