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

At the beginning of Section I examples were given of current opinions which attribute to primitive man an automatic obedience to law. Now with this assumption there are associated certain more special propositions which are universally current in anthropology and yet fatal to the study of primitive jurisprudence.

First of all, if the rules of custom are obeyed by the savage through sheer inability to break them, then no definition can be given of law, no distinction can be drawn between the rules of law, morals, manners, and other usages. For the only way in which we can classify rules of conduct is by reference to the motives and sanctions by which they are enforced. So that with the assumption of an automatic obedience to all custom, anthropology has to give up any attempt at introducing into the facts order and classification, which is the first task of science.

We have seen already that Mr. Sidney Hartland regards the rules of art, medicine, social organization, industry, and what-not as hopelessly mixed up and lumped together in all savage societies, both in the native’s own comprehension and in the reality of social life. He states this view emphatically on several occasions: „... The savage’s perception of resemblances differs very much from our own. He sees resemblances between objects which, to our eyes, have not a single point in common” (l. c. p. 139). „For the savage. .. the policy of a tribe is one and indivisible.[...] They [the savages] see nothing grotesque or incongruous in publishing in the name of God a code combining ritual, moral, agricultural, and medical with what we understand as strictly juridical prescriptions. [...] We may sever religion from magic, and magic from medicine; the members of the community draw no such distinctions” (pp. 213, 214).

In all this Mr. Sidney Hartland gives lucid and moderate expression to the current views about „primitive prelogical mentality”, „confused savage categories”, and the general shapelessness of early culture. These views, however, cover but one side of the case, express but a half-truth — as regards law, the views here quoted are not correct. The savages have a class of obligatory rules, not endowed with any mystical character, not set forth in „the name of God”, not enforced by any supernatural sanction but provided with a purely social binding force.

If we designate the sum total of rules, conventions, and patterns of behaviour as the body of custom, there is no doubt that the native feels a strong respect for all of them, has a tendency to do what others do, what every one approves of, and, if not drawn or driven in another direction by his appetites or interests, will follow the biddings of custom rather than any other course. The force of habit, the awe of traditional command and a sentimental attachment to it, the desire to satisfy public opinion — all combine to make custom be obeyed for its own sake. In this the ’savages’ do not differ from the members of any self-contained community with a limited horizon, whether this be an Eastern European ghetto, an Oxford college, or a Fundamentalist Middle West community. But love of tradition, conformism and the sway of custom account but to a very partial extent for obedience to rules among dons, savages, peasants, or Junkers.

Limiting ourselves strictly to savages once more, there are among the Trobrianders a number of traditional rules instructing the craftsman how to ply his trade. The inert and uncritical way in which these rules are obeyed is due to the general ’conformism of savages’ as we might call it. But in the main these rules are followed because their practical utility is recognized by reason and testified by experience. Again, other injunctions of how to behave in associating with your friends, relatives, superiors, equals and so on, are obeyed because any deviation from them makes a man feel and look, in the eyes of others, ridiculous, clumsy, socially uncouth. These are the precepts of good manners, very developed in Melanesia and most strictly adhered to. There are further rules laying down the proceedings at games, sports, entertainments and festivities, rules which are the soul and substance of the amusement or pursuit and are kept because it is felt and recognized that any failure to ’play the game’ spoils it — that is, when the game is really a game. In all this, it will be noted, there are no mental forces of inclination or of self-interest, or even inertia, which would run counter to any rule and make its fulfilment a burden. It is quite as easy to follow the rule as not, and once you embark upon a sporting or pleasurable pursuit, you really can enjoy it only if you obey all its rules whether of art, manners, or the game.

There are also norms pertaining to things sacred and important, the rules of magical rite, funerary pomp and such like. These are primarily backed up by supernatural sanctions and by the strong feeling that sacred matters must not be tampered with. By an equally strong moral force are maintained certain rules of personal conduct towards near relatives, members of the household and others towards whom strong sentiments of friendship, loyalty, or devotion are felt, which back up the dictates of the social code.

This brief catalogue is not an attempt at a classification, but is mainly meant to indicate clearly that, besides the rules of law, there are several other types of norm and traditional commandment which are backed up by motives or forces, mainly psychological, in any case entirely different from those which are characteristic of law in that community. Thus, though in my survey attention has naturally been mainly focussed on the legal machinery, I was not intent on proving that all social rules are legal, but on the contrary, I wanted to show that the rules of law form but one well-defined category within the body of custom.