Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/138

 124 LAWS. murderer, wlilcli has its origin in superstition. This is called the Tejnmg-bumiy or purification of the earth from the stain it has received. Amonff other tribes, besides the compensation, the mur- derer pays the funeral charges. It is remarkable that there is not, in any language of the Indian islands, words equivalent to ours lo murder, or murderer ; no terms which express the horror which we attach to these. In these tongues, to murder is simply " to kill," and a murderer is no more than " one that kills." Human life can be of little value among a people whose languaeje is incapable of making this great moral distinction. It is among the military and high-spirited nations of Celebes that the law of retaliation is urged to the greatest length. Still, even there, every mem- ber of the society has his price determined, from the chief to the slave ; and when, after the neces- sary forms, this price is paid, the parties rest satis- fied. Within the society, the injury is consider- ed to be done to the family of the deceased j but if the murder have been committed by a stran- ger, the quarrel is then no longer a private but a public one, and the tribe of the murderer is an- swerable, the death of any member of which, ge- nerally, will be considered to satisfy the principle of retributive justice, according to their wild notions of it. In the year 1812, a subject of the Bugis king of Boni, an inhabitant of the Bugis quarter of