[55] Ibid. iv. 166. Cf. ibid. iv. 167.
[56] Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 134. Ancient Laws of Ireland, iii. p. cxi. Dimetian Code, ii. 17. 17 (Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, p. 248). Gwentian Code, ii. 7. 13 (ibid. 342). de Valroger, Les Celtes, p. 470. Innes, Scotland in the Middle Ages, p. 180.
We have noticed that men in their estimation of human life, particularly at the earlier stages of culture, discriminate between fellow-tribesmen or compatriots and aliens. A similar distinction is made with reference to other bodily injuries. It reaches its pitch in the sufferings inflicted on vanquished enemies. The treatment to which the Kamchadales subjected their male prisoners of war included “burning, hewing them to pieces, tearing their entrails out when alive, and hanging them by the feet.”[57] Some of the Dacotahs, when they had taken a captive, “secured him to a stake and allowed their women to torture him by mutilating him previous to killing him”;[58] and of many other North American Indians it is said that they “devote their captives to death, with the most agonising tortures.”[59] The wars of the Society Islanders, Ellis observes, were most merciless and destructive; “invention itself was tortured to find out new modes of inflicting suffering.”[60] On the other hand, there are not wanting instances of savage warfare being conducted on more humane principles. Dobrizhoffer tells us that “cruelty towards captives and enemies is abhorred by the Abipones, who never torture the dying”;[61] and among the Somals no injury is done to enemies who have been severely wounded in the battle.[62] Civilised nations maintain that, in time of war, no greater injuries should be inflicted upon the enemy than are necessary to obtain the end of the war.
[57] Krasheninnikoff, History of Kamschatka, p. 200.
[58] Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 313.
[59] Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 388.
[60] Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 293. Cf. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises, p. 533 (Samoans); Foreman, Philippine Islands, p. 185; Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 172 sq.
[61] Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abipones, ii. 411.
[62] Paulitschke, Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas, p. 255.
The right to bodily integrity is influenced by religious differences as well as national. According to Muhammedan law, the compensation for injuries inflicted on a Jew or a Christian is a third, for those inflicted on a Parsee only a fifteenth, of the sum to be paid for similar injuries done to a Moslem.[63] A mediæval Spanish law prescribes that a Christian who beats a Jew shall pay four maravedis, but that a Jew who beats a Christian shall pay ten.[64]