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How Socio-Cultural Codes Shaped
Violent Mobilization and Pro-Insurgent
Support in the Chechen Wars
Emil Aslan Souleimanov • Huseyn Aliyev
How Socio-Cultural
Codes Shaped
Violent Mobilization
and Pro-Insurgent
Support
in the Chechen Wars
Emil Aslan Souleimanov Huseyn Aliyev
Department of Security Studies, Center for Security Studies
Institute of Political Science Metropolitan University of Prague
Charles University Prague, Czech Republic
Prague, Czech Republic
ISBN 978-3-319-52916-5 ISBN 978-3-319-52917-2 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52917-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934527
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

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PREFACE
This study argues that the existing scholarship on asymmetric conflict has
so far failed to take into account the role of socio-cultural disparities
among belligerents. In order to remedy this deficiency in the current
typologies of asymmetric conflict, this study conceptualizes socio-cultural
asymmetry under the term of asymmetry of values. It proposes that socio-
cultural values which are based upon the codes of retaliation, silence, and
hospitality – values which are intrinsic to honor cultures, yet absent from
modern institutionalized cultures – may significantly affect violent mobi-
lization and pro-insurgent support in asymmetric conflicts in that they
facilitate recruitment into and support for insurgent groups, while denying
such support to incumbent forces. Utilizing Russia’s counterinsurgency
campaigns in the First and Second Chechnya Wars as an empirical case
study, this study demonstrates that the concept of asymmetry of values
explains how asymmetry of values can have an effect on the dynamics of
contemporary irregular wars.
v
CONTENTS
1 Foreword 1
Notes 6
2 Introduction 7
Organization of the Study 10
Asymmetry of Values: Toward Concept Building 11
Socio-Cultural Values: Honor Cultures 16
Typologizing Retaliation and Pro-Insurgent Support 21
Data and Methods 24
Notes 25
3 Chechnya: Ethnography and History 31

Chechens: An Ethnographic Portrait 31
The Chechnya Wars: A Chronology 36
Notes 41
4 The Case Study 45

Mechanism 1: Code of Retaliation 45
Mechanism 2: Code of Silence 50
Mechanism 3: Code of Hospitality 52
Notes 54
vii
viii CONTENTS
5 Conclusion 57
Alternative Explanations 57
Discussion of the (Possible) Limitations of the Study 60
Summary 62
Policy Recommendations 64
Notes 66
Bibliography 69
Index 77
CHAPTER 1
Foreword
The past half century has witnessed a growing salience in insurgency and
terrorism. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia are some
conspicuous examples that provide testimony for this assertion. Likewise,
the wars in Chechnya over the last twenty-plus years show the continued
relevance of these types of conflicts. In response, a not insignificant number
of books and articles explore the various characters and explanatory vari-
ables for the many conflicts where the weak fight the strong. Many of these
studies have attempted to analyze asymmetric conflicts by exploring the
numbers, organizations, and equipment of the adversaries. For example,
many of the works within the current corpus of research and analysis of
asymmetric conflicts have generally explored the physical, material, struc-
tural, and motivational aspects of these wars. This monograph helps fill a
gap that generally exists within the literature on asymmetric conflict. This
gap is the relative absence, until now, of studies that analyze the socio-
cultural values of the adversaries in asymmetric conflicts. Because the
existing body of knowledge and research that explains how different socio-
cultural values influence the interactive dynamics of asymmetric conflicts
has been incomplete and imperfect thus far, this study is timely.
There is another caveat emptor when it comes to typologies and taxo-
nomies. Although the term ‘asymmetric conflict’, first appeared in a paper
as early as 1974, the term asymmetric has come to include so many
approaches that it has lost some of its utility and clarity. For example,
© The Author(s) 2017 1

E.A. Souleimanov, H. Aliyev, How Socio-Cultural Codes Shaped
Violent Mobilization and Pro-Insurgent Support in the Chechen Wars,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52917-2_1
2 HOW SOCIO-CULTURAL CODES SHAPED VIOLENT MOBILIZATION . . .
one article described Japan’s World War II conventional, but indirect,

attack against the British conventional forces in Singapore as asymmetric.
The term should not be that all-encompassing: such a broad approach to
defining asymmetric conflict diminishes the utility of the term. If every
type of asymmetry or indirect approach is subsumed within this definition,
then what approaches are excluded? The scope of analysis for asymmetric
conflict in this excellent monograph is generally limited to those conflicts
in which superior external military forces confront inferior states or indi-
genous groups on the territory of the latter. Insurgencies and small wars lie
in this category. Small wars are not big, force-on-force, state-on-state,
conventional, orthodox, unambiguous wars in which success is measurable
by phase lines crossed or hills seized. Small wars are counterinsurgency
(COIN), low-intensity conflicts, and peace operations, where ambiguity
rules and success is not necessarily guaranteed by superior firepower.1
This subject is important because asymmetric conflict is the most
probable form of conflict that the Western militaries face. Four factors
point to this probability: the Western powers represent the countries who
have the most advanced militaries (technology and firepower) in the
world; the economic and political homogenization among these states
essentially precludes a war among them; most rational adversaries in the
non-Western world would have learned from the Gulf War not to confront
the West on its terms; and, as a result, the USA and its European allies will
employ their firepower and technology in the less developed world,
against ostensibly inferior adversaries employing asymmetric approaches.
Asymmetric conflict will therefore be the norm, not the exception.
My own research has analyzed some contradictions that simply derive
from the logic that exists when a superior industrial or post-industrial
power faces an inferior, semi-feudal, semi-colonial, or pre-industrial adver-
sary. On the one hand, the great power intrinsically brings overwhel-
mingly superior resources and technology to this type of conflict. On the
other hand, the seemingly inferior opponent generally exhibits a super-
iority of will, demonstrated by a willingness to accept higher costs and by a
willingness to persevere against many odds. This disparity in will is one of
the most fundamental paradoxes of asymmetric conflict. ‘Death or victory’
is not simply a pithy slogan but it is a dilemma that asymmetric conflicts
engender: the qualitatively or quantitatively inferior opponent fights with
limited means for unlimited strategic objectives – independence.
Conversely, the qualitatively or quantitatively superior opponent fights
with potentially unlimited means for limited ends – the maintenance of
1 FOREWORD 3
some peripheral imperial territory or outpost. Ostensibly weaker military

forces often prevail over an overwhelming superiority in firepower and
technology because they must – they are fighting for survival.2
History offers many examples of big power failure in the context of
asymmetric conflict: the Romans in the Teutoburg Forest, the British in
the American War of Independence, the French in the Peninsular War, the
French in Indochina and Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, the Russians
in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and the Americans in Somalia. This list is
not entirely not exhaustive or homogeneous. It is also important to clarify
that the American Revolution, the Peninsular War, and the Vietnam War
represent examples of great powers failing to win against enemies whose
strategies combined asymmetric approaches with symmetric approaches.
Two things, however, qualify great powers’ failures in small wars. First, big
powers do not necessarily lose small wars but they simply fail to win them.
In fact, they often win many tactical victories on the battlefield. However,
in the absence of a threat to survival, the big power’s failure to quickly and
decisively attain its strategic aim leads to a loss of domestic support.
Second, the weaker opponent must be strategically circumspect enough
to avoid confronting the great power symmetrically, in a conventional war.
History also points to many examples where big powers achieved crushing
victories over small powers when the inferior side was unwise enough to
fight a war or a battle against a big power according to the big power’s
paradigm. The Battle of the Pyramids and the Battle of Omdurman
provide the most conspicuous examples of when primitive militaries
faced advanced militaries symmetrically. The Persian Gulf War of 1990–
1991 was the most recent example of an outmatched military force fight-
ing according to its opponent’s preferred paradigm.3
This precedent-setting study comprises a number of postulations.
Firstly, it asserts that the current scholarly works about asymmetric conflict
do not offer a sufficient explanation for the unique salience of sociocultural
values that many conflict-affected societies in the developing world engen-
der. These values can play a markedly significant role in the interaction and
escalation in the course of an asymmetric conflict and under certain con-
ditions may influence their outcomes. The analysis in this monograph thus
focuses on the asymmetry of sociocultural values as explanatory variables.
This research posits that the insurgents’ ability to gain and maintain the
support of the population is linked to the particular sociocultural values
that inhere in the belligerents. Retaliation, hospitality, and silence are
examples of these values. The authors argue that these values influence
the ability of belligerents to succeed in an unconventional military conflict.

These variables do not supplant but do supplement the ideological, orga-
nizational, technical, and economic incentives that a number of existing
studies explore as explanatory variables. To put it another way, this mono-
graph argues that the sociocultural values on the ground have the capacity
to influence the scope and magnitude of violent mobilization and insur-
gent support, which may influence the insurgents’ success or failure. By
analyzing Russia’s two COIN campaigns in the First and Second
Chechnya Wars as empirical case studies, the authors present a novel and
compelling account of the role of sociocultural values within asymmetric
conflict.
To explore the foregoing assertion, this research proceeds to answer
three main research questions. For example, what is asymmetry of values?
And, why is it necessary to distinguish this type of asymmetry from the
other aspects of asymmetry found in existing studies? Lastly and impor-
tantly, how does the asymmetry of values influence the dynamics and
outcome of these conflicts? From this initial assertion and with these
questions, this study narrows the research about asymmetry of values to
the role of sociocultural values on the competitive interaction that ebbs
and flows during the course of an asymmetric conflict. It shows that the
sociocultural values of retaliation, hospitality, and silence may serve as
strong explanatory variables that encourage individual active participation
in the insurgency or help the insurgents gain and sustain popular support
while denying the latter to the adversary.
A significant aspect and implication from this monograph is the notion
that the competitive and violent interaction within conflicts where honor
cultures pertain on the insurgents’ side differ significantly from those con-
flicts that see modern institutionalized societies facing off. The authors
explain that three particular sociocultural codes represent variables that
help mobilization active participation in violence and popular insurgent
support. The first sociocultural code is retaliation and it is typically associated
with the custom of the blood feud. The other two codes are hospitality and
the code of silence. This monograph asserts that these three codes represent
the foundation of asymmetric interaction in the context of conflicts that see
honor cultures fighting institutionalized cultures. For example, while the
code of retaliation helps to mobilize recruits into joining an insurgency, the
code of silence helps ensure non-collaboration and defiance of outsiders in
the form of the government or the external forces. The code of hospitality
ensures the local population will often provide that shelter, material support,
1 FOREWORD 5
and intelligence to the insurgents, as insiders, notwithstanding the local

populace’s political bent. These codes are absent from modern societies
but remain intrinsic to honor cultures. These three sociocultural codes,
together, can explain local support for insurgent forces in honor cultures.
However, this study does not necessarily assert that an asymmetry of
values can always explain a weaker insurgent’s victory over a stronger
counterinsurgent. There have been cases in the history of irregular wars
wherein the insurgents’ advantage within an honor culture context has
not spared them defeat at the hands of a government or an external
counterinsurgent. To be sure, single cause explanations seldom suffice in
explaining the complexity of irregular war where myriad social, eco-
nomic, military, political, demographic, and cultural factors can shape
final result. While this approach does not necessarily indicate that insur-
gents prevail over counterinsurgents because of the asymmetry of values
uniquely, it does proffer that an asymmetry of values can weigh markedly
on the competitive interaction within these types of conflicts. Ultimately,
though, the potential, scope, and magnitude of mobilization for violent
action (retaliation) and insurgent popular support (hospitality and
silence) are essential for any prospect of success for insurgents in the
context of an honor culture.
This new and commendable research judiciously focuses on these socio-
cultural aspects and illuminates their salience for understanding these
types of wars. The relevance of this work to security scholars and practi-
tioners in the USA and the West is utterly clear and compelling because
the America and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies
and other partners represent modern institutionalized societies that have
been fighting against terrorists and insurgents from honor cultures for the
last 15 years and there is no end in sight yet. The likes of Al Qaeda, the
Taliban, ISIS, and other non-state armed groups that animate their fol-
lowers with a virulent and interpretive Islamist creed sustain active and
passive support that are linked to a narrative that to a large degree builds
on the sociocultural codes explored in the monograph. A better under-
standing of these sociocultural values, as salient variables in asymmetric
conflicts, cannot but stand those who read it in better stead.
U.S. Naval War College Col. Robert Cassidy, Ph.D.

Newport, Rhode Iceland Military Professor
NOTES
1. The term first appears in 1974 in Mack, A. The Concept of Power and Its Uses
in Explaining Asymmetric Conflict. London: Richardson Institute for
Conflict and Peace Research.
2. Based on Mack, A. (1983) ‘Why Big Powers Lose Small Wars: The Politics
of Asymmetric Conflict’ in K. Knorr (ed.) Power, Strategy, and Security: A
World Politics Reader. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 126–
151. This implies a qualitative and quantitative superiority by empirical
conventional measures of military capabilities, only.
3. These battles witnessed European armies handily and brutally defeating
their non-European adversaries because the latter chose, imprudently, to
fight the former symmetrically. See Churchill, W. S. (1997) The River War.
London: Prion, pp. 191–225 and Bolger, D. P. (1991) ‘The Ghosts of
Omdurman’, Parameters, Autumn, p. 34, for an analysis of the Battle of
Omdurman.
CHAPTER 2
Introduction
Abstract The introductory chapter presents the key arguments of

the book. It suggests that the blossoming literature on asymmetric
conflict has been published on different forms and aspects of asymmetric
conflicts – largely focusing on the material, physical, and motivational forms
of asymmetry – which have sought to analyze armed encounters waged
from antiquity to nowadays by opponents of disparate organization and
strength. Nevertheless, this literature has failed to take into account the
structural socio-cultural disparities of the belligerents that often shape
conflict outcomes. In addition to providing a critical review of the literature
on asymmetric conflict, this chapter theorizes the phenomenon of asym-
metry of values; explores the concept of honor cultures; and typologizes
retaliation and pro-insurgent support. The concluding part of this chapter
details the data and methods used in the book.
Keywords Asymmetric conflict Motivational asymmetry Socio-cultural

codes Pro-insurgent support Violent mobilization
Recent decades have witnessed an increasing interest in asymmetric con-

flict.1 A considerable amount of literature has been published on different
forms and aspects of asymmetric conflicts, which have sought to analyze
armed encounters waged from antiquity to nowadays by opponents of
© The Author(s) 2017 7

E.A. Souleimanov, H. Aliyev, How Socio-Cultural Codes Shaped
Violent Mobilization and Pro-Insurgent Support in the Chechen Wars,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52917-2_2
disparate organization and strength (Van Baarda and Verweij 2009; Blank
2003; Buffaloe 2006; Caforio 2008; Cassidy 2002; Fischerkeller 1998;
Grange 2000; Gray 2002; Gross 2010; Mack 1975; Metz and Johnson
2001; Paul 1994; Winter 2011; Merom 2003). However, the current
concepts and typologies of asymmetric conflict have largely focused on
material, physical, and motivational forms of asymmetry, while socio-
cultural disparities have been largely ignored. An even more obvious
omission within the existing literature regarding asymmetric conflict has
been the absence thus far of studies regarding the socio-cultural values of
asymmetric belligerents. Therefore, our current knowledge as to the ways
in which the presence, or lack, of differing socio-cultural values affects the
dynamics of asymmetric conflicts is decidedly partial.
This study2 pursues a number of objectives. Firstly, we argue that the
current scholarly treatment of asymmetric conflict fails to offer a sufficient
explanation with regard to the role of the particular socio-cultural values
which are intrinsic to many conflict-affected societies (predominantly) in
the developing world, and which have a demonstrably significant impact
on the course of given asymmetric conflicts, which under certain circum-
stances may affect their outcomes.3 Accordingly, we construct our argu-
ments upon the concept of asymmetry of values, which we introduce
herein. We then emphasize that the ability of belligerents to succeed in
an unconventional military conflict is influenced not only by ideological,
organizational, technical, or economic incentives, which have been
detailed by numerous existing studies. We posit that the insurgents’ ability
to mobilize and ensure popular support – key to success in irregular war –
is also conditioned by the particular socio-cultural values intrinsic to the
belligerents in question, something that has been neglected in the current
scholarship. In other words, we argue that in societies, which we term
‘honorific’, the socio-cultural values on the ground have the capacity to
impact upon the forms of violent mobilization and pro-insurgent support,
which may influence conflict outcomes. Employing Russia’s COIN cam-
paigns in the First and Second Chechnya Wars as an empirical case study,
we present a comprehensive account of the role of socio-cultural values
within asymmetric conflict.
From this initial assumption, we narrow down our discussion on asym-
metry of values to the impact of socio-cultural values on the dynamics of
asymmetric conflicts. We argue that such socio-cultural values as codes of
retaliation, silence, and hospitality, may serve as mechanisms, encouraging
individual violent engagement in insurgency or popular support to
2 INTRODUCTION 9
honorific insurgents – while denying these to institutionalized incumbents.

With this in mind, this research seeks to address the following questions:
What is asymmetry of values? Why is it important to differentiate this type
of asymmetry from other typologies of asymmetric conflict? How does the
asymmetry of values affect the dynamics of a given conflict?
Secondly, we propose that the dynamics of asymmetric conflicts in
honor cultures differ significantly from those common to modern institu-
tionalized cultures. That said, we argue that three specific socio-cultural
codes constitute mechanisms of violent mobilization and pro-insurgent
support; these codes are absent from modern societies, but remain intrin-
sic to honorific societies. These socio-cultural codes include ‘retaliation’ –
which is usually embedded within the custom of blood feud. The other
two codes are ‘hospitality’ and the ‘code of silence’. We argue that these
three codes constitute the basis of asymmetric relations as regards conflicts
that involve honor and institutionalized cultures.4 Specifically, while the
code of retaliation helps to mobilize recruits into joining a given insur-
gency often irrespective of political views, the code of silence ensures the
non-collaboration with, and defiance of, outsiders in the form of incum-
bent forces. For its part, the code of hospitality ensures that shelter,
material support, and often intelligence are provided by the local populace
to insurgents largely irrespective of the local populations’ political views.
Taken together, these three socio-cultural codes form an effective
mechanism of local support to insurgent forces, shaping the dynamics of
asymmetric conflict.
These socio-cultural codes are at the core of what we term the asym-
metry of values, a distinct form of asymmetry which can be observed in
most present-day conflicts between honorific societies,5 and their more
technologically and organizationally advanced adversaries who hail from
institutionalized societies. Although the existence of many insurgencies
hinges upon the proper functioning of these three mechanisms in order to
ensure that recruitment, material support, shelter, and intelligence is
provided by the local populace to insurgent groups, the existing scholar-
ship has so far failed to address these mechanisms from a socio-anthro-
pological perspective.
Of course, we do not purport that the asymmetry of values is auto-
matically conducive to a weaker honorific insurgent’s victory over a stron-
ger institutionalized incumbent. There have been cases in the history of
irregular wars, in which an honorific insurgents’ advantage in terms of the
asymmetry of values have not spared them defeat at the hands of an
institutionalized incumbent. In fact, monocausal explanations rarely hold

in complex situations of civil and irregular war, where a myriad of social,
economic, military, political, demographic, and personal factors shape
final outcomes. Yet while we acknowledge that our theory does not
necessarily indicate that insurgents prevail over incumbents, we do con-
tend that asymmetry of values has an effect on the dynamics of conflict.
After all, as stated above, violent mobilization and pro-insurgent support
are critical for any insurgency’s success and failure.
ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

From here on, we proceed as follows. The following chapter presents the
concept of asymmetry of values; it strives to develop a novel theoretical
framework that integrates socio-cultural values as an explanatory variable
in shaping the dynamics of asymmetric conflicts. It describes that an
asymmetry of values is based upon the functioning of specific socio-
cultural codes existent in the honorific societies and absent in post-modern
institutionalized societies. Therefore, this chapter is followed by a nuanced
analysis of what honor cultures are and how they are distinguished from
other types of cultures. In the following chapter, we place asymmetry of
values-related socio-cultural codes into current typologies of violent mobi-
lization and pro-insurgent support, which helps to locate our study against
the general background of existing scholarship. These theoretical and
conceptual chapters are followed by an introduction to our case study of
the recent armed conflicts in Chechnya. An ethnographic account, neces-
sary to understanding Chechnya’s social and socio-cultural milieu, is
followed by a chapter introducing the ongoing insurgency in that North
Caucasian Republic. A brief chronology of the Chechen Wars analyzes the
main cornerstones of the asymmetric conflict as it journeys through the
post-communist history of Chechnya to the present-day. Next, we present
our empirical findings on the impact of three explored socio-cultural codes
on the violent mobilization and pro-insurgent support in the Chechnya
insurgency. The qualitative analysis of the ethnographic fieldwork con-
ducted for this study engages with the nuances of how codes of retaliation,
hospitality, and silence function in Chechnya, creating what we term the
asymmetry of values. These empirical sections are complemented by a brief
examination of alternative explanations of the causes for violent mobiliza-
tion. Next, a discussion on the limitations and strengths of this study is
offered.
2 INTRODUCTION 11
ASYMMETRY OF VALUES: TOWARD CONCEPT BUILDING

The end of the Cold War and the start of the ‘War on Terror’ resulted both
in an expansion of the already voluminous literature regarding asymmetric
conflict, and in a proliferation of studies dealing with various aspects of
asymmetric conflict. Over the past few decades, the classic definition of
asymmetric war as ‘a conflict involving two states with unequal overall
military and economic power resources’ (Paul 1994, p. 20) has been
transformed so as to encompass various types and forms of asymmetric
relationships between state and non-state actors.6
The dominant strand of literature on asymmetric conflict has to date
focused on the disparities between the physical and material assets of
belligerents. As such it has prioritized such aspects of asymmetry as mili-
tary power, strategy, as well as the political and economic assets of the
warring sides.7 If earlier studies on asymmetry have primarily sought to
emphasize the roles played by military power and technological super-
iority, more recent research has concentrated more on the strategic aspects
of violent mobilization (Mack 1975). Indeed, the central role of military
strategy within the existing research on asymmetric conflicts has been
reiterated by a large and growing number of studies on political violence
that have focused on such topics as insurgency, ethnic conflicts, civil wars,
and terrorism (Gray 2002; Grange 2000; Caforio 2008).
Another central aspect of the existing literature on asymmetric conflict
has been the study of the non-material categories of asymmetry. Among the
first attempts to investigate the non-material types of asymmetry was a
pioneering study by Mack (1975), who introduced ‘will’-based incentives
of conflict participants. According to Mack’s (1975, p. 195) theory, ‘victory
for the insurgents could only come about as a consequence of the destruc-
tion of the external power’s political capacity [or will] to wage war’.
Subsequently, the COIN campaigns of the 1990s, and the counterterrorism
operations in the aftermath of 9/11, had the effect of introducing a new
range of classifications regarding asymmetric relations within conflicts. For
instance, Fischerkeller (1998) offers a comprehensive account of the cul-
tural perceptions of political powers, which he terms ‘cultural asymmetry’.
Fischerkeller presents his concept of cultural asymmetry as being embodied
within the cultural judgments of political powers involved in international
politics.8 Metz and Johnson (2001), meanwhile, have introduced the con-
cept of ‘normative asymmetry’, a term which embraces both the legal and
ethical aspects of the asymmetrical relationships between respective parties
to a given conflict. Of particular interest with regard to research on non-

material types of asymmetry have been studies by Cassidy (2002), who
discusses the ‘asymmetry of will’; and by Merom (2003), who introduces
such terms as ‘balance of will’ and ‘motivational asymmetry’. Buffaloe
(2006) lists numerous forms of non-strategic asymmetries; these include
cultural asymmetry, asymmetry of values, of norms, of rules, and of infor-
mation. More recently studies have begun to emerge which present a
rigorous examination of the moral dimensions of asymmetric conflicts:
studies such as that by Van Baarda and Verweij (2009), as well as studies
by Gross (2010), and by Winter (2011). Gross, for instance, differentiates
between the legal and moral dimensions of asymmetric conflict; while Van
Baarda and Verweij (2009) have emphasized the moral values and percep-
tions of belligerents.
Although the role of norms and values in military effectiveness has been
discussed in works of Pollack (1996), Farrell (2005), and Fitzsimmons
(2009), the existing literature has, however, failed to comprehend the
socio-cultural asymmetry of belligerents from a socio-anthropological
perspective. The (im)balance of values between belligerents has been
presented in a variety of forms, often under the rubric of cultural asym-
metry (Cassidy 2002). The concept of cultural asymmetry, – which, in
Buffaloe’s (2006, p. 22) words, is ‘one of the hardest concepts to grasp’–
has previously been applied to such forms of asymmetry as the respect for,
or lack of, democratic values (Van Baarda and Verweij 2009); to aspects of
military culture (Cassidy 2002); and to differences in political culture
(Fischerkeller 1998). However, specific socio-cultural values, such as the
codes of honor and retaliation, which are widespread throughout many
tribal and clan-based societies within the developing world, have thus far
escaped proper classification within the extant scholarship on asymmetric
conflict. Buffaloe (2006, pp. 22–23), for instance, presents asymmetry of
values as a sub-concept of cultural asymmetry, and conceptualizes it
primarily in terms of adversaries’ respective ideological values, such as
religious and political values (Western world vs. Muslim world).
This study argues that socio-cultural values, represented by socio-cultural
codes, serve as mechanisms encouraging violent mobilization and pro-
insurgent support, and sometimes account for the lack of effectiveness of
Western-led COINs or other forms of military campaigns within such
conflict sites as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, or the Northeast
Caucasus. Kilcullen (2009, p. 39) quotes one of his informants in
Afghanistan: ‘[n]inety per cent of people you call “Taliban” are actually
2 INTRODUCTION 13
tribals. They are fighting for loyalty of Pashtun honor’. The centrality of
the traditional Pashtun honor-based socio-cultural values – pashtunwali –
to the recent Afghan conflicts has been reiterated by a number of
policy reports and academic studies (Miakhel 2009; Mahdi 1986;
Dorronsoro and Lobato 1989).
As with the Afghan socio-cultural values, honor-based values have been
emphasized as constituting important conflict escalation mechanisms in
contemporary Iraq. For instance, in the words of Kilcullen’s (Kilcullen
2009, p. 167) informant in Iraq, the role of socio-cultural values among
Sunni tribes is fundamental, because if ‘a member of one clan or tribe kills
another. This creates a fight between tribes. The tribe that is wronged
must take revenge [tha’r], unless the dispute is resolved by paying the
blood-price [diya]’. From Somalia’s honor-based social contract [xeer]
(Mohamed 2007), to Albanian9 and Colombian (Waldmann 2001)
honor and revenge-centered socio-cultural values, codes of honor and
revenge are similarly important among many other ethnic groups in
different parts of the world (Boehm 2011; Boyle 2010; Landes 2007;
Simon 2012). Yet, although such socio-cultural values have occasionally
been mentioned in previous studies of asymmetric conflicts, the literature
to date has failed to either adequately conceptualize this phenomenon, or
to present empirical evidence in its support.
Two strands of literature have so far attempted to incorporate different
aspects of these socio-cultural values into research on asymmetric conflicts.
Firstly, a relatively small, but burgeoning literature on post-heroic warfare
discusses differences between both strategic and value-based approaches to
conflicts in heroic and post-heroic societies. In accordance with the theory
of post-heroic warfare, the very notion of honor, and the willingness to
accept self-sacrifice for the sake of a noble goal, resonate as being quite old-
fashioned within the context of contemporary post-modern western socie-
ties (Luttwak 1995; Avi 2015). However, the theorists of post-heroic
conflicts have thus far avoided engaging with the analysis of socio-cultural
values particular to different societies, and have instead sought to concep-
tualize the notion of post-heroic warfare by either describing it in strictly
military terms (Avi 2015), or by embedding it within broader discourses
concerning international relations (Luttwak 1995).
The second strand of this recent scholarly literature has increasingly
employed the notion of values – albeit often interchangeably with the
concept of asymmetry of culture – within the debates on the ‘hearts and
minds’ strategy, and on population-centrist COIN campaigns (Cassidy
2008). Yet, embedded within the discourse on military strategy – and unlike
this study – these discussions have placed no emphasis on the role of socio-
cultural values considered as distinct socio-anthropological phenomena.
This being the case, this present study suggests conceptualizing socio-
cultural values – and encapsulated in that concept, value-based socio-
cultural codes – as asymmetry of values. In contrast to the existing research
on asymmetric conflicts, which regards values as ideologies (Van Baarda
and Verweij 2009), we understand values primarily in socio-anthropologi-
cal terms, as part of the socio-cultural context of those societies that are
engaged in asymmetric conflict. Accordingly, we suggest treating asymme-
try of values as a concept independent from ideological asymmetry. Unlike
ideological asymmetry, the asymmetry of values, first of all, demonstrates
the differences in the socio-cultural values of belligerents, thereby allowing
for higher levels of individual mobilization, motivation, and participation
in conflicts among societies with well-developed and deeply entrenched
honor-based and revenge-centered socio-cultural values (Aliyev 2015).
Specifically, we argue that in contrast to post-modern societies, societies,
which to various degrees adhere to notions of honor and retaliation – as
seen from the examples of Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia, Iraq, and
Yemen – display unique patterns of individual violent mobilization and
pro-insurgent support within asymmetric conflict.
This is not to say, however, that ideological values, such as political or
religious motivations, are less important as sources of mobilization or
sustained violent participation within conflicts. In fact, in numerous con-
flicts around the world, ideological values become entangled with socio-
cultural values, as we illustrate hereinafter in the section on alternative
explanations.10 What we do suggest is that, due to the lack of existing
research on the significance of socio-cultural values, and embedded in
them codes, and due to their inextricable importance for particular societies,
such socio-cultural codes as traditions of retaliation serve as mechanisms of
violent mobilization and pro-insurgent support.11 In this regard, our study
provides a novel insight into the micro-level of asymmetric conflict, as it
explores the incentives for individual violent mobilization, as encouraged by
the code of retaliation, and as it investigates the support mechanisms for
insurgents, determined by the codes of silence and hospitality.
In contrast to the asymmetry of motivations that ‘derives from what is at
stake for the parties to a conflict, or from their relative interests’ (Merom
2003, p. 11), the asymmetry of values is firmly embedded within a society’s
socio-cultural values. Hence, in practice, it is more permanent and stable
2 INTRODUCTION 15
than the asymmetry of motivations; accordingly, it is more resilient to

exogenous pressures.12 In line with motivational logic, weaker belligerents
are more likely to have higher interests at stake and, therefore, to have
higher motivations to win. Yet, as shown by Merom (2003, pp. 13–14),
the actual historical record of insurgencies succeeding in their struggles
against powerful enemies is limited. Merom (2003, p. 13) admits that
motivational asymmetry is a rather inconsistent variable, because ‘motiva-
tion is usually embedded in the particular context’. Although the asym-
metry of values is also often context-bound, by contrast to motivational
asymmetry, it is far more static than ever-shifting individual or group
motivations based upon political ideology and economic interest. Unlike
motivations delineated this way, socio-cultural codes, which lie at the core
of asymmetry of values, are firmly embedded in honorific societies.13
Also, in contrast to Mack’s (1975) depiction of motivational asym-
metry as centered around combatants’ commitment to protecting their
families and households, asymmetry of value is based not so much on the
need to defend one’s country as on the profound moral obligation,
fueled and sustained by public opinion, to protect and preserve indivi-
dual, family, or clan honor and other honor-centered values. Because, as
Mack (1975, p. 181) has notoriously asserted, ‘the metropolitan power
poses not simply the threat of invasion, but the reality of occupation’
honor-based mobilization differs from essentially rational forms of moti-
vation, such as insurgents’ motivation to defend their countries, homes,
and families against the threat of reprisals. To begin with, particularly as
seen from a purely economic perspective, honor-based mobilization may
take on seemingly irrational forms. This means that, as embedded within
socio-cultural values, the honor-based obligation for retaliation mobi-
lizes individuals regardless of the immediate need to defend their families
or homes. As this study illustrates, although keeping a low profile would
be a better survival strategy, individuals have often consciously chosen to
retaliate or provide support to insurgents, therefore placing in jeopardy
not only their own lives but also the lives of their relatives, as a result of
incumbent retribution. Importantly, in this context, individuals’ ideolo-
gical or economic considerations become of secondary importance.
Rather, the urge for retaliation, the obligation to observe the code of
silence, and the duty to shelter and support insiders may come to the
fore. Therefore, such impulses are likely to serve as stronger and more
persistent mechanisms than either ideology and politics-centered, or
personal cost and benefit-based motivations.14
SOCIO-CULTURAL VALUES: HONOR CULTURES

We construe our understanding of socio-cultural values, as based on the
socio-anthropological distinctions introduced by Nisbett and Cohen
(1996), as existing between honor cultures, and institutionalized cul-
tures.15 As described by Sommers (Sommers 2009, p. 38), honor cultures
are typical of societies that are organized into ‘tight-knit groups’, such as
kinship, clan, or tribe-centered societies. Within honor cultures,16 ‘honor
is not merely a self-defense concern: It suffuses all relations’ (Nisbett and
Cohen 1996, p. 16). Unlike institutionalized cultures, where justice is
dispensed through courts, trials, and prisons, in honor cultures various
forms of direct retribution – including blood revenge and retaliatory raids
– are regarded as the only truly acceptable (and often also the only avail-
able) forms of justice. Blumenfeld (2002, p. 72) for example, explains that
for Albanians, prison, as against direct retaliation, is seen as ‘nothing more
than a delay [ . . . ] Prison isn’t satisfying for the family’.
Honor cultures thrive in societies where ‘[t]here is little or no protection
from the State’, hence ‘[n]orms about honor are extremely well suited to
motivate the appropriate type of retributive behavior’ (Sommers 2009,
p. 39). Shackelford (2005, p. 381) explains that ‘[a] key element of cultures
of honor is that men in these cultures are prepared to protect with violence
the reputation for strength and toughness’. Similarly, Nisbett and Cohen
(1996, p. 4).point out that the notion of honor within honor societies
‘differs from other cultures in that its members are prepared to fight or
even to kill to defend their reputations as honorable men’.
Honor cultures, heavily reliant upon notions of honor and revenge,
are known to have flourished not only in pre-industrial and pre-modern
societies across both Europe (Spirenburg 1998) and Asia (Ikegami
1995) but also in nineteenth century Corsica (Gould 2000), southern
Italy (Bell 2009), early twentieth century southern USA (Nisbett and
Cohen 1996), as well as throughout south-eastern Europe (Boehm
1984). While the spread of industrialization, modernization, and urba-
nization has driven the frontiers of some honor cultures into geographi-
cally isolated areas of the world, other honor cultures have resisted such
pressures. In fact, most of the ethnographic analysis conducted on honor
cultures to date concedes that, as a rule, it is upheld by those (sub)ethnic
communities which have either remained isolated from modernization
(Chagnon 1998) or experienced continuous lack of central state govern-
ance (Nivette 2011). From the highlands of Colombia and Albania
2 INTRODUCTION 17
(Waldmann 2001), to Palestine (Alvanou 2008), Afghanistan, the tribal

areas of Pakistan (Mahdi 1986), Chechnya (Souleimanov 2007, 2011),
Yemen (Morris and Trammell 2011), and Somalia (Mohamed 2007),
those honor cultures that are understood to employ honorific socio-
cultural codes thrive in social environments that are deprived of effective
institutional control and central authority, and which are often afflicted
by violent armed conflicts. Notions of individual, family, or clan honor
and revenge, largely eroded among honor cultures still existing in
Western nations, continue to constitute an essential component of
honor cultures in places such as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Chechnya.
For example, according to the Pakhtun customary law, revenge [badal],
and in particular ‘revenge killing’, is ‘the cornerstone of Pukhtunwali
[customary legal codes]’ (Mahdi 1986, p. 150). In present-day Somalia,
‘the most common cause of war . . . is revenge’ (Mohamed 2007, p. 239).
As Boyle (2010, p. 193) describes, in Albania ‘[t]ribal codes of honour
are often designed to recognize the social function of revenge’. Similarly,
the notions of honor and revenge are equally important among the
Chechens and Ingush: as the Chechen saying goes: ‘[a] wound by the
dagger can be cured by a doctor, but a wound by words can be cured
only by the dagger’ (Avtorkhanov 1992, p. 169). Similar codes of honor
and revenge have been observed in Yemen, described in a study by
Morris and Trammell, and in the Bedouin societies of North Africa, in
Abu-Lughod’s (1985) research.
It goes without saying that these codes also apply in the context of
locally fought COIN campaigns. For instance, Kilcullen (2009) has shown
in the cases of Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan and Sunni insurgents in
Iraq that the significant percentage of their involvement in those wars has
not been caused by religious fervor. Rather, these insurgents are often
tribesmen who have fought for the sake of individual and tribal honor,
driven into insurgencies by the need to retaliate on COIN forces for their
relatives killed as a result of collateral damage in air raids, drone strikes,
and so on. According to Kilcullen (2009, p. 85), ‘[r]eligious extremism
and support for the old Taliban regime are rarer motivations, according to
Afghan intelligence officers and local officials with whom I discussed this;
desire for revenge (badal) and anger arising from the loss of relatives in the
fighting or from killing of bystanders and destruction of property through
“collateral damage” are more common.’ Most recently, following the
accidental death of six civilians as the result of a failed American hostage-
rescuing operation in Yemen in December 2014, three dozen male
members of the slain civilians’ tribe reportedly joined Al Qaeda to seek

retaliation – and restore their tribe’s honor (ČTK 2014).
It would be erroneous, however, to lump all honor cultures
together. Considerable differences exist among such societies in terms
of their socio-cultural, religious, and organizational structures.
Although it was argued by Nisbett and Cohen (1996) that retaliatory
violence is specific to honor cultures, in particular to herding societies,
Boehm (2011) has shown that the custom of blood revenge was also
thriving among hunters-gatherers and even pre-historic farming socie-
ties. For instance, honor cultures are still known to exist among com-
munities in southern USA, as well as in the south of Italy (Gould
2000). Intriguingly, honor cultures – or rather the ethos of male
honor – have survived in one way or another in a number of organized
crime groups worldwide.17 What is more important, however, is the
degree to which a society has an honor code and how the functioning
of that code plays out, particularly on the community level. This means
that although honor cultures are many, not all of them actually con-
tinue practicing the traditional honor-based codes. Accordingly, not all
honor cultures are equal in shaping the dynamics of asymmetric conflict
to the same extent.
For the purpose of this study, we focus on honor cultures that are
organized along the static lines of blood kinship. In honor cultures, indi-
viduals conceive of themselves and are conceived of by outsiders not as
atomized individuals per se, but primarily as members of a patrilineally
delineated in-group: clan or tribe. Such groups claim common ancestry, are
often marked by some form of age-based social hierarchy,18 and are char-
acterized by a developed sense of belonging. Our delimitation of honor
culture also involves the three basic socio-cultural codes that we detail in
this study: the code of retaliation, which draws upon the custom of blood
feud, and the honor-imposed codes of hospitality and silence. To summar-
ize then, for the purposes of this research, we consider the existence of clan
and tribal social organization, together with the persistence of the highly
valued and consistently practiced codes of retaliation, hospitality, and
silence, as necessary prerequisites for a society to be considered honorific.
The concept of honor is irrevocably connected to the notion of retalia-
tion. Hence, ‘[a] key aspect of honor culture is the importance placed the
necessity to respond to an insult’ (Nisbett and Cohen 1996, p. 5). For
societies as varied as Pakhtuns, Albanians, and Chechens, the principle of
retaliation, as defined by the socially enshrined obligation to avenge
2 INTRODUCTION 19
personal insults or physical harm suffered by a family member, plays a

crucial role as regards participation in conflict. Often the duty of retaliation
is passed down succeeding generations, and the rejection of vengeance is
deemed socially unacceptable. As described by Miakhel (2009, p. 6): ‘[i]f a
Pakhtun does not get revenge, it means he is a coward (be-ghairat) and this
will be Paighour (ridicule) to his family. A Pakhtun would prefer to be dead
than live with Paighour.’ An integral element of honor-centered retaliation
– a duty long forgotten in institutionalized cultures – is the warrior ethos. It
is closely entwined with notions of male virtue and strength, and amplifies
an individual’s need to act to vindicate their honor – even in the absence of
an overt political grievance.19
Similarly, the code of silence, present in most honor cultures, prevents
the local population from collaborating with adversaries, or from provid-
ing information of their internal affairs to outsiders or authorities. All of
the above is then bound up with the tradition of hospitality. This tradi-
tional code is exemplified by an Afghan example, ‘[i]f the host family finds
out who robbed, dishonored or killed their guest, they are obliged to take
revenge on the behalf of the guest’ (Miakhel 2009, p. 8). The deeply
entrenched code of hospitality within honor cultures also dictates that –
often against all intrinsic odds – the local population must offer shelter,
food, and other forms of support to local fighters engaged in a struggle
against outsiders. At times, this support also involves the provision of local
intelligence. Similar to the code of retaliation, the code of hospitality
applies in an essentially apolitical way. Shelter, food, medicine, clothes,
and other supplies are provided to local insurgents irrespective of the
hosts’ political views but precisely because they are understood to be
insiders.
In fact, as tight-knit communities, honorific societies are built on the
differentiation of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, that is, of insiders versus outsiders.
Consequently, this affects a broad spectrum of relations between indivi-
duals, shaped by the notion of in-group favoritism and out-group discri-
mination. Still, the borders of in- and out-groups may be flexible,
depending on context.20 For instance, a member of a fellow clan is to be
treated favorably as an insider vis-à-vis a member of a village community,
who is considered an outsider in this context. In the same vein, a co-
villager is to be treated favorably vis-à-vis a member of a (sub)ethnic
community, and so on.21 Usually, provided ethnic identity is developed
enough, a co-ethnic is to be treated more favorably as an insider than a
member of an alien ethnic group, who is considered an outsider. Similarly,
a fellow believer – a member of the same religious community, be it a Sufi

brotherhood, a confession, or the like – is to be treated favorably vis-à-vis a
member of a different religious community. Although Islamic dogma
superimposes uniform Muslim identity (every Muslim being first and
foremost part of ummah, that is, the community of fellow believers)
above all other layers of identity, in practice, as a broader category,
religious identity is of less importance, particularly in peacetime.22
In peacetime, these nuanced differences are of minor relevance as
local inhabitants tend to follow the code of hospitality universally, with
little effort made to discern between insiders and outsiders. Yet in
situations of armed conflict, when local communities face violence in
their immediate vicinity, these differences may acquire tangible forms
to the extent of prompting the local inhabitants to take sides. In a
conflict involving one’s co-villager (or fellow believer) and fellow clan
member, individuals are expected to provide support to their clan
members. If a conflict is underway between one’s co-ethnics and mem-
bers of an alien ethnic group, individuals are likely to provide support to
their co-ethnics as insiders. Likewise, in a conflict between a fellow
believer and a member of an alien religion, individuals are likely to
provide support to their fellow believers as insiders. For example, dur-
ing interwar Chechnya (1996–1999), individuals usually sided with
their clans in local armed conflicts between their clans and religious
communities (Souleimanov 2005). In a number of clashes in the neigh-
boring Republic of Dagestan, which is organized along similar lines as
Chechen society, individuals provided support to their fellow clan
members as insiders in clashes with alien clans, while siding with their
co-ethnics in clashes with members of alien ethnic groups (Kavkaz Uzel
2011). By and large, in situations of violent conflict, the code of
hospitality, though applied universally in peacetime to fellows and
strangers alike, becomes mired in the notion of in-group solidarity
and out-group discrimination.23
Needless to say, in a conflict involving local insurgents and incumbents
from among alien military, the local population is likely to side with the
insurgents as insiders. For example, Kilcullen (2009, p. 40) describes how
a US army patrol ambushed by a small group of Taliban fighters soon
found themselves fighting against a much larger force of Afghans – all of
whom, it was later revealed, were farmers working on nearby fields with
‘no love for the Taliban and [who] were generally well-disposed towards
the Americans.’: Yet, ‘when the battle was right there in front of them,
2 INTRODUCTION 21
how could they not join in?’ On the other hand, when facing an outright
conflict with insurgents – caused by either political, ideological, or perso-
nal reasons – the local population tends to deny support to insurgents and
side with counterinsurgents, as evidenced in the Second Chechnya War,
which is discussed in the empirical section of this study, and in other
conflicts (Kilcullen 2009, p. 160).24
Of course, as with other codes, the code of hospitality often becomes
entangled with other motivations, such as political and ideological moti-
vations. In fact, among the three discussed codes, the code of hospitality
appears to be the most prone to being politicized, thanks to its very
nature. Unlike blood kinship and village neighborhood, (sub)ethnic and
religious identities are essentially political – they form the basis of ‘ima-
gined communities’, where individuals lack personalized knowledge of
each other.25 It is their perception of their own community in ethno- or
religious-political terms that fosters a sense of in-group belonging. This is
why in a conflict involving insider insurgents (now defined as members of
one’s ethnic or religious community) and outsider incumbents (members
of an alien ethnic or religious community), individuals tend to provide
support to their co-ethnics or fellow believers. Importantly, this occurs not
(necessarily) for the sake of ideological or political preferences, but
because of the local population considering the insurgents insiders.
Understandably, as in instances of the other codes of retaliation and
silence, political and socio-culturally determined motivations to mobilize
or provide support to (counter)insurgents become intertwined.26
TYPOLOGIZING RETALIATION AND PRO-INSURGENT SUPPORT

The three socio-cultural codes that constitute the asymmetry of values –
retaliation, hospitality, and silence – fall into two autonomous strands of
scholarship. While the code of retaliation accounts for a strand on the
causes of violent mobilization in irregular wars, the codes of hospitality
and silence constitute (non-violent) support for insurgent groups. This
brief section attempts to locate the three socio-cultural codes in question
within the body of existing scholarship on violent mobilization and pro-
insurgent support.
Previous studies have reported numerous causes of individual participa-
tion in insurgencies and civil wars.27 The vast majority of these causes are
closely associated with either material ‘greed’ or ethnic, political, or reli-
gious ‘grievances’ (Ballentine 2003). The role of retaliation in civil and
irregular wars has been analyzed by a number of scholars.28 For instance,

Kalyvas (2006, p. 60) stated that ‘[r]evenge operates across many different
dimensions of civil wars. It is a direct motivator of violent action, but it is
also indirectly connected to violence in that it often acts as the chief
motivation for joining armed organizations, which then go on to produce
violence.’ A similar assertion has been suggested by Crenshaw (1995) and
Boyle (2010), who argue that the desire for revenge, in a multiplicity of
forms, encourages violent behavior and contributes to the increase of
violence. However, more contextualized and nuanced analyses on the
role of blood revenge in armed conflicts are scarce. Moreover, despite
that it has been identified that revenge in a variety of its forms and shapes
serves as an incentive for violent mobilization in civil wars (Kalyvas 2006,
pp. 60–61), contextualized theoretical research or empirical studies
exploring the effects of retaliation on individual participation in insurgen-
cies are notable by their absence. Socio-anthropological research on the
phenomenon of revenge has revealed that blood revenge ‘is one of the
most commonly cited causes of violence and warfare in tribal societies’
(Chagnon 1998, p. 985). Yet the bulk of studies on the occurrence of
revenge-taking with honorific and clan or tribal societies are heavily cen-
tered on the analysis of revenge-type behaviors in conflicts within one
ethnic group, tribe or a community (Otterbein and Otterbein 1965).
Hence, the impact of blood revenge on an individuals’ behavior in con-
flicts with an external enemy, such as foreign counterinsurgents, remains
unclear and under-explored both in scholarly studies and in literature on
practical aspects of COIN (US Army 2008).
A voluminous number of research works in conflict studies identified
multiple causes and incentives of pro-insurgent support provided by local
populations in conflict-affected areas. For instance, Weinstein (2006)
focused on such causes as common ethnic or religious background or on
intimidation, fear, and mere solidarity with insurgents among the locals.
The theme of intimidation of local populations by insurgent groups,
seeking material assistance and intelligence, has been explored by
Valentino et al. (2004), and Wood (2010). Nevertheless, research works
on the role of socio-cultural codes as pro-insurgent support mechanisms
are virtually absent in conflict studies literature.
As Staniland (2012, p. 148) put it, ‘scholars have many theories of
civil war, insurgent participation, and patterns of violence, but few that
take insurgency seriously as a problem of organization building.’ This
applies even more for support structures beyond the formalized
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Ranulph had certainly always been an odd and rather disagreeable
boy, and there had been that horrid little incident at the Moongrass
cheese supper-party ... but that he actually should have eaten fairy
fruit!
"Do you mean? Do you mean...?" he gasped.
Endymion Leer nodded his head significantly: "One of the worst
cases I have ever known."
"And Nathaniel knows?"
Again Endymion Leer nodded.
A wave of righteous indignation swept over Master Ambrose. The
Honeysuckles were every bit as ancient and honourable a family as
the Chanticleers, and yet here was he, ready to tarnish his
escutcheon for ever, ready if need be to make the town crier trumpet
his disgrace from the market-place, to sacrifice money, position,
family pride, everything, for the good of the community. While the
only thought of Nathaniel, and he the Mayor, was to keep his
skeleton safely hidden in the cupboard.
"Master Ambrose," continued Endymion Leer, in a grave impressive
voice, "if what you fear about your daughter be true, then it is Master
Nathaniel who is to blame. No, no, hear me out," as Master Ambrose
raised a protesting hand. "I happen to know that some months ago
Mumchance warned him of the alarming increase there has been
recently in Lud in the consumption of ... a certain commodity. And I
know that this is true from my practice in the less genteel parts of the
town. Take it from me, Master Ambrose, you Senators make a great
mistake in ignoring what takes place in those low haunts. Nasty
things have a way of not always staying at the bottom, you know—
stir the pond and they rise to the top. Anyway, Master Nathaniel was
warned, yet he took no steps."
He paused for a few seconds, and then, fixing his eyes searchingly
on Master Ambrose, he said, "Did it never strike you that Master
Nathaniel Chanticleer was a rather ... curious man?"
"Never," said Master Ambrose coldly. "What are you insinuating,
Leer?"
Endymion Leer gave a little shrug: "Well, it is you who have set the
example in insinuations. Master Nathaniel is a haunted man, and a
bad conscience makes a very good ghost. If a man has once tasted
fairy fruit he is never the same again. I have sometimes wondered if
perhaps, long ago, when he was a young man...."
"Hold your tongue, Leer!" cried Master Ambrose angrily. "Chanticleer
is a very old friend of mine, and, what's more, he's my second
cousin. There's nothing wrong about Nathaniel."
But was this true? A few hours ago he would have laughed to scorn
any suggestion to the contrary. But since then, his own daughter ...
ugh!
Yes, Nathaniel had certainly always been a very queer fellow—
touchy, irascible, whimsical.
A swarm of little memories, not noticed at the time, buzzed in Master
Ambrose's head ... irrational actions, equivocal remarks. And, in
particular, one evening, years and years ago, when they had been
boys ... Nat's face at the eerie sound produced by an old lute. The
look in his eyes had been like that in Moonlove's today.
No, no. It would never do to start suspecting everyone—above all his
oldest friend.
So he let the subject of Master Nathaniel drop and questioned
Endymion Leer as to the effects on the system of fairy fruit, and
whether there was really no hope of finding an antidote.
Then Endymion Leer started applying his famous balm—a balm that
varied with each patient that required it.
In most cases, certainly, there was no cure. But when the eater was
a Honeysuckle, and hence, born with a healthy mind in a healthy
body there was every reason to hope that no poison could be
powerful enough to undermine such a constitution.
"Yes, but suppose she is already across the border?" said Master
Ambrose. Endymion Leer gave a little shrug.
"In that case, of course, there is nothing more one can do," he
replied.
Master Ambrose gave a deep sigh and leant back wearily in his
chair, and for a few minutes they sat in silence.
Drearily and hopelessly Master Ambrose's mind wandered over the
events of the day and finally settled, as is the way with a tired mind,
on the least important—the red juice he had noticed oozing out of
the coffin, when they had been checked at the west gate by the
funeral procession.
"Do the dead bleed, Leer?" he said suddenly.
Endymion Leer sprang from his chair as if he had been shot. First he
turned white, then he turned crimson.
"What the ... what the ..." he stuttered, "what do you mean by that
question, Master Ambrose?"
He was evidently in the grip of some violent emotion.
"Busty Bridget!" exclaimed Master Ambrose, testily, "what, by the
Harvest of Souls, has taken you now, Leer? It may have been a silly
question, but it was quite a harmless one. We were stopped by a
funeral this afternoon at the west gate, and I thought I saw a red
liquid oozing from the coffin. But, by the White Ladies of the Fields,
I've seen so many queer things today that I've ceased to trust my
own eyes."
These words completely restored Endymion Leer's good humour. He
flung back his head and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks.
"Why, Master Ambrose," he gurgled, "it was such a grisly question
that it gave me quite a turn. Owing to the deplorable ignorance of
this country I'm used to my patients asking me rather queer things ...
but that beats anything I've yet heard. 'Do the dead bleed? Do pigs
fly?' Ha, ha, ha, ha!"
Then, seeing that Master Ambrose was beginning to look stiff and
offended, he controlled his mirth, and added, "Well, well, a man as
sorely tried as you have been today, Master Ambrose, is to be
excused if he has hallucinations ... it is wonderful what queer things
we imagine we see when we are unhinged by strong emotion. And
now I must be going. Birth and death, Master Ambrose, they wait for
no man—not even for Senators. So I must be off and help the little
Ludites into the world, and the old ones out of it. And in the
meantime don't give up hope. At any moment one of Mumchance's
good Yeomen may come galloping up with the little lady at his
saddle-bow. And then—even if she should have eaten what you fear
she has—I shall be much surprised if a Honeysuckle isn't able with
time and care to throw off all effects of that foul fodder and grow up
into as sensible a woman—as her mother."
And, with these characteristic words of comfort, Endymion Leer
bustled off on his business.
Master Ambrose spent a most painful evening, his ears, on the one
hand, alert for every sound of a horse's hoof, for every knock at the
front door, in case they might herald news of Moonlove; and, at the
same time, doing their best not to hear Dame Jessamine's ceaseless
prattle.
"Ambrose, I wish you'd remind the clerks to wipe their shoes before
they come in. Have you forgotten you promised me we should have
a separate door for the warehouse? I've got it on paper.
"How nice it is to know that there's nothing serious the matter with
Moonlove, isn't it? But I don't know what I should have done this
afternoon if that kind Doctor Leer hadn't explained it all to me. How
could you run away a second time, Ambrose, and leave me in that
state without even fetching my hartshorn? I do think men are so
heartless.
"What a naughty girl Moonlove is to run away like this! I wonder
when they'll find her and bring her back? But it will be nice having
her at home this winter, won't it? What a pity Ranulph Chanticleer
isn't older, he'd do so nicely for her, wouldn't he? But I suppose
Florian Baldbreeches will be just as rich, and he's nearer her age.
"Do you think Marigold and Dreamsweet and the rest of them will be
shocked by Moonlove's rushing off in this wild way? However, as Dr.
Leer said, in his quaint way, girls will be girls.
"Oh, Ambrose, do you remember my deer-coloured tuftaffity,
embroidered with forget-me-nots and stars? I had it in my bridal
chest. Well, I think I shall have it made up for Moonlove. There's
nothing like the old silks, or the old dyes either—there were no galls
or gum-syrups used in them. You remember my deer-coloured
tuftaffity, don't you?"
But Master Ambrose could stand it no longer. He sprang to his feet,
and cried roughly, "I'll give you a handful of Yeses and Noes,
Jessamine, and it'll keep you amused for the rest of the evening
sorting them out, and sticking them on to your questions. I'm going
out."
He would go across to Nat's ... Nat might not be a very efficient
Mayor, but he was his oldest friend, and he felt he needed his
sympathy.
"If ... if any news comes about Moonlove, I'll be over at the
Chanticleers. Let me know at once," he called over his shoulder, as
he hurried from the room.
Yes, he was longing for a talk with Nat. Not that he had any belief in
Nat's judgement; but he himself could provide all that was needed.
And, apart from everything else, it would be comforting to talk to a
man who was in the same boat as himself—if, that is to say, the
gossip retailed by Endymion Leer were true. But whether it were true
or not Leer was a vulgar fellow, and had had no right to divulge a
professional secret.
So huge did the events of the day loom in his own mind, that he felt
sure of finding their shadow lying over the Chanticleers; and he was
prepared to be magnanimous and assure the conscience-stricken
Master Nathaniel that though, as Mayor, he may have been a little
remiss and slack, nevertheless, he could not, in fairness, be held
responsible for the terrible thing that had happened.
But he had forgotten the gulf that lay between the Magistrates and
the rest of the town. Though probably the only topics of conversation
that evening in every kitchen, in every tavern, in every tradesman's
parlour, were the good run for his money little Miss Honeysuckle had
given her revered father that afternoon, and the search parties of
Yeomen that were scouring the country for her—not to mention the
terrible suspicions as to the cause of her flight he had confided to
Mumchance; nevertheless not a word of it all had reached the ears
of the other Magistrates.
So, when the front-door of the Chanticleers was opened for him, he
was greeted by sounds of uproarious laughter proceeding from the
parlour.
The Polydore Vigils were spending the evening there, and the whole
party was engaged in trying to catch a moth—flicking at it with their
pocket-handkerchiefs, stumbling over the furniture, emulating each
other to further efforts in the ancient terms of stag-hunting.
"Come and join the fun, Ambrose," shouted Master Nathaniel,
crimson with exertion and laughter.
But Master Ambrose began to see red.
"You ... you ... heartless, gibbering idiots!" he roared.
The moth-hunters paused in amazement.
"Suffering Cats! What's taken you, Ambrose?" cried Master
Nathaniel. "Stag-hunting, they say, was a royal sport. Even the
Honeysuckles might stoop to it!"
"Don't the Honeysuckles consider a moth a stag, Ambrose?" laughed
Master Polydore Vigil.
But that evening the old joke seemed to have lost its savour.
"Nathaniel," said Master Ambrose solemnly, "the curse of our country
has fallen upon you and me ... and you are hunting moths!"
Now, "curse" happened to be one of the words that had always
frightened Master Nathaniel. So much did he dislike it that he even
avoided the words that resembled it in sound, and had made Dame
Marigold dismiss a scullery-maid, merely because her name
happened to be Kirstie.
Hence, Master Ambrose's words sent him into a frenzy of nervous
irritation.
"Take that back, Ambrose! Take that back!" he roared. "Speak for
yourself. The ... the ... the cur ... nothing of that sort is on me!"
"That is not true, Nathaniel," said Master Ambrose sternly. "I have
only too good reason to fear that Moonlove is stricken by the same
sickness as Ranulph, and...."
"You lie!" shouted Master Nathaniel.
"And in both cases," continued Master Ambrose, relentlessly, "the
cause of the sickness was ... fairy fruit."
Dame Dreamsweet Vigil gave a smothered scream, Dame Marigold
blushed crimson, and Master Polydore exclaimed, in a deeply
shocked voice, "By the Milky Way, Ambrose, you are going a little too
far—even if there were not ladies present."
"No, Polydore. There come times when even ladies must face facts.
You see before you two dishonoured men—Nathaniel and myself.
One of our statutes says that in the country of Dorimare each
member of a family shall be the master of his own possessions, and
that nothing shall be held in common but disgrace. And before you
are many days older, Polydore, your family, too, may be sharing that
possession. Each one of us is threatened in what is nearest to us,
and our chief citizen—hunts moths!"
"No, no, Nathaniel," he went on in a louder and angrier voice, "you
needn't glare and growl! I consider that you, as Mayor of this town,
are responsible for what has happened today, and...."
"By the Sun, Moon and Stars!" bellowed Master Nathaniel, "I haven't
the slightest idea what you mean by 'what has happened today,' but
whatever it is, I know very well I'm not responsible. Were you
responsible last year when old Mother Pyepowders's yapping little
bitch chewed up old Matt's pet garters embroidered by his first
sweetheart, and when...."
"You poor, snivelling, feeble-minded buffoon! You criminal
nincompoop! Yes, criminal, I say," and at each word Master
Ambrose's voice grew louder. "Who was it that knew of the spread of
this evil thing and took no steps to stop it? Whose own son has
eaten it? By the Harvest of Souls you may have eaten it yourself for
all I know...."
"Silence, you foul-mouthed, pompous, brainless, wind-bag! You ...
you ... foul, gibbering Son of a Fairy!" sputtered Master Nathaniel.
And so they went at it, hammer and tongs, doing their best to destroy
in a few minutes the fabric built up by years of fellowship and mutual
trust.
And the end of it was that Master Nathaniel pointed to the door, and
in a voice trembling with fury, told Master Ambrose to leave his
house, and never to enter it again.
CHAPTER IX
PANIC AND THE SILENT PEOPLE
The following morning Captain Mumchance rode off to search Miss
Primrose Crabapple's Academy for fairy fruit. And in his pocket was
a warrant for the arrest of that lady should his search prove
successful.
But when he reached the Academy he found that the birds had
flown. The old rambling house was empty and silent. No light feet
tripped down its corridors, no light laughter wakened its echoes.
Some fierce wind had scattered the Crabapple Blossoms. Miss
Primrose, too, had disappeared.
A nameless dread seized Captain Mumchance as he searched
through the empty silent rooms.
He found the bedrooms in disorder—drawers half opened, delicately
tinted clothing heaped on the floor—indicating that the flitting had
been a hurried one.
Beneath each bed, too, he found a little pair of shoes, very down at
heel, with almost worn-out soles, looking as if the feet that had worn
them must have been very busy.
He continued his search down to the kitchen premises, where he
found Mother Tibbs sitting smiling to herself, and crooning.
"Now, you cracked harlot," he cried roughly, "what have you been up
to, I'd like to know? I've had my eye on you, my beauty, for a very
long time. If I can't make you speak, perhaps the judges will. What's
happened to the young ladies? Just you tell me that!"
But Mother Tibbs was more crazy than usual that day, and her only
answer was to trip up and down the kitchen floor, singing snatches of
old songs about birds set free, and celestial flowers, and the white
fruits that grow on the Milky Way.
Mumchance was holding one of the little shoes, and catching sight of
it, she snatched it from him, and tenderly stroked it, as if it had been
a wounded dove.
"Dancing, dancing, dancing!" she muttered, "dancing day and night!
It's stony dancing on dreams."
And with an angry snort Mumchance realized, not for the first time in
his life, that it was a waste of time trying to get any sense out of
Mother Tibbs.
So he started again to search the house, this time for fairy fruit.
However, not a pip, not a scrap of peel could he find that looked
suspicious. But, finally, in the loft he discovered empty sacks with
great stains of juice on them, and it could have been no ordinary
juice, for some of the stains were colours he had never seen before.
The terrible news of the Crabapple Blossoms' disappearance spread
like wildfire through Lud-in-the-Mist. Business was at a standstill.
Half the Senators, and some of the richer tradesmen, had daughters
in the Academy, and poor Mumchance was besieged by frantic
parents who seemed to think that he was keeping their daughters
concealed somewhere on his person. They were all, too, calling
down vengeance on the head of Miss Primrose Crabapple, and
demanding that she should be found and handed over to justice.
It was Endymion Leer who got the credit for finding her. He brought
her, sobbing and screaming, to the guard-room of the Yeomanry. He
said he had discovered her wandering about, half frantic, on the
wharf, evidently hoping to take refuge in some outward bound
vessel.
She denied all knowledge of what had happened to her pupils, and
said she had woken up that morning to find the birds flown.
She also denied, with passionate protestations, having given them
fairy fruit. In this, Endymion Leer supported her. The smugglers, he
said, were men of infinite resource and cunning, and what more
likely than that they should have inserted the stuff into a
consignment of innocent figs and grapes?
"And school girls being one quarter boy and three quarters bird," he
added with his dry chuckle, "they cannot help being orchard thieves
... and if there isn't an orchard to rob, why, they'll rob the loft where
the apples are kept. And if the apples turn out not to be apples—
why, then, no one is to blame!" Nevertheless, Miss Primrose was
locked up in the room in the Guildhall reserved for prisoners of the
better class, pending her trial on a charge of receiving contraband
goods in the form of woven silk—the only charge, owing to the willful
blindness of the law, on which she could be tried.
In the meantime a couple of the Yeomen, who had been scouring the
country for Moonlove Honeysuckle, returned with the news that they
had chased her as far as the Debatable Hills, and had last seen her
scrambling like a goat up their sides. And no Dorimarite could be
expected to follow her further.
A couple of days later the Yeomen sent to search for the other
Crabapple Blossoms returned with similar news. All along the West
Road they had heard rumours of a band of melancholy maidens
flitting past to the sound of sad wild ditties. And, finally, they had
come upon a goatherd who had seen them disappearing, like
Moonlove, among the folds of the terrible hills.
So there was nothing further to be done. The Crabapple Blossoms
had by now surely perished in the Elfin Marches, or else vanished for
ever into Fairyland.
These were sad days in Lud-in-the-Mist—all the big houses with
their shutters down, the dancing halls and other places of
amusement closed, sad, frightened faces in the streets—and, as if in
sympathy with human things, the days shortening, the trees
yellowing, and beginning to shed their leaves.
Endymion Leer was much in request—especially in the houses that
had hitherto been closed to him. Now, he was in and out of them all
day long, exhorting, comforting, advising. And wherever he went he
managed to leave the impression that somehow or other Master
Nathaniel Chanticleer was to blame for the whole business.
There was no doubt about it, Master Nathaniel, these days, was the
most unpopular man in Lud-in-the-Mist.
In the Senate he got nothing but sour looks from his colleagues;
threats and insults were muttered behind him as he walked down the
High Street; and one day, pausing at a street corner where a puppet-
show was being exhibited, he found that he himself was the villain of
the piece. For when the time-honoured climax was reached and the
hero was belabouring the villain's wooden head with his cudgel, the
falsetto voice of the concealed showman punctuated the blows with
such comments as: "There, Nat Cock o' the Roost, is a black eye to
you for small loaves ... and there's another for sour wine ... and
there's a bloody nose to you for being too fond of papples and ares."
Here the showman changed his voice and said, "Please, sir, what
are papples and ares?" "Ask Nat Cock o' the Roost," came the
falsetto, "and he'll tell you they're apples and pears that come from
across the hills!"
Most significant of all, for the first time since Master Nathaniel had
been head of the family, Ebeneezor Prim did not come himself to
wind the clocks. Ebeneezor was a paragon of dignity and
respectability, and it was a joke in Lud society that you could not
really be sure of your social status till he came to wind your clocks
himself, instead of sending one of his apprentices.
However, the apprentice he sent to Master Nathaniel was almost as
respectable looking as he was himself. He wore a neat black wig,
and his expression was sanctimonious in the extreme, with the
corners of his mouth turned down, like one of his master's clocks
that had stopped at 7:25.
Certainly a very respectable young man, and one who was evidently
fully aware of the unsavoury rumours that were circulating
concerning the house of Chanticleer; for he looked with such horror
at the silly moon-face with its absurd revolving moustachios of
Master Nathaniel's grandfather clock, and opened its mahogany
body so gingerly, and, when he had adjusted its pendulum, wiped his
fingers on his pocket handkerchief with such an expression of
disgust, that the innocent timepiece might have been the wicked
Mayor's familiar—a grotesque hobgoblin tabby cat, purring, and
licking her whiskers after an obscene orgy of garbage.
But Master Nathaniel was indifferent to these manifestations of
unpopularity. Let mental suffering be intense enough, and it
becomes a sort of carminative.
When the news first reached him of the flight of the Crabapple
Blossoms he very nearly went off his head. Facts suddenly seemed
to be becoming real.
For the first time in his life his secret shadowy fears began to solidify
—to find a real focus; and the focus was Ranulph.
His first instinct was to fling municipal obligations to the winds and
ride post-haste to the farm. But what would that serve after all? It
would be merely playing into the hands of his enemies, and by his
flight giving the public reason to think that the things that were said
about him were true.
It would be madness, too, to bring Ranulph back to Lud. Surely there
was no place in Dorimare more fraught with danger for the boy these
days than was the fairy fruit-stained town of Lud. He felt like a rat in
a trap.
He continued to receive cheerful letters from Ranulph himself and
good accounts of him from Luke Hempen, and gradually his panic
turned into a sort of lethargic nightmare of fatalism, which seemed to
free him from the necessity of taking action. It was as if the future
were a treacly adhesive fluid that had been spilt all over the present,
so that everything he touched made his fingers too sticky to be of the
slightest use.
He found no comfort in his own home. Dame Marigold, who had
always cared for Prunella much more than for Ranulph, was in a
condition of nervous prostration.
Each time the realization swept over her that Prunella had eaten
fairy fruit and was either lost in the Elfin Marches or in Fairyland
itself, she would be seized by nausea and violent attacks of vomiting.
Indeed, the only moments of relief he knew were in pacing up and
down his own pleached alley, or wandering in the Fields of
Grammary. For the Fields of Grammary gave him a foretaste of
death—the state that will turn one into a sort of object of art (that is
to say if one is remembered by posterity) with all one's deeds and
passions simplified, frozen into beauty; an absolutely silent thing that
people gaze at, and that cannot in its turn gaze back at them.
And the pleached alley brought him the peace of still life—life that
neither moves nor suffers, but only grows in silence and slowly
matures in secret.
The Silent People! How he would have liked to be one of them!
But sometimes, as he wandered in the late afternoon about the
streets of the town, human beings themselves seemed to have found
the secret of still life. For at that hour all living things seemed to
cease from functioning. The tradesmen would stand at the doors of
their shops staring with vacant eyes down the street—as detached
from business as the flowers in the gardens, which looked as if they
too were resting after their day's work and peeping idly out from
between their green shutters.
And lads who were taking their sweethearts for a row on the Dapple
would look at them with unseeing eyes, while the maidens gazed
into the distance and trailed their hands absently in the water.
Even the smithy, with its group of loungers at its open door, watching
the swing and fall of the smith's hammer and the lurid red light
illuminating his face, might have been no more than a tent at a fair
where holiday makers were watching a lion tamer or the feats of a
professional strong man; for at that desultory hour the play of
muscles, the bending of resisting things to a human will, the taming
of fire, a creature more beautiful and dangerous than any lion,
seemed merely an entertaining spectacle that served no useful
purpose.
The very noises of the street—the rattle of wheels, a lad whistling, a
pedlar crying his wares—seemed to come from far away, to be as
disembodied and remote from the activities of man as is the song of
the birds.
And if there was still some bustle in the High Street it was as
soothing as that of a farmyard. And the whole street—houses,
cobbles, and all—might almost have been fashioned out of growing
things cut by man into patterns, as is a formal garden. So that
Master Nathaniel would wander, at that hour, between its rows of
shops and houses, as if between the thick green walls of a double
hedge of castellated box, or down the golden tunnel of his own
pleached alley.
If life in Lud-in-the-Mist could always be like that there would be no
need to die.
CHAPTER X
HEMPIE'S SONG
There were days, however, when even the silent things did not
soothe Master Nathaniel; when the condition described by Ranulph
as the imprisoning of all one's being into a space as narrow as a
tooth, whence it irradiates waves of agony, became so
overwhelming, that he was unconscious of the external world.
One late afternoon, a prey to this mood, he was mooning about the
Fields of Grammary.
In the epitaphs on the tombstone one could read the history of
Dorimarite sensibility from the quiet poignancy of those dating from
the days of the Dukes—"Eglantine mourns for Endymion, who was
Alive and now is Dead;" or "During her Life Ambrose often dreamed
that Forget-Me-Not was Dead. This Time he woke up and found that
it was True"—followed by the peaceful records of industry and
prosperity of the early days of the Republic, down to the cheap
cynicism of recent times—for instance, "Here lies Hyacinth
Quirkscuttle, weaver, who stretched his life as he was wont to do the
list of his cloth far beyond its natural limits, and, to the great regret of
his family, died at the age of XCIX."
But, that afternoon, even his favourite epitaph, the one about the old
baker, Ebeneezor Spike, who had provided the citizens of Lud-in-
the-Mist with fresh sweet loaves for sixty years, was powerless to
comfort Master Nathaniel.
Indeed, so strangled was he in the coils of his melancholy that the
curious fact of the door of his family chapel being ajar caused in him
nothing but a momentary, muffled surprise.
The chapel of the Chanticleers was one of the loveliest monuments
of Lud. It was built of rose-coloured marble, with delicately fluted
pillars, and worked in low relief with the flowers and panic stricken
fugitives, so common in the old art of Dorimare. Indeed, it looked like
an exquisite little pleasure-house; and tradition said that this it had
originally been—one of Duke Aubrey's, in fact. And it certainly was in
accordance with his legend to make a graveyard the scene of his
revels.
No one ever entered except Master Nathaniel and his household to
fill it with flowers on the anniversaries of his parents' death.
Nevertheless, the door was certainly ajar.
The only comment he made to himself was to suppose that the pious
Hempie had been up that day to commemorate some anniversary,
remembered only by herself, in the lives of her dead master and
mistress, and had forgotten to lock it up again.
Drearily he wandered to the western wall and gazed down upon Lud-
in-the-Mist, and so drugged was he with despair that at first he was
incapable of reacting in the slightest degree to what his eyes were
seeing.
Then, just as sometimes the flowing of the Dapple was reflected in
the trunks of the beeches that grew on its banks, so that an element
that looked as if it were half water, half light, seemed rippling down
them in ceaseless zones—so did the objects he saw beneath him
begin to be reflected in fancies, rippling down the hard, unyielding
fabric of his woe; the red-roofed houses scattered about the side of
the hill looked as if they were crowding helter-skelter to the harbour,
eager to turn ships themselves and sail away—a flock of clumsy
ducks on a lake of swans; the houses beyond the harbour seemed to
be preening themselves preparatory to having their portrait taken.
The chimneys were casting becoming velvet shadows on the high-
pitched slanting roofs. The belfries seemed to be standing on tiptoe
behind the houses—like tall serving lads, who, unbeknown to their
masters, have succeeded in squeezing themselves into the family
group.
Or, perhaps, the houses were more like a flock of barn-door fowls, of
different shapes and sizes, crowding up at the hen wife's "Chick!
chick! chick!" to be fed at sunset.
Anyhow, however innocent they might look, they were the
repositories of whatever dark secrets Lud might contain. Houses
counted among the Silent People. Walls have ears, but no tongue.
Houses, trees, the dead—they tell no tales.
His eye travelled beyond the town to the country that lay beyond,
and rested on the fields of poppies and golden stubble, the smoke of
distant hamlets, the great blue ribbon of the Dawl, the narrow one of
the Dapple—one coming from the north, one from the west, but, for
some miles beyond Lud-in-the-Mist, seeming to flow in parallel lines,
so that their convergence at the harbour struck one as a geometrical
miracle.
Once more he began to feel the balm of silent things, and seemed to
catch a glimpse of that still, quiet landscape the future, after he
himself had died.
And yet ... there was that old superstition of the thraldom in
Fairyland, the labour in the fields of gillyflowers.
No, no. Old Ebeneezor Spike was not a thrall in Fairyland.
He left the Fields of Grammary in a gentler mood of melancholy than

the frost-bound despair in which he had gone there.
When he got home he found Dame Marigold sitting dejectedly in the
parlour, her hands lying limply on her lap, and she had had the fire
already lighted although evening had not yet set in.
She was very white, and there were violet shadows under her eyes.
Master Nathaniel stood silently at the door for a few seconds
watching her.
There came into his head the lines of an old song of Dorimare:—
I'll weaver her a wreath of the flowers of grief

That her beauty may show the brighter.
And suddenly he saw her with the glamour on her that used to
madden him in the days of his courtship, the glamour of something
that is delicate, and shadowy, and far-away—the glamour that lets
loose the lust of the body of a man for the soul of a woman.
"Marigold," he said in a low voice.
Her lips curled in a little contemptuous smile: "Well, Nat, have you
been out baying the moon, and chasing your own shadow?"
"Marigold!" and he came and leaned over the back of her chair.
She started violently. Then she cried in a voice, half petulant, half
apologetic, "I'm sorry! But, you know, I can't bear having the back of
my neck touched! Oh, Nat, what a sentimental old thing you are!"
And then it all began over again—the vain repinings, the veiled
reproaches; while the desire to make him wince struggled for the
ascendancy with the habit of mercy, engendered by years of a mild,
slightly contemptuous tenderness.
Her attitude to the calamity was one of physical disgust, mingled with
petulance, a sense of ill-usage, and, incredible though it may seem,
a sense of its ridiculous aspect.
Occasionally she would stop shuddering, to make some such remark
as: "Oh, dear! I can't help wishing that old Primrose herself had gone
off with them, and that I could have seen her prancing to the fiddle
and screeching like an old love-sick tabby cat."
Finally Master Nathaniel could stand it no longer. He sprang to his
feet, exclaiming violently: "Marigold, you madden me! You're ...
you're not a woman. I believe what you need is some of that fruit
yourself. I've a good mind to get some, and force it down your
throat!"
But it was an outrageous thing to have said. And no sooner were the
words out of his mouth than he would have given a hundred pounds
to have them unsaid.
What had taken his tongue! It was as if an old trusty watch-dog had
suddenly gone mad and bitten him.
But he could stay no longer in the parlour, and face her cold,
disgusted stare. So, sheepishly mumbling an apology, he left the
room.
Where should he go? Not to the pipe-room. He could not face the
prospect of his own company. So he went upstairs and knocked at
Hempie's door.
However much in childhood a man may have loved his nurse, it is
seldom that, after he has grown up, he does not feel ill at ease and
rather bored when he is with her. A relationship that has become
artificial, and connected, on one side, with a sense of duty rather
than with spontaneous affection, is always an uncomfortable one.
And, for the nurse, it is particularly bitter when it is the magnanimous
enemy—the wife—who has to keep her "boy" up to his duty.
For years Dame Marigold had had to say at intervals, "Nat, have you
been up to see Hempie lately?" or "Nat, Hempie has lost one of her
brothers. Do go and tell her you're sorry."
So, when Master Nathaniel found himself in the gay little room, he
felt awkward and tongue-tied, and was too depressed to have
recourse to the somewhat laboured facetiousness with which he was
in the habit of greeting the old woman.
She was engaged in darning his stockings, and she indignantly
showed him a particularly big hole, shaking her head, and
exclaiming, "There never was a man so hard on his stockings as
you, Master Nat! I'd very much like to find out before I die what you
do to them; and Master Ranulph is every bit as bad."
"Well, Hempie, as I always say, you've no right to blame me if my
stockings go into holes, seeing that it's you who knitted them,"
retorted Master Nathaniel automatically.
For years Hempie's scolding about the condition in which she found
his stockings had elicited this reply. But, after these days of
nightmare, there was something reassuring in discovering that there
were still people in the world sane enough, and with quiet enough
minds, to be put out by the holes in a pair of worsted stockings.

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How Socio-Cultural Codes Shaped

Wounded City: Violent Turf Wars in a Chicago Barrio 1st

Violent Subjects and Rhetorical Cartography in the Age

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Socio cultural Inspired Metaheuristics Anand J.

Islamic Marketing Understanding the Socio Economic

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A World From Dust: How the Periodic Table Shaped Life

ISBN 978-3-319-52916-5 ISBN 978-3-319-52917-2 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934527

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

3 Chechnya: Ethnography and History 31

4 The Case Study 45

© The Author(s) 2017 1

one article described Japan’s World War II conventional, but indirect,

some peripheral imperial territory or outpost. Ostensibly weaker military

the ability of belligerents to succeed in an unconventional military conﬂict.

and intelligence to the insurgents, as insiders, notwithstanding the local

U.S. Naval War College Col. Robert Cassidy, Ph.D.

Abstract The introductory chapter presents the key arguments of

Keywords Asymmetric conﬂict Motivational asymmetry Socio-cultural

Recent decades have witnessed an increasing interest in asymmetric con-

© The Author(s) 2017 7

honoriﬁc insurgents – while denying these to institutionalized incumbents.

institutionalized incumbent. In fact, monocausal explanations rarely hold

ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

ASYMMETRY OF VALUES: TOWARD CONCEPT BUILDING

to a given conﬂict. Of particular interest with regard to research on non-

than the asymmetry of motivations; accordingly, it is more resilient to

SOCIO-CULTURAL VALUES: HONOR CULTURES

(Waldmann 2001), to Palestine (Alvanou 2008), Afghanistan, the tribal

members of the slain civilians’ tribe reportedly joined Al Qaeda to seek

personal insults or physical harm suffered by a family member, plays a

a fellow believer – a member of the same religious community, be it a Suﬁ

TYPOLOGIZING RETALIATION AND PRO-INSURGENT SUPPORT

irregular wars has been analyzed by a number of scholars.28 For instance,

He left the Fields of Grammary in a gentler mood of melancholy than

I'll weaver her a wreath of the flowers of grief

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