Debt: The First 5000 Years - autonomous learning

13 4 DEBT
Certainly no one presenting such compensation would ever be foolish
enough to suggest that any amount of money could possibly be the
"equivalent" to the value of someone's father, sister, or child.
So here again, money is first and foremost an acknowledgment that
one owes something much more valuable than money.
In the case of a blood-feud, both parties will also be aware that
even a revenge killing, while at least it conforms to the principle of a
life for a life, won't really compensate for the victim's grief and pain
either. This knowledge allows for some possibility of settling the matter
without violence. But even here, there is often a feeling that, as in
the case of marriage, the real solution to the problem is simply being
temporarily postponed.
An illustration might be helpful. Among the Nuer, there is a special
class of priestly figures who specialize in mediating feuds, referred to in
the literature as "leopard-skin chiefs." If one man murders another, he
will immediately seek out one of their homesteads, since such a homestead
is treated as an inviolate sanctuary: even the dead man's family,
who will be honor-bound to avenge the murder, will know that they
cannot enter it, lest terrible consequences ensue. According to Evans­
Pritchard's classic account, the chief will immediately start trying to
negotiate a settlement between the murderer and victim's families, a
delicate business, because the victim's family will always first refuse:
The chief first finds out what cattle the slayer's people possess
and what they are prepared to pay in compensation . . . . He
then visits the dead man's people and asks them to accept cattle
for the life. They usually refuse, for it is a point of honor to be
obstinate, but their refusal does not mean that they are unwilling
to accept compensation. The chief knows this and insists
on their acceptance, even threatening to curse them if they do
not give way . . . 15
More-distant kin weigh in, reminding everyone of their responsibility
to the larger community, of all the trouble that an outstanding
feud will cause to innocent relatives, and after a great show of holding
out, insisting that it is insulting to suggest that any number of cattle
could possibly substitute for the life of a son or brother, they will usually
grudgingly accept.16 In fact, even once the matter has technically
been settled, it really hasn't-it usually takes years to assemble the
cattle, and even once they have been paid, the two sides will avoid
each other, "especially at dances, for in the excitement they engender,
merely bumping into a man whose kinsman has been slain may cause