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A maxim, though not the practice, of their law, says, "that he who is able to pay the bangun for murder must satisfy the relations of the deceased; he who is unable, must suffer death."
These considerations however they would readily forego, renounce their fealty, and quit their country, if in any case they were in danger of paying with life the forfeit of their crimes; to lesser punishments those ties induce them to submit; and to strengthen this hold their customs wisely enjoin that every the remotest branch of the family shall be responsible for the payment of their adjudged and other debts; and in cases of murder the bangun, or compensation, may be levied on the inhabitants of the village the culprit belonged to, if it happens that neither he nor any of his relations can be found.
For a wound occasioning the loss of an eye or limb or imminent danger of death half the bangun is to be paid. For a wound on the head the pampas or compensation is twenty dollars. For other wounds the pampas from twenty dollars downwards. If a person is carried off and sold beyond the hills the offender, if convicted, must pay the bangun.
On amendment, the outlaw may be recalled to his family, they paying such debts as he may have contracted whilst outlawed, and redeeming his writ by payment of ten dollars and a goat, to be divided among the pangeran and pambarabs. If an outlaw commits murder he is to suffer death. If murdered, a bangun, or compensation, of fifty dollars, is to be paid for him to the pangeran.
The price of a female slave is generally more than that of a male, and therefore, I heard a chief say, is the bangun of a woman more than that of a man. It is upon this principle that their laws take no cognizance of the distinction between a wilful murder and what we term manslaughter. The loss is the same to the family, and therefore the compensations are alike.
The bangun is perfectly the same as the compensation for murder in the rude institutions of our Saxon ancestors and other northern nations. It is the eric of Ireland, and the apoinon of the Greeks. In the compartments of the shield of Achilles Homer describes the adjudgment of a fine for homicide.
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