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NIKOLA TUTEK
There is also a possible error in Munros description of the cultural
phenomenon of sworn virgins. Lottar is made a sworn virgin by the Franciscan
after the priest discovers the village’s plan to marry Lottar to a Muslim. It
is quite unlikely, if not impossible, that an unrelated religious person could
perform that. Sworn virgins were made by the village, that is, village leaders,
by the families of the women, and, very rarely, by the women themselves.
Munro’s decision to retell the story of Lottar through an unreliable narrator
comes in quite handy here.
The other cultural practice that Munro engages with is that of blood feud.?"
Again, Munro first introduces the idea through the voice of the Franciscan
who explans the two most popular notions connected to blood feud: blood and
honour. There is quite a problematic passage in the text connected to blood feud
as well, this time verbalized by Charlotte. When describing a man’s preparation
for what Munro calls expedition of punishment (for which I could not find a
corresponding term in the Albanian tradition of gjakmarrja), a young man’s
execution of the first killing, the author describes an idyllic scene, almost
a festivity of sorts, where the man is adorned with his best clothes and has a
haircut by the women who are joyously trying to encourage the young men
before the killing. This seems to be a bit of an exaggeration. Traditional killings
according to the laws of the blood revenge were typically regarded as a matter
of duty. As such, men who performed the killings needed no encouragement to
do so nor did they feel any joy in doing it. The families of those involved in the
blood feud, both the killers and victims, lived in constant anxiety and silent
mourning. Munro goes even further to claim that those who failed in their
first killing could not find a wife because the women were ashamed to marry
someone who did not kill. This also seems as an exaggeration; those who failed
to execute a killing waited for another chance (even till the end of their lives
when the obligation was passed on to someone else), and women generally had
no say in who they could marry and who they could not.
The following tradition described in the story is that of popular superstitions
among the Albanian people. Superstitions of all sorts, especially stories of
demonic and supernatural creatures (for example, the tradition of vampires
originates from Serbia) are very typical of the Balkans, hence, these stories
36 In Albanian gjakmarrja (compesation in blood) or hakmarrja (revenge), a tradition with
origins also traceable to Dukagjini’s Kanuni. At the core of the tradition is honor, that is,
its preservation and defense. According to the blood feud, each crime or dishonourable
behavior was sanctioned by a corresponding punishment which often included killing. The
blood feud was hereditary and was often inherited by the younger generations which were
in no way connected to the original crime. Because of the universal law that no one could
be harmed over the threshold of their home, some of the people sentenced to death by the
pledge of the blood feud, the so called besa, would hide in high towers (Alb. kullé or kulla)
or they would erect high walls around their houses. The blood feud existed in most of the
Balkans, from the south all the way to central Croatia. In the Slavonic speaking countries, it
was known as krvna osveta (blood revenge), and it was practiced well into the 20" century.
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