578 



and the distinction between civil and criminal law can be 

 maintained. Under civil law in a native society we can 

 ■understand the set of rules regulating all the normal relations 

 between persons, as kinship, marriage, economic co-operation 

 and distribution, trading, etc. ; and between persons and 

 things, property inheritance, etc. Civil law being thus a set 

 of rules regulating the social mechanism in its stationary, 

 normal course; criminal law being the safety arrangements, 

 putting things aright whenever there is any hitch in their 

 normal course. 



Collecting and describing facts from this point cf view 

 an ethnological inquirer is not likely to violate the conditions 

 of native life, because the ideas and principles of classifica- 

 tion used are sufficiently broad and plastic, though not loose, 

 to be adapted to any social conditions, and they are not 

 borrowed from European jurisprudence. 



But although this might do justice to native institu- 

 tions, and might inform the reader as to the legal aspect of 

 native sociology, it would give no information about native 

 legal ideas. By discussing matters with intelligent — sometimes 

 extremely intelligent — natives, and by letting them compare 

 native social rules with the introduced T^jropean system of 

 administrating justice, I came to the conclusion that the 

 conception of criminal law, or of civil law, or of the distinction 

 between the two, could not find any counterpart in native 

 ideas, not even in a rudimentary form. Nevertheless, the 

 natives use words for forbidden ; they have their systems of 

 taboos, which possess a distinctly legal aspect, though this is 

 mixed with others as well. In order to do justice to explicit 

 and fundamental native ideas about rule, prohibition, and 

 sanction, it will be necessary to describe their system of taboos 

 and try to distinguish between its legal and non-legal aspects. 



Budim e nt ary Measures, corresponding to Criminal Law. — 

 The data concerning law will not be described in this section. 

 Civil law comprises all the rules governing social life. 

 Those rules, so far as they are known to the writer, are stated, 

 passim, throughout the description of the activities and 

 institutions. I have tried also to state their stringency and 

 universality : to describe the function and the mechanism by 

 which they would be maintained if infringed. It would be 

 mere repetition even to enumerate these details in this place. 



In collecting facts relating to criminal law one is con- 

 fronted with serious difficulties. It is clear from what has 

 been said above that the ethnographer cannot put his questions 

 direct, but has to procure a certain number of actual, concrete 

 facts, draw from them his own inferences, and describe them 



