Theft is not only punished by men, but is supposed to be avenged by supernatural powers. The Alfura of Halmahera are said to be honest only because they fear that they otherwise would be subject to the punishment of spirits.[152] The natives of Efate, in the New Hebrides, maintained that theft was condemned by their gods.[153] In Aneiteum, another island belonging to the same group, thieves were supposed to be punished after death.[154] In Netherland Island they were said to go to a prison of darkness under the earth;[155] according to the beliefs of the Banks Islanders they were excluded from the true Panoi or Paradise.[156] On the Gold Coast, “if a man had property stolen from his house, he might go to the priest of the local deity he was accustomed to worship, state the loss that had befallen him, make an offering of a fowl, rum, and eggs, and ask the priest to supplicate the god to punish the thief.”[157] In Southern Guinea fetishes are inaugurated to detect and punish certain kinds of theft, and persons who are cognisant of such crimes and do not give information about them are also liable to be punished by the fetish.[158] The Bechuanas speak of an unknown being, vaguely called by the name of Lord and Master of things (Mongalinto), who punishes theft. One of them said: “When it thunders every one trembles; if there are several together, one asks the other with uneasiness, Is there any one amongst us who devours the wealth of others? All then spit on the ground saying, We do not devour the wealth of others. If a thunderbolt strikes and kills one of them, no one complains, no one weeps; instead of being grieved, all unite in saying that the Lord is delighted (that is to say, he has done right) with killing that man; we also say that the thief eats thunderbolts, that is to say, does things which draw down upon men such judgments.”[159]
[152] Kükenthal, Forschungsreise in den Molukken, p. 188.
[153] Macdonald, Oceania, p. 208.
[154] Turner, Samoa, p. 326.
[155] Ibid. p. 301.
[156] Codrington, Melanesians, p. 274.
[157] Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 75. See also Cruickshank, op. cit. ii. 152, 160, 184; Schultze, Der Fetischismus, p. 91.
[158] Wilson, Western Africa, p. 275.
[159] Arbousset and Daumas, Exploratory Tour to the North-East of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, p. 322 sq.
According to the Zoroastrian Yasts, Rashnu Razista was “the best killer, smiter, destroyer of thieves and bandits.”[160] In Greece Zeus κτήσιος was a guardian of the family property;[161] and according to a Roman tradition the domestic god repulsed the robber and kept off the enemy.[162] The removing of landmarks has frequently been regarded as sacrilegious.[163] It was strictly prohibited by the religious law of the Hebrews.[164] In Greece boundaries were protected by Zeus ὅριος. Plato says in his ‘Laws’:—“Let no one shift the boundary line either of a fellow-citizen who is a neighbour, or, if he dwells at the extremity of the land, of any stranger who is conterminous with him…. Every one should be more willing to move the largest rock which is not a land mark, than the least stone which is the sworn mark of friendship and hatred between neighbours; for Zeus, the god of kindred, is the witness of the citizen, and Zeus, the god of strangers, of the stranger, and when aroused terrible are the wars which they stir up. He who obeys the law will never know the fatal consequences of disobedience, but he who despises the law shall be liable to a double penalty, the first coming from the Gods, and the second from the law.”[165] The Romans worshipped Terminus or Jupiter Terminalis as the god of boundaries.[166] According to an old tradition, Numa directed that every one should mark the bounds of his landed property by stones consecrated to Jupiter, that yearly sacrifices should be offered to them at the festival of the Terminalia, and that, “if any person demolished or displaced these bound-stones, he should be looked upon as devoted to this god, to the end that anybody might kill him as a sacrilegious person with impunity and without being defiled with guilt.”[167] In the higher religions theft of any kind is frequently condemned as a sin.