Cuarter XXVI 
RULES OF CONDUCT: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 
Ton 
Redress for injury, either an individual (727) or family matter, e. g., homicide 
(728). 
Infanticide: Twins (729); females (730) ; first-born, ete. (781). 
Suicide (732). 
Adultery (7383). 
Secret poisoning: Animal poisons (784) ; vegetable poisons (735). 
Theft (736); property marks (7387). 
Minor punishments: Whipping (788) ; ant biting (739). 
727. The dispensation of justice for the individual does not usu- 
ally appear to have been a concern of the community as a whole, or 
of the chieftain as its representative. It was the business of the 
person injured or his relatives to get what redress they could or con- 
sidered necessary. In minor matters, e. g., theft, a chief might call 
together the elder men in the common meeting house, where the 
litigants would abide by the decision arrived at. There was ap- 
parently no such thing as public punishment, except perhaps in the 
case of adultery among the Orinoco Carib, where the whole village 
populace dealt with the guilty parties. Certainly of the island 
Carib it is said they know not what it is to punish publicly, or to 
observe any form in the execution of justice; nay, they have no word 
in their language to signify justice or judgment (RO, 523). Roche- 
fort has stated very clearly that the administration of justice among 
these same people was not exercised by the captain, nor by any magis- 
trate; but . . . he who thinks himself injured gets such satisfaction 
of his adversary as he thinks fit, according as his passion dictates to 
him or his strength permits him. The public does not concern itself 
at all in the punishment of criminals; and if anyone among them 
suffers an injury or affront without endeavoring to revenge himself, 
he is slighted by all the rest and accounted a coward, and a person 
of no esteem. But, as we said before, there happens few quarrels or 
fallings out among them (RO, 522). 
728. He that kills anyone who is not of his nation’s declared ene- 
mies ... immediately hides, and subsequently takes to flight 
(G, 1, 182). With the Carib Islanders a brother revenges his brother 
and sister, a husband his wife, a father his children; so that when 
anyone is killed they think it justly done, because it is done upon the 
account of revenge and retaliation. To prevent that, if a savage of 
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