Among the Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush “killing strangers might or might not be considered inexpedient, but it would hardly be considered a crime”; killing fellow-tribesmen, on the other hand, is looked upon in a very different light.[27] The Koriaks do not regard murder as a great crime, unless it occur within their own tribe.[28] The early Aleuts considered the killing of a companion a crime worthy of death, “but to kill an enemy was quite another thing.”[29] To an Aht Indian the murder of a man is no more than the killing of a dog, provided that the victim is not a member of his own tribe.[30] According to Humboldt, the natives of Guiana “detest all who are not of their family, or their tribe; and hunt the Indians of a neighbouring tribe, who live at war with their own, as we hunt game.”[31] In the opinion of the Fuegians, “a stranger and an enemy are almost synonymous terms,” hence they dare not go where they have no friends, and where they are unknown, as they would most likely be destroyed.[32] The Australian Black nurtures an intense hatred of every male at least of his own race who is a stranger to him, and would never neglect to assassinate such a person at the earliest moment that he could do so without risk to himself.[33] In Melanesia, also, a stranger as such was generally throughout the islands an enemy to be killed.[34]
[27] Scott Robertson, Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, p. 194.
[28] Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 232.
[29] Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, ‘Report on Alaska,’ in Tenth Census of the Untied States, p. 155.
[30] Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, p. 152.
[31] von Humboldt, Personal Narrative of Travels, v. 422.
[32] Stirling, in South Ammerican Missionary Magazine, iv. 11. Bridges, in A Voice for South America, xiii. 210.
[33] Curr, The Australian Race, i. 64, 85 sq. Mathew, in Jour. & Proceed. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, xviii. 398.
[34] Codrington, Melanesians, p. 345.
In Savage Island the slaying of a member of another tribe—that is, a potential enemy—“was a virtue rather than a crime.”[35] To a young Samoan it was the realisation of his highest ambition to be publicly thanked by the chiefs for killing a foe in mortal combat.[36] “According to Fijian beliefs, men who have not slain any enemy are, in the other world, compelled to beat dirt with their clubs—the most degrading punishment the native mind can conceive—because they used their club to so little purpose;[37] and in Futuna it was deemed no less necessary to have poured out blood on the field of battle in order to hold a part in the happy future life.[38] In the Western islands of Torres Straits “it was a meritorious deed to kill foreigners either in fair fight or by treachery, and honour and glory were attached to the bringing home of the skulls of the inhabitants of other islands slain in battle.”[39] In the Solomon Islands,[40] New Guinea,[41] and various parts of the Malay Archipelago, he who has collected the greatest number of human heads is honoured by his tribe as the bravest man; and some peoples do not allow a man to marry until he has cut off at least one human head.[42] Among many of the North American Indians, again, he who can boast of the greatest number of scalps is the person most highly esteemed.[43] Among the Seri Indians the highest virtue “is the shedding of alien blood; and their normal impulse on meeting an alien is to kill, unless deterred by fear.”[44] Among the Chukchi “it is held criminal to thieve or murder in the family or race to which a person belongs; but these crimes committed elsewhere are not only permitted, but held honourable and glorious.”[45] So, too, the Gallas consider it honourable to kill an alien, though criminal to kill a countryman.[46]