Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

104 Dueling
was equipped with a coat of mail, bronze helmet, bronze greaves to protect
the legs, and a javelin. He was also accompanied by a shield bearer. David,
later to become king of the Hebrews, armed with a sling, could “operate beyond
the range of Goliath’s weapons” (Yadin 1963, 265). Yadin insists that
these contests are duels because they took “place in accordance with prior
agreement of the two armies, both accepting the condition that their fate
shall be decided by the outcome of the contest” (265). Yadin describes other
duels where the soldiers are similarly equipped with swords (266–267).
These are duels. Stage Two had been reached.
Duels between men of the same military organization, Stage Three,
occur during more recent history in the West—that is, during the Middle
Ages, and civilian duels, Stage Four, occur even more recently in Euro-
American Dueling. Stage Three is not easily reached because a widespread
practice, feuding, works against the development of dueling within polities.
Approximately 50 percent of the world’s peoples practice feuding (the
practice of taking blood revenge following a homicide). In feuding societies
honor focuses not upon the individual, as it does in dueling societies, but
upon the kinship group. If someone is killed in a feuding society, his or her
relatives seek revenge by killing the killer or a close relative of the killer,
and three or more killings or acts of violence occur. In a feuding society, no
one would dare to intentionally kill another in a duel. If a duel occurred in
an area where feuding was an accepted practice, the resulting injuries and
possible deaths would start a feud between the kinship groups of the participants.
In other words, dueling neither develops in nor is accepted by
feuding societies: Where feuds, no duels. Data from the British Isles support
this conclusion. Feuding occurred over large areas of Scotland, and
arranged battles between small groups of warriors (say thirty on a side)
sometimes took place; dueling was rare in Scotland, and when it did occur
it was likely to be in urban centers such as Edinburgh.
Stage Three dueling developed in Europe during the early Middle
Ages, in areas where feuding had waned. Dueling within polities by elite
military personnel is regarded by most scholars as a uniquely European
custom, although they recognize that in feudal Japan samurai warriors behaved
similarly. Monarchs at war, such as the Norman kings, banned feuding.
(This is consistent with the cross-cultural finding of Otterbein and Otterbein
that centralized political systems, if at war, do not have feuding
even if patrilocal kinship groups are present.)
Several sources for the European duel have been proposed. Kevin
McAleer suggests a Scandinavian origin: “The single combat for personal
retribution had its beginnings as an ancient Germanic custom whose most
ardent practitioners were pagan Scandinavians. They would stage their battles
on lonely isles, the two nude combatants strapped together at the chest.