Mutual Aid: Chapter 4




Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution



Peter Kropotkin

1902



Chapter 4



MUTUAL AID AMONG THE BARBARIANS





The great migrations. -- New organization rendered necessary. --

The village community. -- Communal work. -- Judicial procedure --

Inter-tribal law. -- Illustrations from the life of our

contemporaries -- Buryates. -- Kabyles. -- Caucasian

mountaineers. -- African stems.





    It is not possible to study primitive mankind without being



deeply impressed by the sociability it has displayed since its



very first steps in life. Traces of human societies are found in



the relics of both the oldest and the later stone age; and, when



we come to observe the savages whose manners of life are still



those of neolithic man, we find them closely bound together by an



extremely ancient clan organization which enables them to combine



their individually weak forces, to enjoy life in common, and to



progress. Man is no exception in nature. He also is subject to



the great principle of Mutual Aid which grants the best chances



of survival to those who best support each other in the struggle



for life. These were the conclusions arrived at in the previous



chapters.



    However, as soon as we come to a higher stage of



civilization, and refer to history which already has something to



say about that stage, we are bewildered by the struggles and



conflicts which it reveals. The old bonds seem entirely to be



broken. Stems are seen to fight against stems, tribes against



tribes, individuals against individuals; and out of this chaotic



contest of hostile forces, mankind issues divided into castes,



enslaved to despots, separated into States always ready to wage



war against each other. And, with this history of mankind in his



hands, the pessimist philosopher triumphantly concludes that



warfare a nd oppression are the very essence of human nature;



that the warlike and predatory instincts of man can only be



restrained within certain limits by a strong authority which



enforces peace and thus gives an opportunity to the few and



nobler ones to prepare a better life for humanity in times to



come.



    And yet, as soon as the every-day life of man during the



historical period is submitted to a closer analysis and so it has



been, of late, by many patient students of very early



institutions -- it appears at once under quite a different



aspect. Leaving aside the preconceived ideas of most historians



and their pronounced predilection for the dramatic aspects of



history, we see that the very documents they habitually peruse



are such as to exaggerate the part of human life given to



struggles and to underrate its peaceful moods. The bright and



sunny days are lost sight of in the gales and storms. Even in our



own time, the cumbersome records which we prepare for the future



historian, in our Press, our law courts, our Government offices,



and even in our fiction and poetry, suffer from the same



one-sidedness. They hand down to posterity the most minute



descriptions of every war, every battle and skirmish, every



contest and act of violence, every kind of individual suffering;



but they hardly bear any trace of the countless acts of mutual



support and devotion which every one of us knows from his own



experience; they hardly. take notice of what makes the very



essence of our daily life -- our social instincts and manners. No



wonder, then, if the records of the past were so imperfect. The



annalists of old never failed to chronicle the petty wars and



calamities which harassed their contemporaries; but they paid no



attention whatever to the life of the masses, although the masses



chiefly used to toil peacefully while the few indulged in



fighting. The epic poems, the inscriptions on monuments, the



treaties of peace -- nearly all historical documents bear the



same character; they deal with breaches of peace, not with peace



itself. So that the best-intentioned historian unconsciously



draws a distorted picture of the times he endeavours to depict;



and, to restore the real proportion between conflict and union,



we are now bound to enter into a minute analysis of thousands of



small facts and faint indications accidentally preserved in the



relics of the past; to interpret them with the aid of comparative



ethnology; and, after having heard so much about what used to



divide men, to reconstruct stone by stone the institutions which



used to unite them.



    Ere long history will have to be re-written on new lines, so



as to take into account these two currents of human life and to



appreciate the part played by each of them in evolution. But in



the meantime we may avail ourselves of the immense preparatory



work recently done towards restoring the leading features of the



second current, so much neglected. From the better-known periods



of history we may take some illustrations of the life of the



masses, in order to indicate the part played by mutual support



during those periods; and, in so doing, we may dispense (for the



sake of brevity) from going as far back as the Egyptian, or even



the Greek and Roman antiquity. For, in fact, the evolution of



mankind has not had the character of one unbroken series. Several



times civilization came to an end in one given region, with one



given race, and began anew elsewhere, among other races. But at



each fresh start it began again with the same clan institutions



which we have seen among the savages. So that if we take the last



start of our own civilization, when it began afresh in the first



centuries of our era, among those whom the Romans called the



"barbarians," we shall have the whole scale of evolution,



beginning with the gentes and ending in the institutions of our



own time. To these illustrations the following pages will be



devoted.







    Men of science have not yet settled upon the causes which



some two thousand years ago drove whole nations from Asia into



Europe and resulted in the great migrations of barbarians which



put an end to the West Roman Empire. One cause, however, is



naturally suggested to the geographer as he contemplates the



ruins of populous cities in the deserts of Central Asia, or



follows the old beds of rivers now disappeared and the wide



outlines of lakes now reduced to the size of mere ponds. It is



desiccation: a quite recent desiccation, continued still at a



speed which we formerly were not prepared to admit.¹ Against



it man was powerless. When the inhabitants of North-West Mongolia



and East Turkestan saw that water was abandoning them, they had



no course open to them but to move down the broad valleys leading



to the lowlands, and to thrust westwards the inhabitants of the



plains.² Stems after stems were thus thrown into Europe,



compelling other stems to move and to remove for centuries in



succession, westwards and eastwards, in search of new and more or



less permanent abodes. Races were mixing with races during those



migrations, aborigines with immigrants, Aryans with



Ural-Altayans; and it would have been no wonder if the social



institutions which had kept them together in their mother



countries had been totally wrecked during the stratification of



races which took place in Europe and Asia. But they were not



wrecked; they simply underwent the modification which was



required by the new conditions of life.



    The Teutons, the Celts, the Scandinavians, the Slavonians,



and others, when they first came in contact with the Romans, were



in a transitional state of social organization. The clan unions,



based upon a real or supposed common origin, had kept them



together for many thousands of years in succession. But these



unions could answer their purpose so long only as there were no



separate families within the gens or clan itself. However, for



causes already mentioned, the separate patriarchal family had



slowly but steadily developed within the clans, and in the long



run it evidently meant the individual accumulation of wealth and



power, and the hereditary transmission of both. The frequent



migrations of the barbarians and the ensuing wars only hastened



the division of the gentes into separate families, while the



dispersing of stems and their mingling with strangers offered



singular facilities for the ultimate disintegration of those



unions which were based upon kinship. The barbarians thus stood



in a position of either seeing their clans dissolved into loose



aggregations of families, of which the wealthiest, especially if



combining sacerdotal functions or military repute with wealth,



would have succeeded in imposing their authority upon the others;



or of finding out some new form of organization based upon some



new principle.



    Many stems had no force to resist disintegration: they broke



up and were lost for history. But the more vigorous ones did not



disintegrate. They came out of the ordeal with a new organization



-- the village community -- which kept them together for the next



fifteen centuries or more. The conception of a common territory,



appropriated or protected by common efforts, was elaborated, and



it took the place of the vanishing conceptions of common descent.



The common gods gradually lost their character of ancestors and



were endowed with a local territorial character. They became the



gods or saints of a given locality; "the land" was identified



with its inhabitants. Territorial unions grew up instead of the



consanguine unions of old, and this new organization evidently



offered many advantages under the given circumstances. It



recognized the independence of the family and even emphasized it,



the village community disclaiming all rights of interference in



what was going on within the family enclosure; it gave much more



freedom to personal initiative; it was not hostile in principle



to union between men of different descent, and it maintained at



the same time the necessary cohesion of action and thought, while



it was strong enough to oppose the dominative tendencies of the



minorities of wizards, priests, and professional or distinguished



warriors. Consequently it became the primary cell of future



organization, and with many nations the village community has



retained this character until now.



    It is now known, and scarcely contested, that the village



community was not a specific feature of the Slavonians, nor even



of the ancient Teutons. It prevailed in England during both the



Saxon and Norman times, and partially survived till the last



century;³ it was at the bottom of the social organization of



old Scotland, old Ireland, and old Wales. In France, the communal



possession and the communal allotment of arable land by the



village folkmote persisted from the first centuries of our era



till the times of Turgot, who found the folkmotes "too noisy" and



therefore abolished them. It survived Roman rule in Italy, and



revived after the fall of the Roman Empire. It was the rule with



the Scandinavians, the Slavonians, the Finns (in the pittäyä, as



also, probably, the kihla-kunta), the Coures, and the lives. The



village community in India -- past and present, Aryan and



non-Aryan -- is well known through the epoch-making works of Sir



Henry Maine; and Elphinstone has described it among the Afghans.



We also find it in the Mongolian oulous, the Kabyle thaddart, the



Javanese dessa, the Malayan kota or tofa, and under a variety of



names in Abyssinia, the Soudan, in the interior of Africa, with



natives of both Americas, with all the small and large tribes of



the Pacific archipelagoes. In short, we do not know one single



human race or one single nation which has not had its period of



village communities. This fact alone disposes of the theory



according to which the village community in Europe would have



been a servile growth. It is anterior to serfdom, and even



servile submission was powerless to break it. It was a universal



phase of evolution, a natural outcome of the clan organization,



with all those stems, at least, which have played, or play still,



some part in history.⁴



    It was a natural growth, and an absolute uniformity in its



structure was therefore not possible. As a rule, it was a union



between families considered as of common descent and owning a



certain territory in common. But with some stems, and under



certain circumstances, the families used to grow very numerous



before they threw off new buds in the shape of new families;



five, six, or seven generations continued to live under the same



roof, or within the same enclosure, owning their joint household



and cattle in common, and taking their meals at the common



hearth. They kept in such case to what ethnology knows as the



"joint family," or the "undivided household," which we still see



all over China, in India, in the South Slavonian zadruga, and



occasionally find in Africa, in America, in Denmark, in North



Russia, and West France.⁵ With other stems, or in other



circumstances, not yet well specified, the families did not



attain the same proportions; the grandsons, and occasionally the



sons, left the household as soon as they were married, and each



of them started a new cell of his own. But, joint or not,



clustered together or scattered in the woods, the families



remained united into village communities; several villages were



grouped into tribes; and the tribes joined into confederations.



Such was the social organization which developed among the



so-called "barbarians," when they began to settle more or less



permanently in Europe.







    A very long evolution was required before the gentes, or



clans, recognized the separate existence of a patriarchal family



in a separate hut; but even after that had been recognized, the



clan, as a rule, knew no personal inheritance of property. The



few things which might have belonged personally to the individual



were either destroyed on his grave or buried with him. The



village community, on the contrary, fully recognized the private



accumulation of wealth within the family and its hereditary



transmission. But wealth was conceived exclusively in the shape



of movable property, including cattle, implements, arms, and the



dwelling house which -- "like all things that can be destroyed by



fire" -- belonged to the same category⁶. As to private



property in land, the village community did not, and could not,



recognize anything of the kind, and, as a rule, it does not



recognize it now. The land was the common property of the tribe,



or of the whole stem, and the village community itself owned its



part of the tribal territory so long only as the tribe did not



claim a re-distribution of the village allotments. The clearing



of the woods and the breaking of the prairies being mostly done



by the communities or, at least, by the joint work of several



families -- always with the consent of the community -- the



cleared plots were held by each family for a term of four,



twelve, or twenty years, after which term they were treated as



parts of the arable land owned in common. Private property, or



possession "for ever" was as incompatible, with the very



principles and the religious conceptions of the village community



as it was with the principles of the gens; so that a long



influence of the Roman law and the Christian Church, which soon



accepted the Roman principles, were required to accustom the



barbarians to the idea of private property in land being



possible.⁷ And yet, even when such property, or possession for



an unlimited time, was recognized, the owner of a separate estate



remained a co-proprietor in the waste lands, forests, and



grazing-grounds. Moreover, we continually see, especially in the



history of Russia, that when a few families, acting separately,



had taken possession of some land belonging to tribes which were



treated as strangers, they very soon united together, and



constituted a village community which in the third or fourth



generation began to profess a community of origin.



    A whole series of institutions, partly inherited from the



clan period, have developed from that basis of common ownership



of land during the long succession of centuries which was



required to bring the barbarians under the dominion of States



organized upon the Roman or Byzantine pattern. The village



community was not only a union for guaranteeing to each one his



fair. share in the common land, but also a union for common



culture, for mutual support in all possible forms, for protection



from violence, and for a further development of knowledge,



national bonds, and moral conceptions; and every change in the



judicial, military, educational, or economical manners had to be



decided at the folkmotes of the village, the tribe, or the



confederation. The community being a continuation of the gens, it



inherited all its functions. It was the universitas, the mir -- a



world in itself.



    Common hunting, common fishing, and common culture of the



orchards or the plantations of fruit trees was the rule with the



old gentes. Common agriculture became the rule in the barbarian



village communities. True, that direct testimony to this effect



is scarce, and in the literature of antiquity we only have the



passages of Diodorus and Julius Caesar relating to the



inhabitants of the Lipari Islands, one of the Celt-Iberian



tribes, and the Sueves. But there is no lack of evidence to prove



that common agriculture was practised among some Teuton tribes,



the Franks, and the old Scotch, Irish, and Welsh.⁸ As to the



later survivals of the same practice, they simply are countless.



Even in perfectly Romanized France, common culture was habitual



some five and twenty years ago in the Morbihan (Brittany).⁹



The old Welsh cyvar, or joint team, as well as the common culture



of the land allotted to the use of the village sanctuary are



quite common among the tribes of Caucasus the least touched by



civilization,¹⁰ and like facts are of daily occurrence among



the Russian peasants. Moreover, it is well known that many tribes



of Brazil, Central America, and Mexico used to cultivate their



fields in common, and that the same habit is widely spread among



some Malayans, in New Caledonia, with several Negro stems, and so



on.¹¹ In short, communal culture is so habitual with many



Aryan, Ural-Altayan, Mongolian, Negro, Red Indian, Malayan, and



Melanesian stems that we must consider it as a universal --



though not as the only possible -- form of primitive



agriculture.¹²



    Communal cultivation does not, however, imply by necessity



communal consumption. Already under the clan organization we



often see that when the boats laden with fruits or fish return to



the village, the food they bring in is divided among the huts and



the "long houses" inhabited by either several families or the



youth, and is cooked separately at each separate hearth. The



habit of taking meals in a narrower circle of relatives or



associates thus prevails at an early period of clan life. It



became the rule in the village community. Even the food grown in



common was usually divided between the households after part of



it had been laid in store for communal use. However, the



tradition of communal meals was piously kept alive; every



available opportunity, such as the commemoration of the



ancestors, the religious festivals, the beginning and the end of



field work, the births, the marriages, and the funerals, being



seized upon to bring the community to a common meal. Even now



this habit, well known in this country as the "harvest supper,"



is the last to disappear. On the other hand, even when the fields



had long since ceased to be tilled and sown in common, a variety



of agricultural work continued, and continues still, to be



performed by the community. Some part of the communal land is



still cultivated in many cases in common, either for the use of



the destitute, or for refilling the communal stores, or for using



the produce at the religious festivals. The irrigation canals are



digged and repaired in common. The communal meadows are mown by



the community; and the sight of a Russian commune mowing a meadow



-- the men rivalling each other in their advance with the scythe,



while the women turn the grass over and throw it up into heaps --



is one of the most inspiring sights; it shows what human work



might be and ought to be. The hay, in such case, is divided among



the separate households, and it is evident that no one has the



right of taking hay from a neighbour's stack without his



permission; but the limitation of this last rule among the



Caucasian Ossetes is most noteworthy. When the cuckoo cries and



announces that spring is coming, and that the meadows will soon



be clothed again with grass, every one in need has the right of



taking from a neighbour's stack the hay he wants for his



cattle.¹³ The old communal rights are thus re-asserted, as if



to prove how contrary unbridled individualism is to human nature.



    When the European traveller lands in some small island of the



Pacific, and, seeing at a distance a grove of palm trees, walks



in that direction, he is astonished to discover that the little



villages are connected by roads paved with big stones, quite



comfortable for the unshod natives, and very similar to the "old



roads" of the Swiss mountains. Such roads were traced by the



"barbarians" all over Europe, and one must have travelled in



wild, thinly-peopled countries, far away from the chief lines of



communication, to realize in full the immense work that must have



been performed by the barbarian communities in order to conquer



the woody and marshy wilderness which Europe was some two



thousand years ago. Isolated families, having no tools, and weak



as they were, could not have conquered it; the wilderness would



have overpowered them. Village communities alone, working in



common, could master the wild forests, the sinking marshes, and



the endless steppes. The rough roads, the ferries, the wooden



bridges taken away in the winter and rebuilt after the spring



flood was over, the fences and the palisaded walls of the



villages, the earthen forts and the small towers with which the



territory was dottedall these were the work of the barbarian



communities. And when a community grew numerous it used to throw



off a new bud. A new community arose at a distance, thus step by



step bringing the woods and the steppes Under the dominion of



man. The whole making of European nations was such a budding of



the village communities. Even now-a-days the Russian peasants, if



they are not quite broken down by misery, migrate in communities,



and they till the soil and build the houses in com mon when they



settle on the banks of the Amur, or in Manitoba. And even the



English, when they first began to colonize America, used to



return to the old system; they grouped into village



communities.¹⁴







    The village community was the chief arm of the barbarians in



their hard struggle against a hostile nature. It also was the



bond they opposed to oppression by the cunningest and the



strongest which so easily might have developed during those



disturbed times. The imaginary barbarian -- the man who fights



and kills at his mere caprice -- existed no more than the



"bloodthirsty" savage. The real barbarian was living, on the



contrary, under a wide series of institutions, imbued with



considerations as to what may be useful or noxious to his tribe



or confederation, and these institutions were piously handed down



from generation to generation in verses and songs, in proverbs or



triads, in sentences and instructions. The more we study them the



more we recognize the narrow bonds which united men in their



villages. Every quarrel arising between two individuals was



treated as a communal affair -- even the offensive words that



might have been uttered during a quarrel being considered as an



offence to the community and its ancestors. They had to be



repaired by amends made both to the individual and the



community;¹⁵ and if a quarrel ended in a fight and wounds, the



man who stood by and did not interpose was treated as if he



himself had inflicted the wounds.¹⁶ The judicial procedure was



imbued with the same spirit. Every dispute was brought first



before mediators or arbiters, and it mostly ended with them, the



arbiters playing a very important part in barbarian society. But



if the case was too grave to be settled in this way, it came



before the folkmote, which was bound "to find the sentence," and



pronounced it in a conditional form; that is, "such compensation



was due, if the wrong be proved," and the wrong had to be proved



or disclaimed by six or twelve persons confirming or denying the



fact by oath; ordeal being resorted to in case of contradiction



between the two sets of jurors. Such procedure, which remained in



force for more than two thousand years in succession, speaks



volumes for itself; it shows how close were the bonds between all



members of the community. Moreover, there was no other authority



to enforce the decisions of the folkmote besides its own moral



authority. The only possible menace was that the community might



declare the rebel an outlaw, but even this menace was reciprocal.



A man discontented with the folkmote could declare that he would



abandon the tribe and go over to another tribe -- a most dreadful



menace, as it was sure to bring all kinds of misfortunes upon a



tribe that might have been unfair to one of its members.¹⁷ A



rebellion against a right decision of the customary law was



simply "inconceivable," as Henry Maine has so well said, because



"law, morality, and fact" could not be separated from each other



in those times.¹⁸ The moral authority of the commune was so



great that even at a much later epoch, when the village



communities fell into submission to the feudal lord, they



maintained their judicial powers; they only permitted the lord,



or his deputy, to "find" the above conditional sentence in



accordance with the customary law he had sworn to follow, and to



levy for himself the fine (the fred) due to the commune. But for



a long time, the lord himself, if he remained a co-proprietor in



the waste land of the commune, submitted in communal affairs to



its decisions. Noble or ecclesiastic, he had to submit to the



folkmote -- Wer daselbst Wasser und Weid genusst, muss gehorsam



sein -- "Who enjoys here the right of water and pasture must



obey" -- was the old saying. Even when the peasants became serfs



under the lord, he was bound to appear before the folkmote when



they summoned him.¹⁹



    In their conceptions of justice the barbarians evidently did



not much differ from the savages. They also maintained the idea



that a murder must be followed by putting the murderer to death;



that wounds had to be punished by equal wounds, and that the



wronged family was bound to fulfil the sentence of the customary



law. This was a holy duty, a duty towards the ancestors, which



had to be accomplished in broad daylight, never in secrecy, and



rendered widely known. Therefore the most inspired passages of



the sagas and epic poetry altogether are those which glorify what



was supposed to be justice. The gods themselves joined in aiding



it. However, the predominant feature of barbarian justice is, on



the one hand, to limit the numbers of persons who may be involved



in a feud, and, on the other hand, to extirpate the brutal idea



of blood for blood and wounds for wounds, by substituting for it



the system of compensation. The barbarian codes which were



collections of common law rules written down for the use of



judges -- "first permitted, then encouraged, and at last



enforced," compensation instead of revenge.²⁰ The compensation



has, however, been totally misunderstood by those who represented



it as a fine, and as a sort of carte blanche given to the rich



man to do whatever he liked. The compensation money (wergeld),



which was quite different from the fine or fred,²¹ was



habitually so high for all kinds of active offences that it



certainly was no encouragement for such offences. In case of a



murder it usually exceeded all the possible fortune of the



murderer "Eighteen times eighteen cows" is the compensation with



the Ossetes who do not know how to reckon above eighteen, while



with the African tribes it attains 800 cows or 100 camels with



their young, or 416 sheep in the poorer tribes.²² In the great



majority of cases, the compensation money could not be paid at



all, so that the murderer had no issue but to induce the wronged



family, by repentance, to adopt him. Even now, in the Caucasus,



when feuds come to an end, the offender touches with his lips the



breast of the oldest woman of the tribe, and becomes a



"milk-brother" to all men of the wronged family.²³ With



several African tribes he must give his daughter, or sister, in



marriage to some one of the family; with other tribes he is bound



to marry the woman whom he has made a widow; and in all cases he



becomes a member of the family, whose opinion is taken in all



important family matters.²⁴



    Far from acting with disregard to human life, the barbarians,



moreover, knew nothing of the horrid punishments introduced at a



later epoch by the laic and canonic laws under Roman and



Byzantine influence. For, if the Saxon code admitted the death



penalty rather freely even in cases of incendiarism and armed



robbery, the other barbarian codes pronounced it exclusively in



cases of betrayal of one's kin, and sacrilege against the



community's gods, as the only means to appease the gods.



    All this, as seen is very far from the supposed "moral



dissoluteness" of the barbarians. On the contrary, we cannot but



admire the deeply moral principles elaborated within the early



village communities which found their expression in Welsh triads,



in legends about King Arthur, in Brehon commentaries,²⁵ in old



German legends and so on, or find still their expression in the



sayings of the modern barbarians. In his introduction to The



Story of Burnt Njal, George Dasent very justly sums up as follows



the qualities of a Northman, as they appear in the sagas: --







    To do what lay before him openly and like a man, without fear



of either foes, fiends, or fate;... to be free and daring in all



his deeds; to be gentle and generous to his friends and kinsmen;



to be stern and grim to his foes [those who are under the lex



talionis], but even towards them to fulfil all bounden duties....



To be no truce-breaker, nor tale-bearer, nor backbiter. To utter



nothing against any man that he would not dare to tell him to his



face. To turn no man from his door who sought food or shelter,



even though he were a foe.²⁶







The same or still better principles permeate the Welsh epic



poetry and triads. To act "according to the nature of mildness



and the principles of equity," without regard to the foes or to



the friends, and "to repair the wrong," are the highest duties of



man; "evil is death, good is life," exclaims the poet



legislator.²⁷ "The World would be fool, if agreements made on



lips were not honourable" -- the Brehon law says. And the humble



Shamanist Mordovian, after having praised the same qualities,



will add, moreover, in his principles of customary law, that



"among neighbours the cow and the milking-jar are in common."



that, "the cow must be milked for yourself and him who may ask



milk;" that "the body of a child reddens from the stroke, but the



face of him who strikes reddens from shame;"²⁸ and so on. Many



pages might be filled with like principles expressed and followed



by the "barbarians."



    One feature more of the old village communities deserves a



special mention. It is the gradual extension of the circle of men



embraced by the feelings of solidarity. Not only the tribes



federated into stems, but the stems as well, even though of



different origin, joined together in confederations. Some unions



were so close that, for instance, the Vandals, after part of



their confederation had left for the Rhine, and thence went over



to Spain and Africa, respected for forty consecutive years the



landmarks and the abandoned villages of their confederates, and



did not take possession of them until they had ascertained



through envoys that their confederates did not intend to return.



With other barbarians, the soil was cultivated by one part of the



stem, while the other part fought on or beyond the frontiers of



the common territory. As to the leagues between several stems,



they were quite habitual. The Sicambers united with the



Cherusques and the Sueves, the Quades with the Sarmates; the



Sarmates with the Alans, the Carpes, and the Huns. Later on, we



also see the conception of nations gradually developing in



Europe, long before anything like a State had grown in any part



of the continent occupied by the barbarians. These nations -- for



it is impossible to refuse the name of a nation to the



Merovingian France, or to the Russia of the eleventh and twelfth



century -- were nevertheless kept together by nothing else but a



community of language, and a tacit agreement of the small



republics to take their dukes from none but one special family.



    Wars were certainly unavoidable; migration means war; but Sir



Henry Maine has already fully proved in his remarkable study of



the tribal origin of International Law, that "Man has never been



so ferocious or so stupid as to submit to such an evil as war



without some kind of effort to prevent it," and he has shown how



exceedingly great is "the number of ancient institutions which



bear the marks of a design to stand in the way of war, or to



provide an alternative to it."²⁹ In reality, man is so far



from the warlike being he is supposed to be, that when the



barbarians had once settled they so rapidly lost the very habits



of warfare that very soon they were compelled to keep special



dukes followed by special scholae or bands of warriors, in order



to protect them from possible intruders. They preferred peaceful



toil to war, the very peacefulness of man being the cause of the



specialization of the warrior's trade, which specialization



resulted later on in serfdom and in all the wars of the "States



period" of human history.







    History finds great difficulties in restoring to life the



institutions of the barbarians. At every step the historian meets



with some faint indication which he is unable to explain with the



aid of his own documents only. But a broad light is thrown on the



past as soon as we refer to the institutions of the very numerous



tribes which are still living under a social organization almost



identical with that of our barbarian ancestors. Here we simply



have the difficulty of choice, because the islands of the



Pacific, the steppes of Asia, and the tablelands of Africa are



real historical museums containing specimens of all possible



intermediate stages which mankind has lived through, when passing



from the savage gentes up to the States' organization. Let us,



then, examine a few of those specimens.



    If we take the village communities of the Mongol Buryates,



especially those of the Kudinsk Steppe on the upper Lena which



have better escaped Russian influence, we have fair



representatives of barbarians in a transitional state, between



cattle-breeding and agriculture.³⁰ These Buryates are still



living in "joint families"; that is, although each son, when he



is married, goes to live in a separate hut, the huts of at least



three generations remain within the same enclosure, and the joint



family work in common in their fields, and own in common their



joint households and their cattle, as well as their "calves'



grounds" (small fenced patches of soil kept under soft grass for



the rearing of calves). As a rule, the meals are taken separately



in each hut; but when meat is roasted, all the twenty to sixty



members of the joint household feast together. Several joint



households which live in a cluster, as well as several smaller



families settled in the same village -- mostly débris of joint



households accidentally broken up -- make the oulous, or the



village community. several oulouses make a tribe; and the,



forty-six tribes, or clans, of the Kudinsk Steppe are united into



one confederation. Smaller and closer confederations are entered



into, as necessity arises for special wants, by several tribes.



They know no private property in land -- the land being held in



common by the oulous, or rather by the confederation, and if it



becomes necessary, the territory is re-allotted between the



different oulouses at a folkmote of the tribe, and between the



forty-six tribes at a folkmote of the confederation. It is worthy



of note that the same organization prevails among all the 250,000



Buryates of East Siberia, although they have been for three



centuries under Russian rule, and are well acquainted with



Russian institutions.



    With all that, inequalities of fortune rapidly develop among



the Buryates, especially since the Russian Government is giving



an exaggerated importance to their elected taishas (princes),



whom it considers as responsible tax-collectors and



representatives of the confederations in their administrative and



even commercial relations with the Russians. The channels for the



enrichment of the few are thus many, while the impoverishment of



the great number goes hand in hand, through the appropriation of



the Buryate lands by the Russians. But it is a habit with the



Buryates, especially those of Kudinsk -- and habit is more than



law -- that if a family has lost its cattle, the richer families



give it some cows and horses that it may recover. As to the



destitute man who has no family, he takes his meals in the huts



of his congeners; he enters a hut, takes -- by right, not for



charity -- his seat by the fire, and shares the meal which always



is scrupulously divided into equal parts; he sleeps where he has



taken his evening meal. Altogether, the Russian conquerors of



Siberia were so much struck by the communistic practices of the



Buryates, that they gave them the name of Bratskiye -- "the



Brotherly Ones" -- and reported to Moscow. "With them everything



is in common; whatever they have is shared in common." Even now,



when the Lena Buryates sell their wheat, or send some of their



cattle to be sold to a Russian butcher, the families of the



oulous, or the tribe, put their wheat and cattle together, and



sell it as a whole. Each oulous has, moreover, its grain store



for loans in case of need, its communal baking oven (the four



banal of the old French communities), and its blacksmith, who,



like the blacksmith of the Indian communities,³¹ being a



member of the community, is never paid for his work within the



community. He must make it for nothing, and if he utilizes his



spare time for fabricating the small plates of chiselled and



silvered iron which are used in Buryate land for the decoration



of dress, he may occasionally sell them to a woman from another



clan, but to the women of his own clan the attire is presented as



a gift. Selling and buying cannot take place within the



community, and the rule is so severe that when a richer family



hires a labourer the labourer must be taken from another clan or



from among the Russians. This habit is evidently not specific to



the Buryates; it is so widely spread among the modern barbarians,



Aryan and Ural-Altayan, that it must have been universal among



our ancestors.



    The feeling of union within the confederation is kept alive



by the common interests of the tribes, their folkmotes, and the



festivities which are usually kept in connection with the



folkmotes. The same feeling is, however, maintained by another



institution, the aba, or common hunt, which is a reminiscence of



a very remote past. Every autumn, the forty-six clans of Kudinsk



come together for such a hunt, the produce of which is divided



among all the families. Moreover, national abas, to assert the



unity of the whole Buryate nation, are convoked from time to



time. In such cases, all Buryate clans which are scattered for



hundreds of miles west and east of Lake Baikal, are bound to send



their delegate hunters. Thousands of men come together, each one



bringing provisions for a whole month. Every one's share must be



equal to all the others, and therefore, before being put



together, they are weighed by an elected elder (always "with the



hand": scales would be a profanation of the old custom). After



that the hunters divide into bands of twenty, and the parties go



hunting according to a well-settled plan. In such abas the entire



Buryate nation revives its epic traditions of a time when it was



united in a powerful league. Let me add that such communal hunts



are quite usual with the Red Indians and the Chinese on the banks



of the Usuri (the kada).³²



    With the Kabyles, whose manners of life have been so well



described by two French explorers,³³ we have barbarians still



more advanced in agriculture. Their fields, irrigated and



manured, are well attended to, and in the hilly tracts every



available plot of land is cultivated by the spade. The Kabyles



have known many vicissitudes in their history; they have followed



for sometime the Mussulman law of inheritance, but, being adverse



to it, they have returned, 150 years ago, to the tribal customary



law of old. Accordingly, their land-tenure is of a mixed



character, and private property in land exists side by side with



communal possession. Still, the basis of their present



organization is the village community, the thaddart, which



usually consists of several joint families (kharoubas), claiming



a community of origin, as well as of smaller families of



strangers. Several villages are grouped into clans or tribes



(ârch); several tribes make the confederation (thak'ebilt); and



several confederations may occasionally enter into a league,



chiefly for purposes of armed defence.



    The Kabyles know no authority whatever besides that of the



djemmâa, or folkmote of the village community. All men of age



take part in it, in the open air, or in a special building



provided with stone seats. and the decisions of the djemmâa are



evidently taken at unanimity: that is, the discussions continue



until all present agree to accept, or to submit to, some



decision. There being no authority in a village community to



impose a decision, this system has been practised by mankind



wherever there have been village communities, and it is practised



still wherever they continue to exist, i.e. by several hundred



million men all over the world. The djemmâa nominates its



executive -- the elder, the scribe, and the treasurer; it



assesses its own taxes; and it manages the repartition of the



common lands, as well as all kinds of works of public utility. A



great deal of work is done in common: the roads, the mosques, the



fountains, the irrigation canals, the towers erected for



protection from robbers, the fences, and so on, are built by the



village community; while the high-roads, the larger mosques, and



the great market-places are the work of the tribe. Many traces of



common culture continue to exist, and the houses continue to be



built by, or with the aid of, all men and women of the village.



Altogether, the "aids" are of daily occurrence, and are



continually called in for the cultivation of the fields, for



harvesting, and so on. As to the skilled work, each community has



its blacksmith, who enjoys his part of the communal land, and



works for the community; when the tilling season approaches he



visits every house, and repairs the tools and the ploughs,



without expecting any pay, while the making of new ploughs is



considered as a pious work which can by no means be recompensed



in money, or by any other form of salary.



    As the Kabyles already have private property, they evidently



have both rich and poor among them. But like all people who



closely live together, and know how poverty begins, they consider



it as an accident which may visit every one. "Don't say that you



will never wear the beggar's bag, nor go to prison," is a proverb



of the Russian peasants; the Kabyles practise it, and no



difference can be detected in the external behaviour between rich



and poor; when the poor convokes an "aid," the rich man works in



his field, just as the poor man does it reciprocally in his



turn.³⁴ Moreover, the djemmâas set aside certain gardens and



fields, sometimes cultivated in common, for the use of the



poorest members. Many like customs continue to exist. As the



poorer families would not be able to buy meat, meat is regularly



bought with the money of the fines, or the gifts to the djemmâa,



or the payments for the use of the communal olive-oil basins, and



it is distributed in equal parts among those who cannot afford



buying meat themselves. And when a sheep or a bullock is killed



by a family for its own use on a day which is not a market day,



the fact is announced in the streets by the village crier, in



order that sick people and pregnant women may take of it what



they want. Mutual support permeates the life of the Kabyles, and



if one of them, during a journey abroad, meets with another



Kabyle in need, he is bound to come to his aid, even at the risk



of his own fortune and life; if this has not been done, the



djemmâa of the man who has suffered from such neglect may lodge a



complaint, and the djemmâa of the selfish man will at once make



good the loss. We thus come across a custom which is familiar to



the students of the mediaeval merchant guilds. Every stranger who



enters a Kabyle village has right to housing in the winter, and



his horses can always graze on the communal lands for twenty-four



hours. But in case of need he can reckon upon an almost unlimited



support. Thus, during the famine of 1867-68, the Kabyles received



and fed every one who sought refuge in their villages, without



distinction of origin. In the district of Dellys, no less than



12,000 people who came from all parts of Algeria, and even from



Morocco, were fed in this way. While people died from starvation



all over Algeria, there was not one single case of death due to



this cause on Kabylian soil. The djemmâas, depriving themselves



of necessaries, organized relief, without ever asking any aid



from the Government, or uttering the slightest complaint; they



considered it as a natural duty. And while among the European



settlers all kind of police measures were taken to prevent thefts



and disorder resulting from such an influx of strangers, nothing



of the kind was required on the Kabyles' territory: the djemmâas



needed neither aid nor protection from without.³⁵



    I can only cursorily mention two other most interesting



features of Kabyle life; namely, the anaya, or protection granted



to wells, canals, mosques, marketplaces, some roads, and so on,



in case of war, and the çofs. In the anaya we have a series of



institutions both for diminishing the evils of war and for



preventing conflicts. Thus the market-place is anaya, especially



if it stands on a frontier and brings Kabyles and strangers



together; no one dares disturb peace in the market, and if a



disturbance arises, it is quelled at once by the strangers who



have gathered in the market town. The road upon which the women



go from the village to the fountain also is anaya in case of war;



and so on. As to the çof it is a widely spread form of



association, having some characters of the mediaeval Bürgschaften



or Gegilden, as well as of societies both for mutual protection



and for various purposes -- intellectual, political, and



emotional -- which cannot be satisfied by the territorial



organization of the village, the clan, and the con federation.



The çof knows no territorial limits; it recruits its members in



various villages, even among strangers; and it protects them in



all possible eventualities of life. Altogether, it is an attempt



at supplementing the territorial grouping by an extra-territorial



grouping intended to give an expression to mutual affinities of



all kinds across the frontiers. The free international



association of individual tastes and ideas, which we consider as



one of the best features of our own life, has thus its origin in



barbarian antiquity.



    The mountaineers of Caucasia offer another extremely



instructive field for illustrations of the same kind. In studying



the present customs of the Ossetes -- their joint families and



communes and their judiciary conceptions -- Professor Kovalevsky,



in a remarkable work on Modern Custom and Ancient Law was enabled



step by step to trace the similar dispositions of the old



barbarian codes and even to study the origins of feudalism. With



other Caucasian stems we occasionally catch a glimpse into the



origin of the village community in those cases where it was not



tribal but originated from a voluntary union between families of



distinct origin. Such was recently the case with some Khevsoure



villages, the inhabitants of which took the oath of "community



and fraternity."³⁶ In another part of Caucasus, Daghestan, we



see the growth of feudal relations between two tribes, both



maintaining at the same time their village communities (and even



traces of the gentile "classes"), and thus giving a living



illustration of the forms taken by the conquest of Italy and Gaul



by the barbarians. The victorious race, the Lezghines, who have



conquered several Georgian and Tartar villages in the Zakataly



district, did not bring them under the dominion of separate



families; they constituted a feudal clan which now includes



12,000 households in three villages, and owns in common no less



than twenty Georgian and Tartar villages. The conquerors divided



their own land among their clans, and the clans divided it in



equal parts among the families; but they did not interfere with



the djemmâas of their tributaries which still practise the habit



mentioned by Julius Caesar; namely, the djemmâa decides each year



which part of the communal territory must be cultivated, and this



land is divided into as many parts as there are families, and the



parts are distributed by lot. It is worthy of note that although



proletarians are of common occurrence among the Lezghines (who



live under a system of private property in land, and common



ownership of serfs³⁷) they are rare among their Georgian



serfs, who continue to hold their land in common. As to the



customary law of the Caucasian mountaineers, it is much the same



as that of the Longobards or Salic Franks, and several of its



dispositions explain a good deal the judicial procedure of the



barbarians of old. Being of a very impressionable character, they



do their best to prevent quarrels from taking a fatal issue; so,



with the Khevsoures, the swords are very soon drawn when a



quarrel breaks out; but if a woman rushes out and throws among



them the piece of linen which she wears on her head, the swords



are at once returned to their sheaths, and the quarrel is



appeased. The head-dress of the women is anaya. If a quarrel has



not been stopped in time and has ended in murder, the



compensation money is so considerable that the aggressor is



entirely ruined for his life, unless he is adopted by the wronged



family; and if he has resorted to his sword in a trifling quarrel



and has inflicted wounds, he loses for ever the consideration of



his kin. In all disputes, mediators take the matter in hand; they



select from among the members of the clan the judges -- six in



smaller affairs, and from ten to fifteen in more serious matters



-- and Russian observers testify to the absolute incorruptibility



of the judges. An oath has such a significance that men enjoying



general esteem are dispensed from taking it: a simple affirmation



is quite sufficient, the more so as in grave affairs the



Khevsoure never hesitates to recognize his guilt (I mean, of



course, the Khevsoure untouched yet by civilization). The oath is



chiefly reserved for such cases, like disputes about property,



which require some sort of appreciation in addition to a simple



statement of facts; and in such cases the men whose affirmation



will decide in the dispute, act with the greatest circumspection.



Altogether it is certainly not a want of honesty or of respect to



the rights of the congeners which characterizes the barbarian



societies of Caucasus.



    The stems of Africa offer such an immense variety of



extremely interesting societies standing at all intermediate



stages from the early village community to the despotic barbarian



monarchies that I must abandon the idea of giving here even the



chief results of a comparative study of their institutions.³⁸



Suffice it to say, that, even under the most horrid despotism of



kings, the folkmotes of the village communities and their



customary law remain sovereign in a wide circle of affairs. The



law of the State allows the king to take any one's life for a



simple caprice, or even for simply satisfying his gluttony; but



the customary law of the people continues to maintain the same



network of institutions for mutual support which exist among



other barbarians or have existed among our ancestors. And with



some better-favoured stems (in Bornu, Uganda, Abyssinia), and



especially the Bogos, some of the dispositions of the customary



law are inspired with really graceful and delicate feelings.



    The village communities of the natives of both Americas have



the same character. The Tupi of Brazil were found living in "long



houses" occupied by whole clans which used to cultivate their



corn and manioc fields in common. The Arani, much more advanced



in civilization, used to cultivate their fields in common; so



also the Oucagas, who had learned under their system of primitive



communism and "long houses" to build good roads and to carry on a



variety of domestic industries,³⁹ not inferior to those of the



early medieval times in Europe. All of them were also living



under the same customary law of which we have given specimens on



the preceding pages. At another extremity of the world we find



the Malayan feudalism, but this feudalism has been powerless to



unroot the negaria, or village community, with its common



ownership of at least part of the land, and the redistribution of



land among the several negarias of the tribe.⁴⁰ With the



Alfurus of Minahasa we find the communal rotation of the crops;



with the Indian stem of the Wyandots we have the periodical



redistribution of land within the tribe, and the clan-culture of



the soil; and in all those parts of Sumatra where Moslem



institutions have not yet totally destroyed the old organization



we find the joint family (suka) and the village community (kota)



which maintains its right upon the land, even if part of it has



been cleared without its authorization.⁴¹ But to say this, is



to say that all customs for mutual protection and prevention of



feuds and wars, which have been briefly indicated in the



preceding pages as characteristic of the village community, exist



as well. More than that: the more fully the communal possession



of land has been maintained, the better and the gentler are the



habits. De Stuers positively affirms that wherever the



institution of the village community has been less encroached



upon by the conquerors, the inequalities of fortunes are smaller,



and the very prescriptions of the lex talionis are less cruel;



while, on the contrary, wherever the village community has been



totally broken up, "the inhabitants suffer the most unbearable



oppression from their despotic rulers."⁴² This is quite



natural. And when Waitz made the remark that those stems which



have maintained their tribal confederations stand on a higher



level of development and have a richer literature than those



stems which have forfeited the old bonds of union, he only



pointed out what might have been foretold in advance.



    More illustrations would simply involve me in tedious



repetitions -- so strikingly similar are the barbarian societies



under all climates and amidst all races. The same process of



evolution has been going on in mankind with a wonderful



similarity. When the clan organization, assailed as it was from



within by the separate family, and from without by the



dismemberment of the migrating clans and the necessity of taking



in strangers of different descent -- the village community, based



upon a territorial conception, came into existence. This new



institution, which had naturally grown out of the preceding one



-- the clan -- permitted the barbarians to pass through a most



disturbed period of history without being broken into isolated



families which would have succumbed in the struggle for life. New



forms of culture developed under the new organization;



agriculture attained the stage which it hardly has surpassed



until now with the great number; the domestic industries reached



a high degree of perfection. The wilderness was conquered, it was



intersected by roads, dotted with swarms thrown off by the



mother-communities. Markets and fortified centres, as well as



places of public worship, were erected. The conceptions of a



wider union, extended to whole stems and to several stems of



various origin, were slowly elaborated. The old conceptions of



justice which were conceptions of mere revenge, slowly underwent



a deep modification -- the idea of amends for the wrong done



taking the place of revenge. The customary law which still makes



the law of the daily life for two-thirds or more of mankind, was



elaborated under that organization, as well as a system of habits



intended to prevent the oppression of the masses by the



minorities whose powers grew in proportion to the growing



facilities for private accumulation of wealth. This was the new



form taken by the tendencies of the masses for mutual support.



And the progress -- economical, intellectual, and moral -- which



mankind accomplished under this new popular form of organization,



was so great that the States, when they were called later on into



existence, simply took possession, in the interest of the



minorities, of all the judicial, economical, and administrative



functions which the village community already had exercised in



the interest of all.









Notes

¹ Numberless traces of post-pliocene lakes, now disappeared, are

found over Central, West, and North Asia. Shells of the same

species as those now found in the Caspian Sea are scattered over

the surface of the soil as far East as half-way to Lake Aral, and

are found in recent deposits as far north as Kazan. Traces of

Caspian Gulfs, formerly taken for old beds of the Amu, intersect

the Turcoman territory. Deduction must surely be made for

temporary, periodical oscillations. But with all that,

desiccation is evident, and it progresses at a formerly

unexpected speed. Even in the relatively wet parts of South-West

Siberia, the succession of reliable surveys, recently published

by Yadrintseff, shows that villages have grown up on what was,

eighty years ago, the bottom of one of the lakes of the Tchany

group; while the other lakes of the same group, which covered

hundreds of square miles some fifty years ago, are now mere

ponds. In short, the desiccation of North-West Asia goes on at a

rate which must be measured by centuries, instead of by the

geological units of time of which we formerly used to speak.



² Whole civilizations had thus disappeared, as is proved now by

the remarkable discoveries in Mongolia on the Orkhon and in the

Lukchun depression (by Dmitri Clements).



³ If I follow the opinions of (to name modern specialists only)

Nasse, Kovalevsky, and Vinogradov, and not those of Mr. Seebohm

(Mr. Denman Ross can only be named for the sake of completeness),

it is not only because of the deep knowledge and concordance of

views of these three writers, but also on account of their

perfect knowledge of the village community altogether -- a

knowledge the want of which is much felt in the otherwise

remarkable work of Mr. Seebohm. The same remark applies, in a

still higher degree, to the most elegant writings of Fustel de

Coulanges, whose opinions and passionate interpretations of old

texts are confined to himself.



⁴ The literature of the village community is so vast that but a

few works can be named. Those of Sir Henry Maine, Mr. Seebohm,

and Walter's Das alte Wallis (Bonn, 1859), are well-known popular

sources of information about Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. For

France, P. Viollet, Précis de l'histoire du droit français. Droit

privé, 1886, and several of his monographs in Bibl. de l'Ecole

des Chartes; Babeau, Le Village sous l'ancien régime (the mir in

the eighteenth century), third edition, 1887; Bonnemère, Doniol,

etc. For Italy and Scandinavia, the chief works are named in

Laveleye's Primitive Property, German version by K. Bücher. For

the Finns, Rein's Föreläsningar, i. 16; Koskinen, Finnische

Geschichte, 1874, and various monographs. For the Lives and

Coures, Prof. Lutchitzky in Severnyi Vestnil, 1891. For the

Teutons, besides the well-known works of Maurer, Sohm

(Altdeutsche Reichs- und Gerichts- Verfassung), also Dahn

(Urzeit, Völkerwanderung, Langobardische Studien), Janssen, Wilh.

Arnold, etc. For India, besides H. Maine and the works he names,

Sir John Phear's Aryan Village. For Russia and South Slavonians,

see Kavelin, Posnikoff, Sokolovsky, Kovalevsky, Efimenko,

Ivanisheff, Klaus, etc. (copious bibliographical index up to 1880

in the Sbornik svedeniy ob obschinye of the Russ. Geog. Soc.).

For general conclusions, besides Laveleye's Propriété, Morgan's

Ancient Society, Lippert's Kulturgeschichte, Post, Dargun, etc.,

also the lectures of M. Kovalevsky (Tableau des origines et de

l'évolution de la famille et de la propriété, Stockholm, 1890).

Many special monographs ought to be mentioned; their titles may

be found in the excellent lists given by P. Viollet in Droit

privé and Droit public. For other races, see subsequent notes.



⁵ Several authorities are inclined to consider the joint

household as an intermediate stage between the clan and the

village community; and there is no doubt that in very many cases

village communities have grown up out of undivided families.

Nevertheless, I consider the joint household as a fact of a

different order. We find it within the gentes; on the other hand,

we cannot affirm that joint families have existed at any period

without belonging either to a gens or to a village community, or

to a Gau. I conceive the early village communities as slowly

originating directly from the gentes, and consisting, according

to racial and local circumstances, either of several joint

families, or of both joint and simple families, or (especially in

the case of new settlements) of simple families only. If this

view be correct, we should not have the right of establishing the

series: gens, compound family, village community -- the second

member of the series having not the same ethnological value as

the two others. See Appendix IX.



⁶ Stobbe, Beiträg zur Geschichte des deutschen Rechtes, p. 62.



⁷ The few traces of private property in land which are met with

in the early barbarian period are found with such stems (the

Batavians, the Franks in Gaul) as have been for a time under the

influence of Imperial Rome. See Inama-Sternegg's Die Ausbildung

der grossen Grundherrschaften in Deutschland, Bd. i. 1878. Also,

Besseler, Neubruch nach dem älteren deutschen Recht, pp. 11-12,

quoted by Kovalevsky, Modern Custom and Ancient Law, Moscow,

1886, i. 134.



⁸ Maurer's Markgenossenschaft; Lamprecht's "Wirthschaft und

Recht der Franken zur Zeit der Volksrechte," in Histor.

Taschenbuch, 1883; Seebohm's The English Village Community, ch.

vi, vii, and ix.



⁹ Letourneau, in Bulletin de la Soc. d'Anthropologie, 1888, vol.

xi. p. 476.



¹⁰ Walter, Das alte Wallis, p. 323; Dm. Bakradze and N.

Khoudadoff in Russian Zapiski of the Caucasian Geogr. Society,

xiv. Part I.



¹¹ Bancroft's Native Races; Waitz, Anthropologie, iii. 423;

Montrozier, in Bull. Soc. d'Anthropologie, 1870; Post's Studien,

etc.



¹² A number of works, by Ory, Luro, Laudes, and Sylvestre, on

the village community in Annam, proving that it has had there the

same forms as in Germany or Russia, is mentioned in a review of

these works by Jobbé-Duval, in Nouvelle Revue historique de droit

français et étranger, October and December, 1896. A good study of

the village community of Peru, before the establishment of the

power of the Incas, has been brought out by Heinrich Cunow (Die

Soziale Verfassung des Inka-Reichs, Stuttgart, 1896. The communal

possession of land and communal culture are described in that

work.



¹³ Kovalevsky, Modern Custom and Ancient Law, i. 115.



¹⁴ Palfrey, History of New England, ii. 13; quoted in Maine's

Village Communities, New York, 1876, p. 201.



¹⁵ Königswarter, Etudes sur le développement des sociétés

humaines, Paris, 1850.



¹⁶ This is, at least, the law of the Kalmucks, whose customary

law bears the closest resemblance to the laws of the Teutons, the

old Slavonians, etc.



¹⁷ The habit is in force still with many African and other

tribes.



¹⁸ Village Communities, pp. 65-68 and 199.



¹⁹ Maurer (Gesch. der Markverfassung, sections 29, 97) is quite

decisive upon this subject. He maintains that "All members of the

community... the laic and clerical lords as well, often also the

partial co-possessors (Markberechtigte), and even strangers to

the Mark, were submitted to its jurisdiction" (p. 312). This

conception remained locally in force up to the fifteenth century.



²⁰ Königswarter, loc. cit. p. 50; J. Thrupp, Historical Law

Tracts, London, 1843, p. 106.



²¹ Königswarter has shown that the fred originated from an

offering which had to be made to appease the ancestors. Later on,

it was paid to the community, for the breach of peace; and still

later to the judge, or king, or lord, when they had appropriated

to themselves the rights of the community.



²² Post's Bausteine and Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, Oldenburg,

1887, vol. i. pp. 64 seq.; Kovalevsky, loc. cit. ii. 164-189.



²³ O. Miller and M. Kovalevsky, "In the Mountaineer Communities

of Kabardia," in Vestnik Evropy, April, 1884. With the

Shakhsevens of the Mugan Steppe, blood feuds always end by

marriage between the two hostile sides (Markoff, in appendix to

the Zapiski of the Caucasian Geogr. Soc. xiv. 1, 21).



²⁴ Post, in Afrik. Jurisprudenz, gives a series of facts

illustrating the conceptions of equity inrooted among the African

barbarians. The same may be said of all serious examinations into

barbarian common law.



²⁵ See the excellent chapter, "Le droit de La Vieille Irlande,"

(also "Le Haut Nord") in Etudes de droit international et de

droit politique, by Prof. E. Nys, Bruxelles, 1896.



²⁶ Introduction, p. xxxv.



²⁷ Das alte Wallis, pp. 343-350.



²⁸ Maynoff, "Sketches of the Judicial Practices of the

Mordovians," in the ethnographical Zapiski of the Russian

Geographical Society, 1885, pp. 236, 257.



²⁹ Henry Maine, International Law, London, 1888, pp. 11-13. E.

Nys, Les origines du droit international, Bruxelles, 1894.



³⁰ A Russian historian, the Kazan Professor Schapoff, who was

exiled in 1862 to Siberia, has given a good description of their

institutions in the Izvestia of the East-Siberian Geographical

Society, vol. v. 1874.



³¹ Sir Henry Maine's Village Communities, New York, 1876, pp.

193-196.



³² Nazaroff, The North Usuri Territory (Russian), St.

Petersburg, 1887, p. 65.



³³ Hanoteau et Letourneux, La Kabylie, 3 vols. Paris, 1883.



³⁴ To convoke an "aid" or "bee," some kind of meal must be

offered to the community. I am told by a Caucasian friend that in

Georgia, when the poor man wants an "aid," he borrows from the

rich man a sheep or two to prepare the meal, and the community

bring, in addition to their work, so many provisions that he may

repay tHe debt. A similar habit exists with the Mordovians.



³⁵ Hanoteau et Letourneux, La kabylie, ii. 58. The same respect

to strangers is the rule with the Mongols. The Mongol who has

refused his roof to a stranger pays the full blood-compensation

if the stranger has suffered therefrom (Bastian, Der Mensch in

der Geschichte, iii. 231).



³⁶ N. Khoudadoff, "Notes on the Khevsoures," in Zapiski of the

Caucasian Geogr. Society, xiv. 1, Tiflis, 1890, p. 68. They also

took the oath of not marrying girls from their own union, thus

displaying a remarkable return to the old gentile rules.



³⁷ Dm. Bakradze, "Notes on the Zakataly District," in same

Zapiski, xiv. 1, p. 264. The "joint team" is as common among the

Lezghines as it is among the Ossetes.



³⁸ See Post, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, Oldenburg, 1887.

Münzinger, Ueber das Recht und Sitten der Bogos, Winterthur"

1859; Casalis, Les Bassoutos, Paris, 1859; Maclean, Kafir Laws

and Customs, Mount Coke, 1858, etc.



³⁹ Waitz, iii. 423 seq.



⁴⁰ Post's Studien zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Familien Rechts

Oldenburg, 1889, pp. 270 seq.



⁴¹ Powell, Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnography,

Washington, 1881, quoted in Post's Studien, p. 290; Bastian's

Inselgruppen in Oceanien, 1883, p. 88.



⁴² De Stuers, quoted by Waitz, v. 141.







Return to Table of Contents

To Chapter Five

Marked-up by the 

Anarchy Archives
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

Chapter 4 MUTUAL AID AMONG THE BARBARIANS

Notes
