Note 98 — Chapter VII · CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS

Among the aborigines of Western Victoria, when life has been taken for life, the feud is ended (Dawson, op. cit. p. 70). Among the Greenlanders, if the victim of revenge “be a notorious offender, or hated for his bloody deeds, or if he have no relations, the matter rests”; but more frequently the act of vengeance costs the avenger himself his life (Cranz, op. cit. i. 178). Among the Bedouins, “if the family of the man killed should in revenge kill two of the homicide’s family, the latter retaliate by the death of one. If one only be killed, the affair rests there and all is quiet; but the quarrel is soon revived by hatred and revenge” (Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahábys, p. 86). In his book, Das Leben der vorislâmischen Beduinen, Dr. Jacob likewise observes (p. 144):—“Irrtümlich ist die Ansicht, dass Blut immer neues Blut fordere. Was für einen Getödteten ein Anderer erschlagen, so galt die Sache in der Regel damit für erledigt und abgetan.” Cf. Achelis, Moderne Völkerkunde, p. 407, n. 1.