The Iron Law of the Mountains

Frank Ledwidge reports on some uncanny similarities between the ancient Afghan code of Pashtunwalli and the Kanun of Lek. It is the fashion amongst journalists and others to talk of the “lawless Albanians” as much true now as it was when Edith Durham wrote those words nearly a hundred years ago. She goes on “But perhaps there is no other people in Europe so much under the tyranny of laws”. This applies even now in some parts of the North. What she is talking about of course is the Code of Lek Dukagjini. It is striking how similar the codes of tribal peoples are. I spent several months last year in the badlands of Southern Afghanistan. There is nothing of what we would regard as formal law there. But this does not mean it is lawless. By no means; for there, as in the old North of Albania (and indeed other parts of the country), the iron customary law of the Pashtun tribes provides a clear framework. Like the Kanun it is an intricate and highly detailed system of obligations ultimately founded on the linked notions of hospitality and honour. No one who considers himself a Pashtun would consider breaching the iron obligations of the Pashtunwalli and even Islamic law takes second place to the Pashtunwalli. No-one is safer, friend or enemy than when he is under the protection of that old code. There have been efforts made to link the Pashtunwalli with various practices to be found in the hill territories of the North Caucasus, specifically Georgia.
Stories of the Scottish clans concerning hospitality and honour over-riding all other obligations also ring a very loud bell. I was struck by similarities to the Kanun. The analogies are so strong that the question arises as to whether these similarities arise out of borrowing – common origins or basic similarity of thought of indo-European mountain or tribal people. Some of the provisions of the Kanun are similar to those hinted at in archaic Greek codes, particularly the stress on vengeance. The Iliad is suffused with the concept of honour and its satisfaction. Similarly the Bible contains strictures resonant of the Kanun. In Northern Europe, Scotland or Dark Ages England, the blood feud was an accepted part of society. Anglo-Saxon feuds were reported to go on for as long as 60 years and involve dozens of victims. In the Middle East Rory Stewart in his 2006 book “Occupational Hazards”, writing about similar tribal rules in the marshes of Southern Iraq today, relates a story wherein a man was bound to attack his much stronger enemy, losing all his sons, because they had killed a stranger to whom he had given his protection. Closer to home Edith Durham’s books are full of such examples. The Code itself was almost certainly unwritten in any form until the 15th Century and even then it was not formally set down. It was collected by a Franciscan priest, Father Shtefen Gjecov, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and published in book form posthumously in 1933, under the editorship of the famous Albanian poet and author, Father Gjergi Fishta. Fishta was by the way murdered by Serb paramilitaries in 1928. In his edition there is a curious mix of the archaic or dark ages with the relatively modern. Chapters speaking about the ‘banner chief’ are laid next to rules concerning how firearms and ammunition should be dealt with and who has the responsibility for them. It is Fishta’s version in the form of a big red book published in New York which is the only English translation available. However it provides only a shadow of what the original was. The real Kanun was an entire system of laws and customs, assimilated rather than read. Catholicism held on throughout the Turkish occupation and continues to do so in much of the rather wild North in much the same way that Orthodoxy did in parts of the South, and the Kanun very much assumed that the Church was at the Centre of community life. Being the Roman Church though, it is not subject to Kanun provisions. Indeed the Kanun in Father Gjecov’s edition is under a duty to defend the church if it requires help. The church itself though is irrelevant to the workings of the Kanun. The Kanun is of a far older order. It existed and insofar as it still exists it is outside and separate from any other structure. “The teachings of Christianity and Islam, the Sharia and church law. All must yield to the Kanun of Lek” Says Edith Durham.