80 SATUKDAY J.KCTURES. 



CRIMINAL LAW. 



Of crimes resulting from the regulation of the relations of 

 the sexes, marriage within the prescribed group is held to 

 be the most heinous in primitive society. It is never con- 

 doned, never compounded. Infidelit}' after marriage may 

 be condoned or compounded. 



Crimes relating to i)ersonal injuries include murder 

 maiming, and slander. Murder may be punished by the 

 taking of life — not necessarily the life of the murderer, but 

 one of his clan. But murder may be compounded and 

 primitive law fixes the value of individuals according to 

 sex and rank. Murder may be atoned for b}^ substitution, 

 that is, the murdered man may be expatriated, driven from 

 his family, and thus become dead to his own people, and 

 then he may be adopted by the injured famil}- and made to 

 replace the murdered person. Thus the wife of the mur- 

 dered man may adopt the murderer for her husband, and, 

 in so doing, he loses his own name and all relations of kin- 

 ship, and accepts the name and kinship relations of the 

 murdered man. 



Maiming is punished by maiming — " an eye for an eye 

 and a tooth for a tooth " — and maiming may be compounded, 

 and the value of the several parts of the bodv is specified 

 by law. 



Slander is punished the same as the crime alleged in the 

 slander, and slander may be pleaded as a justifying cause 

 for murder and maiming; slander may also be compounded. 



In primitive society by far the largest body of crimes is 

 included under the practice of witchcraft, and this is ter- 

 ribly punished. Abnormal conditions of body, aberrations 

 of mind, and infelicities of temper are all interpreted as ev- 

 idences that the possessors thereof are uncanny j^eople, and 

 to a large extent deafness and blindness before old age from 

 causes that cannot be readily understood, and all loathsome 

 or strange diseases are likely to be attributed to sorcery, so 

 that the practice of witchcraft is everywhere believed in, 

 and witches and wizards are multiplied. Witchcraft is 

 punished by death, but after conviction in the court, ap- 



