groups which formed the units of the national group, were in large measure independent communities, standing to one another on terms much like those on which the nation stood to other nations. They had their small blood-feuds as the nation had its great blood-feuds. Each family-group was responsible to other family-groups for the acts of its members, as each nation to other nations for the acts of its citizens. Vengeance was taken on innocent members of a sinning family, as vengeance was taken on innocent citizens of a sinning nation. And thus in various ways the inter-family aggressor (answering to the modern criminal), stood in a like relative position with the inter-national aggressor. Hence the naturalness of the fact that he was similarly treated. Already we have seen how, in mediæval days, the heads of destroyed family-enemies (murderers of its members or stealers of its property) were exhibited as trophies. And since Strabo, writing of the Gauls and other northern peoples, says that the heads of foes slain in battle were brought back and sometimes nailed to the chief door of the house, while, up to the time of the Salic law, the heads of slain private foes were fixed on stakes in front of it; we have evidence that identification of the public and the private foe was associated with the practice of taking trophies from them both. A kindred alliance is traceable in the usages of the Jews. Along with the slain Nicanor's head, Judas orders that his hand be cut off; and he brings both with him to Jerusalem as trophies: the hand being that which he had stretched out in blasphemous boasts. And this treatment of the transgressor who is an alien, is paralleled in the treatment of non-alien transgressors by David, who, besides hanging up the corpses of the men who had slain Ishbosheth, "cut off their hands and their feet."

It may, then, be reasonably inferred that display of executed felons on gibbets, or their heads on spikes, originates from the bringing back of trophies taken from

slain enemies.

Though usually a part only of the slain enemy is fixed up, yet sometimes the whole body is; as when the dead Saul, minus his head, was fastened by the Philistines to the wall of Bethshan. And that fixing up a felon's body is more frequent, probably arises from the fact that it has not to be brought from a great distance, as would usually have to be the body of an enemy.

§ 356. Though no direct connexion exists between trophy-taking and ceremonial government, the foregoing facts reveal such indirect connexions as make it needful to note the custom. It enters as a factor into the three forms of control-social, political, and religious.

If, in primitive states, men are honoured according to their prowess-if their prowess is estimated here by the number of heads they can show, there by the number of jaw-bones, and elsewhere by the number of scalps,—if such trophies are treasured up for generations, and the pride of families is proportioned to the number of them taken by ancestors-if of the Gauls in the time of Posidonius, we read that "the heads of their enemies that were the chiefest persons of quality, they carefully deposit in chests, embalming them with the oil of cedars, showing them to strangers, glory and boast" that they or their forefathers had refused great sums of money for them; then, obviously, a kind of class distinction is initiated by trophies. On reading that in some places a man's rank varies with the quantity of bones in or upon his dwelling, we cannot deny that the display of these proofs of personal superiority, originates a regulative influence in social intercourse.

As political control evolves, trophy-taking becomes in several ways instrumental to the maintenance of authority. Beyond the awe felt for the chief whose many trophies show his powers of destruction, there comes the greater awe which, on growing into a king with subordinate chiefs and dependent tribes, he excites by accumulating the trophies

others take on his behalf; rising into dread when he exhibits in numbers the relics of slain rulers. As the practice assumes this developed form, the receipt of such vicariously-taken trophies passes into a political ceremony. The heap of hands laid before an ancient Egyptian king, served to propitiate; as now serves the mass of jawbones sent by an Ashantee captain to the court. When we read of Timour's soldiers that "their cruelty was enforced by the peremptory command of producing an adequate number of heads," we are conclusively shown that the presentation of trophies hardens into a form expressing obedience. Nor is it thus only that a political effect results. There is the governmental restraint produced by fixing up the bodies or heads of the insubordinate and the felonious.

Though offering part of a slain enemy to propitiate a ghost, does not enter into what is commonly called religious ceremonial, yet it obviously so enters when the aim is to propitiate a god developed from an ancestral ghost. We are shown the transition by such a fact as that in a battle between two tribes of Khonds, the first man who "slew his opponent, struck off his right arm and rushed with it to the priest in the rear, who bore it off as an offering to Laha Pennoo in his grave:" Laha Pennoo being their “God of Arms." Joining with this such other facts as that before the Tahitian god Oro, human immolations were frequent, and the preserved relics were built into walls "formed entirely of human skulls," which were "principally, if not entirely the skulls of those slain in battle;" we are shown that gods are worshipped by bringing to them, and accumulating round their shrines, these portions of enemies killed -killed, very often, in fulfilment of their supposed commands. This inference is verified on seeing similarly used other kinds of spoils. The Philistines, besides otherwise displaying relics of the dead Saul, put "his armour in the house of Ashtaroth." By the Greeks the trophy formed of arms, shields, and helmets taken from the defeated, was

consecrated to some divinity; and the Romans deposited the spoils of battle in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Similarly among the Fijians, who are solicitous in every way to propitiate their blood-thirsty deities, "when flags are taken they are always hung up as trophies in the mbure," or temple. That hundreds of gilt spurs of French knights vanquished by the Flemish in the battle of Courtrai, were deposited in the church of that place, and that in France flags taken from enemies were suspended from the vaults of cathedrals (a practice not unknown in Protestant England), are facts which might be joined with these, did not joining them imply the impossible supposition that Christians think to please "the God of love" by acts like those used to please the diabolical gods of cannibals.

Because of inferences to be hereafter drawn, one remaining general truth must be named, though it is so obvious as to seem scarcely worth mention. Trophy-taking is directly related to militancy. It begins during a primitive life that is wholly occupied in fighting men and animals; it develops with the growth of conquering societies in which perpetual wars generate the militant type of structure; it diminishes as growing industrialism more and more substitutes productive activities for destructive activities; and complete industrialism necessitates entire cessation of it.

The chief significance of trophy-taking, however, has yet to be pointed out. The reason for here dealing with it, though in itself scarcely to be classed as a ceremony, is that it furnishes us with the key to numerous ceremonies prevailing all over the world among the uncivilized and semicivilized. From the practice of cutting off and taking away portions of the dead body, there grows up the practice of cutting off portions of the living body.

CHAPTER III.

MUTILATIONS.

§ 357. Facility of exposition will be gained by approaching indirectly the facts and conclusions here to be set forth.

The ancient ceremony of infeftment in Scotland was completed thus:-"He [superior's attorney] would stoop down, and, lifting a stone and a handful of earth, hand these over to the new vassal's attorney, thereby conferring upon him real, actual, and corporal' possession of the fief." Among a distant slightly-civilized people, a parallel usage occurs. On selling his cultivated plot, a Khond, having invoked the village deity to bear witness to the sale, "then delivers a handful of soil to the purchaser." From cases where the transfer of lands for a consideration is thus expressed, we may pass to cases where lands are by a similar form surrendered to show political submission. When the Athenians applied for help against the Spartans, after the attack of Kleomenes, a confession of subordination was demanded in return for the protection asked; and the confession was made by sending earth and water. A like act has a like meaning in Fiji. "The soro with a basket of earth . . . is generally connected with war, and is presented by the weaker party, indicating the yielding up of their land to the conquerors." And so is it in India. When