Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/649

Rh to render service to his neighbors, and the popularity which follows it, is at once the foundation and the measure of his authority." If a Dakota "wishes to do mischief, the only way a chief can influence him is to give him something, or pay him to desist from his evil intentions. The chief has no authority to act for the tribe, and dare not do it." And among the Creeks, more advanced in political organization though they are, the authority of the elected chiefs "continues during good behavior. The disapproval of the body of the people is an effective bar to the exercise of their powers and functions." Turning to Asia, we read that the bais or chiefs of the Kirghiz "have little power over them for good or evil. In consideration of their age and blood, some deference to their opinions is shown, but nothing more." The Ostiaks "pay respect, in the fullest sense of the word, to their chief, if wise and valiant, but this homage is voluntary, and founded on personal regard." And of the Naga chiefs Butler says, "Their orders are obeyed so far only as they accord with the wishes and convenience of the community." So too is it in parts of Africa; as instance the Koranna Hottentots: "A chief or captain presides over each clan or kraal, being usually the person of greatest property; but his authority is extremely limited, and only obeyed so far as it meets the general approbation." And even among the more politically organized Caffres, there is a kindred restraint. The king "makes laws and executes them according to his sole will. Yet there is a power to balance his in the people: he governs only so long as they choose to obey." They leave him if he governs ill.

In its primitive form, then, political power is the feeling of the community, acting through an agency which it has either informally or formally established. Doubtless, from the beginning, the power of the chief is in part personal: his greater strength, courage, or cunning, enables him in some degree to enforce his individual will. But, as the evidence shows, his individual will is but a small factor; and the authority he wields is proportionate to the degree in which he expresses the wills of the rest.

While this public feeling, which first acts by itself and then partly through an agent, is to some extent the feeling spontaneously formed by those concerned, it is to a much larger extent the opinion imposed on them or prescribed for them. In the first place, the emotional nature prompting the general mode of conduct is derived from ancestors, being a product of all past activities; and, in the second place, the special motives which, directly or indirectly, determine the courses pursued, are induced during early life by seniors, and enlisted on behalf of beliefs and usages which the tribe inherits. The governing sentiment is, in short, mainly the accumulated and organized sentiment of the past.

It needs but to remember the mutilation to which, at a prescribed