212 THE KEGULATION OF NUMBEES 



himself, his wife and his children, then he need not divide with 

 others ; but if he found that his father had no food, he would 

 give them what he had and go out and look for more.' ^ ' All the 

 males in the Chepara tribe are expected to provide food, if not 

 sick. If a man is lazy and stays in camp, he is jeered at and 

 insulted by the others.' ^ 



The principal features of the Australian customs as described 

 above are to be found among all hunting and fishing races, though 

 such elaborate rules as are usual in Australia are somewhat 

 uncommon elsewhere. The Bushmen may have had their rules 

 for the division of game ; all we are told is to the effect that they 

 shared food. ' When one feasted they all partook ; and when one 

 hungered they all equally suffered.' ^ We have evidence both of 

 the sharing of food and of the dividing up of game among the 

 Eskimos. Details of the latter are given by Nansen ; * with regard 

 to the former we have frequent references to the division of food 

 within the villages among all who need it.^ Of the Eskimos we are 

 also told that * it might be considered a law that every man, as far 

 as he was able to do it, should practise the trade of a hunter on the 

 sea, until he was either disabled by old age or had a son to succeed 

 him. This duty neglected, he brought upon himself the repre- 

 hension not only of the other members of his own family, but also 

 of the wider community.' ^ Eules for the division of food were 

 almost universal among the Indians ; when a hunter of the Hare 

 tribe kills an animal, he is only allowed the tongue and ribs ; the 

 rest is distributed according to a system.' So, too, among the 

 Lillooet a regular partition of the game took place, of which one 

 of the features was ' that the persons who had the game had no 

 preference over others '.^ Such phrases as ' studied equity in the 

 distribution of necessaries ',^ which is applied to the Seri Indians, 

 indicate the existence of similar rules.^° 



Conditions are similar among the races of the second group. In 

 Fiji ' public opinion took care that no man in the community 



' Rowitt,NativeTribes,}).765. ^ Ibid., p. 767. ^ Stow, loc. cit., p. 41. See also 

 Theal, Yellow- and Dark-Skinned People, p. 48. " Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 113. 



* See, for instance, Klutschak, pp. 231 ff.. and Whymper, Voyages et Aventurcs, 

 p. 346. « Rink, loc. cit., p. 31. ' Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 121. 



« Teit, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 256. » MacGee, 17th A. R. B. E., p. 273. 



'" Hill Tout {British North America, p. 159) describes an exceptional case of 

 a Salish tribe in which ' even the food was held and the meals taken in common, 

 tlie presiding elder or headsman calling a certain family each day to provide 

 the meals for all the rest, every one taking it in turn to discharge this social 

 duty '. 



