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106 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLi.lOS
of innocent blood and supposes that the resentment of the family might be
appeased by suiiable presents in goods or money.
Later he adds
Mr. Dinsmore (agent to the Choctaw) has been requested to make the
Sed Bird and his connections presents to the amount of 50 or 80 dollars, but
I fear a sum less than 300 dollars will not be deemed adequate compensation.
The following rather verbose and emotional account by Cushman
embodies some important illustrations of the ancient attitude on the
subject of this cardinal crime
Tlieir severest law was tliat of blood revenge. " Whosoever sheddeth man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed " was a statute rigidly enforced among
all North American Indians. It was acknowledged among all, not only to be
the right, but also the imperative duty of the nearest relative on the male
side of the slain, to kill the slayer wiierever and whenever a favorable
opportunity was presented. Under many existing circumstances the law
might, perhaps, have been just and salutary ; but unfortunately it went too far,
as any male member of the murderer's family, though innocent and even
ignorant of the crime, might become the victim of the avenger of blood, if the
guilty had fled ; but such seldom occurred, as the murderer rarely ever made any
effort whatever to escape, but passively submitted to his fate. Still, this law,
revolting as it may appear to many, exercised a good influence among the
Choctaws, as it had a salutary effect in restraining them in the heat of
passion, by rendering them cautious in their disputes and quarrels, lest blood
should be shed ; knowing the absolute certainty of murder being avenged sooner
or later upon the murderer himself, or some one of his nearest male relatives
hence no man, or family, would with impunity commit or permit, if he could
avoid or prevent it, an act that would be sure to be avenged, no one could tell
when or where. Days, weeks, and even months perhaps, might pass, yet the
avenger sleepeth not nor has he forgotten ; and, at an hour least expected and
from a source least apprehended, the blow at last falls, and there the matter
ends. Nor did the slayer find any protection from any source whatever, not
even from his nearest relatives. Yet calmly and with stoical indifference
[he] awaited his certain doom ; nor was the avenger, though known, interrupted
in any manner whatever, either before or after he had accomplished his
revenge. The avenger of blood never took the life of a female of the slayer's
family, but satisfied himself in the death of the slayer himself or in the person
of someone of his nearest male relatives.* If the murderer^ had fled, and the
life of one of his male relatives had been sacrificed in lieu of his own, he then
could return without fear of molestation ; but the name of coward was given
to him—an appellation more dreaded and less endurable than a hundred deaths
to all North American Indians.
A few instances have been known among the Choctaws, where a relative proposed
to die for the slayer, and was accepted on the part of the relatives of the
slain ; but such instances were very rare.*
Cushman, however, describes one such case, that of a woman who
offered to take the place of her son and was accepted by the family
of the murdered man. Cushman says
8 Claiborne states that the husband of a slain woman who should venture to avenge
her death would himself be killed by the proper avenger of blood. He affirms this of
the Creeks and Cherokee also.
» Cushman, Hist. Choc, Chick., and Natchez Inds., pp. 263-264.