Ethics. Джон Дьюи
him with a knife, although he did not attempt to wound him in a vital part. The offender was allowed to evade injury, though not to resent the attack. Finally the old men said, "Enough." A curious form of private agencies for securing justice is also found in the Japanese custom of hara-kiri, according to which an injured man kills himself before the door of his offender, in order that he may bring public odium upon the man who has injured him. An Indian custom of Dharna is of similar significance, though less violent. The creditor fasts before the door of the debtor until he either is paid, or dies of starvation. It may be that he thinks that his double or spirit will haunt the cruel debtor who has thus permitted him to starve to death, but it also has the effect of bringing public opinion to bear.
In all these cases of kindred feuds there is little personal responsibility, and likewise little distinction between the accidental and intentional. These facts are brought out in the opening quotations in Chapter II. The important thing for the student to observe is that like our present practices in international affairs they show a grade of morality, a limited social unity, whether it is called kinship feeling or patriotism; complete morality is not possible so long as there is no complete way of settling disputes by justice instead of force.[36]
3. Occasions Which Involve Some Special Danger or Crisis.—Such occasions call for the greatest attention to secure success or avoid disaster. Under this head we note as typical (a) the occasions of birth, marriage, death; (b) seed time and harvest, or other seasons important for the maintenance of the group; (c) war; (d) hospitality.
(a) Birth and Death Customs.—The entrance of a new life into the world and the disappearance of the animating breath (spiritus, anima, psyche), might well impress man with the mysteries of his world. Whether the newborn infant is regarded as a reincarnation of an ancestral spirit as with the Australians, or as a new creation from the spirit world as with the Kafirs, it is a time of danger. The mother must be "purified,"[37] the child, and in some cases the father, must be carefully guarded. The elaborate customs show the group judgment of the importance of the occasion. And the rites for the dead are yet more impressive. For as a rule the savage has no thought of an entire extinction of the person. The dead lives on in some mode, shadowy and vague, perhaps, but he is still potent, still a member of the group, present at the tomb or the hearth. The preparation of the body for burial or other disposition, the ceremonies of interment or of the pyre, the wailing, and mourning costumes, the provision of food and weapons, or of the favorite horse or wife, to be with the dead in the unseen world, the perpetual homage paid—all these are eloquent. The event, as often as it occurs, appeals by both sympathy and awe to the common feeling, and brings to consciousness the unity of the group and the control exercised by its judgments.
The regulations for marriage are scarcely less important; indeed, they are often seemingly the most important of the customs. The phrases "marriage by capture" and "marriage by purchase," are quite misleading if they give the impression that in early culture any man may have any woman. It is an almost universal part of the clan system that the man must marry out of his own clan or totem (exogamy), and it is frequently specified exactly into what other clan he must marry. Among some the regulations are minute as to which of the age classes, as well as to which of the kin groups, a man of specific group must choose from. The courtship may follow different rules from ours, and the relation of the sexes in certain respects may seem so loose as to shock the student, but the regulation is in many respects stricter than with us, and punishment of its violation often severer. There can be no doubt of the meaning of the control, however mistaken some of its features. Whether the regulations for exogamy, which provide so effectually for avoiding incest, are reinforced by an instinctive element of aversion to sex relations with intimates, is uncertain; in any case, they are enforced by the strongest taboos. Nor does primitive society stop with the negative side. The actual marriage is invested with the social values and religious sanctions which raise the relation to a higher level. Art, in garments and ornament, in dance and epithalamium, lends ideal values. The sacred meal at the encircled hearth secures the participation of the kindred gods.
(b) Certain Days or Seasons Important for the Industrial Life.—Seed time and harvest, the winter and summer solstices, the return of spring, are of the highest importance to agricultural and pastoral peoples, and are widely observed with solemn rites. Where the rain is the center of anxiety, a whole ritual may arise in connection with it, as among the Zuñi Indians. Ceremonies lasting days, involving the preparation of special symbols of clouds and lightning, and the participation of numerous secret fraternities, constrain the attention of all. Moreover, this constraint of need, working through the conception of what the gods require, enforces some very positive moral attitudes:
"A Zuñi must speak with one tongue (sincerely) in order to have his prayers received by the gods, and unless his prayers are accepted no rains will come, which means starvation. He must be gentle, and he must speak and act with kindness to all, for the gods care not for those whose lips speak harshly. He must observe continence four days previous to, and four days following, the sending of breath prayers through the spiritual essence of plume offerings, and thus their passions are brought under control." (Mrs. M. C. Stevenson in 23d Report, Bureau of Ethnology.)
Phases of the moon give other sacred days. Sabbaths which originally are negative—the forbidding of labor—may become later the bearers of positive social and spiritual value. In any case, all these festivals bring the group authority to consciousness, and by their ritual promote the intimate group sympathy and consciousness of a common end.
(c) War.—War as a special crisis always brings out the significance and importance of certain customs. The deliberations, the magic, the war paint which precede, the obedience compelled by it to chiefs, the extraordinary powers exercised by the chief or heads at such crises, the sense of danger which strains the attention, all insure attention. No carelessness is permitted. Defeat is interpreted as a symbol of divine anger because of a violated law or custom. Victory brings all together to celebrate the glory of the clan and to mourn in common the warriors slain in the common cause. Excellence here may be so conspicuous in its service, or in the admiration it calls out, as to become a general term for what the group approves. So the aretē of the Greeks became their general term, and the Latin virtus, if not so clearly military, was yet largely military in its early coloring. The "spirit of Jehovah," the symbol of divine approval and so of group approval, was believed to be with Samson and Jephthah in their deeds of prowess in Israel's behalf.
(d) Hospitality.—To the modern man who travels without fear and receives guests as a matter of almost daily practice, it may seem strained to include hospitality along with unusual or critical events. But the ceremonies observed and the importance attached to its rites, show that hospitality was a matter of great significance; its customs were among the most sacred.
"But as for us," says Ulysses to the Cyclops, "we have lighted here, and come to these thy knees, if perchance they will give us a stranger's gift, or make any present, as is the due of strangers. Nay, lord, have regard to the gods, for we are thy suppliants, and Zeus is the avenger of suppliants and sojourners, Zeus, the god of the stranger, who fareth in the company of reverend strangers."
The duty of hospitality is one of the most widely recognized. Westermarck has brought together a series of maxims from a great variety of races which show this forcibly.[38] Indians, Kalmucks, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Arabs, Africans, Ainos, and other peoples are drawn upon and tell the same story. The stranger is to be respected sacredly. His person must be guarded from insult even if the honor of the daughter of the house must be sacrificed.[39] "Jehovah preserveth the sojourners," and they are grouped with the fatherless and the widow in Israel's law.[40] The Romans had their dii hospitales and the "duties toward a guest were even more stringent than those toward a relative"—primum tutelæ, delude hospiti, deinde clienti, tum cognato,