Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates Vol 2 - The Search For Mecca

CH. XXV.] The Law of Blood. 207
sidered even more satisfactory, tlie chief man among
his relations, also within the second degree, on the
principle of " you have killed my cousin, I will kill
yours," A death purges a death ; and the hlood
feud ends.
But sometimes it happens that, instead
of the slayer or his cousin, a second member of the
injured family is slain. Then two deaths will be
required, and the feud may continue for years
before the balance is reached. The oblio-ation of
vengeance is so sacred that men will travel great
distances to find out the enemies of a murdered
relation. Mohammed ibn Taleb told us that,
when his uncle was killed by one of the hostile
faction of Tudmur, a man of the Beni Liiam came
all the way from the Jof to avenge him. The
feud, however, may at any time be extinguished by
the payment of fifty camels, or £250, for each death.
These blood feuds are the only cases of deliberate
bloodshed known in the desert, and they are rare.
They have an excellent effect on public morals, as
they make men chary of shedding blood. A homicide
not only has to fear the vengeance of his
enemies, but the anger of his relations involved by
him in the quarrel ; and it is probably due to this
apparently barbarous law that even robbers and
As an instance of
outlaws seldom take human life.
the extreme moderation of Bedouin practice I would
cite the following. It happened not many years
since
A young Frenchman, M. Dubois d'Anger, was