SOME TEIBAL CUSTOMS IN THEIB EELATION TO MEDICINE AND MOUALS 243 



MOEALITY 



As " moral," it is usual to consider whatever existing conventions account "correct." 

 The standard of morality varies widely, therefore, according to place and period, and has 

 been wittily described as "merely a matter of latitude." Towards the Equator it is, as 

 might be expected, virtually at nought. 



These people are, as I have said, "non-moral" rather than immoral, ignorant not 

 innocent. Those that look upon them as simply unsophisticated and only corrupted by 

 civilisation, are vastly mistaken. (A glance at any Sudanese regiment recruited from these 

 regions will prove this.) 



Vice has no place in their vocabulary, and crime does not exist for them until it is primitive 

 found out. Their " Moral Code " ' is merely one to regulate possession and check violence ^°'^^ 



T mi .1.1. T 1 • sanctions 



towards the possessor and possessed. ihe savage s lazmess bemg extreme and his 

 affection limited apparently almost entirely to his children, his ambition is to exist in a 

 state of married indolence, raise a family (the female children being valuable assets), 

 and amass what little comes his way. Winwood Reade- paints him thus in a few words : — 

 "He basks all day in the sunshine. . . . When the meat-hunger comes upon him he takes 

 up bow and arrow for a few days and goes into the bush. His life is one long torpor with 

 spasms of activity. Century follows century, but he does not change." — Nor will he change - 

 as long as he has enough to eat. Stress of civilisation alone can raise him from such a rut. 



PUNISHJrENT 



As regards morality, however, it is the punishiiient rather than the crime, that 

 interests us more directly from a medical standpoint — and this chiefly among the 

 Nyam-nyam, whose methods of mutilation and execution are very drastic. With the Gours, 

 mutilation is said not to exist and crime to be liglitly punished; they are a happy and 

 effeminate people. 



Mutilation.-' Ungua-dro-baso [Zaiideh) 



A practice confined almost entirely to the cannibal Nyam-nyam with whom it must 

 have been very prevalent before the present Government's days. I imagine, too, that 

 many of the so-called Belgian-Congo atrocities were due more to carelessness and 

 inadequate supervision, on the part of the authorities, over a brutal and licentious 

 savagery than to any gross inhumanity on their own part. 



The Zandeh, Bagaro, Avokia, Mundu and Bakka were apparently the chief offenders, 

 wliile neither the Gours, Dinkas or Shilluks resorted to it as far as I can gather. 



It was meted out for the following crimes : — Crimes 



(a) Adultery and Eape. (As amongst most savage people, Dinkas, Nubas, etc., punished by 



the woman being held irresponsible.) 

 (6) Intrigue against the life or property of a chief. 



(c) Refusal to obey a tribal call to arms. 



(d) Cowardice in front of an enemy. 



(e) Neglecting to pay tribute of meat or corn to a chief. 



A sultan is the only person who can authorise nuitilation, but he leaves all details 

 to the nmtilator. 



The usual routine was therefore for the wronged man, having gained his Sultan's 



' For details of such a savage " Moral Code " as iustaaced by the unwritten laws of the people, I would refer 

 to Captain H. O'Sullivan's " Dinka Customs and Laws," .\ppendix " D," Siulaii Annual Jlcport, 1907. 



- The Martyrdom of Man. 



" All mutilation has of course been entirely .suppressed l)y the present OoTCrnment. 



