Note 430.3 — Chapter XIII · NOTES

Professor Kovalevsky, in the interesting paper mentioned ante, p. 230 note, which he read to the British Association at Oxford last year, gave some account of the Lex Barbarorum of Daghestan, a code written down in the last century, but embodying the ancient customs of the Chevsurs, Pschavs and Touchains of Daghestan, who speak a dialect of Georgian. The population is organised in gentes, called touchoum; and every touchoum incurs joint responsibility for the acts of its members. “Consanguinity,” says the professor, “to the remotest degree makes a man jointly responsible.… In case of murder or wounding, not only the trespasser but each one of the members of his touchoum, or gens, has to expect vengeance on the part of the touchoum to which the victim belonged. The same mutual responsibility exists in the case of forcible entry.” It is noteworthy that each touchoum claims descent from some mythical ancestor.