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Evan Þ's avatar

Fun post! I was just reading a book about Wyatt Earp and the wild west (which I might be writing about on my own blog in a few weeks), and there was a very strong tradition of private vengeance there too, even though the law frowned on it.

It's also worth noting that the Jewish law about the Avenger of Blood, in the Torah, reads like it isn't establishing that system but rather taking a system that already existed and limiting it. From Numbers 35: "You shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there. The cities shall be for you a refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer may not die until he stands before the congregation for judgment... Then the congregation shall judge between the manslayer and the avenger of blood, in accordance with these rules."

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Arqiduka's avatar

Tribal, deeply mountainous areas of northern Albania and Kosova have long operated under a well-established and oral transmitted system of feud norms.

One British source living thereabouts for some time in the early XX century spoke of some areas seeing upward to a third of all adult men dying in revenge killings.

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