138 
a few days only three or four times a year, to weld the various tribes 
and clans into a co-ordinated body politic. Only too often the tribes 
acted independently, so that one could be at peace with Algonkian 
neighbours who were being vigorously harassed by the others. As 
long as the league had only feeble Indian tribes to contend against 
it flourished and extended its boundaries, replacing losses in warfare 
by the wholesale adoption of captives; but when it encountered 
European forces accustomed to militaiy discipline and unified under 
a single command, the looseness of its organization brought about 
disjointed action and hastened its disruption and downfall. 
Law and order within the Iroquoian confederacies lay wholly 
within the jurisdiction of the tribes, resting in the final analysis with 
the individual villages. The penalty for treason or witchcraft was 
death, after summary trial and conviction before a council of the 
villagers; but compounding was permissible and usual in the case 
of all other offences. “ They have only one method of justice for 
injuries, which is that the whole village must make amends by 
presents.” i “For a Huron killed by a Huron, they are generally 
content with thirty presents; for a woman, forty are demanded, 
because, they say, women cannot so easily defend themselves. . . for 
a stranger, still more are exacted; because they say that otherwise 
murders would be too frequent, trade would be prevented, and wars 
would too easily arise between different nations.”- The actual 
levy of presents took the form of voluntary contributions, but so 
great was the spirit of emulation among the Indians that it was 
seldom difficult to raise the necessary quantity of wampum and skins. 
Minor offences were punishable in the same way as murder, but for 
refractory individuals who continually disturbed the tranquillity of 
the community there loomed in the background outlawry, which 
deprived them of all legal protection and permitted any one to kill 
them at sight. On the whole, public opinion and the knowledge that 
the entire village would be held responsible for wrong-doing seem to 
have proved adequate safeguards, and the domestic life of the 
Iroquoians was probably no less peaceful than our own. Theft was 
comparatively rare, for land was the property of the community, 
surplus food was commonly shared with needier neighbours, the 
1 “Jesuit Relations,” vol. xv, p. 157 (1638-9). 
2 Ibid., vol. xxxiii, p. 243 (1648-9). 
