Shelters and Shelter Cities

Shelters - many peoples of antiquity have separate sacred places that were considered inviolable to human court; well-known premises (temples, sacred places, palaces and tombs of rulers) or even entire areas and cities that provided guaranteed security to any persecuted - killers, criminals, enemies - from the earliest, prehistoric forms of human society. ^[one]

Suffice it to say that the Roman state arose from a refuge city, which the myth associated with the name of Romulus . ^[one]

We do not have monuments of shelters of the prehistoric period, but they are completely replaced by the institutions of the living tribes, standing at the most primitive stage. The most primitive form of shelter ^{[ specify ]} was found in 1899 by Spencer and Gillen from the tribes of Central Australia . These tribes have sacred places, usually some secluded caves, giving complete safety to every persecuted. These are the places where their greatest shrines are stored, the so-called churinga, mysterious sticks and stones that serve as the abode of the souls of the departed and living generations (among the Australians, like many other primitive tribes, there is a belief in the multiplicity of souls, so one of a shower can live outside a person in one of the choring). Everything around these vaults is considered sacred and inviolable: it is criminal to pick grass, break a branch, chase a beast, and even more so a person who seeks salvation there. We find a similar fact on one of the islands of Samoa , Upolu , where there is an old tree in which the god Vave arranged his monastery, and every killer or even a serious criminal who managed to get to this tree was considered safe from the persecution of a blood avenger. The tree is called the tree of people’s refuge. ^[one]

Among other tribes and peoples, the role of shelters is played by temples, hearths (and, therefore, all dwellings), tombs of leaders, their palaces and, finally, specially designated for this village and city. So, among the Indians of California, anyone who got to the temple (vanquech) from this moment was freed from all persecution, being considered as if he had atoned for his guilt forever. The Ojibeei and other temples enjoyed the same privileges. The security acquired by staying at the hearth of even a personal enemy is an even more common fact among primitive peoples. The Bedouin or Turkman, who is not retreating in the pursuit of blood feud or the thirst for robbery, will not only not touch his enemy who has crossed the threshold of his tent, but will render him the greatest hospitality, although at the same time this will not prevent him from treacherously killing his guest now after as he leaves his shelter. In other places, tombs act as shelters. At the gallas of East Africa, the persecuted found refuge in a house next door to the tomb of the king. The same is true for the barotse of South Africa , whose shelters are not only the tombs of kings, but also the residence of the queen and her first minister. Similarly, asylum privileges are enjoyed by the residence of the Sultan in one of the districts on Borneo , with the only difference being that those persecuted for saving their lives pay forever their freedom, becoming, together with their offspring, slaves of the Sultan. ^[one]

But the most characteristic form of shelters is represented by refuge cities specially designated to save the persecuted. They can be found not only among Jews (see below), from whom they have already acquired the importance of a humanitarian institute for careless killers, but also among primitive peoples, for example, among North American Indians, who, according to one writer of the 18th century, “each tribe had either a special house or a whole village, which served as a faithful haven for any killer or unfortunate prisoner of war who managed to safely reach them. ” Among the screaming Indians, such shelters were specifically called “white cities” as opposed to “red” or “military cities” that did not give asylum rights. In some places, such shelters eventually become places of mandatory exile. Thus, among the Hindu Kush infidels, not only every killer, himself and his family, but even his son-in-law with their offspring must now leave the native village after the murder and move to specially designated asylum cities that occupy entire areas inhabited exclusively by exiles and their descendants. The sacred villages discovered by Mary Kingsley in West Africa ( Calabar and French Congo ) represent a very original form. All sorts of criminals — thieves, spellcasters, women who had the misfortune to give birth to twins, and so on. ^[1]

According to Fraser 's ingenious guess, such refuge cities, dens of any rabble, runaway and criminal element can be considered a prototype of ancient Rome, judging by the descriptions of the history of its founding in Libya , Strabo , Dionysius of Halicarnassus , Plutarch - descriptions that were accepted by modern historians as a fairy tale. In fact, the area around the legendary temple, erected as if by Romulus on Capitol Hill , which provided refuge and safety to all fugitives, slaves, bankrupt debtors, murderers and any other persecuted element from which the formidable Rome later formed - was nothing more than an ancient religious the sanctuary sanctioned by the temple of the unknown god, the same sanctuary as the shelter villages of West Africa described by Kingsley, or the kafir refugees in the Hindu Kush. The speed with which large, highly organized runaways from runaway elements are formed, an example is the story of Zheltuga , a diverse tribal colony of runaways on the Chinese bank of the Amur River , where the 10,000th rabble of runaways and adventurers, not disturbed by the Chinese government, in the shortest time created a well-organized a peaceful republic of gold miners. ^[one]

The genesis of shelters lies in the tribal institutions of primitive tribes, the tribal cult and the views of taboos (Sternbert). First of all, it must be taken into account that the circle of communication of a primitive man is limited to its closest neighbors, which are related to it to one degree or another, and therefore, norms of intra-clan relations are indirectly transferred to them. And inside the clan, the life of each member is considered absolutely untouchable: each relative enjoys not only protection and patronage, but also impunity even for killing a relative. Hence, everyone, even if not a congener, but a fellow tribe, that is, a person of common origin, gained impunity, since he became under the protection of one of the all-clan deities, for example, a hearth, the oldest of the clan deities, the master of fire, personifying one of the ancestors, perhaps even buried under the hearth. And since the hearth gave protection to a fellow tribe, he thereby gave it to every alien, albeit completely alien, on the assumption that this latter might turn out to be a fellow tribe, since there is no way to know all his fellow tribesmen, often scattered across a vast territory. But all other gods, except for the owner of the fire, were originally tribal (see Tribal community , Comparative study of religion , Totemism ), therefore temples and all kinds of deities were given protection - due to the expansion of the idea of ​​intra-clan impunity - to everyone, first of all, a fellow tribe, and then a stranger - the defense of a generic deity, that is, one that was a deity of the ancestral home before its propagation and branching. New, separate tribal gods might not give protection. This is the reason why among the Greeks, for example, only well-known temples gave the right of asylum. ^[one]

The shelters delivered by the tombs of the leaders, which in the eyes of a primitive man are often deities and at the same time ancestors, can be explained in a similar way, although, perhaps, in some cases they are only fictitious: from the point of view of a barbarian, it is quite sufficient if the tomb of at least one actual ancestor - the leader ever served as a refuge so that the tombs of all leaders, according to the widespread interpretation of taboos, in turn, enjoyed the same privileges. Further, the foundations of the institution of asylum lie in the views of the taboo , according to which the famous sacred places were strictly inviolable. Naturally, these punishments were supposed to deter even the blood avenger from pursuing a killer who dared to seek refuge in a forbidden place. On the other hand, the condescension of the gods, who left unpunished the most daring violation of the taboos on the part of the persecuted, was to inspire the barbarian's unshakable conviction that the inviolability of the persecuted, who took refuge in the sanctuary, was the command of the deity himself, which must be fulfilled. That such immunity was caused precisely by the fear of violating taboos, we see in shelters in New Guinea , where people are quite sure that the persecution of a person who has taken refuge in a temple (dubu) entails inevitably paralysis of arms and legs. It is clear that the right of asylum was not at all initially of a moral or humanitarian nature, being a simple act of self-preservation against punishment for violating taboos. Therefore, we see so many tricks used by both the persecuted and the pursuers in the desire to either preserve or interrupt the taboos. A vivid example is the Greek captive coming out of the temple with a rope in his hands stolen at the altar, and the joy of his pursuers, who took advantage of the fact that the rope broke. According to the fundamental property of the taboo institute - to expand its sphere of action more and more and go far beyond its original limits - the taboo of asylum over time has developed in many places into a compulsory institution requiring the creation of asylum for every persecuted institution of asylum cities that we saw among Jews , Indians, in West Africa and on the slopes of the Hindu Kush. Frazer's very interesting hypothesis about asylum cities as a prototype of ancient Rome was expressed by him in his article “The origin of Totemism” (Fortnightly Review, 1899, April); for discoveries of asylum in Australians, see Spencer and Gillen's work “The natives tribes of Central Australia” (L., 1900); Mary Kingsley, Travels in W. Africa (L., 1897) and literary references in an article by Frazer. ^[one]