Crime and Custom in Savage Society - Bronisław Malinowski (co można czytać .txt) 📖

her own clan and had an official and acceptable suitor, for whom she did not care. She lived in her bukumatula (unmarried peoples’ dormitory), built for her by her father and received there her unlawful lover. Her suitor discovered this, insulted her in public, upon which she put on festive dress and ornamentation, wailed from the palm top, and jumped off. This is an old story, told me by an eye-witness, in reminiscence of the Kima’i event. The girl had also sought an escape from an intolerable impasse, into which her passion and the traditional prohibitions had placed her. But the immediate and the real cause of the suicide was the moment of insult. If not for that, the deeper but less poignant conflict between love and taboo would never have led to a rash act.

Mwakenuwa of Liluta, a man of high rank, great magical powers, and outstanding personality, whose fame has reached down to our times across a couple of generations, had among other wives one Isowa’i, to whom he was very attached. He used to quarrel with her sometimes and one day in the course of a violent dissention he insulted her by one of the worst formulae (kwoy lumuta) which, especially from husband to wife, is regarded as unbearable.22 Isowa’i acted up to the traditional idea of honour and committed suicide on the spot by lo’u (jumping off a palm). Next day, while the wailing for Isowa’i was in progress, Mwakenuwa followed her and his corpse was placed beside hers to be bewailed together. Here it was rather a matter of passion than of law. But the case well shows how strongly the traditional feeling and sense of honour was averse to any excess, to any transgression of the even calm tone. It shows also how strongly the survivor could be moved by the self-inflicted fate of the one who had taken her life.

A similar case occurred some time ago, in which the husband accused his wife of adultery, upon which she jumped off a palm and he followed her. Another event of more recent date, was the suicide by poisoning of Isakapu of Sinaketa, accused by her husband of adultery. Bogonela, a wife of the chief Kouta’uya of Sinaketa, discovered guilty of misconduct during his absence by a fellow wife, committed suicide on the spot. A few years ago in Sinaketa a man pestered by one of his wives, who accused him of adultery and other transgressions, committed suicide by poisoning.

Bolubese, wife of one of the previous paramount chiefs of Kiriwina, ran away from her husband to her own village, and threatened by her own kinsmen (maternal uncle and brothers) to be sent back by force, killed herself by lo’u. There came to my notice a number of similar cases, illustrating the tensions between husband and wife, between lovers, between kinsmen.

Two motives must be registered in the psychology of suicide: first, there is always some sin, crime or passionate outburst to expiate, whether a breach of exogamous rules, or adultery, or an unjust injury done, or an attempt to escape one’s obligations; secondly, there is a protest against those who have brought this trespass to light, insulted the culprit in public, forced him into an unbearable situation. One of these two motives may be at times more prominent than the other, but as a rule there is a mixture of both in equal proportions. The person publicly accused admits his or her guilt, takes all the consequences, carries out the punishment upon his own person, but at the same time declares that he has been badly treated, appeals to the sentiment of those who have driven him to the extreme if they are his friends or relations, or if they are his enemies appeals to the solidarity of his kinsmen, asking them to carry on a vendetta (lugwa).

Suicide is certainly not a means of administering justice, but it affords the accused and oppressed one — whether he be guilty or innocent — a means of escape and rehabilitation. It looms large in the psychology of the natives, is a permanent damper on any violence of language or behaviour, on any deviation from custom or tradition, which might hurt or offend another. Thus suicide, like sorcery, is a means of keeping the natives to the strict observance of the law, a means of preventing people from extreme and unusual types of behaviour. Both are pronounced conservative influences and as such are strong supports of law and order.

What have we learned from the facts of crime and its punishment recorded in this and the foregoing chapters? We have found that the principles according to which crime is punished are very vague, that the methods of carrying out retribution are fitful, governed by chance and personal passion rather than by any system of fixed institutions. The most important methods, in fact, are a by-product of non-legal institutions, customs, arrangements and events such as sorcery and suicide, the power of the chief, magic, the supernatural consequences of taboo and personal acts of vindictiveness. These institutions and usages, far from being legal in their main function, only very partially and imperfectly subserve the end of maintaining and enforcing the biddings of tradition. We have not found any arrangement or usage which could be classed as a form of ’administration of justice’ according to a code and by fixed methods. All the legally effective institutions we found are rather means of cutting short an illegal or intolerable state of affairs, of restoring the equilibrium in social life and of giving vent to the feelings of oppression and injustice felt by individuals. Crime in the Trobriand society can be but vaguely defined — it is sometimes an outburst of passion, sometimes the breach of a definite taboo, sometimes an attempt on person or property (murder, theft, assault), sometimes an indulgence in too high ambitions or wealth, not sanctioned by tradition, in conflict with the prerogatives of the chief or some notable. We have also found that the most definite prohibitions are elastic, since there exist methodical systems of evasion.

I shall now proceed to the discussion of instances in which law is not broken by an act of definitely illegal nature, but where it is confronted by a system of legalized usage, almost as strong as traditional law itself.