[16] Gregorovius, Wanderings in Corsica, i. 176 sqq.
[17] Gopčević, Oberalbanien und seine Liga, p. 322 sqq.
[18] Kohl, Reise nach Istrien, i. 406 sqq. Popović, Recht und Gericht in Montenegro, p. 69.
Blood-revenge is regarded not only as a right, but as a duty. We are told that the holiest duty a West Australian native is called on to perform is that of avenging the death of his nearest relation. “Until he has fulfilled this task, he is constantly taunted by the old women; his wives, if he be married, would soon quit him; if he is unmarried, not a single young woman would speak to him; his mother would constantly cry, and lament she should ever have given birth to so degenerate a son; his father would treat him with contempt, and reproaches would constantly be sounded in his ear.”[19] Among the tribes of Western Victoria “a man would consider it his bounden duty to kill his most intimate friend for the purpose of avenging a brother’s death, and would do so without the slightest hesitation.”[20] In his description of the Eskimo about Behring Strait, Mr. Nelson states that blood-revenge is considered a sacred duty among all the Eskimo, a duty incumbent on the nearest male relative; if the son of the murdered man is an infant, it rests with him to seek revenge as soon as he attains puberty.[21] Among the Dacotahs “no one can escape this law of retaliation; public opinion would brand with disgrace whoever fled under such circumstances.”[22] The Brazilian aborigines consider it a moral obligation, a matter of conscience, for a son, a brother, or a nephew, to avenge the death of his relative.[23] Speaking of the Guiana Indians, Sir E. F. Im Thurn observes that, “in all primitive societies where there are no written laws and no supreme authority to enforce justice, such vengeance has been held as a sacred duty.”[24] Confucius affirmed, in the strongest and most unrestricted terms, the duty of avenging the murder of a father or a brother.[25] In Japan “the man who was weak enough not to try to put to death the murderer of his father or his lord, was obliged to flee into hiding; from that day, he was despised by his own companions.”[26] The Lord said to Moses:—“The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer; when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.”[27] A similar rule, as we have seen, is laid down in the Koran.[28] The idea that blood-revenge is a sacred duty incumbent on the kindred of the deceased was probably held by all so-called Aryan peoples.[29] It still prevails in Albania,[30] Montenegro,[31] and Corsica. “Not to take revenge is considered by the genuine Corsicans as degrading…. Any one who shrinks from avenging himself … is allowed no rest by his relations, and all his acquaintances upbraid him with pusillanimity.”[32]
[19] Grey, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, ii. 240.
[20] Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 71.
[21] Nelson, ‘Eskimo about Bering Strait,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. p. 292 sq.
[22] Domenech, Seven Years’ Residence in the Great Deserts of North America, ii. 338.
[23] von Martius, Beiträge zur Ethnographie Amerika’s, i. 128.
[24] Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 329 sq.