LAWS. 529 



A kindred effort to equalize in this literal way, the offence 

 and the expiation, occurs in Abyssinia ; where, when the 

 murderer is given over to his victim s family, &quot;the nearest 

 of kin puts him to death with the same kind of weapon as 

 that with which he had slain their relative.&quot; As the last 

 case shows, this primitive procedure, when it does not assume 

 the form of inflicting injury for injury between individuals, 

 assumes the form of inflicting injury for injury between 

 families or tribes, by taking life for life. With the instances 

 given in 522 may be joined one from Sumatra. 

 &quot; When in an affray [between families], there happen to be several 

 persons killed on both sides, the business of justice is only to state 

 the reciprocal losses, in the form of an account current, and order the 

 balance to be discharged if the numbers be unequal.&quot; 

 And then, from this rude justice which insists on a balancing 

 of losses between families or tribes, it results that so long as 

 their mutual injuries are equalized, it matters not whether 

 the blameable persons are or are not those who suffer; and 

 hence the system of vicarious punishment hence the fact that 

 vengeance is wreaked on any member of the transgressing 

 family or tribe. Moreover, ramifying in these various ways, 

 the principle applies where not life but property is con 

 cerned. Schoolcraft tells us that among the Dakotas, &quot;injury 

 to property is sometimes privately revenged by destroying 

 other property in place thereof;&quot; and among the Araucanians, 

 families pillage one another for the purpose of making their 

 losses alike. The idea survives, though changed in 



form, when crimes come to be compounded for by gifts or 

 payments. Very early we see arising the alternative between 

 submitting to vengeance or making compensation. Kane 

 says of certain North American races, that &quot; horses or other 

 Indian valuables &quot; were accepted in compensation for murder. 

 With the Dakotas &quot; a present of white wampum,&quot; if accepted, 

 condones the offence. Among the Araucanians, homicides 

 &quot; can screen themselves from punishment by a composition 

 with the relations of the murdered.&quot; Recalling, as these few 

 instances do, the kindred alternatives recognized throughout 





