They constitute a ground for a civil action in Kafir law; whilst we even hear of an African tribe, the Ba-Ngindo, who rejoice in the special institution of a peace-maker, whose business is to compose troubles arising from this vexatious source.
* * * * * Let us now turn to another class of offences, such as, from the first, are regarded as so prejudicial to the public interest that the community as a whole must forcibly put them down.
Cases of what may be termed military discipline fall under this head.
Even when the functions of the commander are undeveloped, and war is still "an affair of armed mobs," shirking--a form of crime which, to do justice to primitive society, is rare--is promptly and effectively resented by the host.

Amongst American tribes the coward's arms are taken away from him; he is made to eat with the dogs; or perhaps a shower of arrows causes him to "run the gauntlet." The traitor, on the other hand, is inevitably slain without mercy--tied to a tree and shot, or, it may be, literally hacked to pieces.

Naturally, with the evolution of war, these spontaneous outbursts of wrath and disgust give way to a more formal system of penalties.

To trace out this development fully, however, would entail a lengthy disquisition on the growth of kingship in one of its most important aspects.

If constant fighting turns the tribe into something like a standing army, the position of war-lord, as, for instance, amongst the Zulus, is bound to become both permanent and of all-embracing authority.