The Importance of Accepting Compensation

Among the newer there is a special class of priestly figures who specialize in mediating feuds, referred to in the literature as leopard skin chiefs. If one man murders another, he will immediately seek out one of their homesteads. The chief first finds out what cattle the slayers people possess and what they are prepared to pay in compensation. He then visits the dead man's people and asks them to accept cattle for the life. They usually refuse, for it is a point of honor to be obstinate. But their refusal does not mean that they are unwilling to accept compensation. It usually takes years to assemble the cattle. And even once they have been paid, the two sides