Chapter 35

2Griffis,Corea, p. 236.

3Diodorus Siculus,Bibliotheca historica, i. 77. 8.

4Diogenes Laërtius,Solon, 10. Cicero,Pro S. Roscio Amerino, 25. Orosius,Historiæ, v. 16.

5Exodus, xxi. 15.Cf.Keil,Manual of Biblical Archæology, ii. 376.

6Herodotus, i. 137.

7Plato,Leges, ix. 869.Cf.ibid.ix. 873.

8Müller,Dissertations on the Eumenides of Æschylus, p. 91.Cf.Euripides,Orestes, 442sqq.

9Institutiones, iv. 18. 6.

10Unless the descendant was in thepotestasof him who committed the deed.

11Mommsen,Römisches Strafrecht, pp. 644, 645, 612sq.

12Ibid.p. 645sq.

Whilst Christianity generally increased the sanctity of human life, it could add nothing to the horror with which parricide was regarded by the ancients. The Church punished it more severely than ordinary murder,13and so did, at least in Latin countries, the secular authorities.14In France, even to this day, a person convicted of parricide is “conduit sur le lieu de l’exécution en chemise, nu-pieds, et la tête couverte d’un voile noir”;15and whilstmeurtreis excusable if provoked by grave personal violence or by an attempt to break into a dwelling-house by day, parricide is never excusable under any circumstances.16

13Gregory III.,Judicia congrua pœnitentibus, ch. 3 (Labbe-Mansi,Conciliorum collectio, xii. 289).Pœnitentiale Bigotianum, iv. 1 (Wasserschleben,Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche, p. 453).Pœnitent. Pseudo-Theodori, xxi. 18 (ibid.p. 588).

14Chauveau and Hélie,Théorie du Code Pénal, iii. 394 (France). Salvioli,Manuale di storia del diritto italiano, p. 570. In Scotland, also, parricide formerly had a place in the list of aggravated murders (Hume,Commentaries on the Law of Scotland, i. 459sq.; for a sentence passed in 1688, see Pitcairn,Criminal Trials in Scotland, iii. 198); though nowadays it is penalised in the same way as other forms of murder (Erskine,Principles of the Law of Scotland, p. 559). There never was any special punishment for parricide in English law (Blackstone,Commentaries on the Laws of England, iv. 202. Stephen,History of the Criminal Law of England, iii. 95).

15Code Pénal, art. 13.

16Ibid.art. 321sqq.

As regards the feelings with which ordinary parricide is looked upon by uncivilised peoples, direct information is almost entirely wanting. It is rarely mentioned at all, no doubt because it is very unusual.17Among the Kafirs of Natal, though murder is generally punished by a fine, death is inflicted on him who kills a parent.18Among the Ossetes a parricide draws upon himself a fearful punishment: he is shut up in his house with all his possessions, surrounded by the populace and burned alive.19To judge from the respect which, among the majority of uncivilised peoples, children are considered to owe to their parents, it seems very probable that the murder of a father or a mother is generally condemned by them as a particularly detestable form of homicide. But to this rule there is an important exception. According to a custom prevalent among various savages or barbarians, a parent who is worn out with age or disease is abandoned or killed.

17Among the Omahas there have been a few cases of parricide caused by drunkenness (Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.iii. 369). A Chukchi killed his father for charging him with cowardice and awkwardness (Sarytschew, ‘Voyage of Discovery,’ inCollection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages, vi. 51). In Lánda “it is no uncommon thing for a son to murder his father in order to step into his shoes” (Emin Pasha in Central Africa, p. 230). See also Wilson and Felkin,Uganda, i. 224.

18Shooter,Kafirs of Natal, p. 103.

19von Haxthausen,Transcaucasia, p. 415.

Hearne states that, among the Northern Indians, one half at least of the aged persons of both sexes, when no longer capable of walking, are left alone to starve and perish of want.20Among the Californian Gallinomero, when the father can no longer feebly creep to the forest to gather his back-load of fuel or a basket of acorns, and is only a burden to his sons, “the poor old wretch is not infrequently thrown down on his back and securely held while a stick is placed across his throat, and two of them seat themselves on the ends of it until he ceases to breathe.”21The custom of killing or abandoning old parents has been noticed among several other NorthAmerican tribes,22the natives of Brazil,23various South Sea Islanders,24a few Australian tribes,25and some peoples in Africa26and Asia.27According to ancient writers, it occurred formerly among many Asiatic28and European nations, including the Vedic people29and peoples of Teutonic extraction.30As late as the fifth or sixth century it was the custom among the Heruli for relatives to kindle a funeral pile for their old folks, although a stranger was employed to give the death wound.31And there is an old English tradition of “the Holy Mawle, which they fancy hung behind the church door, which when the father was seaventie, the sonne might fetch to knock his father in the head, as effete and of no more use.”32

20Hearne,Journey to the Northern Ocean, p. 346.

21Powers,Tribes of California, p. 178.

22Nansen,First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 331 (natives on the east coast of Greenland). Seemann,Voyage of“Herald,” ii. 66 (Eastern Eskimo). Catlin,North American Indians, i. 217. Lafitau,Mœurs des sauvages ameriquains, i. 488sq.Domenech,Seven Years’ Residence in the Great Deserts of North America, ii. 325 (north-western tribes). Lewis and Clarke,Travels to the Source of the Missouri River, p. 442 (Dacotahs, Assiniboins, the hunting tribes on the Missouri).

23von Martius,Beiträge zur Ethnographie Amerika’s, i. 126, 127, 393. von Eschwege,Brasilien, i. 231sq.(Uerequenás). Among the Fuegians the practice in question seems to occur only accidentally (Bridges, inA Voice for South America, xiii. 206).

24Codrington,Melanesians, p. 347. Romilly,Western Pacific, p. 70 (Solomon Islanders). Brainne,Nouvelle-Calédonie, p. 255. Turner,Samoa, p. 335sq.(Efatese). Seemann,Viti, p. 192sq.Williams and Calvert,Fiji, pp. 116, 157sq.Angas,Polynesia, p. 342 (natives of Kunaie).

25Eyre,Central Australia, ii. 382. Dawson,Australian Aborigines, p. 62 (tribes in Western Victoria).

26Arnot,Garenganze, p. 78 n. Andersson,Lake Ngami, p. 197sq.(Damaras). Kolben,Present Stale of the Cape of Good Hope, i. 322, 334; Hahn,The Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi, p. 86 (Hottentots). Lepsius,Letters from Egypt, p. 202sq.(Negro tribes to the south of Kordofan). Post,Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, i. 298sq.Sartori, ‘Die Sitte der Alten- und Krankentötung,’ inGlobus, lxvii. 108.

27Hooper,Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski, p. 188sq.; Dall,Alaska, p. 383sqq.(Chukchi). Rockhill,Land of the Lamas, p. 81 (Kokonor Tibetans).

28Herodotus, i. 216 (Massagetae). Strabo, xi. 8. 6 (Massagetae); xi. 11. 3 (Bactrians); xi. 11. 8 (Caspians).

29Zimmer,Altindisches Leben, p. 328.

30Grimm,Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 486sqq.

31Procopius,De bello gothico, ii. 14.Cf.Grimm,Kleinere Schriften, ii. 241.

32Thoms,Anecdotes and Traditions, p. 84.

However cruel this custom may appear to be, something is certainly to be said in its favour. It is particularly common among nomadic hunting tribes, owing to the hardships of life and the inability of decrepit persons to keep up in the march. Mr. Morgan observes that, whilst“among the roving tribes of the wilderness the old and helpless were frequently abandoned and, in some cases, hurried out of existence as an act of greater kindness than desertion,” this practice was unknown among the Iroquois, who “resided in permanent villages, which afforded a refuge for the aged.”33With reference to certain tribes of Western Victoria, Mr. Dawson remarks that the old people are a burden to the tribe, and, should any sudden attack be made by an enemy, the most liable to be captured, in which case they would probably be tortured and put to a lingering death.34Moreover, in times when the food-supply is insufficient to support all the members of a community, it is more reasonable that the old and useless should have to perish than the young and vigorous. Hahn was told that, among the Hottentots, aged parents were sometimes abandoned by very poor people who had not food enough to support them.35And among peoples who have reached a certain degree of wealth and comfort, the practice of killing the old folks, though no longer justified by necessity, may still go on, partly through survival of a custom inherited from harder times, partly from the humane intent of putting an end to lingering misery.36What appears to most of us as an atrocious practice may really be an act of kindness, and is commonly approved of, or even insisted upon, by the old people themselves. Speaking of the ancient Hottentot custom of famishing super-annuated parents in order to cause their death, Kolben remarks:—“If you represent to the Hottentots, as I have done very often, the inhumanity of this custom, they are astonished at the representation, as proceeding, in their opinion, from an inhumanity of your own. The custom, in their way of thinking, is supported by very pious and very filial considerations. ‘Is it not a cruelty.’ they ask you, ‘to suffer either man or woman to languish any considerabletime under a heavy, motionless old age? Can you see a parent or a relative shaking and freezing under a cold, dreary, heavy, useless old age, and not think, in pity to them, of putting an end to their misery by putting, which is the only means, an end to their days?’”37When Mr. Hooper, hearing of an old Chukchi woman who was stabbed by her son, made some remarks on the frightful nature of the act, his native companions answered him:—“Why should not the old woman die? Aged and feeble, weary of life, and a burden to herself and others, she no longer desired to cumber the earth, and claimed of him who owned nearest relationship the friendly stroke which should let out her scanty remnant of existence.”38Catlin tells us that, among the North American tribes who roamed about the prairies, the infirm old people themselves uniformly insisted upon being left behind, saying, “that they are old and of no further use—that they left their fathers in the same manner—that they wish to die, and their children must not mourn for them.”39In Melanesia, says Dr. Codrington, when sick and aged people were buried alive, it is certain that “there was generally a kindness intended”; they used themselves to beg their friends to put them out of their misery, and it was even considered a disgrace to the family of an aged chief if he was not buried alive.40In Fiji, also, it was regarded as a sign of filial affection to put an aged parent to death. In his description of the Fijians Dr. Seemann observes, “In a country where food is abundant, clothing scarcely required, and property as a general rule in the possession of the whole family rather than that of its head, children need not wait for ‘dead men’s shoes’ in order to become well off, and we may, therefore, quite believe them when declaring that it is with aching heart and at the repeated entreaties of their parents that they are induced to commitwhat we justly consider a crime.”41The ceremony is not without a touch of tragic grandeur:—“The son will kiss and weep over his aged father as he prepares him for the grave, and will exchange loving farewells with him as he heaps the earth lightly over him.”42One reason why the old Fijian so eagerly desired to escape extreme infirmity was perhaps “the contempt which attaches to physical weakness among a nation of warriors, and the wrongs and insults which await those who are no longer able to protect themselves”; but another, and as it seems more potent, motive was the belief that persons enter upon the delights of the future life with the same faculties, mental and physical, as they possess at the hour of death, and that the spiritual life thus commences where the corporeal existence terminates. “With these views,” “says Dr. Hale, “it is natural that they should desire to pass through this change before their mental and bodily powers are so enfeebled by age as to deprive them of their capacity for enjoyment.”43Finally, we have to observe that in many cases the old people are not only killed, but eaten, by the nearest relatives, and that the motive, or at least, the sole motive, for this procedure is not hunger or desire for human flesh.44It is described as “an act of kindness” or as a “pious ceremony,” as a method of preventing the body from being eaten up by worms or injured by enemies.45Considering that many cannibals have an aversion to the bodies of men who have died a natural death, it is not unreasonable to suppose that, in some instances, the old person is killed for the purpose of being eaten, and that this is done with a view to benefiting him.46But, on the other hand, the “pious ceremony,” like so many other funeral customs which are supposed to comfort the dead, may be the survival of a practice which was originally intended to promote the selfish interests of the living.

33Morgan,League of the Iroqnois, p. 171.

34Dawson,op. cit.p. 62.

35Hahn,op. cit.p. 86.

36Tylor, ‘Primitive Society,’ inContemporary Review, xxi. 705.Idem,Anthropology, p. 410sq.

37Kolben,op. cit.i. 322.

38Hooper,op. cit.p. 188sq.Cf.Sarytschew,loc. cit.vi. 50; Dall,op. cit.p. 385; von Wrangell,Expedition to the Polar Sea, p. 122.

39Catlin,North American Indians, i. 217.

40Codrington,op. cit.p. 347. Turner,Samoa, p. 335sq.(Efatese).

41Seemann,Viti, p. 193.

42Fison and Howitt,Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 175.

43Hale,op. cit.p. 65. Williams and Calvert,op. cit.p. 156. See also Erskine,Islands of the Western Pacific, p. 248.

44For instances, see Steinmetz,Endokannibalismus,passim.

45Ibid.pp. 3, 5, 17.

46Cf.Herodotus’ statement regarding the Massagetae, i. 216.

Closely connected with the custom of doing away with decrepit parents is the habit, prevalent among certain peoples, of abandoning or killing persons suffering from some illness.

“The white man,” Mr. Ward observes, “can never, as long as he may live in Africa, conquer his repugnance to the callous indifference to suffering that he meets with everywhere in Arab and Negro. The dying are left by the wayside to die. The weak drop on the caravan road, and the caravan passes on.”47Among the Kafirs instances are not rare in which the dying are carried to the bush and left to perish, and among some of them epileptics are cast over a precipice, or tied to a tree to be devoured by hyenas.48The Hottentots abandon patients suffering from small-pox.49The southern Tanàla in Madagascar take a person who becomes insensible during an illness, to the spot in the forest where they throw their dead, and should the unfortunate creature so cast away revive and return to the village, they stone him outright to death.50In New Caledonia “il est rare qu’un malade rend naturellement le dernier soupir: quand il n’a plus sa connaissance, souvent même avant son agonie, on lui ferme la bouche et les narines pour l’étouffer, ou bien on le tiraille de tous côtés par les jambes et par les bras.”51In Kandavu, of the Fiji Group, sick persons were often thrown into a cave, where the dead also were deposited.52In Efate, if a person in sickness showed signs of delirium, his grave was dug, and he was buried forthwith, to prevent the disease from spreading to other members of the family.53The Alfura “kill their sick when they have no hope of their recovery.”54Dobrizhoffer says of the Patagonians, “Actuated by an irrational kind of pity, they bury the dying before they expire.”55In cases of cholera or small-pox epidemics, North American Indians have been known to desert their villages, leaving all their sick behind, of whatever age or sex.56According to Dr. Nansen, it is not inconsistent with the moral code of the Greenlanders “to hasten the death of thosewho are sick and in great suffering, or of those in delirium, of which they have a great horror.”57Lieutenant Holm states that, in Eastern Greenland, when an individual is seriously ill, he consents, if his relatives request it, to end his sufferings by throwing himself into the sea; whereas it is rare that a sick person is put to death, except in cases of disordered intellect.58At Igloolik “a sick woman is frequently built or blocked up in a snow-hut, and not a soul goes near to look in and ascertain whether she be alive or dead.”59

47Ward,Five Years with the Congo Cannibals, p. 262.

48Shooter,Kafirs of Natal, p. 238sq.Kidd,The Essential Kafir, p. 247.

49Le Vaillant,Travels into the Interior Parts of Africa, ii. 112.

50Sibree,The Great African Island, p. 291.

51Brainne,op. cit.p. 255.

52Williams and Calvert,op. cit.p. 159.

53Turner,Samoa, p. 336.

54Pfeiffer,A Lady’s Second Journey round the World, i. 387.

55Dobrizhoffer,Account of the Abipones, ii. 262.

56Domenech,op. cit.ii. 326.

57Nansen,Eskimo Life, p. 163.

58‘East Greenland Eskimo,’ inScience, vii. 172.

59Lyon,Private Journal, p. 357. For other instances, see Sartori, inGlobus, lxvii. nr. 7sq.; von Martius,op. cit.i. 126, 127, 393 (Brazilian tribes); Steller,Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka, p. 354; Dawson,op. cit.p. 61, quotedsupra,p. 271.

These and similar facts are largely explained by the pitiful condition of the invalid, the hardships of a wandering life, and the superstitious notions of ignorant men. In some cases the practice of killing a dying person seems to be connected with a belief that the death-blow will save his soul.60In 1812, a leper was burnt alive at Katwa, near Calcutta, by his mother and sister, who believed that by their doing so he would gain a pure body in the next birth.61By carrying the patient away before he dies, the survivors escape the supposed danger of touching a corpse.62In the poorer provinces of the kingdom of Kandy, when a sick person was despaired of, the fear of becoming defiled, or of being obliged to change their habitation, frequently induced those about him to take him into a wood, in spite of his cries and groans, and to leave him there, perhaps in the agonies of death.63But the most common motive for abandoning or destroying sick people seems to be fear of infection or of demoniacal possession, which is regarded as the cause of various diseases.64Among the North American Indians, we are told, “the custom of abandoning the infirm or sick arosefrom a superstitious fear of the evil spirits which were supposed to have taken possession of them.”65In Tahiti, says Ellis, “every disease was supposed to be the effect of direct supernatural agency, and to be inflicted by the gods for some crime against the tabu, of which the sufferers had been guilty, or in consequence of some offering made by an enemy to procure their destruction. Hence, it is probable, in a great measure, resulted their neglect and cruel treatment of their sick.”66

60Sartori,loc. cit.p. 127.

61Crooke,Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, ii. 169.

62Shooter,op. cit.239 (Kafirs of Natal). Kidd,The Essential Kafir, p. 247.

63Joinville, ‘Religion and Manners of the People of Ceylon,’ inAsiatick Researches, vii. 437sq.

64See Sartori,loc. cit.p. 110sq.; Lippert,Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, i. 110; ii. 411.

65Dorman,Origin of Primitive Superstitions, p. 392.

66Ellis,Polynesian Researches, i. 395.

Whilst the regard which children owe their parents makes parricide an aggravated form of murder, the paternal power sometimes implies that, under certain circumstances, the father is allowed to kill even his grown-up child. Though the Chinese Penal Code provides a slight punishment for parents who punish disobedient children with death,67the crime is practically ignored by the authorities.68Among the Hebrews, in early times, a father might punish his incontinent daughter with death.69The Roman house-father hadjus vitæ necisque—the power of life and death—over his children. However, this power did not imply that he could kill them without a just cause;70already in pagan times a father who killed his son “latronis magis quam patris jure,” was punished as a murderer.71As Dean Milman observes, long before Christianity entered into Roman legislation, “the life of a child was as sacred as that of the parent; and Constantine, when he branded the murder of a son with thename of parricide, hardly advanced upon the dominant feeling.72Nor is there any reason to suppose that, among savages, the father possesses an absolute right of life and death over his children. On the contrary, among many of the lower races the existence of such a right is expressly denied.73

67Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec. cccxix. p. 347:—“If a father, mother, paternal grandfather or grandmother, chastises a disobedient child or grandchild in a severe and uncustomary manner, so that he or she dies, the party so offending shall be punished with 100 blows.—When any of the aforesaid relations are guilty of killing such disobedient child or grandchild designedly, the punishment shall be extended to 60 blows and one year’s banishment.”

68Douglas,Society in China, p. 78sq.

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