foreigner, the whole community became interested to prevent the discord
or the war which might arise. All directed their efforts, not to bring
the murderer to punishment, but to satisfy the injured parties by a
vicarious atonement. [ Lalemant, while inveighing against a practice
which made the public, and not the criminal, answerable for an offence,
admits that heinous crimes were more rare than in France, where the
guilty party himself was punished.--Lettre au P. Provincial, 15 May,
1645. ] To this end, contributions were made and presents collected.
Their number and value were determined by established usage. Among the
Hurons, thirty presents of very considerable value were the price of a
man's life. That of a woman's was fixed at forty, by reason of her
weakness, and because on her depended the continuance and increase of the
population. This was when the slain belonged to the nation. If of a
foreign tribe, his death demanded a higher compensation, since it involved
the danger of war. [ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 80. ]
These presents were offered in solemn council, with prescribed
formalities. The relatives of the slain might refuse them, if they chose,
and in this case the murderer was given them as a slave; but they might
by no means kill him, since, in so doing, they would incur public censure,
and be compelled in their turn to make atonement. Besides the principal
gifts, there was a great number of less value, all symbolical, and each
delivered with a set form of words: as, "By this we wash out the blood of
the slain: By this we cleanse his wound: By this we clothe his corpse
with a new shirt: By this we place food on his grave": and so, in endless
prolixity, through particulars without number.

[ Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, gives a description of one of
these ceremonies at length. Those of the Iroquois on such occasions were
similar. Many other tribes had the same custom, but attended with much
less form and ceremony. Compare Perrot, 73-76. ]