VENDETTA (Ital. from

See also:

• LAT

Lat. vindicta, revenge, vindicare, to defend oneself)  , the term applied to the custom of the family feud, by which the nearest kinsman of a murdered man was obliged" to take up the quarrel and avenge his death . From being an obligation upon the nearest, it grew to be an obligation on all the relatives, involving families in bitter private wars among themselves . It is a development of that stage in civilization common to all primitive communities, when the injury done was held to be more than personal, a wrong done to the whole gens . The term originated in Corsica, where the vendetta has long played an important part in the social life . If the murderer could not be found, his family were liable to fall victims to the vendetta . The feud was sometimes complicated by the vendetta transversale, when each of two branches of a family had a murder to revenge on the other . In Corsica it was regarded as the most sacred family duty . Mediators (parolanti) sometimes intervened successfully to end the feuds, and extort an oath to forgo vengeance . The custom still survives in Corsica in its complete form, and partially in Sardinia, Sicily, Montenegro, Afghanistan, among the Mainotes of Greece, the Albanians, Druses and Bedouins .