35 Thomson, Savage Island, p. 104. See also ibid. p. 94.
36 Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, p. 57.
37 Seemann, Viti, p. 401. Cf. Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. 97 sq.; Erskine, Islands of the Western Pacific, p. 248.
38 Smith, in Jour. Polynesian Society, i. 39.
39 Haddon, in Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, v. 277.
40 Romilly, Western Pacific, p. 73. Penny, Ten Years in Melanesia, p. 46. Codrington, op. cit. p. 345.
41 Romilly, Western Pacific, p. 76.
42 Bock, Head-Hunters of Borneo, pp. 216, 221, &c. (Dyaks). Bickmore, Travels in the East Indian Archipelago, p. 205 (Alfura of Ceram). Dalton, op. cit. p. 40 (Nagas of Upper Assam).
43 The well-known practice of scalping, though very common, was not universal among the North American Indians (see Gibbs, ‘Tribes of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon,’ in Contributions to N. American Ethnology, i. 192; Powers, Tribes of California, p. 321).
44 McGee, ‘Seri Indians,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethnol. xvii. 132.
45 Georgi, Russia, iii. 183.
46 Macdonald, Africana, i. 229. For other instances, see Harmon, op. cit. p. 301 (Tacullies); Burton, City of the Saints, p. 139 (Dacotahs); Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, p. 94 (Kandhs); MacMahon, Far Cathay, p. 262 (Indo-Burmese border tribes); Macdonald, Africana, i. 194 sq. (Eastern Central Africans); Johnston, Kilima-njaro Expedition, p. 419 (Masai).
At the same time there are, among the lower races, various instances in which the rule, “Thou shalt not kill,” applies even to foreigners. Hospitality, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter, is a stringent duty in the savage world. Custom requires that the host should entertain and protect a stranger who comes as his guest, and by killing him the host would perpetrate an outrage hardly possible. Moreover, even in the case of intertribal relations, we must not conclude that what is allowed in war is also allowed in times of peace. The prohibition of homicide may extend beyond the tribal border, to members of different tribes who for some reason or other are on friendly terms with each other.47 We must not suppose that a tribe of savages generally either lives in a state of complete isolation, or is always at odds with its neighbours. In Australia, for instance, one tribe of natives, as a rule, entertains amicable relations with one, two, or more other tribes.48 Among the Central Australian natives, say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, “there is no such thing as one tribe being in a constant state of enmity with another”; on the contrary, where two tribes come into contact with one another on the border land of their respective territories, friendly feelings are maintained between the members of the two.49 Some uncivilised peoples are even said to have no wars. The Veddahs of Ceylon never make war upon each other.50 According to the reports of the oldest inhabitants of Umnak and Unalaska, the people there had never been engaged in war either among themselves or with their neighbours, except once with the natives of Alaska.51 To the Greenlanders described by Dr. Nansen war is “incomprehensible and repulsive, a thing for which their language has no word.”52
47 See, e.g., Scott Robertson, op. cit. p. 194 (Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush).
48 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 62 sq.
49 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 32.
50 Sarasin, op. cit. iii. 488.
51 Coxe, op. cit. p. 244.
52 Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 162.
That savages to some extent recognise the existence of intertribal rights in times of peace is obvious from certain customs connected with their wars. Some South Sea Islanders and North American Indians consider it necessary for a party which is about to attack another to give notice beforehand of their intention, in order that their opponents may be prepared to meet them.53 The cessation of hostilities is often accompanied by the conclusion of a special treaty and by ceremonies calculated to make it binding.54 The Tahitians, for instance, wove a wreath of green boughs furnished by each side, exchanged two young dogs, and, having also made a band of cloth together, offered the wreath and the band to the gods with imprecations on the side which should first violate so solemn a treaty of peace.55 Nor does savage custom always allow indiscriminate slaughter even in warfare. The inviolability of heralds is not infrequently recognised.56 Among the aborigines of New South Wales the tribal messenger known to be a herald by the red net which he wears round his forehead, passes in safety between and through hostile tribes;57 and among the North American Omahas “the bearer of a peace pipe was generally respected by the enemy, just as the bearer of a flag of truce is regarded by the laws of war among the so-called civilised nations.”