125 
111 the absence of chiefs aiul of any legislativ^e or executive body 
within the tribes and bands, law and order depended solely on the 
strength of public opinion. There were no written laws, of course; 
merely lailes and injunctions handed down by word of mouth from 
an immemorial anticiuity, and more temporary taboos operative 
fluring the lifetime of an individual. Persuasion aiul physical force 
weie the only methods of arbitrating disputes, social outlawry or 
physical violence the only means of punishing infractions of the 
moral code or offences against the welfare of the band or tribe. The 
band took cognizance of crimes that were believed to endanger the 
whole community, such as the infraction of important taboos or 
treasonable relations with an enemy; it left the indiviflual families, 
with the help perhaps of near kinsfolk, to find their own redress 
for all other offences, from tlieft even to murder. A man who could 
gather a few followers around him might commit any number of 
excesses, but sooner or later he generally paid the iienalty at the 
hands of some outraged victim, or was executed with the approval 
of the entire band. Fear of the blood-feud was a powerfid restraint 
on murder, and social disapproval, more keenly felt in small com- 
munities than in large, checked the commission of many lesser 
crimes. Strangers, however, even people of a neighbouring tribe, 
might be robbed or killed witli impunity; they had no rights, unless 
tliey married into a band or placed themselves under the protection 
of some powerful family. i 
If there was no organization for the submission of disputes to 
arbitration or for maintaining law and order within the communities, 
neither was there any organization for prosecuting war with neigh- 
bouring peoples. Natives living outside the tribe were enemies, 
real or potential, to be carefully avoided unless they encroached 
on the hunting territories. Then it was the local band only that 
opposed tlie invasion, unless tlie menace became so serious that other 
bands voluntarily rallied to its aid. There was no meclianism for 
mustering an army, and often no means of appointing a leader for 
warriors who gathei'ed of their own accord. In rare cases men of 
1 Cf. Tht* oppression of the Yellowkiiives Ity tiie Cliipewyans fHennie; Op, cit,, p. 2fll ff). Al.so 
a few years lat<T, when ihe Chipcwyaiis rleclinetl, the outraRes liy the Yellowknives on tlie Dogribs 
and Hares (Simpson, T. : “ Nanai ive of the Diseo' ories of the X'orth C<jast of Amorira; Effected by 
the Officers of Hie Hudson’s Bay Company diirinR the years 1836-39,” p. 318 (I.ondon, 1843); Back, Sir 
George: Narrative of the Arrtic I, and E.'cpedition to tfie Mouth of the Great Fisli River, and along 
Hie Shore.s of tlie Arctic Ocean, in ihe Years 1833, 1831, and 1835,” ]ip. 457-8 (London, 1836)). 
