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24 Earl, Papuans, p. 132.

25 Steinmetz, op. cit. i. 335 sq.

26 Blumentritt, ‘Der Ahnencultus der Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels’ in Mittheilungen der Geogr. Gesellsch. in Wien, xxv. 166 sqq. De Mas, Informe sobre el estado de las Islas filipinas en 1842, Orijen, &c. p. 15.

Dr. Steinmetz also refers to some statements according to which, among certain Australian tribes, the relatives of a person who dies avenge his death by killing an innocent man.27 But in these cases the avenged death, though “natural” according to our terminology, is, in the belief of the savages, caused by sorcery, and the revenge is not so indiscriminate as Dr. Steinmetz seems to assume. Among the Wellington tribe, as appears from a statement which he quotes himself, it is the sorcerer’s life that must be taken for satisfaction.28 In New South Wales, after the dead man has been interrogated as to the cause of his death, his kinsmen are resolute in taking vengeance, if they “imagine that they have got sure indications of the perpetrator of the wrong.”29 Among the Central Australian natives, “not infrequently the dying man will whisper in the ear of a Railtchawa, or medicine man, the name of the man whose magic is killing him,” and if this be not done, “there is no difficulty, by some other method, of fixing sooner or later on the guilty party”; but only after the culprit has been revealed by the medicine man is it decided by a council of the old men whether an avenging party is to be arranged or not.30 Among the aborigines of West Australia, the survivors are “pretty busy in seeking out” the sorcerer who is supposed to have caused the death of their friend.31

27 Steinmetz, op. cit. i. 337 sq.

28 Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition Vol. VI.—Ethnography and Philology, p. 115; quoted by Steinmetz, op. cit. i. 337.

29 Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 86.

30 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 476 sq.

31 Calvert, Aborigines of Western Australia, p. 20 sq.

To sum up: all the facts which Dr. Steinmetz has adduced as evidence for his hypothesis of an original stage of “undirected” revenge only show that, under certain circumstances, either in a fit of passion, or when the actual offender is unknown or out of reach, revenge may be taken on an innocent being, wholly unconnected with the inflicter of the injury which it is sought to revenge. There is such an intimate connection between the experience of injury and the hostile reaction by which the injured individual gives vent to his passion, that the reaction does not fail to appear even when it misses its aim. Anger, as Seneca said, “does not rage merely against its object, but against every obstacle which it encounters on its way.”32 Many infants, when angry and powerless to hurt others, “strike their heads against doors, posts, walls of houses, and sometimes on the floor.”33 Well known are the “amucks” of the Malays, in which “the desperado assails indiscriminately friend and foe,” and, with dishevelled hair and frantic look, murders or wounds all whom he meets without distinction.34 But all this is not revenge; it is sudden anger or blind rage. Nor is it revenge in the true sense of the word if a person who has been humiliated by his superior retaliates on those under him. It is only the outburst of a wounded “self-feeling,” which, when not directed against its proper object, can afford no adequate consolation to a revengeful man.

32 Seneca, De ira, iii. 1.

33 Stanley Hall, ‘A Study of Anger,’ in American Jour. of Psychology, x. 554.

34 Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, i. 67. Cf. Ellis, ‘The Amok of the Malays,’ in Jour. of Mental Science, xxxix. 325 sqq. In the Andaman Islands, it is not uncommon for a man “to vent his ill-temper, or show his resentment at any act, by destroying his own property as well as that of his neighbours” (Man, ‘Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 111). Among the Kar Nicobarese, when a quarrel takes place, in serious cases, a man will probably burn his own house down (Kloss, In the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 310). But in these instances it is not certain whether the offended party destroys his own property in blind rage, or with some definite object in view.

In the institution of the blood-feud some sort of collective responsibility is usually involved.35 If the offender is of another family than his victim, some of his relatives may have to expiate his deed.36 If he belongs to another clan, the whole clan may be held responsible for it.37 And if he is a member of another tribe, the vengeance may be wreaked upon his fellow-tribesmen indiscriminately.38

35 Cf. Post, Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtsleben, p. 180; Rée, op. cit. p. 49 sq.; Steinmetz, op. cit. i. ch. vi.

36 Besides the authorities quoted infra, see Leuschner, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse von eingeborenen Völkern in Afrika und Ozeanien, (Bakwiri); ibid. p. 49 (Banaka and Bapuku); Rautanen, ibid. p. 341 (Ondonga); Walter, ibid. p. 390 (natives of Nossi-Bé and Mayotte, near Madagascar); von Langsdorf, Voyages and Travels, i. 132 (Nukahivans); Forbes, A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago, p. 473 (Timorese); Foreman, Philippine Islands, p. 213 (Igorrotes of Luzon); Kovalewsky, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxv. 113 (people of Daghestan); Idem, Coutume contemporaine et loi ancienne, p. 248 sq. (Ossetes); Merzbacher, Aus den Hochregionen des Kaukasus, ii. 51 (Khevsurs).

37 Bridges, in A Voice for South America, xiii. 207 (Fuegians). Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 369. Ridley, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. ii. 268 (Kamilaroi in Australia). Godwin-Austen, ibid. ii. 394 (Garo Hill tribes).

38 von Martins, Beiträge zur Ethnographie Amerika’s, i. 127 sqq. (Brazilian Indians). Crawfurd, op. cit. iii. 124 (natives of Celebes). Kohler, in Zeitschr. f. vgl. Rechtswiss. vii. 383 (Goajiros of Columbia). Ibid. vii. 376 (Papuans of New Guinea). Curr, The Australian Race, i. 70. Scaramucci and Giglioli, ‘Notizie sui Danakil,’ in Archivio per l’antropologia e la etnologia, xiv. 39. Leuschner, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 23 (Bakwiri). Ibid. p. 49 (Banaka and Bapuku).

“Among the Fuegians,” says Mr. Bridges, “etiquette and custom require that all the relatives of a murdered person should … visit their displeasure upon every connection of the manslayers, each personally.” The avengers of blood would by no means be satisfied with a party of natives if they should actually deliver up into their hands a manslayer, or kill him themselves, “but would yet exact from all the murderer’s friends tribute or infliction of injuries with sticks or stones.”39 Among the Indians of British Columbia and Vancouver Island, “grudges are handed down from father to son for generations, and friendly relations are never free from the risk of being interrupted.”40 Among the Greenlanders, the revenge for a murder generally “costs the executioner himself, his children, cousins, or other relatives their lives; or if these are inaccessible, some other acquaintance in the neighbourhood.”41 Among the Maoris, blood-revenge might be taken on any relative of the homicide, “no matter how distant.”42 In Tana, revenge “is often sought in the death of the brother, or some other near relative of the culprit.”43 Among the Kabyles, “la vengeance peut porter sur chacun des membres de la famille du meurtrier, quel qu’il soit.”44 The Bedouins, according to Burckhardt, “claim the blood not only from the actual homicide, but from all his relations; and it is these claims that constitute the right of thár, or the blood-revenge.”45 Among the people of Ibrim, in Nubia, on the other hand, the same traveller observes, “it is not considered as sufficient to retaliate upon any person within the fifth degree of consanguinity, as among the Bedouins of Arabia; only the brother, son, or first cousin can supply the place of the murderer.”46 Traces of collective responsibility in connection with blood-revenge are found among the Hebrews.47 It has prevailed, or still prevails, among the Japanese48 and Coreans,49 the Persians50 and Hindus,51 the ancient Greeks52 and Teutons.53 It was a rule among the Welsh54 and the Scotch in former days,55 and is so still in Corsica,56 Albania,57 and among some of the Southern Slavs.58 In Montenegro, if a homicide who cannot be caught himself has no relatives, revenge is sometimes taken on some inhabitant of the village or district to which he belongs, or even on a person who only is of the same religion and nationality as the murderer.59 In Albania, under similar circumstances, the victim may be a person who has had nothing else to do with the offender than that he has perhaps once been speaking to him.60

39 Bridges, in South American Missionary Magazine, xiii. 151 sqq.

40 Macfie, Vancouver Island and British Columbia, p. 470.

41 Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 178.

42 Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 213 sq. Cf. ibid. p. 218 sq.

43 Turner, Samoa, p. 317.

44 Hanoteau and Letourneux, La Kabylie, iii. 61.

45 Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, p. 85. See, also, Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, p. 306; Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, i. 133.

46 Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, p. 128.

47 2 Samuel, xiv. 7. Cf. ibid. xxi.

48 Dautremer, ‘The Vendetta or Legal Revenge in Japan,’ in Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan, xiii. 84.

49 Griffis, Corea, p. 227.

50 Spiegel, Erânische Alterthumskunde, iii. 687. Polak, Persien, ii. 96.

51 Dubois, Description of the Character, Manners, and Customs of the People of India, p. 195.

52 Leist, Alt-arisches Jus Gentium, p. 424.

53 Gotlands-Lagen, 13.

54 Walter, Das alte Wales, p. 138.

55 Mackintosh, History of Civilisation in Scotland, ii. 279.

56 Gregorovius, Wanderings in Corsica, i. 179.

57 Gopčević, Oberalbanien und seine Liga, p. 324 sqq.

58 Miklosich, ‘Die Blutrache bei den Slaven,’ in Denkschriften der kaiserl. Akademie d. Wissensch. Philos.-histor. Classe, Vienna, xxxvi. 131, 146 sq. Krauss, Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven, p. 39.

59 Lago, Memorie sulla Dalmazia, ii. 90.

60 Gopčević, op. cit. p. 325.

There is no difficulty in explaining these facts. The following statement made by Mr. Romilly with reference to the Solomon Islanders has, undoubtedly, a much wider application:—“In the cases which call for punishment, the difficulties in the way of capturing the actual culprits are greater than any one, who has not been engaged in this disagreeable work, can imagine.”61 Though it may happen that a manslayer is abandoned by his own people,62 the system of blood-revenge more often seems to imply, not only that all the members of a group are engaged, more or less effectually, in the act of revenge, but that they mutually protect each other against the avengers. A homicide frequently provokes a war,63 in which family stands against family, clan against clan, or tribe against tribe. In such cases the whole group take upon themselves the deed of the perpetrator, and any of his fellows, because standing up for him, becomes a proper object of revenge. The guilt extends itself, as it were, in the eyes of the offended party. So, also, any person who lives on friendly terms with the offender, or is supposed to sympathise with him, is liable to arouse a feeling of resentment, and may consequently, in extreme cases, have to expiate his crime. Moreover, because of the close relationship which exists between the members of the same group, the actual culprit will be mortified by any successful attack that the avengers make on his people, and, if he be dead, its painful and humiliating effects may still be supposed to reach his spirit. “When the offender himself is beyond the reach of direct attack,” says Mr. Wilkins, “it is not beneath a Bengali’s view to try to wound him through his children or other members of his family.”64 Among the South Slavonians, in a similar case, the avengers of blood first attempt to kill the father, brother, or grown-up son of the murderer, “so as to inflict upon him a very heavy and painful loss”; and only when this has been tried in vain, are more distant relatives attacked.65 The Bedouins of the Euphrates even prefer killing the chief man among the murderer’s relations within the second degree to taking his own life, on the principle, “You have killed my cousin, I will kill yours.”66 And the Californian Nishinam “consider that the keenest and most bitter revenge which a man can take is, not to slay the murderer himself, but his dearest friend.”67 In these instances vengeance is exacted with reference rather to the loss suffered by the survivors than to the injury committed against the murdered man, the culprit being subjected to a deprivation similar to that which he has inflicted himself. So, also, among the Marea, if a commoner is slain by a nobleman, his death is not avenged directly on the slayer, but on some commoner who is subservient to him.68 If, again, among the Quianganes of Luzon, a noble is killed by a plebeian, another nobleman, of the kin of the murderer, must be killed, while the murderer himself is ignored.69 If, among the Igorrotes, a man slays a woman of another house, her nearest kinsman endeavours to slay a woman belonging to the household of the homicide, but to the guilty man himself he does nothing.70 In all these cases the culprit is not lost sight of; vengeance is invariably wreaked upon somebody connected with him. But any consideration of guilt or innocence is overshadowed by the blind subordination to that powerful rule which requires strict equivalence between injury and punishment—an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—and which, when strained to the utmost, cannot allow the life of a man to be sacrificed for that of a woman, or the life of a nobleman to be sacrificed for that of a commoner, or the life of a commoner to expiate the death of a noble. This rule, as we shall see later on, is not suggested by revenge itself, but is due to the influence of other factors which intermingle with this feeling, and help, with it, to determine the action.

61 Romilly, Western Pacific and New Guinea, p. 81. Cf. Friedrichs, ‘Mensch und Person,’ in Das Ausland, 1891, p. 299.

62 See, e.g., Scott Robertson, The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, p. 440.

63 Dr. Post’s statement (Die Geschlechtsgenossenschaft der Urzeit, p. 156) that the blood-revenge “characterisirt sich … ganz und gar als ein Privatkrieg zwischen zwei Geschlechtsgenossenschaften,” however, is not quite correct in this unqualified form, as may be seen, e.g., from von Martius’s description of the blood-revenge of the Brazilian Indians, op. cit. i. 127 sqq.

64 Wilkins, Modern Hinduism, p. 411.

65 Krauss, op. cit. p. 39.

66 Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, ii. 206 sq.

67 Powers, Tribes of California, p. 320.

68 Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 243.

69 Blumentritt, quoted by Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 370 sq.

70 Jagor, Travels in the Philippines, p. 213.

Nevertheless, the strong tendency to discrimination which characterises resentment, is not wholly lost even behind the veil of common responsibility. Mr. Howitt has come to the conclusion that, among the Australian Kurnai, if a homicide has been committed by an alien tribe, the feud “cannot be satisfied but by the death of the offender,” although it is carried on, not against him alone, but against the whole group of which he is a member.71 It is only “if they fail to secure the guilty person” that the natives of Western Victoria consider it their duty to kill one of his nearest relatives.72 Concerning the West Australian aborigines, Sir George Grey observes, “The first great principle with regard to punishments is, that all the relations of a culprit, in the event of his not being found, are implicated in his guilt; if, therefore, the principal cannot be caught, his brother or father will answer nearly as well, and failing these, any other male or female relative, who may fall into the hands of the avenging party.”73 Among the Papuans of the Tami Islands, revenge may be taken on some other member of the murderer’s family only if it is absolutely impossible to catch the guilty person himself.74 That the blood-revenge is in the first place directed against the malefactor, and against some relative of his only if he cannot be found out, is expressly stated with reference to various peoples in different parts of the world;75 and it is probable that much more to the same effect might have been discovered, if the observers of savage life had paid more attention to this particular aspect of the matter. Among the Fuegians, the most serious riots take place when a manslayer, whom some one wishes to punish, takes refuge with his relations or friends.76 Von Martius remarks of the Brazilian Indians in general that, even when an intertribal war ensues from the committing of homicide, the nearest relations of the killed person endeavour, if possible, to destroy the culprit himself and his family.77 With reference to the Creek Indians, Mr. Hawkins says that though, if a murderer flies and cannot be caught, they will take revenge upon some innocent individual belonging to his family, they are “generally earnest of themselves, in their endeavours to put the guilty to death.”78 The same is decidedly the case in those parts of Morocco where the blood-feud still prevails.

71 Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 221.

72 Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 71.

73 Grey, Journals of Expeditions, ii. 239.

74 Bamler, quoted by Kohler, in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. xiv. 380.

75 Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 434 (natives of Wetter). Chalmers, Pioneering in New Guinea, p. 179. Kohler, in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. xiv. 446 (some Marshall Islanders). Merker, quoted by Kohler, ibid. xv. 53 sq. (Wadshagga). Brett, Indian Tribes of Guiana, p. 357. Bernau, Missionary Labours in British Guiana, p. 57. Dall, Alaska, p. 416. Boas, ‘The Central Eskimo,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 582. Jacob, Leben der vorislâmischen Beduinen, p. 144. Kovalewsky, Coutume contemporaine, p. 248 (Ossetes). Popović, Recht und Gericht in Montenegro, p. 69; Lago, op. cit. ii. 90 (Montenegrines). Miklosich, loc. cit. p. 131 (Slavs). Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 173 sq. (ancient Teutons).

76 Hyades and Deniker, Mission scientifique du Cap Horn, vii. 375.

77 von Martius, op. cit. i. 128.

78 Hawkins, in Trans. American Ethn. Soc. iii. 67.

Not only has Dr. Steinmetz failed to prove his hypothesis that revenge was originally “undirected,” but this hypothesis is quite opposed to all the most probable ideas we can form with regard to the revenge of early man. For my own part I am convinced that we may obtain a good deal of knowledge about the primitive condition of the human race, but not by studying modern savages only. I have dealt with this question at some length in another place,79 and wish now merely to point out that those general physical and psychical qualities which are not only common to all races of mankind, but which are shared by them with the animals most allied to man, may be assumed to have been present also in the earlier stages of human development. Now, concerning revenge among animals, more especially among monkeys, many anecdotes have been told by trustworthy authorities, and in every case the revenge has been clearly directed against the offender.

79 History of Human Marriage, p. 3 sqq.

On the authority of a zoologist “whose scrupulous accuracy was known to many persons,” Darwin relates the following story:—“At the Cape of Good Hope an officer had often plagued a certain baboon, and the animal, seeing him approaching one Sunday for parade, poured water into a hole and hastily made some thick mud, which he skilfully dashed over the officer as he passed by, to the amusement of many bystanders. For long afterwards the baboon rejoiced and triumphed whenever he saw his victim.”80 Prof. Romanes considers this to be a good instance of “what may be called brooding resentment deliberately preparing a satisfactory revenge.”81 This, I think, is to put into the statement somewhat more than it really contains; but at all events it records a case of revenge, in the sense in which Dr. Steinmetz uses the word. The same may be said of other instances mentioned by so accurate observers as Brehm and Rengger in their descriptions of African and American monkeys, and of various examples of resentment in elephants and even in camels.82 According to Palgrave, the camel possesses the passion of revenge, and in carrying it out “shows an unexpected degree of far-thoughted malice, united meanwhile with all the cold stupidity of his usual character.” The following instance, which occurred in a small Arabian town, deserves to be quoted, since it seems to have escaped the notice of the students of animal psychology. “A lad of about fourteen had conducted a large camel, laden with wood, from that very village to another at half an hour’s distance or so. As the animal loitered or turned out of the way, its conductor struck it repeatedly, and harder than it seems to have thought he had a right to do. But not finding the occasion favourable for taking immediate quits, it ‘bode its time’; nor was that time long in coming. A few days later the same lad had to re-conduct the beast, but unladen, to his own village. When they were about half way on the road, and at some distance from any habitation, the camel suddenly stopped, looked deliberately round in every direction, to assure itself that no one was within sight, and, finding the road far and near clear of passers-by, made a step forward, seized the unlucky boy’s head in its monstrous mouth, and lifting him up in the air flung him down again on the earth with the upper part of his skull completely torn off, and his brains scattered on the ground.”83 We are also told that elephants, though very sensitive to insults, are never provoked, even under the most painful or distracting circumstances, to hurt those from whom they have received no harm.84 Sometimes animals show a remarkable degree of discrimination in finding out the proper object for their resentment. It is hardly surprising to read that a baboon, which was molested in its cage with a stick, tried to seize, not the stick, but the hand of its tormentor.85 More interesting is the “revenge” which an elephant at Versailles inflicted upon a certain artist who had employed his servant to tease the animal by making a feint of throwing apples into its mouth:—“This conduct enraged the elephant; and, as if it knew that the painter was the cause of this teasing impertinence, instead of attacking the servant, it eyed the master, and squirted at him from its trunk such a quantity of water as spoiled the paper on which he was drawing.”86