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Chapter Twenty-six. Tribesmen Of Tirap |
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chief's legal powers over his followers |
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A chief is considered justified in inflicting draconian punishments on members of his own household. Thus I was told that Sanwang, the father of the present chief of Niaunu, had sentenced two of his commoner wives and their Wangsu lovers to death, and had all four drowned in the Tisa river. Even a wife from a ruling house caught in adultery might be killed by drowning, though such drastic action involved the risk of war with her natal village whose chief would try to avenge his daughter's death. |
