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| | VENDETTA : THE LAW
OF BLOOD
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In
Hora Sfakion, south of Hania, every village and every powerful family
used to build a church. The inhabitants of Kallikratis had the Twelve
Apostles as their local Saints. In the beginning of the 19th
century, the day that the Twelve Apostles are celebrated, after the
Mass, a bird sat on the church-tower. This was a real provocation for
the, armed as usually, men of the village. Somebody shoot at the bird,
but neither killed it or touched it. The next man succeeded in killing
the bird and all the rest started laughing against the bad shooting of
the first. In the beginning teases made him laugh, but when they
continued, he considered himself humiliated. He shot dead one of the
many that laughed at him and immediately felt dead from some other’s
bullet. Seven men were killed in an instant. The church after this
incident was abandoned and depopulated and only recently it was restored
again….
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No
sea is so open, as the inexhaustible sea of revenge. Revenge transforms
man in a wild beast, thirsty for blood, that does not hesitate reaching
murder to wash out some shame or offence, in order to defend one’s
dignity. Sometimes the limits are exceeded, a no-return point is
reached, blood attracts blood in an endless circle of killings and
mourning. The
words fear, hesitation, retraction or refusal do not have place in a
blood feud. A research over this archaic social phenomenon that
characterizes Crete
MARIA
GALANOU
Read the full article (in Greek) in STIGMES
issue no 68
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