Feud
Feud
Feud has been defined by Lasswell as “. . . relations of mutual animosity among intimate groups in which a resort to violence is anticipated on both sides” (1931, p. 220). This definition includes two important concepts-“violence” and “intimate [or related] groups”-that require amplification.
Nature of violence . Concerning the concept of violence, the question arises, Is any type of violence between intimate groups a feud, or are there specific characteristics that denote the violence of a feud? The concept is commonly refined in terms of intensity and duration. Thus, there appears to be general agreement that the violence typical of a feud may range from beating, which leaves only slight injuries, to killing several members of the opposite group. A feud involves prolonged and intermittent hostilities. As a logical consequence, a single fight or a single killing cannot be defined as a feud. Long intervals of relative peace sometimes elapse between the fights and slayings (Lowie [1920] 1947, p. 414). Bohannan says that “feud occurs when the principle of self-help gets out of hand” (1963, p. 290), implying that if an injury is redressed through violence and the selfredress is final and more or less accepted by the other party, such violence does not merit the term “feud.” Lasswell states that feuds often continue so long after they begin that the precipitating episodes are even forgotten (1931, p. 221). Evans-Pritchard (1940, p. 293) agrees with the criterion of prolonged violence. However, he points out that a feud cannot go on indefinitely; otherwise the relationship of the fighting groups (among the Nuer, their membership in the same tribe) would be severed, and further hostilities, not occurring between related groups, could no longer by implication be called feud (1940, pp. 279, 283).
We may conclude, then, that feud involves prolonged, often intermittent violence which must end at some point short of the obliteration of the second criterion of feud—the intimate relationship of the feuding groups. Of course, concluding a feud does not necessarily mean that mutual hostility is transformed into indifference or friendship. A new feuding cycle most likely erupts between the old combatants any time that a new crime or injury is committed by an individual against a member of the other side.
The chain of violent acts that marks the feud is initiated in order “to secure revenge, reprisal, or glory for a particular individual or family within the group” (Wright 1942). Another common characteristic of the violence that may be classified as feud is the claim that the actual acts of hostility are regulated by customs shared by the two fighting groups (Radcliffe-Brown 1952, p. 215). In other words, the hostilities of the two groups are patterned upon, and subject to, rules which both sides observe. Furthermore, the initial act of violence is regarded as injury to the whole group to which the victim belongs (family, clan, or village), and the members consequently stand under an obligation to avenge the injustice (Radcliffe-Brown 1952, p. 215; 1940, p. xx; Nadel 1947, p. 151). Paraphrasing Durkheim, Radcliffe-Brown calls their duty an expression of “collective solidarity.” However, this principle works also with regard to the opposite party, where it produces a group liability, with the effect that any member of the offender’s group may be slain for the crime of his relative, his friend, or a coresident (Radcliffe-Brown 1952, p. 215; Nadel 1947, p. 151).
According to Radcliffe-Brown (1952, p. 215; 1940, p. xx), another aspect of the violence of feuds is that it is justified by “public sentiment.” Unfortunately, he fails to specify whether this public sentiment pertains to the group of avengers, to both of the groups in conflict, or to the society at large. If we recall his statement that the acts of violence are regulated by custom, we may conclude that this public sentiment pertains to the larger society of which the two fighting groups are constituent segments. Not all acts of violence justify development of such a sentiment: in order that a violent revenge be considered a justifiable act, its magnitude should be valued as an equivalent to the injury suffered (Radcliffe-Brown 1952, p. 215, 1940, p. xx; Nadel 1947, p. 151). Who, however, determines the equivalent? Implied in the writings of Radcliffe-Brown and Nadel is the notion that the criteria for equivalence are sufficiently objective, i.e., part of a general custom known to all, so that it is often unnecessary for a specified authority to deliver an opinion on the balance between the injury and revenge. Among the Nuba, for example, “equivalence” is so specific that not only must a man be killed for a man and a woman for a woman, but the age of the person killed in revenge should approximate that of the original victim. For death in excess of requirement a compensation must be offered in the form of a person who is adopted into the offended clan (Nadel 1947, pp. 151-152). In most other primitive societies such compensation is usually tendered in terms of a payment known in the literature as “blood money.” Bearing in mind Bohannan’s important point that feud occurs when “self-help gets out of hand,” Radcliffe-Brown’s and Nadel’s principle of equivalence of revenge applies to feud only when such equivalence is not achieved by the first retaliation of the injured party. There have to be more than two acts of violence to justify the application of the term “feud.” The characteristics of violence that form one of the two major criteria of feud may be summed up as follows: (1) the violence of a feud ranges in intensity from injury to killing; (2) it is initiated on behalf of a particular individual or family that is a member of the more inclusive “injured group”; and (3) it is of long duration, involving at least three instances of violence—injury, revenge, and counterrevenge. Hostile acts consisting of an injury and of an equivalent revenge that is accepted as final by both parties do not merit the term feud and should more properly be called self-redress. The nature of self-redress is, in most cases, basically different from the prolonged violence called feud.
Nature of feuding groups . The second major criterion of feud, which requires the committed violence to occur between two “intimate [or related] groups,” is far more important and complex (Lasswell 1931). It is almost generally agreed that the two groups fighting each other must be related in order to qualify such hostilities as a feud. However, various authors differ in their explanation of the nature of this relationship. An imprecise position is assumed, for example, by Wright, who states that “most primitive groups observe different war practices toward a related group with which friendship normally exists and toward a wholly alien group. Hostilities of the first type, although group sanctioned, are usually of the nature of a feud to secure revenge, reprisal, or glory for a particular individual or family within the group” (1942). Others who have studied feuds—for example, Malinowski ([1941] 1964, p. 261)—go further, claiming that relationship between the two groups obtains from the fact that they both belong to “the same larger cultural unit.” Similarly, those who use the phrase “members of the same society” do not necessarily identify the political unit involved. For example, Max Gluckman (1940, p. 41) speaks of a type of intertribal feud within a larger nation, while Hobhouse and his associates restrict the relationship of feuding groups to membership in the same tribe: “Feuds would thus also be the appropriate name for reprisals exercised by one branch of a community upon another, e.g., as between two clans or two local groups within a tribe” (Hobhouse et al. [1915] 1930, p. 228). Besides this type of an “internal self-redress” called feud, these authors recognize another type of redress which exists between two segments of otherwise unrelated communities and is labeled “external selfredress.” A similar limitation of the application of the concept of feud to the fighting done by groupings that belong to the same tribe is upheld quite explicitly by Evans-Pritchard. He contrasts these hostilities with the intertribally organized violence which he calls war: “Thus, if a man of one tribe kills a man of another tribe, retribution can only take the form of intertribal warfare” (1940, p. 278). “Between segments of the same tribe, opposition is expressed by the institution of the feud” (1940, p. 283).
Some authors theorize that marriage ties constitute the link between the two feuding groups. Accordingly, hostilities in a society with exogamous subgroups such as clans, lineages, or local communities are all regarded as feuds and not as wars (Schneider 1964, p. 282; also implied by Colson 1962, p. 120).
The relationship between the hostile groups is far less nebulous and more related to the feuding itself than the marriage-tie hypothesis would imply. Evans-Pritchard has the following to say about those Nuer who engage in intratribal fighting: “Then either the contradiction of feuds is felt and they are settled, the unity of the tribe being maintained thereby, or they remain so long unsettled that people give up all hope and intention of ever concluding them and finally cease to feel that they ought to be concluded, so that the tribe tends to split and two new tribes come into being” (1940, p. 279). This statement suggests that the nature of the relationship of two feuding groups lies in the fact that the more inclusive group of which the two are members is, at least to some degree, politically organized. The political organization may mean that there exists a formally designated authority with jurisdiction over both feuding groups; in other cases it may consist of only the most informal arbiters or go-betweens, who customarily settle internal political problems. Gluckman ([1956] 1959, p. 20) went so far as to claim that feuding, by creating a necessity for the existence of such go-betweens, tends to unite the members of the larger grouping. There are good examples of formal political authority terminating feuds between subgroups by the use of force, in the event that the customary exchange has failed. The present author would hesitate to designate as a feud fighting which occurs between politically unrelated groupings and would criticize Wagner (1940, p. 223) and Schneider (1964, p. 279) for holding that an overall political organization is not necessary to qualify a condition of strife as a feud. Wherever feuds do occur, there exists a politically influential authority (a formal chief, an informal headman, a council of important men, or an individual of very limited power, such as a go-between), who is usually too weak or disinterested in controlling his constituents, with the result that prolonged fighting is not prevented. The weaker the political control, the longer the feuds last and the harder it is to conclude them (see especially Evans-Pritchard 1940, pp. 278-279; and Gluckman [1956] 1959, p. 19).
Feud and war . The criterion of an over-all political organization that relates the two feuding groups may also be used to mark the boundary between feud and war. Whereas feuds can occur only within a politically organized whole, war occurs beyond such an organization and always involves two groups that are politically unrelated (Nadel 1947, p. 301). One should not, however, go to the extreme and claim that it would be “advisable to include all external, group-sanctioned violence against other human beings in the conception of primitive war” (Schneider 1964, p. 276). There seem to be two kinds of hostility external to politically organized groupings: hostility which is “exercised by a part of a community only upon members of another community” and which should properly be called “external self-redress,” or retaliation; and hostility which means “an operation conducted in the name of the community as a whole,” and which thus deserves to be regarded as war (Hobhouse et al. [1915] 1930, p. 228).
These structural criteria that distinguish feud, external redress, and war appear to be more politically relevant and suitable than the following, which are of only circumstantial nature. For example, the claim that only publicly initiated hostilities should be called war, while the privately initiated ones should be labeled feuds, constitutes a most impractical criterion. However, Schneider’s criticism of anthropologists for misusing the term “war” is erroneous; it is based on his contention that hostilities within a society that is segmented into exogamous groups (such as clans, lineages, or communities) cannot be called war (Schneider 1964, pp. 279, 282). He disregards the fact that exogamy is a social-structural feature and war is a political phenomenon and that, therefore, presence or absence of exogamy is irrelevant to this problem. To make the term “war” cross-culturally applicable and meaningful, one should define it in terms of political-structural features. Data on the Kapauku Papuans of New Guinea bear out the fallacy of such an analysis (Pospisil 1958). These Papuans live in localized exogamous lineages. Several lineages, belonging to different sibs, unite for defense purposes into a political confederacy. Beyond this unit no political organization exists. Interconfederational strife, which is true war, is marked by organization, by participation of whole confederacies as units in the fighting, and by ferocity involving slaughter, arson, rape, etc. On the contrary, fighting within a confederacy is done, as a rule, with sticks, not with bows and arrows, and does not result in death. No raping of women, burning of houses, killing of pigs, or destruction of gardens accompany these internal hostilities. To consider both types of fighting as feud would be to obscure rather than clarify the ethnological reality. Bearing the political-structural criteria of feud and war in mind, one can readily see how erroneous are the claims that war is uncommon or nonexistent in “the lowest stages” of social development (Hob-house et al. [1915] 1930, p. 228) and that it requires for its existence a “certain development of social organization.” Indeed, it is the feud that requires a complex social development—a large social entity with an over-all political organization that is segmented into subgroups.
Feud and law . The fact that feuds are fought between subgroups of a more inclusive grouping possessing an over-all network of political relations has led to the conclusion that feud is a primitive juridical mechanism and that it is an expression, or manifestation, of primitive law. Accordingly, Malinowski writes, “Fighting, collective and organized, is a juridical mechanism for the adjustment of differences between constituent groups of the same larger cultural unit” ([1941] 1961, p. 261). Spencer contends that after a north Alaskan Eskimo was killed, “. . . his own kin became embroiled and the legal mechanism of the feud was put into motion” (1959, p. 161). The notion that feuding is a manifestation of primitive law led Lasswell to the conclusion that there must be two types of feuds: “While the blood vengeance feud was itself the expression of primitive law, the modern feud is at least formally illegal and characteristically fills the interstices left in the functioning of the prevailing system of legal organization” (1931, p. 220). Many anthropologists have disagreed with the idea that feud is the expression of primitive law and have proposed or implied a unitary definition of feud. Hoebel (1949, p. 3) considers that feud lies outside the sphere of law. He bases this distinction on the fact that the counter-killings do not stop and that there is nothing one may regard as a mutually recognized coercive sanction against the killer and his group. Similarly, Bohannan (1963, p. 290) calls feud “a faulty jural mechanism” because it does not lead to a final settlement—to peace and rectitude. Radcliffe-Brown, on the other hand, refuses to regard feud as law, not because of its functional aspect, but because it lacks “the exercise of recognized authority in settling disputes” (1940, p. xx).
Pospisil (1956) defines law by means of four criteria, none of which is inherent in the phenomena of feuds: (1) law is manifested in a decision made by a political authority; (2) it contains a definition of the relation between the two parties to the dispute (obligatio);(3) it has a regularity of application (intention of universal application); (4) it is provided with a sanction. Law, which is characterized by these four criteria, is present in all societies—indeed, in every functioning group or subgroup of people—that he has investigated. In the primitive societies in which feud is endemic, law exists in those subgroups which have developed leadership, thus coexisting with feuds without incorporating them into the jural mechanism. Where as law presupposes decisions passed by an authority holding jurisdiction over both litigants and a regular respect for, and compliance with, these decisions by the parties to the dispute, a feud represents an intergroup fight in which all the participants ignore and even defy the jurisdiction of the over-all political authority, which is usually weak or uninterested. Consequently, whereas law is a means of intragroup settlement of disputes, a feud—because of the feuding parties’ defiance of the superordinated political structure—is basically an intergroup phenomenon, although it occurs within a more inclusive, politically organized unit. The difference between law and feud is again of political-structural nature, as are the differences between feud, war, and external redress. That law stands in opposition to feud and that the latter is actually the antithesis of the former rather than its manifestation, is well documented in those societies in which feuds are stopped by legal decisions of the over-all authority, who either has enough power to enforce his will or possesses the skill to persuade the quarreling parties to accept his solutions (see especially Nadel 1947, p. 154; Evans-Pritchard 1940, pp. 278-279).
Finally, it should be pointed out that not every case of “internal self-redress” constitutes a feud. When a counterkilling is accepted by the over-all political authority as a just punishment of the culprit or of his subgroup and the subgroup of the defender is induced or forced to accept such a verdict and to refrain from further counterkillings, the sanctioned reprisal constitutes a case of legal self-redress that is true law (Hoebel 1949, p. 3; Pospisil 1958, p. 256; Bohannan 1963, p. 290). Hoebel, for example, writes, “If the kin group of the original killer customarily accepts the action of the avengers as just, and stays its hands from further counterkilling, then we have legal law” (1949, p. 3).
In conclusion, we may summarize the salient features of feud and set it off from the related concepts of law, war, external self-redress, and legal self-redress. The essence of feud has been found to be a series (at least three instances) of acts of violence, usually involving killings, committed by members of two groups related to each other by superimposed political-structural features (often involving the existence of an over-all political authority) and acting on the basis of group solidarity (a common duty to avenge and a common liability). This definition sets feud apart from war and external self-redress because the last two terms refer to acts of violence committed by members of politically unrelated groups: in war both combat groups act as units in the organized fighting; in external self-redress members of two subgroups only, each belonging to a different, politically unrelated group, participate in the hostilities. This definition also distinguishes feud from law. Feud is an internal affair, conducted by members of the subgroups of an over-all political organization who ignore or even defy its political authority. In its conduct, then, feud refers to intergroup phenomena. Law, on the contrary, is an intragroup affair in the full sense of the term: a decision of the authority who holds jurisdiction over both parties to the dispute is passed, and both disputing parties are induced or forced to comply with its provisions.
LEOPOLD POSPISIL
[See also WAR. Other relevant material may be found inJUDICIAL PROCESS, article onCOMPARATIVE ASPECTS; LAW, article onLAW AND LEGAL INSTITUTIONS; POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, article onPOLITICAL ORGANIZATION.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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feud
feud / fyoōd/ • n. a state of prolonged mutual hostility, typically between two families or communities, characterized by violent assaults in revenge for previous injuries. ∎ a prolonged and bitter quarrel or dispute: one of the most volatile feuds that currently rock the scientific community.• v. [intr.] take part in such a quarrel or violent conflict: Hoover feuded with the CIA for decades.