IN TIM OB. 473 



its summit, the pole, as I thought at first sight, impaling a 

 human body, and the outer corners of the triangle transfix- 

 ing each a human head. These were happily only made-up 

 representations of what at no far-back date would have been 

 realities. This ghastly sign-post, called a Jcero, had been erected 

 as a warning to all thieves and offenders of the dire punish- 

 ment that would be mercilessly meted out to them, just as it 

 had been (or would have been but for the intervention of 

 European law over-riding their own) to the three whose cranial 

 effigies were exposed on the kero, who had been convicted of 

 stealing fruit, as the bunch of cocoa- and pinang-nuts hung on 

 a railing below them indicated. 



The law of the different kingdoms is a lex non scripta, and has 

 been handed down from generation to generation. The Leorei 

 is judge as well as king, but acts only, howevei', on the rare 

 occasions when a case is brought before him on complaint, his 

 judgment being for the litigants always a costly boon. Every 

 man or his family exacts justice by his own individual arm on 

 the person or his family by whom he has been wronged. If 

 the wrong-doer has goods or chattels on which a fine may be 

 levied, the wronged as a rule exacts a fine in expiation. 

 Homicide is revenged by death, but this penalty can be 

 averted by the payment of the equivalent in money or goods 

 demanded by the relatives, and the substitution of some one of 

 the offender's family to take the place of the slain. A robber 

 taken in the act used to be executed on the spot— and is even 

 now when the avenger is likely to escape punishment by the 

 European authorities, who have rightly interfered with the 

 old savage administration of justice in the rajahships— and if 

 the theft consisted of a living animal the head of the animal 

 was struck off and affixed near that of the robber on a stake. 



Every crime, however small, could be avenged by death, 

 but if the offender were sufficiently rich, they could all be 

 expiated by a fine except two: adultery with any of the 

 rajah's family, and the being a 8wangi or sorcerer, for which 

 the punishment— or perhaps it ought to be called cure — was 

 impalement with all his family, and confiscation of their goods 

 for the benefit of the accuser and of the lord of the soil. 



Law and justice are to be seen in Timor, at the present day, 

 emerging from the rudimentary stage. Hitherto each native 



