Before CHAPTER XXIX THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY (concluded)
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Westermarck, Edward
Among many peoples, finally, we find the theory that nobody but the chief or king has proprietary rights, and that it is only by his sufferance that his subjects hold their possessions.300 The soil, in particular, is regarded as his.301 But even autocrats are tied by custom,302 and in practice the right of ownership is not denied to their subjects.
In the next chapter we shall try to explain all these facts:—the existence of proprietary rights, the refusal of such rights to certain classes of persons, the different degrees of condemnation attending theft under different circumstances. But before we can understand the psychological origin of the right of ownership and the regard in which it is held, it is necessary to examine the methods by which it is acquired, the external facts which give to certain individuals a right to the exclusive disposal of certain things.
Source notes
296 Ball and Roane, Revised Statutes of Arkansas, xliv. 7. 2. 8, p. 276 sq.
297 Edwards, History of the British West Indies, ii. 181.
298 Morgan, Civil Code of Louisiana, art. 175.
299 Stephen, op. cit. i. 60. Couty, L’esclavage au Brésil, p. 9.
300 Butler, Travels in Assam, p. 94 (Kukis). Beecham, Ashantee, p. 96. Spencer, Descriptive Sociology, African Races, p. 12 (Abyssinians). Decle, op. cit. p. 70 sqq. (Barotse). Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 353. Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 342. Post, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, ii. 171. Percy Smith, ‘Uea, Western Pacific,’ in Jour. Polynesian Soc. i. 112. Tregear, ‘Easter Island,’ ibid. i. 99. In Samoa it is a maxim that a chief cannot steal; he is merely considered to “take” the thing which he covets (Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, p. 104). In Uea, when a chief enters a house, he enjoys the right to take all in it that he pleases (Percy Smith, in Jour. Polynesian Soc. i. 113). Among the Kafirs no case can be brought against a chief for theft, except if it be committed on the property of a person belonging to another tribe; and even the children of chiefs are permitted to steal from their own people (Brownlee, in Maclean, Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs, p. 112 sq. Trollope, South Africa, ii. 303. Holden, Past and Future of the Kaffir Races, p. 338).
301 Waitz, op. cit. iii. 128 (Indian tribes of North America); v. pt. i. 153 (Malays). Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iii. 115 (Sandwich Islanders). Bory de St. Vincent, Essais sur les Isles Fortunées, p. 64 (Guanches). Nicole, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 136 (Diakité-Sarracolese). Baskerville, ibid. p. 201 (Waganda). Beverley, ibid. p. 216 (Wagogo). Lang, ibid. p. 262 (Washambala). Rautanen, ibid. p. 343 (Ondonga). Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pasha ins Herz von Africa, p. 75 (Wanyamwezi). Post, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, ii. 170 sq.; Ratzel, op. cit. i. 126; de Laveleye-Bücher, Das Ureigenthum, p. 275 (various African peoples). Kohler, Rechtsvergleichende Studien, p. 235 (Kandian law). Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, ii. 369, n. 21 (Chinese).
302Supra, i. 162.