CHAPTER XI
SOCIAL REGULATION
This work can scarcely be considered complete without some more definite discussion of social control. With the general modes of control, such as are almost universal among mankind, we have nothing to do, such subjects properly belonging to sociology, our concern being with the particular machinery by which this control is exercised. When a man commits a crime his social group is presented with a problem for which the mode of attack is already conventionalized. To meet such contingencies the highly organized governments of Peru and Mexico maintained complex judicial systems. In the former country each village had its appointed judge to whom the inspectors, or disciplinarians, reported all irregularities. There was one of these inspectors for each recognized social unit.[1] The village judge dealt with all such cases and levied the punishments, usually beating or whipping, and, if the code required, execution. It seems, however, that these petty magistrates were not permitted to try important cases, particularly those which we class as civil. At regular periods officials from the capital visited each province and held court for the presentation of complaints and petitions. Though the data leave us in doubt, they imply that appeals from the decisions of the local magistrate could be filed in this court. At any rate, these traveling judicial inspectors reported back to the supreme judicial bureau, which body, in turn, delegated judges to visit the locality of the petitioner and try the case.
For the Nahua system we have abundant data in so far as they apply to the City of Mexico.[2] Here the calpulli, or gens, had representatives who sat as a lower court before whom all irregularities were presented by the proper officers; but all their important decisions were passed up to a higher court,
