Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/210

198 make it narrower, and what causes widen it until it passes into the third, we have here to observe.

If the innate feelings and aptitudes of a race have large shares in determining the size and cohesions of the social groups it forms, still more must they have large shares in determining the relations which arise among the members of such groups. While the mode of life followed tends to generate this or that political structure, its effects are always complicated by the effects of inherited character. Whether or not the primitive state, in which governing power is equally distributed among all warriors or all elders, passes into the state in which governing power is monopolized by one, depends, in part, on the life of the group as predatory or peaceful, and in part on the natures of its members as prompting them to oppose dictation more or less doggedly. A few facts will make this clear.

The Arafuras (Papuan-Islanders) who "live in peace and brotherly love," have no other "authority among them than the decisions of their elders." Among the harmless Todas "all disputes and questions of right and wrong are settled either by arbitration or by a Punchayet—i. e., a council of five." Of the Bodo and Dhimáls, described as averse to military service, and "totally free from arrogance, revenge, cruelty, and fierté," we read that though each of their small communities has a nominal head who pays the tribute on its behalf, yet he is without power, and "disputes are settled among themselves by juries of elders." In these cases, besides absence of the causes which bring about chiefly supremacy, may be noted the presence of causes which directly hinder it. The Papuans generally, typified by the Arafuras above named, while they are described by Modera, Ross, and Kolff, as "good-natured," "of a mild disposition," kind and peaceful to strangers, are said by Earl to be unfit for military action; "their impatience of control ... utterly precludes that organization which would enable" the Papuans "to stand their ground against encroachments." The Bodo and Dhimáls while "they are void of all violence toward their own people or toward their neighbors," also "resist injunctions, injudiciously urged, with dogged obstinacy." And of a kindred "very fascinating people," the Lepchas, amiable, peaceful, kind, as travelers unite in describing them, and who will not take service as soldiers, we are told that they will "undergo great privation rather than submit to oppression or injustice."

Where the innate tendency to resist coercion is strong, we find this uncentralized political organization maintained, notwithstanding the warlike activities which tend to initiate settled chieftainship. The Nagas "acknowledge no king among themselves, and deride the idea of such a personage among others"; their "villages are continually at feud"; "every man being his own master, his passions and inclinations are ruled by his share of brute force." And then we further find that "petty disputes and disagreements about property are settled