ABSTRACT
Attempts to define the origins of law have drawn on the thoughts of philosophers, theologians, historians, and social scientists, as well as legal scholars. Such giants as Aristotle in Greece, Cicero in Rome, and Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages considered law to be a natural phenomenon subject to the same principles everywhere and for all time. The Cherokees were the mountaineers of aboriginal America, holding the lofty ridges and deep valleys of the southern Appalachian highlands, whence they could send predatory raiders swooping down on the less populous nations to the east, or they could retreat into a natural fortress that protected them from powerful enemies to the north and south. The clans provided the framework through which the average Cherokee arranged society. It is difficult to generalize about Cherokee homicides; so few are reported for the eighteenth century that generalities do not come easily.
