Feuding

Feuding is a form of violent crime. It is a series of revenge-based killings that result in the loss of human life and contribute to the disruption of the social order. In contrast to the view of feuding as disruptive, however, there are some theories of feuding that treat revenge-based killings as performing a positive social function. Feuding has been described throughout history and in the ethnographic record, and it continues into modern times.

A review of definitions of feuding revealed several essential elements (Otterbein 1996: 493): (1) kinship groups are involved, (2) homicides take place, (3) the killings occur as revenge for injustice (the terms duty, honor, righteous, and legitimate appear in discussions of the motivation for the homicides), (4) three or more alternating killings or acts of violence occur, and (5) the acts of violence and killing occur within a political entity, such as a tribe, nation, or country. Together these elements form a comprehensive definition of feuding. This definition can be stretched to include feuds in which an unsuccessful attempt at a counterkilling leads to the killing of one or more of the revenge seekers, as occurred on several occasions in the Turner-Howard feud in nineteenth-century eastern Kentucky. Mortality in this feud was one-sided, as thirteen Turners died while no Howards were killed (Otterbein 1999: 234).

In many feuding societies, feuds can be ended by the payment of compensation. Indeed, feuding practices can be divided into two main categories:

• 1.
  Feuding without compensation, in which there is no institutionalized means by which compensation can be paid
• 2.
  Feuding with compensation, in which payment of compensation can prevent a counterkilling, thereby stopping a feud.

Kentucky feuding rarely ever involved the payment of compensation to bring to an end an escalating cycle of violence and killing, whereas Montenegro feuding in the Balkans in the nineteenth century was surrounded with rules, which, if followed, could prevent a counterkilling. In a cross-cultural study of fifty societies, 16 percent fell into the first type and 28 percent into the second type. The majority of cases (56 percent) fell into a third category that included societies in which homicides are rare, or in which, following a homicide, a formal judicial procedure comes into effect, independent of the two feuding parties, leading to settlement through compensation or punishment (Otterbein and Otterbein 1965: 1470–1471).

In addition to whether or not compensation can be paid, two other dimensions of feuding are important. First, feuds can be classified using a range of six categories to describe the degree of legitimacy of kin group vengeance: (1) moral imperative, (2) most appropriate action, (3) circumstantial, (4) last resort, (5) formal adjudication only, and (6) individual self-redress. Second, feuds can be categorized in terms of the possible targets of vengeance: (1) anyone in the wrongdoer's kin group, (2) the wrongdoer if possible, otherwise selected members of his kin group, or (3) the wrongdoer only (Ericksen and Horton 1992).