Chapter 14
Part 14
AMONG many of the lower races a husband is said to possess the power of life and death over his wife; but what this actually means is not always obvious. It is quite probable that, in some cases, the husband may put his wife to death whenever he pleases, without having to fear any disagreeable consequences. In other instances he, by doing so, at all events exposes himself to the vengeance of her family. Among the Bangerang tribe of Victoria, for instance, "he might ill-treat her, give her away, do as he liked with her, or kill her, and no one in the tribe interfered; though, had he proceeded to the last extremity, her death would have been avenged by her brothers or kindred."[1] So, also, among the aborigines of North-West-Central Queensland, "a wife has always her 'brothers' to look after her interests," and if a man kills his wife he has to deliver up one of his own sisters for his late wife's friends to put to death.[2] We shall see in a subsequent chapter that many statements in which absolute marital power is ascribed to savage husbands are not to be interpreted too literally. I venture to believe that the husband's so-called power of life and death is generally {419} restricted by custom to cases where the wife has committed some offence, and, especially, where she has been guilty of unfaithfulness.
[Footnote 1: Curr, _Recollections of Squatting in Victoria_, p. 248.]
[Footnote 2: Roth, _Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines_, p. 141. _Cf._ Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 281 (Geawe-gal tribe).]
The right of punishing the wife capitally, however, is by no means universally granted to the husband in uncivilised communities. Among the Gaika tribe of the Kafirs, "if he puts her to death, he is punished as a murderer."[3] Among the Bakwiri he has to suffer death himself if he kills his wife; if she is unfaithful to him he is only permitted to beat her.[4] From the information we possess of the lower races it does not seem to be the general rule that husbands punish their adulterous wives with death; but whether they have the right of doing so is a question seldom touched upon by our authorities.[5] We shall see that savage custom often gives to the husband only very limited rights over his wife, and requires that he should treat her with respect.
[Footnote 3: Brownlee, in Maclean, _Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs_, p. 117.]
[Footnote 4: Schwarz, quoted by Post, _Afrikanische Jurisprudenz_, i. 401.]
[Footnote 5: See Steinmetz, _Ethnologische Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe_, ii. 303.]
Among various peoples of a higher type the husband has, under certain circumstances, had the right of punishing his wife capitally; but this seems to be nearly all that is involved in that "power of life and death" which he is said to have possessed over her.[6] However, whilst custom or law forbade him to kill his wife without sufficient cause, such a deed was hardly looked upon with the same horror, or treated with the same severity, as the murder of a husband by his wife, owing to the former's superior position in the family. Among the Langobardi, according to the laws of King Rothar, a husband who killed his wife had to pay the same compensation as anybody else would have had to pay for taking her life, but if a wife killed her husband, she was put to death, and her property forfeited {420} to the family of the dead.[7] In Russia, in the seventeenth century, whilst a husband who murdered his wife was, according to law, obnoxious to corporal punishment, a wife who murdered her husband was buried alive, with the head above the ground, and left to perish by hunger.[8] According to English law, a woman who killed her husband was guilty of "petit treason," that is, murder in its most odious degree.[9]
[Footnote 6: Rein, _Japan_, p. 424. Hommel, _Die semitischen Völker und Sprachen_, i. 417 (Babylonians). Leist, _Altarisches Jus Civile_, i. 196, 275 ("Aryan" peoples). Wilda, _Strafrecht der Germanen_, p. 705; Nordström, _Bidrag till den svenska samhälls-författningens historia_, ii. 61 _sq._; Weinhold, _Altnordisches Leben_, p. 250; Keyser _Efterladte Skrifter_, ii. pt. ii. 28 _sq._ (Teutons).]
[Footnote 7: _Edictus Rothari_, 200 _sqq._]
[Footnote 8: Macieiowski, _Slavische Rechtsgeschichte_, iv. 292. For a Corsican law concerning matricide, see Cibrario, _Economia politica del medio eve_, i. 344; and for the punishment inflicted for the same crime on a woman in Nuremberg, in 1487, see Du Boys, _Histoire du droit criminel des peuples modernes_, ii. 607.]
[Footnote 9: Blackstone, _Commentaries on the Laws of England_, iv. 203.]
Among many peoples the life of a woman is held cheaper than that of a man, independently of the relationship between the slayer and his victim. In Burma, if a woman was accidentally killed, less compensation had to be paid than for a man. A Burman explained this in the following words:--"A woman is worth less than a man _in that way_. A maidservant can be hired for less than a manservant, a daughter can claim less than a son. They cannot do so much work; they are not so strong. If they had been worth more, the law would have been the other way; of course they are worth less."[10] Among Muhammedans the price of blood for a woman is half the sum which is the price of blood for a free man.[11] In ancient India the murder of a woman, unless she was with child, was in the eye of the law on a par with the murder of a Sûdra.[12] According to Cambrian law, the _galanas_, or blood-price, of a woman was half the _galanas_ of her brother.[13] Among the Teutons the _wergeld_ of a woman varied: sometimes it was the same as that for a man, sometimes only half as much, but sometimes twice as much, or, if she was pregnant, {421} even more.[14] These variations depended upon the different points of view from which the offence was looked upon. By herself she was worth less than a man, as a mother she was worth more;[15] and, quite apart from her value, the natural helplessness of her sex tended to aggravate the crime.[16] Among modern savages and barbarians, also, the estimate of a woman's life is in some instances lower than that of a man's,[17] in some equal to it,[18] and in some higher.[19] Among the Gallas the killing of a free man can be atoned for only by one thousand cattle, whereas fifty are deemed sufficient for the killing of a woman.[20] On the other hand, among the Iroquois two hundred yards of wampum were paid for the murder of a woman, and only one hundred for that of a man.[21] Among the Rejangs of Sumatra, whilst the compensation for murder is eighty dollars if the victim was an ordinary man or boy, it is one hundred and fifty dollars if the person murdered was a woman or a girl.[22] Among the Ag[=a]r, a Dinka tribe, the murder of a man must be atoned for by a fine of thirty cows, that of a woman by forty cows.[23] Where wives are purchased, the killing of a woman involves the destruction of valuable property, and is dealt with accordingly.
[Footnote 10: Fielding, _The Soul of a People_, p. 171.]
[Footnote 11: Lane, _Arabian Society in the Middle Ages_, p. 18.]
[Footnote 12: _Baudhâyana_, i. 10. 19. 3. Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_, p. 305 _sqq._]
[Footnote 13: _Venedotian Code_, ii. 1. 16. According to the 'Laws of the Brets and Scots,' the estimate of a married woman is less by a third part than that of her husband, whereas the estimate of an unmarried woman is equal to that of her brother (Innes, _Scotland in the Middle Ages_, p. 181).]
[Footnote 14: Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, p. 404 _sqq._]
[Footnote 15: This point of view is very conspicuous in the Salic Law (_Lex Salica_ [Herold's text], 28).]
[Footnote 16: Wilda, _op. cit._ p. 571. Keyser, _op. cit._ ii. pt. ii. 29. Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, ii. 614 _sq._ Pardessus, _Loi Salique_, p. 662.]
[Footnote 17: Post, _Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtsleben_, p. 192. _Idem_, _Studien zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Familienrechts_, p. 119 _sq._ Gibbs, 'Tribes of Western Washington and North-western Oregon,' in _Contributions to North American Ethnology_, i. 190. Georgi, _Russia_, ii. 261; Vámbéry, _Türkenvolk_, p. 305 (Kirghiz). Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_, p. 487 (Wakamba).]
[Footnote 18: Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_, i. 277 (Creeks). Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ iii. 370. Woodthorpe, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxvi. 21 (Shans).]
[Footnote 19: Post, _Studien zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Familienrechts_, p. 119 _sq._]
[Footnote 20: Paulitschke, _Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas_, p. 263.]
[Footnote 21: Loskiel, _History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America_, i. 16.]
[Footnote 22: Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, p. 222.]
[Footnote 23: _Emin Pasha in Central Africa_, p. 338.]
* * * * *
As a husband often has "the power of life and death" over his wife, so we may expect to find, even more often, {422} that a master has the same power over his slave. The latter, as a rule, can hardly count on the support of his family, and when, as is frequently the case, he is a prisoner of war, the right of killing an enemy easily passes into the right of killing the slave. In the literature dealing with the lower races we repeatedly meet with the statement that the owner may kill his slave at pleasure, or that he is not accountable for killing him.[24] Yet this seems to mean rather that, if he does so, no complaint can be brought against him, or no vengeance taken on him, than that he has an unconditional moral right to put to death a slave whom he no longer cares to keep; we shall see that savage custom very commonly requires that slaves should be treated with kindness by their masters. In many cases the master is expressly denied the right of killing his slave at his own discretion.[25] Among the Bataks, the owner, though allowed to punish his slave, must take care that the latter does not succumb to the punishment.[26] Among the Rejangs, if a man kills his slave, he pays half his price as compensation to the feudal chief of the country.[27] In Madagascar "masters have full power over their slaves, excepting as to life";[28] and the same is said of the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast.[29] The Mandingoes allow the owner to do what he likes to a prisoner of war and to a person who has lost his freedom through insolvency, but he is forbidden to kill a house-slave.[30] Among the Barea and Kunáma, by putting {423} to death a slave who is a native of the country, the master even exposes himself to the blood-revenge of the family of the slain.[31]
[Footnote 24: Monrad, _Bidrag til en Skildring af Guinea-Kysten_, p. 42 (Negroes of Accra). Bowdich, _Mission to Ashantee_, p. 258 (people of Ashanti). Ward, _Five Years with the Congo Cannibals_, p. 105 (Bolobo). Macdonald, _Africana_, i. 168 (Eastern Central Africans). Burton, _Zanzibar_, ii. 95 (Wanika). Cooper, _Mishmee Hills_, p. 238. _Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago_, p. 106 (Highlanders of Palembang). Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology_, p. 33 (Maoris). Gibbs, _loc. cit._ p. 189 (Thlinkets). Steinmetz, _Studien_, ii. 308 _sqq._]
[Footnote 25: Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse von eigeborenen Völkern in Afrika und Ozeanien_, p. 43 (Banaka and Bapuku). Mademba, _ibid._ p. 83 (natives of the Sansanding States). Lang, _ibid._ p. 241 (Washambala). Desoignies, _ibid._ p. 278 (Msalala).]
[Footnote 26: _Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago_, p. 114.]
[Footnote 27: Marsden, _op. cit._ p. 222.]
[Footnote 28: Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, i. 196.]
[Footnote 29: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_, p. 291.]
[Footnote 30: Post, _Afrikanische Jurisprudenz_, i. 95.]
[Footnote 31: Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, p. 484.]
The murder of another person's slave is of course largely regarded as an offence against the property of the owner, but, in many cases at least, it is not exclusively looked upon in this light. Where the master himself is not allowed to kill his slave, the slave possesses the right to live in the full sense of the term. Sometimes there is in this respect little difference between him and a freeman. Among the Beni Amer, whilst the murder of a slave who has been bought is merely compensated for by the payment of the purchase sum, the murder of a slave who belongs to his master by birth is avenged by his relatives, or, if he has none, by the master himself; should the murderer be too high a person, the matter drops, but there is no question of payment in any case.[32] Where the system of blood-money prevails, the price paid for the life of a slave is less than that paid for the life of a freeman. Among the Kirghiz the former is only half of the latter.[33] In Axim, on the Gold Coast, according to Bosman, the murderer of a slave was usually fined thirty-six crowns, whilst five hundred crowns were demanded for the murder of a free-born negro.[34]
[Footnote 32: _Ibid._ p. 309.]
[Footnote 33: Georgi, _op. cit._ ii. 261.]
[Footnote 34: Bosman, _New Description of the Coast of Guinea_, p. 141 _sq._]
The rule that the life of a slave is held in less estimation than the life of a freeman applies to the nations of archaic culture; yet not even the master is among them in all circumstances allowed to put his slave to death. In ancient Mexico the murder of a slave, though committed by the master, was a capital offence.[35] In Corea, a slave may not be killed by his owner before the latter has obtained the permission of the board of punishments, or of the high provincial authorities.[36] According to the {424} Chinese Penal Code, a master who, instead of complaining to a magistrate privately, beats to death a slave who has been guilty of theft, adultery, or any other similar crime, shall be punished with one hundred blows. If he beats to death, or intentionally kills, a slave who has committed no crime, he shall be punished with sixty blows and one year's banishment, and the wife or husband, as also the children, of the deceased slave shall be entitled to their freedom.[37] Again, a freeman who kills another's slave shall be strangled.[38]
[Footnote 35: Bancroft, _op. cit._ ii. 223.]
[Footnote 36: Rockhill, 'Notes on some of the Laws, Customs, and Superstitions of Korea,' in _American Anthropologist_, iv. 180. _Cf._ Griffis, _Corea_, p. 239.]
[Footnote 37: _Ta Tsing Leu Lee_, sec. cccxiv. p. 340.]
[Footnote 38: _Ibid._ sec. cccxiii. p. 336.]
According to Hebrew law, a master who smites his slave so that he dies under his hand, "shall be surely punished"; but if the slave continues to live for a day or two after the assault, the master goes free on the score that the slave is "his money."[39] Muhammed strongly enjoined the duty of kindness to slaves; yet, according to Muhammedan law, the master may even kill his own slave with impunity for any offence, and incurs but a slight punishment--as imprisonment for a period at the discretion of the judge--if he kills him wantonly.[40] The price of blood for a slave is his or her value; but by the [H.]anafee law a man is obnoxious to capital punishment for the murder of another man's slave.[41]
[Footnote 39: _Exodus_, xxi. 20 _sq._]
[Footnote 40: Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians_, p. 115. _Idem_, _Arabian Society in the Middle Ages_, p. 251.]
[Footnote 41: _Idem_, _Modern Egyptians_, p. 119. _Idem_, _Arabian Society_, p. 18 _sq._]
Among the ancient Teutons the master was irresponsible in the eye of the law as to all dealings between himself and his slave; legally the slave was on a par with the horse and the ox, and to kill him was only to inflict a certain loss upon the owner.[42] In ancient Wales the position of a slave seems to have been very similar; there was no _galanas_ for a bondman, "only payment of his worth to his master, like the worth of a beast."[43] Among the Greeks, in the Homeric age, the master evidently {425} could punish his slaves with death;[44] but in later times, at least at Athens, he was obliged to hand over to the magistrate any slave of his who deserved capital punishment.[45] What happened to a master who killed his own slave we do not know exactly, but at any rate he had to undergo a ceremony of purification.[46] Plato says in his 'Laws,' that if a person kills the slave of another in anger, he shall pay twice the amount of the loss to his owner.[47] But he adds, "If any one kills a slave who has done no wrong, because he is afraid that he may inform of some base and evil deeds of his own, or for any similar reason, in such a case let him pay the penalty of murder, as he would have done if he had slain a citizen."[48]
[Footnote 42: Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, p. 342 _sqq._ Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, i. 96. Kemble, _Saxons in England_, i. 208 _sqq._ Stemann, _op. cit._ p. 281 _sqq._ Keyser, _op. cit._ ii. pt. i. 289.]
[Footnote 43: _Dimetian Code_, iii. 3. 8.]
[Footnote 44: _Odyssey_, iv. 743; xix. 489 _sq._]
[Footnote 45: Schmidt, _Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 217. Hermann-Blümner, _Lehrbuch der griechischen Privatalterthümer_, p. 88, n. 3.]
[Footnote 46: Plato, _Leges_, ix. 865, 868. Schmidt, _op. cit._ ii. 217 _sq._]
[Footnote 47: Plato, _Leges_, ix. 868.]
[Footnote 48: _Ibid._ ix. 872.]
In Rome, in ancient times, the master had by law the absolute power of life and death over his slaves; and he who killed another man's slave was not criminally prosecuted, but had merely to compensate the owner for the destruction of his property.[49] Even during the Empire a slave was counted a thing, not a person; himself incapable of suffering an _injuria_, he was viewed as a mechanical medium only, through which an insult could be transmitted to his master.[50] Yet this doctrine was not rigidly adhered to. After the publication of the Lex Cornelia, the change was introduced that he who killed a slave belonging to somebody else could be punished for murder;[51] and later on even the master's power of life and death was restricted by law. Claudius declared that sick slaves who had been exposed by their owners in a languishing condition, and afterwards recovered, should be perfectly free and never more return to their former servitude; moreover, "if any one chose to kill at once, rather than expose, a slave, he should be liable for murder."[52] {426} By a constitution of Antoninus Pius he who put his slave to death without a sufficient cause (_sine causa_) was to be punished equally with him who killed the slave of another.[53] Hadrian even made an attempt to induce slave-owners to hand over to the authorities slaves who had been guilty of some capital crime, instead of themselves inflicting the punishment on the guilty.[54]
[Footnote 49: Mommsen, _Römisches Strafrecht_, p. 616.]
[Footnote 50: _Institutiones_, iv. 4. 3.]
[Footnote 51: Gaius, _Institutionum juris civilis commentarii_, iii. 213. _Cf._ Mommsen, _Römisches Strafrecht_, p. 616.]
[Footnote 52: Suetonius, _Claudius_, 25.]
[Footnote 53: Gaius, _op. cit._ i. 53. _Institutiones_, i. 8. 2.]
[Footnote 54: Spartian, _Vita Hadriani_, 18. _Cf._ Mommsen, _Römisches Strafrecht_, p. 617, n. 2.]
Faithful to her principle that human life is sacred, the Church made efforts to secure the life of the slave against the violence of the master; but neither the ecclesiastical nor the secular legislation gave him the same protection as was bestowed upon the free member of the Church and State. Various Councils punished the murder of a slave with two years' excommunication only, if the slave had been killed "sine conscientia judicis";[55] and the same punishment was adopted by some Penitentials.[56] Edgar made the penance last three years, whereas, if a freeman was killed, the penance was of seven years' duration.[57] Facts do not justify Mr. Lecky's statement that, "in the penal system of the Church, the distinction between wrongs done to a freeman, and wrongs done to a slave, which lay at the very root of the whole civil legislation, was repudiated."[58]
[Footnote 55: _Concilium Agathense_, A.D. 506, canon 62 (Labbe-Mansi, _Sacrorum Conciliorum collectio_, viii. 335). _Concilium Epaonense_, A.D. 517, canon 34 (_ibid._ viii. 563). _Concilium Wormatiense_, A.D. 868, canon 38 (_ibid._ xv. 876).]
[Footnote 56: _P[oe]nitentiale Cummeani_, vi. 29 (Wasserschleben, _Bussordungen der abendländischen Kirche_, p. 480). _P[oe]nit. Pseudo-Theodori_, xxi. 12 (_ibid._ p. 587).]
[Footnote 57: _Canons enacted under Edgar_, Modus imponendi p[oe]nitentiam, 4, 11 (_Ancient Laws and Institutes of England_, p. 405 _sq._).]
[Footnote 58: Lecky, _History of European Morals_, ii. 66. Mr. Lecky states (_ibid._ ii. 66 _sq._) that the Council of Illiberis excluded for ever from the communion a master who killed his slave. I have only been able to find the following enactment made by a Council held at Illiberis in the beginning of the fourth century:--"Si qua domina furore zeli accensa flagris verberaverit ancillam suam, ita ut in tertium diem animam cum cruciatu effundat; eo quod incertum sit, voluntate, an casu occiderit; si voluntate, post septem annos; si casu, post quinquennii tempora, acta legitima p[oe]nitentia, ad communionem placuit admitti" (_Concilium Eliberitanum_, ch. 5 [Labbe-Mansi, _op. cit._ ii. 6]).]
Beyond a law of Constantine, to the effect that a master {427} who put his slave to death in a non-judicial way, was to be punished as a murderer,[59] and a reiteration of some previous enactments, the Christian emperors seem to have done little to guard the life of the slave. Whilst it was provided that any master who applied to his slave certain atrocious tortures with the object of killing him should be deemed a manslayer, it was emphatically said that no charge whatever should be brought against him if the slave died under moderate punishment, or under any punishment not inflicted with the intention of killing him.[60] Arcadius and Honorius even passed a law refusing protection to a slave who should fly to a church for refuge from his master;[61] but this law was, in the West, followed by regulations of an opposite character.[62] The barbarian invasions certainly did not improve the condition of slaves, and in Teutonic countries it was only by slow degrees that the introduction and spread of a higher civilisation exercised its humanising influence on the relation between master and slave. The Visigothic Code prohibited a person from killing any of his slaves who had committed no offence.[63] According to the Capitularia, the master had to pay a penalty for causing the death of a guiltless slave, provided that he died at once; but if he survived the injury only a day or two, the master was not punishable for his deed, because the slave was his _pecunia_.[64] In a later period any intentional killing of an innocent slave was punished by law, but the law probably remained a dead letter.[65] In the thirteenth century Beaumanoir, the French jurisconsult, could write:--"Plus cortoise est nostre coustume envers les sers que en autre païs, car li segneur poent penre de lor sers, et à mort et à vie, toutes les fois {428} qu'il lor plest, et tant qu'il lor plet."[66] Nay, even in quite modern times, in Christian countries, where negro slavery prevailed as a recognised institution, the life of the slave was only inadequately protected by their laws.
[Footnote 59: _Codex Theodosianus_, ix. 12. 1.]
[Footnote 60: _Ibid._ ix. 12. Lecky, _History of European Morals_, ii. 62 _sq._]
[Footnote 61: _Codex Theodosianus_, ix. 45. 3.]
[Footnote 62: Babington, _The Influence of Christianity in promoting the Abolition of Slavery in Europe_, p. 37. Biot, _De l'abolition de l'esclavage ancien en Occident_, p. 239.]
[Footnote 63: _Lex Wisigothorum_, vi. 5. 12.]
[Footnote 64: _Capitularia_, vi. 11 (Georgisch, _Corpus Juris Germanici antiqui_, col. 1513). This law is borrowed from _Exodus_, xxi. 20 _sq._]
[Footnote 65: Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, p. 344 _sq._ _Cf._ Potgiesser, **_Commentarii juris Germanici de statu servorum veteri perinde atqve novo_, ii. 1. 10, 13, 24; iii. 6 (pp. 308, 309, 311, 312, 321, 633 _sqq._).]
[Footnote 66: Beaumanoir, _Les coutumes du Beauvoisis_, xlv. 36, vol. ii. p. 237.]
In most of the British colonies, it was only by force of comparatively recent acts, made for the most part subsequent to the year 1797, that the same punishment was prescribed for the murder of a slave as for the murder of a free person. Prior to this period the former crime was subject only to a small pecuniary penalty, in Barbados not exceeding £15.[67] In the French colonies, according to the Code Noir, a master who killed his slave should be punished "selon l'atrocité des circonstances."[68] In all the North American Slave-States there was a time when the murder of a slave, whether by his master or a third person, was atoned for by a fine. In South Carolina this was the case as late as 1821, and only since then the wilful, malicious, and premeditated killing of a slave, by whomsoever perpetrated, was a capital offence in all the slave-holding States.[69] But this does not mean that no distinction was made between the killing of a slave and the killing of a freeman. In South Carolina, according to an enactment of 1821, he who killed a slave on a sudden heat of passion was punished simply with a fine of five hundred dollars and imprisonment not exceeding six months.[70] In the Statutes of Tennessee the law referring to the wilful murder of a slave contained the provision that it should not be extended to "any person killing any slave in the act of resistance to his lawful owner or master, or any slave dying under moderate correction";[71] and a very similar provision was made by the laws of Georgia.[72] In other words, a correction causing the death of the victim {429} was not necessarily immoderate in the eye of the law. In a still higher degree the life of the slave was endangered by another law, which prevailed universally both in the Slave-States and in the British Colonies. Neither a slave, nor a free negro, nor any descendant of a native of Africa whatever might be the shade of his complexion, could be a witness against a white person, either in a civil or criminal case.[73] This law placed the slave, who was seldom within the view of more than one white man at a time, entirely at the mercy of this individual, and its consequences were obvious. Speaking of slavery in the United States in 1853, Mr. Goodell remarks:--"Upon the most diligent inquiry and public challenge, for fifteen or twenty years past, not one single case has yet been ascertained in which, either during that time or previously, a master killing his slave, or indeed any other white man, has suffered the penalty of death for the murder of a slave." Nevertheless, murders of slaves by white men had been notoriously frequent.[74]
[Footnote 67: Stephen, _Slavery of the British West India Colonies delineated_, i. 36, 38.]
[Footnote 68: _Code Noir_, Édit donné au mois de Mars 1724, art. 39, p. 304.]
[Footnote 69: Brevard, _Digest of the Public Statute Law of South Carolina_, ii. 240 _sq._ Stroud, _Laws relating to Slavery in the United States of America_, p. 55 _sq._]
[Footnote 70: Stroud, _op. cit._ p. 64.]
[Footnote 71: Caruthers and Nicholson, _Compilation of the Statutes of Tennessee_, p. 677.]
[Footnote 72: Prince, _Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia_, p. 787.]
[Footnote 73: Brevard, _op. cit._ ii. 242. Stroud, _op. cit._ p. 106 _sq._ Stephen, _Slavery of the British West India Colonies_, i. 166, 174. In the French Colonies, also, slaves could not be legal witnesses, but their testimony might be heard by the judge, merely to serve as a suggestion, or unauthenticated information, which might throw light on the evidence of other witnesses (_Code Noir_, Édit du mois de Mars 1685, art. 30, p. 44).]
[Footnote 74: Goodell, _American Slave Code in Theory and Practice_, p. 209 _sq._]
That the life of a slave is held in so little regard is due to that want of sympathy with his fate which accounts also for his unfree condition, and to the proprietary rights over him which, in consequence, have been granted to his master. For similar reasons the killing of a freeman by a slave, especially if the victim be his owner, is commonly punished more severely than if the same act were done by a free person. The less the sympathy felt for an individual, the more intense is the resentment which he excites by offensive behaviour. According to the Chinese Penal Code, a slave who designedly kills, or strikes so as to kill, his master, shall suffer death "by a slow and painful execution."[75] Plato says that, if a slave voluntarily murders a freeman, {430} the public executioner shall lead him in the direction of the sepulchre of the dead man, to a place whence he can see the tomb, and after inflicting upon him as many stripes as the complainant shall order, put the murderer, if he survives the scourging, to death.[76] Though the slave has committed the act in a fit of passion, the relatives of the deceased shall nevertheless be under an obligation to kill him, and this may be done in any manner they please;[77] nay, even in self-defence a slave is not allowed to kill a freeman, any more than a son is allowed to kill his father.[78] At Rome, also, a slave was more heavily punished for the commission of homicide than a freeman.[79] Says the ancient jurist, "Maiores nostri in omni supplicio severius servos quam liberos famosos quam integræ famæ homines punierunt."[80]
[Footnote 75: _Ta Tsing Leu Lee_, sec. cccxiv. p. 338.]
[Footnote 76: Plato, _Leges_, ix. 872.]
[Footnote 77: _Ibid._ ix. 868.]
[Footnote 78: _Ibid._ ix. 869.]
[Footnote 79: Mommsen, _Römisches Strafrecht_, p. 631 _sq._]
[Footnote 80: _Digesta_, xlviii. 19. 28. 16.]
* * * * *
In the estimate of life a distinction is made not only between freemen and slaves, but between different classes of freemen. Among certain peoples a person who kills a chief is punished with death, though murder is not generally a capital offence.[81] Where the system of compensation prevails, the blood-price very frequently varies according to the station or rank of the victim.[82] Among the Rejangs of Sumatra the compensation for the murder of a superior chief is five hundred dollars, for that of an inferior chief two hundred and fifty dollars; for that of a common person, man or boy, eighty dollars; for that of a common person, woman or girl, one hundred and fifty dollars; for the legitimate child or wife of a superior chief, two hundred and fifty dollars.[83] The body of every Ossetian has {431} a settled value in the eyes of the judges, which seems to be fixed by public opinion; thus the father of a family bears a higher value than an unmarried man, and a noble is rated at twice as much as an ordinary freeman.[84] In Eastern Tibet the murderer of a man of the upper class is fined 120 bricks of tea, the murderer of a middle-class man only 80, and so on down through the social scale, the life of a beggar being valued at a nominal amount only; but if the victim was a lama, the murderer has to pay a much higher price, possibly 300 bricks.[85] According to the doctrine of modern Buddhism, "when the life of a man is taken, the demerit increases in proportion to the merit of the person slain."[86] The laws of the Brets and Scots estimated the life of the king of Scots at a thousand cows; that of an earl's son, or a thane, at a hundred cows; that of a villein, at sixteen cows.[87] A similar system prevailed among the Celtic peoples generally,[88] as also among the Teutons. A man's _wergeld_, or life-price, varied according to his rank, birth, or office; and so minutely was it graduated, that a great part of many Teutonic laws was taken up by provisions fixing its amount in different cases.[89] In English laws of the Norman age the _wer_ of a _villanus_ is still only reckoned at _£_4, whilst that of the _homo plene nobilis_ is _£_25.[90]
[Footnote 81: Woodthorpe, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxvi. 21 (Shans). Shooter, _Kafirs of Natal_, p. 103.]
[Footnote 82: Maclean, _Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs_, p. 144. Casalis, _Basutos_, p. 225. Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_, p. 301. Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, pp. 242 _sq._ (Marea), 314 (Beni Amer). Forbes, _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_, p. 145 (Lampongers of Sumatra). Modigliani, _Viaggio a Nías_, p. 494. Richardson, _Arctic Searching Expedition_, i. 386 (Kutchin). Gibbs, _loc. cit._ p. 190 (Indians of Western Washington and North-western Oregon). Paget, _Hungary and Transylvania_, ii. 411 n. (Hungarians).]
[Footnote 83: Crawfurd, _History of the Indian Archipelago_, iii. 112.]
[Footnote 84: von Haxthausen, _Transcaucasia_, p. 409. Kovalewsky, _Coutume contemporaine_, p. 355 _sqq._]
[Footnote 85: Rockhill, _Land of the Lamas_, p. 221.]
[Footnote 86: Hardy, _Manual of Budhism_, p. 478.]
[Footnote 87: Innes, _Scotland in the Middle Ages_, p. 180 _sq._]
[Footnote 88: _Ancient Laws of Ireland_, iii. 103, &c. Skene, _Celtic Scotland_, iii. 152. de Valroger, _Les Celtes_, p. 471.]
[Footnote 89: Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, pp. 272-275, 289. Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, i. 104, 105, 107, 108, 224, 247 _sqq._ Kemble, _Saxons in England_, i. 276 _sqq._]
[Footnote 90: _Leges Henrici I._ lxx. 1; lxxvi. 4. _Cf._ _Laws of William the Conqueror_, i. 8.]
The magnitude of the crime, however, may depend not only on the rank of the victim, but on the rank of the manslayer as well.[91] Among the Philippine Islanders, "murder committed by a slave was punished with death--committed by a person of rank, was indemnified by {432} payments to the injured family."[92] In Fijian estimation, says Mr. Williams, offences "are light or grave according to the rank of the offender. Murder by a chief is less heinous than a petty **larceny committed by a man of low rank."[93] Among the E[(w]e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, "in cases of murder and manslaughter, if the homicide be of rank superior to the person killed, he pays the compensation demanded by the family of the latter, or, in default of payment, forfeits his own life. If the homicide be of equal rank with the person killed, the family of the deceased have the right to demand his life, though compensation is usually accepted; but when he is lower in rank his life is nearly always forfeited."[94] Very similar rules prevail among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast.[95] Among the Marea, if a nobleman kills another nobleman, the family of the deceased generally take revenge on him; whereas, if a commoner kills a nobleman, he is not only executed himself, but his property is confiscated and his nearest relatives become subject to the murdered man's family.[96] According to the religious law of Brahmanism, the enormity of all crimes depends on the caste of him who commits them, and on the caste of him against whom they are committed.[97] If a Brâhmana slays a Brâhmana, the king shall brand him on the forehead with a heated iron and banish him from his realm, but if a man of a lower caste murders a Brâhmana, he shall be punished with death and the confiscation of all his property.[98] If such a person slays a man of equal or lower caste, other suitable punishments shall be inflicted upon him.[99] A fine of a thousand cows is the penalty for slaying a Kshatriya, that of a hundred for slaying a Vaisya, and that of ten cows only for slaying a Sûdra.[100] In Rome, also, at a certain period of its history, the {433} offence was magnified in proportion to the insignificance of the offender. During the Republic there was no law sanctioning such a distinction, with reference to crimes committed by free citizens; but from the beginning of the Empire, the citizens were divided into privileged classes and commonalty--_uterque ordo_ and _plebs_--and, whilst a commoner who was guilty of murder was punished with death, a murderer belonging to the privileged classes was generally punished with _deportatio_ only.[101] In the Middle Ages a similar privilege was granted by Italian and Spanish laws to manslayers of noble birth.[102]
[Footnote 91: These two principles do not always go together. Among the Rejangs the amount of the blood-money is not proportioned to the rank and ability of the murderer, but regulated only by the quality of the person murdered (Marsden, _op. cit._ p. 246).]
[Footnote 92: Bowring, _Visit to the Philippine Islands_, p. 123.]
[Footnote 93: Williams and Calvert, _Fiji_, p. 22.]
[Footnote 94: Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples_, p. 223.]
[Footnote 95: _Idem_, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 301.]
[Footnote 96: Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, p. 242, _sq._ _Cf._ _ibid._ p. 314 (Beni Amer).]
[Footnote 97: Hopkins, _Religions of India_, p. 263.]
[Footnote 98: _Baudháyana_, i. 10. 18. 18 _sq._]
[Footnote 99: _Ibid._ i. 10. 18. 20.]
[Footnote 100: _Ibid._ i. 10. 19. 1 _sq._]
[Footnote 101: Mommsen, _Römisches Strafrecht_, pp. 650, 1032 _sqq._]
[Footnote 102: Du Boys, _Histoire du droit criminel des peuples modernes_, ii. 402. _Idem_, _Histoire du droit criminel de l'Espagne_, pp. 357, 359. _Cf._ _ibid._ p. 635 _sq._]
In a society which is divided into different classes, persons belonging to a higher class are naturally apt to sympathise more with their equals than with their inferiors. An injury inflicted on one of the former tends to arouse in them a higher degree of sympathetic resentment than a similar injury inflicted on one of the latter. So, also, their resentment towards the criminal will, _ceteris paribus_, be more intense if he is a person of low rank than if he is one of themselves. Where the superior class, as was originally the case everywhere, are the leaders of such a society, their feelings will find expression in its customs and laws, and thus moral distinctions will arise which are readily recognised by the common people also, owing to the admiration with which they look up to those above them. But in a progressive society this state of things will not last. The different classes gradually draw nearer to each other. The once all-powerful class loses much of its exclusiveness, as well as of its importance and influence. Sympathy expands. In consequence, distinctions which were formerly sanctioned by custom and law come to be regarded as unjust prerogatives, worthy only of abolition. And it is at last admitted that each member of the society is born with an equal claim to the most sacred of all human rights, the right to live.
CHAPTER XIX
HUMAN SACRIFICE
IT still remains for us to consider some particular cases in which destruction of human life is sanctioned by custom or law.
Men are killed with a view to gratifying the desires of superhuman beings. We meet with human sacrifice in the past history of every so-called Aryan race.[1] It occurred, at least occasionally, in ancient India, and several of the modern Hindu sects practised it even in the last century.[2] There are numerous indications that it was known among the early Greeks.[3] At certain times it prevailed in the Hellenic cult of Zeus;[4] indeed, in the second century after Christ men seem still to have been sacrificed to Zeus Lycæus in Arcadia.[5] To the historic age likewise belongs the sacrifice of the three Persian prisoners of war whom Themistocles was compelled to slay before the battle of Salamis.[6] In Rome, also, human sacrifices, though {435} exceptional, were not unknown in historic times.[7] Pliny records that in the year 97 B.C. a decree forbidding such sacrifices was passed by the Roman Senate,[8] and afterwards the Emperor Hadrian found it necessary to renew this prohibition.[9] Porphyry asks, "Who does not know that to this day, in the great city of Rome, at the festival of Jupiter Latiaris, they cut the throat of a man?"[10] And Tertullian states that in North Africa, even to the proconsulship of Tiberius, infants were publicly sacrificed to Saturn.[11] Human sacrifices were offered by Celts,[12] Teutons,[13] and Slavs;[14] by the ancient Semites[15] and Egyptians;[16] by the Japanese in early days;[17] and, in the New World, by the Mayas[18] and, to a frightful extent, by the Aztecs. "Scarcely any author," says Prescott in his 'History of the Conquest of Mexico,' "pretends to estimate the yearly sacrifices throughout the empire at less than twenty thousand, and some carry the number as high as fifty thousand."[19] The same practice is imputed by Spanish writers to the Incas of Peru, and probably not without good reason.[20] Before their rule, at all events, it {436} was of frequent occurrence among the Peruvian Indians.[21] It also prevailed, or still prevails, among the Caribs[22] and some North American tribes;[23] in various South Sea islands, especially Tahiti and Fiji;[24] among certain tribes in the Malay Archipelago;[25] among several of the aboriginal tribes of India;[26] and very commonly in Africa.[27]
[Footnote 1: See Hehn, _Wanderings of Plants and Animals from their First Home_, p. 414 _sqq._]
[Footnote 2: Weber, _Indische Streifen_, i. 54 _sqq._ Wilson, 'Human Sacrifices in the Ancient Religion of India,' in _Works_, ii. 247 _sqq._ Oldenberg, _Religion des Veda_, p. 363 _sqq._ Barth, _Religions of India_, p. 57 _sqq._ Monier Williams, _Br[=a]hmanism and Hind[=u]ism_, p. 24. Hopkins, _Religions of India_, pp. 198, 363. Rájendralála Mitra, _Indo-Aryans_, ii. 69 _sqq._ Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India_, ii. 167 _sqq._ Chevers, _Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for India_, p. 396 _sqq._]
[Footnote 3: See Geusius, _Victimæ Humanæ_, _passim_; von Lasaulx, _Sühnofper der Griechen und Römer_, _passim_; Farnell, _Cults, of the Greek States_, i. 41 _sq._; Stengel, _Die griechischen Kultusaltertümer_, p. 114 _sqq._]
[Footnote 4: _Cf._ Farnell, _op. cit._ i. 93; Stengel, _op. cit._ p. 116.]
[Footnote 5: Pausanias, viii. 38. 7.]
[Footnote 6: Plutarch, _Themistocles_, 13.]
[Footnote 7: _Idem_, _Questiones Romanæ_, 83. See Landau, in _Am Ur-Quell_, iii. 1892, p. 283 _sqq._]
[Footnote 8: Pliny, _Historia naturalis_, xxx. 3.]
[Footnote 9: Porphyry, _De abstinentia ab esu animalium_, ii. 56.]
[Footnote 10: _Ibid._ ii. 56.]
[Footnote 11: Tertullian, _Apologeticus_, 9 (Migne, _Patrologiæ cursus_, i. 314).]
[Footnote 12: Cæsar, _De bello gallico_, vi. 16. Tacitus, _Annales_, xiv. 30. Diodorus Siculus, _Bibliotheca_, v. 31, p. 354. Pliny, _Historia naturalis_, xxx. 4. Strabo, iv. 5, p. 198. Joyce, _Social History of Ancient Ireland_, i. 281 _sqq._]
[Footnote 13: Tacitus, _Germania_, 9. Adam of Bremen, _Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiæ pontificum_, iv. 27 (Migne, _op. cit._ cxlvi. 644). Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, i. 44 _sqq._ Vigfusson and Powell, _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, i. 409 _sq._ Freytag, 'Riesen und Menschenopfer in unsern Sagen und Märchen,' in _Am Ur-Quell_, i. 1890, pp. 179-183, 197 _sqq._]
[Footnote 14: Mone, _Geschichte des nordischen Heidenthums_, i. 119, quoted by Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 52. Krauss, in _Am Ur-Quell_, vi. 1896, p. 137 _sqq._ (Servians).]
[Footnote 15: Ghillany, _Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer_, _passim_. Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, p. 362 _sqq._ Wellhausen, _Reste arabischen Heidentums_, p. 115 _sq._ von Kremer, _Studien zur vergleichenden Culturgeschichte_, i. 42 _sqq._ Chwolsohn, _Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus_, ii. 147 _sqq._]
[Footnote 16: Amélineau, _L'évolution des idées morales dans l'Égypte Ancienne_, p. 12.]
[Footnote 17: Griffis, _Religions of Japan_, p. 75. Lippert, _Seelencult_, p. 79.]
[Footnote 18: Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, ii. 704, 725.]
[Footnote 19: Prescott, _History of the Conquest of Mexico_, p. 38. _Cf._ Clavigero, _History of Mexico_, i. 281; Acosta, _Natural and Moral History of the Indies_, ii. 346.]
[Footnote 20: Acosta, _op. cit._ ii. 344. de Molina, 'Fables and Rites of the Yncas,' in _Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yncas_, pp. 55, 56, 59. According to Cieza de Leon (_Segunda parte de la Crónica del Perú_, p. 100), the practice of human sacrifice has been much exaggerated by Spanish writers, but he does not deny its existence among the Incas; nay, he gives an account of such sacrifices (_ibid._ p. 109 _sqq._). Sir Clements Markham seems to attach undue importance to the statement of Garcilasso de la Vega that human victims were never sacrificed by the Incas (_First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas_, i. 130, 131, 139 _sqq._ n. [dagger]). _Cf._ Prescott, _History of the Conquest of Peru_, p. 50 _sq._ n. 3.]
[Footnote 21: Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._ i. 50, 130.]
[Footnote 22: Müller, _Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen_, p. 212 _sq._]
[Footnote 23: _Ibid._ p. 142. _sqq._ Réville, _Religions des peuples non-civilisés_, i. 249 _sq._ Dorman, _Origin of Primitive Superstitions_, p. 208 _sqq._]
[Footnote 24: Schneider, _Naturvölker_, i. 191 _sq._ Fornander, _Account of the Polynesian Race_, i. 129. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 106, 346-348, 357 (Society Islanders). Williams, _Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands_, p. 548 _sq._ (especially the Hervey Islanders and Tahitians). von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery_, iii. 248 (Sandwich Islanders). Lisiansky, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 81 _sq._ (Nukahivans), 120 (Sandwich Islanders). Gill, _Myths and Songs from the South Pacific_, p. 289 _sqq._ (Mangaians). Williams and Calvert, _Fiji_, pp. 188, 195; Wilkes, _Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition_, iii. 97; Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition, Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology_, p. 57 (Fijians). Codrington, _Melanesians_, p. 134 _sqq._]
[Footnote 25: Ling Roth, _Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_, ii. 215 _sqq._ Bock, _Head-Hunters of Borneo_, p. 218 _sq._ (Dyaks).]
[Footnote 26: Woodthorpe, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxvi. 24 (Shans, &c.). Colquhoun, _Amongst the Shans_, p. 152 (Steins inhabiting the south-east of Indo-China). Lewin, _Wild Races of South-Eastern India_, p. 244 (Pankhos and Bunjogees). Godwin-Austen, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ ii. 394 (Garo hill tribes). Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, pp. 147 (Bhúiyas), 176 (Bhúmij), 281 (Gonds), 285 _sqq._ (Kandhs). Hislop, _Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces_, p. 15 _sq._ (Gonds). Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_, p. 113 _sq._ Campbell, _Wild Tribes of Khondistan_, _passim_ (Kandhs).]
[Footnote 27: Schneider, _Religion der afrikanischen Naturvölker_, p. 118. Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 52 (Dahomans, &c.). Ling Roth, _Great Benin_, p. 63 _sqq._ Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, p. 117 _sqq._ _Idem_, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, p. 296. _Idem_, _Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_, p. 169 _sqq._ Cruickshank, _Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast_, ii. 173. Schoen and Crowther, _Expedition up the Niger_, p. 48 _sq._ (Ibos). Arnot _Garenganze_, p. 75 (Barotse). Arbousset and Daumas, _Exploratory Tour to the North-East of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope_, p. 97 (Marimos, a Bechuana tribe). Macdonald, _Africana_, i. 96 _sq._ (Eastern Central Africans). Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, i. 422; Sibree, _The Great African Island_, p. 303 (Malagasy).]
From this enumeration it appears that the practice of human sacrifice cannot be regarded as a characteristic of savage races. On the contrary, it is found much more {437} frequently among barbarians and semi-civilised peoples than among genuine savages, and at the lowest stages of culture known to us it is hardly heard of. Among some peoples the practice has been noticed to become increasingly prevalent in the course of time. In the Society Islands "human sacrifices, we are informed by the natives, are comparatively of modern institution: they were not admitted until a few generations antecedent to the discovery of the islands**";[28] and in ancient legends there seems to be certain indications that they were once prohibited in Polynesia.[29] In India human sacrifices were apparently much rarer among the Vedic people than among the Brahmanists of a later age.[30] We are told that such sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs only in the beginning of the fourteenth century, about two hundred years before the conquest, and that, "rare at first, they became more frequent with the wider extent of their empire; till, at length, almost every festival was closed with this cruel abomination."[31] Of the Africans Mr. Winwood Reade remarks, "The more powerful the nation the grander the sacrifice."[32]
[Footnote 28: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 106.]
[Footnote 29: Fornander, _op. cit._ i. 129.]
[Footnote 30: Wilson, _Works_, ii. 268 _sq._]
[Footnote 31: Prescott, _History of the Conquest of Mexico_, p. 36.]
[Footnote 32: Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 52.]
Men offer up human victims to their gods because they think that the gods are gratified by such offerings. In many cases the gods are supposed to have an appetite for human flesh or blood.[33] The Fijian gods are described as "delighting in human flesh."[34] Among the Ooryahs of India the priest, when offering a human sacrifice to the war-god Manicksoro, said to the god, "The sacrifice we now offer you must eat."[35] Among the Iroquois, when an enemy was tortured at the stake, the savage executioners leaped around him crying, "To thee, Arieskoi, great spirit, we slay this victim, that thou mayest eat his flesh and be moved thereby to give us henceforth luck and {438} victory over our foes."[36] Among the ancient nations of Central America the blood and heart of the human victims offered in sacrifice were counted the peculiar portion of the gods.[37] Thus, in Mexico, the high-priest, after cutting open the victim's breast, tore forth the yet palpitating heart, offered it first to the sun, threw it then at the feet of the idol, and finally burned it; sometimes the heart was placed in the mouth of the idol with a golden spoon, and its lips were anointed with the victim's blood.[38]
[Footnote 33: See Lippert, _Seelencult_, p. 77 _sqq._; Schneider, _Naturvölker_, i. 190.]
[Footnote 34: Williams and Calvert, _op. cit._ p. 195.]
[Footnote 35: Campbell, _Wild Tribes of Khondistan_, p. 211. _Cf._ Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_, p. 120 (Kandhs).]
[Footnote 36: Müller, _Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen_, p. 142.]
[Footnote 37: Bancroft, _op. cit._ ii. 307, 310, 311, 707 _sqq._]
[Footnote 38: Clavigero, _op. cit._ i. 279.]
But the human victim is not always, as has been erroneously supposed,[39] intended to serve the god as a food-offering. The Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, as Major Ellis observes, maintain that their gods require not only food, but attendants; "the ghosts of the human victims sacrificed to them are believed to pass at once into a condition of ghostly servitude to them, just as those sacrificed at the funerals of chiefs are believed to pass into a ghostly attendance."[40] Cieza de Leon mentions the prevalence of a similar belief among the ancient Peruvians. At the hill of Guanacaure, "on certain days they sacrificed men and women, to whom, before they were put to death, the priest addressed a discourse, explaining to them that they were going to serve that god who was being worshipped."[41]
[Footnote 39: Réville, _Hibbert Lectures on the Native Religions of Mexico and Peru_, p. 75 _sq._ _Idem_, _Prolegomena of the History of Religions_, p. 132. Trumbull, _Blood Covenant_, p. 189. Steinmetz, _Endokannibalismus_, p. 60, n. 1. Schrader, _Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_, p. 603.]
[Footnote 40: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_, p. 169.]
[Footnote 41: Cieza de Leon, _Segunda parte de Crónica del Perú_, p. 109.]
Moreover, an angry god may be appeased simply by the death of him or those who aroused his anger, or of some representative of the offending community, or of somebody belonging to the kin of the offender. Among the E[(w]e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, "in the case of human victims the gods are not believed to devour the {439} souls; and as these souls are, by the majority of the natives, believed to proceed to Dead-land like all others, the object of human sacrifice seems to be to gratify or satiate the malignancy of the gods at the expense of chosen individuals, instead of leaving it to chance--the victims are in fact slain for the benefit of the community at large."[42] One reason why the human victims are so frequently criminals, is no doubt the intention of appeasing the god by offering up to him an individual who is hateful to him. The Sandwich Islanders "sacrifice culprits to their gods, as we sacrifice them in Europe to justice."[43] Among the Teutons the execution of a criminal was, in many cases at least, a sacrifice to the god whose peculiar cult had been offended by the crime.[44] Thus the Frisian law describes as an immolation to the god the punishment of one who violates his temple.[45] In ancient Rome the corn thief, if he was an adult, was hanged as an offering to Ceres;[46] and Ovid tells us that a priestess of Vesta who had been false to her vows of chastity was sacrificed by being buried alive in the earth, Vesta and Tellus being the same deity.[47] In consequence of the sacrilege of Menalippus and Comætho, who had polluted a temple of Artemis by their amours, the Pythian priestess ordained that the guilty pair should be sacrificed to the goddess, and that, besides, the people should every year sacrifice to her a youth and a maiden, the fairest of their sex.[48] The Hebrew _cherem_, or ban, was originally applied to malefactors and other enemies of Yahveh, and sometimes also to their possessions. "_Cherem_," says Professor Kuenen, "is properly dedication to Yahveh, which in reality amounted to destruction or annihilation. The persons who were {440} 'dedicated,' generally by a solemn vow, to Yahveh, were put to death, frequently by fire, whereby the resemblance to an ordinary burnt-offering was rendered still more apparent; their dwellings and property were also consumed by fire; their lands were left uncultivated for ever. Such punishments were very common in the ancient world. But in Israel, as elsewhere, they were at the same time religious acts."[49] The sacrifice of offenders has, in fact, survived in the Christian world, since every execution performed for the purpose of appeasing an offended and angry god may be justly called a sacrifice.[50]
[Footnote 42: Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, p. 119.]
[Footnote 43: von Kotzebue, _op. cit._ iii. 248. _Cf._ Lisiansky, _op. cit._ 120.]
[Footnote 44: von Amira, in Paul's _Grundriss der germanischen Philologie_, ii. pt. ii. 177. Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, ii. 587, 684 _sq._ Vigtusson and Powell, _op. cit._ i. 410. Gummere, _Germanic Origins_, p. 463.]
[Footnote 45: _Lex Frisionum_, Additio sapientium, 12.]
[Footnote 46: Granger, _Worship of the Romans_, p. 260.]
[Footnote 47: Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 457 _sq._ _Cf._ Mommsen, _Römisches Strafrecht_, p. 902.]
[Footnote 48: Pausanias, vii. 19. 4.]
[Footnote 49: Kuenen, _Religion of Israel_, i. 290 _sq._]
[Footnote 50: See _supra_, p. 197 _sq._ For various instances of expiatory human sacrifice, involving vicarious atonement, see _supra_, p. 66 _sq._]
It is impossible to discover in every special case in what respect the worshippers believe the offering of a fellow-creature to be gratifying to the deity. Probably they have not always definite views on the subject themselves. They know, or believe, that on some certain occasion, they are in danger of losing their lives; they attribute this to the designs of a supernatural being; and, by sacrificing a man, they hope to gratify that being's craving for human life, and thereby avert the danger from themselves. That this principle mainly underlies the practice of human sacrifice appears from the circumstances in which such sacrifices generally occur.
Human victims are often offered in war, before a battle, or during a siege.
Cæsar wrote of the Gauls, "They who are engaged in battles and dangers, either sacrifice men as victims, or vow that they will sacrifice them . . . ; because they think that unless the life of a man be offered for the life of a man, the mind of the immortal gods cannot be rendered propitious."[51] The Lusitanians sacrificed a man and a horse at the commencement of a military enterprise.[52] Before going to war, or before the beginning of a battle, or during a siege, the Greeks offered a human victim to ensure victory.[53] When hard-pressed in battle, {441} the King of Moab sacrificed his eldest son as a burnt offering on the wall.[54] In times of great calamities, such as war, the Phenicians sacrificed some of their dearest friends, who were selected by votes for this purpose.[55] During a battle with king Gelo of Syracuse, the general Hamilcar sacrificed innumerable human victims, from dawn to sunset;[56] and when Carthage was reduced to the last extremities, the noble families were compelled to give up two hundred of their sons to be offered to Baal.[57] In Hindu scriptures and traditions success in war is promised to him who offers a man in sacrifice.[58] In Jeypore "the blood-red god of battle" is propitiated by human victims. "Thus, on the eve of a battle, or when a new fort, or even an important village is to be built, or when danger of any kind is to be averted, this sanguinary being must be propitiated with human blood."[59] In Great Benin human blood was shed in a case of common danger when an enemy was at the gate of the city.[60] The Yorubas sacrifice men in times of national need.[61] Among the E[(w]e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, such sacrifices "are ordinarily only made in time of war, pestilence, or great calamity."[62] The Tahitians offered human sacrifices in seasons of war, or when war was in agitation.[63]
[Footnote 51: Cæsar, _De bello gallico_, vi. 16.]
[Footnote 52: Livy, _Epitome_, 49.]
[Footnote 53: Pausanias, iv. 9. 4 _sqq._; ix. 17. 1. Plutarch, _Themistocles_, 13. _Idem_, _Aristides_, 9. _Idem_, _Pelopidas_, 21 _sq._ Lycurgus, _Oratio in Leocratem_, (ch. 24) 99. Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, iii. 15. 4. Porphyry, _De abstinentia ab esu animalium_, ii. 56. Geusius, _op. cit._ i. ch. 16 _sq._ Stengel, _op. cit._ p. 115 _sq._]
[Footnote 54: _2 Kings_, iii. 27.]
[Footnote 55: Porphyry, _op. cit._ ii. 56.]
[Footnote 56: Herodotus, vii. 167.]
[Footnote 57: Diodorus Siculus, xx. 14.]
[Footnote 58: Chevers, _op. cit._ p. 399.]
[Footnote 59: Campbell, _Wild Tribes of Khondistan_, p. 52.]
[Footnote 60: Ling Roth, _Great Benin_, p. 72.]
[Footnote 61: Ellis, _Yoruba-speaking People of the Slave Coast_, p. 296.]
[Footnote 62: _Idem_, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, p. 117.]
[Footnote 63: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 276 _sqq._, 346.]
After a victory, captured enemies are sacrificed to the god to whose assistance the success is ascribed. This sacrifice has been represented as a thank-offering;[64] but, in many cases at least, it seems to be offered either to fulfil a vow previously made, or to induce the god to continue his favours for the future.[65] Among the Kayans of Borneo it is the custom that, when captives are brought to an enemy's country, "one should suffer death, to bring prosperity and abolish the curse of the enemy in their lands."[66]
[Footnote 64: Diodorus Siculus, xx. 65 (Carthaginians). de Molina, _loc. cit._ p. 59 (Incas); &c.]
[Footnote 65: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 170. Cruickshank, _op. cit._ ii. 173. Dubois, _Character, Manners, and Customs of the People of India_, p. 488. Jordanes, _De origine actibusque Getarum_, 5 (41). _Cf._ Jephthah's vow (_Judges_, xi. 30 _sqq._).]
[Footnote 66: Brook, _Ten Years in Saráwak_, ii. 304 _sq._]
Human sacrifices are offered for the purpose of stopping or preventing epidemics.
{442} The Phenicians sacrificed "some of their dearest friends," not only in war, but in times of pestilence.[67] In similar circumstances the ancient Greeks had recourse to human sacrifices.[68] In seasons of great peril, as when a pestilence was raging, the ancient Italians made a vow that they would sacrifice every living being that should be born in the following spring.[69] In West Gothland, in Sweden, the people decreed a human sacrifice to stay the _digerdöd_, or Plague, hence two beggar children, having just then come in, were buried alive.[70] In Fur, in Denmark, there is a tradition that, for the same purpose, a child was interred alive in the burial ground.[71] Among the Chukchi, in 1814, when a sudden and violent disease had broken out and carried off both men and reindeer, the Shamans, after having had recourse in vain to their usual conjurations, determined that one of the most respected chiefs must be sacrificed to appease the irritated spirits.[72] In Great Benin, "when the doctors declared a man had died owing to Ogiwo, if they think an epidemic imminent, they can tell Overami [the king] that Ogiwo vex. Then he can take a man and a woman, all the town can fire guns and beat drums. The man and woman are brought out, and the head Jujuman can make this prayer: 'Oh, Ogiwo, you are very big man; don't let any sickness come for Ado. Make all farm good, and every woman born man son.'"[73] In the same country twelve men, besides various animals, were offered yearly on the anniversary of the death of Adolo, king Overami's father. King Overami, calling his father loudly by name, spoke as follows: "Oh, Adolo, our father, look after all Ado [that is, Great Benin], don't let any sickness come to us, look after me and my people, our slaves, cows, goats, and fowls, and everything in the farms."[74]
[Footnote 67: Porphyry, _op. cit._ ii. 56.]
[Footnote 68: Geusius, _op. cit._ i. ch. 13. Stengel, _op. cit._ p. 116. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, iii. 125 _sq._]
[Footnote 69: Festus, _De verborum significatione_, 'Ver sacrum,' Müller's edition, p. 379. Nonius Marcellus, _De proprietate sermonis_, 'Versacrum,' p. 522. Servius, _In Virgilii Æneidos_, vii. 796.]
[Footnote 70: Afzelius, _Swenska Folkets Sago-Häfder_, iv. 181.]
[Footnote 71: Nyrop, _Romanske Mosaiker_, p. 69, n. 1.]
[Footnote 72: von Wrangell, _Expedition to the Polar Sea_, p. 122 _sq._]
[Footnote 73: Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read and Dalton, _Antiquities from the City of Benin_, p. 7; also by Ling Roth, _Great Benin_, p. 71 _sq._]
[Footnote 74: Moor and Roupell, quoted by Ling Roth, _op. cit._ p. 70 _sq._; also by Read and Dalton, _op. cit._ p. 6.]
The sacrifice of human victims is resorted to as a method of putting an end to a devastating famine.
{443} Instances of this practice are reported to have occurred among the ancient Greeks[75] and Phenicians.[76] In a grievous famine, after other great sacrifices, of oxen and of men, had proved unavailing, the Swedes offered up their own king Dómaldi.[77] Chinese annals tell us that there was a great drought and famine for seven years after the accession of T'ang, the noble and pious man who had overthrown the dynasty of Shang. It was then suggested at last by some one that a human victim should be offered in sacrifice to Heaven, and prayer be made for rain, to which T'ang replied, "If a man must be the victim I will be he."[78] Up to quite recent times, the priests of Lower Bengal have, in seasons of scarcity, offered up children to Siva; in the years 1865 and 1866, for instance, recourse was had to such sacrifices in order to avert famine.[79]
[Footnote 75: Pausanias, vii. 19. 3 _sq._ Diodorus Siculus, iv. 61. 1 _sqq._ Geusius, _op. cit._ i. ch. 14.]
[Footnote 76: Porphyry, _op. cit._ ii. 56.]
[Footnote 77: Snorri Sturluson, 'Ynglingasaga,' 15, in _Heimskringla_, i. 30.]
[Footnote 78: Legge, _Religions of China_, p. 54.]
[Footnote 79: Hunter, _Annals of Rural Bengal_, i. 128.]
For people subsisting on agriculture a failure of crops means starvation and death,[80] and is, consequently, attributed to the murderous designs of a superhuman being, such as the earth spirit, the morning star, the sun, or the rain-god. By sacrificing to that being a man, they hope to appease its thirst for human blood; and whilst some resort to such a sacrifice only in case of actual famine, others try to prevent famine by making the offering in advance. This I take to be the true explanation of the custom of securing good crops by means of human sacrifice, of which many instances have been produced by Dr. Frazer.[81] There are obvious links between this custom and that of the actual famine-sacrifice. Thus the ancient Peruvians sacrificed children after harvest, when they prepared to make ready the land for the next year, not every year, however, but "only when the weather was not good, and seasonable."[82] In Great Benin, "if there is too much {444} rain, then all the people would come from farm and beg Overami [the king] to make juju, and sacrifice to stop the rain. Accordingly a woman was taken, a prayer made over her, and a message saluting the rain god put in her mouth, then she was clubbed to death and put up in the execution tree so that the rain might see. . . . In the same way if there is too much sun so that there is a danger of the crops spoiling, Overami can sacrifice to the Sun God."[83] The principle of substitution admits of a considerable latitude in regard to the stage of danger at which the offering is made; the danger may be more imminent, or it may be more remote. This holds good of various kinds of human sacrifice, not only of such sacrifices as are intended to influence the crops. I am unable to subscribe to the hypothesis cautiously set forth by Dr. Frazer, that the human victim who is killed for the purpose of ensuring good crops is regarded as a representative of the corn-spirit and is slain as such. So far as I can see, Dr. Frazer has adduced no satisfactory evidence in support of his supposition; whereas a detailed examination of various cases mentioned by him in connection with it indicates that they are closely related to human sacrifices offered on other occasions, and explicable from the same principle, that of substitution.
[Footnote 80: _Cf._ Sleeman, _Rambles and Recollections_, i. 204 _sqq._:--"In India, unfavourable seasons produce much more disastrous consequences than in Europe. . . . More than three-fourths of the whole population are engaged in the cultivation of the land, and depend upon its annual returns for subsistence. . . . Tens of thousands die here of starvation, under calamities of season, which in Europe would involve little of suffering to any class."]
[Footnote 81: Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 238 _sqq._]
[Footnote 82: Herrera, _op. cit._ ii. 111.]
[Footnote 83: Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read and Dalton, _op. cit._ p. 7; also by Ling Roth, _Great Benin_, p. 71.]
"The best known case of human sacrifices, systematically offered to ensure good crops," says Dr. Frazer, "is supplied by the Khonds or Kandhs." The victims, or Meriahs, are represented by our authorities[84] as being offered to propitiate the Earth goddess, Tari Pennu or Bera Pennu, but from their treatment both before and after death it appears to Dr. Frazer that the custom cannot be explained as merely a propitiatory sacrifice. The flesh and the ashes of the Meriah, he observes, were believed to possess a magic power of fertilising the land, quite independent of the indirect efficacy which they might have as an offering to secure the goodwill of the deity. For, though a part of the flesh was offered to the Earth Goddess, the rest of it {445} was buried by each householder in his fields, and the ashes of the other parts of the body were scattered over the fields, laid as paste on the granaries, or mixed with the new corn. The same intrinsic power was ascribed to the blood and tears of the Meriah, his blood causing the redness of the turmeric and his tears producing rain; and magic power as an attribute of the victim appears, also in the sovereign virtue believed to reside in anything that came from his person, as his hair or spittle. Considering further that, according to our authorities, the Meriah was regarded as "something more than mortal," or that "a species of reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration, is paid to him," Dr. Frazer concludes that he may originally have represented the Earth deity or perhaps a deity of vegetation, and that he only in later times came to be regarded rather as a victim offered to a deity than as himself an incarnate deity.[85]
[Footnote 84: Campbell, _Wild Tribes of Khondistan_. Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_.]
[Footnote 85: Frazer, _op. cit._ ii. 245 _sq._]
The premise on which Dr. Frazer bases his argument appears to me quite untenable. It is an arbitrary supposition that the ascription of a magical power to the Meriah "indicates that he was much more than a mere man sacrificed to propitiate a deity."[86] A sacrifice is very commonly believed to be endowed with such a power, not as an original quality, but in consequence of its contact or communion with the supernatural being to which it is offered. Just as the Meriah of the Kandhs is taken round the village, from door to door, and some pluck hair from his head, while others beg for a drop of his spittle, so, among the nomadic Arabs of Morocco, at the Muhammedan "Great Feast," a man dressed in the bloody skin of the sheep which has been sacrificed on that occasion, goes from tent to tent, and beats each tent with his stick so as to confer blessings on its inhabitants. For he is now endowed with _l-baraka del-[(]id_, "the benign virtue of the feast"; and the same power is ascribed to various parts of the sacrificed sheep, which are consequently used for magical purposes. If Dr. Frazer's way of arguing were correct we should have to conclude that the victim was originally the god himself, or a representative of the god, to whom it is now offered in sacrifice. But the absurdity of any such inference becomes apparent at once when we consider that, in Morocco, every offering to a holy person, for instance to a deceased saint, is considered to participate in its sanctity. When the saint has his feast, and animals and other presents are brought to his tomb, it is customary for his descendants--who have a right to the offerings--to distribute {446} some flesh of the slaughtered animals among their friends, thereby conferring _l-baraka_ of the saint upon those who eat it; and even candles which have been offered to the saint are given away for the same purpose, being instinct with his _baraka_. Of course, what holds good of the Arabs in Morocco does not necessarily hold good of the Kandhs of Bengal; but it should be remembered that Dr. Frazer's argument is founded on the notion that the ascription of a magic power to a victim which is offered in sacrifice to a god indicates that the victim was once regarded as a divine being or as the god himself; and the facts I have recorded certainly prove the arbitrariness of this supposition.
[Footnote 86: _Ibid._ ii. 246.]
This is by no means the only objection which may be raised against Dr. Frazer's hypothesis. In his description of the rite in question he has emphasised its connection with agriculture to a degree which is far from being justified by the accounts given by our authorities. Mr. Macpherson states that the human sacrifice to Tari Pennu was celebrated as a public oblation by tribes, branches of tribes, or villages, both at social festivals held periodically, and when special occasions demanded exceptional propitiations. It was celebrated "upon the occurrence of an extraordinary number of deaths by disease; or should very many die in childbirth; or should the flocks or herds suffer largely from disease, or from wild beasts; or should the greater crops threaten to fail"; while the occurrence of any marked calamity to the families of the chiefs, whose fortunes were regarded as the principal indication of the disposition of Tari towards their tribes, was held to be a token of wrath which could not be too speedily averted.[87] Moreover, besides these social offerings, the rite was performed by individuals to avert the wrath of Tari from themselves and their families, for instance, if a child, when watching his father's flock, was carried off by a tiger.[88] So, also, Mr. Campbell observes that the human blood was offered to the Earth goddess, "in the hope of thus obtaining abundant crops, averting calamity, and insuring general prosperity";[89] or that it was supposed "that good crops, and safety from all disease and accidents, were ensured by this slaughter."[90] According to another authority, Mr. Russell, the assembled multitude, when dancing round the victim, addressed the earth in the following words, "O God, we offer this sacrifice to you; give us good crops, seasons, and health."[91] Nor was the magic {447} virtue of the Meriah utilised solely for the benefit of the crops. According to one account, part of the flesh was buried near the village idol as an offering to the earth, and part on the boundaries of the village;[92] whilst in the invocation made by the priest, the goddess was represented as saying, "Let each man place a shred of the flesh in his fields, in his grain-store, and in his yard."[93] The ashes, again, were scattered over the fields, or "laid as paste over the houses and granaries."[94] It is also worth noticing that, among the Kandhs of Maji Deso, the offering was not at all made for the special purpose of obtaining cereal produce, "but for general prosperity, and blessings for themselves and families";[95] and that in the neighbouring principality, Chinna Kimedy, inhabited for the most part by Ooryahs, the sacrifice was not offered to the earth alone, "but to a number of deities, whose power is essential to life and happiness," especially to the god of war, the great god, and the sun god.[96] Now, whilst all these facts are in perfect agreement with the theory of substitution, they certainly do not justify the supposition that the Meriah was the representative of a deity of vegetation.
[Footnote 87: Macpherson, _op. cit._ p. 113 _sq._ See, also, _ibid._ pp. 120, 128 _sqq._]
[Footnote 88: _Ibid._ p. 113 _sq._]
[Footnote 89: Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 51.]
[Footnote 90: _Ibid._ p. 56. _Cf._ _ibid._ p. 73.]
[Footnote 91: Russell, quoted _ibid._ p. 54.]
[Footnote 92: Russell, quoted _ibid._ p. 55.]
[Footnote 93: Macpherson, _op. cit._ p. 122 _sq._]
[Footnote 94: _Ibid._ p. 128.]
[Footnote 95: Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 181.]
[Footnote 96: _Ibid._ p. 120. _Cf._ _ibid._ p. 197:--Among the Ooryahs human sacrifice is "performed on important occasions, such as going to battle, building a fort in an important village, and to avert any threatened danger."]
The same may be said about other cases mentioned by Dr. Frazer, when more closely examined. "The Indians of Guayaquil, in Ecuador," he says, "used to sacrifice human blood and the hearts of men when they sowed their fields."[97] But our authority, Cieza de Leon, adds that those Indians also offered human victims when their chiefs were sick "to appease the wrath of their gods."[98] "The Pawnees," Dr. Frazer writes, "annually sacrificed a human victim in spring when they sowed their fields. The sacrifice was believed to have been enjoined on them by the Morning Star, or by a certain bird which the Morning Star had sent to them as its messenger . . . . They thought that an omission of this sacrifice would be followed by the total failure of the crops of maize, beans, and pumpkins.[99] James, to whom Dr. Frazer refers, and other authorities say that the human sacrifice was a propitiatory offering made _to_ that star,[100] a planet which especially with the Skidi--the only section {448} of the Pawnees who offered human sacrifices--was an object of superstitious veneration.[101] Sickness, misfortune, and personal mishaps of various kinds were often spoken of as attributable to the incurred ill-will of the heavenly bodies;[102] and the object of the sacrifice to the morning star is expressly said to have been "to avert the evil influences exerted by that planet."[103] According to Mr. Dunbar, whose important[104] article dealing with the subject has escaped Dr. Frazer's notice, "the design of the bloody ordeal was to conciliate that being and secure a good crop. Hence," he continues, "it has been supposed that the morning star was regarded by them as presiding over agriculture, but this was a mistake. They sacrificed to that star because they feared it, imagining that it exerted malign influence if not well disposed. It has also been stated that the sacrifice was made annually. This, too, was an error. It was made only when special occurrences were interpreted as calling for it."[105] At the present day the Indians speak of the sacrifice as having been made to Ti-ra'-wa, the Supreme Being or the deity "who is in and of everything."[106] In the detailed account of the rite, which was given to Mr. Grinnell by an old chief who had himself witnessed it several times, it is said:--"While the smoke of the blood and the buffalo meat, and of the burning body, ascended to the sky, all the people prayed to Ti-ra'-wa, and walked by the fire and grasped handfuls of the smoke, and passed it over their bodies and over those of their children, and prayed Ti-ra'-wa to take pity on them, and to give them health, and success in war, and plenteous crops . . . . This sacrifice always seemed acceptable to Ti-ra'-wa, and when the Skidi made it they always seemed to have good fortune in war, and good crops, and they were always well."[107] According to this description, then, the human sacrifice of the Pawnees, like that of the Kandhs, was not an exclusively agricultural rite, but was performed for the purpose of averting dangers of various kinds. And this is also suggested by Mr. Dunbar's relation of the last instance of this sacrifice, which occurred in April, 1838. In the previous winter the Skidi, soon after starting on their hunt, had a successful fight with a band of Oglala Dacotahs, and fearing that the Dacotahs would retaliate by coming upon them in overwhelming force, {449} they returned for safety to their village before taking a sufficient number of buffaloes. "With little to eat, they lived miserably, lost many of their ponies from scarcity of forage, and, worst of all, one of the captives proved to have the small-pox, which rapidly spread through the band, and in the spring was communicated to the rest of the tribe. All these accumulated misfortunes the Ski'-di attributed to the anger of the morning star; and accordingly they resolved to propitiate its favour by a repetition of the sacrifice, though in direct violation of a stipulation made two years before that the sacrifice should not occur again."[108]
[Footnote 97: Frazer, _op. cit._ ii. 238.]
[Footnote 98: Cieza de Leon, _La Crónica del Perú_ [parte primera], ch. 55 (_Biblioteca de autores españoles_, xxvi. 409).]
[Footnote 99: Frazer, _op. cit._ ii. 238.]
[Footnote 100: James, _Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mountains_, i. 357. Grinnell, _Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales_, p. 357. Dunbar, 'Pawnee Indians,' in _Magazine of American History_, viii. 738.]
[Footnote 101: Dunbar, _loc. cit._ p. 738.]
[Footnote 102: _Ibid._ p. 736.]
[Footnote 103: Grinnell, _op. cit._ p. 357.]
[Footnote 104: Mr. Dunbar is "born and reared among the Pawnees, familiar with them until early manhood, a frequent visitor to the tribe in later years" (Grinnell, _op. cit._ p. 213).]
[Footnote 105: Dunbar, _loc. cit._ p. 738 _sq._]
[Footnote 106: Grinnell, _op. cit._ pp. 357, 358, xvii.]