Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/404

388 settlement, now in small areas and now in larger areas uniting them, there was scarcely any of the regulation which developed civil government brings; but there was insistanceinsistence [sic] on allegiance humbly expressed. While each man was left to guard himself, and blood-feuds between families were unchecked by the central power—while the right of private vengeance was so well recognized that the Salic law made it penal to carry off enemies' heads from the stakes on which they were exhibited near the dwellings of those who had killed them; there was a rigorous demanding of oaths of fidelity to political superiors and periodic manifestations of loyalty. Simple homage, growing presently into liege homage, was paid by smaller rulers to greater; and the vassal who, kneeling ungirt and swordless before his suzerain, professed his subjection and then entered on possession of his lands, was little interfered with so long as he continued to display his vassalage in court and in camp. Refusal to go through the required observances was tantamount to rebellion; as at the present time in China, where disregard of the forms of behavior prescribed toward each grade of officers "is considered to be nearly equivalent to a rejection of their authority." Among peoples in lower stages this connection of social traits is still better shown. Referring to the extreme ceremoniousness of the Tahitians, Ellis writes: "This peculiarity appears to have accompanied them to the temples, to have distinguished the homage and the service they rendered to their gods, to have marked their affairs of state, and the carriage of the people toward their rulers, to have pervaded the whole of their social intercourse." Meanwhile, he says, they were destitute "of even oral laws and institutes:" so verifying the statement of Cook that there was no public administration of justice. Again, from Mariner we learn that if any one in Tonga were to neglect the proper salutation in presence of a superior noble, some calamity from the gods would be expected as a punishment for the omission; and his list of Tongan virtues commences with "paying respect to the gods, nobles, and aged persons." When to this we add his statement that many actions reprobated by the Tongans are not thought intrinsically wrong, but are wrong merely if done against gods or nobles, we get proof that, along with high development of ceremonial control, the sentiments, ideas, and usages, out of which civil government comes, were but feebly developed. Similarly in the ancient American states. The laws of the Mexican king, Montezuma I., mostly related to the intercourse of, and the distinctions between, classes. In Peru, "the most common punishment was death, for they said that a culprit was not punished for the delinquencies he had committed, but for having broken the commandment of the Ynca." There had not been reached the stage in which the transgressions of man against man are the wrongs to be redressed, and in which there is consequently a proportioning of penalties to injuries; but the real crime was insubordination: implying