The silent trade; a contribution to the early history of human intercourse

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THE

SILENT TRADE

Printed by LoRiMER and Chalmers, Edinburgh

FOR

WILLIAM GREEN AND SONS

February^ X903

THE

SILENT TRADE

a Contritjution to tl}t (ZEarlp l^istorp
of ©uman 3Intcrcour0c

BY

P. J. HAMILTON GRIERSON

''^ Dederat natura omnia omnibus, Sed cum a rerum multarum usu, quas
vita desiderat humana^ locorum intervallo homines arcerentur^ quia . . .
nan ovinia ubique proveniunt^ opus fuit trajectione ; nee adhuc tamen per-
mutatio erat^ sed aliis vicissim rebus apud alios repertis suo arbitrio
utebantur ; quo fere modo apud Seres dicitur rebus in solitudine relictis sola
mutantium religione peragi commercium.*' — Grotius.

EDINBURGH
WILLIAM GREEN & SONS

1903

PREFACE.

oj

The Silent Trade, — " Stummer Handel," — " Le Commerce
par d^pdts," — has been frequently mentioned, but has
never, so far as the writer is aware, been made the
subject of adequate treatment. In this little book, an
attempt is made to give some account of it in operation
and survival, — to show what were the circumstances
of its origin and what the effects produced by it ; —
»>> in a word, — to assign it its place in the history of early
institutions. In the introductory pages, only those facts
relating to primitive society are presented, which seem
to have a direct bearing upon the practice ; and the
neutrality of the primitive market and the protection
of the stranger-guest are dealt with at a later stage of
the argument only in order to indicate their close
connection with the "peace," which it was the first to
introduce.

P. J. H. G.

Edinburgh, 1903.

294366

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

L— INTRODUCTION, Secs. i to 25.

I. — The Subject and Method of Inquiry, Secs. i to 4.

Subject of Inquiry, sec. i. Sense in which the tenns " primitive," "modern,"
" change," are used, sec. 2. We are to look among hunting tribes for the
evidence regarding the institutions with which we are concerned, sec. 3.
Typical hunting peoples, sec. 4.

II. — The Group and its Neighbours, Secs. 5 to 17.

Form of primitive social organisation, sec. 5. The family group ; mutual aid ;
woman's help indispensable, sec. 6. Mode of obtaining a wife : by means
of presents, services, exchanges ; conjugal relations, sec. 7. Personal pro-
perty ; position of women ; how personal property is acquired and
protected; **tapu,'* "tabu," **pomali," **mutue," "piece of medicine,"
sec. 8. Character of relations between family groups ; hospitality ; formal
bond of friendship ; presents ; mutual aid and responsibility ; interchange
of visits, sec. 9. Commerce, or usages leading to commerce, within the
related groups ; practice of giving and receiving ; expectation or under-
standing that return will be made, sees, 10 and 11. Are these peoples
ignorant of commerce ? Refusal to trade may be due to causes other than
ignorance of trading, sec. 1 1. Union of related groups for common under-
taking, such as trading, defence, plundering, pursuit of criminal, religious
ceremonies ; signals between such groups ; union of unrelated groups
against common enemy, sec. 12. Authority of superior men ; of seniors,
sec. 13. Force of public opinion ; of tribal custom ; the singing combat,
sec. 14. Observance of custom secured by fear of the consequences of
disregarding it, sec. 15. Land rights of individuals and related groups,
sec. 16. Boundaries of tribal t^irritory well defined ; regarded as under
supernatural protection ; Hermes- Mercurius, sec. 17.

viii THE SILENT TRADE.

III. — The Stranger, Sees. i8 to 20.

The stranger held to be an enemy ; evidence of language ; hated and feared as
a being possessed of supernatural powers; regarded as a monster or
demon; sometimes safe in virtue of his totem, sec. 18. The stranger
regarded as without rights ; evidence of language ; the exile and the out-
law ; primitive conception of theft ; treatment of persons shipwrecked ;
confiscation of goods of deceased foreigner, sec. 19. The stranger hated
and feared most by that part of the population which lies farthest from
its borders, sec 20.

IV. — Summary, Sees. 21 to 25.

II.— THE SILENT TRADE AND THE PRIMITIVE
MARKET, Secs. 26 to 40.

I. — The Silent Trade, Secs. 26 to 29.

L^end of Wayland Smith ; instances of the silent trade where the parties to
it are unseen by one another ; tribes near Arctic Ocean ; Lapps ; at
Khorasan ; among tribes near the Niger, on the Gambia, near Wangara
and Loanda, on the Congo, on the confines of Egypt and Ethiopia, on
islands of the Indian Ocean, in Sumatra, Buru, Ceram, and the Am Archi-
pelago, in Ceylon, in Madura, in Guatemala, in the Mosquito Country, in
New Mexico, among a people of the Andes, and in Newfoundland, sec. 26.
Instances of the silent trade where the parties to it are not necessarily
unseen by one another ; among the Chukchi, the inhabitants of Livonia,
the people of Sasu, the Makuas, tribes on the West Coast of Africa, at
Fernando Po, on the Niger ; among the Seres, the Sesatai, and the natives
of Timor ; practice of the natives of Brazil, sec. 27. Instances of the silent
trade being carried on through a middle-man ; on the lower Niger, at
Hai-nan, and among the Aleuts and Puelches, sec. 28. Instances of a
religious element in the silent trade ; on West Coast of Africa and among
Sabseans; query, — whether the Sabaeans are rightly credited with the
practice, sec. 29.

TABLE OF CONTENTS. ix

II. — The Primitive Market, Sees. 30 to 35.

Similarity of usages of the primitive market to those of the silent trade ; silent
trading in Mexican markets ; in oriental markets ; market at Somu-Somu ;
Eskimo fair ; market at Wairuku, sec. 30. Market in border-land a
neutral spot ; market cross, sec. 31. Markets under supernatural pro-
tection ; Hermes- Mercurius, sec. 32. Extension of the market-peace ;
the privilege becomes personal rather than local, sec. 33. This neutrality
frequently takes the form of a truce, sec. 34. The business of the market
often carried on through a middleman; Hermes- Mercurius ; ngia-
ngiampe ; inviolability of ambassador ; does it originate in the privilege
of the middle-man? sec. 35.

III. — Comment, Sees. 36 to 40.

Explanations of the silent trade ; characteristics of the parties to the practice,
sec. 36. The practice is due to different causes ; examples ; explanation
suggested as the true explanation, sec. 37. A second form of the practice,
sec. 38. The practice as a survival, sec. 39. The market is a form of
intercourse higher than the earlier practice, sec. 40.

Ill— PRIMITIVE HOSPITALITY, Secs. 41 to 51.

Hospitality within the tribe and between tribes ; words signifying at once
guest and enemy, sec. 41. Signs of friendship and welcome, sec. 42.
Protection of stranger and its limits ; escort ; tokens ; •* tessera
hospitalis," &c. ; ngia-ngiampe ; characteristics of primitive hospitality ;
lending wives, sec. 43. Person of guest sacred, sec. 44. Exchange of
names ; blood -brotherhood ; oath of friendship ; penalties for breach of
oath ; drinking blood prevents treachery, sec. 45. Protection of
stranger; "mopato" and ** molekane," "pagally," "maat," sec. 46.
Protection of stranger; "dakheil," "nazil,'* sec. 47. Protection of
stranger; the "abban," sec. 48. Royal protection; guest-houses,
sec. 49. Punishment of inhospitality ; position of stranger in a foreign
land ; protection of "tabu," sec. 50. Summary, sec 51.

THE SILENT TRADE.

IV.— CONCLUSIONS, Secs. 52 to 62.

The silent trade and inter-tribal intercourse; the conqueror and the slave,
sec. 52. The primitive market and inter- tribal intercourse, sec. 53.
Primitive and modern hospitality ; the former a public institution ; it is
obligatory ; its limits, sec. 54. Protector and prot6g6 ; the stranger either
a trader or an enemy, sec. 55. Individual and common interests ; public
opinion, sec. 56. Function of law ; legal development, sec. 57. The
course of legal development ; conservative character of change, sec. 58.
Law, morality, and religion ; corporate responsibility ; custom and
religion, sec. 59. Custom and individual character ; custom at once
legal, moral, and religious ; hospitality and the Phoenicians, sec. 60.
Later history of hospitality, sec. 61. Neutrality and hospitality are
extensions of the ** peace " introduced by the silent trade, sec. 62.

THE SILENT TRADE.

L— INTRODUCTION.

The Subject and Method of Inquiry,

Sec. I. Man is a social animal, and, like other such
animals, enjoys the companionship of his fellows, gives
them more or less of his sympathy, and is more or less
ready to assist them. But just as the social instincts of
the brute extend, not to all the individuals of its kind, but
to those only of its pack, so the social feelings of primitive
man are effectively active only within the association to
which he belongs.^ The modern view and the modern
practice are altogether different. We profess, at all
events, to regard and treat our fellow-men as the subjects
of rights and duties, not because they are members of a
certain family, or tribe or nation, but because they are men. .
And the question presents itself, — how has this change .»
been brought about? To this question we shall not /
attempt to furnish a complete answer. What we propose ;
to do is to turn to primitive man and his surroundings, —

^ See C. Darwin, "Descent of Man," second edition, London, 1888,
1. 150 seq,

I

/

2 THE SILENT TRADE.

to inquire what are the characteristics of the group of
which he is a member, what is the need which impels him
to enter into relations with men outside of that group, and
what are the methods which he employs in his endeavours
to supply that need. We believe that an examination of
the evidence which bears upon these points will enable us
to discover some of the more important factors which have
operated to produce the change with which we are
concerned.

Sec. 2. We have contrasted " primitive " with " modern,"
and we have spoken of " change " ; and it is proper that
we should state at the outset what we mean when we use
these terms. Change can take place only in time, but
lapse of time does not necessarily imply change ; and a
mode of thought or action may remain unaltered during
the course of ages. Accordingly, when we speak of
" change," we have in mind not so much a succession in
time as a process of development ; and when we oppose
"primitive" to "modern," we intend to indicate not so
much an epoch in time as a stage in a process. Further,
such a term as " primitive " can be used with accuracy only
as a relative term ; and, accordingly, when we use the
expression " the primitive group," we mean not the simplest
form of human society, but the simplest form of human
society with regard to which we have reliable evidence.^

Sec. 3. Where, then, are we to look for the evidence
regarding the primitive group? Plainly, not to pastoral,
still less to agricultural, peoples ; but rather to those who
are dependent for their daily sustenance upon the spoils of
the chase and the bounty of the untilled earth. The
rude hunter takes little or no thought for the morrow; he

1 See R. V, Iheriog, <<Der Geist des Romischen Rechts," Leipzig, 1878,
i. 60 seq.

METHOD OF INQUIRY. 3

lives by killing and does nothing to replace the life which
he has taken ; and he wastes and even destroys what he
cannot then and there consume. In favoured regions the
man who neither plants nor sows, who has neither flocks
nor herds, is not infrequently brought face to face with
starvation. For the means of subsistence, which any one
spot affords, are soon exhausted ; and, when these fail him,
he must change his ground ; he must follow the game in
its migrations ; he must, in short, devote himself almost
continuously to a search for his daily food. The case of
the herdjm^n is widely different. His chief concern is not
to destroy animal life but to preserve and foster it, so that it
shall not only suffice to supply the wants of the moment,
but assure to him a resource upon which he can always
draw. To produce this result requires not only the
constant exercise of a far-sighted prudence, but the co-
operation of all the members of the community. In other
words, all must join in the endeavour to carry out a plan
which takes into account the future as well as the present.
Their practical life is not a mere series of unconnected
acts; for it is formed upon a scheme, in which each act
has its place, and to the realisation of which each act
contributes. And this observation applies no less to those
who cultivate the lands upon which they have settled.
They, too, have common aims, common interests, and
common work; and what they aim at, what they are
interested in, and what they work for, is to secure
the conditions of permanent well-being. In this con-
ception and conduct of life we can discern the begin-
nings of an economy and of a social organisation
unknown to the primitive hunter ;^ and, as we wish

^ See H. Lotze, " Mikrokosmos," 3te Aufl. Leipzig, 1878, ii. 426, 427 ;
E. B. Tylor, "Anthropology," London, 188 1, p. 220.

4 THE SILENT TRADE.

to commence at the commencement, we shall return to
him.^

Sec. 4. Now we are told of the Fuegians that " they
never attempt to make use of the soil by any kind of
culture : seeds, birds, fish, and particularly shell-fish being
their principal subsistence."^ So, too, the Australian
"will hunt, fish, trap, dig up roots which are ready
for food, grind grass seeds into flour, but sow or plant
he will not."* The food of the Bushman consists of
bulbous roots, ostrich eggs, the larvae of ants and locusts,
and fish and game. He does not cultivate the soil,
nor has he any permanent abode; but wanders from
place to place, rarely passing two nights in the same
spot* A very similar account is given by Father
Baegert of the aborigines of the Californian Peninsula.*
The Veddahs of Nilgala "move about from forest

^ Of course we do not mean to affirm that the institutions of a community
on the lowest level of economic development in every case represent the
earliest form of those institutions. A pastoral tribe may practise marriage
customs which have been handed down unchanged from their forefathers who
lived by the chase ; while the marriage customs of a hunting-tribe may be
very different from those followed by their ancestors. We can make such an
assertion only, and to a limited extent, in regard to those institutions which
are directly affected by the economic circumstances of the community
within which they subsist ; and it is with such institutions that we are
concerned in the following pages (see J. Kohler, zur Rechtsphilosophie
und vergleichenden Rechtswissenschaft, Juristisches Litteraturblatt, vii.
197.

* King and Fitz-Roy, " Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and
Beagle t^ London, 1839, ii. 178; cp. Hyades et Deniker, "Mission du Cap
Horn, 1882-83," Paris, 189 1, vii. 338 seq,

« E. M. Curr, **The Australian Race," London, 1886, i. 79.

* H. Lichtenstein, "Travels in South Africa, in the years i8o3-i8o6,*''transl.
Plumptre, London, 1815, ii. 44 seq, 193 ; J. Barrow, ** An Account of Travels
into the Interior of South 'Africa in the years 1797, 1798," London, 1801, i. 276 ;
D. Livingstone, " Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa," London^

1857, p. 49-

* ** Report of . . . Spaithsonian Institute for 1863," pp. 361-64.

THE PRIMITIVE GROUP. 5

to forest ... in search of bees and game ; " ^ and the
Kubus of Sumatra " cultivate nothing for themselves, and
live entirely on the products of the forest*' They occupy
their rude shelters for a few days only at a time ; so long,
that is to say, as food is obtainable in the neighbourhood.^
Again, it is said of the Shoshonee Indians that they never
plant a seed, but subsist upon roots, fish, and the flesh of
the buffalo ; ^ while Dobritzhoffer describes certain tribes
of the Abipones as " living like wild beasts, neither reap-
ing nor sowing, nor taking any heed of agriculture." * These
peoples we may take as types of the primitive hunting
and fishing community ; and accordingly, it is to them, and
to people such as they are, that we shall look for the
evidence regarding the relations, which, in early times,
subsisted between man and man and between group and
group.^

II.

The Group and its Neighbours.

Sec. 5. According to King and Fitz-Roy, " scarcity of
food, and the facility with which they move from one
place to another in their canoes, are, no doubt, the reasons
why the Fuegians are always so dispersed among the
islands in small family parties, why they never remain
long in one place, and why a large number are not seen

1 J. Bailey, "An Account of the Wild Tribes of the Veddahs of Ceylon," in
Trans. £thn. Soc, N.S., London, 1862, ii. 282.

2 H. O. Forbes, "Journal of Anthrop. Inst.," xiv. 122.

3 H. R. Schoolcraft, " Historical and Statistical Information regarding the
History ... of the Indian Tribes of the United States," Philadelphia,
1 8$ I -60, i. 207, 211; Lewis apd Clarke, "Travels to the Source of the
Missouri River ... in the years 1804-06," new edition, London, 1815,
ii. 162.

* "An Account of the Abipones," transl. from the Latin, London, 1822,
ii. no, 113. * See above, sec. 3 last note.

6 THE SILENT TRADE.

many days in society."^ Of a branch of this race — the

Yaghans of Cape Horn — Bridges ^ says that their families

live in clans of which the members are related ; but that

all the members of the clan are "only occasionally and

then always incidentally'* to be found together. The

Australian tribe hunts, camps, and lives, not in a body,

but in small chance parties, which meet only from time to

time ; * and between the separate Bushman hordes, of

which each " commonly consists of the different members

of one family only," there is so little intercourse that the

names of the most ordinary objects are different in the

different hordes.* Of the Veddahs of Nilgala it is said that

" they are distributed through their lovely country in small

septs or families," which hold little communication with

one another ; ^ and of the Kubus of Sumatra, that they live

in small hordes, each family having a separate existence.*

The Shoshonees are found in small detached bodies and

single families ; ^ and similar accounts are given of many

other hunting and fishing tribes.^

1 II. 177 ; cp. C. Wilkes, "Narrative of the United States* Exploring Ex-
pedition, during the years 1838-42," London, 1845, i* ^^4-

* Ap. E. Westermark, " The History of Human Marriage," second edition,
London, 1894, p. 44. "The smaller divisions keep more together. . . .
Occasionally as many as five families are to be found living together in a
wigwam, but generally two families."

' Curr, i. 53 ; E. J. Eyre, "Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into
Central Australia ... in the years 1840-41," London, 1845, ii. 218 ; see
Westermark, 45, 48. According to B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, **The
Native Tribes of Central Australia," London, 1899, p. 16, these small parties
consist, among the Central Australian natives, of one or two families.

* Lichtenstein, ii. 48, 49. * Bailey, 281.

* Globus, xxvi. 44. ' Schoolcraft, i. 224.

^ P. S. Pallas, "Voyages . . . dans plusieurs provinces de 1' Empire de Russie,
et dans TAsie Septentrionale, trad, de Gauthier de la Peyronie," Paris, 1800,
iii. 310 (V<^ls) ; Meyer in Peterm. Mittn., 1874, P* '9 (Negrittos in Luzon) ;
J. Hector and W. S. W. Vaux, " Notice of the Indians seen by the exploring
expedition under the command of Captain Palliser," in the Trans. Ethn. Soc.,
N.S., i. 246 (Thickwood Crees) ; and Westermark, 46 (several Brazilian tribes).

DIVISION OF LABOUR. 7

Thus it appears that amongst those peoples, whose
social organisation may be regarded as primitive, the
population is scattered over a wide ^ area in small groups
in the nature of families.

Sec. 6. The group is an association more or less per-
manent, brought about not merely, or even mainly, by the
cravings of passing appetite, but by the pressure of a
constant need, — the need of mutual assistance. The man
protects the women and children, and hunts for their
support. He constructs the shelter, builds the canoe,
trains his dogs, and prepares his weapons for war and for
the chase. To the woman is left the rest of the work.
Her aid is indispensable in procuring food ; not only for
herself and her children, when her master is absent, but
for him, when his time is too much occupied in pursuit of
the larger animals to allow of his providing for himself.
Among the Fuegians, for example, she gathers mussels and
catches fish, and, in addition, attends to her children,
makes baskets, fishing-lines, and necklaces, and paddles
her lord's canoe.^ So necessary, indeed, is her help to the
unmarried Yahgan, who has no near relatives, that he is
forced to join some one more powerful than himself, who,

^ See sec. 1 6 below.

2 King and Fitz-Roy, ii. 185 ; J. Weddell, " A Voyage towards the
South Pole in 1822-24," London, 1825, p. 156. Similar accounts are
given of many hunting and fishing tribes — e,g,^ Curr, i. 99 (Australian
tribes) ; R. Schomburgk, '* Reisen in Britisch-Guiana in 1840-44," Leipzig,
1847, i. 166 (Warraus) ; E. H. Man, " On the Original Inhabitants
of the Andaman Islands," Jour, of Anthrop. Inst., London, 1883, xii.
328 (Andaman Islanders) ; Pallas, v. 129 (Ostiaks) ; Maximilian, " Prinz
zu Wied Neuwied, Reise nach Brasilien," Frankfort-am-M., 1820, ii.
17 (Botocudos) ; Id, i. 146 (Puris) ; Richardson, '* Arctic Search-
ing Expedition," London, 185 1, ii. 12 ('Tinne Indians) ; J. Chapman,
"Travels in the Interior of South Africa," London, 1868, i. 39 (Bamafi-
wato).

8 THE SILENT TRADE.

in return for his work, will protect him and permit his
wives to fish for him.^

Sec. 7. The Yahgan suitor acquires his bride by per-
forming certain services for her parents. Her inclinations
are not consulted ; and, when she has several suitors, she
is handed over to him whom her father fears most. There
is no marriage ceremony. If the bridegroom has not a
canoe of his own, he lives with his wife's parents, and
works for them until the first child is born. Even after
that event he gives them presents from time to time, and
always treats his father-in-law with the greatest deference.
Until the birth of the first child the marriage is not
regarded as a permanent bond, and the wife is free to
change her husband. Marriages between near relations
are looked on with disfavour. Sometimes, however, a man
marries mother and daughter. Polygamy is permitted,
some men having as many as four wives. If husband and
wife disagree, the former may divorce the latter without
any special form. Until marriage the conduct of the girls
is subject to no restraint, and jealousy seems to be un-
known to them. The husband will not yield his wife
either to his friends or to strangers ; and the observations
of voyagers to the contrary appear to be based on the
actions of men united neither by affection nor by marriage
to the women whom they offered.^ The Bushman does
not marry out of his own tribe ; and the only degrees of
relationship which he recognises as preventing marriage are

^ M. T. Bridges, trad, par Hyades, Bull, de la Soc d'Anthrop. de Paris,
1884, ser. iii. t. vii. 180. In Tonga it is customary for a man to choose a
foster-mother, even while his own mother is alive, in order that he may be
the better provided with cloth, oil, food, &c. (Mariner, '' Tonga Islands," i. 89,
167 ; ii. 96 ; in '* Constable's Miscellany," Edinburgh, 1827, vols, xiii., xiv.).

2 Hyades et Deniker, 239, 377-379 ; Bridges, trad. Hyades, 171-73 ; Bridges
ap. Westermark, 299, 318.

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. 9

those of parent and child, brother and sister. The Bush-
man suitor asks leave to pay his addresses. He leaves
some trifling article at the girl's dwelling ; and, if it be not
returned within a few days, he takes for granted that he is
accepted. He then makes a hunting party with some of
his friends, and brings the spoils of the chase to the father
of the girl. A feast follows, and the suitor's friends make
small presents to the girl's family. The husband lives
with his father-in-law for the first two years, hunts for
him, and always treats him with great respect.^ Among
the Kubus, the suitor offers a gift to the girl's father. If
the latter approve of it, he calls his neighbours together,
and informs them that he has givqn his daughter in
marriage. One of the company strikes a tree several
times with a club, proclaiming the man and woman
husband and wife ; and there follows a feast, of which the
bridegroom's presents form the chief materials.^ Among
the Veddahs, the suitor presents the girl's father with a
gift, such as a pot of honey or a dried iguana. If the
father have no objections to offer, he calls for his daughter
who comes bringing with her a thin cord of her own
twisting. This she ties round the bridegroom's waist, and
they are man and wife. The Veddahs are constant to
their wives, and are exceedingly jealous of them. They are
monogamous and divorce is unknown to them.^ Among
the Australian natives the wife is " not the relative, but the

^ Chapman, i. 259, 260 ; cp. Barrow, i. 276. The wife may with the husband's
permission yield herself to any man (Lichtenstein, ii. 49) ; and her infidelity is re-
garded as almost of no moment (J. E. Alexander, " An Expedition of Discovery
into the Interior of Africa," London, 1838, ii. 23. See below sec. 8, note).

2 H. O. Forbes, ** A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago
from 1878 to 1883," London, 1885, p. 241.

* Bailey, 291-94. Formerly, the marriage of a man with his younger
sister was regarded as the proper marriage to make ; while marriage with an
elder sister or aunt would have been looked upon as incestuous {Id, id,).

/

lo THE SILENT TRADE.

property of her husband." Not infrequently he obtaiSs
her in exchange for his sisters or for his daughters. /Hrte
may exchange her or lend her to any man of the class to
which he himself belongs.^ He has little real affection for
her ; and yet he is jealous, and will hardly allow her to
speak to any other man.^

Sec. 8. All these peoples have some conception of rights,
of property.* Among the Yahgans, individual ownership"
extends only to a man's necessary personal effects. /What
he makes or kills or finds, — that is his.* So, too, the only
wealth of the Bushman,^ as of the Fenni,® consists of bows
and arrows. The Veddahs most prized possessions are their
bows and their dogs ; ^ and, amongst the Australian natives,
each tribesman is regarded as the owner of his weapons,
implements, and ornaments.® He is also held to be the
owner of his wife.^ The Kubus are said to have no

^ Curr, i. io6, 107 ; G. F. Angas, ** Savage Lifp and Scenes in Australia and
New Zealand," London, 1847, i. 93, 94 ; G. Grey, "Journals of Two Expedi-
tions of Discovery in N.W. and W. Australia, in 1837-39," London, 1841,
ii. 230; Eyre, ii. 318, 319 ; Wilkes, ii. 195. After a battle the gins not in-
frequently go over to the victors, even those with young children on their
backs (T. L. Mitchell, '* Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern
Australia,'* London, 1838, i. 304). * Eyre, ii. 321 ; Curr, i. 106.

* As to rights of property in land, see sec. 16 below.

* Hyades et Deniker, 243. The rights of even a child are respected.
Observe, however, that when a large animal is found dead, the right of the
finder is limited to that of making the distribution (Bridges, trad. Hyades, I78)<

* Lichtenstein, ii. 45.

* Tac. Germ., 46 ; — ** Victui herba, vestitui pelles, cubile humus, solae in
sagittis opes." ^ Bailey, 286.

8 Curr, i. 66. Even the wife, although she is her husband's property, is
allowed to keep as her own any small articles she may acquire.

* The same conception of the woman's position prevails among the natives
of the Bihe (Capello and Ivens, " From Benguela to the territory of Yacca,"
London, 1882, i. 112) ; the Puris (Maximilian Prinz zu Wied-Neuwied,
i. 146) ; the Eskimo near the mouth of the Mackenzie River (E. Petitot,
** Les Grands Esquimaux," Paris, 1887, p. 104) ; the Indians of British
Guiana (E. F. im Thurn, ''Among the Indians of Guiana," London, 1883,

PERSONAL PROPERTY. u

personal property, but ** if one of them on finding a bee-
infested or dammar-yielding tree, clear the bush around it,
make one or two hacks in the bark, and repeat a form of
spell, it is recognised by the others as his possession, which
will be undisputed." ^ Practices similar to that last men-
tioned are widely prevalent, and, in general, serve as means,
not so much of acquiring ^ a right, as of keeping intact a

p. 223) ; and the Shoshonees (Lewis and Clarke, ii. 164, 165, 416) ; and
further indications of it are furnished by the fact, that, among many people,
adultery is regarded as an offence only when committed without the husband's
permission— ^.^., Ricaras and Sioux (Lewis and Clarke, i. 144) ; Yumas
(H. H. Bancroft, " The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America,"
London, 1875, i. 514) ; Knisteneaux Indians (A. Mackenzie, " Voyages
from Montreal ... to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, in the years 1789 and
1793," London, 1801, xcvi.) ; cp. Lichtenstein, ii. 48, 49, and Alexander,
ii. 23, as to the Bushmen ; and Lisiansky, " A Voyage round the World in the
years 1803-06, London, 1814, p. 82, and Jarves, " History of the Sandwich
Islands," London, 1843, p. 80, as to the natives of Nukahiva and Hawaii.
Hyades et Deniker, p. 377, deny that the Yahgan husband condones his wife's
misconduct) ; and by the practice in use among the Incas (Waitz-Gerland,
" Anthropologie der Naturvolker," Leipzig, 1859-72, iv. 417), and Basutos
(E. Casalis, " The Basutos, London, 1861, p. 225), in Northern Queensland
(C. Lumholtz, ** Among Cannibals," London, 1889, p. 126), and in Mada-
gascar (Rochon, " Voyage to Madagascar," in Pinkerton's " General Collection
of . . . Voyages and Travels," London, 1808-14, xiv. 747), of visiting it with
the penalty appropriate to theft. A similar view seems to prevail among the
tribes of Central Australia (Spencer and Gillen, p. 99), and to have prevailed
in Homeric times (A. G. Keller, ** Homeric Society," New York, London,
and Bombay, 1902, p. 227). See sec. 43 below.

^ Forbes, " A Naturalist's Wanderings," p. 242.

2 ** There was a kind of variation on the iapu^ called tapa^ of this nature.
For instance, if a chief said, * That axe is my head,' the axe became his to all
intents and purposes." (" Old New Zealand," by a Pakeha Maori, London,
1863, p. 160, see also pp. 161-63. Cp. also E. Shortland, "Traditions and
Superstitions of the New Zealanders," London, 1854, p. 91). So, too, the
finder of a piece of drift wood could tapa it to himself by tying something
round it, or by giving it a chop with his axe (R. Taylor, '* Te Ika a Maui ; or.
New Zealand and its Inhabitants," London, 1855, p. 62. Cp. J. Chalmers,
" Pioneering in New Guinea," London, 1887, p. 186) ; and a canoe found adrift
was tapa to the finder (E. Dieffenbach, " Travels in New Zealand," London,
i843i ii. 102).

12 THE SILENT TRADE.

right already acquired.^ Thus Livingstone^ says that in
the country of the Balonda, where artificial hives are
frequently attached to the trees, " a * piece of medicine ' is
/ tied round the trunk, and proves sufficient protection
against thieves. The natives seldom rob each other, for all
believe that certain medicines can inflict disease and
death." In Ceram, a man preserves his property, — a
fruit-tree, for example, — from injury by the use of the
" mutue." Thus, if he hang the jaw-bone of a boar, —
"mutue hahua"— somewhere among its branches, he may
rest assured that whoever breaks the tree or steals its fruit
will be mangled by one of those animals.^ Again, Krapf *

* E^.f in the Marquesas (H, Melville, **A Narrative of a Four Months*
Residence among the Natives of a Valley of the Marquesas Islands," London,
1846, p. 245) ; in New Zealand (Dieffenbach, ii. 48, lOi) ; and among the
Muruts of Borneo (H. Ling Roth, **The Natives of Sarawak and British
North Borneo," London, 1896, i. 419).

' *' Missionary Travels," p. 285.

' J. G. F. Riedel, '* De sluik- en kroesharige Rassen tusschen Selebes en
Papua," S. Gravenhage, 1886, pp. 114, 115. He gives many other instances ;
see index, s,v, ** Sasi." The punishment is attributed to the action of super-
natural influences. See also Kohler, "Recht d. Papuas," Zeits f. vergl.
Rechtsw., xiv. 371, 372, 374 ; as to the inhabitants of Tonga, see Mariner,
ii. 186, 187 ; and as to Samoans, see G. Turner, " Nineteen Years in
Polynesia," London, 186 1, pp. 294-96 ; *' Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and
Long Before," London, 1884, p. 34. As to Polynesia generally, see Waitz-
Gerland, vi. 343.

* ** Travels in Eastern Africa," London, i860, p. 145. To tie a "piece of
/ medicine " to a specific article, or to lay it across a road, or to fasten it to the

boundary of a field or of a hunting-ground, is to place the article, or the road,
or the boundary, under the protection of supernatural powers, who will see to
the punishment of the man who disregards the sacred sign. Thus, Baikie
(** Narrative of an Exploring Voyage up the Rivers Kw6ra and Binue in 1854,"
London, 1856, p. 279 ; see also Bastian, ** Ein Besuch in San Salvador, die
Hauptstadt des Konigreichs Congo," Bremen, 1859, pp. 78, 1 11) tells us that
in Y6ruba ** if there be two entrances to a hut, or two passages to any part of
a dwelling, one is kept closed by a string being put across it, and some dju-dju
article hung up over it." In Timor, a prevalent custom is the ** pomali,"
exactly equivalent to the tabu of the Pacific islanders, and equally respected.
Thus, a palm-branch laid across an open door is more effectual than bolts and

INTERCOURSE BETWEEN GROUPS. 13

tells us that a cocoa-nut hanging over the gate of a village
" is supposed to be effectual in keeping thieves and robbers
at a distance from the trees and villages, and many
Wanika suspend a similar ugango before the door of their
huts ; . . . nobody dares to enter so long as it is not
removed."

Sec. 9. Each of these groups is in contact, at all events^
occasionally, with similar and related groups. Towards
these its attitude is essentially dissimilar from that which
it assumes towards alien groups. Thus, in Australia, the
relation between stranger tribes is one of unceasing hostility.
They practise sorcery against one another, and carry on

bars (A. R. Wallace, "The Malay Archipelago," London, 1890, pp. 149, 150,
451). Thomson ("Through Masai Land,** new edition, London, 1887, p. 271)
says of the Wa-kamasi that, until " hongo " or passage-money is paid, " the
road is shut " by placing some green twigs across the pathway. To pass over
that sacred symbol without permission is sufficient to drive the people into
fits of uncontrollable excitement. Riedel (p. 296) tells us that, in some of the
Spice Islands, to cross a boundary which is **moli," or tabu, is a cause of
trouble or even of war ; and, according to C. F. Ph. von Martius ("Von den
Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwohnem Brasiliens," Munchen, 1832, p. 37),
the people of Cumana protect their plantations by drawing round them a single
cotton thread. It is considered a great crime to disregard the limits thus
marked out ; and it is the universal belief that he who fails to observe them
will not long survive. In his *' Voyage to the Congo in 1682" (Pinkerton,
xvi. 238), Merolla informs us that, " the fields of this country being without
fences, their owners, to preserve their corn, plant about them several rows of
stakes, which, being bound round with bundles of herbs by the wizards, they
tell you will kill any such as shall offer either to rob or do them damage."
This account presents a striking similarity to that of Hislop (quoted by E. B.
Tylor, "Primitive Culture," third edition, London, 1 891, ii. 164) regarding^
the stones which the ryot of Southern India sets up in his fields. He looks
upon them as the guardians of his crops, and calls them the five Pandfls.
As to the Land Dyaks of Borneo, see S. St. John, " Life in the Forests of the
Far East," London, 1862, i. 199 ; as to the New Zealanders, see J. S. Polack,
** Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders," London, 1840, ii. 70, cp. i. 276.
In Tahiti, carved images or "tiis" are employed to mark boundaries ; and the
removal of ancient land-marks is regarded as a heinous offence (Ellis, "Poly-
nesian Researches," London, 1831, iii. 116). A law ascribed to Numa is in
these terms : " eum qui terminum exarasset, et ipsum et boves sacros esse " (seer

14 THE SILENT TRADE.

warfare by night attacks, in which men and children are
butchered, while the women are speared and carried ofT;^ on
the other hand, the members of associated ^ tribes visit and
intermarry, and decide their differences in fair fight, and
with little bloodshed.^ So, too, the Yahgans, amongst
whom, according to Hyades,* the tribe cannot in any
proper sense be said to exist, regard one another, even in
their quarrels, with feelings very unlike the intense fear and
hatred which they entertain towards the men of the other
Fuegian tribes — the Ona and Alakaluf^ No doubt, it
has been said of them, that, beyond the family circle, the
relation of man to man is doubtful, if not hostile.® Still,
the visitor from another group is always sure of a seat by
the fire, and a portion of food, although the hut be

R. V. Ihering, " Vorgeschichte der Indo-Europaer," Leipzig, 1894, p. 263) ;
and the laws of old Germany severely punished the man who ** removed his
neighbour's landmark" (W. E. Wilda, "Das Strafrecht der Germanen," Halle,
1842, p. 925 seg.). It is to be noted that, among the aborigines of
Brazil, the paj^s take an active part in the settlement of the boundaries of the
tribal hunting-grounds, performing many magical rites and ceremonies, with
the usual accompaniments of smoking and drumming. Sometimes baskets,
rags, and strips of bark are attached to the objects which mark the dividing
line (C. F. Ph. von Martins, 34, 35). Shortland (p. 83), observes that in New
Zealand ** the dread of trespassing on any ia/u spot was formerly so powerful,
that on going to a strange land, ceremonies were 'per formed, in order to make
it noa, lest, perchance, it might have been previously tapu"

^ Among the Samoans, a similar practice prevailed (Turner, "Nineteen
Years in Polynesia," p. 301).

^ In Australia, every tribe has constant, and, for the most part, friendly
relations with other tribes. Still, each tribe within the association maintains
its separate existence (Curr, i. 63). Spencer and Gillen (p. 32), state that,
among the tribes of Central Australia, there is no such thing as two tribes
being constantly at enmity. They point out the mistake of speaking of the
customs of the ** Australian native ; " for customs differ in different tribes (p. 34).

* Curr, i. 63.

* ** Ethnographic des Fuegians," Bull, de la Soci^te d'Anthropologie, Paris,
.Ser. iii., t x. 333. ' Hyades et Deniker, 16, 240.

' Stirling, in the " South American Missionary Magazine," iv. 11.

INTERCOURSE BETWEEN GROUPS. 15

crowded, and the supplies scanty ; ^ and the men of different
families frequently enter into a bond of friendship, which
is marked by an exchange of gifts, and by a peculiar
fashion of painting the face and body.^ So, too, in their
disputes friends side with friends ; ^ and in Australia, men
who belong to the same class within the tribe, must make
common cause when quarrels arise.* Groups friendly or
related to a murdered Yahgan, join in pursuit of the
murderer,^ and treat those who shelter him as participants

^ Hyades et Deniker, 243 ; if he have food with him he must share it. So,
too, the Wakuafi are hospitable to strangers of their own nation (Krapf, 364) ;
and, in the Andaman Islands, strangers introduced by mutual friends are
entertained with the best (Man, 148). Each Andaman family keeps a supply of
food in excess of its own requirements for its visitors {Id, 328).

2 Bridges, trad. Hyades, 182. Among the Pehuenches there exists a system
of friendly association which enters into every relation of life. In times of
peace, the members visit one another frequently ; in time of war, they bivouac
together, fight on the same side, and in necessity or peril support one another
to the death (E. Poppig, " Reise in Chile, Peru, und auf der Amazonenstrome
wahrend der Jahre," 1827-32 ; Leipzig, 1835, i. 384, 385). Cp. P. F. X.
Qiarlevoix (** Histoire . . . de la Nouvelle France avec la Journal Historique
d'un Voyage fait . . . dans I'Am^rique Septentrionale," Paris, 1744, vi. 14),
who speaks of a similar association among the Iroquois. Williams and
Calvert ("Figi and the Figians," second edition by Rowe, London, i860,
i. 45, 46), tell us that in Figi, " instances of persons devoting themselves specially
to deeds of arms are not uncommon. The manner in which they do this is
singular, and wears the appearance of a marris^e-contract ; and the two men
entering into it are spoken of as man and wife to indicate the closeness of their
military union. By this mutual bond the two men pledge themselves to
oneness of purpose and eflfort, to stand by each other in every danger, defending
each other to the death, and, if needful, to die togetljer. In the case of one of
the parties wishing to become married in the ordinary style to one of the other
sex, the former contract is duly declared void." Among the Tupis a man was
not permitted to marry a sister or daughter of the friend with whom he had all
things in common (J. Lery, " Voyage in Brazil " in De Bry, ** Americae tertia
pars," Franc, a. M., 1594, c. 16) ; and at Zayla the tie of the "Nazil " (see
sec. 47 below) can be dissolved only by the formula of triple divorce (R. F.
Burton, " First Footsteps in East Africa," London, 1856, p. 124).

' Hyades et Deniker, 241, 374 seq,

* Spencer and Gillen, p. 344, cp. p. 544, see also Eyre, ii. 224 ; Grey,
ii. 230 ; Curr, i. 62, 72. * Hyades et Deniker, 241, 374 sgq.

i6 THE SILENT TRADE.

in his crime ; ^ and in this connection may be noted the
widely prevalent conception, that the family, the group,
or even the whole tribe is involved in the guilt of the mem-
ber.2 Further, among the Yahgans, the Yuracar^s and
Chiquitos, and the natives of King George's Sound, it is
the practice to interchange visits, and these visits are made
the occasion of festivities.* But the visitor must make

^ Bridges, trad. Hyades, 177. So, according to Waitz-Gerland (iii. 517),
among the Pehuenches, the robber's relations are implicated in his crime.
But see Starke, " The Primitive Family," London, 1889, p. 48, according to
whom it is only ** those who are living in community with the robber who are
held to be responsible."

^ See, for example, Scott Nind, ** Description of Natives of King George's
Sound (Swan River Colony), and adjoining country," Joum. of R.G.S., L 45 ;
Grey, ii. 239 (Australians) ; Thomson, " The Story of New Zealand,"
I^ndon, 1859, i. 58 ; Shortland, p. 224 (New Zealanders) ; Wilkes, ii. 150
(Samoans) ; M. Macfie, *' Vancouver Island and British Columbia," London,
1865, p. 470 (Columbian Indians). Among the Efik tribesmen of Old
Calabar, " responsibility for debts is not a particular, but a universal, liability
on the district to which the debtor belongs " (T. L. Hutchinson, " On the Social
and Domestic Traits of the African Tribes, with a glance at their Superstitions,
Cannibalism, &c., &c.,*' in the Trans, of Ethn. Soc, N.S., i. 330). Upon this
sense of corporate responsibility rests the Berber custom which allows a person
who has been robbed to seize some article belonging to the robber's family, or
to a man of his village or tribe (A. Hanoteau et A. Letourneux, " La Kabylie
et les coutumes Kabyles," Paris, 1872-73, iii. 82). Even among civilised
peoples are to be found traces of similar usages. Thus, ** when Bordeaux
merchants had wines taken from them by Flemish pirates, they procured
letters of reprisal against Flemish merchants in England," so that the penalty
would fall on the right shoulders at last (W. Cunninghame, ** The Growth of
English Industry and Commerce during the Early and Middle Ages,"
Cambridge, 1890, p. 280; cp. L. Goldschmidt, ''Handbuch des Handel-
rechts," 3te Aufl., Stuttgart, 1891, i. 121). Krapf (p. 333) tells us that, by
order of the king of Kilema, thirteen persons were killed because they came
from the same town as certain traders who had robbed him. See also Capello-
and Ivens, ii. 242 ; Angas, ii. 171.

' Sports and entertainments, among the Yahgans (Hyades et Deniker,
373> 374) » dancing and carousing, among the Yuracar^s and Chiquitos.
(A. D'Orbigny, "Voyage dans I'Am^rique M^ridionale, 1826- 1833," Paris, 1839,
iv. 164, 259) ; feasting, among the natives of King George's Sound (Scott
Nind, 44). As to the natives of Lower California, see Baegert, '* Report of
. . . Smith. Inst, for 1863," p. 368.

VISITS. 17

plain that he comes as a friend. Thus the Yuracar^s
announce their approach by sound of trumpet ; and the
Australians, of whom Scott Nind speaks, advance with
green boughs in their hands, and with fillets of green leaves
on their heads.^ When food is scarce at home, the Samoan
visits his friends ; ^ and, among the Andaman islanders,
" visits are usually followed by an interchange of gifts, the
host taking the initiative." ^ Towards strangers of their own
race the Wakuafi act liberally and kindly ;* and, according
to Catlin,* " every man, woman, or child in Indian com-
munities is allowed to enter anyone's lodge, and even that
of the chief of the nation, and eat when they are hungry,
provided misfortune or necessity have driven them to it.
Even so can the poorest and most worthless drone of the
nation. . . . He, however, who thus begs when he is able
to hunt, pays dear for his meat, for he is stigmatised with
the disgraceful epithet of a poltroon and a beggar."

Sec. ID. Is there any trace, it may be asked of the
existence of commercial relations between the associated
groups ? We may say at once that there is ample evidence
of the prevalence of usages from which such relations might
arise. Thus, the practice of giving and receiving is universal.
When the Bushman,* or the Kubu,^ or the Veddah,^ thinks
of marrying a girl, he opens his suit by making a gift to
her father ; ® and it is by means of a gift that the Yahgan

1 D'Orbigny, Scott Nind, ubi cit,

2 Wilkes, ii. 148, 149. ^ Man, 392. * Krapf, 364.

^ " Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the
American Indians,*' London, 1841, i. 122. ^ Chapman, i. 259, 260.

^ Forbes, ** A Naturalist's Wanderings,*' 241. ^ Bailey, 291-93.

^ The Yahgan suitor acquires his bride by performing certain services for her
parents (Hyades et Deniker, 377-79; Bridges, trad. Hyades, 172). This
practice, says Westermark (p. 390), who has collected many instances of it, "is
widely difiiised among the uncivilised races of America, Africa, Asia, and the
Indian Archipelago."
2

i8 THE SILENT TRADE.

cements the bonds of friendship, and buys off the vengeance
of his victim's kinsmen.^ To the Yahgan, one of the main
inducements to acquire property is that its possession
enables him to give. At the same time, he expects to
receive something in return.^ So, too, Sproat* says that
** the gaining of property, with a view to its distribution, is
a ruling motive for the action of the Ahts." But the gift is
regarded as an investment ; a return is expected ; and he
who gives most freely acquires rank and reputation.*
Among the Western Eskimo, according to Simpson,* "a
free and disinterested gift is totally unknown ; " and, of the
Andaman islanders, it is said that they " give such objects
as are desired by another, in the hope of receiving in return
something for which they have expressed a wish, it being
tacitly understood that, unless otherwise mentioned before-

^ Bridges, trad. Hyades, 182, 177. As to the satisfaction made for crime by
means of payment, see A. H. Post, **Grundriss der Ethnol. Jurisprudenz,*'
Oldenburg, u. Leipzig, 1895, "• 256 seq, ; W. E. Wilda, 314 seq, ; J. Grimm,
"Deutsche Rechts-Alterthtimer," Gottingen, 3te Aufl., 1881, pp. 648, 661.

^ Bridges, trad. Hyades, 179 ; cp. Hyades et Deniker, 243.

' "Scenes and Studies of Savage Life," London, 1868, pp. 112, 113.

* W. H. Dall (''Alaska and its Resources," Boston, 1870, p. 150) says of the
tribes south of the Yukon River, that a man will accumulate his property for
many years, and then give it all away without expecting a return, in order to
gain reputation ; and similar statements are made regarding the natives of
Upper California by Kastromitonow (v. Wrangell, " Staatistische u. Ethno-
ge<^raphische Nachrichten tiber die Russischen Besitzungen an die Nordwest-
kUste von Amerika ; '* in '* BeitrSge zur Kentniss d. Russischen Reiches von
K. C. von Baer u. Gr. von Helmersen," St. Petersburg, 1839, i. 92), and of the
Western Eskimo (H. Rink, "The Eskimo Tribes," London and Copenhagen,
1887, pp. 28, 29). J. L. Burckhart (<' Travels in Arabia," London, 1829, p. 7>
note) observes that the real motive of a Turk in giving presents is either to
obtain a double return or to gratify his pride.

^ " Observations on the Western Eskimaux and the Country they inhabit," in
" Further Papers relating to the recent Arctic Expeditions, presented to both
Houses of Parliament, January, 1855," London, 1855, p. 926. A similar state-
ment is made regarding the Thlinkets and Haidas (Kohler, "Rechtsver-
gleichende Skizzen," " Zeits. f. vergl. Rechtsw.," viiL 86).

GIFTS AND EXCHANGES. 19

hand, no ' present ' is to be accepted without an equivalent
being rendered." ^ At Samoa,* among the Kingsmill and
Marshall islanders,^ the natives of Central Brazil,* and some
of the Bantu tribes of Eastern Africa,^ a similar under-
standing prevails ; and Livingstone ^ says of the Chiboque
that " they are in the habit of making a present, and then
demanding whatever they choose in return." In Fiji, the
donor, if anything like equality subsist between him and
the donee, expects the return of similar gifts or entertain-
ment ; ^ in Tahiti, and in some parts of New Zealand,
he specifies the object which he desires in return;*
and, in Nigeria, the present which a king sends to
strangers is to be regarded, not as an expression of good-
will, but as the formal demand for a larger present* It is
in Africa that this system is found in fullest operation.
The natives do not sell to the European, but make presents,
extorting from him all his goods, bit by bit, " until " — to
quote a singularly worded sentence — "the unhappy man
finds himself under the necessity of refusing all presents,
and thus giving birth to serious questions affecting the
customs and prejudices of the country." ^®

Sec. II. According to Hyades, the Yahgans of Orange
Bay have no notion of commerce.^^ Wilkes^* says that,
at Orange Harbour, the natives received many presents

1 Man, 340, cp. 94, 389, 392. a wilkes, ii. 127.

5 Wilkes, V. 89; Kohler, "Recht d. Marschallinsulaner," "Zeits. f. vergl.
Rechtsw.," xiv. 440.

* K. von den Steinen, ** Unter den Naturvolkem Zentral- Brazilians," Berlin,

1894, p. 333-
^ Kohler, " Das Banturecht in Ostrafrika," ** Zeits. f. vergl. Rechtsw.," xv. 46.

• " Missionary Travels," 348. ^ Williams and Calvert, i. 42.

^ Cook and King, " A Voyage of Discovery to the Pacific Ocean in the Years
1777-80," London, 1784, ii. 73 ; Shortland, p. 199.
® C. H. Robinson, "Nigeria, Our Latest Protectorate," London, 1900, p. 98.
^® Capello and Ivens, i. 117. " P. 327. ^ I. 122-25.

20 THE SILENT TRADE.

for which they gave their spears, a dog, and some rude
trinkets ; and he observes that they had little idea of the
relative value of things. King ^ speaks of barter at Murray
Narrow, and Darwin ^ says, apparently of Yahgans, that
they " had a fair idea of barter. I gave one man a large
nail (a most valuable present) without making any signs
for a return; but he immediately picked out two fish and
handed them up on the point of his spear. If my present
was designed for one canoe, and it fell near another, it was
invariably given to the right owner." Weddell,^ speaking
of the natives of St. Francis Bay, makes the following
statement. " In the early part of our acquaintance, when-
ever I expressed a desire for any of their small articles,
they gave me them without any return ; but now they had
acquired an idea of barter, and, in exchange for any of
their articles of simple manufacture, they demanded some-
thing bright, as buttons, &c. ; but bits of our hoops were
particularly their objects of esteem." He adds that acquaint-
ance with barter increased the spirit of thieving; — that they
pilfered from one of his vessels in order to sell the stolen
articles at the other. Cook* tells us of the Australians
at Endeavour Bay that " they had no idea of traffic, nor
could we communicate any to them ; they received the
things that we gave them, but never appeared to under-
stand our signs when we required a return. The same
indifference, which prevented them from buying what we
had, prevented them also from attempting to steal. . . .
Many of the things that we had given them we found left
negligently about in the woods, like the playthings of
children, which please only while they are new." When

1 King and Fitz-Roy, i. 444. ^ Id, iii. 241. » Pp. 153, 182.

* Hawkesworth's " Account of Voyages in the Southern Hemisphere/'
London, 1773, iii. 634.

GIFTS AND EXCHANGES, 21

Dampier ^ touched at the north coast of Australia, his men
clothed some of the natives in the expectation that they in
return would carry water for them. They could not make
the natives understand what they wanted, and so carried
the water themselves ; upon which the natives very fairly
put off the clothes. According to Le Vaillant,* the
Hottentots had no notion of commerce at the time of the
first arrival of Europeans at the Cape. Wallis * found it
impossible to establish traffic with the natives a little
northwards of the Straits of Magellan. They seemed
to be desirous of the things which he showed to them ; but
they either could not, or would not, understand that he
required provisions in exchange. Further, it is related of
the inhabitants of that part of the American continent, at
which Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci first
touched, that they had no idea of commerce.* Labillardiere ^
says of the Solomon Islanders that, while they were glad
to receive the presents made to them, it was impossible to
obtain anything from them. It is to be observed, however,
that, from refusal to trade, ignorance of trading is not
necessarily to be inferred ; and there is evidence that not
only the practice of giving and receiving presents, but that
of barter, were known to the ancestors of these islanders.®

Where corroborees take place among the aborigines of
Victoria, there is on the first day " a distribution of presents.

1 " A New Voyage Round the World," Loudon, 1703, i. 467.
2** Voyage dans Tlnterieur de TAfrique dans les Annies 1780-85," Paris,
1790, ii. 120. ' Hawkesworth, i. 373.

* Herrera, " The Grand History ... of America," transl. Stevens, London,
1725, i. 217 ; "A General Collection of Voyages and Discoveries made by the
Portuguese and the Spaniards during the 15th and i6th Centuries," London,
1789, p. 258.

' " Relation du Voyage a la recherche de la P^rouse," Paris, 1797, ii- 264.

• *' The Discovery of the Solomon Islands by A. de Mendafla in 1568,"
London, 1901 (Hakluyt Society), pp. 113, 117, 265, 284, 337, 349, 3Sh 374-

22 THE SILENT TRADE.

and an interchange of such little articles as are peculiar to
the locality from which they come ; one tribe may be rich
in wooden spears, another in reed spears or boomerangs, or
have a fortunate deposit of chinkey-chinkey or crystals of
kolkebanya (talc)."^ We are told of the Samoans that
they carry on a sort of trade during the visits which friend
makes to friend when food is scarce at home, the visitor
bringing with him for purposes of exchange the staple of
his district ; ^ and a very similar usage is found among the
Andaman Islanders.* According to Spencer and Gillen,*
shell ornaments are traded through the Australian
continent from tribes on the north coast, who make
them ; and we shall see ^ that the Kubus and Veddahs
are not unacquainted with the principles of commerce.

The evidence which we have been considering seems to
justify the statement that, in some instances, mercantile
relations subsist between the related groups, and that, in
very many instances, there prevails among them a practice
of giving presents in the expectation of a suitable return
being made. In some cases there is not merely an expecta-
tion, — there is a distinct understanding; and, not infre-
quently, the object desired in return is specified.*

1 W. E. Stanbridge, " Some Particulars of the General Characteristics,
Astronomy and Mythology of the Tribes in the Central Part of Victoria,
Southern Australia," in the "Trans, of Ethno. Soc, N.S.," i. 297. Cp. Short-
land, p. 198. 2 Wilkes, ii. 148, 149. » Man, 389, 392.

* Pp. 544, 575 ; cp. Curr, i. 77. See also S. Gason in regard to " The Dieyerie
Tribe " (in J. D. Woods, " The Native Tribes of South Australia," Adelaide,
1^79* P* 259) ; and in regard to the Narrinyeri Tribe, see below sec. 35,
note. ^ See sec. 26 below.

' It is to be observed that, in soijne cases, conduct, which is explained as due
to ignorance of commerce, is really to be attributed to some other cause, such
as fear, dislike, suspicion, or misunderstanding. See, for an example of mis-
understanding, L. M. D'Albertis, ''New Guinea," London, 1880, ii. 272 ; and
cp. J. Ross, ** A Voyage of Discovery made in H.M.S. Isabella and Alexander
for the purpose of Exploring Baffin's Bay," London, 1819, p. 104.

TEMPORARY UNION. 23

Sec. 12. Occasionally a temporary union of the separ-
ate groups is brought about by the requirements of a
common undertaking. Thus the Bushmen hordes will
combine to hunt or plunder ; ^ among the Western Eskimo
men of different settlements will form a boat's crew to
pursue a common prey, or will join in repelling a common
enemy; 2 the Yahgans will unite in the pursuit of the

^ Lichtenstein, iL 49.

^ J. Simpson, 940; he adds that, "it is only when danger is common that
they will so unite.*' It is interesting to observe in this connection that, even
amongst ±e rudest peoples, there exist means of conveying information from
group to group. Thus Tierra del Fuego derives its name from the numerous
fires by which the natives signalled to one another (Magellan's Voyage, in
A. Dalr3m[iple's " Historical Collection of the several Voyages and Discoveries
in the South Pacific Ocean," London, 1769, p. 27); and lichtenstein (ii. 196,
cp. W. J. Burchell, "Travels in the Interior of South Africa," London, 1822,
i. 434 ; ii. 196), tells us of the Bushmen that *' by means of fires on the summits
of the mountains they will indicate to each other the numbers of a herd or
flock which they mean to plunder, with the means of defence that the people
have who are guarding them." Macgillivray (** Narrative of the Voyage of
H.M.S. Rattlestiake^' London, 1852, ii. 7) says of the Australian natives near
Cape York, that " the presence of an enemy upon the coast, a wish to com-
municate with another party at a distance, or the want of assistance, may be
denoted by making a small fire, which, as soon as it has given out a little
volume of smoke, is suddenly extinguished. ... If not answered immediately,
it is repeated ; if still unanswered, a large fire is got up, and allowed to bum
until an answer is returned." Spencer and Gillen (16 note) are of opinion that,
among the Central Australians, these smokes convey no more than the actual
presence of those who make them. Among the Central Califomians (Ban-
croft, i. 380) and the Snake Indians (J. de Smet, " Voyages aux Montagnes
Rocheuses," nouvelle edition, Bruxelles et Paris, 1873, p. 30) the intelligence
of hostile invasion is announced by such signals ; the natives of New Mexico
use them to summon aid (Bancroft, i. 580) ; and the Apaches have a regular
system of signalling in the day-time by smoke, and at night by fire-beacons
(A/, ib, 497). Fire signals are also used in some parts of the South Seas, —
^.^., at Tanna (Turner, "Nineteen Years in Polynesia,*' p. 326). In
Nigeria "a few beats of the drum will explain to the people to whom
he is coming, whether" the European traveller **is to be received as a
friend or an enemy, whether his party is large or small, and similar details of
interest" (Robinson, 48) ; and we have like accounts of the Mang-bettou
(J. Burrows, "The Land of the Pigmies," London, 1898, p. 83), of the

24 THE SILENT TRADE.

murderer;^ and the groups of the Arunta, which are
locally contiguous, frequently meet to perform ceremonies.^
Sometimes even unrelated tribes are forced into alliance
by the pressure of a powerful neighbour.^

Sec. 13. The Yahgans have neither kings nor chiefs,
castes nor classes. Still they recognise the superiority
that belongs to wisdom or daring. The wizard-doctor
holds among them a position of influence ; and, in the
family, the word of an old man is accepted as law.* In
Australia, the father of the family rules in his own circle ;
and, while the elders discuss and decide questions of
importance to the community, and announce their views to
the assembled tribesmen, they exercise little or no author-
ity save that of personal influence, each head of a family
being left free to act as he may think proper.^ Still, each
member must in a general way comply with the usages of
his tribe. Were he to persist in disregarding them he
would suffer death at the hands of his fellow-tribesmen.
Within the family group of the Veddahs, the authority of
the headman, who is usually the most energetic of the
seniors, is limited, in the ordinary case, to regulating the
distribution of food.® The Kubus have no chiefs ; ^ their
elders, however, settle disputes, and award punishments.^

natives of the White Nile, and in Kaffa (Waitz-Gerland, ii. 164), and of
some of the Brazilian tribes (C. F. Ph. von Martius, p. 20 ; R. Southey,
** History of Brazil," London, 1810-19 ; i. 341).

^ See above, sec. 9. ^ Spencer and Gillen, 14.

^ The association of the Shoshonees and the Flatheads, mentioned by Lewis
and Clarke (ii. 162), seems to be a case in point. It may be noted that,
according to R. Parkinson (** Im Bismark-Archipel," Leipzig, 1887, p. 137),
tribes, in those islands, living in peace and friendship, assist one another in
time of war.

* King and Fitz-Roy, ii. 178 seg, ; Hyades, 327 ; Wilkes, i. 124.

* Curr, i. 59 ; see Spencer and Gillen, p. 102.

^ £. Tennant, "Ceylon,'' third edition, London, 1859 ; ii. 440.

' Globus, xxvi. 44. 8 Forbes, " A Naturalist's Wanderings," 243.

PUBLIC OPINION. 25

The Western Eskimo acknowledge the influence of those
who are skilful and enterprising ; but they do not recognise
any established control or chieftianship ; ^ and among the
Snake Indians, there is little social organisation except
during the hunting and fishing seasons. At those times a
large number of tribesmen are collected together, and
" some person, called a chief, usually opens a trade or talk,
and occasionally gives directions as to the methods to be
pursued in capturing the fish or game." ^

Sec. 14. But, while we may be unable to trace amongst
these peoples the presence of a permanent tribal authority
capable of restraining and coercing the separate groups,
we do find in many of them a force yi^hich compels recogni-
tion and obedience. Man, so far M he is known to us,
" is influenced in the highest degree by the wishes, appro-
bation, and blame of his fellow-men." ^ Thus, so great is
the desire to obtain a reputation for liberality among the
tribes south of the Yukon River, that a man will beggar
himself by giving away the accumulations of many years,
without looking for a return.* So, too, the Aht is said to
destroy his property to show his indifference to wealth ; ^
while, to show that he is wealthy, the Aru islander will pay
the debts of his poorer brethren.® Nor is the desire of
praise more potent as a factor in conduct than the fear of
disapproval. Spencer and GillenJ in speaking of the

^ J. Simpson, 940. ^ Schoolcraft, i. 207. ' Darwin, i. 167.

* Dall, 151. Similar accounts are given of the Western Eskimo
<Rink, 28, 29), of the Ahts (Sproat, 112, 113), of the Natives of Vancouver's
Island (Macfie, 429), and of the Upper Californians (Kastromitanow in v.
Wrangell, i. 92). ^ Bancroft, i. 191.

« D. H. Kolff, "Voyages of the Dutch Brig of War, Dourga,'' transl.
G. W. Earl, London, 1840, p. 164.

^ P. 510; cp. p. II, where it is said that **the Australian native is bound
hand and foot by custom. What his fathers did before him that he must do,

26 THE SILENT TRADE.

custom in accordance with which the mourner cuts and
hacks himself, and utters loud lamentations, say that
" there is nothing which a black-fellow is so sensitive to as
the contempt and ridicule of his fellows to which non-
compliance with a custom such as this will expose him ;
the excessive display being due to the fact that it is a
tribal custom, and as such has a very strong hold upon the
imagination of a people whose every action is bound and
limited by custom." The Indians of Guiana are actuated
" by their dread of adverse public opinion should they act
contrary to . . . tradition ; " ^ and a similar statement is
made regarding the Ojibways.^ Among the Dog-rib
Indians " order is maintained solely by public opinion;'*^
and, according to Bridges,* public opinion plays no small
part in Yahgan social life. Crantz ^ observes that '* nothing
so effectively restrains a Greenlander from vice as the
dread of public disgrace ; " and it is to this dread that the
curious singing contests which he describes owe their
moral influence.

Sec. 15. The observance of custom is not infrequently

. . . any infringement of custom, within certain limitations, is visited with
sure and often severe punishment." See also p. 15. ^ Im Thurn, 213.

' Copway, "The Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation," London,
1850, p. 144. ^ Richardson, ii. 26.

* Hyades et Deniker, 243. When the Yahgan steals women or arms, he
tries to hide his theft. Public opinion is satisfied only when the guilty person
is discovered and punished. The murderer is either slain or treated as an
outcast.

* ** The History of Greenland," London, 1820, p. 165. He tells us that
when a Greenlander thinks himself aggrieved, he challenges the person who
has committed the oflfensive act to a " singing-combat.*' Each party satirises
and lampoons the other, and the contest continues until one of them is reduced
to silence. *' He who has the last word wins the trial, and obtains henceforth
a reputable name." This practice "serves a higher purpose than mere
diversion. It is an excellent opportunity for putting immorality to the blush
and cherishing virtuous principles " (pp. 164, 165).

LAND-RIGHTS AND BOUNDARIES. 27

secured by the belief that its breach will be attended with
disastrous consequences. Thus, Curr^ tells us that the
Australian "black is educated from infancy in the belief
that departure from the customs of his tribe is inevitably
followed by one at least of many evils, such as becoming
grey, ophthalmia, skin eruptions, or skin sickness ; but
above all, that it exposes the offender to the danger of
death from sorcery."

Sec. 16. As to the rights of individuals and groups
within the tribe in the tribal territory, we find considerable
diversity of view. It is said of the Veddahs that " they have
their bounds in the woods among themselves, and one
company of them is not to shoot, nor gather honey or fruit
beyond those bounds." ^ The members of an Australian
tribe exclude all strange tribesmen from the tract of
country which they occupy in common. At the same
time, it is an undoubted fact, that, in many tribes, the land
is divided into portions, each of which is the property of
a group, or even of a single male.^ Between the Western
Eskimo and the Indians, their neighbours, there is the
greatest jealousy with respect to their boundaries. Any
man of either race found upon the wrong side of the line,
is liable to be shot at sight. There is, however, a tacit
understanding that he who kills a deer on the wrong side
of the boundary, may keep the meat, if he leave the skin at
the nearest village on that side.* It is said of the Ojibways
and Sioux that the right of possession in hunting and fish-
ing grounds is one of their main subjects of dispute ;^ and
of the Puenches, that if they meet within a district, which

' I. 54, 55.

* Knox, " Historical Relations of the Island of Ceylon," London, 1681, p. 63.
' Grey, ii. 232-36 ; Eyre, ii. 297 ; Spencer and Gillen, 7 ; Curr, i. 61-65.

* Dall, 144. '^ Copway, 21, 55.

28 THE SILENT TRADE.

they have been taught by tradition to regard as their own,
one of another tribe, war is the immediate result.^ In
Brazil, each tribe has its hunting grounds marked by well-
defined boundaries ; and a disregard of these is one of the
most frequent causes of hostilities.^ And since a popula-
tion, which derives its main support from the buffalo or the
rein-deer, must follow their migrations, a sub-division of
the soil would be useless in practice. Accordingly, the
Indians, who occupy the country north of Great Slave
Lake, use the land as a possession common to all the
tribesmen.* The Abipones do not recognise exclusive
rights of hunting or fishing.* Among the Wood Crees,
however, and other tribes related to them, each family has
its own hunting-ground.*

On the whole, the evidence goes to show that, to what-
ever extent the views of one tribe may differ from those of
another regarding the rights of individuals or of groups of
individuals in the tribal land, they are agreed in this, —
that the tribe has exclusive rights in it as against the
stranger.

Sec. 17. The boundaries of the tribal territory are, in
general, clearly defined. The forest or the river, the lake,
the mountain, or the water-shed supplies a landmark.*

^ Poppig, i. 387. Similarly the Bedouin asserts an immemorial and inalien-
able right to the lands upon which his fathers fed their flocks (R. F. Burton,
** Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to £1-Medinah and Meccah," London,
1855, iii. 86. See also Riedel, 297, as to the inhabitants of Timor-Iaut).

* C. F. Ph. von Martius, 35 ; Southey, i. 118. Schoolcraft (i. 227) observes
that ** it has been noticed that all buffalo countries are the war-grounds of
several tribes.'* See also Riedel, 298, as to the natives of Timor-laut.

3 Rae, '* Joum. of the Anthrop. Inst./' xii. 274 ; cp. Richardson, i. 351.

* Dobritzhoflfer, ii. no. ^ Rae, ubisupr, cit,

^ See Dall, 144 ; C. F. Ph. von Martius, 35 ; Dargun, '* Ursprung u. Entwick-
lungs- Gesch. d. Eigenthums;" "Zeits. f. vergl. Rechtsw.," v. 51; Riedel, 408,
et passim; Spencer and Gillen, 8.

<;

BOUNDARIES. 29^

But, even at a very early period, artificial boundaries were
recognised. Sometimes one people was divided from
another by a vast stretch of uncultivated land. Thus
Caesar^ says of the German tribes, "civitatibus maxima
laus est quam latissime circum se vastatis finibus solitu-
dines habere. Hoc proprium virtutis existimant, expulsos
agris finitimos cedere neque quemquam prope audere con«
sistere ; simul hoc se fore tutiores arbitrantur, repentina&
incursionis timore sublato.'* Sometimes a line of separa-
tion was marked by some object, such as an upright stone.
Thus Ammianus Marcellinus ^ speaks of a district " ubi
terminales lapides Alamannorum et Burgundiorum con-
finia distinguebant." In many cases, these boundaries were
considered to be under the protection of supernatural
powers. Dulaure ^ observes that it was only natural that
the border-land should be regarded as holy ground. It
was a waste — wild, solitary, and mysterious. Within it lay
lakes, mountains, and rivers, — objects of veneration and
worship, — and the burial places of those who had fallen
fighting in its defence. Its very aspect was awe inspiring ;
and it was associated with all men reverence most and
hold most dear. Whatever truth there may be in this
explanation, it is evident, on the mere statement of it, that
it is based upon a set of very special facts, and that,
accordingly, it can have only a very limited application.
This limitation is recognised by Lord Avebury,* in an

1 De Bell. Gall. vi. 23 ; cp. iv. 3.

® xviii. 2, 15. As to the stelae used in Egypt to mark boundaries, see
Maspero, " The Dawn of Civilisation ; Egypt and Chaldea ; '* transl.
M*Clure, third edition, London, 1897, p. 329 ; R. v. Ihering, ** Vorgeschichte
d. Indoeuropaer," p. 263.

' Des Cultes qui ont pr^c^e et am^n^ Tidolatrie, Paris, 1805, p. no seq,

* "Origin of Civilisation, and the Primitive Condition of Man," sixth,
edition, London, p. 318.

30 THE SILENT TRADE.

interesting passage in which he undertakes to show how,
in some cases, boundary stones, by being identified with
the upright stones, which symboh'sed Hermes or Mercury,
came to be regarded as sacred. We have already noted ^
that, among the aborigines of Brazil, the paj^s take an
active part in the settlement of the boundaries of the tribal
hunting grounds, performing many magical rites and cere-
monies, with the usual accompaniments of smoking and
■drumming ; and that sometimes baskets, rags, and strips
of bark are attached to the objects which mark the divid-
ing line. These, we take it, are " djii-dju articles," — " pieces
of medicine," — by the use of which the boundary is made
sacred ; placed, that is to say, under the protection of
supernatural powers, who will see to the punishment of any
stranger who may venture to cross it.

III.
The Stranger,

Sec. 1 8. The evidence of language illustrates the inten-
sity of the dislike with which the savage regards the stranger.
Thus, the fact that many national names mean nothing
more than "men," "people," seems to indicate that those who
employ them regard the rest of mankind as scarcely human.^

^ See above, sec. 8, note.

2 Burton gives a number of examples taken from South and Central America
("The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse in a.d. 1547- 1555, among the Wild
Tribes of Eastern Brazil," London, 1874 (Hakluyt Society), Ixx., Ixxi. ; see
also im Thum, 158) ; and further instances are supplied by certain North
American Tribes (Bancroft, i. 94, 474) ; the natives of Fernando Po (Hans
Stade, loc, ciL) ; the Eskimo (Bancroft, i. 140 ; Crantz, i. 123) ; the Narrinyeri
of South Australia (G. Taplin, in J. D. Wood's " The Native Tribes of South
Australia," p. i) ; the Ainu of Japan (J. Batchelor, "The Ainu of Japan,"
London, 1892, p. 16) ; some of the islanders of the Nicobar group (Waitz-
Gerland, v. (Th. i.) 81) ; the Namaquas (Kohler, "Das Recht d. Hottentot-

HATRED OF STRANGER. 31

The Tupis of Brazil call everyone who is not of their race
by a term which signifies "barbarian," "savage," or
" stranger " ; ^ and with this mode of speech Burton *
compares the use of the " Hebrew Goyi (Gentile), the Hindu
Mlenchla (mixed or impure breed), the Greek j3apl3apo^,
the Latin Barbarus,^ and the Chinese Fan Kwei (foreign
devil)."

The tribes of the Congo* and upper Beniie,^ and the
Abipones® regard every stranger as an enemy; and, among
the Australian tribes, strangers look upon one another with
the deadliest hatred.^ The heathen Gallas murder every
stranger who is not under the protection of their chief ; ®
and it was said of the heathen Russians that it was death

ten;'* "Zeits. f. vergl. Rechtsw.," xv. 337); and other Australian tribes
(L. Fison and A. W. Howitt, "Kamilaroi and Kurnai," Melbourne,
18S0, pp. 187, 275). As to the Kamchadales, see G. N. Steller " Besch-
reibung von d. Lande Kamtschatka," Frankfurt u. Leipzig, 1774, p. 3.
According to R. H. Codrington ("The Melanesians," Oxford, 1891, p. 21) ;
the natives in some of the Melanesian groups, when asked who they were,
answered that they were men — that is to say, living men, not ghosts or
demons. They took their visitors to be ghosts or spirits belonging to the sea.
Cp. Man's (loi) statement r^;arding the Andaman Islanders.

^ Hans Stade, Ixx. ; cp. C. F. Ph. von Martius, 7. So, too, among the
Chippeways, the word signifying ** stranger " is used in the sense of " enemy "
(W. H. Keating, " Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of the St. Peter's
River ... in the year 1823," London, 1825, i. 336). See below, sec 41, note.

2 Hans Stade, Ixx. ' Cp. Grimm, D. R.-A., 396.

^ Bastian, " Ein Besuch in San Salvador," 62.

** A. F. Mockler-Ferryman, ** Up the Niger," London, 1892, p. 85.

^ Dobritzhoffer, i. 63.

' Curr, i. 64, 84. " There is no such thing as one tribe being in a constant,
state of enmity with another so far as these central tribes are concerned "
(Spencer and Gillen, 32). There is a great diversity of custom among Australian
tribes ; while at the same time they have much in common (Id, p. 34).

8 Krapf, 82 : as to the Somali, see G. A. Haggenmacher, ** Reise in Somali-
Lande," 1874 (** Erganzungshaft, No. 47 zu Petermann's Geogr. Mitth."),
Gotha, 1876, pp. 30, 31. The foreigner at Rome, unless under the protection
of a patron, was beyond the pale of the law (Mommsen, " History of Rome,"
transl. Dickson, London, 1867, i. 165).

32 THE SILENT TRADE.

for a stranger to enter their country.^ The Yahgan dares
not go where he is a stranger or where he has no friends ; ^
and Livingstone* makes a statement to the same effect
with reg'ard to the Manyuema. So, too, a western Eskimo
will not undertake a distant journey among strangers
unless in the company of those who can assure him of
a welcome.*

The stranger is always feared ; sometimes because he is
thought to have a more powerful fetish, and, in that case^
he may be killed or perhaps sacrificed to bring blessings on
the land ; ^ and sometimes because he has the reputation of
a sorcerer,^ or of being endowed with supernatural powers/
Thus it is said of the Australian natives that "sorcery
makes them fear and hate every man not of their own
coterie, suspicious of every man not of their own tribe ; it
tends to keep them in small communities, and is the great
bar to social progress." ® Maine ^ observes of the stranger

1 C. M. Frahn, " Ibn Foszlan's u. Anderer Araber Berichte tiber die
Russen alterer Zeit," St. Petersburg, 1823, p. 51. " No Greek," says Cunning-
hame ("An Essay on Western Civilisation in its Economic Aspects " (Ancient
Times), Cambridge, 1898 ; p. 75 ; cp. B. W. Leist, ** Civilistische Studien auf
d. Gebiete dogmatischer Analyse," Jena, 1877, iv. 70 se^,)^ ** was ever at home
in another Greek city than his own ; he was liable to be sold in a city in which
he had no rights and no status." ^ Bridges, trad. Hyades, 180.

8 "The Last Journals," London, 1874, ii. 70.

* J. Simpson, 926. On the authority of Boas (6th Amer. Report of the
Bureau of Ethnology, Washington) Kohler states that among the Innuit the
stranger must engage in a fight with the tribesmen. If he be vanquished he
may be killed; if successful, he is treated as a guest (''Die Rechte d.
Urvolker Nordamerikas," *' Zeit. f. vergl. Rechtsw.," xii. 363. It may be' noted
that, in New Guinea, a stranger from a hostile tribe can visit in safety villages
where the clan of his totem is strong (A. C. Haddon, ** Head- Hunters, Blacky
White, and Brown," London, 1901, pp. 103, 135).

' Bastian, '* Ein Besuch in San Salvador," 104.

^ Curr, i. 85. ^ Hyades et Deniker, 16. ^ ^^jy^ j ^q

* "Ancient Law," fourth edition, London, 1870, p. 125 ; cp. W. W. Hunter^
"Orissa," Liondon, 1872, i. 175; Cadamosto, in "A General Collection of
Voyages and Discoveries made by the Portuguese and the Spaniards during

STRANGER IS WITHOUT RIGHTS. 33

that, if his aspect be strange, and his language unintelligible,
if his culture be of a lower, or at least of an unfamiliar type,
he is likely to be regarded as something less than human
and more than brutish, as a monster, perhaps as a demon.

Sec. 19. The stranger is everywhere looked upon as a
being without rights. Thus, according to old German law,
he had no claim to participate in the peace or protection
enjoyed by the district in which he found himself ; nor had
he a wergild.^ To this conception is to be attributed the
horror with which the ancients regarded exile,^ and the
misery of the outlaw's position.^ There was no place for
the man who had lost or broken the ties which bound him
to his family and his tribe. He must either perish of
want, or find his death at the hands of his enemies.^ In
Sumatra the outlawed spendthrift is sent forth as a deer to
the woods, no longer to enjoy the privileges of society ; ^
and, in old Germany, the criminal, expelled from the com-
panionship of his fellow-men, took his place with the beasts
of the forest.® It may be noted that the position of the

the 15th and i6th centuries," London, 1789, p. 58 ; J. Barbot, **A Description
of the Coasts of North and South Guinea," in ChurchhilPs "Collection of
Voyages and Travels," London, 1707-47, v. 79. See sec. 26 below.

1 Grimm, D. R.-A., 397 ; K. Weinhold, " Altnordisches Leben," Berlin,
1856, p. 472. But see Wilda, 673, and the authorities cited in Goldschmidt,
p. 120.

2 R. V. Ihering, ** Geist d. R. R.," 228; O. Schrader, " Handelsgeschichte
und Warenkunde," Jena, 1886, p. 7.

^ Language supplies us with clear indications of the impression which the lot '
of the stranger and outcast made upon the mind of primitive man. Thus, the
German **elend," the English "wretch," and a whole series of terms, which
originally signified "the alien" or "the outcast," have come to mean "the
miserable " or " the unfortunate " (Schrader, loc, cit,^ 7 ; cp. Grimm, D.
R.-A., 396 J^^.).

^ Bridges, trad. Hyades, 177 ; Hyades et Deniker, 241 (Yahgans) ; Curr,
i. 62 ; " Waitz-Gerland,'* vi. 794 (Natives of Australia). ^ Marsden, 207.

•The middle Latin "wargus," — ue, "expulsus," is also the name of the
wolf) and thus the two conceptions, — that of the wild beast to be hunted

3

34 THE SILENT TRADE.

homo sacer of Roman law } was very similar to that occu-
pied by the outcast of the Vedas.^ According to the old
law of Iceland, the outlaw lost not only public but family
rights. His property was confiscated, his house was burnt
down, a price was set on his head, and whoever met him
might kill him — was, indeed, by duty bound so to do. His
wife, his children, and his relations were forbidden to com-
municate with him, or afford to him the slightest assistance.^
The same view is indicated by the usage, prevalent
among many peoples, of punishing the thief only when he
steals from a compatriot. Thus, it has been said that in
Gaul '* latrocinia nullam habent infamiam quae extra fines
cujusque civitatis fiunt."* Among the gipsies of Tran-
sylvania, a man may steal from the " white people " with
impunity ; but, if he steal from a fellow-tribesman, he is
treated as a criminal.* This distinction is recognised by
the Fijians,® the Batta,^ the Eskimo at Kotzebue Sound ^
and near Cape Bathurst,* the people of Ratak,^^ the Mandin-
goes,^^ the Puenches," and the Albanians ;^ and, in Kundma,

down, and that of the man to be treated as a wild beast, — ^are intimately
associated (Wilda, 280; Grimm, D. R.-A., 733).

1 R. von Ihering, " Geist d. R. R.," i. 281 ; B. W. Leist, •* Graeco-Italische
Rechts-Gesch.," Jena, 1884, p. 319.

* H. Zimmer, ** Altindisches Leben," Beriin, 1879, P- ^85.

» Wilda, 281-296. 4 Osar, " De Bell. Gall.," vi. 22.

' Post, **Grundriss,'* i. 449, note i, citing as his authority, Von Wlislocki,
'* Von Wanderden Zigeunervolke," 1890, p. 78. • Williams and Calvert, i. 127.

' W. Marsden, " The History of Sumatra," London, 1783, pp. 299, 300.

^ Seemann, ** Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Herald during the years
1^5-51/' London, 1853, ii. 65 ; see, however, J. Simpson, 926.

* Richardson, i. 352.

^* O. V. Kotzebue, ** A Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea and Behrings
Straits in the years 1815-1818," London, 1821, ii. 73.

^ R. Cailli^, *< Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo," London, 1830,
i. 353. ^ Poppig, i. 391.

" A. Bastian, *' Die Rechtsverhaltnisse bei Verschiedenen Volkern d. Erde,"
Berlin, 1872, p. 228.

STRANGER IS WITHOUT RIGHTS. 35

while pilfering is despised, the robbery of tribal enemies is
held in honour.^

A similar conception seems to have found expression in
early customs relating to shipwrecked persons. Formerly,
the natives of Fiji used to kill and devour even those of
their own race who were cast ashore.^ The Yahgans kill
shipwrecked crews, partly because they mistrust all strangers,
and partly from a desire to possess themselves of their
goods without trouble or discussion ; ^ and, in its most
rigorous form, the old law of wreck, which prevailed in
many parts of Europe and elsewhere throughout the
Middle Ages, not only effected the forfeiture of the goods
of the castaway, but attached his person.*

Sec. 20. The conception that the stranger is an enemy
is generally held most strongly by that portion of a popula-
tion which lies farthest from its borders. Thus, while those
of the Yahgans, who have no personal knowledge of the
Ona, regard them with fear and hatred, those who, are their
immediate neighbours intermarry with them; and from

^ W. Munzinger, *' Ostafrikanische Studien," Schaffhausen, 1S64, p. 384. On
the Congo petty theft is regarded as worthy of a slave, open robbery as worthy
of a great man (Waitz-Gerland, ii. 218 ; cp. G. W. Dasent, "The Story of
Burnt Njal, ..." E^nburgh, 1861, i. xxxiv.) ; and the Ossetes, a hospitable
race, do not look upon robbery as a crime ; *' what a man finds on the highroad
is God's gift " (Von Haxthausen, "Transcaucasia," London, 1854, pp. 398, 411.

^ Williams and Calvert, i. 210 ; J. E. Erskine, ** Journal of a Cruise among
the Islands of the Western Pacific," London, 1853, p. 220, cp. p. 229.

* Bridges, trad. Hyades, 180.

* W. Roscher, " System d. Volkswirthschaft," 7te Aufl., Stuttgart, 1899,
iii. 139, 141 ; cp. Hume, " Commentaries on the Law of Scotland respecting
Crimes," fourth edition, Edinburgh, 1844, i. 485. See also W. Pappafava,
" Uber die Bttrgerliche Rechtsstellung d. Fremden," ubersetz von Leesberg,
Pola, 1884, p. 16. Among the Arabs, the wreck fell to the Emir, while the
common people stripped the seamen and passengers (D'Arvieux, ** Travels in
Arabia, the Desert," second edition, London, 1723, pp. 191 seq,, cp. pp. 6Sseq,).
In Borneo, wrecks and their crews belong to the chief of the district where the
disaster takes place (St. John, ii. 292). As to the New Zealander, see Polack, ii.

36 THE SILENT TRADE.

this intercourse has resulted a reciprocal knowledge of
two languages, and a mutual assimilation of manners and
modes of life.^ So, too, Spencer and Gillen ^ speak of the
Arunta, and the tribes in contact with them, as influencing
one another in matters of usage.

IV.

Summary.

Sec. 21. In the preceding pages we have noted those
characteristics of primitive man which appear to be relevant
to the subject of our inquiry. Save that he is possessed of
weapons and implements, he follows, in the main, the
methods of the lower animals in procuring his daily food.
In other words, he lives upon what he can kill or find, and
does nothing to replace what he has consumed. It is
obvious that, by pursuing such a mode of life, even a few per-

68. When a merchant died in a foreign land, it not infrequently happened that
the king took all his property (Marco Polo, tsansl. and ed. by Col. Henry Yule,
second edition, London, 1875, ^* ^^^ (Hormuz) ; H. Yule, "Cathay and the
Way Thither," London, 1866; (Hakluyt Society), ii. 292 (Central Asia)).
In Cathay, however, the deceased's brother, if with him, or a comrade calling
himself his brother, received his goods {Id, ib. See also " India in the
Fifteenth Century . . . Account of the Journey of H. di Santo Stefano,"
London, 1857 (Hakluyt Society), p. 7) ; and a similar rule prevailed in Lesser
Armenia (Yule, ** Cathay," ii. 292, note), and in the case of a deceased hadjy
(J. L. Burckhart, "Travels in Arabia,'* p. 290). Ibn Batuta ("Voyages . . .
par C. Defr^meny et B. R. Sanguinetti," Paris, 1853-58, iy. 421) observes that, at
Melli, in the Soudan, the successors of a deceased traveller obtained his property.
They were not always so fortunate in Europe during the Middle Ages ; see
Goldschmidt, p. 121.

* Hyades et Deniker, 15 ; Humboldt ("Personal Narrative of Travels to the
Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent during the years 1799-1804," transl.
Williams, London, 18 14, v. 270) observes of the American tribes between
the Equator and the eighth degree of north latitude that their mutual mistrust
is greatly intensified by the fact that they are broken up into little bands, each
speaking its own language, which appears to be radically distinct from those,
spoken by its neighbours. ^ P» 306.

SUMMARY. 2>7

sons would speedily exhaust the resources of any one spot ;
and so we find that a population of rude hunters or fisher-
men scatters itself over a wide area in small family-groups.
The family-group varies in size and composition. It
consists generally of one or two families. The men protect
the women and children, and hunt for their support. The
women procure food not only for themselves and their little
ones, but for their masters ; and thus, by relieving them of
the necessity of providing for the wants of the moment,
enable them to follow the game in its migrations, and to
employ, in pursuing it, methods which yield no immediate
result This association of the sexes tends to become a
permanent association. Were it called into existence only
or even mainly by the cravings of passing appetite, it would,
in all likelihood, be dissolved so soon as they were gratified.
It is brought about rather by the constant pressure of a
common need, — the need of help in the struggle for life ;
and it is just because this struggle is unceasing that the
formation of alliances more or less permanent is essential
to the survival of those engaged in it. The benefits derived
from this union of forces are not confined to the men and
women concerned, but extend to their children. It assures
to the spouses the means of subsistence, to the offspring a
measure of parental care. It need hardly be said that the
relations of the members of the group inter se are not
those of free persons, conscious of a common aim and
seeking to realise it by common action. In the majority
of the instances which we have considered, the woman is
obtained in return for services rendered or in exchange for
presents. Her inclinations are not consulted, and she is
regarded and treated as a general drudge, owned by the
man, just as he owns his weapons, his dogs, and his
ornaments.

40 THE SILENT TRADE.

that certain Europeans were unable to establish a traffic
with certain savages. It may well be that refusal to trade
is due, not to ignorance of trading, but to fear or suspicion
or misunderstanding ; and, besides, a savage may be ready
enough to trade with one of his own tribe, while he will
decline to hold communication of any kind whatsoever
with an unknown stranger.

Sec. 25. The association of groups forms for its mem-
bers the world of possible existence, and in it the stranger
has neither part nor place. It is not robbery to strip him
of his goods, nor is it murder to kill him, for he is outside
of the sphere within which alone rights are recognised and
enforced. He is looked upon as a mortal enemy, whose
life is a constant menace to the well-being of the com-
munity ; andy accordingly, it is a public duty, incumbent
upon each and all, to hunt him down and slay him like a
beast of prey.

This attitude of exclusiveness cannot, however, be per-
manently maintained except by a society which is wholly
self-sufficing and wholly unprogressive. For so soon as
men fail to find in the association to which they belong the
satisfaction of their desires and the supply of their wants,
they are compelled to go beyond it, and to enter into
relations of some sort with the surrounding populations.
To take all and give nothing is the line of action which
naturally enough commends itself to the savage in his
dealings with strangers. Still, a course of violence has its
inconveniences ; it is uncertain in its results, it is danger-
ous in itself, and it involves dangerous consequences ;
and, accordingly, many primitive peoples resort to a
practice by means of which they can obtain, without the
exercise of force, what they require from those who are
strangers to them, and, therefore, their enemies.

II.— THE SILENT TRADE AND THE
PRIMITIVE MARKET.

The Silent Trade.

Sec. 26. Every reader of Scott will remember the use
which he makes in " Kenilworth " of the legend of Way-
land Smith. The smith, according to tradition, dwelt in
former times in the midst of a heap of rude stones at the
foot of White Horse Hill in Berkshire. No one ever saw
him, but his services were easily obtainable by anyone who
required a horse to be shod. It sufficed to leave it among
the stones with a piece of money placed on one of them.
After the lapse of a reasonable time, the horse was found
shod, and the money gone.^ Traces of this silent trade are

* Wayland Smith, ** A Dissertation on a Tradition of the Middle Ages,"
from the French of G. B. Depping and Francisque Michel, with additions by
S. W. Singer, London, 1847, xxxv. A similar story regarding a legendary
smith near Osnaburgh is still current in Lower Saxony (/</. ib, xliv.). The
authors (p. Ixviii.), quote a passage of the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius,
iv. 761, regarding Hephaistos, which is in striking correspondence with the
English legend : — 'Bv r% Aiirdpq, Kal ^rpoyy^Xri . . . Soicei 6 *^0a(0Tos
SiarpipeiP* dV 6 koX irvpbs Pp6fAov dKo^effdai Kal ffxov a^oSpdv, rb Si iraKaibv
iXiycTo, t6v fiovXdfievov dpybv ciSvipov iTi<f>ip€iv Kal riiv aOpiov iXdbma
\afipd»€iv fj ^i<l>os fj et rt AXXo ifdeXe KoratrKevdiraif KarapaXdm-a fiurOdv,
They tell us also that some of the German traditions place the smith's work-
shop in the Caucasus, — a country celebrated for the armour wrought by its
people ; and they say that " there is in these mountains an isolated community,
consisting of about 1200 families, who excel in the fabrication of arms ; they
are called CouveUkts, They defend their territory against intruding strangers,

41

42 THE SILENT TRADE.

to be found in every quarter of the globe. In its simplest
form, it is a transaction by way of exchange between
persons who not only do not address, but do not see, one
another. Thus, Ibn Batuta^ informs us that he was told in
Bolghar of a land of darkness, at a distance of forty days'
journey, where, when the travellers have arrived, each of
them lays down at a certain spot the wares which he has
brought with him, and then retires. Next day he returns
and finds placed opposite to his goods, sables, ermines, and
other furs. If satisfied with what he finds, he takes it
away. If not, he leaves it, and the inhabitants of the
country add something more to it. Sometimes, however,
the natives take back their goods, and leave those of the
merchants. The latter do not know whether those with
whom they deal are genii or men, for they never see them.
Bakuwi ^ and Kazwini * give a precisely similar account of
the commerce between the inhabitants of Bolghar and
tribes living on the banks of the Bielo Osero,* Abulfeda,^

and only sell the products of their manufacture at a village situated at the
extremity of their valley. . . . It is possible that the celebrity of these
armourers had penetrated in the Middle Ages even into Europe, and that it
gave rise to tales which may have been confounded with those the Scandi-
navians made regarding Weyland.'* We shall see that a connection such as is
here suggested between a tribe which traffics only on its borders, and a legend
which tells of a trade between persons unseen by one another, has a special
interest in relation to the matter in hand. ^ I. 401.

^ "Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Biblioth^ue du Roi . . .
Academie royale des Inscriptions et Belles- Lettres," Paris, 1789, ii. 543.
• Quoted by Frahn, " Ibn Foszlan," 210. * See Frahn, loc, ciUy 205 seq,
^ Transl. by Reiske in BUsching's " Magasin f. die neue Historic u.
Geographie," Hamburg, 1771, v. 359, thus: — ** In Russorum Septentrione
sunt illae gentes, quae per absentiam suam cum peregrinis mercantur.
Quod d fieri narrat aliquis, qui eo iter instituit. Ait, eos esse finiti-
mos litori maris septentrionalis. Quando itaque catervae itineratorum
pervenerint ad ipsorum limites, tum subsistere, donee indigenae resciscant
Dein mercatorem suam quemque mercem signo notato exponere in loco
emtionis et venditionis noto atque destinato, Mercatoribus porro digressis
ad diversoria sua, accedere illam gentem, et ponere . . . mustelarum

THE SILENT TRADE. 43

of a tribe on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and Heber-
stein/ of tribes in the neighbourhood of the River Obi ;
while, according to Paulus Jovius,* the Lapps traded, " yet
so that the flye the syght and ccompagnie of all merchantes.
. . . They bargayne with simple fayth with absent and
unknowen men." Massudi^ says that this method of
exchange was practised in the remotest parts of Khorasan,
and by merchants from Segelmessa in trading with a tribe
which lived on the farther bank of a great river ; Bakuwi *
speaks of it as in use by the inhabitants of the Belad al
Tibri, a country about three months' journey from Segel-
messa ; and it was well known to the Arabs engaged in the
salt trade with the blacks of the Gambia.^ The same story
is told upon the authority of Arab traders of tribes
on the Niger,* and in Guinea,^ and of a nation near
Wangara.® In the instance last mentioned, the invisible

Scythicarum pelles et vulpium et alia similia, eaque omnia relinquere, et domum
suam discedere. Turn redire mercetores, et eum quidem, cui placeat permutatio
merdum, sumere Scythicas illas merces ; cui vero non placeat, eum relinquere
suas merces, donee tandem content! uterque discedant et dirimantur."

^ " Notes upon Russia : being a translation of the earliest account of that
country, . . ." 1852, London, 1851-52 (Hakluyt Society), ii. 40.

2 lb,, ii. 255.

* ** Les Prairies d*Or," par Barbier de Maynard et Pavet de Courteille,
Paris, 1861-67, iv. 92, 93.

^ "Notices et Extraits," ii. 394. He adds that the merchants announce
their arrival and departure by beat of drum.

* Barbot, ** Churchhill's Voyages," v. 79. He says that " this way of trad-
ing lasts nine days successively, that they may have the more time to adjust the
prices of the goods, in case the first tender of gold is not accepted of by
the Moors.** See also R. Jobson in Purchas, ** His Pilgrims,** London, 1625,
ii* 1573) ^^^ & similar account at p. 872.

^ W. Winterbottom, ** An Account of the Native Africans in the neighbour-
hood of Sierra Leone, . . .'* Ix)ndon, 1803, i. 177 ; T. Shaw, "Travels or
Observations relating to Barbary,*' in Pinkerton, xv. 467.

' J. Windhus, ** A Journey to Mequinez,*' in Pinkerton, xv. 422.

* G. F. Lyon, " A Narrative of Travels in Northern Africa, in the years
1818-20,** Liondon, 182 1, p. 149.

44 THE SILENT TRADE.

traders " are by many supposed to be devils, who are very
fond of red cloth, the favourite article of exchange/* The
merchants of Morocco carried on trade by this method at a
fixed point on the borders between their own country and
that of the Blacks ; ^ and Cadamosto ^ tells us that the
salt trade between the negro merchants of Melli and blacks
who lived near " a certain water/' — probably the Niger, —
was similarly conducted. A like mode of traffic was
employed in the clove trade in some of the islands of the
Indian Ocean ;* and the Mambari told Livingstone's men,
as they were approaching the sea-coast near Loanda, that,
in trading with the white men, " the ivory is left on the
shore in the evening, and next morning the seller finds a
quantity of goods placed there in its stead/' * According
to Philostratus,^ Apollonius found, at a place on the confines
of Ethiopia and Egypt, gold and flax and ivory with many
spices piled in heaps in a place where four ways met ; and
the biographer adds that this custom survived in his own
day, and was practised by Ethiopian and Egyptian mer-
chants in exchanging their wares. This method of trading
is said to be employed by the Kubus of Sumatra,® and by
the inhabitants of Buru, Ceram, and the largest island of

^ G. Host, << Nachrichten von Morokos u. Fez," Kopenhagen, 1781, p. 279.
J. Graberg von Hemso ("Das Sultanat Mogh'rib ul Aks^" Stuttgart u. Tubingen,
1833, P* 103) makes the somewhat surprising statement that, if both parties are
satisfied with the bargain, " so vereinen sich Mauren und Neger und reisen
vierzehn Tage lang miteinander."

2 P. 57.

' Kazwini, ap. J. Gildemeister, " Scriptorum Arabum de rebus Indids loci
et opuscula,*' Bonnse, 1838, Fasc. i. 202.
" * "Missionary Travels," 384.

««Apoll. Vit.,"vi. 2.

• Forbes, ** A Naturalist's Wanderings," 235. See Mohnike, ** Banka und
Palembang," Mtinster, 1874, P- 196.

THE SILENT TRADE. 45

the Am Archipelago.^ Hardcastle^ says of two shy-
mountain tribes of Guatemala that " they exchange dogs
and a species of very sharp red pepper by leaving them on
the top of the mountain and going to the spot in turn ;'*
and, in regard to the Akka in the Upper Welle^istrict of
the Belgian Congo, Burrows^ writes as follows. — "On
returning from a day*s hunting the Pigmy carefully wraps
up several small pieces of meat in grass or leaves, betakes
himself to the nearest banana plantation, and having
selected the bunches of bananas he requires, shins up the
tree, cuts down the bananas selected, and in payment
affixes one of the small packets of meat to the stem by a
little wooden skewer." Again, we are told of Ceylon that
** it was originally uninhabited by man, only demons, genii,
and dragons dwelt there. Nevertheless merchants of other
countries trafficked with them. When the season for
traffic came the genii and demons appeared not, but set
forward their precious commodities marked with the exact
price ; if these suited the merchants, they paid the price and
took the goods." * It cannot be doubted that Fa Hian is
here referring to the Veddahs, of whom it is said that.

^ Riedel, pp. 15, 128, 271. This practice has fallen into disuse at Bum and
Ceram, but it is employed in dealing with the aborigines of Kola and Kobroor^
—districts in the largest of the Aru islands. According to Riedel's account,
the foreign merchants from Temate and elsewhere lay down their goods in an
appointed place, sound a gong, and retire. Then the shy natives bring their
wares, and having placed them opposite the merchants' goods, sound the gong
in their turn, and retire. The foreigners return, and, if satisfied with the
native wares, take them away, leaving their own goods behind. The Temate
merchants call this transaction "potage tagali vuru," — going to savages in
order to barter,— in contrast to "potage tagali damaroi,"— barter in the
ordinary fisahion in the presence of both parties.

2 "Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries," Boston, 1857-60, vL 153.

8 « The Land of the Pigmies," p. 188.

* " Pilgrimage of Fa Hian," from the French edition of the Foe Koui Ki of
Remusat, Klaproth, and Landresse, Calcutta, 1848, p. 332.

48 THE SILENT TRADE.

think the gold enough, they take it and go their way ; but
if it does not seem to them sufficient, they go aboard ship
once more and wait patiently. Then the others approach
and add to their gold till the Carthagenians are content.
Neither party deals unfairly by the other." Very similar
accounts are given of the natives near Cape Blanco,^ of the
Chukchi in their dealings with the Eskimo of St. Lawrence
Island ^ and near Kotzebue Sound,^ of the North German
merchants in their early trading with the inhabitants of
Livonia,* of the Abyssinians in their intercourse with the
tribes to the southward,^ and of the merchants of Ceylon

^ Claude Jannequin, " Voyage de Lybia au royaume de Senega, le long du
Niger,** Paris, 1643, p. 44.

* A. Bastian, " Geographische u. Ethnologische Bilder," Jena, 1873, p. 341 ;
G. F. MUller (" Sammlung Russischer Geschichte," St. Peterburg, 1732-64,
iii. 6), in describing a Russian voyage of the year 1646 A.D., says that the
voyagers being afraid to trust themselves among the Chukchi, traded with
them in the manner described above. * O. von Kotzebue, i. 228.

* J. Falke, " Die Geschichte d. deutschen Handels," Leipzig, 1859, i. 277.

* Cosmas, "Christian Topography,*' London, 1897 (Hakluyt Society),
pp. 52, 53. He tells us that the King of the Abyssinians sent messengers
every other year to the inhabitants of Sasu to bargain for gold. The mes-
sengers were accompanied by many traders, — ^upwards of five hundred in
number, — bound on the same errand as themselves. When they reached their
destination they formed an encampment, which they fenced round with a
great hedge of thorns. On the top of these thorns they laid their wares. The
natives brought gold in nuggets, and if one of them saw an article which
pleased him he laid one or two of the nuggets upon it. The bargaining then
proceeded in the manner described by Herodotus. Sasu lay in the south*
eastern part of the Somali peninsula, near the coast, and only 5^ to the north
of the equator (see M*Crindle's notes to " Cosmas," pp. 50 and 63). Ritter
(Die Erdkunde, 2te Aufi., Berlin, 1 848, Th. xiv. 400) places it near Zanzibar.
According to Heeren {** Historical Researches into the Politics, Intercourse,
and Trade of the Carthagenians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians,*' Oxford, 1832,
!• 33o)f it was situated on the coast between Babelmandeb and Cape Guarda-.
fui ; and, according to Yule (** Cathay,** i. clxxxi, note), towards the centre
of the continent, and south-west from Abyssinia. No doubt Cosmas speaks of
it as not far from the ocean, but he supposed that the ocean cut across Afiica
somewhere about the equator (Id, id, cp. ** Cosmas,** p. 65, and Dr. Glaser's
explanation, p. 63, note ^).

THE SILENT TRADE. 49

when trafficking with the Seres.^ It is said of the natives
of the southern end of Timor, that they seldom exchange
words with those with whom they trade. When the
prows arrive off the coast, the merchants land on the
beach the articles they have for barter in small quanti-
ties at a time. The natives immediately come down
with the produce they have for sale, and place it
opposite the goods from the prows, pointing to the
articles or description of articles they want to obtain
in exchange. The trader then makes an offer, generally
very small at first, which he increases by degrees. If
he hesitate a moment about adding more to it, the
native accepts it as sufficient, snatches it up, and darts
off with it into the jungle, leaving his own goods.
If he consider it too little, he seizes up his own
property, and flies off with it in equal haste, never
returning a second time to the same person.^ A very

^ Pliny, ** H. N." vi. 24. He describes the people as having fair hair and
blue eyes ; and in Lassen's opinion (** Indische Alterthumskunde,** Leipzig,
1858, iii. 86), this description applies, if Chinese accounts are to be credited,
to the Usun, a people of inner Asia. See also Humboldt, " Asie Centrale,"
Paris, 1843, i. 393 ; Yule, ** Cathay," i., clvii. It is somewhat remarkable
that traders from Ceylon should give this account of the Seres' mode of
exchange without mentioning that there were tribes within their own country
which practised a very similar method (see above, sec. 26). See also J. W.
M*Crindle, " The Commerce and Navigation of the Erythraean Sea : being a
translation of the * Periplus Maris Erythrsei,' . . .'* Calcutta, 1879, cap* 65,
where an annual feir held on the confines of ** Thlnai " is described. It was
attended by the Sesatai, with whom trading was carried on by methods some-
what resembling those of the silent trade.

2 J. H. Moore, "Short Account of Timor, &c.,*' in Appdx. to "Notices of
the Indian Archipelago," Singapore, L837, p. 8. G. W. Earl ("Papuans,"
London, 1853, p. 182) says that the more general method is for the traders to
remain on board their prows, which are anchored close to the land, and push
their goods on shore in a small canoe, to which a line is attached for the
purpose of hauling it back when the goods have been removed, and the articles
given in exchange have been deposited in their stead. Hans Stade (p. 88)
tells us that the natives of Brazil traded with the Portuguese in a somewhat
4

50 THE SILENT TRADE.

similar account is given of the method of trading practised
by the Makuas in the neighbourhood of Mozambique.^ In
Fernando Po, a line is drawn upon the sand between the
trading parties. Yams, &c., are laid on one side of the line,
and beads or tobacco or whatever it may be on the other.
If the Booby be satisfied with the trader's articles, he steps
across the line and takes them, leaving the trader to take
his yams.2 Smith ^ says that a similar custom exists on
the banks of the River Niger, and his statement is borne
out by that of Ibn-al-WardL* The latter, in speaking of
tribes near that river, tells us that the merchants, ort arriv-
ing at the spot where the trade takes place, drew a line.
On the one side of it the natives laid down their gold, and
on the other side the merchants set out their wares. Both
parties withdrew and did not return until the next morn-
ing. If the merchants were content with the amount of
gold offered, they took it away ; but if they delayed too
long, the natives took up their gold, burned the merchants'
goods, and killed all who opposed them.

Sec. 28. In some cases, the traffic is carried on through

similar fashion. Two or three of the natives " arrive in a canoe and deliver
the goods to them at the greatest possible distance. Then they declare what
they want in return, which is given to them by the Portuguese. But whilst
the two are near the ship, a number of full canoes keep in the offing to look
on, and when the trading is completed, the savages oftentimes approach along-
side, and skirmish with the Portuguese, and shoot arrows at them, after which
they again paddle away.*'

* M. Thomans, " Reise-und Lebensbeschreibung,'* Augsburg, 1788, p. 119.
He says that they understand neither Portuguese nor the language of the
district. They deposit their ivory before a merchant's house. He comes out
and la3rs down what he is ready to give for it If the Makua does not take
the goods, it is a sign that he desires more. Accordingly the merchant must
add something, and the Makua, as soon as he is satisfied, takes the goods, and
runs off as fast as if he had stolen them.

2 J. Smith, *' Trade and Travels in the Gulph of Guinea," London, 1851,
p, 203, 204. • /of., p. 204. * Notices et Extraits, ii. 36.

THE SILENT TRADE. 51

a middle-man.^ Thus, Lander ^ says that, on halting at a
town on the lower Niger in order to purchase yams, he
was brought to the canoes by the townsmen. They were
armed, as were his own men, and had among them an old
woman who appeared to be a person of consequence. She
directed the yams to be placed in separate bundles, and
the owner to retire to a short distance. The purchaser
selected a bundle, and placed beside it what he considered
to be the equivalent in cloth, flints, &c. The old woman,
if she considered the equivalent sufficient, gave it to the
owner of the bundle, which was taken by the purchaser.
If she thought it insufficient, she allowed the purchaser an
opportunity of adding something. If the purchaser did
not add anything, she directed the owner to remove his
goods, and to leave what had been offered for them. All
this was done by means of signs, not a word passing
between the parties. The Abb^ Grosier^ says of the
natives of Hai-nan,* that twice a-year they exposed in an
appointed place gold and other articles. A deputy was
sent by them to the frontiers to examine the commodities
of the Chinese, "whose principal traders repaired to the
place of exchange . . . ; and after the Chinese wares were
delivered, they put into their hands with the greatest
fidelity what they had agreed for." Speaking of the
Aleuts, Dall ^ says that they " never transact business with
each other personally, but always through a third person.
. . . Whoever wishes to sell anything, sends it by this

^ See below, sec. 35.

^ "Journal of an Expedition to Explore the Course and Tennination of the
Niger,'* London, 1832, iii. 161-63.

' " A General Description of China," transl. from the French, London, 1788,
p. 108.

* /.^., The Les, of whom an account is given by R. C. Henry, Ling-nam,
London, 1886. ^ P. 394,

52 THE SILENT TRADE.

agent into another house (yourt) particularly if strangers
are present The agent, on coming into the house, says
* Here is the taydk ' (saleable object), without mentioning
the owner. The buyer looks at the object, asks what is
wanted in return, keeps the article, and sends as much as
he likes of the article required in return. The agent takes
this to the seller, and if he is satisfied, the bargain is con-
cluded ; if not, he proposes a new exchange, or an additional
quantity of tobacco or other ware, to boot If the buyer
does not agree he returns the article, and some one else
makes an offer. They never bid over one another, and,
however long the barter may last, the buyer and seller
never know each other s names. This custom of buying and
selling among the Aleuts is of great age, and has been pre-
served without change." Anyone who wishes to trade with
the Puelches, goes straight to the cacique, to whom he
presents himself without speaking. The cacique, after
some words of greeting, inquires what present has been
brought for him, and the trader tells him. He is lodged by
the cacique, and is welcomed by the royal wives and
children, who beg for small presents, and these he must
give. The cacique informs his subjects by sound of
trumpet that a merchant has arrived. They come and
inspect his wares, and having agreed on the number of
cattle to be given in exchange, carry off the goods, so that
the merchant gives up his property without seeing any one
of his debtors. When he wishes to depart, a trumpet .is
sounded, and an order given that payment is to be made.
Each purchaser brings the animals which he has agreed
to give, and provides men to drive them to the
frontier.^

1 Frezier, " Relation du Voyage de la Mer du Sud, 17 12-14," Amsterdam^
1717, i. 128, ,

THE SILENT TRADE. 53

Sec. 29. Lastly, there are instances in which a religious
element enters into the practice. Thus, in writing of the
influence of the fetish religions on the West African,
Miss Kingsley ^ says that, when walking along a bush path,
far from human habitation, "you" will "notice a little
cleared space by the side of the path ; it is neatly laid with
plantain leaves, and on it are various little articles for sale
— leaf tobacco, a few yams, and so on — and beside each
article are so many stones, beans, or cowries, which indicate
the price of each article ; and you will see either sitting in
the middle of the things, or swinging by a piece of tie-tie
from a branch above, Egba, or a relation of his — the market
god — who will visit with death any theft from that shop, or
any cheating in price given, or any taking away of sums
left by previous customers." Again, we are told by Theo-
phrastus ^ that frankincense and myrrh were brought from
all quarters to the temple of the sun, — the most holy place
of the Sabaeans, — and were guarded there by armed Arabs.
Each owner set out his heap with a tablet above it on which
were stated the quantity and the price. The merchants who
came to buy laid down the price in place of these wares.
Then came the priest and took one-third part of the price

^ "African Religion and Law," in the National Review y 1897, p. 134.

^ Hist. Plant., ix. 4 ; see also Pliny, H. N., xii. 33 ; Cosmas (pp. 51, 63,
note ^) tells us that there was a trade between Barbaria, — a part of the Somali
Peninsula, lying towards the Indian Ocean, — and the Homerites, — f.^., the
Sabeeans (see A. H. Keane, " The Gold of Ophir," London, 1901, p. 72). To
the south of Barbaria lay the land of Sasu, and there the silent trade was
practised (see above, sec. 27). Accordingly, it seems not unlikely that the
Sabseans had some knowledge of this mode of traffic, derived from their deal-
ings with African tribes. If so, it may be as Sigismund (" Die Aromata in
ihrer Bedeutung fUr Religion, Sitten, Gebraiiche, Handel, u. Geographic d.
Alterthums," Leipzig, 1884, p. 159) suggests, that Theophrastus, relying on
the statements of merchants who wished to conceal the name of the country
with which they traded (see Keane, p. 129), has transplanted an African
form of trade to Arabian soil.

54 THE SILENT TRADE.

for the god ; and what was left remained in safety until
the sellers came and took it.

II.

The Primitive Market

"Sec. 30. Between the primitive commercial methods,
which we have been considering, and the usages of the
primitive market, there is, in many cases, a striking similar-
ity. Sometimes the business of the market is transacted
without a word being spoken. It was in silence that the
Indian women exchanged their wares in some of the Mexi-
can markets. The would-be seller held out the articles, of
which she wished to dispose, to the customer. The latter,
if she thought that they suited her, took them in her hand,
and, by making it appear that they were too few or too
small, induced the seller to add something more. Thus
they haggled with one another until the customer was satis-
fied ; and, in that case, she took away what was offered and
left her own wares in exchange. But, if the seller refused
to give more, the purchaser took her goods elsewhere.^

^ J, de Torquemada, " Monarchia Indiana,** Madrid, 1723, xiv. 23. In
this connection we may quote Wilkes* (iii. 300-01) description of the m&rket at
Somu-Somu, in the Fiji group. It "is held on a certain day in the square,
where each deposits in a large heap what goods and wares he may have. Any-
one may then go and select from it what he wishes, and carry it away to his
own heap ; the other then has the privilege of going to the heap of the former
and selecting what he considers to be an equivalent. This is all conducted
without noise or confusion. If any disagreement takes place, the chief is there
to settle it ; but this is said rarely to happen.'* We may also note a form of
trading which Burckhart (Arabia, 191) describes as prevailing at Mecca.
" Dealers when bargaining in the presence of others from whom they wish to
conceal their business, join their right hands under cover of the gown or sleeve of
one of the parties ; by touching the different joints of the fingers they note the
numerals, and thus silently conclude their bargain.** The same practice pre-
vailed at Calicut ("The Travels of Varthema,** London, 1863 (Hakluyt Society),
p. 108), and Goa (Pyrard de Laval, " Voyage to the East Indies, ..." Lon-

THE PRIMITIVE MARKET. 55

Very frequently those feelings of mistrust and suspicion,
which form one of the most salient features of the silent
trade, are found to be prevalent. Thus Simpson ^ tells us
that *' the conduct of the Point Barrow people in their inter-
course with those of the Mackenzie, or rather Demarcation
Point, seems to be very wary, as if they constantly keep in
mind that they were the weaker party, and in the country
of strangers. They describe themselves as taking tip a
position opposite the place of barter on a small island to
which they can retreat on any alarm, and cautiously
advance from it making signs of friendship. They say that
great distrust was formerly manifested on both sides by the
way in which goods were snatched and concealed when a
bargain was made ; but in later years more women go, and
they have dancing and amusements, though they never
remain long enough to sleep there." The same suspicious
friendliness appears to exist at the fair at Wairuku, in the
Sandwich Islands. According to Ellis' ^ account, the
natives from the southern part of the island ranged their
goods on the south bank of a ravine, while those from the
northern part ranged their goods on the north bank.
" From bank to bank the traders shouted to each other and
arranged the preliminaries of their bargains. From them
the articles were taken down to " a " rock in the midst of
the stream. . . . Here they were examined by the parties

don, 1887-90 (Hakluyt Society), ii. 178), among the Somali (Haggenmacher,
37), and at Pegu (Caesar Frederick, in Kerr's ** Collection of Voyages,"
Edinburgh, 181 2, vii. 198}, and in many other places. (In the notes to Var-
thema and Pyrard de Laval, udi cit^ the practice is said to exist in many parts
of India (Tavemier, Pt. ii., Bk. ii., c. xi.), at the market of Baso in Abyssinia
(Beke, " Letters on the Commerce and Politics of Abyssinia," p. 19), and in
Tartary (Hue's "Travels," ch. v.) ; and in explanation of it, reference is made
to Tylor, " Primitive Culture," i. 246).
1 P. 936. 2 «« Polyn. Researches," iv, 325.

56 THE SILENT TRADE.

immediately concerned in the presence of the " king's " col-
lectors, who stood on each side of the rock, and were the
general arbiters in the event of any dispute arising. To
them was committed the preservation of good order during
the fair, and they, of course, received a suitable remunera-
tion from the different parties/'

Sec. 31. We have seen that it was, in general, at a spot
within the border-land between two or more tribes, that the
silent trade, in its simplest form, at all events, was carried
on ; and, in very many cases, it was at just such a spot
that the primitive market was held.^ It was the interest of
those who frequented it to treat one another as friends so
long as it lasted ; and it seems only natural that those
places, where such a friendly intercourse was repeated
season after season, should, in course of time, become
impressed with the character of neutrality. In general,
those who attend old-established and thriving markets
have little cause of apprehending danger to life or pro-
perty. Thus, the large fairs at different points on the
lower Niger are regarded as neutral ground, whatever wars

^ In Britbh New Guinea " women from different villages or districts meet at
appointed places, usually at the boundary between two tribes, and there barter
their specialties for commodities from other localities. The bartering is done
by women only, but they are accompanied by a few armed men, who, however,
do not go amongst the market women but stand a little way off. The men
bring a drum with them which is beaten at the opening and close of the
market" (Haddon, p. 269). It may be noted that the most important of the
Italian fairs was held on the boundary which separated the Etruscan from the
Sabine lands, — at Soracte, in the grove of Feronia (Mommsen, i. 203).
Cunninghame ("The Growth of English Industry, , . ." p. 76) observes that,
even when each village was hostile to every other, "the advantages of trade
were so clearly felt that the boundary place between two or more townships
came to be recognised as a neutral territory where men might occasionally
meet for their mutual benefit, if not on friendly terms, at least without hostility.
The boundary stone ¥ras the predecessor of the market cross, and the neutral
area round it the market-place."

THE PRIMITIVE MARKET. 57

may be in the land ; ^ and at the markets on the Congo,
usually held at a spot equidistant from several villages, the
natives meet without fear of violence.^ So, too, at the
great market at Prairie du Chien, hostile tribesmen were
obliged to abstain from all unfriendly acts;^ and similar
accounts are given of the markets of Berbera * and Mogelo,^
and of those among the Kabyles.*'

Sec. 32. We have already seen^ that there are many
instances in which the border-land is considered to be holy
ground ; and it appears to follow that the neutrality of a
market held within it will be secured not only by the
interest, which those who frequent it have in attracting
commerce, but by their firm conviction that, by breaking
the market-peace, they will incur the divine displeasure in
the form of disaster or disease or death.^ We know that
markets, held on the boundaries between the territories of
certain Greek States, were under the protection of deol
ayopatot ; ^ and that Hermes-Mercurius was the guardian

^ W. Allen and T. R. H. Thomson, "Narrative of Expedition sent to the
River Niger in 1841," London, 1848, i. 398.

2 Bastian, *' Ein Besuch in Salvador," 116.

' Carver, " Travels through the Interior Parts of North America in the
years 1766-68," London, 1778, p. 99

* Haggenmacher, 37 ; see also Burton, " First Footsteps," 409.

' Munzinger, O. S., 519. * Hamoteau et Letourneaux, ii. 81.

' See above, sec. 1 7.

^ In much the same way self-interest combined with religion seems to have
made the Red Pipe Stone Quarry, on the ridge between St. Peter's River and
the Missouri, neutral ground. The necessity of procuring the red stone of
which the natives made their pipes ** introduced a certain law of nations by
which the banks of the creek are sacred " (Lewis and Clarke, i. 66) ; and
Catlin (ii. 167; cp. i. 31, ii. 160) observes that the spot was "a neutral
ground under the sanction of the vengeance of the Great Spirit." Cp. Carver,
p. 99. See Mommsen and Cunninghame as cited above (p. 56, note) ; and
Goldschmidt, p. 24. See also G. Grote, **A History of Greece," fourth
edition, London, 1872, iii. 294, and note *, as to the place held by commerce
at the great festivals.

® Schrader, Handelsgesehichte u. Warenkunde, 35.

58 THE SILENT TRADE.

of merchants.^ In West Africa we find a market-god
who punishes the thief and the cheat ; ^ and we are in-
formed by Caesar that the Gauls worshipped Mercury, —
worshipped a god, that is to say, possessing attributes
similar to those of Mercury.^

Sec. 33. We have seen that the spot upon which the
market was held was regarded as neutral, and, in some
cases, as sacred. Security of life and property is not,
however, a privilege attached only to some special locality ;
it is frequently enjoyed by persons while on their way to
trade or while engaged in trading. Thus Livingstone,* in
speaking of the markets upon the River Lualaba, says that
" when men of the district are at war, the women take their
goods to market and are never molested ; " and Thomson ^
observes that though the Masai and Wa-kikuyu "are
eternally at war to the knife with each other, there is
a compact between them not to molest the women-folk
of either party. Hence the curious spectacle is exhibited
of Masai women wending their way with impunity to a
Kikuyu village, while their relatives are probably engaged
in a deadly conflict close at hand." Among the Rtfis, the
market, with the roads leading to it, is regarded as safe
from the exercise of private vengeance ; ^ and, among the
Batta, ali hostilities are suspended on the occasion of their
markets. "Each man, who possesses one, carries his
musket with a green bough in the muzzle as a token of

^ Id, ib. 107 ; the reason being, according to Lubbock (p. 303. See above,
sec. 17), that merchants transacted their business on the border-land, where his
symbols stood. * See above, sec. 29.

^ " Deum maxime Mercurium colunt, hujus sunt plurima simulacra, hunc
omnium inventorem artium ferunt, hunc viarum et itinerum ducem, hunc ad
qudestus pecuniae mercaturasque habere vim maximam arbitrantur " ('* De Bell.
Gall.," vi. 17). See Schrader, " Handelsgeschichte u. Warenkunde," 108- 1 10.

* " Last Journals," ii. 56. ^ Pp. 177, 178 ; cp. p. 93.

® B. Meakin, ** The Moors," London, 1902, p. 402.

THE PRIMITIVE MARKET. 59

peace, and afterwards when he comes to the spot, follow-
ing the example of the director or manager of the fair,
discharges the loading into a mound of earth, in which,
before his departure, he searches for his ball." ^ Again, it
is said of the tribes of British Guiana that each has some
peculiar manufacture. Its members, from time to time,
visit other tribes, which are often hostile, for the purpose of
exchanging the products of their own labour for such as
are produced by the peoples visited, and they are allowed
to pass unmolested through the enemy's country .^

Sec. 34. Sometimes this neutrality takes the form of a
truce, which is ended so soon as the barter is completed.
This practice is known on the Mosquito Coast* In the
Sagas of the Norse Kings,* we are told that, when the
voyagers came to Biarmaland, — the coasts of the White
Sea, — they went to the market town ; and, when the fair
was over, " they went out of the Vina river, and then the
truce with the country people was also at an end." The
natives of Brazil lay aside their weapons while transacting
with one another ; and, when the trading is done, seize
them again at one and the same moment ; — the fact that
the trade is over being indicated by the frequent repetition
of certain words.^ So, too, Polack^ says of the New
Zealanders that tribesmen at war will respect a tfuce, and
will, while it lasts, trade with one another, — sometimes even

^ Marsden, 308. ^ Im Thurn, 271. ' Bancroft, i. 723.

* Laing and Anderson, "The Heimskringla, or the Sagas of the Norse
Kings," from the Icelandic of Snorri Sturlason, London, 1889, iii. 92.

'^ C. F. Ph. V. Martius, 44 ; cp. Stade, 88 ; and the curious story told by Angas
(ii. 61, 62 ; cp. Curr, i. 78). He says that, during the course of a fight between
the tribes of Waikato and the inhabitants of Taranaki, a vessel arrived on the
coast. The combatants at once arranged a truce, and engaged in trading with
the stranger until his departure, when they at once resumed hostilities.

« " New Zealand, being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures," London,
1838, ii. 313.

62 THE SILENT TRADE,

an envoy. And so it may be that, in some cases at any
rate, the inviolability of the ambassador was originally the
privilege of the middle-man.^

III.

Comment

Sec. 36. An eminent writer^ on economics explains
the curious practice of the silent trade by the analogy

plain that this mode of trading is not connected with the silent trade. See
below, sec. 37. E. Crawley ("The Mystic Rose, a Study of Primitive Mar-
riage," London, 1902, pp. 252, 257, 263, 391) explains the usage of ngia-
ngiampe by the custom of tabu — an explanation which he also applies to such
tribal institutions as hospitality, blood-brotherhood, &c. (p. 239). It is with
the effects rather than with the origins of such institutions that we are at present
concerned. See below, sec. 43.

^ Among the Basutos the person of the messenger is sacred (Casalis, 224) ;
and, according to Curr (i. 149), " every tribe in Australia has its messenger,
whose life, while he is in performance of his duties, is held sacred by the
jieighbouring tribes." Among the Arunta, he must carry his emblem of ofEce,
— the churinga, — a sacred staff (Spencer and Gillen, 141). The insignia of
ambassadors are respected in Polynesia (Cook and King, ii. 64, 66, 69;
Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, "lies Marquises ou Noukahiva," Paris,
1843, p. 256), in Guinea (Waitz-Gerland, ii. 164), and among the Kaffir peoples
{Id, ib. 399). It is otherwise in New Zealand unless the envoy be related
to the tribe to which he is sent (Polack, ii. 20). Among the Brazilian
■tribes foreign messengers, even if they have been received as guests, may
experience bad treatment, especially if they are bringers of evil tidings (C. F.
Ph. von Martius, 47). Whether, in former times, ambassadors were regarded
by the northern tribes of North America as inviolable is a question regarding
which authorities differ (see Waitz-Gerland, iii. 154). It may be noted that
the Mexicans looked upon the person of the envoy as sacred (Herrera, ii. 248) ;
and that in Tezcuco the killing of a messenger was a just cause of war {Id*
ib, iii. 317).

* Roscher, iii. 140. He discusses the practice, but his observations are
very brief, and are, we venture to think, based upon insufficient evidence. See
also M. Kulischer, "Der Handel auf den primativen Culturstufen," "Zeits. f.
Volkerpsychologie u. Sprachwissenschaft," Berlin, 1878, x. yjZseq.; C. Koehne,
"Markt- Kaufmanns- und Handelsrecht in primativen Culturverhaltnissen,"
"Zeits. f. vergl. Rechtswissenschaft," xi. 196; K. Andree, "Geographie d,
Welthandels," 2te Aufl., Stuttgart, 1877 ; and Ch. Letoumeau, " L'Evolution
du Commerce," Paris, 1897.

THE SILENT TRADE. 63

of the modern merchant who finds himself in a country,
with the language of which he is unacquainted. Such an
one is forced to conduct his business by means of signs, and
yet he is seldom cheated. Cosmas ^ attributes the adoption
of the method by the Abyssinian traders to the fact that
they did not understand the speech of those with whom
they were dealing, and that interpreters were hard to be
found ; and Lander ^ observes that " it must have arisen
either from fear of quarrelling or from not understanding
each other's language, which is difficult to suppose." This,
at all events, seems to be plain, — that the facts that traders
can buy and sell by means of signs, and that they use
signs in dealing with those of whose language they are
ignorant, do not afford an adequate explanation of those
numerous and important instances in which they not only
do not address one another, but are careful to keep out of
one another's sight.

It is right to point out that, in far the larger number of
reported cases, one of the parties represents a relatively
high, the other a relatively low, type of culture. For
example, we find on the one side the Arab, or the Malay,
or the Chinaman, and on the other the negro, or the
Kubu, or the Veddah. And it has been suggested ' that
the usage in question is a consequence of the practice
adopted by traders and travellers belonging to civilised
peoples, in opening commercial relations with savages who
shun their approach, — the practice, namely, of placing such
articles as rude men value near their usual resorts, in the
hope of overcoming their fears, and inducing them to make a
return. Such an explanation, however, does not account for
this form of traffic where the parties to it are equally uncivil-

1 P. 53. 2 III, X63. » Rosscher, iii. 138.

64 THE SILENT TRADE.

ised,^ or when the party who makes the first advances is
the less civilised of the two,^ or where the practice sur-
vives in the market usages of rude tribesmen who speak
the same language and occupy the same level of culture.*

Sec. 37. It is not to be supposed that this usage is
invariably due to one and the same cause, or that it has
invariably followed the same course of development.*- Thus
very similar methods have been adopted for the purpose of
avoiding contact with persons infected, or belonging to a
different caste. While the plague was raging at Win-
chester, those who wished to exchange without coming
into touch with those who were stricken, placed the
articles on a large stone outside the city walls :^ Mateer*
says of the Pulayar of Travancore, that one of that caste
may not approach within ninety-six paces of a Brahman,
or within about forty-eight paces of a Sudra. "If he
wishes to make a purchase, he places his money on a stone,
and retires to the appointed distance. Then the merchant
or seller comes, takes up the money, and lays down what-
ever quantity of goods he chooses to give for the sum
received." Or the practice may be the result of obedience
to a law forbidding the reception of strangers,^ or of the

^ E.g., certain mountain tribes of Guatemala and the negro merchants of
Melli (see above, sec. 26). As to the Chukchi, see above, sec. 27. It is suffi-
ciently obvious that this type of case may occur very mudi more frequently than
the number of recorded instances would lead us to imagine. We are, of course,
not likely to hear of such cases from the parties.

^ E»g., Akka, Veddahs, Smoos, and Twakas, the native tribes of the Rio del
Norte (see above, sec. 26), and the Makuas (see above, sec. 27).

' As at Wairuku (see sec. 30 above).

* See as to Ngia-ngiampe above, sec. 35, note.

« J. Milner, "History of Winchester," Winchester, 1798, i. 428.

" " The Land of Charity : A Descriptive Account of Travancore and its
People," London, 1871, pp. 46, 47.

7 Diego de Torres (** Kelacion del origen y su cesso de los Xarifes," Serilla,
1585, p. 469) informs us that the inhabitants of Tomocotu, in consequence of a

THE SILENT TRADE. 65

special circumstances of a particular trade.^ Still, we are
led by a survey of the evidence to believe that, in the
majority of cases, it arose among men who desired to
obtain, without the exercise of force, certain articles which
were to be found, not within the limits of the association to
which they belonged, but in the possession of alien, and
therefore hostile, tribes. They were compelled to hit upon
some means of inducing those who owned the coveted
articles to part with them freely and voluntarily ; and, in
seeking for these means, they had no guide but their
experience of transacting with their fellow-tribesmen.
The principle which underlay these transactions was that
of giving on the understanding or, at all events, in the
expectation of receiving an adequate return ; and it was
this principle which they applied in their dealings with
strangers. They chose some spot on the border-land
between their own country and that of the tribe with
which they wished to traffic ; and there they set out their

law excluding strangers from their territory, were in danger of losing their
commerce. Accordingly they erected buildings beyond the city walls, and
permitted strangers to occupy them for purposes of trade. The strangers set
out their wares before the doors, and withdrew within. The citizens in-
spected the goods, and, having laid down little heaps of gold, retired in their
turn. Then the strangers came out, and, if they were satisfied, took the gold.
If they were not satisfied they retired again, and made a signal. Upon this the
citizens retired, and, if they wished the wares, added gold to the heaps. Then,
if the strangers were satisfied, they took the gold, and the citizens carried o£f
the wares. If this statement be well founded, it would seem that we have here
an application of the primitive method in circumstances not primitive.

^ According to Lansdell ('' Through Siberia,'' London, 1SS2, i. 102), when
the merchants of Tobolsk go north in the summer to purchase fish "they take
with them flour and salt, place them in their summer stations, and on their
return leave unprotected what remains for the following year. Should a
Samoyede pass by and require it, he does not scruple to take what he wants,
but he leaves in its place an I.O.U., in the form of a duplicate stick, duly
notched, to signify that he is a debtor ; and then, in the fishing season, he
comes to his creditor, compares the duplicate stick he has kept with the one
he left behind, and discharges his obligation."

5

66 THE SILENT TRADE.

wares in the hope of disposing of them and obtaining
what they wanted in exchange. And all the while they
secured their own safety by keeping out of sight. Having
once succeeded in opening a trade, they would naturally
endeavour to renew it from time to time. And, if those
with whom they traded were desirous that the trade should
continue, they would refrain from either carrying off the
articles offered without leaving a return, or attempting to
capture or maltreat those who made the offer.^ Thus a
trade in which self-interest is the guarantee of good faith
would become established at a fixed place, and, probably,
at fixed times ; and, if the articles were such as to command
high prices in the markets of the world, and if the spot,
where they were offered, was readily accessible, — if, for
example, it was situated on a river-side, at the sea-shore,
or where ways converged, — this trade would attract not
only near neighbours but the merchants of distant
countries.

Sec. 38. In many instances, the practice assumes a
somewhat different form, both parties being present ; and
it may be thought that this is a change due to a long-
continued course of fair dealing, — that the savage has become
less timorous, and, while keeping at a safe distance from
those with whom he is transacting, desires to see, and
allows himself to be seen by, them. Still, we must
remember that custom is slow to alter. Thus, we are told
of the merchants of Melli and the Blacks of the Niger that
" they have carried on their trade from time immemorial,

^ "An emperor of Melli, curious to see these people, four were captured by
stratagem. Of these one was retained. He never spoke, abstained from
nourishment, and died in four days. ... No one of the successive emperors
have ever repeated a similar attempt, as, by the capture and death of the
negro, they had during three whole years carried their salt to no purpose, as
they never found any gold in return " (Cadamosto, 58 ; cp. Cartwright, i. 6),

THE SILENT TRADE. 67

without seeing or speaking to each other in the greatest
harmony ; " ^ and we have a very similar account of the
Aleuts ; ^ and so it may be that, in some cases at all events,
this is not a later, but rather an independent, form, origina-
ting with men who were not too timid to show themselves.
Sec. 39. In some of the instances, the practice subsists
only as a survival, the conditions which occasioned it
having disappeared in whole or in part. Thus, in the case
of the Aleuts, the parties are not enemies ; they belong to
the same race and speak the same language ; and yet, in
order to avoid being seen in transacting business, they will
trade only through the medium of a third person.^ Among
the Sabaeans, the place of exchange is said to have been the
temple of a god, who saw to the safe custody of the goods
in return for a third of the price ; * while the cacique of the
Puelches fills the double r61e of protector and broker, — a
r61e which, as we shall see,^ is of vast importance in the
transactions of early commerce. He provides for the safety
and maintenance of the foreign trader, he acts as middle-
man between him and his subjects, and he receives a present
for his trouble.® In the case of the natives of Fernando Po,
and of certain tribes on the Niger, the parties to the traffic
are separated from one another only by a line drawn in the
sand ; ^ and the mention of this line recalls to us Ibn-al-

* Cadamosto, 57. ' See above, sec. 28.

* Dall (p. 396) states that they are too shy to transact business personally ; and,
from what he says of them, it is plain that bashfulness is a marked characteristic
of their disposition. Dallas account of the silent trade is founded upon the
valuable description of the Aleuts by the Russian priest, Weniaminow (see v.
Wrangell, pp. 177-225). The case of the frequenters of the fair at Wairuku
{see above, sec. 30) is somewhat similar. The fact that the Smoos and Twakas
come down to the coast villages to dispose of their wares, when they have failed
to find a purchaser by means of the silent trade, shows that among them the
original conditions of that trade have disappeared (see above, sec. 26).

* See above, sec. 29. " See below, sec. 48.
" See above, sec. 28. ' See above, sec. 27.

68 THE SILENT TRADE.

Wardl's ^ description of the silent trade, and suggests that^
in this instance, one characteristic of the primitive practice
has alone survived.

Sec. 40. Viewed as a factor in the constitution of
relations which, if not friendly, are at least not hostile, the
primitive market, except in its rudest forms, shows a
marked advance upon the previous practice. Those who
engaged in the silent trade secured their safety by keeping
apart from those with whom they were dealing ; ^ but those
who frequent the market are safe, for the time being, at all
events, although they associate with one another in the
prosecution of their affairs. For the place itself is regarded
as neutral, and, in some cases, as sacred ; in other words,
the conception of a "peace" has been formed, — a peace
attached to a certain spot, and observed while the market
held there lasts. Sometimes the peace extends beyond
the limits of the market-place to the paths which lead to
it ; and a further advance is made when the privilege
becomes personal rather than local, — becomes, that is to
say, the privilege of the trader rather than of the place of
trade.

^ See above, sec. 27.

3 Dalton's statement (" Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal," Calcutta, 1872^
p. 279), r^;arding a tribe of Gonds is interesting in this connection. He sa^s-
that *' the Minis are desqibed as an intensely shy people ; so much so that
those who are most accustomed to deal with them are not admitted to an
interview. The officer who collects their annual rent approaches a M^uia
village, beats a drum, and retires. The customary dues are then deposited for
him at a spot previously agreed upon, and left for him to appropriate."

III.— PRIMITIVE HOSPITALITY,

Sec. 41. An examination of the methods of primitive
commerce serves to show us how the old view and the old
practice in regard to the stranger gradually yield to a new
view and a new practice. He does not cease to be an
enemy ; but, for a limited time and for a special purpose, he
is treated as a friend. This temporary friendliness assumes,
at an early stage of commercial intercourse, a form familiar
to primitive men in their dealings with those of their own
tribe. They are accustomed to exercise hospitality to-
wards their fellow-tribesmen, to visit them, and to receive
visits from them. These visits are not always, but are
almost always, accompanied by an exchange of gifts, which
is, in some cases, indistinguishable from barter. This
method of exchange was, as we have seen,^ adopted in the
earliest transactions of trade with strangers; and, by a
somewhat similar process of adaptation, the exercise of
hospitality is extended beyond the tribal circle.^

^ See above, sec. 37.

^ A striking testimony to this modification of view and practice in favour of
the stranger is supplied by language in a group of words, of which the original
meaning is that of the guest or stranger and the enemy. It is not doubtful that
the Latin "hostis," — "the stranger," "the enemy,** — ^is identical with the
Goth, "gasts," Greek ^4pos, Old Germ, "gast,"— "the stranger," " the enemy,"
"the guest,"— and with the old Slav. " gosti,"—" guest " ; but the Latin
word does not express the feeling of friendliness towards strangers. That
feeling finds expression for the first time, so far as Latin is concerned, in

69

70 THE SILENT TRADE.

Sec. 42. But, in order to secure a friendly reception, the
stranger must show that his intentions are pacific. Even
the man who visits another member of the same tribe
must signify, in some way or other, that it is a friend who
is approaching. Thus, among the natives of King George's
Sound, the visitor advances with green boughs in his hand,
and a fillet of green leaves on his head ; ^ and, among
the Yuracar^s, he announces his presence by sound of
trumpet.^ In Mexico, the peaceful traveller, especially the

"hospes" ("hosti-pets") (Schrader, " Reallexikon d. Indc^ermanischen Alter-
thums-kunde," Strassburg,i90i,p.27i ; R. v. Ihering, "Geist d. R. R.,"i. 227).
In the Russian chronicles, the word *' gosti ** is applied especially to merchants ;
and it may be observed that, in the town-laws of Copenhagen, "gesteskud"
is the payment which the foreign merchant made for the privilege of trading
(A. L. von Schlozer, ** Russische Annalen in ihrer Slavonischen Grundsprache :
. . . erklart und Ubersetzt," Gottingen, 1805, iii. 280, cp. iv. 64.

^ Scott Nind, 44. The presentation of green boughs or the wearing of
green leaves is regarded as a token of peace by the Australian tribes (Curr,
i. 86), and in many parts of Pol)mesia (Ellis, ♦* Polyn. Researches," i. 318 ;
** Byron's Voyage," in Hawkesworth, i. 105 ; Cook and King, i. 187, 191 ;
iii. 76 ; Wilkes, i. 320 ; v. 41 ; Kotzebue, ii. 23). A somewhat similar
account is given of some of the tribes of New Zealand (Forster, " A Voyage
Round the World," London, 1797, i. 161, 167; Dumont D'Urville, "Voyage de
la Corvette 1* Astrolabe pendant les Annies 1826-29 ; " " Histoire du Voyage "
(Paris, 1830, ii. 556), of the Araucarians (Stevenson, **A Historical and
Descriptive Account of Twenty Years' Residence in South America," London,
1825, i. 55, 105), and of the Batta of Sumatra (Marsden, 308). In some instances,
it seems to be doubtful whether the symbol is meant to express submission or
amity. See Herrera (i. 170, iv. 207, 327) regarding the natives of Hispaniola,
New Spain, and Peru, Mariner (i. 153, 284) regarding the inhabitants of the
Tonga group, and Wilkes (v. 41) regarding those of Depeyster's group. To
set fire to green boughs, and wave them when burning, is considered by the
Australian aborigines as equivalent to a declaration of hostilities (Mitchell,
i. 243, 280. But see Brough Smyth, " The Aborigines of Victoria," London,
1878, i. 134, whom Crawley (p. 146) quotes in support of the statement that
when one Australian *' tribe approaches another, that is unknown to it, they
carry burning sticks to purify the air **). When the Namaquas wish to be at
peace with the Kamaka Damaras, they hold unpeeled sticks in their hands
(Alexander, p. 170) ; and among the Shoshonees, the stranger paints the
women's cheeks with vermilion in token of peace (Lewis and Clarke, ii. 86).

2 D'Orbigny, iv. 164.

SYMBOLS OF GOOD-WILL. 71

pedlars by whom the trade of Anahuac was largely carried
on, bore a wooden staff in sign of peace.^ In East Africa,
the stranger " must sit under some tree outside the settle-
ment, till a deputation of elders, after formally ascertain-
ing his purpose, escort him to their homes." 2 in the
Marianne Islands, he must immediately on his arrival
announce himself to the headman of the village, on pain of
being treated as an outlaw.^ The same conception seems to
have found expression in the law of Ine, which provided
that if the stranger would not be taken for a thief, he must
either keep to the beaten track, or shout, or blow a horn ; *
and in the widely prevalent practice of savages, who show,
by displaying the articles of which they are ready to dis-
pose, that they have come, not to fight, but to trade.^ On
the other hand, it is all important for the stranger to know
whether those whom he is approaching are, or are not, well-
disposed towards him. The Masai women show their
friendly feelings by going to meet him with grass in their
hands, and chanting a salutation ; ^ and, at the Bay of Good
Success, the Yahgans rose to meet the voyagers, each of
them throwing away a small stick. By this action they
were understood to mean that they had cast aside their
weapons, and that their intentions were friendly.^ So, too,
the Shoshonee warriors will not smoke the pipe of peace
with strangers until they have pulled off their own
moccasins. By this ceremony they intend to indicate

1 E. J. Payne, " History of the World called America," Oxford, 1892, 1 534.

2 R. F. Burton, **The Lake Regions of Central Africa," London, i860,
ii. 55. Sometimes the object of his visit is first ascertained by divination
(D. and C. Livingstone, "Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi,
1858-64," London, 1865, p. 109). ^ Waitz-Gerland, v. (Th. ii.) 125.

* Grimm, D. R.-A., 400; but see Wilda, 673, note \

^ E,g.y O. v. Kotzebue, i. 189 ; see below, sec. 55, note K

* Thomson, p. 89 ; cp. p. 197. >

' Cook's ** Voyage " in Hawkesworth, ii. 43.

72 THE SILENT TRADE.

that their friendly professions are sincere, and imprecate

upon themselves the misery of going barefoot for ever, —

no small thing in their thorny country, — should they prove

neglectful of their guests.^ Among the Indians of Guinea,

the host expresses his kindly intentions by offering a bowl

of drink to his visitor,^ among the Brazilian natives by j

handing him his lighted cigar,^ and among some of the '

Papuan tribes by presenting him with betel nut * It seems

probable that the elaborate forms of greetings in use

among many peoples, — for example, among the Akawais,

Arawaaks, and Macusis, — have the same end in view, —

that of ascertaining and indicating the intentions of the

parties.^

Sec. 43. Once received, the stranger is assured of pro-
tection ; but that protection has its limitations. Frequently |
it lasts so long only as he is in actual residence with his
host. Thus, Burckhart ® says of the Arab that " he robs
his enemies, his friends, and his neighbours, provided that
they are not actually in his, own tent, where their property
is sacred."^ Burton tells us that the Warori resemble the
Bedouins in the one point, that the chief will entertain his
guests hospitably so long ?ls they are in his village, and will
plunder them they moment they leave it Again, it is said
that at Meccah, "an inhabitant of one quarter passing
singly through another, becomes a guest ; once beyond the
walls, he is likely to be beaten to insensibility by his

^ Lewis and Clarke, ii. 87. To smoke the calumet is to give the most
inviolable pledge of keeping the peace. The passing of the wampum belt is
a symbol of like meaning (Catlin, i. 235, 222, note).

2 Schomburgk, i. 197. » C. F. Ph. von Martius, 56.

* Kohler, " Recht d. Papuas," " Zeits. f. vergl. Rechtsw.," xiv. 389. Similar
customs prevail at Amboina and Kissar (Riedel, 41, 405).

5 Schomburgk, i. 205, 361, 362 ; see also D'Orbigny, iv. 164.

« "Notes on the Bedouins and Wahdbys," London, 1830, i. 158.

' " The Lake Regions,*' ii. 274. |

I

PROTECTION OF STRANGER. 73

hospitable foes;"^ and Petitot^ tells us that, while the
Eskimo of the Mackenzie River are truly hospitable to the
stranger, and regard his person as inviolable so long as he
is with them, they will, so soon as he has left their huts, or
crossed the boundary of the district which they occupy,
very probably rob him, and perhaps murder him. In
many cases, however, the host continues to protect his
guest after his departure, either by escorting ^ him on his
way, or by giving him some token which will secure to him
a friendly reception.*

^ R. F. Burton, " Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to £1-Medinah and
Meccah," London, 1885, iii. 145. 2 p^ g^^

' It is the invariable practice at Kordofan to escort the guest some distance
(J. Petherick, " Egypt, The Soudan, and Central Africa," London, 1861,
P' 237). In Fiji, guests are always escorted to the canoe or to the outskirts of
the town (Williams and Calvert, i. 155), and the Circassian host escorts his
departing guest to another lodging (J. von Klaproth, ** Travels in the Caucasus
and Georgia, in 1807-08," transl. by F. Schoberl, London, 1814, p. 336). See
also, Meakin, " The Moors," p. 294, quoted in the next note.

* In Kundma, it is a common practice for the host to give his staff to his
guest as a passport and mark of protection (Munzinger, O. S., 384). Leo
Africanus (ii. 327) speaks of a chief's spear as being used for a like purpose. In
the edition of the Heimskringla by Laing and Anderson (i. 68), the editors
observe that, " when kings or great people met in those ages, they exchanged
gifts or presents with each other, and do so still in the East ; and the original
object of this custom was that each should have tokens known to the other, by
which any bearer afterwards should be accredited to the original owner of the
article sent with him in token, and even the amount of confidence to be
reposed in him denoted." A similar practice obtained in Old Russia (A. L.
von Schlozer, " Russische Annalen," iv. 59). The aiifi^oXov of the Greeks,
the * symbolum ' or * tessera hospitalis * of the Latins, the * chirs aelychoth * of
the Carthaginians, and the kalduke of the Narrinyeri (see sec. 35 above), seem
to have served a like purpose (Schrader, " Sprachvergleichung und Urge-
schichte," 2te Aufl., Jena, 1890, p. 507 ; Id, Handelsgeschichte u. Warenkunde,
p. 1 1 ; Id. Reallexikon, p. 273 ; R. von Ihering, Die Gastfreundschaft im
Alterthum, Deutsche Rundschau, Berlin, 1887, li. 387 seg,), Taplin (in
J. D. Wood's " Native Tribes of South Australia," p. 33) observes that " some-
times two persons are made ngia-ngiaupe to each other temporarily. This is
done by^dividing the kalduke, and giving one part to each of them. As long
as they retain the pieces they are estranged from each other, but when the

74 THE SILENT TRADE.

It was the custom in old Germany for a guest to remain
not longer than three days ; ^ and a similar rule appears to
have prevailed among the Moors of Brakna, on the Sene-
gal.* Among the Aenezes, the stranger, who has no friend
or protector in the camp, alights at the first tent, and is
received as a guest whether the host be at home or not.
On the expiry of three days and four hours, the host asks
him whether he intends to prolong his visit ; and, if his
answer be in the affirmative, he is expected to assist in such
domestic matters as fetching water and milking the camels.
He may decline to help, and, in that case, he incurs the
censure of public opinion ; or, he may go to another tent^
The Aleuts are hospitable, but in a way peculiar to them-
selves. A stranger, who has no relative or friend to whom
to betake himself, may choose his quarters. He is not
invited by anyone, but all are ready to receive him. He is
entertained with the best, is asked for nothing, can stay as
long as he likes, and is supplied on his departure with pro-
visions for his journey.* We are told ^ of the Kandhs of
Orissa that every stranger is an invited guest, and that a
guest can never be turned away. So, too, the Ostiak host
gives the stranger the best he has, and, after the repast, pre-

purpose for which this was done is accomplished, they return the pieces of the
kalduke to the original owner, and then they may hold intercourse with each
other again." According to Simpson (p. 926), '' A man of good name would
have no difficulty in procuring food and shelter while travelling through any
part of the country" of the Western Eskimo, "as, when he ceased to be
known by his own reputation, he would be accepted as guest by mentioning
the name of his last entertainer." Meakin (" The Moors," p. 294) says that
the Moor entertains the traveller for the night, and tells him next day for
whom to ask in the first village on his route, a companion being sent
with him if necessary. ' Grimm, D. R.-A., 400.

^ Caillid, i. 75. As to the New Zealanders, see Cook and King, i. 139.

' Burckhart, ** Notes on the Bedouins," i. 179. See below, sec. 47.

< Dall, p. 397. ^ Hunter, ii. 85.

PRIMITIVE HOSPITALITY. 75

sents him with a gift without expecting anything in return.^
In Java, food and lodging are provided for all strangers
arriving at a village. " It is not sufficient," say the Javan
Institutions, " that a man should place good food before his
guest ; he is bound to do more ; he should render the meal
palatable by kind words, and treatment to soothe him after
his journey, and to make his heart glad whiles he partakes
of the refreshment/' ^ Among the Great Ingusches, who
have borrowed their manners and customs from the Ossetes
and Circassians, care for the comfort of the guest and
deferential behaviour towards him are carried still further ;
for the host is said to wait upon him, and to eat whatever
he may choose to throw to him.^ In addition to food and
lodging and an amiable host, there is, amongst many
peoples, further provision made for the stranger: he is,
that is to say, admitted to the marital privileges of his
entertainer. This custom illustrates the conception, widely
prevalent among savage societies, that the wife is the hus-
band's property, and can be disposed of as such. Nor is it
the wife only who is subjected to this treatment ; it is, in
many instances, extended to the daughter and the
slave.*

Sec. 44. The person of the guest is sacred. Thus,

^ Pallas, V. 162. This custom of making a present to the departing guest
is very general. See Man, 94, 148 (Andaman Islands) ; Waitz-Gerland,
vi. 145 (Polynesia) ; Laing and Anderson, Heimskringla, i. 138; iii. 26, 52
(Norse Kingdoms). As to the interchange of gifts between host and guest
among the Homeric Greeks, see B. W. Leist, " Graeco-ital. Rechts-
geschichte," p. 213 ; Schrader, " Handelsgeschichte und Warenkunde," p. 9.

3 T. S. Raffles, **The History of Java," London, 1817, i. loi.

^ J. von Klaproth, 349 ; the Mandans also wait on their guests (Catlin,
i. IIS).

* Numerous authorities are cited in Westermark, pp. 73"75» '^^ Yule's
edition of "Marco Polo," i. 214, and in A. H. Post, " Grundriss/' i. 28.
Crawley's explanation of the practice will be found at pp. 248, 280, 285, 479
of his book. See sec. 8 above.

76 THE SILENT TRADE.

among the Ossetes, the host considers himself respon-
sible for his safety, and, if he be murdered or wounded,
avenges him as if he were a kinsman. If he discover him
to be his enemy, he entertains him notwithstanding ; and
declares his enmity only on his departure.^ The Circas-
sian, when he has taken a person under his protection, or
received him, will never betray him ; and should an enemy
attempt to carry him off by force, the host's wife will give
him milk from her breast He thus becomes her son, and
his brethren are bound to defend him and to avenge his
blood.^ Again, the Takue regard the rights of the stranger
as peculiarly sacred ; and instances are recorded in which
a guest, who has killed a man in the village, has been dis-
missed unharmed to his native land.* Among the Kabyles,
the anaya, — a form of protection, — maybe granted to an indi-
vidual, a 5of, a village, or a tribe ; and to injure the protdgd
is punishable with death and confiscation of property.*

Sec. 45. Among the Pacific islanders, an exchange of
names^ constitutes the strongest pledge of friendship, each

^ V. Haxthausen, p. 412 ; Keating ("Narrative of an Expedition to Explore
the Source of St. Peter's River," i. 98) says that among the Potowatami, the
stranger is protected ; but that, if he turn out to be an enemy, the laws of
hospitality will not save him.

' J. V. Klaproth, p. 318. Among the modern Moors, the murder of the
stranger is avenged by his late host as an insult to himself (Meakin, "The
Moors,'' p. 294). As to blood-brotherhood, see below, sec. 45.

' Munzinger, O. S., 208.

* Hanoteau et Letourneux, ii. 61, 62. The 9of is an association for the
purposes of mutual defence and offence, and reaches every relation of life.
Generally, each village is divided into two 9of ; and, in times of trouble, the
weaker of the two seeks the alliance of one of the 9of of the neighbouring
villages. The 9of thus extends, sometimes to the tribe, sometimes even to
alien tribes {Id, ib, ii. 14).

^ The practice is general in Polynesia (Waitz-Gerland, vi. 130-01 ; Cook and
King, ii. 9; iii. 18; v. Kotzebue, ii. 48, 107), and is in use in the
Solomon Islands (Mendafia, 113, 197, 232), in the islands of Torres Straits
(Waitz-Gerland, vi. 622), and in some of the Micronesian Archipelagos

BOND OF BROTHERHOOD. ^j

of the parties being bound to support and protect the other,
and to permit him to share in the most intimate rights.^
A ceremony, by which persons are joined together in an
artificial bond of brotherhood is found among nearly all the
tribes of Eastern and Central Africa.^ Among the Batuta,
those who are to be made brothers drink beer containing
the blood of each ; ^ and similar ceremonies are described
as taking place at Mruli,* among tribes near the east
African coast,^ in Timor,^ in Borneo,^ in Old Germany,*
and among some of the Indian tribes of North America.^
Of the Sdre or brother-oath of the Wazaramo Burton ^^
says that " like the * manred ' of Scotland, and the * munh

{Id, V. (Th. ii.) 130). It is also found in the Antilles {Id, iii. 388), among the
native tribes of South Australia (Angas, i. 59), the Chopunnish (Lewis and
Clarke, iii. 254), the Spokanes (Bancroft, I 285, note), the Mohawks (C»
Golden, "The History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada," London^
1755, i. II), the Mapuches (E. R. Smith, "The Araucarians," New York,
1855, P* ^^2)> ^^^ o^ ^^^ Zambesi (D. and C. Livingstone, " Narrative of an
Expedition to the Zambesi," p. 149). In the Marianne Islands the child
receives its name from the friends of the family ; and they in consequence of
giving it, are looked upon as related to the child, and as having undertaken
certain duties in regard to it (Waitz-Gerland, v. (Th. ii.) 109.

1 Ellis, "Polyn. Researches," iii. 124.

2 Kohler, " Das Banturecht in Ostafrika," " Zeits. f. vergl. Rechtsw.," xv.
40 ; G. Burrows, " The Land of the Pigmies," p. 28.

' Livingstone, " Missionary Travels," 488 ; cp. Herodotus, iv. 70, as to the
manner in which the Scythians made oath.

* C. T. Wilson and R. B. Felkin, " Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan,"
London, 1882, ii. 41.

* Krapf, 238 ; Thomson, %%, « " A Naturalist's Wanderings," 452.
7 St. John, i. 116, 117 ; Ling Roth, ii. 205.

^ Brunhild says, " Rememberest thou that clearly, Gunnar ? How ye twain
(Sigurd and thyselO did let your blood flow together in the footprint (swear-
ing brotherhood) ..." ("The Long Lay of Brunhild, in * Corpus Poeticum
Boreale,'" G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell, Oxford, 1883, i. 308).

* See authorities in Kohler, "Die Rechte der Urvolker Nordamerikas,"
"Zeitschrift £ vergl. Rechtsw.," xii. 392.

^® "The Lake Regions," i. 114. He observes that an exchange of small
presents generally concludes the ceremony.

78 THE SILENT TRADE.

bola bhai' of India, and similar fraternal institutions
amongst most of the ancient tribes of barbarians, in whom
sociability is a passion, it tends to reconcile separate inter-
ests between man and man, to modify the feuds and dis-
cords of savage society, and principally to strengthen those
that need an alliance." He adds that it forms a strong tie,
as it is a matter of general belief that its infraction is fol-
lowed by death or slavery.^

Sec. 46. Among the Bechuanas and other Kafirs certain
associations are formed, the members of which regard one
another as comrades. The association is called " mopato,"
the comrade "molekane." When a fugitive comes to a
tribe he joins the "mopato," corresponding to that in his
own tribe to which he belongs. Further, the stranger
may attach himself to an individual as his ** molekane,"
from whom he will receive the necessary supplies.^ So,
too, the Eskimo of the Mackenzie River chooses a
protector among the strangers whom he frequents; and
this alliance, once recognised, becomes inviolable, and
establishes between the parties a sort of relationship and
community of rights and duties. If the prot^gd be rich,
his only difficulty is to choose between protectors.* At
Rurutu, on the arrival of strangers, every native endeavours
to obtain one as a friend. If he succeed, he carries him
off to his own dwelling, where he and the other inhabitants
of the district treat him with the greatest kindness. Some-

^ In the Babar Archipelago, in the island of Wetar, and at Timor-laut,
death or disaster attends the breach of the oath of friendship (Riedel, 342, 446,
447, 284 ; see also 153, 198, 396 ; and cp. 128. A curious custom is noted by
Spencer and Gillen (pp. 461, 462) as existing among some of the Central Aus-
tralian tribes. If a party of natives are about to go on a punitive expedition, and
have among them a man of the locality whither they are bound, they force
him to drink blood with them. Having done so, he is bound not to warn his
friends. * Livingstone, "Missionary Travels," 148, 316.

» Petitot, pp. 138, 239.

PROTECTION OF STRANGER. 79

times competition for the possession of the stranger is so
keen that the natives come to blows.^ Again, when a ship
arrives at Mindanao, the natives come aboard and invite
the voyagers to their houses, inquiring who has a comrade
or " pagally." The former is a familiar male friend, the latter
a Platonic friend of the opposite sex. This friendship is
purchased with a small present, and afterwards confirmed
with trifling gifts from time to time ; and with this friend
the stranger stays whenever he goes ashore.^ Ibn Batuta^
describes a similar custom as existing at Makdeshu. The
host buys and sells for his guest ; and anyone attempting ^
to overreach the latter, or to deal with him in the absence
of his protector is censured by public opinion. When the
Klaarwater Hottentot went to barter at Litakun he sought -
out his " maat," who, for a small present of tobacco, supplied
him with provisions, and assisted him in making his pur-
chases. When the " maat " visited the Hottentot village he
had free quarters.* A similar custom prevails among the
Bamaflwato. They place food, shelter, and a wife at the
disposal of the friend.^

Sec. 47. Among the Bedouins, the stranger, by payment
of a small sum, becomes " dakheil," — protected. It is then
a duty incumbent upon all to give him a brother's help ;
while to injure him is regarded as an offence greater than
to injure his protector. In some cases, — among the Arabs
of Sinai, for instance, — this protection is continued for
three days and eight hours after the "dakheil" has left
his protector's tent. But if the stranger neglect to make
such payment, he may expect to be plundered ; and, if he

^ Ellis, " Polyn. Researches," iii. 104, 105.

' W. Dampier, "A New Voyage Round the World," London, 1703, i. 328.

3 II. 181, 182. ^1

* Burchell, ii. SSS } cp. Burton, " The Lake Regions,*' ii. 55.

' Chapman, i, 97, note.

8o THE SILENT TRADE.

resist, to be slain.^ At Zayla, the Bedouin becomes the
"Nazil" or guest of the townsman. This tie can be
dissolved only by the formula of triple divorce, and its
violation is severely punished.* Again, every Abyssinian
merchant who transacts business at Massua enters into a
like relation with some inhabitant of the place, who, in
return for a payment, supplies him with food, and assists
him in buying and selling.^

Sec. 48. According to Burton,* " the Abban or protector
of the Somali country is the Mogasa of the Gallas, the
Akh of El Hejaz, the Ghafir of the Sinaitic Peninsula, and
the Rabia of Eastern Arabia. . . . The Abban acts at once
as broker, escort, agent, and interpreter, and the institution
may be considered the earliest form of transit dues. In all
cases he receives a certain percentage, his food and lodging
are provided at the expense of his employer, and he not
infrequently exacts small presents from his kindred. In
return he is bound to arrange all differences, and even to
fight the battles of his client against his fellow-countrymen.
Should the Abban be slain his tribe is bound to take up the
cause, and to make good the losses of their protdgd . . .
According to the laws of the country, the Abban is the
master of the life and property of his client" A similar
institution is found among the Abyssinians,^ and the
Bogos.® Among the Beni-Amer the foreign merchant

1 Burton, " Meccah," iii. 86 ; Burckhart, " Notes on the Bedouins,"

i. 174, 336.

* R. F. Burton, " First Footsteps in East Africa," London, 1856, p. 124.
3 Mundnger, O. S., 121.

^Burton, "First Footsteps/* p. 89. S'ee Kr^pf (p. 83) as to Gallas, and
' Ha^enmacher (pp. 32-36) as to Somalis.

* Burton, ** The Lake Regions," L 253. <

« W. Munadnger, " Sitten u. Recht der Bogos," Winterthur, 1859, pp. 44-46.
The relationship thus created b held among the Bogos to be hereditary (ItL id, ;
cp. R. V. Ihering, " Die Gastfireundschaft,** pp. 389-392).

ROYAL PROTECTION. ^i

must take a temporary protector ; ^ and, according to
Leo Africanus,^ the traveller must, in some parts of
Morocco, have the escort of some saint or woman of
the country.

Sec. 49. When the royal power is absolute, the king
very generally monopolises commerce, at the same time
protecting the trader. Thus, in the Soolima country, he
does not permit mercantile transactions to take place
except with his knowledge and in his presence. Strangers
on arrival send their goods to his trading-house, and he
makes known what is for sale. The purchaser makes
his own bargain with the seller, and is responsible
to the king for payment. When the stranger wishes to
depart, the king collects the debt, retains custom, and
gives him the balance and a present with leave to go
away.^ At Shoa and Usambara, the foreigner, by giving
a small present to the king, whose power is absolute, can
secure his protection. He may not, however, leave the
country without permission.* At Ugogo, the passage-
money exacted by the Sultan takes, in Burton's opinion,
the place of the fees payable elsewhere to the Abban. No
doubt the Sultan nominally receives it, but he must
distribute the greater part of it among the members of
his family, his counsellors, and his attendants.^

When the protection of the stranger is the concern of
the community or of the king, he is, in general, lodged in
a public building set apart for the entertainment of travel-

1 Id, O. S., 314. « II. 229, 326.

^ A. G. Laing, " Travels in the Timannee, Kooranko, and Soolima Countries
in V\^est Africa,'* London, 1825, pp. 356, 357. * Krapf, p. 37a

* Burton, " The Lake Regions," L 253 ; cp. ii. 55. As to passj^e-money in
Uganda and Masailand, see Wilson and Felkin, i. 58 ; Thomson, pp. 94, 271 ;
J. H. Speke, ** Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile," London,
1863, pp. 126, 131, 171.
6

82 THE SILENT TRADE.

lers.^ The royal hospitality is not always, however, an
unqualified benefit to the recipient Thus, in Uganda,
where all strangers are the king's guests, while they
are permitted to help themselves to the garden-produce
belonging to his subjects, they are frequently in great
straits, for the people may not sell to them, and no one
may visit them without leave. The object of these restric-
tions is, in part at all events, to secure to the king the full
fleecing of his guests.^

Sec. so. Not only does the hospitable man enjoy the
approval of his fellow-tribesmen ; ^ but he who refuses

^ In Transoxiana buildings were reserved for strangers where, at any hour,
and in any number, they and their beasts of burden received entertainment
("The Oriental Geography of Ebn Haukel, an Arabian Traveller of the Tenth
Century," translated by Sir W. Ouseley, London, 1800, p. 235). The Hovas
allotted a separate hut to the stranger, where he was provided for by the chief
of the place (Waitz-Gerland, ii. 437). In New Guinea, dwellings belonging to
the headman are set apart for the travellers' benefit (D'Albertis, i. 390). Part
of the Wahiby revenue is appropriated to the support of houses of public enter-
tainment for strangers (Burckhart, "Notes on the Bedouins,'' ii. 156). In the
large island of Dahalak, the village chief meets stranger, and provides him
with food in a house set apart (Munzinger, O. S., loi). Rest-houses were
built by the Incas (Herrera, v. 57) ; and, in South Yucatan, the village chief
provides inns for passing travellers (Waitz-Gerland, iv. 305). The Abassians
set apart rooms for the accommodation of guests (J. v. Klaproth, 248); and for
this purpose houses of pubUc assembly are used by the Batta (Waitz-Gerland,
V. (Th. i.) 184), by the Caroline Islanders {Id. v. (Th. ii.) 128), in the Loyalty
Islands {Id. vi. 583), in Samoa (Wilkes, ii. 149), among the Hill Dyacks of
Borneo (H. Low, " Sarawak," London, 1848, p. 282), and in Timbuctoo (Waitz-
Gerland, ii. 94). In Fiji, temples are so used (Id, vL 590, cp. 585) ; and the
mosque El Azhar is famous for its pious foundations for the relief of poor travellers
(J. L, Burckhart, "Travels in Nubia," London, 1819, p. 410, note). Moreover,
accommodation was provided for travellers by the peoples of northern and
classical antiquity (Schrader," Handelsgeschichte a. Warenkunde," pp. 28-31).

« Wilson and Felkin, i. 209 ; ii. 17, 26 ; Speke, pp. 268, 304, 345, 373, 376.
As to the protection of the "pakeha," see "Old New Zealand," pp. 16$ etseq.
As to the treatment of Jews in the Middle Ages, see Goldschmidt, p. no.

* Burckhart, " Notes on the Bedouins," i. 72 (Bedouins), cp. Ebn Haukel,
234. 235 (Transoxiana); Dall, 151 (Tribes S. of Yukon River); Rink, 28,29;
J. Simpson, 926 (Western Eskimo); Sproat, 112, 113 (Ahts).

SUMMARY. 83

hospitality is regarded as blameworthy, and is, in some
cases, subjected to punishment.^ Still, a friendly reception
has, in some cases, inconvenient consequences. Thus, the
Fiji islanders regard all strangers in an enemy's country as
enemies; 2 and the same view seems to be held by the
Black-feet and the Snake Indians.^ According to Basuto
custom, every stranger in a foreign country must, on war
breaking out, join with the inhabitants even against his
own countrymen ; * and, in Tonga, every man is bound to
espouse the cause of the chief on whose island he may
happen to be when war is declared.^ On the other hand,
in the Caroline Islands, strangers may pass without let or
hindrance through hostile parties, remaining on good terms
with both sets of combatants.*

II.

Summary,

Sec. 51. We have seen that visits are frequently inter-
changed between the different groups which compose a

^ It was provided by the Lex Burgundia that " quicunque hospiti venienti

I tectum aut focum negaverit, trium solidorum inlatione mulctetur " (Grimm, D.

R.-A., 399). Lack of hospitality is punishable among the Mongols (G. Tim-

kowski, " Travels of- the Russian Mission through Mongolia to China," . . .

! London, 1827 ; ii. 345) ; and the Kabyles (Hanoteau et Letourneux, ii. 117).

j » Wilkes, iii. 298.

^ J. Dunn, " History of the Oregon Territory,'* London, 1844, p. 324.

^ Casalis, 224. ^ Mariner, i. 162, note.

• Waitz-Gerland, v. (Th. ii.) 133. See also above, sec. 18, 33. In the
Marquesas, a tribesman, who has entered into a bond of friendship with the
members of a hostile tribe, may visit his friend's country in safety. "The
individual so protected is said to be 'taboo,' and his person to a certain
extent, is held as sacred " (Melville, p. 155 ; see Vincendon-Dumoulin et
Desgraz, p. 258). According to the author last-named (p. 265), during certain
festivities, of which each valley has its own, a solemn tabu protects strangers
who come to participate in them. Hostile tribes come without fear to join in
the pleasures of those with whom they have fought, or will shortly fight.

84 THE SILENT TRADE.

tribe, and that this practice prevails even in the case of
tribes which have little, if any, acquaintance with commerce.
These visits are not always,^ but are almost always, the
occasion of an exchange of gifts, and this exchange is, in
some cases, indistinguishable from barter. It is not the
entertainment of guests, but the entertainment of strangers
as guests, which is unfamiliar to the primitive. man. In the
early stages of this novel relation, the stranger is still
regarded as an enemy, but is treated as a friend for a
limited time, and for a specific purpose. He can count, at
the least, upon food and shelter, and protection, so long as
he is actually in residence with his host. In some cases, he
can prolong his stay as long as he likes ; in other cases, he
must bring it to a close on the expiry of a fixed period.
Sometimes his entertainer protects him, even after his
departure, by escorting him to the next village, or by pro-
tecting him with a token which will ensure his friendly
reception. Not infrequently this relation is indicated by an
exchange of names, or by some such ceremony as that of
blood-brotherhood. At first it seems to have been strictly
personal to the individuals concerned. We find, however,
instances in which it does not cease on the death of the
original parties to it. Further, in many cases, the stranger
is treated by his protector's tribe as its prot^g^ ; and, in
this attitude of a community towards an individual, we see

They generally leave on the evening of the third day, — a point of time which
seems to be the limit of this friendly reception. Among the Nagas, if a
tribesman marry a girl of a tribe at war with his own, he is regarded as a
neutral (R. G. Woodthorpe, " Notes on the Wild Tribes, inhabiting the
so-called Naga Hills, on our N.-E. Frontier of India, 1882, J. A. I., xi.

56, 196).

1 There does not appear to be evidence in regard to the Yahgans showing
that the giving and receiving of gifts were incidents of their visit. At the same
time it is to be kept in view that they exchanged presents on certain special
occasions (see above, sees. 7, 9).

SUMMARY. 85

the beginnings of that public hospitality which forms a
marked feature in the life of classical antiquity. Lastly, it
is to be observed, that to refuse hospitality is generally
regarded by public opinion as blameworthy, and is, in some
cases, punishable by law.

IV.— CONCLUSIONS.

Sec. 52. In the preceding pages, we have endeavoured
to marshal the evidence which bears upon the early history
of a remarkable change, — the change, that is to say, which
has taken place in the modes in which man thinks of, and
acts towards, his fellow-man. In primitive times, he re-
gards and treats him as the subject of rights and duties,
because he is a member of a group or association of
groups. This early practice proceeds upon the view
that the limits of the related groups, — of the tribe, — ^^form
the ring-fence of all social existence, and that beyond
those limits lies a world, peopled with beings, at once
feared and hated, towards whom the only possible attitude
is one of unceasing hostility. The existence of these
beings is a danger not merely to this or that tribesman,
but to the tribe itself ; it is essential to its very life that
this danger be averted ; and, accordingly, the tribal law ^
imposes upon each and all the duty of hunting down the
stranger and slaying him like a beast of prey. But a time
comes in the history of every society which has a history, —
which is, that is to say, not wholly unprogressive, — when its
members find that its unaided resources are insufficient for
the supply of their ever-increasing wants. They are
forced, in consequence, to enter into relations of some
sort with the surrounding populations ; and, in so doing,

^ See above, sec. 23, and below, sec. 56.
S6

CONCLUSIONS. 87

they must adopt one of two methods. Of these the most
natural to the savage is the method of violence ; for,
according to the only rule of conduct, legal or moral, with
which he is acquainted, — the rule of custom, — the stranger
is without right of any kind ; and so it is neither murder
to kill him, nor robbery to strip him of his goods. Still,
this method has its inconveniences, for it is uncertain in
result and dangerous in practice ; and its danger and
uncertainty lead the man, who desires to possess himself
of his enemy's belongings, to seek for some means of
inducing him to part voluntarily with them. The savage
has no guide but his past experience of transacting with
his fellow-tribesmen ; and, in these transactions, he pro-
ceeded upon the principle of giving in the expectation, or
upon the understanding, that he would receive a suitable
return. In dealing with his enemies he adopts a method, —
the method of the silent trade, — which gives effect to that
principle, and at the same time secures his safety. In its
simplest forms, this practice does little to improve the
mutual relations of the parties to it, for it leaves them as
it found them, enemies. They, indeed, keep faith with
one another ; but, in so doing, they are actuated, not by any
feeling of amity, but wholly and solely by the wish to
serve their own interests. Still, if the practice itself do
not improve these relations, it makes improvement
possible ; for it implies the view that an enemy, although he
is an enemy, can be dealt with otherwise than by violence.^

^ R. V. Ihering (**Der Zweck im Recht,'' 2te Aufl., Leipzig, 1884, i. 242 ;
Die Gastfreundschaft, 382) observes that, if the savage spare the stranger, he
spares him not from any friendly feeling towards him, for he hates and fears
him, but because he has discovered that a living slave is of more value than a
dead enemy ; and that this recognition of the worth of human life is the first
step towards the recognition of man gud man as a persona. The evidence
seems to show that, while primitive tribes may, in some instances, have spared

88 THE SILENT TRADE.

Sec. 53. Upon this mode of intercourse that of the
primitive market shows an important advance, because in
all but its rudest forms it brings men together, whereas the
earlier usage keeps them apart They run no risk of
violence, so long as the trade continues ; for the spot where
it is carried on is always neutral and often sacred. In
many instances, the privilege comes to be personal rather
than local; — that of the trader rather than that of the
market-place; and, in such cases, it assumes a form
familiar to the tribesmen in his intercourse with his fellows,
— the form of hospitality.

Sec. 54. Primitive hospitality resembles modern hospi-
tality in one, and only in one, respect, — it is concerned with
the relation of host to guest The modem host entertains his
friends and acquaintances, and perhaps the friends of his
friends ; and, in so doing, he fulfils his so-called social duties.
But these are duties only in name ; they are neither morally
nor legally obligatory ; and the man who fails to discharge
them suffers no practical inconvenience other than that of
being left more or less to himself In short, hospitality is
nowadays and at its best a matter of good fellowship only ;
it is not an affair of public concern. But, among primitive
peoples, it has an importance which can hardly be over-
estimated. It is not confined in its range to those who
are known to the host either personally or through the
introduction of a mutual friend, but is extended to absolute
strangers. Moreover, it is obligatory ; and he who neglects
or refuses to exercise it incurs the censure of public opinion,
and is, in some cases, made liji^le to the penalties of the

theirenemies in order to barter them,»they did not themselves keep slaves,
owing, no doubt, in part, at all events, to the difficulty of maintaining them.
7]ie Australian and Samoan practice (see above, sec 9) in regard to the
conquered probably represents the primitive practice.

CONCLUSIONS. 89

law.^ At the same time the privilege accorded is not,
except in its later forms, a permanent privilege. In other
words, the stranger is protected by a certain person, for a
certain time, at a certain place ; and so soon as he has over-
stayed the prescribed time, or has left the appointed place,
he becomes once more the enemy of his quondam host.

Sec. 55. The relation of protector to prot^g^ is, in its
inception, a relation between individuals. It is, that is to
say, not the tribe but the tribesman who is responsible for
the safety of the stranger, who takes up his quarrels and
avenges his wrongs. Still, it is the community that insists
that he shall be protected, not from arty wish to befriend
him, for it regards his existence as a standing menace to
its own, but because it recognises in him a capacity of
serving its interests.^ Enemy though he be, he is necessary
to it, for it is through him alone that some of its most pressing
wants can be supplied. The enforcement of the general rule
except in the one specific case, — the assumption that the
stranger, if he be not a trader, is an enemy, — is amply justi-
fied. For the savage does not travel for the sake of travelling,
or to advance the cause of religion or of science.^ He crosses
the border of his tribe for two purposes only, — for the purpose
of making war, and for the purpose of engaging in trade.

Sec. 56. It is perhaps necessary to explain what we
mean when we speak of a community as actuated by
motives ; and we can make ourselves clear most easily by
means of an illustration. Take for instance foreign trade
in its most primitive form. Certain members of a tribe

^ See R. V. Ihering, " Die Gastfreundschaft," p. 357 seq, " Ibid,^ p. 378.

' The savage cannot be made to understand that an expedition can have
any object other than gain or conquest (see, for example, St. John, i. 265). '
Livingstone observes (" Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi," p. 434),
that " the usual way of approaching an unknown people is to call out in a
cheerful tone, ' Malonda ! ' Things for sale, or do you want to sell anything ?"

90 THE SILENT TRADE.

desire to exchange their goods for those belonging to a
stranger. They employ the method which appears to them
to be the most suitable for their purpose ; and if, by its
means they .succeed in opening a trade, others adopt it.
Savages are like sheep ; they follow the leader ; and what
was the innovation of the few becomes the practice of the
many ; what was the interest of the few becomes the com-
mon interest. Of. course, it is not to be supposed that the
action of the individual is consciously directed to the
realisation of a common aim ; in the first instance, at all
events, he acts exclusively with a view to his own interest.
Still, his interest and the interests of his fellows converge
in one point,— in the establishment of a trade; and, in
this coincidence of interests, are to be discerned the first
beginnings of community of interests.^ Conduct, according
as it serves or disserves these common interests, is approved
or disapproved by each and all ; and thus a public opinion
is gradually formed which assigns to individual activities
their limits, arid determines their direction, — which, in short,
keeps them to the road which custom has built

Sec. 57. These interests are not always and everywhere
the same; they change, and as they change, the law of
tribal custom changes. In the early life of a society, its
main concern is to secure its bare existence in the midst
of hostile surroundings ; and, accordingly, its law proscribes
the stranger. If, at a maturer stage, it is forced by the
pressure of new wants to engage in a trade with aliens, it
can induce them to visit its markets only if it provide for
their safety ; and, accordingly, its law will protect them.
We are not to explain this change by supposing that the
older law proceeds on a misunderstanding of some eternal

1 See R. V. Ihering, " Der Zweck,'* i. 37 ; W. Bagehot, " Physics and
Politics/* new edition, London, 1900, No. iii.

CONCLUSIONS. 91

verity which the later law more clearly apprehends. Law
is not concerned with the ascertainment of eternal verities.
It exists, and exists only, to safeguard the interests of the
community within which it prevails ; and, if it perform this
its task, it needs no further justification. Law is warranted
in proscribing the stranger, when he is a danger to the com-
munity, and in protecting him, when he is of service to it
In short, the earlier law constitutes a stage in a develop-
ment, — ^a stage which is the necessary prius of all sub-
sequent stages ; and it is as indispensable to the men of its
time, as is the later law to the citizens of the modern worlds
Sec. 58. Law changes, and the change is brought about
by individual action. Still, the innovator is controlled by
a public opinion which is intensely conservative. When,
for example, the primitive tribesman seeks to induce the
stranger to part with his goods, he applies the principle
which he found effectual in dealing with his fellows
within the tribe. At the same time, he adapts the method
to the novel circumstances. He sets out his goods in the
expectation of receiving in exchange the articles which he
desires, and secures his own safety by keeping out of sight.^
Again, when he extends his protection to the stranger, he
clothes it in a familiar garb. He is conversant with the
exercise of hospitality towards, and by, the men of his own
tribe, and he shields the stranger by receiving him as his
guest.^ Still, while the relation is in form that of host to
guest, it is in substance rather that of protector to prot^g^.
Thus change proceeds as nearly as possible upon the lines
of the old usage.*

1 See R. V. Ihering, '*Der Zweck," i. 435 seq.y ii. 119; Id., "Die Gast-
freundschaft," 360. ^ See above, sees. 26, 27. ^ See above, sec. 41.

^ As to the mode in which change in custom is brought about among some
of the tribes of Central Australia, see Spencer and Gillen, pp. 11-15, 272, 324.

92 THE SILENT TRADE.

Sec. 59. We have seen that the exercise of hospitality
to the stranger is required by law. It is also a moral and
a religious duty. Of course, we must remember that, when
we contrast moral or religious with legal duties, we make a
distinction which is absolutely unknown to primitive man.
He lives subject, not to rules, but to a rule which is all-
inclusive, — ^the rule of custom. In observing it, he acts as
morality, religion, and law require ; in breaking it, he com-
mits a sin as well as a crime, and thus not only exposes
himself to the censure of his fellows, but brings himself into
antagonism with the supernatural. In all cases, accordingly,
in which hospitality to the stranger forms part of the tribal
custom, neglect or refusal to exercise it arouses the Divine
displeasure, not, be it observed, because that neglect or
refusal is injurious to the stranger, but because it constitutes
a breach of custom. Moreover, it is not the sinner or the
criminal alone who suffers for his fault. Corporate respon-
sibility forms one of the most striking characteristics of
primitive society. Custom exacts uniformity of conduct
from men whose natural propensity it is to imitate those
with whom they are associated ; ^ and this assimilation of
man to man within the tribe, taken in conjunction with the
isolation of the tribe itself, accounts in no small measure for
the solidarity which subsists between its members. The
community must answer for the guilt of the individual
belonging to it ; while it, on the other hand, is entitled to
hold the stranger liable for the deeds of other strangers
with whom he is wholly unconnected.^ This conception
is not limited to the affairs of earth ; it has its religious
side. The whole tribe is imperilled by the sin of the

* See above, sec. 23.

2 See above, sees. 9, 50. See also Turner, " Samoa," p. 92 ; Dieffenbach,
ii. 127.

CONCLUSIONS. 93

tribesman, — by his breach of custom ; — and accordingly, if
it would escape the Divine wrath, it must insist upon the
observance of custom. It is not to be supposed, however,
that it is only as an integral part of custom that the duty
of hospitality is brought into touch with religion. In many
instances, it is itself impressed with a sacred character.
Sometimes a religious significance attaches to the symbolic
act which not infrequently marks the relation of protector
to prot^g^. Thus, the presentation to the visitor of betel,
or of a bowl of drink, or of a lighted cigar,^ has in itself a
certain sacramental quality.^ Sometimes the host, by
performing the act, not only expresses his kindly in-
tentions, but imprecates misfortune on himself, should he
prove false to his guest.^ And, where the act is in form
an oath, it is deemed certain that the oath-breaker will be
punished with death or disease or slavery.*

Sec. 60. Undoubtedly custom, which exacts uniformity
of action in all that directly concerns the community,
tends to make conduct in general uniform, — the similarity
between the members of a tribe is matter of common
observation, — and yet it does not obliterate all diversity of
disposition and character. One savage is by nature braver
or cleverer or more generous than another; and his dis-
tinguishing quality is impressed on his actions, even when
he is following the mere routine of custom. Take for
instance the case of a community which has learned to

^ See above, sec. 42.

2 The religious meaning of these and similar symbolic acts is considered by
Crawley (** The Mystic Rose ;" see especially pp. 238, 263).

3 See above, sec. 42.

* See above, sec. 45. In considering this matter we may not leave out of
view the instances referred to above (see above, sees. 33, 40), in which not only
the markets, but the strangers frequenting them, are regarded as under Divine
protection.

94 THE SILENT TRADE.

appreciate the advantages of foreign trade. It is its interest
to attract the merchant; and, accordingly, its custom
prescribes to its members the duty of protecting him.
Still, as hospitality in its earlier forms is exercised only by
individuals towards individuals, the mode of its exercise
will differ as host differs from host and guest from guest
The man who enjoys the society of his fellow-tribesmen, —
who receives and entertains them with kindliness and
generosity, — will, we may be sure, extend like treatment,
or treatment which is different only in degree, to the
guest whom custom assigns him. The exercise of hospi-
tality, even as a mere compliance with custom, tends to
stimulate the social feelings ; and, of course, the personal
element of which we have spoken will operate in the same
direction. Accordingly, the relation between the tribes-
man and the stranger ceases, in some instances, at all
events, to be what it was in its inception, — a purely
external relation. Custom finds a response in the hearts
of its followers. It, indeed, points out the path which they
must take ; but they, in taking it, not only conform to
legal requirement, but obey the promptings of benevolence.

Thus the rule of law, which prescribes that hospitality
■shall be extended to the stranger, accords with the sugges-
tions of feeling, and has behind it the sanctions of religion ;
and these three elements co-exist undifferentiated in the
<:omplex of custom.^

Sec. 6i. It is at this point that we take leave of hospi-
tality. At the same time a single observation may be made
with regard to its later history. We have seen that the

1 The notion of a god of hospitality, such as the ZciJf ^los of the Greeks,
appears to belong to a stage of culture more advanced than that with which we
are dealing. R. von Ihering identifies Zei&s ^ivios with the Phoenician Baal
«(Die Gastfreundschaft, 393). In the essay just cited he expresses the view

CONCLUSIONS. 95

sphere of morality coincides with that of law so long only
as the interests of the members of the community are identi-
cal in range and quality with those of the community itself.
Except in a society which is wholly unprogressive, such
an identity can endure but for a time. Now and again
new wants arise, evoking new activities ; and a practice
springs up which, in its inception at all events, lies beyond
the domain of law.^ Or it may be that, owing to some
change which has taken place in its own circumstances, or
in those of the persons, not its members, with whom it has
relations, the community finds that a course of conduct,
which law made obligatory in its interest, has ceased to
serve it. In such a case, the sphere of law, as it were,
contracts, and leaves without the conduct with which it is
no longer concerned. Of this separation the institution
of hospitality furnishes an instance. As we have seen,^ a
community which desires the presence of the foreign
trader must provide for his safety. It is, in short, its
interest to protect him. And since law exists, and exists
only to safeguard its interests, it is the business of law to

that whatever may have been the private motives which induced this or that
man to entertain the stranger, it was the practical necessity of a commercial
people which first made the exercise of hospitality a matter of public concern,
and raised it to the dignity of a public institution. The Phoenician was par
excellence the trader of antiquity, and what he required when he touched at a
foreign port, was not so much a host as a protector. He did not need to be
housed and fed, for he had a home in his ship. What he did need was to be
secured from danger to life and property ; and this security he could obtain
only by attaching himself to some native of the place willing and able to pro-
tect him {lb, 359, 373, 382 et seq,\ It may quite well be that the origin of
Phoenician hospitality is to be sought in the trader's need of protection ; but
Von Ihering*s view that this institution first saw the light among the Phoe-
nicians does not by any means follow, — it is, indeed, at variance with the
facts. An interesting account of guest- friendship in Homeric society is given
by Keller (pp. 299^/^^^.). Schrader ("Reallexikon," p. 270) cites authority
to the effect that the Celts worshipped a god of hospitality under the name of
Ceroklis. ^ Cp. sees. 56, 57 above. ^ Cp. sec. 55 above.

96 THE SILENT TRADE.

make the necessary provision, and this it makes in the
institution of hospitality. But where inns are numerous,
where the ways and places of commerce are secure, the
merchant requires neither host nor protector, and hos-
pitality as a legal institution passes away. Still, this
relation between man and man continues to subsist The
host, in performing the duties which law imposed upon
him, found that his guest was a man like himself; and he
entertained and protected him not merely because, in so
doing, he consulted his own interest and that of the com-
munity to which he belonged, but because he saw in him a
human being who stood in need of assistance. The legal
duty disappears, the moral duty remains. The form con-
tinues the same, — the stranger, that is to say, is entertained
and protected, — but the substance of the relation has
altered, and the exercise of hospitality comes to be regarded
no longer as legally obligatory, but as a moral, it may be,
as a religious, act. Not only does hospitality change in
character, it becomes extended in range ; it reaches the
wanderer and the suppliant ; and it is only when it is
relieved of these cares that, ceasing to protect, and existing
only to entertain, it sinks to its modern level.

Sec. 62, We have reached the end of our inquiry. In
the introductory pages, we have endeavoured to supply
the setting in which inter-tribal commerce first appears, —
to bring together, in so far as they directly bear upon it,
the facts relating to the institutions of the primitive tribe
and its attitude towards its neighbours. We have given
some account of the silent trade ; we have seen that it is
not a mere isolated curiosity, but a usage of which
instances are to be found in every quarter of the globe ;
and we have attempted to assign it its place in the history
of human intercourse. It may perhaps be thought that it

CONCLUSIONS. 97

is irrelevant, in this connection, to examine the evidence
relating to the primitive market and primitive hospitality.
We are not of this opinion, however. We think that, until
we have made ourselves acquainted with that evidence, we
are not in a position to appreciate the true significance
of the silent trade. By its means, peaceful intercourse
between the men of alien tribes is for the first time made
possible ; and this introduction of a " peace " marks a new
era in human affairs. The usages of the primitive market
betray its close connection with the earlier practice, and
the affinity of the personal privileges of the guest with
those attached to the trading-place is hardly less obvious.
Accordingly, it appears to be clear that the later forms, —
the neutrality of the market and the protection accorded
by the host, — are not new expedients, but are extended
applications of the original device.

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