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Feud

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For other uses, see Feud (disambiguation).
"Vendetta" redirects here. For other uses, see Vendetta (disambiguation).
Look up feud in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A feud (Template:PronEng) (referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud or vendetta) is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often, through guilt by association, groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party (correctly or incorrectly) perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another. Intense feelings of resentment trigger the initial retaliation, which causes the other party to feel equally aggrieved and vengeful. The dispute is subsequently fuelled by a long-running cycle of retaliatory violence. This continual cycle of provocation and retaliation makes it extremely difficult to end the feud peacefully. Feuds frequently involve the original parties' family members and/or associates, and can last for generations.

Up to the early modern period, feuds were considered legitimate legal instruments and were regulated to some degree. Once states asserted and enforced a monopoly on legitimate use of force, feuds became illegal and the concept acquired its current negative connotation.

Blood feuds/vendetta

"Blood feud" redirects here. For the Simpsons episode, see Blood Feud (The Simpsons).

A blood feud is a feud with a cycle of retaliatory violence, with the relatives of someone who has been killed or otherwise wronged or dishonored seeking vengeance by killing or otherwise physically punishing the culprits or their relatives. Historically, the word vendetta has been used to mean a blood feud. The word is Italian, and originates from the Latin vindicta, "vengeance." In modern times, the word is sometimes extended to mean any other long-standing feud, not necessarily involving bloodshed.

Vendetta history

A fortified tower used as refuge for men involved in a blood feud that are vulnerable to attack. Thethi, northern Albania.

Originally, a vendetta was a blood feud between two families where kinsmen of the victim intended to avenge his or her death by killing either those responsible for the killing or some of their relatives. The responsibility to maintain the vendetta usually falls on the closest male relative to whoever has been killed or wronged, but other members of the family may take the mantle as well. If the culprit had disappeared or was already dead, the vengeance could extend to other relatives.

Vendetta is typical of societies with a weak rule of law (or where the state doesn't consider itself responsible for mediating this kind of dispute) where family and kinship ties are the main source of authority. An entire family is considered responsible for whatever one of them has done. Sometimes even two separate branches of the same family could come to blows over some matter.

The practice has mostly disappeared with more centralized, rationalistic societies where law enforcement and criminal law take responsibility of punishing lawbreakers.

In ancient Homeric Greece, the practice of personal vengeance against wrongdoers was considered natural and customary: "Embedded in the Greek morality of retaliation is the right of vendetta . . . Vendetta is a war, just as war is an indefinite series of vendettas; and such acts of vengeance are sanctioned by the gods".[1]

In the ancient tribal Hebraic context, it was considered the duty of the individual and family to avenge evil on behalf of God. The executor of the law of blood-revenge who personally put the initial aggressive killer to death was given a special designation: go'el haddam, the blood-avenger or blood-redeemer (Num. 35: 19, etc.). Six cities of refuge were established to provide a "cooling off" phase as well as due process for the accused. As the Oxford Companion to the Bible states: "Since life was viewed as sacred (Gen. 9.6), no amount of blood money could be given as recompense for the loss of the life of an innocent person; it had to be 'life for life'" (Exod. 21.23; Deut. 19.21)".[2]

The Celtic phenomenon of the blood feud demanded "an eye for an eye," and usually descended into murder. Disagreements between clans might last for generations in Scotland and Ireland. Due to the Celtic heritage of many whites living in Appalachia, a series of prolonged violent engagements in late- nineteenth-century Kentucky and West Virginia were referred to commonly as feuds, a tendency that was partly due to the nineteenth-century popularity of William Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott, authors who both wrote semihistorical accounts of blood feuds. These incidents, the most famous of which was the Hatfield-McCoy feud, were regularly featured in the newspapers of the eastern U.S. between the 1880s and the early twentieth century. Although they were interpreted as such at the time, there is little reason to believe that these American incidents had any correlation to "feuding" in Europe centuries earlier.

Chariot racing in the Byzantine Empire also included the racing clubs. The Blues and the Greens were more than simply sports teams. They gained influence in military, political,[3] and theological matters. The Blue-Green rivalry often erupted into gang warfare, and street violence had been on the rise in the reign of Justin I. Riots culminated in the Nika riots of 532 AD during the reign of Justinian I, with nearly half the city being burned or destroyed and tens of thousands of people killed.[4]

The Central Asian plateau (north of China) at the time of Genghis Khan's youth was divided into several nomadic tribes or confederations—among them Naimans, Merkits, Uyghurs, Tatars, Mongols, and Keraits—that were all prominent in their own right and often unfriendly toward each other, as evidenced by frequent raids, revenges, and plundering.

In Japan's feudal past the Samurai class upheld the honor of their family, clan, or their lord by katakiuchi (敵討ち), or revenge killings. These killings could also involve the relatives of an offender. While some vendettas were punished by the government, such as that of the 47 Ronin, others were given official permission with specific targets.

At the Holy Roman Empire's Reichstag at Worms in 1495 the right of waging feuds was abolished. The Imperial Reform proclaimed an "eternal public peace" (Ewiger Landfriede) to put an end to the abounding feuds and the anarchy of the robber barons and it defined a new standing imperial army to enforce that peace. However, it took a few more decades until the new regulation was universally accepted.[5] In 1506, for example, knight Jan Kopidlansky killed somebody in Prague and the Town Councillors sentenced him to death and had him executed. Brother Jiri Kopidlansky revenged himself by continuing atrocities.[6]

More than a third of the Ya̧nomamö males, on average, died from warfare. The accounts of missionaries to the area have recounted constant infighting in the tribes for women or prestige, and evidence of continuous warfare for the enslavement of neighboring tribes such as the Macu before the arrival of European settlers and government.[7]

A Kasbah in the Dades valley, High Atlas. Historically, tribal feuding and banditry were a way of life for the Berbers of Morocco. As a result, hundreds of ancient kasbahs were built.

The Clan Gordon was at one point one of the most powerful clans in middle Scotland. Clan feuds and battles were frequent, especially with the Clan Cameron, Clan Murray, Clan Forbes, and the Chattan Confederation.

In Corsica, vendetta was a social code that required Corsicans to kill anyone who wronged the family honor. It has been estimated that between 1683 and 1715, nearly 30,000 out of 120,000 Corsicans lost their lives to vendetta.[1]

Throughout history, the Maniots—one of Greece's toughest populations—have been known by their neighbors and their enemies as fearless warriors who practice blood feuds. Some vendettas went on for months and sometimes years. The families involved would lock themselves in their towers and when they got the chance would murder members of the opposing family.[2]

The Basque Country in the Late Middle Ages was ravaged by bitter partisan wars between local ruling families. In Navarre, these conflicts became polarised in a violent struggle between the Agramont and Beaumont parties. In Biscay, the two major warring factions were named Oinaz and Gamboa. (Cf. the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy). High defensive structures ("towers") built by local noble families, few of which survive today, were frequently razed by fires, sometimes by royal decree.

The defensive towers built by feuding clans of Svaneti, mountains of Caucasus.

Leontiy Lyulye, an expert on conditions in the Caucasus, wrote in the mid-19th century: "Among the mountain people the blood feud is not an uncontrollable permanent feeling such as the vendetta is among the Corsicans. It is more like an obligation imposed by the public opinion." In the Dagestani aul Kadar, one such blood feud between two antagonistic clans lasted for nearly 260 years, from the 17th century till the 1860s.

An alternative to feud was blood money (or weregild in the Norse culture), which demanded payment of some kind from those responsible for a wrongful death (even an accidental one). If these payments were not made or were refused by the offended party, a blood feud would ensue.

Vendetta in modern times

Vendetta is reputedly still practiced in some areas in France (especially Corsica and in less porportion in some other provinces) and Italy (especially Sicily, Sardinia, Campania, Calabria, Apulia, and other areas of Southern Italy),[8] in Crete (Greece), among Kurdish clans in Iraq and Turkey,[9][10][11] in northern Albania, among Pashtuns in Afghanistan, among Somali clans,[12] over land in Nigeria,[13] in India (a caste-related feuds among rival Hindu groups)[14][15], between rival tribes in the north-east Indian state of Assam,[16] among rival clans in China[17] and Philippines,[18] among the Arab Bedouins and Arab tribes inhabiting the mountains of Yemen and between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq,[19] in southern Ethiopia,[20][21] among the highland tribes of New Guinea,[22] in Svaneti, in the mountainous areas of Dagestan, many northern areas of Georgia and Azerbaijan, a number of republics of the northern Caucasus and essentially among Chechen teips where those seeking retribution do not accept or respect the local law enforcement authority. Vendettas are generally abetted by a perceived or actual indifference on behalf of local law enforcement.

In rural Yemen, state authority is weak, and disputes between tribes are frequently solved through violence.[23]

In Albania, the blood feud has returned in rural areas after more than 40 years of being abolished by Albanian communists led by Enver Hoxha. More than 2,500 Albanian families are currently engaged in blood feuds. There are now more than 20,000 men and boys who live under an ever-present death sentence because of blood feuds. Since 1992, at least 5,000 Albanians have been killed due to blood feuds.

Mutual vendetta may develop into a vicious circle of further killings, retaliation, counterattacks, and all-out warfare that can end in the mutual extinction of both families. Often the original cause is forgotten, and feuds continue simply because it is perceived that there has always been a feud.

There is a scene in The Godfather, in which Michael Corleone, hiding from U.S. police in Sicily, walks through a village with his two bodyguards. Michael asks, "Where are all the men?" The bodyguard replies, "They're all dead from vendettas."

Some of the gang wars between organized crime groups are effectively forms of vendetta, where the criminal organization (like the Mafia "family") has taken the place of blood relatives.[24]

Famous blood feuds

Fictional blood feuds


Hip-hop feuds

See Hip-hop feud

Wrestling feuds

Main article: Feud (professional wrestling)

In professional wrestling, a feud is a staged disagreement between two wrestlers or factions.

Football rivalries

Main articles: Major football rivalries and Football hooliganism

Literature

  • Jonas Grutzpalk: Blood Feud and Modernity. Max Weber's and Émile Durkheim's Theory. In: Journal of Classical Sociology 2 (2002); p. 115-134.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ Griffiths, John Gwyn (1991), Divine Verdict: A Study of Divine Judgement in the Ancient Religions, BRILL, p. 90, ISBN 900409231 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
  2. ^ Metzger, Bruce M.; Coogan, Michael D. (1993), The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Oxford University Press, p. 68, ISBN 0195046455
  3. ^ At the root of the political power eventually gained by the factions was the fact that from the mid-fifth century the making of an emperor required that he should be acclaimed by the people (Liebeschuetz, The Decline of the Roman City, 211).
  4. ^ McComb, Sports in World History, 25
  5. ^ Maximilian I
  6. ^ The State of the Estates
  7. ^ Keeley: War before civilization: The myth of the peaceful savage
  8. ^ Police search Calabrian village as murders are linked to clan feud, The Independent
  9. ^ Feud Between Kurdish Clans Creates Its Own War, New York Times
  10. ^ In Turkey, a lone peacemaker ends many blood feuds, csmonitor.com
  11. ^ Kurdish Families - Kurdish Marriage Patterns
  12. ^ Somali feuding 'tit-for-tat', News24
  13. ^ Nigeria deploys troops after 14 killed in land feud, Reuters
  14. ^ India's caste row leaves six dead, BBC News
  15. ^ Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s “Untouchables”, (Human Rights Watch Report, 1999)
  16. ^ Thousands flee Assam tribal feud, BBC News
  17. ^ Clan Feuds, an Old Problem, Are Still Threatening Chinese, New York Times
  18. ^ Clan feuds fuel separatist violence in Philippines, study shows, International Herald Tribune
  19. ^ 'In the Land of the Blood Feuds', The Washington Post
  20. ^ Tribe - Nyangatom, BBC
  21. ^ No guns at Ethiopian peace talks, BBC News
  22. ^ Deadly twist to PNG's tribal feuds, BBC News
  23. ^ Yemen Country Study
  24. ^ Gang mayhem grips LA, The Observer
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