The code of Hospitality, by Julian Pitt-Rivers
Problem of how to deal with strangers, the ordeal, a test of valour or value, and territorial limitations, terrify the outsider ..
Julian Pitt-Rivers wrote:
Chapter 7
The law of hospitality
In an essay entitled The Odyssean suitors and the host-guest relationship (1963), Professor Harry l. Levy discussed the final scene of the Odyssey and took issue with those authors who find it out of character with the spirit of the work as a whole. The apparent anomaly introduced by the unmerciful slaughter of the suitors whose faults went hardly beyond a certain absence of decorum he explained by the hypothesis of an earlier folktale in the peasant tradition which is evident elsewhere in the poem, he says. This is intertwined with the courtly tradition of the warrior princes which dominates the greater part. The ideal of courtly largesse is contrasted with the more material concerns of frugal farmers whose customs of hospitality contain a provision forbidding the guest to overstay his welcome and impoverish his host. Leaving to classical scholars the task of unravelling the origin of its elements, the anthropologist is entitled to take the story as it stands and attempt to relate it to what he can discover of the law of hospitality in general and of the code of hospitality of ancient Greece in particular. It appears to me that, regardless of any historical disparities in the sources from which it originated, the tale of the homecoming of odysseus may take its place among those exemplary epics which provide us with a key to the principles of social conduct. Indeed, the whole work may be viewed as a study in the law of hospitality, in other words, the problem of how to deal with strangers.
In one of the earliest professional monographs we have, Boas (1887) describes the custom whereby the Central Eskimo tribes receive a stranger and the curious combat to which he is then challenged:
If a stranger unknown to the inhabitants of a settlement arrives on a visit he is welcomed by the celebration of a great feast. Among the south-eastern tribes the natives arrange themselves in a row, one man standing in front of it. The stranger approaches slowly, his arms folded and his head inclined toward the right side. Then the native strikes him with all his strength on the right cheek [sic] and in his turn inclines his head awaiting the stranger’s blow (tigluiqdjung). While this is going on the other men are playing at ball and singing (igdlukitaqtung). Thus they continue until one of the combatants is vanquished. The ceremonies of greeting among the western tribes are similar to those of the eastern, but in addition “boxing, wrestling and knife testing” are mentioned by travelers who have visited them. In Davis Strait and probably in all the other countries the game of “hook and crook” is always played on the arrival of a stranger (pakijumijartung). Two men sit down on a large skin, after having stripped the upper part of their bodies, and each tries to stretch out the bent arm of the other. These games are sometimes dangerous, as the victor has the right to kill his adversary; but generally the feast ends peaceably. The ceremonies of the western tribes in greeting a stranger are much feared by their eastern neighbors and therefore intercourse is somewhat restricted. The meaning of the duel, according to the natives themselves, is “that the two men in meeting wish to know which of them is the better man.”
We can hardly suggest that such a desire to measure oneself against the stranger is peculiar to people of simple social organization and dispersed settlements, as one might at first be tempted to imagine, for the custom in spirit if not in form, is reminiscent of the age of chivalry when knights on meeting found it necessary to test the “valor” or “value” of their new acquaintance, and we may therefore surmise that it springs from something fundamental in the nature of relations with strangers, such as a necessity to evaluate them in some way or other against the standards of the community.
Take the elements of the custom:
The feast offered to celebrate the stranger’s arrival;
The challenge, issued to determine the stranger’s worth;
The forms of the combat which estimate it in terms of the strength in his right arm;
His possible execution if he is proved inferior; and
The peaceful conclusion which is generally achieved, and which we may suspect to have been the intended outcome.
We are not told how often the right to execute the defeated stranger was, in fact, exerted. It is not essential that it should ever have been, for the belief that the right existed must surely have been enough to terrify the potential visitor from the east, particularly since duels inspired by vengeance also led to the execution of the loser. The existence of the right rather than the determination to exert it is all we require in order to understand the literal significance of the institution.
At the risk of appearing to throw my comparative net too wide, I would point out that the entry of an outsider into any group is commonly the occasion for an “ordeal” of some sort, whether among British public schoolboys, freemasons or the initiates of the secret societies of Africa, but in these instances the character of the ordeal as a test of worthiness is less important than its character as an initiation rite. They might all be considered as “rites of incorporation,” (Van Gennep 1966 [1909]) a variety of the rites of passage through which an old status is abandoned and a new one acquired. In this case it is the status of stranger which is lost and that of community member which is gained. …
… The roles of host and guest have territorial limitations. A host is host only on the territory over which on a particular occasion he claims authority. Outside it he cannot maintain the role. A guest cannot be guest on ground where he has rights and responsibilities. So it is that the courtesy of showing a guest to the door or the gate both underlines a concern in his welfare as long as he is a guest, but it also defines precisely the point at which he ceases to be so, when the host is quit of his responsibility. At this point the roles lapse. The custom of the desert Arabs made this abundantly clear. Such was the sanctity of hospitality that the host’s protection was assured even towards those for whom he felt enmity. To take advantage of a guest or fugitive was unthinkable. yet hospitality bequeathed no commitment beyond the precincts of the domestic sanctuary, so his guest might become his victim the moment he stepped outside them. Hence it was the custom for the guest to leave silently and unannounced during the darkest hours of the night for fear he should be followed and struck down.
The custom of the Kalingas shows by a curious variation the true nature of this sociological space defined by hospitality. When the guest of a Kalinga is a local man his host is responsible for his protection only within the confines of his property. His hurt or murder on the premises must be avenged by his host. But if the guest is a foreigner his host remains responsible for his protection throughout the entire region (Barton 1949: 83). The range within which their complementary relationship holds good coincides with the territory where their mutual status is unequal. Where neither has a greater claim to authority than the other their complementarity lapses. for, while a host has rights and obligations in regard to his guest, the guest has no right other than to respect and no obligation other than to honor his host. He incurs however the right and obligation to return hospitality on a future occasion on territory where he can claim authority.
The reciprocity between host and guest is thus transposed to a temporal sequence and a spatial alternation in which the roles are reversed. only then can the covert hostility be vented in customs such as the potlatch where rivalry takes the form of a hospitality which is more than lavish and where failure to reciprocate spells bankruptcy. The fable of the fox and the stork provides a model of the law of hospitality and an object lesson in its exploitation: an affront which masquerades as a generous and honorific gesture cannot be resented without violating the law of hospitality, since it is the host’s privilege to ordain, but it can nevertheless be avenged by a similar ploy once the tables are turned.
For the same reason that the criminal is said to define the law the essentials of the law of hospitality can best be seen in the actions which constitute its infringement. How is the law of hospitality infringed? The detail varies of course from place to place. To inquire after the health of a spouse or child may be a requirement of good manners according to one code or a faux pas according to another. yet a certain general sense informs them all, entitling us to talk about the law of hospitality in the abstract in contrast to the specific codes of hospitality exemplified by different cultures. There is, so to speak, a “natural law” of hospitality deriving not from divine revelation like so many particular codes of law, but from sociological necessity.
A guest infringes the law of hospitality:
If he insults his host or by any show of hostility or rivalry; he must honor his host.
If he usurps the role of his host. He may do this by presuming upon what has not yet been offered, by “making himself at home,” taking precedence, helping himself, giving orders to the dependents of his host, and so forth. If he makes claims or demands, he usurps the host’s right to ordain according to his free will, even where custom lays down what he should wish to ordain. To attempt to sleep with the host’s wife or to refuse to do so may either of them be infractions of a code of hospitality, but be it noted that the cession of the conjugal role always depends upon the host’s will, like the precedence which he cedes. His wife’s favors are always his to dispose of as he wishes. To demand or take what is not offered is always a usurpation of the role of host;
If, on the other hand, he refuses what is offered he infringes the role of guest. food and drink always have ritual value, for the ingestion together of a common substance creates a bond. Commensality is the basis of community in a whole number of contexts. Therefore, the guest is bound above all to accept food. Any refusal reflects in fact upon the host’s capacity to do honor; and this is what the guest must uphold. Therefore, he may be expected to give thanks and pay compliments in order to stress that he is conscious of the honor done him. on the other hand, it may be considered “bad form” to do so since this implies that honor might not have been done and this in turn throws doubt on the host’s capacity. The Victorian hostess who answered a florid compliment to her cook with the withering words: “But did you expect to have bad food in my house?” made the point effectively. failure to know what should be taken for granted can amount to insult. Therefore, the details of codes of hospitality may be contraries, but, as in the treatment of twins or smiths in Africa, the contraries contain a common element of sociological meaning, which derives in this case from the law of hospitality.
A host infringes the law of hospitality:
If he insults his guest or by any show of hostility or rivalry; he must honor his guest.
If he fails to protect his guest or the honor of his guest. for this reason, though fellow guests have no explicit relationship, they are bound to forego hostilities, since they offend their host in the act of attacking one another. The host must defend each against the other, since both are his guests.
If he fails to attend to his guests, to grant them the precedence which is their due, to show concern for their needs and wishes or in general to earn the gratitude which guests should show. failure to offer the best is to denigrate the guest. Therefore, it must always be maintained that, however far from perfect his hospitality maybe, it is the best he can do.
It will be noted that, while the first clause is the same for both parties, the second and third are complementary between host and guest. This complementarity provides the systematic basis of the institution, which reaches its full symmetry in reciprocal hospitality when the roles of host and guest are exchanged. This is never the case with hospitality to a stranger whose chance of reciprocating necessarily remains in the blue. Lacking reciprocity between individuals, hospitality to the stranger can nevertheless be viewed as a reciprocal relationship between communities. The customs relating to the stranger therefore concern the degree to which he is permitted to be incorporated into a community which is not his own, and the techniques whereby this is affected. These may be divided into those which establish him as a permanent member of the local group and those which assume his departure in the future.
If he comes only to visit, the visit may be returned, but if he intends to remain and change his affiliation, the reciprocity between communities ceases to operate.
An “ordeal” implies permanence since its significance is essentially that it marks an irreversible passage: the element of hostility in the character of the stranger is destroyed and he is able to emerge from it in a more acceptable status. He is no longer unknown, he has been tried. He forfeits his association with the sacred and his call upon hospitality which derived from it. The passage of an ordeal entitles the stranger to remain in a new role, more nearly incorporated even if he is not granted the full status of community membership; he may still be subject to a personal bond with one of its members through affinity, artificial kinship or clientship. yet whatever his subsequent status it provides him with a mode of permanent incorporation. Where an elaborate code of hospitality applies to the stranger and he is made a guest by the mere fact of his appearance without any “ordeal,” an impermanent relationship is implied. His hostile character is not destroyed but inverted through the avoidance of disrespect. A limit is frequently set upon the time such a guest is expected to stay and, even when this is not so, it is always recognized that it is an abuse to outstay one’s welcome. Thus while the mode of permanent incorporation solidifies in time, the status of guest evaporates. The one faces a potential assimilation, the other an eventual departure. While it lasts, the tenuous nature of the relationship of host and guest depends upon respecting the complementarity of their roles.
Any infringement of the code of hospitality destroys the structure of roles, since it implies an incorporation which has not in fact taken place; failure to return honor or avoid disrespect entitles the person slighted in this way to relinquish his role and revert to the hostility which it suppressed. The sacred quality in the relationship is not removed, but polluted. Once they are no longer host and guest they are enemies, not strangers. enemies do compete and it requires at least a tacit test of strength to determine which is the better man who will remain in possession of the field while the other takes his distance. The ordeal of the judicial combat may be appealed to so that Divine judgment may decide the matter or the struggle may be quite unformalized. The “ordeal” which failed to take place on the way in takes place on the way out. Then the antagonists can part and become strangers again, in life or in death.
This is why the process of reverting from guest to stranger in the Mediterranean follows a course reminiscent of that whereby the stranger was accepted in eskimo society. Both represent variations on the theme of the ambivalence which underlies the law of hospitality. Both involve a combat which carries the host-guest relationship beyond that state of suspended hostility in which the exchange of honor overlays the contrast of allegiances, but beyond it in one of two directions: it may lead either to incorporation or rejection. Yet the logical foundation of the problem is the same and it is this which explains, perhaps, the similarity between Boas’ ethnographical account and the last scene of the odyssey.
Epilogue
The feast has been going on for years when the old beggar turns up. He is not, as one of the guests suspects, a god in disguise but the host. only the old dog knows and the discovery is too much for him. The place is in disorder: the master’s substance is wasting, the suitors plague his widow (who is not his widow), the guests play the host, abuse the maid-servants and plot the son’s murder.
A challenge is issued to a test of strength to see which guest can string the master’s bow. The lady will espouse the winner, she says. finally, when all have failed, the old beggar picks up the challenge amidst their scorn, and by the strength of his right arm triumphantly reveals his true identity. After that, of course, the slaughter begins. (How could one pardon guests who have so far usurped the role of host?) Anyway the gods see to it that no quarter be given, for it is justice which is at issue here, not sentiment. The world turns the right way up once more. Order and peace are restored.
The Source:
Julian Pitt-Rivers, ‘The Law of Hospitality’ in From Hospitality to Grace: A Julian Pitt-Rivers Omnibus, edited by Giovanni da Col and Andrew Shryock, Hau Books 2017
[Note from the editors: “The law of hospitality” was published in 1977 as part of Julian Pitt-Rivers’ volume, The fate of Shechem or the politics of sex: Essays in the anthropology of the Mediterranean, and is reproduced in this volume with permission from Cambridge University Press. An earlier version of the essay, “The stranger, the guest and the hostile host: Introduction to the study of the laws of hospitality,” was published in 1968 in Contributions to Mediterranean sociology, a volume edited by J.G. Peristiany (Paris).]
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