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 father described himself as ‘Adam Halsnoth of Colchester, joyner, and now one of the Serjants att the Mace in the town of Colchester’ (registered in the archdeaconry court of Colchester). Adam was matriculated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, as a sizar in 1597, and took the degree of B.A. there in 1600–1. He afterwards removed to St. John's College, as a member of which he proceeded M.A. in 1604 and B.D. in 1612 (Cambridge Matriculation Register). In 1609 he became vicar of Hutton, Essex, on the resignation of his relative, [q. v.] He was also rector of Cranham, Essex, to which he was instituted on the presentation of John, lord Petre, 8 Sept. 1612. He held both livings until his death at Cranham in 1639. His will, bearing date 30 Nov. 1638, was proved at London by his brother, Samuel Harsnett, grocer, on 16 Sept. 1639 (registered in P. C. C. 148, Harvey). He was twice married: first, to Mary, widow of William Jenkin, the puritan minister of Sudbury, Suffolk, and daughter of Richard Rogers, preacher at Wethersfield, Essex, by whom he had issue; and, secondly, to Mary, widow of John Dawson, who survived him.

Harsnett, who was a moderate puritan, wrote:
 * 1) ‘A Tovch-Stone of Grace. Discovering the differences betweene true and counterfeit grace: Laying downe infallible Evidences and markes of true Grace. Serving for the tryall of a mans spirituall estate,’ 12mo, London, 1630 (reissued in 1632 and 1635).
 * 2) ‘A Cordiall for the Afflicted. Touching the Necessitie and Utilitie of Afflictions. Proving unto us the happinesse of those that thankfully receive them: and the misery of all that want them, or profit not by them,’ the second edition enlarged, 12mo, London, 1638.
 * 3) ‘Gods Summons to a General Repentance,’ 12mo, London, 1640 (reprinted, 8vo, London, 1794).

HARSNETT, SAMUEL (1561–1631), archbishop of York, baptised in the parish of St. Botolph, Colchester, Essex, 20 June 1561, was the son of William and Agnes Harsnett. In his will dated 16 March, and proved 20 April 1574, his father describes himself as ‘William Halsenoth of St. Buttolphe, Colchester, baker,’ and desires to be buried in the churchyard of that parish (registered in the archdeaconry court of Colchester). Samuel was admitted a sizar of King's College, Cambridge, on 8 Sept. 1576 (Cambridge Matriculation Register). From King's he removed to Pembroke Hall, of which he became a scholar. In 1580–1 he proceeded B.A., was elected fellow of Pembroke on 27 Nov. 1583, and shortly afterwards received holy orders. He took his M.A. degree in 1584, and on 27 Oct. of that year preached a sermon in St. Paul's Cross, London, against the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination. It is appended to ‘Three Sermons preached by … Dr. Richard Stuart, Dean of St. Paul's,’ &c., 12mo, London, 1656. He was consequently denounced as a papist. He was also, as he states, ‘checked by the Lord Archbishop Whitgift, and commanded to preach no more of it, and he never did, though now Dr. Abbot, late bishop of Sarum, hath since declared in print that which he then preached to be no Popery’ (Lords' Journals, 19 May 1624, iii. 389). Three years later, in March 1586–7, Harsnett was appointed master of the free school at Colchester, but in the autumn of 1588 abandoned the ‘painfull trade of teachyng’ in order to study divinity at Pembroke Hall. He then exerted himself, without success, to obtain the vacant mastership for one Mark Sadlington, fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1592 he was elected junior university proctor. In 1596 he supported [q. v.], the Lady Margaret professor of divinity, who had shown Arminian tendencies in his criticism of the Lambeth Articles, then lately promulgated. Harsnett, with John Overall, afterwards bishop of Norwich, and [q. v.], at that time master of Pembroke Hall, declined to condemn Baro's views (, Life of Whitgift, 8vo ed. ii. 303). Meanwhile he had become chaplain to Richard Bancroft, then bishop of London, and on 14 June 1597 he received institution to the vicarage of Chigwell in Essex, and on 5 Aug. 1598 was installed prebendary of Mapesbury in St. Paul's Cathedral. In March 1597–8 he was on the commission which condemned [q. v.] for pretending to exorcise devils. In vindication of these proceedings Harsnett wrote his famous treatise entitled ‘A Discovery of the Fravdvlent practises of Iohn Darrel, Bacheler of Artes …, detecting in some sort the deceitfull trade in these latter dayes of casting out Deuils,’ 4to, London, 1599. As chaplain to Bancroft Harsnett was licenser of books for the press. Towards the close of 1599 an old fellow-student at Pembroke Hall, Dr. (afterwards Sir) [q. v.], with whom, however, Harsnett had not been intimate for ten or twelve years previously, delivered the manuscript of his ‘The First Part of the Life and raigne of King Henrie the IIII’ to a friend connected with the Bishop of London's household, who begged Harsnett's official approbation of it


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 ‘in the name of a cantel of our English Chronicles, phrased and flourished over, only to show the author's pretty wit.’ Harsnett rashly licensed it without reading it. The book was construed into rank treason by the lawyers, and bore a highly eulogistic Latin dedication to the Earl of Essex, then in disgrace, which was ‘foisted in’ without Harsnett's knowledge. Hayward was forthwith sent to the Tower, and Harsnett himself threatened with imprisonment, if not degradation. Greatly terrified he sought to appease Coke, then attorney-general, with letters which are in pitiable contrast to the bold tone of his published utterances (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1598–1601, pp. 405, 452–3). He succeeded in convincing Coke of his innocence, and was soon restored to favour.

On 17 Jan. 1602–3 he was collated to the archdeaconry of Essex, and during 1603 published, by order of the privy council, a vigorous exposure of popish designs, entitled ‘A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures, … vnder the pretence of casting out deuils. Practised by Edmvnds, alias Weston, a Iesuit, and diuers Romish Priests, his wicked associates’ (with copies of confessions and examinations of the parties), 4to, London, 1603; with a new title-page, 8vo, London, 1605. From the ‘Declaration,’ as Theobald first pointed out, Shakespeare took the names of the spirits mentioned by Edgar in King Lear, and makes besides one or two other unmistakable allusions to it, while at least one passage in it must have been in Milton's recollection when he wrote ‘L'Allegro.’ J. M. N[orman] in ‘Notes and Queries,’ 2nd ser. vii. 144–5, has cited the parallel passages in full. Harsnett became rector of Shenfield in Essex, 16 April 1604, on the presentation of Sir Thomas Lucas of Colchester, and resigned the rectory of St. Margaret, New Fish Street, London, in the autumn of that year. On 9 Nov. 1605 he was elected master of Pembroke Hall in succession to Lancelot Andrewes. The following year he was chosen vice-chancellor, and received the degree of D.D., his exercise being excused by a special grace. As vice-chancellor he ‘govern'd with a high hand’ (Harl. MS. 7038, f. 56 b). The statutes framed by him may be seen in Addit. (Cole) MS. 5845, f. 231 b. He had resigned in 1605 his vicarage of Chigwell, a place for which he always cherished an attachment, to become on 16 May 1606 vicar of Hutton, in the same county of Essex, which he ceded in 1609 in favour of his relative, Adam Harsnett [q. v.] In 1609 also he resigned his prebend of Mapesbury to John Bancroft, a nephew of the primate, whereupon he was presented on 28 Sept. to the richly endowed rectory of Stisted in Essex. On 13 Nov. 1609 he was elected bishop of Chichester, again in succession to Lancelot Andrewes, translated to Ely, and was consecrated by Bancroft on the following 3 Dec., being allowed to hold his living of Stisted in commendam with that see, but resigning the archdeaconry of Essex. Bancroft, when making his will on 28 Oct. 1610, named Harsnett as an overseer, and as one of those whom he could wish ‘uppon some Sonday within a moneth after my death to preache in Lambith church, and to make such mention of me as may tend to Godes glory’ (registered in P. C. C. 96, Wingfield).

Harsnett still continued to rule over Pembroke Hall, but his high church practices, frequent absences, and financial mismanagement led to many unseemly disputes with the fellows. Andrewes tells Under-secretary Sir Thomas Lake, on 27 July 1612, that the Bishop of Chichester is desirous of resigning his mastership (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1611–18, p. 139). In 1614 Harsnett was again elected vice-chancellor of his university. In March 1614–15 James I, accompanied by his son Prince Charles, paid his first visit to Cambridge. John Chamberlain tells Sir Dudley Carleton on 16 March 1614 [–15] that Harsnett ‘did his part every way’ (Hardwicke State Papers, pp. 396–7). He strove to repress the indiscriminate conferment of honorary degrees, more especially of those in divinity. In 1616 the fellows of Pembroke exhibited to the king an accusation in fifty-seven articles against the master. Harsnett was charged principally with favouring popery, absence from college, and improper dealing with the accounts. The fellows also appealed to Andrewes, the Earl of Suffolk, at that time chancellor of the university, Sir George Villiers, and others. Though Harsnett was compelled to resign, he continued in high favour at court, and these differences did not prevent the ‘miserrimi Pembrochiani,’ as the fellows styled themselves in their lengthy ‘Querela,’ nor indeed the university at large, from writing him complimentary letters on his elevation to the see of York, besides asking for his good offices as a privy councillor (cf. Addit. (Cole) MS. 5873, ff. 37, 44). On the death of Dr. John Overall, Harsnett was translated to Norwich, 17 June 1619, and confirmed in the see on 28 Aug., when he resigned the rectory of Stisted. During his occupancy of the see he is said to have expended 2000l. on the repair of the episcopal palaces of Norwich and Ludham (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1634–5, p. 102). His strictness in enforcing the discipline of the church, added to his harsh and overbear-

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Rh the Sacred Books of the East, and to say that they are strange, or obscure, or mystic. Plato is strange, till we know him; Berkeley is mystic, till for a time we have identified ourselves with him. So it is with these ancient sages, who have become the founders of the great religions of antiquity. They can never be judged from without, they must be judged from within. We need not become Brahmans or Buddhists or Taosze altogether, but we must for a time, if we wish to understand, and still more, if we are bold enough to undertake to translate their doctrines. Whoever shrinks from that effort, will see hardly anything in these sacred books or their translations but matter to wonder at or to laugh at; possibly something to make him thankful that he is not as other men. But to the patient reader these same books will, in spite of many drawbacks, open a new view of the history of the human race, of that one race to which we all belong, with all the fibres of our flesh, with all the fears and hopes of our soul. We cannot separate ourselves from those who believed in these sacred books. There is no specific difference between ourselves and the Brahmans, the Buddhists, the Zoroastrians, or the Taosze. Our powers of perceiving, of reasoning, and of believing may be more highly developed, but we cannot claim the possession of any verifying power or of any power of belief which they did not possess as well. Shall we say then that they were forsaken of God, while we are His chosen people? God forbid! There is much, no doubt, in their sacred books which we should tolerate no longer, though we must not forget that there are portions in our own sacred books, too, which many of us would wish to be absent,


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Rh are the drum and the rattle. We refer to the calabash type of rattle. Its distribution is coincident with that of agriculture but extends somewhat farther in North America, where we find rawhide a substitute among the non-agricultural bison tribes, and beyond them the hollowed-out wooden rattle of the Northwest. It is a fair assumption that the type arose among a calabash-producing people and was thence diffused.

There are other types of minor rattling, rasping, and clapping instruments of restricted distribution. The only one approaching the calabash rattle in importance is the notched stick.

Drums seem to be of greater variety. One general tambourine type is found in the bison area and northward to the Eskimo and Siberia. In the eastern maize area the single-headed water-tuned drum prevailed, whose distribution seems to be continuous through the West Indies into South America. In southwestern United States and southward, a double-headed drum similar to our own was in use. The large wooden signal drums of the Amazon country we suspect to be of recent African origin.

As the case now stands, there were no stringed instruments in the New World before 1492. The only debatable case is that of the musical bow found in California and northern Mexico. Of wind instruments, the most complicated is the pan-pipe of Peru and Brazil. Yet, the aboriginal origin of this instrument has been made improbable by the discovery that it has the same arbitrary scale as the pan-pipe of Melanesia. Trumpets were used in Mexico and Peru and still survive in the Amazon area. Closely allied to this is a reed instrument of cane, sometimes called a cornet, used in Peru and still found along the Amazon. True flutes were used in Peru, but in North America, the flageolet. No more than with song music can we compare the types of composition for these instruments in the several geographical areas. This is truly unfortunate, for it seems that music offers one of the very best trait-complexes for the study of diffusion and invention. It is one of the weak points in the careful, painstaking study of ritualism now prosecuted by American anthropologists, for when a ritual passes from one tribe to another (of which

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xxxviii which, from the earliest ages of Christianity, have been regretted by theologians of undoubted piety, and which often prove a stumblingblock to those who have been won over by our missionaries to the simple faith of Christ. But that is not the question. The question is, whether there is or whether there is not, hidden in every one of the sacred books, something that could lift up the human heart from this earth to a higher world, something that could make man feel the omnipresence of a higher Power, something that could make him shrink from evil and incline to good, something to sustain him in the short journey through life, with its bright moments of happiness, and its long hours of terrible distress.

If some of those who read and mark these translations learn how to discover some such precious grains in the sacred books of other nations, though hidden under heaps of rubbish, our labour will not have been in vain, for there is no lesson which at the present time seems more important than to learn that in every religion there are such precious grains; that we must draw in every religion a broad distinction between what is essential and what is not, between the eternal and the temporary, between the divine and the human; and that though the non-essential may fill many volumes, the essential can often be comprehended in a few words, but words on which 'hang all the law and the prophets.'


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 ing demeanour, made him eminently unpopular with the puritan party in his diocese. In May 1624 the citizens of Norwich charged him before the commons with various misdemeanors, chiefly, however, at the instigation of Sir Edward Coke. He was accused of ‘setting up images in the churches,’ and of ‘using extortions many ways.’ Harsnett defended himself before the lords against each of the six articles of the charge, and cleared himself to the satisfaction at least of the more influential among his audience (Commons' Journals, vol. i.; Lords' Journals, vol. iii.). In July 1624 Harsnett wrote to the bailiffs of Yarmouth thanking them for their diligence in suppressing conventicles, and giving them instructions for further proceedings (, Hist. of Great Yarmouth, pp. 827–33). In 1627 the inhabitants of Yarmouth complained to the king that they had been greatly harassed by Harsnett, and said that his complaints had been frivolous, and dismissed in the several courts of law (ib. pp. 841–3).

In 1628 Dr. George Montaigne, archbishop of York, died, and Harsnett was elected in his place on 26 Nov. of that year, and confirmed on 13 Jan. following. On 10 Nov. 1629 he was also sworn of the privy council. These dignities, says Fuller, he owed to the friendship of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, who had placed his younger son William with him (Worthies, ed. 1662, ‘Essex,’ p. 326; Gent. Mag. vol. ciii. pt. ii. p. 11, n. 2). During 1629 Harsnett founded a Latin school and an English school at Chigwell as a thank-offering for his elevation from the vicarage to an archbishopric. He framed many wise and careful ordinances for the government of his schools. The ‘Principles of the Christian Religion, according to the Order of the Book of Common Prayer,’ the infusion of the phrase and style of Tully and Terence, and of the Greek and Latin poets generally, and the avoidance of all ‘novelties and conceited modern writers’ are characteristic features of the archbishop's educational views (The Deed and Ordinances of the Foundation Schools at Chigwell, privately printed, 4to, 1852). He also built a gallery in the north aisle of Chigwell Church for the use of the free scholars, which was last used for worship on 28 March 1886. After falling into comparative obscurity the Latin school, under a scheme published by the Endowed Schools Commission, 29 June 1871, enjoyed anew a highly flourishing state; the English school has been handed over to the school board (The Chigwell Kalendar and Ten Year Book, 1887). In 1629 Harsnett interposed in behalf of Gervase Markham [q. v.] when accused of ‘papistry’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1629–1631, pp. 51–2). On visiting the church of All Saints, North Street, York, he praised its beauty, and gave it a silver communion cup, with paten-cover, an interesting piece of plate still in excellent preservation (Yorkshire Archæol. and Topogr. Journal, viii. 314–315). His health was meanwhile breaking. The steady progress of the puritan party towards power embittered his last days (cf. his letters in Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1629–31, pp. 73, 167). By Lent 1631 he had rallied sufficiently to impress upon John Davenant [q. v.], bishop of Salisbury, the necessity of paying due deference to the autocratic power which then governed the church in a vehement oration of ‘well-nigh half an hour long’ (, Church Hist. ed. Brewer, vi. 75). Writing from Bath on 25 April he says ‘he is yet so much a prisoner, though he has used the hot baths, as he is not able to write his own name’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1631–1633, p. 21). He died at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Gloucestershire, on 25 May 1631, and was buried on 7 June, according to his directions, ‘within the parish church of Chigwell, without pomp or solemnity, at the foot of Thomazine, late my beloved wife’ (will cited in Biographia Britannica (1757), iv. 2546). His fine brass, which was executed after his own design, has been twice removed from the tomb in the chancel floor to be affixed to the wall, where it now remains. Harsnett married Thomazine, widow of William Kempe, and the elder of the two daughters of William Walgrave of Hitcham in Suffolk, by Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Poley of Boxted in the same county (Visitations of Essex, Harl. Soc., pt. i. 121). She was buried at Chigwell 3 Feb. 1601, leaving an only daughter, Thomazine, who had been baptised there 6 July 1600 (parish register), but apparently did not long survive. Harsnett's house at Chigwell, where his kinswoman, Mrs. Barbara Fisher, died in June 1808 at the age of ninety-five, was during the 18th century repaired and modernised by William Park Fisher, a jeweller, of Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London (, Environs, iv. 124; Supplement, p. 346). It is now divided into two residences known as ‘The Grange.’

Fuller commends Harsnett's ‘great learning, strong parts, and stout spirit’ (Worthies, ed. 1662, ‘Essex,’ p. 326), adding elsewhere that ‘he was a zealous asserter of ceremonies, using to complain of (the first, I believe, who used the expression) “conformable puritans,” who practised it out of policy, yet dissented from it in their judgments’ (Church Hist. ed. Brewer, vi. 88). On the other hand Prynne compares him to a ‘furious Hildebrand,’ and


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 relates one or two somewhat unintelligible stories in illustration of the archbishop's ‘domineering outrage and dreadful end’ (The Antipathie of the English Lordly Prelacie, 1641, pp. 221–2). In addition to his published works he left, according to Wood, ‘four or more MSS. fit for the press, of which one is “De Necessitate Baptismi,” &c.’ (Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 874–5). A copy of his theses, entitled (1) ‘Nemo necessariò damnatur;’ (2) ‘Certitudo uniuscujusque salutis non est certitudo fidei,’ is in the British Museum, Harleian MS. 3142, ff. 54–61; another copy is at Colchester. He also drew up the famous ‘Considerations for the better settling of church government,’ presented by Laud to the king, and sent by his majesty in December 1629 to Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, as ‘instructions concerning certain articles to be observed and put in execution by the several bishops in his province,’ now preserved in the Lambeth Library (, Works, Library of Anglo-Cath. Theology, v. 307). His library he bequeathed to the corporation of Colchester in trust for the clergy of the town and neighbourhood on condition of a suitable room being provided for its reception. The collection, which consists chiefly of theological literature of the sixteenth century with a few incunabula, passed through many vicissitudes, but is now properly cared for in Colchester Castle. A catalogue, with a biographical and bibliographical introduction, was compiled by the present writer in 1885, of which the corporation printed two hundred and fifty copies for private circulation in 1888.

 HART, AARON (1670–1756), chief rabbi, born in 1670 at Breslau, studied at a rabbinical school in Poland, and probably came to England in 1692 to act as rabbi of the first synagogue of the English congregation of German and Polish Jews, which was opened in that year in Broad Court, Mitre Square, London. He removed in 1721 to the Great Synagogue in Duke's Place, Aldgate, then just built at the expense of his brother Moses (see below), and he remained there till his death in 1756. He married a daughter of Rabbi Samuel ben Phœbus of Fürth. His own name appears in Hebrew as Rabbi Phœbus (or Uri) ben Rabbi Hirz Hamburger, and he is sometimes referred to as Rabbi Uri Pheibush. Before 1707 he agreed to dissolve, according to Jewish ecclesiastical ordinances, the marriage of a member of his congregation who was leaving England for the West Indies, and was severely attacked on the ground that he had acted irregularly, by another rabbi in England, Jochanan Hellishaw, or Johanan ben Isaac, in a work called ‘Maasé Rab’ (Amsterdam, 1707, 4to). Hart replied to the strictures in a book entitled ‘Urim ve-Thumim’ (London, 1707, 4to), which is the first Hebrew book printed in London. Very late in life he is doubtfully said to have held disputations with one Edward Goldney, who sought to convert the Jews in England to Christianity. Dandridge painted the rabbi's portrait, which was engraved by McArdell.

(1676?–1756), younger brother of the above, came from his native place, Breslau, in early life, and became a prosperous merchant in London. Godolphin, while first lord of the treasury (1702–10), employed him in financial dealings. He built at his sole expense the Great Synagogue in Aldgate, which was opened in 1721, and was rebuilt in 1790. It remains the chief London synagogue. His place of business was in St. Mary Axe, and he had a mansion at Isleworth. He died 19 Nov. 1756, leaving, among other bequests, 1,000l. to the London Hospital (Gent. Mag. 1756, p. 595). His will was disputed by his grandchildren and other relatives among themselves, and the case was carried in 1760 to the House of Lords (cf. Naphtali Franks & others v. Joseph Martin & others, a printed statement of the grounds of the appeal to the lords). A portrait of Hart hangs in the vestry-room of the Great Synagogue.


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 CHAPTER X

SOCIAL GROUPING

the sixteenth century, there were at least three well-organized governments in the New World: the Nahua, Inca, and Chibcha. Though our data as to the details of these organizations are but fragmentary, it is clear that the social structure upon which they rested was communistic. The family group was the unit to which plots of land were assigned and upon which levies were made. Each family group had its head man who also held a place in the council for the next higher group. The government was vested in a single family group, one of whom was the chief or monarch. He qualified and was chosen by such means as this group elected, regardless of his parentage. These were the fundamental characteristics common to all the governments of the area of higher culture: they differed from each other not in these but in the ways in which the ruling family group built up its power and organized its political machinery. The thoroughness and efficiency of the Inca system was notorious, for it left practically nothing to the individual, an ideal toward which certain European states seem to be headed. The apparent ease of the Spanish conquest is often cited as proof to the contrary, but the conquerors succeeded by a bold dash at the ruling group and, once having laid hands upon the machinery, the thoroughly domesticated natives were easily handled. So it was rather by the very thoroughness of the system, than its weakness, that they succeeded. In fact, wherever there were still independent cities, the invaders met with the most heroic resistance, some communities perishing to the last man. Further, it was largely the ready-trained army of the native kingdoms, or such units of it as the usurpers could lay hands upon, that did the work against these refractory cities.

The political organization in Mexico was less thorough than that of the Inca, though far superior to that in Colombia.

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152 circumstances. Such designations can have little classificatory value. It is true that a linguistic nomenclature has been provided which is essentially classificatory, but this again employs the conventional historic names for the several social groups. The list for these tribal names is further complicated by the occurrence of alternate equivalents and again by unexpected subdivisions into subordinate groups. Hence, when a tribe name is encountered, practically nothing except more or less political independence can be taken for granted; as to other relations, we must know the conditions in each case. What we have just seen to be the most fundamental social tendencies of the New World, will prepare us for a very formidable list of tribes. It is estimated that for North America alone, our literature contains more than two thousand tribal designations. To offer such a list here would avail little, but some of the most important tribal names will be given in the linguistic classification (p. 369).

No important problem seems to hinge upon this tribal nomenclature, since it is solely a matter of convenience. When, however, we come to consider the internal organization of these conventional tribal groups, we do come face to face with one of the most important problems in social science. That very distinguished American social philosopher, Lewis H. Morgan, took the data for his theory of marriage and social regulation from the Iroquois and other North American tribes and his field reports are still models of accuracy. Following his lead, Bandelier gave us an exhaustive discussion of the Mexican system. Morgan was, above all, an evolutionist, who considered all now inexplicable social usages to be survivals of a state of culture when they did have a real function. For example, the observed tendency to use the same relationship term for father and uncle, was considered as dating from a time when there was no ready means of knowing who was the true father. As time went on, new data began to present inconsistencies with Morgan's views, but the recent extended discussion of Rivers has sought to justify the earlier hypothesis on the ground that the very last culture traits to be lost or modified by a social group, are those that have to do with

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16 things is hourly apprehended, and it is the intent of this instrument to not only that the duty imposed on me by the Constitution "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," shall be performed to the extent of the powers already vested in me by law, or of such others as the wisdom of Congress shall devise and intrust to me for that purpose, but to warn the citizens of South Carolina, who have been deluded into an opposition to the laws, of the danger they will incur by obedience to the illegal and disorganizing ordinance of the Convention,—to exhort those who have refused to support it to persevere in their determination to uphold the Constitution and laws of their country, and to point out to all, the perilous situation into which the good people of that State have been led,—and that the course they are urged to pursue is one of ruin and disgrace to the very State whose rights they affect to support.

Fellow-citizens of my native State! let me not only admonish you, as the first magistrate of our common country, not to incur the penalty of its laws, but use the influence that a father would over his children whom he saw rushing to certain ruin. In that paternal language, with that paternal feeling, let me tell you, my countrymen, that you are deluded by men who are either deceived themselves, or wish to deceive you. Mark under what pretences you have been led on to the brink of insurrection and treason, on which you stand! First, a diminution of the value of your staple commodity, lowered by over production in other quarters, and the consequent diminution in the value of your lands, were the sole effect of the tariff laws. The effect of those laws was confessedly injurious, but the evil was greatly exaggerated by the unfounded theory you were taught to believe, that its burdens were in proportion to your exports, not to your consumption of imported articles. Your pride was roused by the assertion that a submission to those laws was a state of vassalage, and that resistance to them was equal, in patriotic merit, to the opposition our fathers offered to the oppressive laws of Great Britain. You were told that this opposition might be peaceably—might be constitutionally made—that you might enjoy all the advantages of the Union and bear none of its burdens.

Eloquent appeals to your passions, to your State pride, to your native courage, to your sense of real injury, were used to prepare you for the period when the mask which concealed the hideous features of disunion should be taken off. It fell, and you were made to look with complacency on objects which, not long since, you would have regarded with horror. Look back at the arts which have brought you to this state—look forward to the consequences to which it must inevitably lead. Look back to what was first told you as an inducement to enter into this dangerous course. The great political truth was repeated to you, that you had the


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Joseph (?) (fl.1661-1681)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Joseph (fl.1661-1699)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Joseph (1702-1764)


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Rh family relationships. This work, perhaps more than anything else, stimulated a number of American field-workers to re-examine the whole problem.

The comprehension of social organization is by no means easy because the phenomenon is very complex and lacks objective definition. In North America, where we know the subject best, we find among other forms a natural social group, or band, under the leadership of a competent individual. The nucleus of this group is frequently the immediate family of the leader, recruited by relatives and strangers who have attached themselves because of faith in his leadership. Thus, an energetic leader may soon have a large following. Such groups are usually found among hunting peoples who maintain their tribal solidarity by meeting once or twice a year en masse, at which time only, the tribal government is in function. After these brief intervals, they again scatter out in these same groups, or communities. In the United States and Canada, and in fact everywhere, the annual round of seasons gives human social life a kind of yearly cycle. This is very striking in the bison area, particularly among those tribes on the borders who raise a little maize or tobacco. Here the severe weather of January finds the small bands we have noted sheltered in little valleys some distance apart, each usually having its definite camping place. Here they stay until spring, when their fields are prepared. When the crop is in, a call is sent out by the tribal chief for all to meet at a certain place, where the bands are automatically confederated into an organized camp which now moves and kills bison as a body. After an interval, they return to harvest their crop and then once again set out for the autumn hunt, to scatter out, at last, to their homes in December. In such a political group, it is clear that the simple band is the fundamental unit and as such is little more than the voluntary association of individuals under an able leader. All are more or less dependent upon his bounty. Among these may be a shaman and also a priest, though the leader himself may be one of these.

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/199


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/200

154 Some authors designate such a band as a family group, but that is going a little too far, for when we have full data, these bands are found to contain many individuals not descended from the leader and not even his relatives. For these reasons, the term local group is preferable. There is, however, a native tendency to consider all members of such a band as relatives in a figurative sense, and to apply blood relationship terms to them, as men of similar age-grades will speak of themselves as brothers, etc. As these groups have more or less permanency, it is conceivable that in time they may come to be largely blood groups.

In such a society, an individual is known by his personal name, together with the band name, but, as among us, each must keep track of his blood relationship by specific memory. We see then that the true family group, as we conceive it, exists somewhat independent of the band. All the world over, the prime importance of keeping track of blood relationship is recognized, particularly in respect to marriage, or sexual life. These bands, on the other hand, seem to have no specific function in the regulation of marriage, but to be economic or political groups.

Such bands, as we have just outlined, are characteristic of the great hunting areas (the caribou area, the bison area, and the guanaco area, though our data here are vague), and the interior of the salmon area. They may also prevail in the manioc area, but we lack good data. In these various areas, we have a great range of tribal organization, but the fundamental units are the loose bands, or local groups, we have just characterized.

Now when we come to the centers of more intense culture, we find what is called a clan or gens, as the case may be. If we should take one of the preceding groups and make it permanent in the sense that everyone born in it is forever a member, we would have a somewhat different affair. The group name would now be firmly fixed to the individual and define his descent, for by it he could know, in theory, at least,

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/200


text:
Time (Coates)

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1915), "Time" in The North American Review (June 1915).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "Time" in Poems I.

title: Time (Coates)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Joseph (d.1814)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Joseph John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Joseph (1773-1825)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Joseph Macdonald


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Moses


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/201

Rh that he was a blood relative of every other person with that group name. If the group is small, many individuals will be of too near kin to marry and must bring in wives or husbands as the case may be. Since the parents are now of different groups, their child must inherit one or the other group name. There are but two alternatives. When he takes the mother's group name, we use the term clan, when the father's, gens. We do not intend to imply that the clan necessarily came about in this manner, but give the statement this form for the sake of clearness in distinction.

Now, it frequently happens that certain social regulations are defined by the clan or gentile name. In many cases, the universal prohibition against marriage between nearest kin is formalized into a rule that persons with the same clan or gentile names cannot marry. This gives what is spoken of as an exogamous relation. In the New World, at least, this rule does not negate the world-wide prohibition against the marriage of parents and children and other near relatives, but is an additional social regulation. On reflection, it will be apparent that as a clan or gens expands, it will become more and more easy for one to find within it a mate not ineligible by blood. In fact, we have the example of the Pawnee clan organization on the endogamous principle; i.e., one is expected to marry a member of his own clan, but, of course, not a near relative.

This peculiar association of membership in a social group with marriage restrictions has received a great deal of attention from students of society, many of whom have looked upon it as the key, not only to the marriage system, but to society as a whole. Yet, in the light of concrete data for the New World, this seems unwarranted. Also, the tendency has been to consider clans and gentes as fundamentally different, but a close look at them shows that they rest upon the same idea and differ only in the method by which the child is assigned membership.

Turning now to the question of geographical distribution, it appears that so far as known, the clan and gentile area will comprise the whole of the area of intense culture, the greater

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/201


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Paul


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Renatus


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/202

156

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/202


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Richard


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Robert (1809-1865)


text:
Page:President Jackson's Proclamation against Nullification.djvu/19

Rh right of resisting all laws that were palpably unconstitutional, and intolerably oppressive—it was added that the right to nullify a law rested on the same principle, but that it was a peaceable remedy! This character which was given to it, made you receive with too much confidence the assertions that were made of the unconstitutionality of the law, and its oppressive effects. Mark, my fellow-citizens, that, by the admission of your leaders, the unconstitutionality must be palpable, or it will not justify either resistance or nullification! What is the meaning of the word palpable, in the sense in which it is here used?—that which is apparent to every one; that which no man of ordinary intellect will fail to perceive. Is the unconstitutionality of these laws of that description? Let those among your leaders who once approved and advocated the principle of protective duties, answer the question; and let them choose whether they will be considered as incapable, then, of perceiving that which must have been apparent to every man of common understanding, or as imposing upon your confidence, and endeavoring to mislead you now.

In either case, they are unsafe guides in the perilous path they urge you to tread. Ponder well on this circumstance, and you will know how to appreciate the exaggerated language they address to you. They are not champions of liberty, emulating the fame of our revolutionary fathers; nor are you an oppressed people, contending, as they repeat to you, against worse than colonial vassalage.

You are free members of a flourishing and happy Union. There is no settled design to oppress you. You have indeed felt the unequal operation of laws which may have been unwisely, not unconstitutionally passed, but that inequality must necessarily be removed. At the very moment when you were madly urged on the unfortunate course you have begun, a change in public opinion had commenced. The nearly approaching payment of the public debt, and the consequent necessity of a diminution of duties, had already produced a considerbleconsiderable [sic] reduction, and that too on some articles of general consumption in your State. The importance of this change was understood, and you were authoritatively told that no further alleviation of your burdens was to be expected, at the very time when the condition of the country imperiously demanded such a modification of the duties as should reduce them to a just and equitable scale. But, as if apprehensive of the effect of this change, in allaying your discontents, you were precipitated into the fearful state in which you now find yourselves.

I have urged you to look back to the means that were used to hurry you on to the position you have now assumed, and forward to the consequences it will produce. Something more is necessary. Contemplate the condition of that country of which you still form an important part!—consider its government uniting in one bond


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Samuel


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Thomas


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/203

Rh part of the eastern maize area, the coast tribes of the salmon area, and a portion of the manioc area. It is thus clear that it tends to appear in the regions of more intense culture and particularly wherever there is an appearance of political solidarity. If we consider only the gentile form, we find it somewhat in the majority, dominating among the Siouan peoples of the bison area, the Algonkin of the Great Lakes, the Nahua, Maya, and Inca peoples, with outlying localizations in both continents. Yet, the clan also has a respectable distribution, comprising a large part of the coast tribes in the salmon area, the eastern and southern parts of the eastern maize area, the Pueblo tribes, the Antilles, the Arawak of South America, and the Chibcha of Colombia and Central America. There is thus no great disparity, but considering them as merely two forms of the same grouping, we see that the clan-gentile system does prevail and is in general a correlate of political solidarity.

However, the clan or gens is not necessarily the ultimate social unit, but may by expansion come to have unexpected relations to the tribal group. Kroeber's investigations of the Pueblo peoples of southwestern United States show that many clans have members in each village, a condition somewhat similar to that of the Iroquois as analyzed by Morgan many years ago. In these cases, we see that the clan organization simply cross-sections the community or tribal grouping, the one being, as it were, vertical and the other horizontal. In the Iroquoian system, we find a close federation between the tribal groups which stopped little short of a compact political state. Unfortunately, we do not know just how the clans were distributed in the confederated tribes of southeastern United States, nor the gens in the ancient states of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca, but we find the two systems together—compact government and the clan-gens organization. It is, therefore, fair to raise the question as to whether the real basic unity that made possible these aboriginal political states did not rest with their clan and gentile relations, since in these they had a definite bond. A study of the Arawak would be interesting in this connection, for though they are scattered

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/203


text:
To a Poet

 * "To a Poet", a poem by Florence Earle Coates
 * "To a Poet", a poem by Alice Meynell (also published as "To Any Poet")
 * "To a Poet", a poem by William Butler Yeats

title: To a Poet


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Walter (1647-1732)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, Walter (1686-1761)


text:
To One in Hospital Pent

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "To One in Hospital Pent" in Harper's Magazine (July 1916).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "To One in Hospital Pent" in Poems I.

title: To One in Hospital Pent


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/205

Rh of a moiety that disregards the gens or clan, we have the Fox and Kickapoo tribes, each of which has gentile groups; but membership in the moieties is determined arbitrarily when the child is named, so that the members of a given gens will be divided between the two. In this dual grouping of tribes, we are dealing with a curious phenomenon which is not yet well understood. It is almost universal in the southern half of the eastern maize area, the eastern half of the bison area, and extends well down into the area of intense culture, if indeed not to its extreme borders. The data we have at hand seem to justify the conclusion that a moiety is not merely a larger division of clan or gentile groups, but a grouping of another kind. This is clearly the case among the Sauk and Fox where children at birth are assigned, regardless of their gens, to one of two moieties whose only function seems to be pleasurable social rivalry in certain games. Something like this is found in the southern part of the eastern maize area and has been reported from the Jicarilla Apache. The precise distribution of this custom cannot be stated, but something very much like it has been noted among the western Eskimo.

If these dual divisions were entirely for sport and ceremonies, their origin and function would be intelligible, but the problem is complicated by the presence of exogamous regulations. For example, among the Iroquois, the dual divisions, or moieties, are the phratries and were formerly exogamous, so that one must not only marry out of his clan, but out of his moiety. It is not clear, therefore, whether the mere fact of dual division is significant or just accidental. Until the whole subject is searchingly analyzed, we cannot deal with it in a work of this kind. The present tendency is to regard it as in the main accidental and to consider the exogamous character of moieties mere extensions of the system regulating marriage.

In the older literature of our subject, special significance was given the fact that among certain peoples the term father or mother was extended to include uncles, and brother or sister

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/205


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/204

158 far and wide, they seem to have preserved a definite clan system throughout.

We have just noted how the clan-gens grouping seemed to be independent of the tribal grouping and was not necessarily a political scheme. We may, therefore, be prepared to learn that clans are sometimes grouped or linked in ways peculiar to themselves. Thus, among the Menomini of the eastern maize area, we have the several gentes in groups of three or more, in each of which one is regarded as the leading gens. A somewhat similar crude sort of linking is reported for the Arizona Apache, though in this case for clans. Evidence for certain kinds of linking occurs among the Pueblo villages and elsewhere. The phenomenon is of interest here only in that it is the vaguer and less definite of such associations, for when two or more of the clan-gens groups are subordinated to a complementary division of the tribal unit, they are considered a phratry. What we have noted as to the association between the clan-gens system and marriage restrictions, applies here also, for exogamous linked groups are likely to be mutually exogamous. The phratry also may become the controlling unit as, for example, among the Iroquois.

In addition to the social groups we have so far considered, we find another peculiar one. Thus, among certain Pueblo Indians of southwestern United States (the Tewa), the village is divided in two halves, or moieties, known as summer and winter people, since one has charge of certain functions in summer, the other in winter. A similar grouping is reported for the Caddoan and a part of the Siouan stock in the Mississippi Valley, the Miwok of California, and also among the Iroquois of the East. In such cases the clans or gentes are sometimes disregarded, but are usually treated as subdivisions of the moiety. For example, the Seneca division of the Iroquois had four clans in one moiety and an equal number in the other. Though in this case equally divided, we find the Hidatsa with four in one and three in the other, and the Pawnee with two in one and eleven in the other. As an

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/204


text:
Page:President Jackson's Proclamation against Nullification.djvu/20

18 of common interest and general protection so many different States—giving to all their inhabitants the proud title of American citizens—protecting their commerce—securing their literature and their arts—facilitating their intercommunication—defending their frontiers—and making their names respected in the remotest parts of the earth! Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing and happy population, its advance in arts, which render life agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the mind! See education spreading the lights of religion, humanity, and general information, into every cottage in this wide extent of our Territories and States? Behold it as the asylum where the wretched and oppressed find a refuge and support! Look on this picture of happiness and honor, and say, We, too, are citizens of America—Carolina is one of these proud States; her arms have defended—her best blood has cemented this happy Union! And then add, if you can, without horror and remorse, This happy Union we will dissolve—this picture of peace and prosperity we will deface—this free intercourse we will interrupt—these fertile fields we will deluge with blood—the protection of that glorious flag we renounce—the very name of Americans we discard. And for what, mistaken men! for what do you throw away these inestimable blessings—for what would you exchange your share in the advantages and honor of the Union? For the dream of a separate independence—a dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your neighbors, and a vile dependence on foreign power. If your leaders could succeed in establishing a separation, what would be your situation? Are you united at home—are you free from the apprehension of civil discord, with all its fearful consequences? Do our neighboring republics, every day suffering some new revolution or contending with some new insurrection—do they excite your envy? But the dictates of a high duty oblige me solemnly to announce that you cannot succeed. The laws of the United States must be executed. I have no discretionary power on the subject—my duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution. Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution, deceived you—they could not have been deceived themselves. They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the execution of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their object is disunion: but be not deceived by names: disunion, by armed force, is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences—on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may fall the punishment—on your unhappy State will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the Government of your country. It cannot accede to the mad project of disunion, of which you would be the first victims—its first magistrate cannot, if he would, avoid the performance of his duty—the consequence must


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/206

160 to include cousins. It was assumed that if one called his mother's sister also mother, and his paternal uncle, father, this was a survival of a time when marriage was indefinite and the identity of the parent in doubt. Recently, a great deal of attention has been given the various tribal systems of relationship terms, an abstract and rather difficult subject. From the New World data now at hand, it appears that where such systems are used, there is no actual confusion between one's real parent, for instance, and the uncle or aunt to whom the name may also be applied. We have, therefore, merely a system of designation which may be presumed to have an historical origin.

A precise statement of the varieties of systems and their distribution cannot be made, for want of full data, but one common form is that designated by Morgan as classificatory, or that in which a single term is used for both father and father's brothers, mother and mother's sisters. Its best-known area is practically the whole of the United States east of the Mississippi, comprising almost the entire eastern clan and gens area as designated on our map (p. 156). Again, on the North Pacific Coast, we find a similar system associated with the clan and gens organizations. The next trace of it appears in the clan area of New Mexico. For the other clan and gens areas, we lack full data. These are also the regions in which exogamy prevails. On the other hand, for the great stretch of North America, which we have designated as the band area, the relationship nomenclature tends to resemble our own in that it differentiates the father from his brothers. Thus, in a general way, we find that wherever there are exogamous clans or gentes, one form of designating relatives prevails, while among tribes having simple family groups, there is a different form. This is not without exception, for example, the Pawnee have the system of these exogamous tribes but are endogamous.

There are, however, other points of difference in relationship systems as, for example, the use of reciprocal terms, or the method by which the same word is used by uncle and nephew, grandparent and grandchild, to express the relation of the one

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/206


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, William (1546?-1602)


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/211

Rh • 2;font-size:smaller;

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/211


text: Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/344


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, William (1720-1770)


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/207

Rh to the other. Such a system is found among the Kootenai, Ute, and most Shoshonean tribes of the highlands in western United States. By taking note of such distinctions as these, it seems possible to localize several geographical types of nomenclature whose investigation promises to hold an important place in the anthropology of the future.

This is a convenient place to note certain curious social phenomena pertaining to the relationship complex. In many parts of the world, a man is not permitted to speak to his mother-in-law and in some cases not even to look at her. These restrictions are designated as mother-in-law taboos. The actual New World distribution of this custom cannot be stated at present, but it is found among many tribes in the interior of North America. In a few cases, the restrictions seem to have applied to one's father-in-law also, particularly among the Plains-Cree of the bison area. On the other hand, the father-in-law and the daughter-in-law are less rigidly restricted, their attitude toward each other being much like that of father and daughter.

This subject deserves more careful investigation, first as to its distribution and ultimately as to its significance, since it seems to be the natural correlate of certain forms of marriage. The data so far available on their geographical distribution show it to be erratic rather than continuous, even one or two tribes speaking mutually intelligible languages differing in the keeping of this taboo. This is shown by the following data supplied by Dr. R. H. Lowie:—

The North American tribes, known to have the mother-in-law taboo, are: the Cree, Assiniboin, Blackfoot, Arapaho, Crow, Lemhi Shoshoni, Dakota, Hidatsa, Mandan, Omaha, Navajo, Apache, Tübatulabal (Kern River Shoshoni), the Western Mono (not the Eastern Mono), Haida, Creek, Alibamu, Kiowa, and Cheyenne. Those known not to observe it are: the Pawnee, Kwakiutl, Nootka, Paviotso, Comanche, Wind River Shoshoni, Hopi, Zuñi, Ute, Nez Percé, Tewa, Keresan, Beaver, and tribes in northwestern California. For

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/207


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, William (1776?-1830)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, William Cornwallis


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, William George


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harris, William Snow


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Benjamin (1771-1856)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Benjamin (1808-1887)


text:
Christmas Eve (Coates)

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1915), "Christmas Eve" in The Bellman (25 December 1915).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "Christmas Eve" in Poems I.

title: Christmas Eve (Coates)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, George (d.1841)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, George Henry


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, John (fl.1630)


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/208

162 South America the taboo has been reported for the Guaycuris and the Carib of the Antilles.

However, the apparent erratic distribution of this custom may be due to incomplete information.

There are other phenomena of this class, of which the joking-relationship is a type, so far reported for central North America only. In general, the custom is for individuals of certain specific relationships to have the privilege of almost unlimited personal ridicule, even in public, which must be cheerfully borne.

As in other parts of the world, we find in the New World a tendency for a social group to recognize conventional age-classes, particularly for the males. Thus, for the purposes of administration, the Inca government divided the males into the following classes:—

A somewhat similar classification seems to have been recognized by the Aztec, and even out in the bison hunting area many tribes were regarded as composed of boys, young men, warriors, and old men, each class having certain privileges and duties.

It so happens that in several parts of the world where such age-grades are recognized, we find a series of men's societies organized from these different age-ranks, and in the aggregate presenting the example of a series of societies, membership in which is restricted to separate life periods. In such a system, one would begin by joining a boys' society and so gradually pass at the proper age to the next higher and so on through

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/208


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, John (1579-1656)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, John (1613?-1670)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, John (1693-1776)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Joseph


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Robert (d.1585?)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Robert (1715-1802)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Samuel


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Stephen


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/209

Rh life. The attention given this subject by many writers elevates it to one of great theoretical importance, but so far the phenomenon of age-graded societies appears in the New World only in the bison area. Lowie, who is the most recent student of this subject, makes a good case for its independent origin in this small locality, suggesting that it is here at least merely the accidental outgrowth of the more fundamental tendency to segregate according to age.

There is one aspect of social grouping that deserves further notice, even in such a brief account as this. The terms totem and totemism have come to stand for a distinct body of literature and indicate a respectable complex of sociological theory. If, for example, we review the recognized names people give to their clans and gentes, most of them are seen to be derived from the names for animals. Thus Morgan, the great pioneer in this field, finds the Iroquois to have the following clans: Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk.

Similar naming systems are found among nearly all the clan peoples of North America, but it is not so clear that this is equally true of those having gentes.

The significant point, however, is taken to be the meaning of this animal name. In almost every case it can be explained only by the mythical narrative accounting for the origin of the group in question, which deals with an animal-like being to whom the origin of the organization is ascribed, if indeed this being is not the true initial parent. The result is that if this being should be in some way associated with the black bear, for example, the people of the group would call themselves the black bear clan and would look upon all such bears as related to them. In short, the bear, or a bear, would come to be the totem of the group. As the discussion of this subject will require some data on religion and mythology, we may best postpone its further consideration.

Our previous citations of the associations between marriage restrictions and the clan-gens system may prepare us for

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/209


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Susannah


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Thomas (fl.1658)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Thomas (1606-1660)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Thomas (1693-1745)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Thomas (1744-1829)


text:
To Britannia

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1913), as "In Remembrance: The Antarctic Heroes of 1912" in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (July 1913).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "To Britannia" in Poems I.

title: To Britannia


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Thomas Elliott


text:
Page:The American Indian.djvu/210

164 further complications, for the conception of a clan-gens ancestor and the group animal name will bring the totem into prominence when marriage systems are considered. To this association, we shall revert in a succeeding chapter. One of the important problems for us, here, is the place and manner of origin for the New World totemic complex. This, like many others of its kind, must rest with the future. So far, analytic studies have shown that the various systems of totemic practices growing up around these ancestral and other concepts have different historical origins and so are not to be explained as instinctive or as diffused from a common center; yet, it cannot be denied that the sameness of the underlying concepts throughout the New World must be accounted for by one or the other of these hypotheses. From its distribution, we have a strong presumption that the New World clan or gens system is a correlate of higher political and industrial organization, since it is among the loosely organized tribes that it does not occur, but just where the totemic factor enters the complex is not clear.

In closing this brief glance at the social grouping of aboriginal man in the New World, we may be impressed with the tendency for each social feature to localize. Thus, whether it be merely a matter of terminology for uncles and aunts, methods of regulating marriage, or what not, we find it not scattered up and down the Americas at random, but gathered into more or less distinct geographical areas. It is this observed geographical distribution of the several social groupings we have noted in the New World that suggests their historical origin in opposition to an innate one. It is now clear that we may have an evolution of society that is determined by the conditions of the time and place and not by the inborn traits of the people producing it. This seems to be the most satisfactory interpretation of the data on social grouping, for more complete knowledge makes it impossible to believe that the bands, clans, gentes, etc., have a definite place in the mere organic evolution of peoples in the New World.

title: Page:The American Indian.djvu/210


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, William (1534-1593)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, William (1553-1621)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, William (1813-1868)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, William (1802-1884)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, William Frederick


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, William George


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrod, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harry, George Owen


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harry, Nun Morgan


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harsnett, Adam


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harsnett, Samuel


text:
I Heard a Voice

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1913), "I Heard a Voice" in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (April 1913).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "I Heard a Voice" in Poems I.

title: I Heard a Voice


text:
Page:Weird Tales volume 31 number 03.djvu/71

 "No, for which of us responded to the call of that thing out there?"

For the hundredth time she gazed fearfully through the fire at the bushes behind which the commanding whine had risen.

"I have within me," she said dully, "a nature that will break out, look and art like a beast-demon, will kill even my beloved father"

"Please," interjected Judge Pursuivant earnestly, "you must not take responsibility upon yourself for what happened. If the ectoplasm engendered by you made up the form of the killer, the spirit may have come from without."

"How could it?" she asked wretchedly.

"How could Marthe Beraud exude ectoplasm that formed a bearded, masculine body?" Pursuivant looked across to Zoberg. "Doctor, you surely know the famous 'Bien Boa' séance, and how the materialized entity spoke Arabic when the medium, a Frenchwoman, knew little or nothing of that language?"

Zoberg sat with bearded chin on lean hand. His joined brows bristled the more as he corrugated his forehead in thought. "We are each a thousand personalities," he said, sententiously if not comfortingly. "How can we rule them all, or rule even one of them?"

'BRYANT said sourly that all this talk was too high flown for him to understand or to enjoy. He dared hope, however, that the case could never be tied up to Miss Susan Gird, whom he had known and liked since her babyhood.

"It can never do that," Zoberg said definitely. "No court or jury would convict her on the evidence we are offering against her."

I ventured an opinion: "While you are attempting to show that Susan is a werewolf, you are forgetting that something else was prowling around our fire, just out of sight."

"Ach, just out of sight!" echoed Zoberg. "That means you aren't sure what it was."

"Or even that there was anything," added Susan, so suddenly and strongly that I, at least, jumped.

"There was something, all right," I insisted. "I heard it."

"You thought you heard a sound behind the tree," Susan reminded me. "You looked, and there was nothing."

Everyone gazed at me, rather like staid adults at a naughty child. I said, ungraciously, that my imagination was no better than theirs, and that I was no easier to frighten. Judge Pursuivant suggested that we make a search of the surrounding woods, for possible clues.

"A good idea," approved Constable O'Bryant. "The ground's damp. We might find some sort of footprints."

"Then you stay here with Miss Susan," the judge said to him. "We others will circle around."

The gaunt constable shook his head. "Not much, mister. I'm in on whatever searching is done. I've got something to settle with whatever killed my kid brother."

"But there are only three lanterns," pointed out Judge Pursuivant. "We have to carry them—light's our best weapon."

Zoberg then spoke up, rather diffidently, to say that he would be glad to stay with Susan. This was agreed upon, and the other three of us prepared for the search.

I took the lantern from Zoberg's hand, nodded to the others, and walked away among the trees.

I had turned my face toward the section beyond the fire, for, as I have said repeatedly, it was there


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 that I had heard tine movements and cries of the being that had so strongly moved and bewitched Susan. My heart whispered rather loudly that I must look for myself at its traces or lack of them, or for ever view myself with scorn.

Almost at once I found tracks, the booted tracks of my three allies. Shaking my lantern to make it flare higher, I went deeper among the clumps, my eyes quartering the damp earth. After a few moments I found what I had come to look for.

The marks were round and rather vague as to toe-positions, yet not so clear-cut as to be made by hoofs. Rather they suggested a malformed stump or a palm with no fingers, and they were deep enough to denote considerable weight; the tracks of my own shoes, next to them, were rather shallower. I bent for a close look, then straightened up, looked everywhere at once, and held my torch above my head to shed light all around; for I had suddenly felt eyes upon me.

I caught just a glimpse as of two points of light, fading away into some leafage and in the direction of the clearing, and toward them I made my way; but there was nothing there, and the only tracks underfoot were of shod human beings, myself or one of the others. I returned to my outward search, following the round tracks.

They were plainly of only two feet—there were no double impressions, like those of a quadruped—but I must have stalked along them for ten minutes when I realized that I had no way of telling whether they went forward or backward. I might be going away from my enemy instead of toward it. A close examination did me little good, and I further pondered that the creature would lurk near the clearing, not go so straight away. Thus arguing within myself, I doubled back.

Coming again close to the starting-point, I thought of a quick visit to the clearing and a comforting word or two with Susan and Zoberg. Surely I was almost there; but why did not the fire gleam through the trees? Were they out of wood? Perplexed, I quickened my pace. A gnarled tree grew in my path, its low branches heavily bearded with vines. Beyond this rose only the faintest of glows. I paused to push aside some strands and peer.

The fire had almost died, and by its light I but half saw two figures, one tall and one slender, standing together well to one side. They faced each other, and the taller—a seeming statue of wet-looking gray—held its companion by a shoulder. The other gray hand was stroking the smaller one's head, pouring grayness thereon.

I saw only this much, without stopping to judge or to wonder. Then I yelled, and sprang into the clearing. At my outcry the two fell apart and faced me. The smallest was Susan, who took a step in my direction and gave a little smothered whimper, as though she was trying to speak through a blanket. I ran to her side, and with a rough sweep of my sleeve I cleared from her face and head a mass of slimy, shiny jelly.

"You!" I challenged the other shape. "What have you been trying to do to her?"

For only a breathing-space it stood still, as featureless and clumsy as a half-formed figure of gray mud. Then darkness sprang out upon it, and hair. Eyes blazed at me, green and fearsome. A sharp muzzle opened to emit a snarl.

"Now I know you," I hurled at it. "I'm going to kill you."

And I charged.

Claws ripped at my head, missed and tore the cloth of my coat. One of my


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Rh punishment. He pointed out that punishment does not become "cruel and unusual" merely because of the pain inflicted. The true significance lay in the fact that members of the human race are treated:

"… as nonhumans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded … [and that this is] … thus inconsistent with the fundamental premise of the Clause that even the vilest criminal remains a human being possessed of common human dignity."

Although some of the views expressed in Furman v Georgia were qualified in the subsequent case of Gregg v Georgia, Stewart J in the latter case affirmed that the basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment "is the dignity of man."

The framework of Canadian rights legislation is not much different from ours and section 1 of the Canadian Charter plays a role not very dissimilar to that of section 33(1) of the Constitution. The Canadian Supreme Court has interpreted the concept "cruel and unusual punishment" as a "compendious expression of a norm" to which the relevant test was "whether the punishment prescribed is so excessive as to outrage the standards of decency." Factors to be taken into account in the assessment of the punishment included its effect, which must not be grossly disproportionate, the gravity of the offence, the personal characteristics of the offender and the particular circumstances of the case. According to Dickson CJ and Lamer J:

"… some punishments or treatments will always be grossly disproportionate and will always outrage our standards of decency: for example, the infliction of corporal punishment, such as the lash, irrespective of the number of lashes imposed …"

The decisions of the Supreme Courts of Namibia and of Zimbabwe are of special

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text:
Beatrice before Death

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "Beatrice before Death" in The Minaret (June 1916).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "Beatrice before Death" in Poems I.

title: Beatrice before Death


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Rh significance. Not only are these countries geographic neighbours, but South Africa shares with them the same English colonial experience which has had a deep influence on our law; we of course also share the Roman-Dutch legal tradition. Unlike our Constitution, the Namibian Constitution does not have a general limitation clause. Article 22 however specifies how limitations, whether they are built-in or are imposed by other laws, are to be employed. In Ex Parte Attorney-General, Namibia, Mahomed AJA had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the infliction of corporal punishment, whether on adults or juveniles, was inconsistent with article 8 of the Namibian Constitution and constituted "inhuman or degrading" punishment.

In S v Ncube; S v Tshuma and S v Ndhlovu the Zimbabwe Supreme Court, dealing with the issue of corporal punishment for adults, held that the practice was inhuman and degrading in violation of section 15(1) of the Declaration of Rights of the Zimbabwe Constitution which prohibits "torture or inhuman or degrading punishment." The same conclusion was reached with respect to juvenile whipping by the Zimbabwe High Court in S v F. Juvenile whipping was held to constitute inhuman and degrading punishment by the Zimbabwe Supreme Court in S v Juvenile. Gubbay JA characterised juvenile whipping as:

"… inherently brutal and cruel; for its infliction is attended by acute physical pain. After all, that is precisely what it is designed to achieve … In short, whipping, which invades the integrity of the human body, is an antiquated and inhuman punishment which blocks the way to understanding the pathology of crime."

The Court in Tyrer v United Kingdom characterised the whipping of a juvenile thus:

"The very nature of judicial corporal punishment is that it involves one human being inflicting physical violence on another human

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text:
Shakespeare

 * Shakespeare, a poem by Matthew Arnold
 * Shakespeare, a poem by Florence Earle Coates
 * Shakspeare, a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 * Shakspeare, a poem by Felicia Hemans, as Felicia Dorothea Browne, 1808.
 * Shakespeare, a poem by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay
 * Shakespeare, a poem by Josef Svatopluk Machar

title: Shakespeare


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Rh being. Furthermore, it is institutionalised violence, that is in the present case violence permitted by the law, ordered by the judicial authorities of the State and carried out by the police authorities of the State. Thus, although the applicant did not suffer any severe or long-lasting physical effects, his punishment - whereby he was treated as an object in the power of the authorities - constituted an assault on precisely that which is the main purpose of Article 3 to protect, namely a person's dignity and physical integrity … The institutionalised character of this violence is further compounded by the whole aura of official procedure attending the punishment and by the fact that those inflicting it were total strangers to the offender."

The circumstances described above are present in any judicial corporal punishment; they are certainly present in juvenile whipping in terms of section 294 of the Act. They are consistent with Mahomed AJA's summary, in Ex Parte Attorney-General, Namibia, and that of Gubbay JA in S v Ncube, S v Tshuma, S v Ndhlovu on the basis of the objection to corporal punishment.

Whether one speaks of "cruel and unusual punishment" as in the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution and in article 12 of the Canadian Charter, or "inhuman or degrading punishment" as in the European CoventionConvention [sic] and the Constitution of Zimbabwe, or "cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment" as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ICCPR and the Constitution of Namibia, the common thread running through the assessment of each phrase is the identification and acknowledgement of society's concept of decency and human dignity.

In the United States, the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution is interpreted in the light of "contemporary standards of decency." These standards, it has been held, are not static but are continually evolving. The relationship between "contemporary standards of decency"

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Rh and public opinion is uncertain and I am not convinced that they are synonymous. It is clear, as was pointed out by Chaskalson P in State v Makwanyane and Mchunu that public opinion, on its own, is not determinative of constitutional issues:

"If public opinion were to be decisive there would be no need for constitutional adjudication. The protection of rights could then be left to Parliament, which has a mandate from the public … but this would be a return to parliamentary sovereignty, and a retreat from the new legal order established by the 1993 Constitution."

It is not clear to me however that it is necessary to adopt the American concept of "contemporary standards of decency" or that it is necessary to give definitive meaning to that phrase. Our Constitution is different to the American constitution. Section 35(1) of the Constitution provides expressly that the rights entrenched in it, including sections 10 and 11(2), shall be interpreted in accordance with the values which underlie an open and democratic society based on freedom and equality. In determining whether punishment is cruel, inhuman or degrading within the meaning of our Constitution, the punishment in question must be assessed in the light of the values which underlie the Constitution.

The simple message is that the State must, in imposing punishment, do so in accordance with certain standards; these will reflect the values which underpin the Constitution; in the present context, it means that punishment must respect human dignity and be consistent with the provisions of the Constitution.

There is unmistakably a growing consensus in the international community that judicial whipping, involving as it does the deliberate infliction of physical pain on the person of the accused, offends society's notions of decency and is a direct invasion of the right which every person has to human dignity. This consensus has found expression through the courts and legislatures of various countries and through international instruments. It is a

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text: A Book of the Pyrenees/Chapter 6

title: A Book of the Pyrenees/Chapter 6


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Rh clear trend which has been established.

Corporal punishment has been abolished in a wide range of countries, including: the United Kingdom, Australia (except in the State of Western Australia), the United States of America, Canada, Europe and Mozambique, among others. In Lesotho, restrictions have been imposed by the courts on the whipping of people over 30 years. Although the Constitution of Botswana contains a provision preserving the application of judicial corporal punishment in its criminal justice system, the practice has been severely criticised by the judiciary. The remarks of Aguda, JA in S v Petrus and Another are apposite to the present enquiry:

"First, it must be recognised that certain types of punishment or treatment are by their very nature cruel, inhuman or degrading. Here once more I must cite with approval what Professor Nwabueze says in his book (ibid): 'Any punishment involving torture, such as the rack, the thumbscrew, the iron boot, the stretching of limbs, burning alive or at the stake, crucifixion, breaking on the wheel, embowelling alive, beheading, public

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Rh dissection and the like, or involving mutilation or a lingering death, or the infliction of acute pain and suffering, either physical or mental, is inherently inhuman and degrading.' Under the Botswana Constitution such punishment which is inherently inhuman and degrading is prohibited … notwithstanding the fact that public sentiments favour it. Secondly, a punishment which is not inherently inhuman or degrading may become so by the very nature or mode of execution, and also notwithstanding the fact that popular demand may favour it."

Great play was made by the State of differences between adult and juvenile whipping. The point of the argument was that while it may be difficult to justify the whipping of adults in constitutional terms, juvenile whipping was no more reprehensible than other forms of punishment, since an element of humiliation and degradation is to be found in most. I did not understand the State to be seriously contending that any punishment which involves an element of humiliation or degradation constituted a breach of section 11(2) of the Constitution. The argument was rather that judicial whipping was not an infringement of any of the rights of the juvenile.

In Tyrer v United Kingdom the European Court put its finger on the basis for the distinction between punishment per se and punishment which was prohibited in terms of article 3 of the European Convention: the humiliation or debasement involved must attain a particular level and must be other than the usual, and perhaps inevitable, element of humiliation associated with punishment in general. In Furman v Georgia Brennan J made it quite clear what he found to be particularly objectionable in this species of punishment:

"… since the discontinuance of flogging as a constitutionally permissible punishment, Jackson v Bishop 404 F2d 571 (CA8) 1968, death remains as the only punishment that may involve the conscious infliction of physical pain."

The fact that there may be other punishments which violate fundamental rights cannot, in

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Rh itself, save the specific form of punishment that has been challenged from invalidity.

Differences between adult and juvenile whipping have, in my view, little or no relevance to the enquiry. They are in any event differences of degree rather than kind. To the extent that comment is needed on the argument which has been raised, however, I am of the view that the differences are far outweighed by the similarities. There is a small difference in the dimensions of the instrument used; the adult is stripped naked and trussed, the strokes being delivered on bare flesh while the juvenile's strokes are inflicted on normal attire, without him being tied; there is no limit to the number of times a juvenile may be sentenced to receive strokes while the adult may only be so sentenced twice, and never within a period of three years of the previous sentence of strokes. Both occur in a state institution; the maximum number of strokes that may be imposed is seven in respect of both. Both involve a physical beating with a cane wielded by a State employee, a virtual stranger to the person being punished.

The severity of the pain inflicted is arbitrary, depending as it does almost entirely on the person administering the whipping. Although the juvenile is not trussed, he is as helpless. He has to submit to the beating, his terror and sensitivity to pain notwithstanding. Nor is there any solace to be derived from the fact that there is a prior examination by the district surgeon. The fact that the adult is stripped naked merely accentuates the degradation and humiliation. The whipping of both is, in itself, a severe affront to their dignity as human beings. I agree with the dicta in Campbell and Cosans v United Kingdom in which Mr Klecker, in a dissenting opinion, stated:

"Corporal punishment amounts to a total lack of respect for the human being; it therefore cannot depend on the age of the human being … The sum total of adverse effects, whether actual or potential, produced by corporal punishment on the mental and moral development of a child is enough, as I see it, to describe it as degrading within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention."

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text:
The Nest (Coates)

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1915), "The Nest" in Scribner's Magazine (January 1915).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "The Nest" in Poems I.

title: The Nest (Coates)


text: A Book of the Pyrenees/Chapter 7

title: A Book of the Pyrenees/Chapter 7


text:
Jewel-Weed

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1914), "Jewel-Weed" in The Bellman (16 May 1914).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "Jewel-Weed" in Poems I.

title: Jewel-Weed


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168 at the entrance to the church. Here, as at S. Savin, is a Cagot's door.

This is perhaps the best preserved Templar church in France. So far it has not undergone restoration, but it is far too small for a growing place, and a new church will have to be built elsewhere.

Above Luz, on a height, is a hermitage, formerly occupied by a Père Ambrose, who died in the odour of sanctity in 1778. He was a Capuchin friar, born in 1708, who had embraced the religious life at the age of sixteen. He wrote some godly works, one on the Joy of the Soul, one on the Peace of the Soul, and a third consisted of letters giving spiritual advice.

The chapel is dedicated to S. Peter. Napoleon III had it rebuilt, and entitled S. Pierre-de-Solférino. Near by is a cairn, under which lie the bones of Ambrose, the last hermit to occupy the place. The ruins of the Castle of S. Marie date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There are two keeps. This fortress was formerly the principal stronghold commanding the Valley of Barèges. It was built by the English originally, and held by them, terrorizing the inhabitants of the basin, till the Barègois peasants rose in a body against them in 1404, stormed the castle, and put the garrison to the sword. After that it was rebuilt and strengthened.

Saint Sauveur consists of a long street of hotels, and is occupied in the summer alone. In winter and spring every door and window is barred. It is reached from Luz over a bridge, erected in 1860 by order of Napoleon III. The keystone of the arch is 198 feet above the torrent.

Another bridge, farther up, is that of Scia; like the former, constructed of white marble, and thrown at an amazing height above the Gave, where huge blocks of granite intercept its

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text:
She will not hear

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1915), "She will not hear" in The Outlook (5 May 1915).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "She Will Not Hear" in Poems I.

title: She will not hear


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Rh It was further claimed that age in itself was a redeeming feature; that while an adult whose character and personality has already been formed was likely to be hardened by the infliction of judicial whipping, the position was the opposite in the case of a juvenile. The basis for this was the view that as a juvenile's character was still in the process of formation, he was still susceptible to correction and advice; corporal punishment might therefore still have a reformative effect on the young even though it was accepted that it was likely to have the opposite effect on the old.

I do not agree. One would have thought that it is precisely because a juvenile is of a more impressionable and sensitive nature that he should be protected from experiences which may cause him to be coarsened and hardened. If the State, as role model par excellence, treats the weakest and the most vulnerable among us in a manner which diminishes rather than enhances their self-esteem and human dignity, the danger increases that their regard for a culture of decency and respect for the rights of others will be diminished. As Brandeis J observes in a dissenting opinion in Olmstead v United States:

"Our Government is the potent, the omni-present teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example."

The issue of corporal punishment at schools is by no means free of controversy. The practice has inevitably come in for strong criticism. In Costello-Roberts v United Kingdom, the European Court applied the criteria set in Tyrer v United Kingdom that, in order for punishment to be "degrading" and in breach of article 3 of the Convention, the humiliation or debasement involved must attain a particular level of severity and must, in any event, be other than the usual element of humiliation inherent in any punishment. It drew a distinction between a judicially imposed whipping, as in Tyrer v United Kingdom,

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text:
Inviolable (Coates)

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1914), "Inviolable" in The Athenaeum (21 March 1914).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1914), "Inviolable" in The Living Age (16 May 1914).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "Inviolable" in Poems I.

title: Inviolable (Coates)


text:
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Rh and punishment meted out on a juvenile boarder through disciplinary rules in force in a private school. This amounted to being slippered three times on his buttocks through his shorts with a rubber-soled gym shoe by the headmaster in private. The court held that in the circumstances of the particular case, the minimum level of severity had not been attained. It is noteworthy that the decision was carried by the narrowest of margins, with five judges voting for it and four against. What is of interest is how the Euorpean Court, in the exercise of a value judgment, went about evaluating the impugned conduct and distinguishing between the concepts `inhuman' and `degrading.'

It is not necessary to comment on the suggestion that judicial corporal punishment is in reality no worse than cuts imposed at school; the subject of corporal punishment in schools is not before us. Suffice it to point out that the European Court in Costello-Roberts v The United Kingdom seemed to attach some importance to the difference between strokes inflicted by a policeman as a result of a court order, on the one hand, and corporal punishment administered by a headmaster in terms of disciplinary rules in force within the school in which the youth was a boarder. On the other hand, it was White J in a dissenting opinion in Ingraham v Wright who stated:

"Where corporal punishment becomes so severe as to be unacceptable in a civilised society, I can see no reason that it should become any more acceptable just because it is inflicted on children in the public schools."

The Constitution requires us to "have regard" to the consensus referred to above; we are not bound to follow it but neither can we ignore it. The determinative test will be the values we find inherent in or worthy of pursuing in this society which has only recently embarked on the road to democracy. Already South Africa has lagged behind. The Constitution now offers an opportunity for South Africans to join the mainstream of a world community that is progressively moving away from punishments that place undue

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Rh emphasis on retribution and vengeance rather than on correction, prevention and the recognition of human rights.

In interpreting section 11(2) of the Constitution, however, we should not only have regard to the position in other jurisdictions. This Court has held that in interpreting the rights enshrined in Chapter 3 of the Constitution, a purposive approach should be adopted. In seeking the purpose of the particular rights, it is important to place them in the context of South African society. It is regrettable, but undeniable, that since the middle 1980's our society has been subjected to an unprecedented wave of violence. Disputes, whether political, industrial or personal, often end in violent assaults. In addition, during the same period, there has been a marked increase in violent crimes, such as armed robbery and murder.

The process of political negotiations which resulted in the Constitution were a rejection of violence. In this context, it cannot be doubted that the institutionalised use of violence by the State on juvenile offenders as authorised by section 294 of the Act is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. The Government has a particular responsibility to sustain and promote the values of the Constitution. If it is not exacting in its acknowledgement of those values, the Constitution will be weakened. A culture of authority which legitimates the use of violence is inconsistent with the values for which the Constitution stands.

The conclusion that I have reached, that section 294 of the Act infringes the rights contained in sections 10 and 11(2) of the Constitution is consistent with the view that has been expressed by many South African judges before. As already indicated, the courts in this country have acknowledged the international consensus against corporal punishment and, in a sense, associated themselves with it in many judgments which have criticised, sometimes in the strongest terms, the infliction of corporal punishment. Judicial condemnation has resulted in adult whipping being imposed only in exceptional

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