THE VENDETTA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2389, 14 December 1899, Page 56

THE VENDETTA.

(Spectator. ) Very few of the practices which seem irrational, but are found to exist in many tribes at great distances of space and time, are wholly without some explanation in utility, and the vendetta is no exception to the rule. The English, who feel" the impulse of revenge less than any other people, are apt to. think of the vendetta as 'springing i'roin " pure cussedneES,'* an evil kind of vindictiveness peculiar to certain localities ; but although hatred enters into it, the vendetta had its origin in the necessity for self-defence. At a time when murder was frequent, and outrage on women always to be feared, when th'ere.iwere, no judges, no poliqe, and Jmpjff^VtßifeflL organisations, human beings^jstiTigjHnraitas, outside Africa, they did'is|very\sfflffiHKK)wards some sort of order aS^secuimPPinsisted in the interest of general "safety that the family to which the victim bslonged should avenge the man's death or the woman's loss of honour. They made the blood feud imperative, and directed that the assassin or the ravisher should be hunted to the death by those most directly affected by the crime. With some tribes compensation was possible, as it is now among Aiabs, but with others the rule was absolute — the killer must be killed. No matter what the original motive of the slayer, there must bs blood for blood, or murder would never cease. Nay, retribution must go further than that. It might happen that the guilty person was too well defended to be reached, or he might fly to a distance not to be passed over by his victim's avenger, or, in an age of violence, he might dh before retribution could overtake him. In any of these cases his son was liable, or his brother, or, in extreme cases, even his whole family. The object, in short, was to exact the penalty so that it would be felt, and so prevent a re"currence of murder which would necessitate incessant watchfulness, and defensive battle at inconvenient moments. The system was, in fact, defensive, and has been kept up to this day, though the civilised now entrust its maintenance to judges and policemen, and relieve the relatives of a duty felt to be so onerous that its performance was insisted on by the greatest of the early penalties, a complete, tribal boycott. The man who refused the duty was held zo be dishonoured, ;ir.d as such cut off from human association by a sentence which, as was f-oon discovered, was Avor.se than death itself. Backed by this tremendous sanction, the law worked successfully, the murderer was always hunted, and, except on fctrong provocation or under strong temptation, murder became comparatively infrequent. So useful was the institution that the Mosaic legislators only mitigated without abolishing it, by the institution of sanctuary cities — an expedient afterwards adopted with modifications by the Christian Church — and to this hour the great source of order throughout Arabia is the reluctance of the hereditary brigand to arouse the blood feud by murdering the member of any powerful house or clan. He will defeat him in a skirmish or rob him to the f-kin, but he will not kill him except in fair fight, or subject him to any outrageous insult. Of course, the system was originally imperfect, as it dispensed with full proof of guilt, and, of course, also, abuses arose in it, the greatest being Ihe habit which sprang up of considering the avenger of blood a just subject for the blood feud — an innovation which made it possible that the duty of the vendetta might fall on the relatives not only of the

original victim, but of him who~ suffered' for the ' crime of killing him, and might thus cover whole tribes and descend for generations, like the feuds between nations which have lasted centuries. Still, the original idea was sound, and limited the practice of murder, and it lasted therefore almost everywhere till superseded by more regular plans of defence and vengeance, j When they came in, whether in the shape •of Roman law, or' the feudal system, or the' modern methods of police, the practice, which was excessively inconvenient and burdensome, died away so utterly that men could hardly believe it ever existed, and came to regard the tribes which retained it as exceptionally malignant and ferocious.