Albanian Canon Law in a ethical and cultic view

(According to the commentary of the scholar Kazuhiko Jamamoto)

Abstract

One of these foreign scholars who made the “Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini” an object of study is the Japanese Kazuhiko Jamamoto.
He analyzed the ethical structure in the “Kanun of Leke Dukagjini”; sorted out accordingly juridical and ethical phenomena in this Common Law; defined the main categories, where this ethics appears as broken down into major elements by putting into light through concrete examples the practical use of different Canon norms in the evaluation or resolution of various issues. This is a virtue that should be noted. It is focused more on issues of conflict, revenge.
The author of two studies on the ethical structure of “Kanun” (Canon) (one published in Shkodër in 2001 as a booklet: “Ethical structure of the Canon” and the other “A comparative overview between the ethical structure of Homeric society and that of canonical Albanian one”, published in the “Albanian Ethnographic & Folkloric Tracings” No. 31, 2001, Prishtina, IAP, 2004, pp.49-68), deals with concepts given in Canon: “Oath”, “Word of Honor”, “Blood”, “Honor”, “Friend” (or “Bread”), "Food”, “Revenge”.
He has split their ethical nature up by providing ideas and specific details of scientific interest as regards to their own nature, such as: customs, traditions and way of living in rural and regional communities of highlands. Here it clearly comes out also their social and psychological content as coexistence of territorial grouping, even though the word tribe and tribal community is mention frequently. By the way how the analysis is carried out, although the author does not mention the idea, with the designation as a separate group, it comes out that different canonical norms often are presented as mere moral traditions, directly form the life in community and not as binding laws. Thus, they are only expression of bounty, heartiness, as mutual social aid, aid for the needy, unlucky, as a stand of spiritual affinity in a close community within a certain territory, in cohabitation needs. Of course, it contains both symbolically and metaphorically elements of coercion, i.e. of the legal nature; the same things are sometimes presented simply as a tradition of bounty and other times with legal connotations, thus compelling ones.
However, scholarly studies of honored Prof. Kazuhiko Jamamoto, are very valuable for the problems presented, the phenomena analyses and the comparisons made in them.
This scholar has widely dealt with ethical problems of the common law, including here divine forces as well. These are an ample support for further studies in this view to analyze other phenomena of worth regarding the ethics in Canon.