Within the kin group there was no blood revenge, but a guilty person was held personally responsible. A guest friend ("stranger within thy gates") was not liable to blood revenge with his own kin. His status was in the tribe in which he was a guest, by which he must be defended against his tribe of origin, if the case arose.[1761] The Arabs thought it dishonorable to take money for blood guilt. It was, they thought, like selling the blood of one's kin. Bedouin tribes in the nineteenth century refused to settle blood feuds by payments. Arbitration was admitted in the time of Mohammed, at Medina, where old blood feuds had become intolerable by their consequences.[1762] In Egypt, in the first half of the nineteenth century, blood revenge was still observed. Third cousins of the murderer and his victim were the limits of responsibility on either side.[1763]

+552. Development of the philosophy of blood revenge.+ Blood revenge was nothing but an exercise of revenge and it had all the limitations of revenge. It produced a rude fear of consequences and had some of the effects of the administration of justice. However, it had no process of proof, no due notion of guilt, no means of following up responsibility.

Therefore it could not infuse fear into the hearts of the guilty. It was entirely irrational. Therefore it ran into extravagance without due connection of guilt and punishment, and it cost very many lives of the innocent. In primitive society injuries consist in the invasion of a man's interests through his property, his wife, and his children, or by maiming or killing himself. Each one, when he considers himself injured, tries to redress himself. If he is not able to do it he falls back on others for aid. The kin group is the only body which has ties of sympathy and obligation to him. The kin group may be bound to give help without any regard to the justness of the quarrel, or it gets the function of a jury. Evidently the latter case is more reasonable and civilized than the former. In the original institution of blood revenge the individual was called on to sacrifice himself for others. He was a bad man if he began an inquiry into the conduct of the man who called for the sacrifice. He ought to obey the call whether it came from one who had done right or wrong.[1764] Evidently, in this view, the institution was a case of social duty, not of goblinistic service to the dead. It was a further application of rationalism and justice when the behavior of the deceased was weighed before decreeing blood revenge. If the kin group decides that the injury is real and that it is properly called on to interfere, routine of method of investigation will be developed, rights will be defined, the duty of blood revenge will be defined and limited, and proceedings of redress will be invented. All this work is done in the folkways and by the methods of folkways. The steps lie along the line of advancing civilization. The notion that a man who had committed a murder and had been killed for it had got what he deserved is a very recent and civilized notion. That would not keep his ghost from demanding to be laid by blood atonement. This was the root idea out of which the custom of blood revenge arose. Blood atonement was a notion in goblinism. It was one of the very earliest cases we can find in which there was a notion of duty and social obligation. The kin were those on whom the duty fell. The strong sympathy of men of the same kin was a consequence, not a cause, but it superseded, later, the original cause. At first, the play of revenge gave satisfaction to wounded vanity, but that could only last while the case was personal and close, not when the cases and the obligations were remote and institutional. Another remoter, and perhaps unforeseen, consequence was the deterrent effect on crime. The law of retaliation also, "an eye for an eye," was a _law_. It had a primitive and crude justice in it. It has come down to our own time in "reprisals" as practiced in international quarrels, which include also the solidarity of responsibility of all in a group for the torts of each member of it.

By producing a solidarity of interest on both sides blood revenge helped to produce a social philosophy. It also made each interest group a peace group inside, because only by being a peace group could it conserve all its force. Thus the war interest against outsiders and the interest of concord inside worked together to produce order, government, law, and rights.

+553. Alleviations of blood revenge.+ The Arabs, in their efforts to supersede blood revenge, tried compurgation, tribunals, payments in composition, banishment, and arbitration. Many tribes which have adopted Mohammedanism still practice blood revenge.[1765] Amongst the Kabyles a man falls under it if he kills another by accident, or by the fault of the victim, or in preventing a crime.[1766]

+554. The king's peace.+ In the history of civilization the devices to do away with blood revenge are those which have been incidentally mentioned. The last means of suppressing all forms of private war was the king's peace. In modern states due respect to the king required that there should be no quarreling or fighting in his presence. His presence was interpreted to mean in or near his residence, his court, and his environs. Then his peace was interpreted to cover his highroads, and his jurisdiction was presently held to go as far as his peace, because he must have authority to enforce his peace. When small states were united into big ones the peace bond had to be extended over the larger unit.

Gradually all petty jurisdictions were absorbed, all justice and redress came from the king or in his name, and private redress was forbidden.

For a long time it seemed that the freeman's prerogative was being taken from him. As long as the duel survives the movement is incomplete.

+555. Origin of criminal law.+ When the state took control of injuries and acts of violence and undertook to revenge them on behalf of the victims, as well as in vindication of public authority and order, injuries became crimes and revenge became punishment. Crimes were injuries which could be compensated for, and also violations of the king's peace, that is, of public welfare. In the latter point of view they brought the king's vanity into play. The German emperor Frederick II, by his ferocity against rebels, showed how potent wounded vanity is, as a motive, even in an able man. The crime of treason or rebellion always excites the vanity and fierce revenge of civil authority. It is beyond question that the state in its penalties simply took over the usages of kin groups in inflicting retaliation or gratifying revenge. It did not philosophize. It assumed functions, and with them it took the methods of procedure and the instrumentalities which it found in use for those functions. Criminal law, therefore, and criminal administration were developed out of blood revenge when it was rendered rational and its traditional processes were subjected to criticism.

[1720] Sieroshevski, _Yakuty_ (_Polish version_), 248.

[1721] Clement, _Das Recht der Salischen Franken_, 243.

[1722] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 274.

[1723] JAI, XX, 53.

[1724] _Ibid._, XIV, 352.

[1725] Cunow, _Verwandtschafts-organization der Austral._, 126.

[1726] Spencer and Gillen, _Cent. Austral._, 265.

[1727] Pfeil, _Aus der Sudsee_, 18, 143.

[1728] _U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1888, 379.

[1729] _Bur. Eth._, XVII, Part I, 199.

[1730] Lecky, _Eur. Morals_, II, 280.

[1731] Wilutzky, _Mann und Weib_, 121.

[1732] _Smithson. Rep._, 1893, 595.

[1733] Lippert, _Kulturgesch._, I, 265.

[1734] Geijer, _Svenska Folkets Hist._, I, 112.

[1735] Risley, _Ethnog. of India_, I, 67.

[1736] Deut. xix; Josh. xx.

[1737] Num. xxxv.

[1738] _Unter den Papuas_, 256.

[1739] _Neu Guinea_, 199.

[1740] JAI, XI, 67; XXVI, 174; XXVII, 25, 36.

[1741] _Bur. Eth._, VI, 582; XI, 186; XVIII, Part I, 292.

[1742] Powers, _Calif. Indians_, 21.

[1743] Martius, _Ethnog. Brasil._, 127.

[1744] _Ibid._, 693; Schomburgk, _Brit. Guiana_, II, 460.

[1745] Smyth, _Aborig. of Vict._, I, 129; II, 229.

[1746] Veth, _Borneo's Wester Afdeeling_, II, 283.

[1747] Ellis, _Ewe-speaking Peoples_, 208.

[1748] Paulitschke, _Ethnog. N.O. Afrikas_, I, 262; II, 151, 156.

[1749] Hearn, _Japan_, 321.

[1750] P. 250.

[1751] Geijer, _Svenska Folkets Hist._, I, 300.

[1752] von Haxthausen, _Transkaukasia_, 26, 29, 50.

[1753] Num. xxxv. 31.

[1754] Maurer, _Volkerkunde, Bibel, und Christenthum_, I, 164.

[1755] 2 Sam. xiv. 7.

[1756] Deut. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xiv. 6; Ezek. xviii. 19.

[1757] Wellhausen, _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, III, 182.

[1758] _Ibid._, 196.

[1759] Wellhausen, _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, III, 194.

[1760] W. R. Smith, _Relig. of the Semites_, 482.

[1761] The Hebrew law was, "The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you" (Levit. xix. 34).

[1762] Proksch, _Blutrache bei den Arabern_, 18, 30, 33, 36, 51, 54.