Genocide replaced the reconcilable blood feud with an all-or-nothing sacred extermination

Evidence

In The Mountain Wreath, however, the “extermination of the Turkified” is placed explicitly outside the category of the blood feud. In tribal societies of Montenegro and Serbia, a blood feud, however ruthless and fatal, could end in reconciliation. The godfather (kum) ceremony was the vehicle through which clans who had fallen into blood feud could reconcile with one another. In The Mountain Wreath, when the Muslims suggest a kum ceremony, Danilo’s men object that the ceremony requires baptism. The Muslims offer an ecumenical alternative, suggesting that the Muslim hair-cutting ceremony is a parallel to the tradition of baptism. Danilo’s men respond with scatological insults against Islam, its prophet, and Muslims. With each set of insults, the chorus chants “Tako, vec nikako” (“This way; there is no other”) to indicate the act that must be done. The Muslims have two choices: be baptized in water or in blood. — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 146

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the logic described in ‘On Sacrifice’ where ritual frames remove killings from ordinary moral reckoning.

Related

• Orthodox clergy inverted baptism-by-blood doctrine to sanctify the killers rather than the martyrs (similarity 0.81)