Blood Feuding in Thull Community of Pakistan

Lincoln Keiser, in Friend by Day, Enemy by Night: Organized Vengeance in a Kohistani Community, "explores blood feuding (mar dushmani, literally 'death enmity') and its ramifications in Thull, a Kohistani tribal community in the Hindu-Kush Mountains of Pakistan" (vii). The community depicted by Reiser is thoroughly affected in almost every category by the imperatives of the system of vengeance:

The study shows how mar dushmani has come to interpenetrate life in this isolated community of mountaineers. Beliefs in the nature of God, concepts of self, patterns of ecological adaptation, the structure of houses, the number and kinds of dogs men own, the kinship and political system--death enmity penetrates and twists all these and more (vii-viii).

The society thus interpentrated by the possibility and necessity of death at any turn is a thoughly frightening one, indeed, with the men amply armed with all sorts of weapons for carrying out revenge, including axes, clubs, automatic pistols, bolt-action rifles, and Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles. This system of vengeance calls for assassination not merely for major offenses, but even for trivial and imagined ones, such as staring at the wife or daughter of another man. As we read, the title of the book is "no idle phrase. Men may joke with each other during the day, and communicate with bullets at night" (viii).

The author finds that this venegeance obsession has developed in the last few decades. Revenge has been a part of the s

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Islamic law and tradition leads to the view that a violent act must be answered by a similar violent act. In this sense, then, "dushmani constitues religious piety" (27). This means that to not answer a violent act with a corresponding violent act indicates a man's lack of religious devotion. The author writes of a religious scholar who "knew that Islam does not advocate violence and that most Muslims do not countenance murder. Yet many men from Thull argue that taking vengeance in a religious act" (27). The contradictions in the society under study are many and profound, but those contradictions are absolutely necessary in order to hold such a violence-oriented culture together. The Islamic beliefs of these people are based primarily on another group which adhered to a tribal code of conduct. . . . At its core lie four obligations: to commit vengeance, to provide hospitality, to give refuge to anyone asking for it (even a mortal enemy), and to treat with generosity a fallen adversary who sues for peace (40). As previously noted, vengeance has existed as a social facet for hundreds of years, but has intensified and spread in only the past few decades, primarily as a result of profound religious and economic changes which have

Category: Foreign - B