Page:War and Other Essays.djvu/56

20 and there is no cannibalism; but between the two big divisions there is blood revenge, and if they fight there is no limit to the ferocity, cannibalism being then practiced. On the Mortlock Islands when two tribes go to war each warrior must select as his antagonist on the other side one who is not in the same kin-group with himself. Amongst certain Sumatrans if a man of one village has a grievance against a man of another, the men of the former go into the fields of the other, where they are met by the local chief, who asks their errand. They answer that they have come to destroy the plantation of the man in the village who has injured a man of theirs. The chief admits that this is just, but proposes to avoid violence; so he brings to them fruit from the plantation of the offender and, if the offense was great, he allows them to destroy a certain number of trees on it. They also burn down the offender's house "ceremonially" — a little hut is built of light material on his field and with triumphant cries is set on fire by the offended party. Generally an agreement is reached, but if not, long hostilities endure between two neighboring villages.

The Christian states have always professed to moderate somewhat the horrors of war when they went to fighting with each other, and so we have laws of war which are good between the states agreeing to them, but not with outsiders. This makes a limited peace-group of all the states which unite now to make international law. Let us follow these peace-institutions up into higher civilization.

The Scandinavian people spread in small bodies over their territory, and these bodies often engaged in war with each other. They had a common sanctuary at Upsala at