Barsoomian customary justice system

The Barsoomian customary justice system combines long-repeated customs with case-by-case judgment by a culprit’s peers. Rather than relying on a fixed body of written law, the Green Martians make laws as emergencies arise and leave the punishment for disregarding custom to individual treatment. The system can accord a conqueror rank and privileges, regulate how a challenge is answered, and secure collective approval; its flexibility, however, operates within a society whose accepted customs include brutal treatment of prisoners and whose standards of honor are deeply martial.

Custom and Judgment

The narrator describes Green Martian men as making laws when needed, with a new law for each emergency, and as unfettered by precedent in administering justice. Customs, by contrast, have been handed down through ages of repetition. When someone ignores one, a jury of the culprit’s peers determines the punishment in an individual case. The account presents this as a system in which custom supplies an established expectation but does not dictate a uniform penalty in advance. The narrator judges that justice seldom misses its mark and associates its apparent effectiveness with the limited ascendancy of formal law; he also notes that the Martians have no lawyers.

Recognition and Status

Customary judgment is not only punitive. After John Carter kills a warrior in the audience chamber, the dead man’s arms and ornaments are brought to Carter. He comes to understand that these are the possessions and position of the opponent he defeated: by the community’s standards, the victory has earned him the honors of a conqueror and the standing of a Martian chieftain. That status helps explain the freedom and tolerance he receives in the chamber. In this instance, the outcome of a fight is treated as a public qualification for rank, not merely as a private grievance.

The community’s response to Carter’s first display of strength similarly shows that recognition is expressed through collective reaction. After he strikes a warrior who has treated him roughly, the assembled Martians respond with applause rather than taking revenge. Carter initially mistakes their reaction, but later understands it as unusual approbation. The episode depicts approval as a social judgment communicated through public conduct, even when he does not yet know how to interpret it.

Rules Governing Conflict

A custom governing challenges limits the weapons a combatant may use. When Zad strikes Carter’s thoat and waits with a drawn longsword, Carter understands that he must answer with Zad’s chosen weapon or a lesser one. A shortsword, dagger, hatchet, or his fists would be permissible, but firearms and a spear would not be. Carter chooses a longsword, both accepting the constraint and seeking to defeat Zad with the weapon Zad favors. The rule channels the confrontation into a recognized form of combat rather than allowing Carter to use any available advantage.

The system also links political authority to demonstrated courage. In a council dispute over Tal Hajus’s fitness to rule, Carter argues that the jeddak avoided the fighting and challenges the legitimacy of a ruler who attacks the defenseless but does not prove himself against men. He proposes Tars Tarkas as jeddak, and the chieftains applaud. The scene shows how claims about customary justice can become arguments about leadership: the council’s response treats martial conduct as relevant to the right to govern, although the passage does not establish that its approval alone completes a formal transfer of power.

Violence and the Limits of the Ideal

The narrator’s praise of the system’s justice sits beside evidence of customs he finds appalling. Green Martian amusement can take the form of killing prisoners in varied ways, and the death agonies of others provoke hilarity. This is not presented as an exception outside the social order, but as a customary source of entertainment. The contrast complicates the narrator’s claim that justice seldom fails: customary judgment may be effective on its own terms without meeting his moral standards.

The treatment of animals offers another view of custom as a learned practice rather than an unchangeable necessity. Green Martian riders ordinarily discipline thoats with blows when the animals do not respond to telepathic commands; a rider thrown by a thoat may face a struggle for survival. Carter instead gradually wins his mounts’ confidence through kind treatment. When Tars Tarkas asks how he has changed their behavior, Carter argues that kindness makes the thoats more reliable and improves a warrior’s effectiveness. Tars Tarkas asks to learn the method, and it is later demonstrated to Lorquas Ptomel and the assembled warriors. The resulting mounts improve the precision and speed of military movements, and Lorquas Ptomel rewards Carter with a gold anklet. This episode does not show the customary order disappearing, but it does show a practical method gaining communal recognition because it serves both its users and the community.