Savages who know neither cattle-rearing nor agriculture, but
subsist on what nature gives them--game, fish, fruit, roots, and
so forth--mostly live in single families consisting of parents
and children, or in larger {199} family groups including in
addition a few other individuals closely allied.[39] But even
among these savages the isolation of the families is not
complete. Persons of the same stock inhabiting neighbouring
districts hold friendly relations with one another, and unite for
the purpose of common defence. When the younger branches of a
family are obliged to disperse in search of food, at least some
of them remain in the neighbourhood of the parent family,
preserve their language, and never quite lose the idea of
belonging to one and the same social group. And in some cases we
find that people in the hunting or fishing stage actually live in
larger communities, and have a well-developed social
organisation. This is the case with many or most of the
Australian aborigines. Though in Australia, also, isolated
families are often met with,[40] the rule seems to be that the
blacks live in hordes. Thus the Arunta of Central Australia are
distributed in a large number of small local groups, each of
which occupies a given area of country and has its own
headman.[41] Every family, consisting of a man and one or more
wives and children, has a separate lean-to of shrubs;[42] but
clusters of these shelters are always found in spots where food
is more or less easily obtainable,[43] and the members of each
group are bound together by a strong "local feeling."[44] The
local influence makes itself felt even outside the horde.
"Without belonging to the same group," say Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen, "men who inhabit localities close to one another are more
closely associated than men living at a distance from one
another, and, as a matter of fact, this local bond is strongly
marked. . . . Groups which are contiguous locally are constantly
meeting to perform ceremonies."[45] At the time when the series
of initiation ceremonies called the _Engwura_ are performed, men
and women gather together from all parts of the tribe, councils
of the elder {200} men are held day by day, the old traditions of
the tribe are repeated and discussed, and "it is by means of
meetings such as this, that a knowledge of the unwritten history
of the tribe and of its leading members is passed on from
generation to generation."[46] Nay, even members of different
tribes often have friendly intercourse with each other; in
Central Australia, when two tribes come into contact with one
another on the border-land of their respective territories, the
same amicable feelings as prevail within the tribe are maintained
between the members of the two.[47] Now it seems extremely
probable that Australian blacks are so much more sociable than
most other hunting people because the food-supply of their
country is naturally more plentiful, or, partly thanks to their
boomerangs, more easily attainable. A Central Australian native
is, as a general rule, well nourished; "kangaroo, rock-wallabies,
emus, and other forms of game are not scarce, and often fall a
prey to his spear and boomerang, while smaller animals, such as
rats and lizards, are constantly caught without any difficulty by
the women."[48] Circumstances of an economic character also
account for the gregariousness of the various peoples on the
north-west coast of North America who are neither pastoral nor
agricultural--the Thlinkets, Haidas, Nootkas, and others. On the
shore of the sea or some river they have permanent houses, each
of which is inhabited by a number of families;[49] the houses are
grouped in villages, some of which are very populous;[50] and
though the tribal bond is not conspicuous for its strength, there
are councils which discuss and decide all important questions
concerning the tribe.[51] The territory inhabited by these
peoples, with its bays, sounds, and rivers, supplies them with
food in abundance; "its enormous wealth of fish allows its
inhabitants to enjoy a pampered existence."[52]
[Footnote 39: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 43 _sqq._ Hildebrand,
_Recht und Sitte_, p. 1 _sqq._]
[Footnote 40: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 45.]
[Footnote 41: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_, p. 8 _sqq._]
[Footnote 42: _Ibid._ p. 18.]
[Footnote 43: _Ibid._ p. 31.]
[Footnote 44: _Ibid._ p. 544.]
[Footnote 45: _Ibid._ p. 14.]
[Footnote 46: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_, p. 272.]
[Footnote 47: _Ibid._ p. 32.]
[Footnote 48: _Ibid._ pp. 7, 44.]
[Footnote 49: Boas, in _Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes
of Canada_, p. 22.]
[Footnote 50: Krause (_Die Tlinkit-Indianer_, p. 100) speaks of a
Thlinket village which consisted of sixty-five houses and five or
six hundred inhabitants.]
[Footnote 51: Boas, _loc. cit._ p. 36 _sq._]
[Footnote 52: Ratzel, _History of Mankind_, ii. 92.]
{201} To pastoral people sociality, up to a certain degree, is of
great importance. They have not only to defend their own persons
against their enemies, but they have also to protect valuable
property, their cattle. Moreover, they are often anxious to
increase their wealth by robbing their neighbours of cattle, and
this is best done in company. But at the same time a pastoral
community is never large, and, though cohesive so long as it
exists, it is liable to break up into sections. The reason for
this is that a certain spot can pasture only a limited stock of
cattle. The thirteenth chapter of Genesis well illustrates the
social difficulties experienced by pastoral peoples. Abraham went
up out of Egypt together with his wife and all that he had, and
Lot went with him. Abraham was very rich in cattle, and Lot also
had flocks, and herds, and tents. But "the land was not able to
bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance
was great, so that they could not dwell together"; they were
obliged to separate.[53]
[Footnote 53: _Genesis_, xiii. 1 _sqq._ See Hildebrand, _op.
cit._ p. 29 _sq._; Grosse, _Die Formen der Familie_, pp. 99, 100,
124 _sq._]
The case is different with people subsisting on agriculture. A
certain piece of land can support a much larger number of persons
when it is cultivated than when it consists merely of pasture
ground. Its resources largely depend on the labour bestowed on
it, and the more people the more labour. The soil also
constitutes a tie which cannot be loosened. It is a kind of
property which, unlike cattle, is immovable; hence even where
individual ownership in land prevails, the heirs to an estate
have to remain together. As a matter of fact, the social union of
agricultural communities is very close, and the households are
often enormous.[54]
[Footnote 54: See Grosse, _op. cit._ p. 136 _sqq._]
But living together is not the only factor which, among savages,
establishes a social unit. Such a unit may be based not only on
local proximity, but on marriage or a common descent; it may
consist not only of persons who live together in the same
district, but of persons who are of the same family, or who are,
or consider themselves to be, {202} of the same kin. These
different modes of organisation often, in a large measure,
coincide. The family is a social unit made up of persons who are
either married or related by blood, and at the same time, in
normal cases, live together. The tribe is a social unit, though
often a very incoherent one,[55] consisting of persons who
inhabit the same district and also, at least in many cases,
regard themselves as descendants of some common ancestor. The
clan, which is essentially a body of kindred having a common
name, may likewise on the whole coincide with the population of a
certain territory, with the members of one or more hordes or
villages. This is the case where the husband takes his wife to
his own community and descent is reckoned through the father, or
where he goes to live in his wife's community and descent is
reckoned through the mother. But frequently the system of
maternal descent is combined with the custom of the husband
taking his wife to his own home, and this, in connection with the
rule of clan-exogamy, occasions a great discrepancy between the
horde and the clan. The local group is then by no means a group
of clansmen; the children, live in their father's community, but
belong to their mother's clan, whilst the next generation of
children within the community must belong to another clan.[56]
[Footnote 55: See Cunow, _Die Verwandtschafts-Organisationen der
Australneger_, p. 121, n. 1.]
[Footnote 56: _Cf._ Giddings, _Principles of Sociology_, p. 259.]
Kinship certainly gives rise to special rights and duties, but
when unsupported by local proximity it loses much of its social
force. Among the Australian natives, for instance, the clan rules
seem generally to be concerned with little or nothing else than
marriage, sexual intercourse, and, perhaps, blood-revenge.[57]
"The object of caste" (clan), says Mr. Curr, "is not to create or
define a bond of union, but to secure the absence of any blood
relationship between {203} persons proposed to marry. So far from
being a bond of friendship, no Black ever hesitates to kill one
of another tribe because he happens to bear the same caste- (clan-)
name as himself."[58] It appears that the system of descent itself
is largely influenced by local connections.[59] Sir E. B. Tylor has
found by means of his statistical method that the number of
coincidences between peoples among whom the husband lives with the
wife's family and peoples who reckon kinship through the mother only,
is proportionally large, and that the full maternal system never
appears among peoples whose exclusive custom is for the husband to
take his wife to his own home;[60] and I have myself drawn attention
to the fact that where the two customs, the woman receiving her husband
in her own hut and the man taking his wife to his, occur side by side
among the same people, descent in the former case is traced through the
mother, in the latter through the father.[61] Nay, even where kinship
constitutes a tie between persons belonging to different local
groups, its social force is ultimately derived not merely from
the idea of a common origin, but from near relatives' habit of
living together. Men became gregarious by remaining in the circle
where they were born; if, instead of keeping together with their
kindred, they had preferred to isolate themselves or to unite
with strangers, there would certainly be no blood-bond at all.
The mutual attachment and the social rights and duties which
resulted from this gregarious condition were associated with the
relation in which members of the group stood to one another--the
relation of kinship as expressed by a common name,--and these
associations might last even after the local tie was broken. By
means of the name former connections were kept up. Even we
ourselves are generally more disposed to count kin with distant
relatives who have our own surname than with relatives who have a
different name; and still greater is the influence which language
in this respect exercises on the mind of a savage, {204} to whom
a person's name is part of his personality. The derivative origin
of the social force in kinship accounts for its formal character,
when personal intercourse is wanting; it may enjoin duties, but
hardly inspires much affection. If in modern society much less
importance is attached to kinship than at earlier stages of
civilisation, this is largely due to the fact that relatives,
except the nearest, have little communication with each other.
And if, as Aristotle observes, friendship between kinsfolk varies
according to the degree of relationship,[62] it does so in the
first instance on account of the varying intimacy of their mutual
intercourse.
[Footnote 57: Cunow, _op. cit._ pp. 97, 136. Dr. Stirling says
(_Report of the Horn Expedition to Central Australia_,
'Anthropology,' p. 43) that the laws arising out of the "class"
(clan) divisions "have extraordinary force and are, in general,
implicitly obeyed whether in respect of actual marriage, illicit
connections, or social relations"; but I find no further
reference to these "social relations."]
[Footnote 58: Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 69.]
[Footnote 59: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 107 _sqq._]
[Footnote 60: Tylor, 'Method of Investigating the Development of
Institutions,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xviii. 258.]
[Footnote 61: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 110.]
[Footnote 62: Aristotle, _Ethica Nicomachea_, viii. 12. 7.]
A very different explanation of the social influence of kinship
has been given by Mr. Hartland. He connects it with primitive
superstition. A clan, he says, "is regarded as an unity,
literally and not metaphorically one body, the individual members
of which are as truly portions as the fingers or the legs are
portions of the external, visible body of each of them." Now, a
severed limb or lock of hair is believed by the savage to remain
in some invisible but real union with the body whereof it once,
in outward appearance also, formed a part, and any injury done to
it is supposed to affect the organism to which it belonged. "The
individual member of a clan was in exactly the same position as a
lock of hair cut from the head, or an amputated limb. He had no
separate significance, no value apart from his kin. . . . Injury
inflicted on him was inflicted on, and was felt by, the whole
kin, just as an injury inflicted on the severed lock or limb was
felt by the bulk."[63] Mr. Hartland insists upon a literal
interpretation of his words;[64] and this implies that the
members of a clan are in their behaviour influenced by the idea
that what happens to one of them reacts upon all.
[Footnote 63: Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_, ii. 277.]
[Footnote 64: _Ibid._ ii. 236, 398, 444.]
In support of his theory Mr. Hartland makes reference to the
belief of some savages, that charms may be made from dead bodies
against the surviving relatives of the deceased,[65] and to
certain rites of healing in which, besides the patient himself,
"other members of his tribe, presumably kinsmen," take part.[66]
But the former belief is a superstition connected with the wonder
of death, from which no conclusion must be drawn as {205} to
relations between the living; and in the ceremonies of healing
the medicine-man plays a much more prominent part than the other
bystanders--whose relationship to the patient, besides, is so
little marked that Mr. Hartland only presumes them to be kindred.
He further observes that in the wide-spread custom of the Couvade
we meet with the idea that the child, being a part of the father,
is liable to be affected by various acts committed by him.[67]
And from Sir J. G. Frazer's 'Golden Bough' might be quoted many
instances of a belief in some mysterious bond of sympathy
knitting together absent friends and relations--especially at
critical times of life--which has, in particular, led to rules
regulating the conduct of persons left at home while a party of
their friends is out fishing or hunting or on the war path.[68]
But all these rules are taboo restrictions of a definite and
altogether special kind, generally, it seems, referring to
members of the same family, and frequently to wives in their
husbands' absence. In order to make his hypothesis acceptable,
Mr. Hartland ought to have produced a fair number of facts
proving that the members of the same clan really are believed to
be connected with each other in such a manner, that whatever
affects one of them at the same time in a mysterious way affects
the rest. But we look in vain for a single well-established
instance of such a belief.
[Footnote 65: _Ibid._ ii. 437 _sq._]
[Footnote 66: _Ibid._ ii. 432 _sqq._]
[Footnote 67: Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_, ii. 406.]
[Footnote 68: Frazer, _Golden Bough_, i. 27 _sqq._ See also
Haddon, _Magic and Fetishism_, p. 11 _sq._]
It seems that the importance which savages attach to a common
blood has been much exaggerated. Clanship is based on a method of
counting descent by means of names, either through the father or
through the mother, but not through both at once. This, however,
by no means implies that the other line is not recognised as a
line of blood-relationship. The paternal system of descent is not
necessarily associated with the idea that the mother has no share
in parentage, nor is the maternal system necessarily associated
with unconsciousness of the child's relation to its father;[69]
even the Couvade, which assumes the recognition of a most
intimate relationship between the child and its father, has been
found to prevail among some peoples who regard the child as a
member of the mother's clan.[70] Nay, there are instances in
which the clan-bond is obviously {206} not regarded as a
blood-bond at all, in the strict sense of the word. Of some
tribes in New South Wales Mr. Cameron tells us that, although a
daughter belongs not to her father's clan but to that of her
mother's brother, they believe that she emanates from her father
solely, being only nurtured by her mother;[71] and the Arunta of
Central Australia, who have the paternal system of descent,
maintain that a child really descends neither from its father nor
from its mother, but is the reincarnation of a mythical
totem-ancestor.[72] Their theory is "that the child is not the
direct result of intercourse, that it may come without this,
which merely, as it were, prepares the mother for the reception
and birth also of an already-formed spirit child who inhabits one
of the local totem centres";[73] and its totem-name, which is
derived from the spot where it is supposed to have been
conceived,[74] is different from its clan-name. It is useful to
scrutinise Mr. Hartland's theory in the light of this class of
facts. They evidently prove that clanship and what we are used to
call the system of counting "descent," is not necessarily based
on the notion of actual blood-relationship, but on kinship as a
fact combined with a name; whereas Mr. Hartland's hypothesis
presupposes, not that the members of a clan really are, but that
they consider themselves to be all of one blood.
[Footnote 69: Mr. Swan informs me that the Waguha of West
Tanganyika, among whom children are generally named after their
father, recognise the part taken by both parents in generation;
and Archdeacon Hodgson writes the same concerning certain other
tribes of Eastern Central Africa, who trace descent through the
mother.]
[Footnote 70: Ling Roth, 'Signification of Couvade,' in _Jour.
Anthr. Inst._ xxii. 227, 238.]
[Footnote 71: Cameron, 'Notes on some Tribes of New South Wales,'
in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xiv. 352.]
[Footnote 72: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_, ch. iv. especially pp. 121, 124.]
[Footnote 73: _Ibid._ p. 265.]
[Footnote 74: _Ibid._ p. 124 _sqq._]
Yet another practice has been adduced as evidence of the supreme
importance which the primitive clan is supposed to attach to
unity in blood--the so-called blood-covenant. The members of a
clan, Mr. Hartland observes, may not be all descended from a
common ancestry. Though descent is the normal, the typical cause
of kinship and a common blood, kinship may also be acquired. "To
acquire kinship, the blood of the candidate for admission into
the kin must be mingled with that of the kin. In this way he
enters into the brotherhood, is reckoned as of the same stock,
obtains the full privileges of a kinsman."[75] As Professor
Robertson Smith puts it, "he who has drunk a clansman's blood is
no longer a stranger but a brother, and included in the mystic
circle of those who have a share in the life-blood that is common
to all the clan."[76] Mr. Hartland gives us a short account of
the rite:--"It is sufficient that an incision be made in the
neophyte's arm and the flowing blood sucked from it by one of the
clansmen, upon whom the {207} operation is repeated in turn by
the neophyte. Originally, perhaps, the clansmen all assembled and
partook of the rite; but if so, the necessity has ceased to be
recognised almost everywhere. The form, indeed, has undergone
numberless variations. . . . But, whatever may be the exact form
adopted, the essence of the rite is the same, and its range is
world-wide." Then there follows a list of peoples from various
quarters of the world among whom it is said to prevail.[77]
[Footnote 75: Hartland, _op. cit._ ii. 237.]
[Footnote 76: Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, p. 315.]
[Footnote 77: Hartland, _op. cit._ 237 _sqq._]
From this the reader undoubtedly gets the impression that the
mingling of blood is a frequently practised ceremony of adoption,
by which a person is admitted into a strange clan. But the facts
stated by the chief authorities on the subject, to whom Mr.
Hartland refers, prove nothing of the kind. In most cases with
which we are acquainted the mingling of blood is a form of
covenant between individuals, although an engagement with a chief
or king naturally embraces his subjects also; and sometimes the
covenanters are tribes or kingdoms. But of the "world-wide"
adoption rite there is hardly a single instance which corresponds
to Mr. Hartland's description. He admits himself that "in the
same measure as the clan relaxed its hold upon the individual
members, blood-brotherhood assumed a personal aspect, until,
having no longer any social force, it came to be regarded as
merely the most solemn and binding form of covenant between man
and man."[78] His account of the blood-covenant is, in fact, only
an inference based on the assumption that the existing rite is a
survival from times when the clan was literally one body and the
individual nothing but an amputated limb. But to regard the
present blood-covenant as a survival of a previous rite of
adoption into the clan is not justified by facts. So far as I
know, there is no record of a blood-covenant among savages of the
lowest type, unless the aborigines of Australia be included among
them; and in Australia it is certainly not a ceremony of
adoption. Among the Arunta it is intended to prevent treachery:
"if, for example, an Alice Springs party wanted to go on an
avenging expedition to the Burt country, and they had with them
in camp a man of that locality, he would be forced to drink blood
with them, and, having partaken of it, would be bound not to aid
his friends by giving them warning of their danger."[79] This
instance is instructive. The Australian native is obliged to help
those with whom he has drunk blood against his own relatives,
nay, against members of his own totem group. So also "the tie
{208} of blood-covenanting is reckoned in the East even a closer
tie than that of natural descent,"[80] and the same was the case
among the ancient Scandinavians.[81] I do not see how Mr.
Hartland's theory can account for this.
[Footnote 78: _Ibid._ ii. 240.]
[Footnote 79: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_, p. 461.]
[Footnote 80: Trumbull, _Blood Covenant_, p. 10.]
[Footnote 81: Maurer, _Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes_,
ii. 171.]
Mingling of blood is sometimes supposed to be a direct cause of
mutual sympathy and agreement, in accordance with the principle
of transmission of properties by contact;[82] even in Europe
there are traces of the belief that a few drops of blood
transferred from one person to another inspire the recipient with
friendly feelings towards him with whose blood he is
inoculated.[83] But the genuine blood-covenant imposes duties on
both parties, and also contains the potential punishment for
their transgression. It involves a promise, and the transference
of blood is vaguely or distinctly supposed to convey to the
person who drinks it, or who is inoculated with it, a conditional
curse which will injure or destroy him should he break his
promise. That this is the main idea underlying the blood-covenant
appears from the fact that it is regularly accompanied by curses
or self-imprecations.[84] In Madagascar, for instance, when two
or more persons have agreed on forming the bond of fraternity, a
fowl is procured, its head is nearly cut off, and it is left in
this state to continue bleeding during the ceremony. The parties
then pronounce a long imprecation and mutual vow over the blood,
saying, _inter alia_ "O this miserable fowl weltering in its
blood! thy liver do we eat, thy liver do we eat; and should
either of us retract from the terms of this oath, let him
instantly become a fool, let him instantly become blind, let this
covenant prove a curse to him." A small portion of blood is then
drawn from each individual and drunk by the covenanting parties
with execrations of vengeance on each other in case of either
violating the sacred oath.[85] According to another description
the parties, after they have drunk each other's blood, drink a
mixture from the same bowl, praying that it may turn into {209}
poison for him who fails to keep the oath.[86] As we have seen
before, blood is commonly regarded as a particularly efficient
conductor of curses, and what could in this respect be more
excellent than the blood of the very person who utters the curse?
But the blood of a victim sacrificed on the occasion may serve
the same purpose, or some other suitable vehicle may be chosen to
transfer the imprecation. The Masai in the old days "spat at a
man with whom they swore eternal friendship";[87] and the meaning
of this seems clear when we hear that they spit copiously when
cursing, and that "if a man while cursing spits in his enemy's
eyes, blindness is supposed to follow."[88] The ancient Arabs,
besides swearing alliance and protection by dipping their hands
in a pan of blood and tasting the contents, had a covenant known
as the _[h.]ilf al-fo[d.]ûl_, which was made by taking Zemzem
water and washing the corners of the Ka[(]ba with it, whereafter
it was drunk by the parties concerned.[89] The blood-covenant is
essentially based on the same idea as underlies the Moorish
custom of sealing a compact of friendship by a common meal at the
tomb of some saint, the meaning of which is obvious from the
phrase that "the food will repay" him who breaks the compact.[90]
[Footnote 82: _Cf._ Crawley, _Mystic Rose_, p. 236 _sq._]
[Footnote 83: von Wlislocki, 'Menschenblut im Glauben der
Zigeuner,' in _Am Ur-Quell_, iii. 64. Dörfler, 'Das Blut im
magyarischen Volkglauben,' _ibid._ iii. 269 _sq._]
[Footnote 84: Forbes, _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern
Archipelago_, p. 452 (natives of Timor). Burns, 'Kayans of the
North-West of Borneo,' in _Jour. of the Indian Archipelago_, iii.
146 _sq._ New, _Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa_,
p. 364 (Taveta). Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_, p. 494
(Wakamba). Trumbull, _op. cit._ pp. 9, 20, 31, 42, 45-47, 53, 61
_sq._ For the practice of sealing an agreement by transference of
blood accompanied by an oath, see also Partridge, _Cross River
Natives_, p. 191 (pagans of Obubura Hill district in Southern
Nigeria).]
[Footnote 85: Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, 187 _sqq._]
[Footnote 86: Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage pittoresque autour du
monde_, i. 81.]
[Footnote 87: Hinde, _Last of the Masai_, p. 47. See also
Johnston, _Uganda_, ii. 833.]
[Footnote 88: Hinde, _op. cit._ p. 48.]
[Footnote 89: Robertson Smith, _Marriage and Kinship in Early
Arabia_, p. 56 _sqq._ _Cf._ Herodotus, iii. 8.]
[Footnote 90: See _supra_, i. 587. According to another theory
the inoculated blood is regarded as a pledge or deposit, which
compels the person from whom it was drawn to be faithful to the
person to whom it was transferred. Suppose that two individuals,
A and B, become "blood-brothers" by mutual inoculation. Each,
then, Mr. Crawley argues (_Mystic Rose_, p. 236 _sq._), has a
part of the other in his keeping, each has "given himself away"
to the other in a very real sense; and the possibility of mutual
treachery or wrong is prevented both by the fact that injury done
to B by A is considered equivalent to injury done by A to
himself, and also by the belief that if B is wronged he may work
vengeance by injuring the part of A which he possesses. To this
explanation, however, serious objections may be raised. The
belief in sympathetic magic does not imply that injury done to B
by A is _eo ipso_ supposed to affect A himself through that part
of him which has been deposited in B; it does not imply that two
things which have once been conjoined remain, when quite
dissevered from each other, in such a relation that "whatever is
done to the one must similarly affect the other" (Frazer, _Golden
Bough_, i. 49), unless there is an intention to this effect in
the agent. The severed part then serves as a medium by which
magic influence is transferred to the whole. Again, it is
difficult to see how B could injure A through the part of him
which he possesses when that part has been absorbed into his own
system, as must be the case with those few drops of A's blood
with which he was inoculated.]
Besides marriage, local proximity, and a common descent, a common
worship may tie people together into {210} social union. But
among savages a religious community generally coincides with a
community of some other kind. There are tutelary gods of
families, clans, and tribes;[91] and a purely local group may
also form a religious community by itself. Major Ellis observes
that with some two or three exceptions all the gods worshipped by
the Tshi-speaking tribes on the Gold Coast are exclusively local
and have a limited area of worship. If they are nature-gods they
are bound up with the natural objects they animate, if they are
ghost-gods they are localised by the place of sepulture, and if
they are tutelary deities whose origin has been forgotten their
position is necessarily fixed by that of the town, village, or
family they protect; in any case they are worshipped only by
those who live in the neighbourhood, the only exceptions being
the sky-god, the earthquake-god, and the goddess of the
silkcotton trees, who are worshipped everywhere.[92]
[Footnote 91: See _infra_, ch. l.]
[Footnote 92: Ellis, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave
Coast_, p. 284 _sq._ For various instances of village gods see
Turner, _Samoa_, p. 18; Crozet, _Voyage to Tasmania, &c._ p. 45
(Maoris); Christian, _Caroline Islands_, p. 75 (natives of
Ponape); Grierson, _Bih[=a]r Peasant Life_, p. 403 _sqq._]
When the religious community is thus at the same time a family,
clan, village, or tribe, it is of course impossible exactly to
distinguish the social influence of the common religion from that
exercised by marriage, local proximity, or a common descent. It
seems, however, that the importance of the religious bond, or at
least of the totem bond, has been somewhat exaggerated by a
certain school of anthropologists. We are told that in early
society "each member of the kin testifies and renews his union
with the rest" by taking part in a sacrificial meal in which the
totem god is eaten by his worshippers.[93] But no satisfactory
evidence has ever been given in support of this theory. Sir J. G.
Frazer knows only one certain case of a totem sacrament, namely,
that prevalent among the Arunta and some other tribes in Central
Australia,[94] who at the time of Intichiuma are in the habit of
killing and eating totem animals; and this practice has nothing
whatever {211} to do with the mutual relations between kindred.
Its object is only to multiply in a magic manner the animals of
certain species for the purpose of increasing the food-supply for
other totemic groups.[95] In his book on Totemism Frazer
writes:--"The totem bond is stronger than the bond of blood or
family in the modern sense. This is expressly stated of the clans
of western Australia and of north-western America, and is
probably true of all societies where totemism exists in full
force. Hence in totem tribes every local group, being necessarily
composed (owing to exogamy) of members of at least two totem
clans, is liable to be dissolved at any moment into its totem
elements by the outbreak of a blood feud, in which husband and
wife must always (if the feud is between their clans) be arrayed
on opposite sides, and in which the children will be arrayed
against either their father or their mother, according as descent
is traced through the mother, or through the father."[96] In the
two or three cases which Frazer quotes in support of his
statement[97] the totemic group is identical with the clan; hence
it is impossible to decide whether the strength of the tie which
unites its members is due to the totem relationship or to the
common descent. But even the combined clan and totem systems seem
at most only in exceptional cases to lead to such consequences as
are indicated by Frazer's authorities. With reference to the
Australian aborigines Mr. Curr observes:--"Of the children of one
father being at war with him, or with each other, on the ground
of maternal relationship, or any other ground, my inquiries and
experience supply no instances. To Captain Grey's statements,
indeed, there are several objections."[98]
[Footnote 93: Hartland, _op. cit._ ii. 236.]
[Footnote 94: Frazer, _Golden Bough_, i. p. xix. _Cf._ _Idem_,
_Totemism and Exogamy_, iv. 230 _sqq._]
[Footnote 95: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_, ch. vi. _Iidem_, _Northern Tribes of Central
Australia_, ch. ix. _sq._]
[Footnote 96: Frazer, _Totemism_, p. 57.]
[Footnote 97: Grey, _Journals of Expeditions in North-West and
Western Australia_, ii. 230. Petroff, _Report on Alaska_, p. 165.
Hardisty, 'Loucheux Indians,' in _Smithsonian Report_, 1866, p. 315.]
[Footnote 98: Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 67. In Hardisty's
statement, referring to the Loucheux Indians, there is a
conspicuous lack of definiteness. He says:--"In war it was not
tribe against tribe, but division against division, and as the
children were never of the same caste (clan) as the father, the
children would, of course, be against the father and the father
against the children. . . . This, however, was not likely to
occur very often, as the worst of parents would have naturally
preferred peace to war with his own children." Petroff's passage
concerning the Thlinkets, referred to by Sir J. G. Frazer, simply
runs:--"The ties of the totem or clanship are considered far
stronger than those of blood relationship."]
{212} Among the Arunta and some other Central Australian tribes
we have fortunately an opportunity of studying the social
influence of totemism apart from that of clanship, the division
into totems being quite independent of the clan system. The whole
district of a tribe may be mapped out into a large number of
areas of various sizes, each of which centres in one or more
spots where, in the dim past, certain mythical ancestors are said
to have originated or camped during their wanderings, and where
their spirits are still supposed to remain, associated with
sacred stones, which the ancestors used to carry about with them.
From these spirits have sprung, and still continue to spring,
actual men and women, the members of the various totems being
their reincarnations. At the spots where they remained, the
ancestral spirits enter the bodies of women, and in consequence a
child must belong to the totem of the spot at which the mother
believes that it was conceived. A result of this is that no one
totem is confined to the members of a particular clan or
sub-clan,[99] and that though most members of a given horde or
local group belong to the same totemic group, there is no
absolute coincidence between these two kinds of organisation.[100]
How, then, does the fact that two persons belong to the same
totem influence their social relationships? "In these tribes,"
say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "there is no such thing as the
members of one totem being bound together in such a way that they
must combine to fight on behalf of a member of the totem to which
they belong. . . . The men to assist a particular man in a
quarrel are those of his locality, and not of necessity those of
the same totem as himself, indeed the latter consideration does
not enter into account and in this as in other matters we see the
strong {213} development of what we have called the 'local
influence.' . . . The men who assist him are his brothers, blood
and tribal, the sons of his mother's brothers, blood and tribal.
That is, if he be a Panunga man he will have the assistance of
the Panunga and Ungalla men of his locality, while if it comes to
a general fight he will have the help of the whole of his local
group. . . . It is only indeed during the performance of certain
ceremonies that the existence of a mutual relationship,
consequent upon the possession of a common totemic name, stands
out at all prominently. In fact, it is perfectly easy to spend a
considerable time amongst the Arunta tribe without even being
aware that each individual has a totemic name."[101]
[Footnote 99: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_, ch. iv.]
[Footnote 100: _Ibid._ pp. 9, 32, 34.]
[Footnote 101: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_, pp. 34, 544.]
When from the savage and barbarous races of men we pass to
peoples of a higher culture, as they first appear to us in the
light of history, we meet among them social units similar in kind
to those prevalent at lower stages of civilisation: the family,
clan, village, tribe. We also find among them, side by side with
the family consisting of parents and children, a larger family
organisation, which, though not unknown among the lower races,
assumes particular prominence in the archaic State.
In China the family generally remains undivided till the children
of the younger sons are beginning to grow up. Then the younger
branches of the family separate, and form their own households.
But the new householders continue to take part in the ancestral
worship of the old home; and mourning is worn in theory for four
generations of ascendants and descendants in the direct line, and
for contemporaries descended in the same fifth generation from
the "honoured head" of the family.[102] At the same time we find
in China at least traces of a clan organisation. Large bodies of
persons bear the same surname, and a penalty is inflicted on
anyone who marries a person with the same surname as his own,
whilst a man is strictly forbidden to nominate as his heir {214}
an individual of a different surname.[103] Moreover, there are
whole villages composed of relatives all bearing the same
ancestral name. "In many cases," says Mr. Doolittle, "for a long
period of time no division of inherited property is made in rural
districts, the descendants of a common ancestor living or working
together, enjoying and sharing the profits of their labours under
the general direction and supervision of the head of the clan and
the heads of the family branches. . . . There may be only one
head of the clan. Under him there are several heads of
families."[104]
[Footnote 102: Simcox, _Primitive Civilizations_, ii. 303, 493, 69.]
[Footnote 103: Medhurst, 'Marriage, Affinity, and Inheritance in
China,' in _Trans. Roy. Asiatic Soc. China Branch_, iv. 21, 22, 29.]
[Footnote 104: Doolittle, _Social Life of the Chinese_, ii. 225
_sqq._]
The "four generations" of the Chinese, comprising those who are
regarded as near relatives, have their counterpart in the family
organisation of most so-called Aryan peoples. The Roman
Propinqui--that is, parents and children, brothers and sisters,
uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, first cousins
(_consobrini_) and second cousins (_sobrini_)--exactly
corresponded to the Anchisteis of the Greeks, the Sapindas of the
Hindus,[105] and the "Syngeneis" of the Persians.[106] The
persons belonging to these four generations stood in a
particularly close relationship to each other. They had mutual
rights and duties of various kinds. In early times, if one of
them was killed, the survivors had to avenge his death. They were
expected to assist each other whenever it was needed, especially
before the court. They celebrated in common feasts of rejoicing
and feasts for the dead. They had a common cult and common
mourning. In short, they formed an enlarged family unit of which
the individual families were merely sub-branches, even though
{215} they did not necessarily live in the same house.[107] In
India we still meet with a perishable survival of this
organisation. "In the Joint Family of the Hindus," says Sir Henry
Maine, ". . . . the agnatic group of the Romans absolutely
survives--or rather, but for the English law and English courts,
it would survive. Here there is a real, thoroughly ascertained
common ancestor, a genuine consanguinity, a common fund of
property, a common dwelling."[108] The Gwentian, Dimetian, and
Venedotian codes likewise represent the homestead and land of the
free Welshman as a family holding. "So long as the head of the
family lived," says Mr. Seebohm, "all his descendants lived with
him, apparently in the same homestead, unless new ones had
already been built for them on the family land. In any case, they
still formed part of the joint household of which he was the
head. When a free tribesman, the head of a household, died, his
holding was not broken up. It was held by his heirs for three
generations as one joint holding."[109] So also among the
subdivisions of ancient Irish society there was one which
comprised the "near relatives," the Propinqui of the Romans.[110]
Many of the South Slavonians to this day live in house
communities each consisting of a body of from ten to sixty
members or even more, who are blood-relations to the second or
third degree on the male side, and who associate in a common
dwelling or group of dwellings, having their land in common,
following a common occupation, and being governed by a common
chief.[111] Among the Russians, {216} too, there are households
of this kind, containing the representatives of three
generations; and previous to the emancipation of the serfs in
1861 such households were much more common than they are
now.[112] The ancient Teutons are the only "Aryan" race among
whom the joint family organisation cannot be proved to have
prevailed.[113]
[Footnote 105: _Baudhâyana_, i. 5. 11. 9:--"The great-grandfather,
the grandfather, the father, oneself, the uterine brothers, the
son by a wife of equal caste, the grandson, and the
great-grandson--these they call Sapindas, but not the
great-grandson's son." _Laws of Manu_, ix. 186:--"To three
ancestors water must be offered, to three the funeral cake is
given, the fourth descendant is the giver of these oblations, the
fifth has no connection with them." _Cf._ Jolly, 'Recht und
Sitte,' in Bühler, _Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie_,
ii. 85.]
[Footnote 106: Brissonius, _De regio Persarum principatu_, i.
207, p. 279. Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Civile_, i. 47 _sqq._]
[Footnote 107: Klenze, 'Die Cognaten und Affinen nach Römischem
Rechte in Vergleichung mit andern verwandten Rechten,' in
_Zeitschr. f. geschichtliche Rechtswiss._ vi. 5 _sqq._ Leist,
_Alt-arisches Jus Civile_, i. 231 _sqq._ Rivier, _Précis du droit
de famille romain_, p. 34 _sqq._]
[Footnote 108: Maine, _Dissertations on Early Law and Custom_,
p. 240.]
[Footnote 109: Seebohm, _English Village Community_, p. 193.
_Idem_, _Tribal System in Wales_, p. 89 _sqq._]
[Footnote 110: Maine, _Early History of Institutions_, p. 90
_sq._ Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Civile_, i. Anhang i.]
[Footnote 111: Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_, pp. 75,
79 _sqq._ Maine, _Dissertations on Early Law and Custom_, p. 241
_sqq._ Utie[vs]enovi['c], _Die Hauskommunionen der Südslaven_, p. 20
_sqq._ Miler, 'Die Hauskommunion der Südslaven,' in _Jahrbuch d.
internat. Vereinigung f. vergl. Rechtswiss._ iii. 199 _sqq._]
[Footnote 112: Mackenzie Wallace, _Russia_, i. 134. von Hellwald,
_Die menschliche Familie_, p. 506 _sq._ Kovalewsky, _Modern
Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia_, p. 53 _sq._]
[Footnote 113: See Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Civile_, i. Anhang i.]
Among all these peoples a number of kindred families or joint
families were united into a larger social group forming a village
community or a cluster of households. The Vedic people called
such a body of kindred _janman[=a]_ or simply _gr[=a]ma_, which
means "village";[114] and the same organisation still survives in
India, though in a modified form. The type of Indian village
communities which has been described by Sir Henry Maine is at
once an assemblage of co-proprietors and an organised patriarchal
society, providing for the management of the common fund and
generally also for internal government, police, the
administration of justice, and the apportionment of taxes and
public duties. Unlike the joint family, the related families of
the village community no longer hold their land as an
indistinguishable common fund: they have portioned it out, at
most they redistribute it periodically, and are thus on the high
road to modern landed proprietorship. And whilst the joint family
is a narrow circle of persons actually related to each other, the
village community has very generally been adulterated by the
admission of strangers, especially purchasers of shares, who have
from time to time been engrafted on the original stock of
blood-relatives. Yet in all such cases there is the assumption of
an original common parentage; hence the Hindu village community
of the type indicated, whenever it is not actually an association
of kinsmen, is always a body of co-proprietors formed on the
model of such an association.[115]
[Footnote 114: Zimmer, _Altindisches Leben_, p. 159 _sq._]
[Footnote 115: Maine, _Ancient Law_, p. 260 _sqq._ _Idem_,
_Dissertations on Early Law and Custom_, p. 240. Elphinstone,
_History of India_, p. 68 _sqq._ Mr. Baden-Powell (_Indian
Village Community_, p. 3 _sqq._) has shown that Sir Henry Maine's
general description of Indian village communities holds true only
of a certain class of villages in India.]
{217} Corresponding to the Vedic _gr[=a]ma_ there were the
Iranian _viç_, the Greek _genos_, and the Roman _gens_; and as
among the Vedic people several _gr[=a]mas_ formed a _viç_ and
several _viçs_ a _jana_,[116] so the Iranian _viç_, the Greek
_genos_, and the Roman _gens_ were, respectively, subdivisions of
a _zantu_, _phratria_, and _curia_; and these again were
subdivisions of a still more comprehensive unit, a _daqyu_,
_phyle_, and _tribus_.[117] The Roman territory was in earliest
times divided into a number of clan-districts, each inhabited by
a particular _gens_, which was thus a group associated at once by
locality and by a common descent. Whilst each household had its
own portion of land, the clan-household or village had a
clan-land belonging to it, and this clan-land was managed up to a
comparatively late period after the analogy of household-land,
that is, on the system of joint-possession, each clan tilling its
own land and thereafter distributing the produce among the
several households belonging to it. Even the traditions of Roman
law furnish the information that wealth consisted at first in
cattle and the usufruct of the soil, and that it was not till
later that land came to be distributed among the burgesses as
their own special property.[118] Still in historical times, if a
person left no sons or agnates living at his death, the
inheritance escheated to the _gentiles_, or entire body of Roman
citizens bearing the same name with the deceased, whereas no part
of it was given to any relative united, however closely, with the
dead man through female descent.[119] But as the Hindu village
community, so also the Roman _gens_, though originally a group of
blood-relatives inhabiting a common district, was already in
early times recruited from men of alien extraction who were
assumed to be descended from a common ancestor. And it is
difficult to believe {218} that either in Rome or Greece even the
fiction of a common origin could be preserved for long when the
organisation of the people into gentes, phratries, and tribes was
adopted by the State as a system of political division and their
numbers were fixed.[120] When the _genos_ and _gens_ first appear
to us in history they were mere dwindling survivals, except in
one respect: they remained, as they had been from the
outset,[121] religious communities long after they had lost all
other practical importance. This was especially the case at
Athens, where certain reputed gentes for centuries continued to
play a prominent part in the religious cult;[122] and the Romans
seem to have preserved their _gentilicia sacra_ still in Cicero's
time.[123]
[Footnote 116: Zimmer, _op. cit._ p. 159 _sq._]
[Footnote 117: Leist, _Græco-italische Rechtsgeschichte_, p. 104
_sq._]
[Footnote 118: Mommsen, _History of Rome_, i. 45, 46, 238.]
[Footnote 119: Maine, _Ancient Law_, p. 220 _sq._ Fustel de
Coulanges, _La Cité antique_, p. 126.]
[Footnote 120: Leist, _Græco-italische Rechtsgeschichte_, p. 150
_sqq._ It is expressly said that at Athens the members of the
same [Greek: ge/nos] were not necessarily regarded as
blood-relations (see Bunsen, _De jure hereditario Atheniensium_,
p. 104, n. 28).]
[Footnote 121: Schoemann, _Griechische Alterthümer_, ii. 548
_sqq._ Marquardt, _Römische Staatsverwaltung_, iii. 126, 130.
Fustel de Coulanges, _op. cit._ p. 124 _sqq._]
[Footnote 122: Leist, _Græco-italische Rechtsgeschichte_, p. 159
_sq._]
[Footnote 123: Cicero, _Pro domo_, 13 (34).]
In ancient Wales districts were occupied by tribes under their
petty kings or chiefs, and the tribe (_cenedl_) was a bundle of
kindreds "bound together and interlocked by common interests and
frequent intermarriages, as well as by the necessity of mutual
protection against foreign foes."[124] A group of households,
again, corresponding to the Roman _gens_ formed a _trev_, which
was a cluster of scattered households, "not necessarily a village
in the modern sense."[125] The same seems to have been the case
with the Teutonic _vici_, spoken of by Tacitus;[126] but that
among the Teutons, also, the people of the same neighbourhood
were blood-relatives may be directly inferred from a statement
made by Cæsar.[127] They were not much addicted to
agriculture,[128] and "the dreary world" they inhabited, with its
desert aspect, its harsh climate, its lack of cultivation, was
not {219} favourable to the formation of permanent large social
bodies of great cohesiveness. However, we meet among them social
units which Cæsar calls _regiones_ or _pagi_[129] of which the
_vici_ may be assumed to have been subdivisions. Among the highly
agricultural Slavonians, on the other hand, we find even in the
present time a social organisation very similar to that of the
Hindus. The South Slavonians, as we have seen, live in house
communities corresponding to the joint families in India. Now,
when the members of a house community, or _zadruga_--as it is
often called--become too numerous, a separation takes place, and
the emigrants form new households by themselves. A _zadruga_ is
thus gradually expanded into a _bratstvo_, or brotherhood--a
group of related house communities which not only feel themselves
as branches of the same stock, but still have certain practical
interests in common and a common chief. Several _bratstva_,
finally, form a _pleme_, or tribe.[130] Among the Russians,
again, the family, or joint family, has developed into a _mir_,
or village community, composed of an assemblage of separate
houses each ruled by its own head, but with a common village
chief elected by the heads of the various households. The Russian
_mir_ is an institution very similar to the Hindu village
community described above. The land belongs to the community, and
in earlier days it was probably cultivated in common. At present
it is divided between the component families, the lots shifting
among them periodically, or perhaps vesting in them as their
property, but always subject to a power in the collective body of
villagers to veto its sale. Originally the _mir_ was also a group
of kindred; but, as in the Hindu village community, the tie of
blood has been greatly weakened by all sorts of fictions and the
admission of so many strangers that the tradition of a common
origin is dim or lost.[131]
[Footnote 124: Seebohm, _English Village Community_, p. 190.
_Idem_, _Tribal System in Wales_, p. 61.]
[Footnote 125: _Idem_, _English Village Community_, p. 343.]
[Footnote 126: Tacitus, _Germania_, 16. _Cf._ Hildebrand, _op.
cit._ p. 105 _sqq._]
[Footnote 127: Cæsar, _De bello Gallico_, vi. 22:--"Magistratus
ac princeps in annos singulos gentibus cognationibusque hominum,
qui una coierint, quantum, et quo loco visum est, agri attribuunt."]
[Footnote 128: _Ibid._ vi. 22.]
[Footnote 129: Cæsar, _De bello Gallico_, vi. 23.]
[Footnote 130: Krauss, _op. cit._ pp. 2, 32 _sqq._ von Hellwald,
_op. cit._ p. 502 _sq._ Grosse, _op. cit._ p. 204 _sq._]
[Footnote 131: de Laveleye, _De la propriété_, p. 12 _sqq._
Maine, _Dissertations on Early Law and Custom_, p. 261 _sq._]
In the social organisation of all these peoples there is {220}
thus originally a general congruity between the principle of
local proximity and the principle of descent. On the one hand,
all freemen, all true members of the society, who belong to the
same local group, are at the same time kinsmen; on the other
hand, all persons who are united by the tie of a common descent
belong to the same or neighbouring local groups. The cause of
this congruity is the universal prevalence of the paternal system
of descent. Whether the case was different in prehistoric times
is an open question. That the ancient Chinese reckoned kinship
through the mother, not through the father, has been conjectured
on philological grounds,[132] as to the plausibility of which I
can express no opinion. Several writers have also endeavoured to
prove that the uterine line of descent prevailed among the
primitive Aryans, but the evidence is far from being conclusive.
I agree with Professor Leist that all so-called survivals of a
system of maternal descent in the prehistoric antiquity of the
"Aryan" races are doubtful, if not false.[133] As regards the
Teutons, much importance has been attributed to the specially
close connection which, according to Tacitus, existed between a
sister's children and their mother's brothers;[134] but, as
Professor Schrader remarks, in spite of the prominent position of
the maternal uncle among Teutonic peoples, the _patruus_
distinctly came before the _avunculus_, the agnates before the
cognates, in testamentary succession.[135] The existence of a
custom which in some respect recognises uterine relationship does
not prove the earlier prevalence of the full maternal system of
descent, to the exclusion of the paternal.
[Footnote 132: Puini, quoted by Grosse, _op. cit._ p. 193.]
[Footnote 133: Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_, p. 58. _Idem_,
_Alt-arisches Jus Civile_, i. 490.]
[Footnote 134: Tacitus, _Germania_, 20.]
[Footnote 135: Schrader, _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan
Peoples_, p. 395.]
Progress in civilisation is up to a certain point connected with
social expansion. Among savages the largest permanent social unit
is generally the tribe, and even the tribal bond is often very
loose, if not entirely wanting. It is true that associations of
tribes occur even among so {221} low a race as the Australian
aborigines, but unaccompanied by any kind of political
organisation.[136] At a somewhat higher stage we meet with the
famous league of the Iroquois--a federation on republican
principles of five distinct tribes, which could point to three
centuries of uninterrupted domestic unity and peace[137]--and the
kingdoms of various African potentates. Civilisation only thrives
in states. From small beginnings round the lake of Mexico the
Aztecs gradually succeeded, through conquest, in forming an
empire which covered probably almost sixteen thousand square
leagues. However, between the various tribes lay broad belts of
uninhabited territory, which enabled them to keep up a shy and
exclusive attitude towards each other; and at the time of the
Spanish conquest the empire of Mexico was, in fact, little more
than "a chain of intimidated Indian tribes, who, kept apart from
each other under the influence of mutual timidity, were held down
by dread of attacks from an unassailable robber-stronghold in
their midst."[138] In South America, in a long course of ages,
six nations inhabited the region which extends from the
water-parting between the basins of the Huallaga and Ucayali to
that between the basins of the Ucayali and Lake Titicaca. When
increasing population brought them in contact with each other, a
struggle for supremacy ended in the mastery of the fittest--the
Incas; and the empire of the latter was subsequently extended by
the subjugation of a variety of other nations or tribes.[139] The
extent of territory claimed for ancient China by the earliest
records is more than double the size of modern France, and,
though it was often divided into different states, the great
dynasties ruled over the whole of it.[140] The two crowns of
Upper and Lower Egypt were united at a {222} very early date; and
no less imposing was the great kingdom of Babylon and Assur. We
may assume that all these empires were formed by an association,
either voluntary or forcible, of different tribes, as was the
case with those states with whose origin and early growth we are
somewhat better acquainted. As late as the time of the Judges the
tribes of Israel either stood each entirely alone or formed
smaller groups, and there was no such thing as an Israelitish
nation in a political sense until the unity of the people came
into being under Samuel and the first kings.[141] The Vedic
people consisted of a great number of independent tribes, between
which only temporary alliances were made for the sake of defence
or attack. But gradually the alliances grew more permanent;
war-kings united several tribes, surrounded themselves with a
military nobility, and founded great kingdoms.[142] In Greece and
Italy the states grew out of forts which had been built on
elevated places to serve as common strongholds or places of
refuge in case of war. Several tribes united so as to be better
able to resist dangerous enemies, and one of the fortified towns
in time gained supremacy over all others in the neighbourhood, as
Athens did in Attica and Alba Longa in Latium. Similar districts,
ruled by a town, were called _poleis_ or _civitates_.[143] In
historical times attempts were made to carry this process further
by joining several of the small states under the rule of one. In
this Sparta and Athens failed, whereas the efforts of Rome met
with unequalled success.
[Footnote 136: Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 62 _sq._]
[Footnote 137: Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 141.]
[Footnote 138: Scheppig, 'Ancient Mexicans,' &c. p. 6, in
Spencer's _Descriptive Sociology_. Prescott, _History of the
Conquest of Mexico_, p. 4. Ratzel, _History of Mankind_,
ii. 199, 202.]
[Footnote 139: Markham, 'Geographical Positions of the Tribes
which formed the Empire of the Yncas,' in _Jour. Roy. Geo. Soc._
xli. 287 _sqq._]
[Footnote 140: Simcox, _op. cit._ ii. 10, 13.]
[Footnote 141: Kuenen, _Religion of Israel_, i. 133.]
[Footnote 142: Zimmer, _Altindisches Leben_, pp. 158, 192 _sq._]
[Footnote 143: Leist, _Græco-italische Rechtsgeschichte_, p. 109
_sqq._]
The development of the State tended to weaken or destroy the
smaller units of which it was composed. The central power,
hostile to separatism, naturally endeavoured to appropriate the
authority invested in the latter, and in a well-governed state
these on their part had little reason to resist. The main object
of the clan, phratry, and tribe was to protect their respective
members; hence they became superfluous in the presence of a
powerful national {223} government which unselfishly and
impartially looked after the interests of its various subjects.
Adam Smith contrasts the strong clan-feeling which still in the
eighteenth century prevailed among the Scotch Highlanders with
the little regard felt for remote relatives by the English, and
observes that in countries where the authority of the law is not
sufficiently strong to give security to every member of the State
the different branches of the same family choose to live in the
neighbourhood of one another, their association being frequently
necessary for their common defence; whereas in a country like
England, where the authority of the law was well established,
"the descendants of the same family, having no such motive for
keeping together, naturally separate and disperse, as interest or
inclination may direct."[144] It seems also probable that the
persistency of the village community or the gentile system among
the Hindus and Slavs has been largely due to the weakness of the
State or to the badness of the government.
[Footnote 144: Smith, _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, p. 326 _sq._]
As the larger units, so the family also was influenced by the
rise of the State, but originally in quite the opposite
direction. Whilst the former dwindled away, the family grew in
importance. Nowhere do we find the family-tie stronger, nowhere
does the father or eldest male ascendant possess greater power
than in the archaic State. In a previous chapter I have already
tried to explain this singular fact. I pointed out that in early
society there seems to be a certain antagonism between the family
and the clan, that the family was strengthened because the clan
was weakened, that the father became a patriarch only as the
inheritor of the authority which formerly belonged to the clan.
But we have also noticed that at a higher stage the family again
lost in importance.[145]
[Footnote 145: _Supra_, i. 627 _sq._]
It seems that the tribes which united into one nation or state
were normally, in the first instance, branches of the same stock,
living in the same neighbourhood and speaking {224} the same
language, though with dialectic differences. Like the smaller
units, such a state was no doubt frequently adulterated by the
amalgamation of aliens, but here again fictions were substituted
for realities, and the foreign extraction was forgotten. The case
was different, however, when the commonwealth was formed or
aggrandised by the subjugation of a strange race. Instead of
being adopted into the circle of the conquerors, the subdued
people were treated as their inferiors in blood, civic rights
were denied to them, and in many cases they were kept in
servitude; thus even here the principle of a common origin as the
base of citizenship was preserved, the conquerors being the only
citizens in the full sense of the term. But however strong and
durable similar barriers may be, they are not imperishable. The
different races inhabiting the same country under the same
government tend to draw nearer each other, the inferior race is
incorporated with the nation, and local proximity instead of
descent at last becomes the basis of community in political
functions. This change, however, was neither so radical nor so
startling as it has been represented to be;[146] fictions on a
large scale still formed a bridge between ancient and modern
ideas. Sir Henry Maine says that we cannot now hope to understand
the good faith of the fiction by which in early times the
incoming population were assumed to be descended from the same
stock as the people on whom they were engrafted.[147] But is this
good faith more astonishing than the readiness with which a
common language, in spite of the most obvious facts to the
contrary, is even now constantly taken as the sign of a common
origin? Though identity of language, even in the case of whole
peoples, proves nothing more than contact or neighbourhood, a
person's mother-tongue popularly decides his race, and language
and nationality are regarded almost as synonymous. Genealogical
fictions, then, are not merely a thing of the past, nor have they
ceased to influence political ideas. The modern theory of {225}
nationalism vindicates the right of the strongest nationality to
absorb the other nationalities living within the same state by a
method of compulsory engraftment, and this can be effected only
by their accepting its language. But this theory is not so much
concerned with language as such, as with language as an emblem of
nationality. At the bottom of it is the narrow feeling of racial
intolerance, quite ready however to be appeased by a fiction. The
doctrine of nationalism is the spectre of the same political
principle--the principle of a common descent, either real or
fictitious--on which states were founded and governed when
civilisation was in its cradle.
[Footnote 146: Maine, _Ancient Law_, p. 129.]
[Footnote 147: _Ibid._ p. 131.]
Like the smaller units, the archaic State was not only a
political but at the same time a religious community. Over and
above all separate cults there was one religion common to all its
citizens. In ancient Mexico and Peru it was the religion of the
dominant people, the worship of the god of war or of the sun; and
the sovereigns themselves were regarded as incarnations or
children of this god.[148] In other cases the state religion
arose by a fusion of different cults. The gods of the communities
which united into a state not only continued to receive the
worship of their old believers, but were elevated to the rank of
national deities, and formed together a heavenly commonwealth to
which the earthly commonwealth jointly paid its homage. In this
way, it seems, the Roman,[149] Egyptian,[150] Assyrian, and
Babylonian[151] pantheons were recruited; whilst the Greeks went
a step further and, already in prehistoric times, constructed a
Pan-Hellenic Olympus.[152] Sometimes also, as Professor Robertson
Smith points out, different gods were themselves fused into one,
as when the mass of the Israelites in their local worship of
Yahveh identified him with the Baalim of the Canaanite high
places, and carried {226} over into his worship the ritual of the
Canaanite shrines, not deeming that in so doing they were less
truly Yahveh-worshippers than before.[153]
[Footnote 148: Ratzel, _op. cit._ ii. 199 _sq._ Markham, _History
of Peru_, p. 23.]
[Footnote 149: _Cf._ von Jhering, _Geist des römischen Rechts_,
i. 269.]
[Footnote 150: Wiedemann, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_,
p. 148.]
[Footnote 151: Mürdter-Delitzsch, _Geschichte Babyloniens und
Assyriens_, p. 24. Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_,
p. 39.]
[Footnote 152: _Cf._ Rohde, _Psyche_, p. 36.]
[Footnote 153: Robertson Smith, _op. cit._ p. 38.]
Nobody will deny that the common religion added strength to the
State, but it seems that its national importance has often been
overrated. On the one hand, the political fusion between
different communities took place before the religious fusion and
was obviously the cause of it; on the other hand, the mere tie of
a common religion has never proved sufficient to bind together
neighbouring tribes or peoples so as to form one nation. The
Greek states had both the same religion and the same language,
but nevertheless remained distinct states. Professor Seeley's
assertion that "in the East to this day nationality and religion
are almost convertible terms,"[154] is very far from the truth.
Wallin, who had exceptional opportunities to study the feelings
of different Muhammedan nationalities, observes that "every
Oriental people has a certain national aversion to every other,
and even the inhabitants of one province to those of another. The
Turk does not readily tolerate the Arab, nor the Persian, and
these feel similarly towards the Turk; the Arab does not get on
well with the Persian, nor the Persian with the Arab; the Syrian
does not like the Egyptian, whom he calls inhuman, and the latter
does not willingly associate with the Syrian, whom he calls
simple-minded and stupid; and the son of the desert condemns
both."[155] It sometimes seems as if the national spirit of a
people rather influenced its religion than was influenced by it.
Patriotism has even succeeded in nationalising the greatest enemy
of nationalities, Christianity, and has well nigh revived the old
notion of a national god, whose chief business is to look after
his own people and, especially, to fight its battles.
[Footnote 154: Seeley, _Natural Religion_, p. 229.]
[Footnote 155: Wallin, _Anteckningar från Orienten_, iv. 181 _sq._]
It is obvious that the various aspects of social development
{227} which we have now considered have exercised much influence
upon the altruistic sentiment. The combination of local proximity
and political unity, the notion of a common descent, and the
fellowship of a common religion, tend to engender friendly
feelings between the members of each respective group. Hence,
when the political unit grew larger, when the idea of kinship
developed into that of racial affinity, and when the same
religion became common to all the citizens of the State, or, as
happened in several cases, extended beyond the limits of any
particular country or nation, the altruistic sentiment underwent
a corresponding expansion--unless, of course, it was checked by
some rival influence. The increasing coherence of the political
aggregate, again, added to the strength of this sentiment; and so
did the antagonism towards foreign communities and the natural
antipathy or hatred to their members. As people like that to
which they are used or which is their own, they dislike that
which is strange or unfamiliar. Among ourselves we notice this
particularly in children[156] and uneducated persons, whose anger
may be aroused by the sight of a black skin or an oriental dress
or the sounds of a strange language. Antipathies of this kind
have directly influenced the moral valuation of conduct towards
foreigners; but at the same time they have also strengthened the
feelings of mutual goodwill between tribesmen or compatriots. For
likes and dislikes are increased by the contrast; to hate a thing
makes us better love its opposite. So also the competition and
enmity which prevail between different communities tend within
each community to intensify its members' devotion to the common
goal and their friendly feelings towards one another.
[Footnote 156: Compayré, _op. cit._ p. 100:--"Tout ce qui est
inattendu, imprévu, est insupportable à l'enfant, et provoque
soit la peur, soit plus tard la colère. J'ai vu un de mes fils, à
quatre ans et demi, entrer dans de véritables rages, toutes les
fois que je lui parlais dans le patois de mon pays."]
But the altruistic sentiment has not necessarily reference only
to individuals belonging to the same social unit. {228}
Gregarious animals may be kindly disposed to any member of their
species which is not an object of their anger or their fear.
Savages have shown themselves capable of tender feelings towards
suffering and harmless strangers.[157] The sensibility of little
children sometimes goes beyond the circle of the family; Madame
Manacéine tells us of a girl two years old who, in the Zoological
Gardens at St. Petersburg, began to cry bitterly when she saw an
elephant walking over the keeper's body, although the other
spectators were quietly watching the trick.[158] In mankind
altruism has been narrowed by social isolation, by differences in
race, language, habits, and customs, by enmity and suspicion. But
increased intercourse has gradually led to conditions favourable
to its expansion. As Buckle remarks, ignorance is the most
powerful of all the causes of national hatred; "when you increase
the contact, you remove the ignorance, and thus you diminish the
hatred."[159] People of different nationalities feel that in
spite of all dissimilarities between them there is much that they
have in common; and frequent intercourse makes the differences
less marked, or obliterates many of them altogether. There can be
no doubt that this process will go on in the future. And equally
certain it is that similar causes will produce similar
effects--that altruism will continue to expand, and that the
notion of a human brotherhood will receive more support from the
actual feelings of mankind than it does at present.
[Footnote 157: See _supra_, i. 570-572, 581.]
[Footnote 158: Manacéine, _Le surmenage mental dans la
civilisation moderne_, p. 248. See also Compayré, _op. cit._
p. 323.]
[Footnote 159: Buckle, _History of Civilization in England_,
i. 222.]
CHAPTER XXXV
SUICIDE
IN previous chapters we have discussed the moral valuation of
acts, forbearances, and omissions, which directly concern the
interests of other men; we shall now proceed to consider moral
ideas regarding such modes of conduct as chiefly concern a man's
own welfare. Among these we notice, in the first place, acts
affecting his existence.
Suicide, or intentional self-destruction, has often been
represented as a fruit of a higher civilisation; Dr. Steinmetz,
on the other hand, in his essay on 'Suicide among Primitive
Peoples,' thinks it probable that "there is a greater propensity
to suicide among savage than among civilised peoples."[1] The
former view is obviously erroneous; the latter probably holds
good of certain savages as compared with certain peoples of
culture, but cannot claim general validity.
[Footnote 1: Steinmetz, 'Suicide among Primitive Peoples,' in
_American Anthropologist_, vii. 60.]
Among several uncivilised races suicide is said to be unknown.[2]
To these belong some of the lower savages--the Yahgans of Tierra
del Fuego,[3] the Andaman Islanders,[4] {230} and various
Australian tribes;[5] whilst as regards most other tribes at
about the same stage of culture information seems to be wanting.
Of the natives in Western and Central Australia Sir G. Grey
writes, "Whenever I have interrogated them on this point, they
have invariably laughed at me, and treated my question as a
joke."[6] When a Caroline Islander was told of suicides committed
by Europeans, he thought that he had not grasped what was said to
him, as he never in his life had heard of anything so
ridiculous.[7] The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, though they have no
intense fear of death, cannot understand suicide; "the idea of a
man killing himself strikes them as inexplicable."[8]
[Footnote 2: Paulitschke, _Ethnographie Nord-ost-Afrikas_, p. 205
(Danakil and Galla). Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, p. 532
(Barea and Kunáma). New, _Life, Wanderings, and Labours in
Eastern Africa_, p. 99 (Wanika). Felkin, 'Notes on the For Tribe
of Central Africa,' in _Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh_, xiii. 231.
Lumholtz (_Unknown Mexico_, i. 243) thinks it is doubtful whether
a pagan Tarahumare ever killed himself.]
[Footnote 3: Bridge, in _South American Missionary Magazine_,
xiii. 211.]
[Footnote 4: Man, _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xii. 111.]
[Footnote 5: Grey, _Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and
Western Australia_, ii. 248. Curr, _Recollections of Squatting in
Victoria_, p. 277 (Bangerang). Among the tribes of Western
Victoria described by Mr. Dawson (_Australian Aborigines_, p. 62)
suicide is not unknown, though it is uncommon; "if a native
wishes to die, and cannot get any one to kill him, he will
sometimes put himself in the way of a venomous snake, that he may
be bitten by it."]
[Footnote 6: Grey, _op. cit._ ii. 248.]
[Footnote 7: von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South
Sea_, iii. 195.]
[Footnote 8: Scott Robertson, _Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush_, p. 381.]
Among many savages and barbarians suicide is stated to be very
rare,[9] or to occur only occasionally;[10] whereas {231} among
others it is represented as either common or extremely
prevalent.[11] Of the Kamchadales we are told that the least
apprehension of danger drives them to despair, and that they fly
to suicide as a relief, not only from present, but even from
imaginary evil; "not only those who are confined for some
offence, but such as are discontented with their lot, prefer a
voluntary death to an uneasy life, and the pains of disease."[12]
Among the Hos, an Indian hill tribe, suicide is reported to be so
frightfully prevalent as to afford no parallel in any known
country:--"If a girl appears mortified by anything that has been
said, it is not safe to let her go away till she is soothed. A
reflection on a man's honesty or veracity may be sufficient to
send him to self-destruction. In a recent case, a young woman
attempted to poison herself because her uncle would not partake
of the food she had cooked for him."[13] Among the Karens of
Burma suicide is likewise very common where Christianity has not
been introduced. If a man has some incurable or painful disease,
he says in a matter-of-fact way that he will hang himself, and he
does as he says; if a girl's parents compel her to marry the man
she does not love, she hangs herself; wives sometimes hang
themselves through jealousy, sometimes because they quarrel with
their husbands, and sometimes out of mere {232} chagrin, because
they are subject to depreciating comparisons; and it is a
favourite threat with a wife or daughter, when not allowed to
have her own way, that she will hang herself.[14] Among some
uncivilised peoples suicide is frequently practised by women,
though rarely by men.[15]
[Footnote 9: Nansen, _Eskimo Life_, p. 267 (Greenlanders).
Murdoch, 'Ethnol. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in
_Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ix. 41 (Point Barrow Eskimo), von Siebold,
_Die Aino auf der Insel Yesso_, p. 35. von Stenin, 'Die Kirgisen
des Kreises Saissansk im Gebiete von Ssemipalatinsk,' in
_Globus_, lxix. 230. Beltrame, _Il Fiume Bianco_, p. 51 (Arabs).
Felkin, 'Waganda Tribe of Central Africa,' in _Proceed. Roy. Soc.
Edinburgh_, xiii. 723. Schwarz, quoted by Steinmetz,
_Rechtsverhältnisse_, p. 24 (Bakwiri). _Ibid._ p. 52 (Banaka and
Bapuku). Wandrer, _ibid._ p. 325 (Hottentots). Fritsch, _Die
Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika's_, p. 221 (Bantu race). Sorge, in
Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse_, p. 421 (Nissan Islanders in the
Bismarck Archipelago). Kubary, 'Die Verbrechen und das
Strafverfahren auf den Pelau-Inseln,' in _Original-Mittheilungen
aus der ethnol. Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu Berlin_, i. 78
(Pelew Islanders). Among the Malays suicide is reported to be
extremely rare (Brooke, _Ten Years in Saráwak_, i. 56; Ellis,
'The Amok of the Malays,' in _Journal of Mental Science_, xxxix.
331); but Dr. Gilmore Ellis has been told by many Malays that
they consider Amok a kind of suicide. If a man wishes to die, he
"amoks" in the hope of being killed, rather than kills himself,
suicide being a most heinous sin according to the ethics of
Muhammedanism (_ibid._ p. 331). In Siam suicide is rare (Bowring,
_Siam_, i. 106). Of the Western Islanders of Torres Straits Dr.
Haddon says (in _Reports of the Cambridge Anthrop. Expedition to
Torres Straits_, v. 278) that he does not remember to have heard
of a case of suicide in real life, though there are some
instances of it in their folk-tales.]
[Footnote 10: Comte, quoted by Mouhot, _Travels in the Central
Parts of Indo-China_, ii. 27 _sq._ (Bannavs in Cambodia). Kloss,
_In the Andamans and Nicobars_, p. 316 (Nicobarese). Among the
Bakongo cases of suicide occur, "although much less frequently
than in civilised countries" (Ward, _Five Years with the Congo
Cannibals_, p. 45).]
[Footnote 11: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, _Report on Alaska_,
p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Steller, _Beschreibung von Kamtschatka_,
p. 293 _sq._, Krasheninnikoff, _History of Kamschatka_, pp. 176,
200. Georgi, _Russia_, iii. 133 _sq._ (Kamchadales), 184
(Chukchi), 205 (Aleuts). Brooke, _op. cit._ i. 55 (Sea Dyaks).
Williams and Calvert, _Fiji_, p. 106. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 305;
Tregear, 'Niue,' in _Jour. Polynesian Soc._ ii. 14; Thomson,
_Savage Island_, p. 109; Hood, _Cruise in the Western Pacific_,
p. 22 (Savage Islanders). Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_,
ii. 111 _sq._; Collins, _English Colony in New South Wales_, i.
524 (Maoris). Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 553 _sq._; _Idem_,
quoted by Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 117, n. 33 (West African
Negroes). Monrad, _Skildring af Guinea-Kysten_, p. 23. Decle,
_Three Years in Savage Africa_, p. 74 (Barotse). In Tana, of the
New Hebrides (Gray, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxviii. 132) and Nias
(Rosenberg, _Der malayische Archipel_, p. 146) suicides are said
to be not infrequent.]
[Footnote 12: Georgi, _op. cit._ iii. 133 _sq._ _Cf._
Krasheninnikoff, _op. cit._ p. 176.]
[Footnote 13: Tickell, 'Memoir on the Hodésum,' in _Jour. Asiatic
Soc. Bengal_, ix. 807. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_,
p. 206.]
[Footnote 14: Mason, 'Dwellings, &c., of the Karens,' in _Jour.
Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141.]
[Footnote 15: Keating, _Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's
River_, i. 394 (Dacotahs); ii. 171 _sq._ (Chippewas). Bradbury,
_Travels in the Interior of America_, p. 87 (Dacotahs). Brooke
Low, quoted by Ling Roth, _Natives of Sarawak_, i. 117 (Sea
Dyaks). Munzinger, _Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos_, p. 93.]
The causes which, among savages, lead to suicide are
manifold:--disappointed love or jealousy;[16] illness[17] or old
age;[18] grief over the death of a child,[19] a husband,[20] or a
{233} wife;[21] fear of punishment;[22] slavery[23] or brutal
treatment by a husband;[24] remorse,[25] shame or wounded pride,
anger or revenge.[26] In various cases an offended person kills
himself for the express purpose of taking revenge upon the
offender.[27] Thus among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold
Coast, "should a person commit suicide, and before so doing
attribute the act to the conduct of another person, that other
person is required by native law to undergo a like fate. The
practice is termed killing oneself upon the head of another, and
the person whose conduct is supposed to have driven the suicide
to commit the rash act is visited with a death of an exactly
similar nature"--unless, indeed, the family of the suicide be
pacified with a money compensation.[28] With reference to the
Savage Islanders, who especially in heathen {234} times were much
addicted to suicide, we are told that, "like angry children, they
are tempted to avenge themselves by picturing the trouble that
they will bring upon the friends who have offended them."[29]
Among the Thlinkets an offended person who is unable to take
revenge in any other way commits suicide in order to expose the
person who gave the offence to the vengeance of his surviving
relatives and friends.[30] Among the Chuvashes it was formerly
the custom for enraged persons to hang themselves at the doors of
their enemies.[31] A similar method of taking revenge is still
not infrequently resorted to by the Votyaks, who believe that the
ghost of the deceased will then persecute the offender.[32]
Sometimes a suicide has the character of a human sacrifice.[33]
In the times of epidemics or great calamities the Chukchi
sacrifice their own lives in order to appease evil spirits and
the souls of departed relatives.[34] Among some savages it is
common for a woman, especially if married to a man of importance,
to commit suicide on the death of her husband,[35] or to demand
to be buried with him;[36] and many Brazilian Indians killed
themselves on the graves of their chiefs.[37]
[Footnote 16: Lasch, 'Der Selbstmord aus erotischen Motiven bei
den primitiven Völkern,' in _Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft_,
ii. 579 _sqq._ Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 503.
Keating, _op. cit._ ii. 172 (Chippewas). Eastman, _Dacotah_,
pp. 89 _sqq._, 168 _sq._; Dodge, _Our Wild Indians_, p. 321 _sq._
(Dacotahs). Turner, 'Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay
Territory,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xi. 187 (Koksoagmyut).
Mason, in _Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141
(Karens). Brooke Low, quoted by Ling Roth, _Natives of Sarawak_,
i. 115 (Sea Dyaks). Kubary, 'Religion der Pelauer,' in Bastian,
_Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde_, i. 3 (Pelew Islanders).
Senfft, in Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse_, p. 452 (Marshall
Islanders). Codrington, _Melanesians_, p. 243 _sq._ (natives of
the Banks' Islands and Northern New Hebrides). Waitz,
_Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, vi. 115; Malone, _Three Years'
Cruise in the Australasian Colonies_, p. 72 _sq._ (Maoris).
Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 554 (West African Negroes). Munzinger,
_Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos_, p. 93 _sq._]
[Footnote 17: Dodge, _op. cit._ p. 321 _sq._ (North American
Indians) Holm, 'Ethnologisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,' in
_Meddelelser om Grönland_, x. 181 (Angmagsaliks of Eastern
Greenland). Georgi, _op. cit._ iii. 134 (Kamchadales). Mason, in
_Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141 (Karens). Gray,
in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxviii. 132 (natives of Tana, New
Hebrides). Sartori, 'Die Sitte der Alten- und Krankentötung,' in
_Globus_, lxvii. 109 _sq._]
[Footnote 18: Perrin du Lac, _Voyage dans les deux Louisianes_,
p. 346. Nansen, _First Crossing of Greenland_, ii. 331; _Idem_,
_Eskimo Life_, pp. 170, 267 (Greenlanders). Steller,
_Beschreibung von Kamtschatka_, p. 294. Wilkes, _U.S. Exploring
Expedition_, iii. 96; Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI.
Ethnography and Philology_, p. 65 (Fijians). Diodorus Siculus,
_Bibliotheca historica_, iii. 33.5 (Troglodytes). Pomponius Mela,
_De situ orbis_, iii. 7 (Seres). Hartknoch, _Alt- und Neues
Preussen_, i. 181 (ancient Prussians). Mareschalcus, _Annales
Herulorum ac Vandalorum_, i. 8 (_Monumenta inedita rerum
Germanicarum_, i. 191); Procopius, _De bello Gothico_, ii. 14
(Heruli). Maurer, _Die Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes zum
Christenthume_, ii. 79, n. 48 (ancient Scandinavians).]
[Footnote 19: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, _op. cit._ p. 158
(Atkha Aleuts). Keating, _op. cit._ ii. 172 (Chippewas). Colenso,
_Maori Races_, pp. 46, 57; Dieffenbach, _op. cit._ ii. 112
(Maoris).]
[Footnote 20: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, _op. cit._ p. 158
(Atkha Aleuts). Haddon, in _Rep. Cambridge Anthr. Exped. to
Torres Straits_, v. 17 (Western Islanders, according to a
Kauralaig folk-tale). Colenso, _op. cit._ pp. 46, 57;
Dieffenbach, _op. cit._ ii. 112 (Maoris).]
[Footnote 21: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, _op. cit._ p. 158
(Atkha Aleuts). Fawcett, _Saoras_, p. 17. Dieffenbach, _op. cit._
ii. 112 (Maoris).]
[Footnote 22: Steller, _Beschreibung von Kamtschatka_, p. 293.
Dieffenbach, _op. cit._ ii. 112 (Maoris).]
[Footnote 23: Modigliani, _Viaggio a Nías_, p. 473. Decle, _op.
cit._ p. 74 (Barotse). Monrad, _op. cit._ p. 25 (Negroes of
Accra). Donne, _Biathanatos_, p. 56 (American Indians).]
[Footnote 24: Wied-Neuwied, _Travels in the Interior of North
America_, p. 349 (Mandans).]
[Footnote 25: Turner, in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xi. 187
(Koksoagmyut). Mr. Dawson (_Australian Aborigines_, p. 62 _sq._)
tells us of a native of Western Victoria who decided to commit
suicide because, being intoxicated, he had killed his wife, and
was so sorry for it. He besought the tribe to kill him, and
seeing his determination to starve himself to death, his friends
at last sent for the tribal executioner, who pushed a spear
through him.]
[Footnote 26: Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, _op. cit._ p. 158
(Atkha Aleuts). Keating, _op. cit._ ii. 171 (Chippewas). Dalton,
_op. cit._ p. 206; Jickell, in _Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, ix.
807 (Hos). Colquhoun, _Amongst the Shans_, p. 76 _sq._ (Lethtas).
Mac Mahon, _Far Cathay_, p. 241 (Tarus, one of the Chino-Burmese
border tribes). Brooke, _op. cit._ i. 55 (Sea Dyaks). Chalmers,
_Pioneer Life and Work in New Guinea_, p. 227 (a woman at Port
Moresby; Mr. Abel [_Savage Life in New Guinea_, p. 102] speaks of
a New Guinea woman who was so annoyed because her old village
friends had not visited her during her illness that she attempted
to commit suicide). Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 243 _sq._ (natives
of the Banks' Islands and Northern New Hebrides). Williams and
Calvert, _op. cit._ p. 106 (Fijians). Tregear, in _Jour.
Polynesian Soc._ ii. 14 (Savage Islanders). Dieffenbach, _op.
cit._ ii. 111 _sq._; Collins, _op. cit._ i. 524; Angas, _Savage
Life in Australia and New Zealand_, ii. 45; Colenso, _op. cit._
p. 56 _sq._ (Maoris). Ward, _Five Years with the Congo
Cannibals_, p. 45 (Bakongo). Lasch, 'Besitzen die Naturvölker ein
persönliches Ehrgefühl?' in _Zeitschr. f. Socialwissenschaft_,
iii. 837 _sqq._]
[Footnote 27: See Lasch, 'Rache als Selbstmordmotiv,' in
_Globus_, lxxiv. 37 _sqq._; Steinmetz, 'Gli antichi scongiuri
giuridici contro i creditori,' in _Rivista italiana di
sociologia_, ii. 49 _sqq._]
[Footnote 28: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_,
p. 302. The same custom is mentioned by Monrad (_op. cit._ p. 23
_sq._), Bowdich (_Mission to Ashantee_, pp. 256, 257, 259 n. [double
dagger]), and Reade (_Savage Africa_, p. 554).]
[Footnote 29: Thomson, _Savage Island_, p. 109.]
[Footnote 30: Krause, _Die Tlinkit-Indianer_, p. 222.]
[Footnote 31: Lebedew, 'Die simbirskischen Tschuwaschen,' in
Erman's _Archiv für wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland_, ix.
586 n. **]
[Footnote 32: Buch, 'Die Wotjaken,' in _Acta Soc. Scient.
Fennicæ_, xii. 611 _sq._]
[Footnote 33: See Lasch, 'Religiöser Selbstmord und seine
Beziehung zum Menschenopfer.' in _Globus_, lxxv. 69 _sqq._]
[Footnote 34: Skrzyncki, 'Der Selbstmord bei den Tschuktschen,'
in _Am Ur-Quell_, v. 207 _sq._]
[Footnote 35: Ashe, _Two Kings of Uganda_, p. 342 (Wahuma).
Johnston, _Uganda Protectorate_, ii. 610 (Bairo). Junghuhn, _Die
Battaländer auf Sumatra_, ii. 340 (natives of Bali and Lombok).]
[Footnote 36: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 125
(Fijians). Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 289 (natives of Aurora
Island, New Hebrides).]
[Footnote 37: Dorman, _Origin of Primitive Superstitions_, p.
211. _Cf._ _ibid._ p. 209. Of the Niger Delta tribes M. le Comte
de Cardi writes (in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxix. 55):--"On the
deportation of a king or a chief by the British or other European
government for some offence I have seen the wives of the deported
man throw themselves into the river and fight like mad women with
the people who went to their rescue; I have also seen some of the
male retainers both free and slaves of a deported chief attempt
their own lives at the moment when the vessel carrying away their
chief disappeared from their sight."]
In various other cases, besides the voluntary sacrifices of
widows or slaves, the suicides of savages are connected with
their notions of a future life.[38] The belief in the new {235}
human birth of the departed soul has led West African negroes to
take their own lives when in distant slavery, that they may
awaken in their native land.[39] Among the Chukchi there are
persons who kill themselves for the purpose of effecting an
earlier reunion with their deceased relatives.[40] Among the
Samoyedes it happens that a young girl who is sold to an old man
strangles herself in the hope of getting a more suitable
bridegroom in the other world.[41] We are told that the
Kamchadales inflict death on themselves with the utmost coolness
because they maintain that "the future life is a continuation of
the present, but much better and more perfect, where they expect
to have all their desires more completely satisfied than
here."[42] The suicides of old people, again, are in some cases
due to the belief that a man enters into the other world in the
same condition in which he left this one, and that it consequently
is best for him to die before he grows too old and feeble.[43]
[Footnote 38: _Cf._ Steinmetz, in _American Anthropologist_, vii.
60; Vierkandt, _Naturvölker und Kulturvölker_, p. 284; Lasch, in
_Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft_, ii. 585.]
[Footnote 39: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 5.]
[Footnote 40: Skrzyncki, in _Am Ur-Quell_, v. 207.]
[Footnote 41: von Struve, 'Die Samojeden im Norden von Sibirien,'
in _Ausland_, 1880, p. 777.]
[Footnote 42: Georgi, _op. cit._ iii. 265. _Cf._ Steller,
_Beschreibung von Kamtschatka_, p. 294.]
[Footnote 43: Hale, _op. cit._ p. 65 (Fijians). _Cf._ _supra_,
i. 390.]
The notions of savages concerning life after death also influence
their moral valuation of suicide. Where men are supposed to
require wives not only during their lifetime, but after their
death, it may be a praiseworthy thing, or even a duty, for a
widow to accompany her husband to the land of souls. According to
Fijian beliefs, the woman who at the funeral of her husband met
death with the greatest devotedness would become the favourite
wife in the abode of spirits, whereas a widow who did not permit
herself to be killed was considered an adulteress.[44] Among the
Central African Bairo those women who refrained from destroying
themselves over their husbands' graves were regarded as
outcasts.[45] On the Gold Coast a man of low rank who has married
one of the king's sisters is {236} expected to make away with
himself when his wife dies, or upon the death of an only male
child; and "should he outrage native custom and neglect to do so,
a hint is conveyed to him that he will be put to death, which
usually produces the desired effect."[46] The customary suicides
of the Chukchi are solemnly performed in the presence and with
the assistance of relatives and neighbours.[47] The Samoyedes
maintain that suicide by strangulation "is pleasing to God, who
looks upon it as a voluntary sacrifice, which deserves
reward."[48] The opinion of the Kamchadales that it is "allowable
and praiseworthy" for a man to take his own life,[49] was
probably connected with their optimistic notions about their fate
after death. And that the habitual suicides of old persons have
the sanction of public opinion is particularly obvious where they
may choose between killing themselves and being killed.[50]
[Footnote 44: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 125 _sq._]
[Footnote 45: Johnston, _Uganda Protectorate_, i. 610.]
[Footnote 46: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_,
p. 287.]
[Footnote 47: Skrzyncki, in _Am Ur-Quell_, v. 208.]
[Footnote 48: von Struve, in _Ausland_, 1880, p. 777.]
[Footnote 49: Steller, _op. cit._ p. 269. _Cf._ Krasheninnikoff,
_op. cit._ p. 204.]
[Footnote 50: _Supra_, i. 389 _sq._ (Fijians). Nansen, _First
Crossing of Greenland_, ii. 331. Steller, _op. cit._ p. 294
(Kamchadales).]
Whilst in some cases suicide opens the door to a happy land
beyond the grave, it in other cases entails consequences of a
very different kind. The Omahas believe that a self-murderer
ceases to exist.[51] According to the Thompson Indians in British
Columbia, "the souls of people who commit suicide do not go to
the land of souls. The shamans declare they never saw such people
there; and some say that they have looked for the souls of such
people, but could not find their tracks. Some shamans say they
cannot locate the place where the souls of suicides go, but think
they must be lost, because they seem to disappear altogether.
Others say that these souls die, and cease to exist. Still others
claim that the souls never leave the earth, but wander around
aimlessly."[52] So also the Jakuts believe that the ghost of a
self-murderer never {237} comes to rest.[53] Sometimes the fate
of suicides after death is represented as a punishment which they
suffer for their deed. Thus the Dacotahs, among whom women not
infrequently put an end to their existence by hanging themselves,
are of opinion that suicide is displeasing to the "Father of
Life," and will be punished in the land of spirits by the ghost
being doomed for ever to drag the tree on which the person hanged
herself; hence the women always suspend themselves to as small a
tree as can possibly sustain their weight.[54] The Pahárias of
the Rájmahal Hills, in India, say that "suicide is a crime in
God's eyes," and that "the soul of one who so offends shall not
be admitted into heaven, but must hover eternally as a ghost
between heaven and earth,"[55] The Kayans of Borneo maintain that
self-murderers are sent to a place called _Tan Tekkan_, where
they will be very poor and wretched, subsisting on leaves, roots,
or anything they can pick up in the forests, and being easily
distinguished by their miserable appearance.[56] According to
Dyak beliefs, they go to a special place, where those who have
drowned themselves must thenceforth live up to their waists in
water, and those who have poisoned themselves must live in houses
built of poisonous woods and surrounded by noxious plants, the
exhalations of which are painful to the spirits.[57] In other
instances we are simply told that the souls of suicides, together
with those of persons who have been killed in war,[58] or who
have died a violent death,[59] are not permitted to live with the
rest of the souls, to whom their presence would cause uneasiness.
Among the Hidatsa Indians some people say that the ghosts of men
{238} who have made away with themselves occupy a separate part
of the village of the dead, but that their condition in no other
wise differs from that of the other ghosts.[60]
[Footnote 51: La Flesche, 'Death and Funeral Customs among the
Omahas,' in _Jour. of American Folk-Lore_, ii. 11.]
[Footnote 52: Teit, 'Thompson Indians of British Columbia,' in
_Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History_,
Anthropology, i. 358 _sq._]
[Footnote 53: Sumner, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxxi. 101.]
[Footnote 54: Bradbury, _Travels in the Interior of America_, p.
89. _Cf._ Keating, _op. cit._ i. 394.]
[Footnote 55: Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 268.
_Cf._ Sherwill, 'Tour through the Rájmahal Hills,' in _Jour.
Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, xx. 556.]
[Footnote 56: Hose, 'Journey up the Baram River to Mount Dulit
and the Highlands of Borneo,' in _Geographical Journal_, i. 199.]
[Footnote 57: Wilken, _Het animisme bij de volken van den
Indischen Archipel_, i. 44.]
[Footnote 58: Brebeuf, 'Relation de ce qui s'est passé dans le
pays des Hurons,' in _Relations des Jésuites_, 1636, p. 104 _sq._
Hewitt, 'The Iroquoian Concept of the Soul,' in _Jour. of
American Folk-Lore_, viii. 109.]
[Footnote 59: Steinmetz, in _American Anthropologist_, vii. 58
(Niase).]
[Footnote 60: Matthews, _Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa
Indians_, p. 49.]
It is, however, hard to believe that the fate of the
self-murderer, whether it be annihilation, a vagrant existence on
earth, or separation in the other world, was originally meant as
a punishment; for a similar lot is assigned to the souls of
persons who have been drowned,[61] or who have died by accident
or violence.[62] It seems that the suicide's future state is in
the first place supposed to depend upon the treatment of his
corpse. Frequently he is denied burial, or at least the ordinary
funeral rites,[63] and this may give rise to the notion that his
soul never comes to rest or, possibly, even ceases to exist. Or
he is buried by himself, apart from the other dead,[64] in which
case his soul must naturally remain equally isolated. Among the
Alabama Indians, for instance, "when a man kills himself, either
in despair or in a sickness, he is deprived of burial, and thrown
into the river."[65] In Dahomey "the body of any person
committing suicide is not allowed to be buried, but thrown out
into the fields to be devoured by wild beasts."[66] Among the
Fantis of the Gold Coast "il y a des places réservées aux
suicides et à ceux qui sont morts de la petite vérole. Ils sont
enterrés à l'écart loin de toute {239} habitation et de tout
chemin public."[67] In the Pelew Islands a self-murderer is
buried not with his own deceased relatives, but in the place
where he ended his life, as are also the corpses of those who
fall in war.[68] Among the Bannavs of Cambodia "anyone who
perishes by his own hand is buried in a corner of the forest far
from the graves of his brethren."[69] Among the Sea Dyaks "those
who commit suicide are buried in different places from others, as
it is supposed that they will not be allowed to mix in the
seven-storied heaven with such of their fellow-country men as
come by their death in a natural manner or from the influence of
the spirits."[70] The motive for thus treating self-murderers'
bodies is superstitious fear. Their ghosts, as the ghosts of
persons who have died by any other violent means or by accident,
are supposed to be particularly malevolent,[71] owing to their
unnatural mode of death[72] or to the desperate or angry state of
mind in which they left this life. If they are not buried at all,
or if they are buried in the spot where they died or in a
separate place, that is either because nobody dares to interfere
with them, or in order to prevent them from mixing with the other
dead. So also murdered persons are sometimes left unburied,[73]
and people who are supposed to have been killed by evil spirits
are buried apart;[74] whilst those struck with lightning are
either denied interment,[75] or buried where they fell and in the
position in which they died.[76] We sometimes hear of a
connection between the way in which a suicide's body is treated
and the moral opinion as regards his deed. Among the Alabama
Indians his corpse {240} is said to be thrown into the river
"because he is looked upon as a coward";[77] and of the Ossetes
M. Kovalewsky states that they bury suicides far away from other
dead persons because they regard their act as sinful.[78] But we
may be sure that moral condemnation is not the original cause of
these practices.
[Footnote 61: Teit, _loc. cit._ p. 359 (Thompson Indians).]
[Footnote 62: Soppitt, _Kuki-Lushai Tribes_, p. 12. Anderson,
_Mandalay to Momien_, p. 146 (Kakhyens). Müller, _Geschichte der
Amerikanischen Urreligionen_, p. 287 (Brazilian Indians).
_Supra_, ii. 237. The Central Eskimo believe that all who die by
accident or by violence, and women who die in childbirth, are
taken to the upper, happier world (Boas, 'Central Eskimo,' in
_Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ vi. 590). According to the belief of the
Behring Strait Eskimo, the shades of shamans, or persons who die
by accident, violence, or starvation, go to a land of plenty in
the sky, where there is light, food, and water in abundance,
whereas the shades of people who die from natural causes go to
the underground land of the dead (Nelson, 'Eskimo about Bering
Strait,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xviii. 423).]
[Footnote 63: See Lasch, 'Die Behandlung der Leiche des
Selbstmorders,' in _Globus_, lxxvi. 63 _sqq._]
[Footnote 64: _Ibid._ p. 65.]
[Footnote 65: Bossu, _Travels through Louisiana_, i. 258.]
[Footnote 66: M'Leod, _Voyage to Africa_, p. 48 _sq._ I am
indebted to Mr. N. W. Thomas for drawing my attention to this and
a few other statements in the present chapter.]
[Footnote 67: Gallaud, 'A la Côte d'Or,' in _Les missions
catholiques_, xxv. 347.]
[Footnote 68: Kubary, in _Original-Mittheil. aus der ethnol.
Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu Berlin_, i. 78.]
[Footnote 69: Comte, quoted by Mouhot, _op. cit._ ii. 28. See
also 'Das Volk der Bannar,' in _Mittheil. d. Geogr. Ges. zu
Jena_, iii. 9.]
[Footnote 70: St. John, _Life in the Forests of the Far East_,
i. 69.]
[Footnote 71: Lasch, in _Globus_, lxxvi. 65. _Cf._ Liebrecht,
_Zur Volkskunde_, p. 414 _sq._]
[Footnote 72: Lippert, _Der Seelencult_, p. 11. Kubary, in
_Original-Mittheil. aus der ethnol. Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu
Berlin_, i. 78.]
[Footnote 73: Rosenberg, _Der malayische Archipel_, p. 461
(Papuans of Dorey).]
[Footnote 74: Hodson, 'Native Tribes of Manipur,' in _Jour.
Anthr. Inst._ xxxi. 305 _sq._]
[Footnote 75: Burton, _Mission to Gelele_, ii. 142 _sq._
(Dahomans).]
[Footnote 76: La Flesche, in _Jour. American Folk-Lore_, ii. 11
(Omahas).]
[Footnote 77: Bossu, _op. cit._ i. 258.]
[Footnote 78: Kovalewsky, _Coutume contemporaine et loi
ancienne_, p. 327.]
It is comparatively seldom that savages are reported to attach
any stigma to suicide. To the instances mentioned above a few
others may be added. The Waganda, we are told, greatly condemn
the act.[79] Among the Bogos "a man never despairs, never gives
himself up, and considers suicide as the greatest indignity."[80]
The Karens of Burma deem it an act of cowardice; but at the same
time they have no command against it, they "seem to see little or
no guilt in it," and "we are nowhere told that it is displeasing
to the God of heaven and earth."[81] The Dacotahs said of a girl
who had destroyed herself because her parents had turned her
beloved from the wigwam, and would force her to marry a man she
hated, that her spirit did not watch over her earthly remains,
being offended when she brought trouble upon her aged mother and
father.[82] In Dahomey "it is criminal to attempt to commit
suicide, because every man is the property of the king. The
bodies of suicides are exposed to public execration, and the head
is always struck off and sent to Agbomi; at the expense of the
family if the suicide were a free man, at that of his master if
he were a slave."[83] On the other hand, it is expressly stated
of various savages that they do not punish attempts to commit
suicide.[84] The negroes of Accra see nothing wrong in the act.
"Why," they would ask, "should a person not be {241} allowed to
die, when he no longer desires to live?" But they inflict cruel
punishments upon slaves who try to put an end to themselves, in
order to deter other slaves from doing the same.[85] Among the
Pelew Islanders suicide "is neither praised nor blamed."[86] The
Eskimo around Northumberland Inlet and Davis Strait believe that
any one who has been killed by accident, or who has taken his own
life, certainly goes to the happy place after death.[87] The
Chippewas hold suicide "to be a foolish, not a reprehensible
action," and do not believe it to entail any punishment in the
other world.[88] In his sketches of the manners and customs of
the North American Indians, Buchanan writes:--"Suicide is not
considered by the Indians either as an act of heroism or of
cowardice, nor is it with them a subject of praise or blame. They
view this desperate act as the consequence of mental derangement,
and the person who destroys himself is to them an object of
pity."[89]
[Footnote 79: Felkin, in _Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh_, xiii. 723.]
[Footnote 80: Munzinger, _Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos_,
p. 93.]
[Footnote 81: Mason, in _Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, xxxvii. pt.
ii. 141.]
[Footnote 82: Eastman, _op. cit._ p. 169.]
[Footnote 83: Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples_, p. 224.]
[Footnote 84: Leuschner, in Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse_, p.
24 (Bakwiri). Nicole, _ibid._ p. 135 (Diakité-Sarracolese). Lang,
_ibid._ p. 262 (Washambala). Rautanen, _ibid._ p. 343 (Ondonga).
Sorge, _ibid._ p. 421 (Nissan Islanders). Senfft, _ibid._ p. 452
(Marshall Islanders).]
[Footnote 85: Monrad, _op. cit._ pp. 23, 25.]
[Footnote 86: Kubary, in _Original-Mittheil. aus der ethnol.
Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu Berlin_, i. 78.]
[Footnote 87: Hall, _Arctic Researches_, p. 572. _Cf._ _supra_,
ii. 238, n. 3.]
[Footnote 88: Keating, _op. cit._ ii. 172.]
[Footnote 89: Buchanan, _Sketches of the History, &c. of the
North American Indians_, p. 184.]
From the opinions on suicide held by uncivilised races we shall
pass to those prevalent among peoples of a higher culture. In
China suicide is extremely common among all classes and among
persons of all ages.[90] For those who have been impelled to this
course by a sense of honour the gates of heaven open wide, and
tablets bearing their names are erected in the temples in honour
of virtuous men or women. As honourable self-murderers are
regarded servants or officers of state who choose not to survive
a defeat in battle or an insult offered to the sovereign of their
country; young men who, when an insult has been paid to their
parents which they are unable to avenge, prefer not to survive
it; and women who kill {242} themselves on the death of their
husbands or _fiancés_.[91] In spite of imperial prohibitions,
sutteeism of widowed wives and brides has continued to flourish
in China down to this day, and meets with the same public
applause as ever;[92] whilst those widowed wives and brides who
have lost their lives in preserving their chastity, are entitled
both to an honorary gate and to a place in a temple of the State
as an object of worship.[93] Another common form of suicide which
is admired as heroic in China is that committed for the purpose
of taking revenge upon an enemy who is otherwise out of
reach--according to Chinese ideas a most effective mode of
revenge, not only because the law throws the responsibility of
the deed on him who occasioned it, but also because the
disembodied soul is supposed to be better able than the living
man to persecute the enemy.[94] The Chinese have a firm belief in
the wandering spirits of persons who have died by violence; thus
self-murderers are supposed to haunt the places where they
committed the fatal deed and endeavour to persuade others to
follow their example, at times even attempting to play
executioner by strangling those who reject their advances.[95]
"Violent deaths," says Mr. Giles, "are regarded with horror by
the Chinese";[96] and suicides committed from meaner motives are
reprobated.[97] It is said in the Yü Li, or "Divine Panorama"--a
Taouist work which is very popular all over the Chinese
Empire--that whilst persons who kill themselves out of loyalty,
filial piety, chastity, or friendship, will go to heaven, those
who do so "in a trivial burst of rage, or fearing the
consequences of a crime which would not amount to death, or in
the hope of falsely injuring a {243} fellow-creature," will be
severely punished in the infernal regions.[98] No pardon will be
granted them; they are not, like other sinners, allowed to claim
their good works as a set-off against evil, whereby they might
partly escape the agonies of hell and receive some reward for
their virtuous deeds.[99] Sometimes suicide is classified by the
Chinese as an offence against religion, on the ground that a
person owes his being to Heaven, and is therefore responsible to
Heaven for due care of the gift.[100]
[Footnote 90: Gray, _China_, i. 329. Huc, _The Chinese Empire_,
p. 181. Matignon, 'Le suicide en Chine,' in _Archives
d'anthropologie criminelle_, xii. 367 _sqq._ Cathonay, 'Aux
environs de Foutchéon,' in _Les missions catholiques_, xxxi. 341
_sq._ Ball, _Things Chinese_, p. 564 _sqq._]
[Footnote 91: Gray, _op. cit._ i. 337 _sqq._]
[Footnote 92: de Groot, _Religious System of China_, (vol. ii.
book) i. 748. Ball, _op. cit._ p. 565. Cathonay, in _Les missions
catholiques_, xxxi. 341.]
[Footnote 93: de Groot, _op. cit._ (vol. ii. book) i. 792.]
[Footnote 94: Huc, _op. cit._ p. 181. Matignon, in _Archives
d'anthropologie criminelle_, xii. 371 _sqq._ de Groot, _op. cit._
(vol. iv. book) ii. 450 _sq._ Cathonay, in _Les missions
catholiques_, xxxi. 341 _sq._ Ball, _op. cit._ p. 566 _sq._]
[Footnote 95: Davis, _China_, ii. 94. Dennys, _Folk-Lore of
China_, p. 74 _sq._]
[Footnote 96: Giles, _Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio_,
ii. 363, n. 9.]
[Footnote 97: Gray, _op. cit._ i. 337.]
[Footnote 98: Giles, _op. cit._ ii. 365.]
[Footnote 99: _Ibid._ ii. 363.]
[Footnote 100: Alabaster, _Notes and Commentaries on Chinese
Criminal Law_, p. 304.]
"The Japanese calendar of saints," says Mr. Griffis, "is not
filled with reformers, alms-givers, and founders of hospitals or
orphanages, but is overcrowded with canonised suicides and
committers of _harakiri_. Even to-day, no man more . . . surely
draws homage to his tomb, securing even apotheosis, than the
suicide, though he may have committed a crime."[101] There were
two kinds of _harakiri_, or "belly-cutting," one obligatory and
the other voluntary. The former was a boon granted by government,
who graciously permitted criminals of the Samurai, or military,
class thus to destroy themselves instead of being handed over to
the common executioner; but this custom is now quite extinct.
Voluntary _harakiri_, again, was practised out of loyalty to a
dead superior, or in order to protest, when other protests might
be unavailing, against the erroneous conduct of a living
superior, or to avoid beheading by the enemy in a lost battle, or
to restore injured honour if revenge was impossible. Under any
circumstances _harakiri_ cleansed from every stain, and ensured
an honourable interment and a respected memory.[102] It is said
in a Japanese manuscript, "To slay his enemy against whom he has
cause of hatred, and then to kill himself, is the part of a noble
Samurai, and it is sheer nonsense to look upon the place where he
has disembowelled {244} himself as polluted."[103] In old days
the ceremony used to be performed in a temple.[104]
[Footnote 101: Griffis, _Religions of Japan_, p. 112.]
[Footnote 102: Chamberlain, _Things Japanese_, p. 219 _sqq._
Rein, _Japan_, p. 328. Kühne, in _Globus_, lxxiv. 166 _sq._ A
very full account of the ceremony of _harakiri_ is given in
Mitford's _Tales of Old Japan_, ii. 193 _sqq._, from a rare
Japanese manuscript.]
[Footnote 103: Mitford, _op. cit._ ii. 201.]
[Footnote 104: _Ibid._ ii. 196.]
Among the Hindus we meet with the practice of self-immolation of
widows--until recently very prevalent in many parts of
India[105]--and various forms of self-destruction for religious
purposes. Suicide has always been considered by the Hindus to be
one of the most acceptable rites that can be offered to their
deities. According to the Ayen Akbery, there were five kinds of
suicide held to be meritorious in the Hindu, namely:--starving;
covering himself with cow-dung and setting it on fire and
consuming himself therein; burying himself in snow; immersing
himself in the water at the extremity of Bengal, where the Ganges
discharges itself into the sea through a thousand channels,
enumerating his sins, and praying till the alligators come and
devour him; cutting his throat at Allahabad, at the confluence of
the Ganges and Jumna.[106] To these might be added drowning at
Hurdwar, Allahabad, and Saugor; perishing in the cold of the
Himalayas; the practice of dying under the wheels of Juggurnath's
car;[107] and the custom of men throwing themselves down from
certain rocks to fulfil the vows of their mothers, or to receive
forgiveness for sins, or to be re-born rajas in their next state
of transmigration.[108] It is also common for persons who are
afflicted with leprosy or any other incurable disease to bury or
drown themselves with due ceremonies, by which they are
considered acceptable sacrifices to the deity,[109] or to roll
themselves into fires with the notion that thus purified they
will receive a happy transmigration into a healthy body.[110]
Suicide was further {245} resorted to by Brâhmans for the purpose
of avenging an injury, as it was believed that the ghost of the
deceased would persecute the offender, and, presumably, also
because of the great efficacy which was attributed to the curse
of a dying Brâhman.[111] When one of the Rajput rajas once levied
a war-subsidy on the Brâhmans, some of the wealthiest, having
expostulated in vain, poniarded themselves in his presence,
pouring maledictions on his head with their last breath; and thus
cursed, the raja laboured under a ban of excommunication even
amongst his personal friends.[112] We are told of a Brâhman girl
who, having been seduced by a certain raja, burned herself to
death, and in dying imprecated the most fearful curses on the
raja's kindred, after which they were visited with such a
succession of disasters that they abandoned their family
settlement at Baliya, where the woman's tomb is worshipped to
this day.[113] Once when a raja ordered the house of a Brâhman to
be demolished and resumed the lands which had been conferred upon
him, the latter fasted till he died at the palace gate, and
became thus a Brahm, or malignant Brâhman ghost, who avenged the
injury he had suffered by destroying the raja and his house.[114]
At Azimghur, in 1835, a Brâhman "threw himself down a well, that
his ghost might haunt his neighbour."[115] The same idea
undoubtedly underlies the custom of "sitting _dharna_" which was
practised by creditors who sat down before the doors of their
debtors threatening to starve themselves to death if their claims
were not paid;[116] and the sin attached to causing the death of
a Brâhman would further increase the efficacy of the creditor's
threats.[117] At the same time religious suicide is said to be a
crime in a Brâhman.[118] And in the sacred books we read that for
him who destroys {246} himself by means of wood, water, clods of
earth, stones, weapons, poison, or a rope, no funeral rites shall
be performed by his relatives;[119] that he who resolves to die
by his own hand shall fast for three days; and that he who
attempts suicide, but remains alive, shall perform severe
penance.[120] The Buddhists allow a man under certain
circumstances to take his own life, but maintain that generally
dire miseries are in store for the self-murderer, and look upon
him as one who must have sinned deeply in a former state of
existence.[121] It should be added that in India, as elsewhere,
the souls of those who have killed themselves or met death by any
other violent means are regarded as particularly malevolent and
troublesome.[122]
[Footnote 105: Malcolm, _Memoir of Central India_, ii. 206 _sqq._
Chevers, _Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for India_, p. 665.
_Cf._ _supra_, i. 473 _sq._ Sir John Malcolm observes (_op. cit._
ii. 206, n. [double dagger]) that the practice of suttee was not
always confined to widows, but that sometimes mothers burned
themselves on the death of their only sons.]
[Footnote 106: Chevers, _op. cit._ p. 664. _Cf._ _Laws of Manu_,
vi. 31.]
[Footnote 107: _Ibid._ p. 664. Ward, _View of the History, &c. of
the Hindoos_, ii. 115 _sqq._ Rájendralála Mitra, _Indo-Aryans_,
ii. 70.]
[Footnote 108: Sleeman, _Rambles and Recollections of an Indian
Official_, i. 132 _sq._ Malcolm, _Memoir of Central India_, ii.
209 _sqq._ Forsyth, _Highlands of Central India_, p. 172 _sq._]
[Footnote 109: Sleeman, _op. cit._ ii. 344 _sq._]
[Footnote 110: Ward, _op. cit._ ii. 119.]
[Footnote 111: Chevers, _op. cit._ p. 659 _sqq._ Crooke, _Popular
Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India_, i. 191 _sqq._ van
Mökern, _Ostindien_, i. 319 _sqq._]
[Footnote 112: Tod, quoted by Chevers, _op. cit._ p. 659 _sq._]
[Footnote 113: Crooke, _op. cit._ i. 193.]
[Footnote 114: _Ibid._ i. 191 _sq._]
[Footnote 115: Chevers, _op. cit._ p. 663.]
[Footnote 116: _Cf._ Steinmetz, 'Gli antichi scongiuri giuridici
contro i creditori,' in _Rivista italiana di sociologia_, ii. 58.
For the practice of _dharna_ see _ibid._ p. 37 _sqq._; Balfour,
_Cyclopædia of India_, i. 934 _sq._; van Mökern, _op. cit._
i. 322 _sq._]
[Footnote 117: _Cf._ Jones, quoted by Balfour, _op. cit._ i. 935.]
[Footnote 118: Ward, _op. cit._ ii. 115. Forsyth, _op. cit._
p. 173.]
[Footnote 119: _Vasishtha_, xxiii. 14 _sq._]
[Footnote 120: _Ibid._ xxiii. 18 _sqq._]
[Footnote 121: Hardy, _Manual of Budhism_, p. 479.]
[Footnote 122: Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of
Northern India_, i. 269. Fawcett, 'Nâyars of Malabar,' in the
Madras Government Museum's _Bulletin_, iii. 253.]
The Old Testament mentions a few cases of suicide.[123] In none
of them is any censure passed on the perpetrator of the deed, nor
is there any text which expressly forbids a man to die by his own
hand; and of Ahithophel it is said that he was buried in the
sepulchre of his father.[124] It seems, however, that according
to Jewish custom persons who had killed themselves should be left
unburied till sunset,[125] perhaps for fear lest the spirit of
the deceased otherwise might find its way back to the old
home.[126] Josephus, who mentions this custom, denounces suicide
as an act of cowardice, as a crime most remote from the common
nature of all animals, as impiety against the Creator; and he
maintains that the souls of those who have thus acted madly
against themselves will go to the darkest place in Hades.[127]
The Talmud considers suicide justifiable, if not meritorious, in
the case of the chief of a vanquished army who is sure of
disgrace and death at the hands of the exulting conqueror,[128]
or when a person has {247} reason to fear being forced to
renounce his religion.[129] In all other circumstances the Rabbis
consider it criminal for a person to shorten his own life, even
when he is undergoing tortures which must soon end his earthly
career;[130] and they forbid all marks of mourning for a
self-murderer, such as wearing sombre apparel and eulogising
him.[131] Islam prohibits suicide, as an act which interferes
with the decrees of God.[132] Muhammedans say that it is a
greater sin for a person to kill himself than to kill a
fellow-man;[133] and, as a matter of fact, suicide is very rare
in the Moslem world.[134]
[Footnote 123: _1 Samuel_, xxxi. 4 _sq._ _2 Samuel_, xvii. 23. _1
Kings_, xvi. 18. _2 Maccabees_, xiv. 4 _sqq._]
[Footnote 124: _2 Samuel_, xvii. 23.]
[Footnote 125: Josephus, _De bello Judaico_, iii. 8. 5.]
[Footnote 126: _Cf._ Frazer, 'Burial Customs as illustrative of
the Primitive Theory of the Soul,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xv. 72.]
[Footnote 127: Josephus, _op. cit._ iii. 8. 5.]
[Footnote 128: _Cf._ _1 Samuel_, xxxi. 4.]
[Footnote 129: _Guittin_, 57 B, quoted by Mendelsohn, _Criminal
Jurisprudence of the Ancient Hebrews_, p. 77, n. 163. _Cf._ _2
Maccabees_, xiv. 37 _sqq._]
[Footnote 130: _Ab Zara_, 18 A, quoted by Mendelsohn, _op. cit._
p. 78, n. 163.]
[Footnote 131: Mendelsohn, _op. cit._ p. 77.]
[Footnote 132: _Koran_, iv. 33.]
[Footnote 133: I have often heard this myself. _Cf._ Westcott,
_Suicide_, p. 12.]
[Footnote 134: Lisle, _Du suicide_, pp. 305, 345 _sq._ Legoyt,
_Le suicide ancien et moderne_, p. 7. Morselli, _Il suicidio_, p.
33. Westcott, _op. cit._ p. 12.]
Ancient Greece had its honourable suicides. The Milesian and
Corinthian women, who by a voluntary death escaped from falling
into the hands of the enemy, were praised in epigrams.[135] The
story that Themistocles preferred death to bearing arms against
his native country was circulated with a view to doing honour to
his memory.[136] The tragedians frequently give expression to the
idea that suicide is in certain circumstances becoming to a noble
mind.[137] Hecuba blames Helena for not putting an end to her
life by a rope or a sword.[138] Phaedra[139] and Leda[140] kill
themselves out of shame, Haemon from violent remorse.[141] Ajax
decides to die after having in vain attempted to kill the
Atreidae, maintaining that "one of generous strain should nobly
live, or forthwith nobly die."[142] Instances are, moreover,
mentioned of women killing themselves on the death of their
husbands;[143] and in Cheos it was the custom to prevent {248}
the decrepitude of old age by a voluntary death.[144] At Athens
the right hand of a person who had taken his own life was struck
off and buried apart from the rest of the body,[145] evidently in
order to make him harmless after death.[146] Plato says in his
'Laws,' probably in agreement with Attic custom, that those who
inflict death upon themselves "from sloth or want of manliness,"
shall be buried alone in such places as are uncultivated and
nameless, and that no column or inscription shall mark the spot
where they are interred.[147] At Thebes self-murderers were
deprived of the accustomed funeral ceremonies,[148] and in Cyprus
they were left unburied.[149] The objections which philosophers
raised against the commission of suicide were no doubt to some
extent shared by popular sentiments. Pythagoras is represented as
saying that we should not abandon our station in life without the
orders of our commander, that is, God.[150] According to the
Platonic Socrates, the gods are our guardians and we are a
possession of theirs, hence "there may be reason in saying that a
man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons
him."[151] Aristotle, again, maintains that he who from rage
kills himself commits a wrong against the State, and that
therefore the State punishes him and civil infamy is attached to
him.[152] The religious argument could not be foreign to a people
who regarded it as impious interference in the order of nature to
make a bridge over the Hellespont and to separate a landscape
from the continent;[153] and the idea that suicide is a matter of
public concern evidently prevailed in Massilia, where no man was
allowed to make away with himself unless the magistrates had
given him permission to do so.[154] But the {249} opinions of the
philosophers were anything but unanimous.[155] Plato himself, in
his 'Laws,' has no word of censure for him who deprives himself
by violence of his appointed share of life under the compulsion
of some painful and inevitable misfortune, or out of irremediable
and intolerable shame.[156] Hegesias, surnamed the
"death-persuader," who belonged to the Cyrenaic school, tried to
prove the utter worthlessness and unprofitableness of life.[157]
According to Epicurus we ought to consider "whether it be better
that death should come to us, or we go to him."[158] The Stoics,
especially, advocated suicide as a relief from all kinds of
misery.[159] Seneca remarks that it is a man's own fault if he
suffers, as, by putting an end to himself, he can put an end to
his misery:--"As I would choose a ship to sail in, or a house to
live in, so would I choose the most tolerable death when about to
die. . . . Human affairs are in such a happy situation, that no
one need be wretched but by choice. Do you like to be wretched?
Live. Do you like it not? It is in your power to return from
whence you came."[160] The Stoics did not deny that it is wrong
to commit suicide in cases where the act would be an injury to
society;[161] Seneca himself points out that Socrates lived
thirty days in prison in expectation of death, so as to submit to
the laws of his country, and to give his friends the enjoyment of
his conversation to the last.[162] Epictetus opposes
indiscriminate suicide on religious grounds:--"Friends, wait for
God; when he shall give the signal and release you from this
service, then go to him; but for the present endure to dwell in
the place where he has put you."[163] Such a signal, however, is
given often enough: it may consist in incurable disease,
intolerable pain, or misery of any kind. "Remember this: the door
is open; be not more timid {250} than little children, but as
they say, when the thing does not please them, 'I will play no
longer,' so do you, when things seem to you of such a kind, say I
will no longer play, and be gone: but if you stay, do not
complain."[164] Pliny says that the power of dying when you
please is the best thing that God has given to man amidst all the
sufferings of life.[165]
[Footnote 135: Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 443.]
[Footnote 136: Diodorus Siculus, _Bibliotheca historica_, xi. 58.
2 _sq._]
[Footnote 137: See Schmidt, _op. cit._ ii. 442 _sqq._]
[Footnote 138: Euripides, _Troades_, 1012 _sqq._]
[Footnote 139: _Idem_, _Hippolytus_, 715 _sqq._]
[Footnote 140: _Idem_, _Helena_, 134 _sqq._]
[Footnote 141: Sophocles, _Antigone_, 1234 _sqq._]
[Footnote 142: _Idem_, _Ajax_, 470 _sqq._ _Cf._ _ibid._ 654 _sqq._]
[Footnote 143: Euripides, _Supplices_, 1000 _sqq._ Pausanias,
iv. 2. 7.]
[Footnote 144: Strabo, _Geographica_, x. 5. 6, p. 486. Aelian,
_Varia historia_, iii. 37. _Cf._ Boeckh, _Gesammelte kleine
Schriften_, vii. 345 _sqq._; Welcker, _Kleine Schriften_,
ii. 502 _sq._]
[Footnote 145: Aeschines, _In Ctesiphontem_, 244.]
[Footnote 146: Some Australian natives cut off the thumb of the
right hand of a dead foe in order to make his spirit unable to
throw the spear efficiently (Oldfield, in _Trans. Ethn. Soc._
N.S. iii. 287).]
[Footnote 147: Plato, _Leges_, ix. 873.]
[Footnote 148: Schmidt, _op. cit._ ii. 104.]
[Footnote 149: Dio Chrysostom, _Orationes_, lxiv. 3.]
[Footnote 150: Cicero, _Cato Major_, 20 (73).]
[Footnote 151: Plato, _**Phædo_, p. 62.]
[Footnote 152: Aristotle, _Ethica Nicomachea_, v. 11. 3.]
[Footnote 153: See Schmidt, _op. cit._ ii. 83, 441; Rohde,
_Psyche_, p. 202, n. 1.]
[Footnote 154: Valerius Maximus, _Factorum dictorumque
memorabilia_, ii. 6. 7.]
[Footnote 155: See Geiger, _Der Selbstmord im klassischen
Altertum_, p. 5 _sqq._]
[Footnote 156: Plato, _Leges_, ix. 873.]
[Footnote 157: Cicero, _Tusculanæ quæstiones_, i. 34 (83 _sq._).
Valerius Maximus, viii. 9. Externa 3.]
[Footnote 158: Epicurus, quoted by Seneca, _Epistulæ_, 26.]
[Footnote 159: See Geiger, _op. cit._ p. 15 _sqq._]
[Footnote 160: Seneca, _Epistulæ_, 70. See also _Idem_, _De ira_,
iii. 15; _Idem_, _Consolatia ad Marciam_, 20.]
[Footnote 161: Lecky, _History of European Morals_, i. 214, n. 1.]
[Footnote 162: Seneca, _Epistulæ_, 70.]
[Footnote 163: Epictetus, _Dissertationes_, i. 9. 16.]
[Footnote 164: _Ibid._ i. 24. 20; i. 25. 20 _sq._; ii. 16. 37
_sqq._; iii. 13. 14; iii. 24. 95 _sqq._]
[Footnote 165: Pliny, _Historia naturalis_, ii. 5 (7).]
It seems that the Roman people, before the influence of
Christianity made itself felt, regarded suicide with considerable
moral indifference. According to Servius, it was provided by the
Pontifical laws that whoever hanged himself should be cast out
unburied;[166] but from what has been said before it is probable
that this practice only owed its origin to fear of the dead man's
ghost. Vergil enumerates self-murderers not among the guilty, but
among the unfortunate, confounding them with infants who have
died prematurely and persons who have been condemned to die on a
false charge.[167] Throughout the whole history of pagan Rome
there was no statute declaring it to be a crime for an ordinary
citizen to take his own life. The self-murderer's rights were in
no way affected by his deed, his memory was no less honoured than
if he had died a natural death, his will was recognised by law,
and the regular order of succession was not interfered with.[168]
In Roman law there are only two noteworthy exceptions to the rule
that suicide is a matter with which the State has nothing to do:
it was prohibited in the case of soldiers,[169] and the enactment
was made that the suicide of an accused person should entail the
same consequences as his condemnation; but in the latter instance
the deed was admitted as a confession of guilt.[170] On the other
{251} hand, it seems to have been the general opinion in Rome
that suicide under certain circumstances is an heroic and
praiseworthy act.[171] Even Cicero, who professed the doctrine of
Pythagoras,[172] approved of the death of Cato.[173]
[Footnote 166: Servius, _Commentarii in Virgilii Æneidos_,
xii. 603.]
[Footnote 167: Vergil, _Æneis_, vi. 426 _sqq._]
[Footnote 168: Bourquelot, 'Recherches sur les opinions et la
législation en matière de mort volontaire pendant le moyen age,'
in _Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes_, iii. 544. Geiger, _op.
cit._ p. 64 _sqq._ Bynkershoek, _Observationes Juris Romani_, iv.
4, p. 350.]
[Footnote 169: _Digesta_, xlix. 16. 6. 7.]