[See: “Carnival Culture” Series Index]

Article Contents

1. When I Lay My Burden Down
2. What Goes Around Comes Around
3. Neighborhood Meeting Places
4. History of Bars & Public Houses
5. Bedouin Desert Hospitality Traditions
6. Sanctuary & The Right of Asylum
7. Exile & Excommunication
8. Not All Who Wander Are Lost
9. Modern Hospitality Accomodations
10. Southern Hospitality
11. Universal Hospitality Customs & Rituals
12. Gift Economies
13. Post-Scarcity Economics

When I Lay My Burden Down

Let’s face it: travel is a wearying business. A life on the go means you get really tired and in need of rest and relaxation. For the itinerant scholar, the peripatetic performer, the nomadic herder, the man of the road and lifetime wanderer, there are few greater pleasures than being able to lay your burden down - if only for a while.

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, JRR Tolkien calls the elven home Rivendell the “Last Homely House,” describing it thusly, “…the house of Elrond was a refuge for the weary and the oppressed, and a treasury of good counsel and wise lore.” It is there that the Fellowship of the Rings is forged, there that the men, dwarves and elves come together for rest and relaxation before the final battle is joined. Real-world Arabic hospitality customs echo this mythic tradition:

How well one treats his guests is a direct measurement of what kind of a person she or he is. Hospitality is among the most highly admired of virtues. Indeed, families judge themselves and each other according to the amount of generosity they bestow upon their guests when they entertain. Whether one’s guests are relatives, friends, neighbors, or relative strangers, they are welcomed into the home and to the dinner table with much the same kindness and generosity.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Within the Christian tradition, parallels can be drawn to the notion of caritas (charity), selfless love, in which one essentially identifies other people as equivalent to one’s “self.” Cultual anthropologists talk about cultures in terms of who is included within one’s sphere of reciprocity:

Generalized reciprocity is the same as virtually uninhibited sharing or giving. It occurs when one person shares goods or labor with another person without expecting anything in return. What makes this interaction “reciprocal” is the sense of satisfaction the giver feels, and the social closeness that the gift fosters. In industrial society this occurs mainly between parents and children, or within married couples. In other cultures generalized reciprocity can occur within entire clans or large kin groups, for instance among the east Semai of Malaya. Between people who engage in generalized reciprocity, there is a maximum amount of trust and a minimum amount of social distance.

Neighborhood Meeting Places

Just as a house with many private (or semi-private) bedrooms has a common area - a parlor or a living room - where residents or guests can gather for lively discussion, games and socialization, so too do neighborhoods have common areas, meeting places where people from nearby homes can come together on mutually-respected neutral ground. This is the bar, the restaurant, the hall, the public house: essentially the community living room where people can go to find entertainment with their fellows, and to throw back a few pints.

The inhabitants of the UK have been drinking ale since the Bronze Age, but it was with the arrival of the Romans and the establishment of the Roman road network that the first Inns called tabernae, in which the traveller could obtain refreshment, began to appear. By the time the Romans had left the Anglo-Saxons had formed alehouses that grew out of domestic dwellings. The Saxon alewife would put a green bush up on a pole to let people know her brew was ready. These alehouses formed meeting houses for the locals to meet and gossip and arrange mutual help within their communities. Here lies the beginnings of the modern pub. They became so commonplace that in 965 King Edgar decreed that there should be no more than one alehouse per village.

History of Public Houses

A public house, or more commonly a “pub,” simply means a house which is open to the public. It may be quite informal: neighbors, friends and family know that they can stop by at any time to say hello, engage in pleasant conversation or debate, or to have a drink or a bit of food. Public houses are natural organic community meeting centers organized around the ethic of hospitality.

From an article in Mid-Atlantic Brewing News:

Early public houses were more numerous than churches and, in addition to providing food and lodging, were primary centers for transportation, communication and commerce, and even served as court rooms. To be licensed, tavern keepers had to be honorable men and were frequently prominent and respected in their communities. […]

It’s said that during the [American] Revolution the Blue Anchor was kept by a widow, her house being a gathering place for tars, shallopmen, watermen and shore laborers. When retiring for the night she would leave the door unlocked, set a table with cold meat, bread, butter, beer and a pitcher of milk, and hungry men would could eat a supper at any hour and leave money in a dish.

From the simple house with its door always open and a welcome sign hung proud and true grows the marvelous tradition of pubs, bars, restaurants, inns, hotels, hostels, bed & breakfasts, boarding houses and a great deal more. The roots of traditional hospitality are as deep as they are simple, stemming from the reciprocity of the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.”

Bedouin Desert Hospitality Traditions

In hostile environments such as the deserts of Arabia, area residents such as the Bedouin tribes view hospitality as something of a sacred duty. Refusing rest and refreshment to a weary traveler who has come to your tent from off the high desert is tantamount to murder. The Greeks had similarly rigorous expectations around the subject of hospitality. In addition to the formal rules governing host/guest relationships, Xenia, folk practices dictated that strangers be entertained lavishly, because one never knew when one might be entertaining a god or goddess traveling in disguise upon the Earth.

Xenia consists of three basic rules: The respect from host to guest, the respect from guest to host, and the parting gift from host to guest. The host must be hospitable to the guest and provide him with food and drink and a bath, if required. It is not polite to ask questions until the guest has stated his needs. The guest must be courteous to his host and not be a burden. The parting gift is to show the host’s honor at receiving the guest. This was especially important in the ancient times when men thought gods mingled amongst them. If you had played host to a deity (a concept known as theoxenia) and performed poorly, you would incur the wrath of a god.

The policy of xenia also includes the protection of travelling bards. They would receive hospitality in the form of a place to sleep, food, and often an assortment of gifts in turn for entertainment and news from other parts of the ancient world. The safety of these bards were believed to have been secured by the aegis-wielding Zeus, and any violation of xenia would put the violator at the mercy of either Zeus or any lower god that he saw fit to enforce the unwritten code.

The Old Testament book of Hebrews, chapter 13 advises a similar statement, replacing gods with angels: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” In Genesis 19 in the sinful city of Sodom, the hero Lot goes so far as to offer his own daughters (such was the extent of his hospitality) to an angry mob in exchange for two strange visitors (angels) whom an angry mob has gathered desirous to defile.

Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

Sanctuary & The Right of Asylum

In Arabic culture, hospitality (dhiafa, diyafa) is a serious business. As with Lot’s travelers coming “under the shadow” of his roof, a host is supposed to not only serve and nourish, but to protect his guests. There is an old Bedouin custom associated with the simple act of drinking coffee wherein such protection is bestowed.

Coffee is prepared personally by the master of the tent. Beans are roasted over fire and cooled in wooden dish, before being pounded in a mortar and boiled with cardamom. Three cups of coffee is polite. El’Heif, the first cup, is tasted by the Bedouin to make the guest feel safe; El-Keif, the second, is poured and tasted by the guest himself; El-Dheif, the third cup, is also drunk by the guest, who then shakes out his cup and hands it back to his host. Once coffee is drunk by a guest he is under the protection of the host.

The first cup is tasted by the host to prove that it’s not poisoned. By the time the ritual is complete, a new formal relationship has been agreed upon between host and guest. In the Medieval world, this same concept found a home in the role which churches and holy places provided as sanctuary for those in need.

According to the Council of Orleans in 511, in the presence of Clovis I, asylum was granted to anyone who took refuge in a church, in its dependences or in the house of a bishop. This protection was given to murderers, thieves or people accused of adultery. It also concerned the fugitive slave, who would however be handed back to his owner if this one swore on the Bible not to be cruel. This Christian right of asylum was confirmed by all following councils.

In the New Testament, the guiding light of Christian tradition, Jesus says in Matthew 11, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Churches offering rest and protection to those in need arises from the teachings of Christ and similar statements which can be found in both the Old and New Testaments.

Traditions varied from region to region, but the practice of churches granting sanctuary was widespread, and helped act as a counter-balance between religious and secular powers in medieval society:

Sometimes the criminal had to get to the church itself to be protected, and might have to ring a certain bell there, or hold a certain ring or door-knocker, or sit on a certain chair (“frith-stool”), and some of these items survive at various churches. In other places, there was an area around the church or abbey, sometimes extending as much as a mile and a half, and there would be stone “sanctuary crosses” marking the boundary of the area; some of those still exist as well. Thus it could become a race between the felon and medieval law officers to the nearest sanctuary boundary, and could make the serving of justice a difficult proposition. […]

Church sanctuaries were regulated by common law. An asylum seeker was to confess sins, surrender weapons, and be placed under the supervision of the head of the church or abbey where the had fled. They then had forty days to make one of two choices: surrender to secular authorities and stand trial for the alleged crimes, or confess their guilt and be sent into exile (abjure the realm), by the shortest route and never return without the king’s permission. Anyone who did come back could be executed by the law and/or excommunicated by the Church.

Exile & Excommunication

From these practices grow the modern right of asylum wherein political dissidents and other refugees may seek protection from a foreign sovereign power. The social power and danger of exile and excommunication for the individual is not to be misunderstood by modern audiences. In ages past, being cut off from your social group, your tribe, clan or family unit was a fate worse than death, because one identified so strongly with one’s fellows. To lose contact with them, to lose their favor and protection was to be cast out in the wilderness on your own, essentially. To become a lone wolf, whose chances of survival were greatly diminished: a powerful preventative measure against criminal activity. In Britain, those who were forced into exile for criminal or other offenses were required to take a solemn vow of abjuration:

I swear on the Holy Book that I will leave the realm of England and never return without the express permission of my Lord the King or his heirs. I will hasten by the direct road to the port allotted to me and not leave the King’s highway under pain of arrest or execution. I will not stay at one place more than one night and will seek diligently for a passage across the sea as soon as I arrive, delaying only one tide if possible. If I cannot secure such passage, I will walk into the sea up to my knees every day as a token of my desire to cross. And if I fail in all this, then peril shall be my lot.

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

However, for those who chose or were forced to make a life on the road whether in exile, as pilgrims or traders, accomodations invariably sprung up throughout history to take care of their needs.

In Late Antiquity, we see the rise of the pandocheion as a cultural institution, an inn or public house for the reception of strangers, from a Greek word which literally meant “accepting all comers.”

Frequently, the term was used in tales of a moral import, indicating the association of the pandocheion with loose morals, dangers of impurity, criminality and prostitution, but also with mutual trust and assistance in matters of life and death in long-distance travel.

In early Christian literature, the pandocheion could be contrasted with the xenodocheion, which served Christian pilgrims, as well as the sick and the poor, and which, unlike the pandocheion, was normally not associated with money and the dangers of the worldly life. These latter aspects of the pandocheion took on metaphorical significance in Greek and Jewish philosophical texts by Philo and Epictetus, but also in texts by John Chrysostom and Clement of Alexandria, who compared all things of this life to the fleeting and illusory pleasures present in a pandocheion.

In the Muslim world, this tradition evolved into the funduq (Byzantine, foundax, Italian, fondaco, Latin, taberna):

Some large commercial cities had hundreds of funduqs within their walls. These were first and foremost commercial spaces, providing lodging, storage and security to merchants. They also doubled as tax offices and regulated distribution centres for the government and could give shelter to pilgrims and/or provide income for pious endowments (waqfs). Different funduqs could cater to the needs of different sub-groups and different products in the urban economy. Particularly under Fatimid and Ayyubid rule, many funduqs were established and maintained as revenue-producing enterprises for the state, and as centres where certain goods had to be traded to ensure price stability and government control over the food supply. […]

The funduqs inherited some of the more doubtful associations of the pandocheion, and Islamic writers cultivated some of the negative metaphors surrounding the worldly activities taking place there, providing stories of sexual transgression and alcohol abuse. Yet these invectives did not cause disrepute, for the funduqs continued to flourish as lodging-houses and commercial centres. They were generally seen to be relatively safe and respectable. Part of the mistrust may have been caused by the fact that the funduq provided lodging to foreigners with different customs (and faiths). Normally, funduqs catered to a particular clientele, such as traders in particular goods, or merchants from specific regions.

Modern Hospitality Accomodations

The modern equivalent would be something like traveling business men and women, people who are always jetting about the country - or the world - making deals, selling goods and services. And then there are the mass quantities of moderns who engage in tourism, leisure travel, sight-seeing, vacations, holidays. These people, like traders and pilgrims of old, require lodging and basic services which they find in places like hotels, motels, inns, hostels and B&B’s.

1. Hotel: “The word hôtel represents the Old French hostel, which has developed a more specific modern English meaning. Cognates can be confusing: the modern usage in English of hotel denotes a commercial hotel accommodating travellers, a hostelry that is more ambitious than an inn. Modern French also applies hôtel to commercial hotels: confusingly the Hôtel de Crillon on the Place de la Concorde was built as an hôtel particulier and is today a hotel. The Hôtel des Invalides retains its early sense of a hospice for war wounded.”
2. Motel: “Entering dictionaries after World War II, the word motel, a portmanteau of motor and hotel or motorists’ hotel, referred initially to a type of hotel in Columbia, MD of a single building of connected rooms whose doors faced a parking lot and, in some circumstances, a common area; or a series of small cabins with common parking. As the United States highway system began to develop in the 1920s, long distance road journeys became more common and the need for inexpensive, easily accessible overnight accommodation sited close to the main routes, led to the growth of the motel concept.”
3. Inn: “Found in Europe, they possibly first sprang up when the Romans built their system of Roman roads two millennia ago. Some inns in Europe are several centuries old. In addition to providing for the needs of travellers, inns traditionally acted as community gathering places. […] The original functions of an inn are now usually split among separate establishments, such as hotels, lodges, and motels, all of which might provide the traditional functions of an inn but which focus more on lodging customers than on other services; pubs, which are primarily alcohol-serving establishments; and restaurants and taverns, which serve food and drink.”
4. Hostel: “Hostels provide budget-oriented accommodation where guests can rent a bed, sometimes a bunk bed in a dormitory and share a bathroom, lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex, although private rooms may also be available. Hostels are generally cheaper for both the operator and the occupant; many hostels employ their long-term residents as desk clerks or housekeeping staff in exchange for free accommodation.”
5. Bed & Breakfast: “Bed and breakfast, also known as B&B, is a term, originating in the United Kingdom, but now also used all over the world, for an establishment that offers accommodation and breakfast, but usually does not offer other meals. Typically, bed and breakfasts are private homes with only one or two bedrooms available for commercial use.”
6. Boarding House: “A boarding house, also known as a “rooming house” (mainly in the United States) or a “lodging house”, is a house (often a family home) in which people on vacation or lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years.”
7. Flophouse: “Occupants of flophouses generally share bathroom facilities and reside in very tight quarters. The people who make use of these places are often transients, although some people will stay in flophouses for long periods of time—years or decades. Some people who live in flophouses may be just a step above homelessness. In the late 20th century, typical cost might be about US $6 per night. A typical flophouse might advertise its services with a sign such as “Hotel for Men; Transients Welcome”. Quarters in flophouses are typically very small, and may resemble office cubicles more than a regular room in a hotel or apartment building.”
8. Homeless Shelter: “Homeless shelters are temporary residences for homeless people. Usually located in urban neighborhoods, they are similar to emergency shelters. The primary difference is that homeless shelters are usually open to anyone, without regard to the reason for need.”
9. Halfway House: “In the United States, a halfway house is a residential center where drug users, sex offenders, the mentally ill, or convicted felons are placed immediately after their release from a primary institution such as a prison, hospital or rehabilitation facility. The purpose of a halfway house is to allow the persons to begin the process of reintegration with society, while still providing monitoring and support; this is generally believed to reduce the risk of recidivism or relapse when compared to a release directly into society.”
10. Almshouse: “Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people (typically elderly people who can no longer work to earn enough to pay rent) to live in a particular community. They are often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain forms of previous employment, or their widows, and are generally maintained by a charity or the trustees of a bequest.”
11. Hospital: “During the Middle Ages the hospital could serve other functions, such as almshouse for the poor, hostel for pilgrims, or hospital school. The name comes from Latin hospes (host), which is also the root for the English words hotel, hostel, and hospitality. The modern word hotel derives from the French word hostel, which featured a silent s, which was eventually removed from the word. (The circumflex on modern French hôtel hints at the vanished s)”
12. Hospice: “Hospices were originally places of rest for travelers in the 4th century. In the 19th century a religious order established hospices for the dying in Ireland and London. The modern hospice is a relatively recent concept that originated and gained momentum in the United Kingdom after the founding of St. Christopher’s Hospice in 1967. It was founded by Dame Cicely Saunders, widely regarded as the founder of the modern hospice movement.”

Southern Hospitality

Smaller-scale travelers’ accomodations like the bed & breakfast and boarding house hearken back to the classic public house tradition, in which a family opens its doors in hospitality, but also makes a side or main business out of it as well. Within the American tradition of Southern hospitality, we see also the cultural importance of the guest room: a room reserved exclusively for the use of guests and travelers who might appear quite unexpectedly.

Jacob Abbott wrote in 1835:

[T]he hospitality of southerners is so profuse, that taverns are but poorly supported. A traveller, with the garb and the manners of a gentleman, finds a welcome at every door. A stranger is riding on horseback through Virginia or Carolina. It is noon. He sees a plantation, surrounded with trees, a little distance from the road. Without hesitation he rides to the door. The gentleman of the house sees his approach and is ready upon the steps. […]

Conversation flows cheeringly, for the southern gentleman has a particular tact in making a guest happy. After dinner you are urged to pass the afternoon and night, and if you are a gentleman in manners and information, your host will be in reality highly gratified by your so doing. Such is the character of southern hospitality.

Universal Hospitality Customs & Rituals

As with the formalized Greek rituals associated with xenia, most cultures have quite strong and clear rules governing behavior on the part of both guests and hosts. A document for wayfarers in Saudi Arabia on a website called GlobalSecurity.org describes a routine common to many cultures: the dance of offer and refusal. A host offers refreshment or other accomodations to be polite. The appropriate response, in many cases, is for the guest to politely refuse, at which the host insists once more. How long the game of insistence and refusal goes on depends on the culture and the persons party to the interaction.

In addition, it is important for Americans to remember that an initial refusal of any offer, whether to help pay for something or to invite someone for dinner, should not be taken as a refusal in any real sense. At least one refusal is demanded by the society, if you continue to insist and they continue to refuse, at some point you will have to give up, but the American tendency to ask just once, for instance, if a guest would like to have something to drink, and to accept the first refusal as sincere, is considered exceptionally rude in an Arab society.

Growing up in a French-Canadian family, I remember being taught as a child, visiting venerable relatives such as my great grandmother, that one could accept something from one’s host - candy, food or other treats - only if they were offered three times by the host, and refused twice by the guest. Hospitality traditions, in most cases, are learned quite early on from one’s family, and since they are passed on through familes can be traced through to ethnic and historical roots.

Gift Economies

Generosity, however, tends to be a universally-praised trait amongst all cultures. In pre-European North America, you’ll find traditions like the Potlach of the Northwest in which Aboriginal cultures gave away lavish gifts to friends, family, allies and even enemies. Stories abound of powerful families becoming destitute because of their tremendous displays of generosity. In some cases, such public demonstrations of generosity are tied in with humility, and placing oneself at the service of others, while in other cases it’s more of a show of status: one is so wealthy that one can afford to give freely to one’s fellows.

This generosity extends to the most minor social events. Whenever you are having something to eat, drink, smoke, etc., you must always offer it to anyone who is with you. If you are sitting down having a cup of coffee and someone joins you, you must insist on getting him a cup as well. And if someone does this for you, you must not insist on paying for it. The only way to repay such a favor is to buy coffee for both of you the next time. If someone borrows money from you, if it is a small amount, you should not even expect it back, and if it is a large amount and is not repaid, there is a social pressure of just letting it go. Even if someone takes something from you, it is considered better not to ask for it back, although if it is something very meaningful or very valuable, you could discretely do so.

In Arabic culture, it’s said that one should be careful when visiting the home of a host not to praise too highly any of the objects in his house, lest the host insist that the guest take the item as a gift. While it’s not stated, the implicit expectation is that, of course, the guest will at some point in the future return the gift in kind. In fact, it’s not uncommon for Arabs to ask how much a gift they are receiving cost, whereas such a question is considered rude in the West. The point is always reciprocity though: so that gifts and hospitality may be returned at a later date, thus cementing social bonds through equivalent exchange.

Families living along the Sepik Coast in northern Papua New Guinea form alliances with families in other communities. Depending on the importance and status of the family, it can have anywhere between 5 and 75 contacts in its social network. In each surrounding town, the family knows another. When they travel to another town, they bring gifts to their contact family, and that family will house and care for them. Gifts are reciprocated when given or later when families return the visit. Common gifts are sago, tobacco, baskets, wooden bowls, and other similar items. The recipient does not specify which type of gift they would like to receive, but as a result of the vast quantity of exchanges taking place, the needs of participants are generally met.

A social field is one in which all the members have similar expectations of each other. In the social networks of the Sepik Coast, the significant expectations are hospitality, gift giving and reciprocation from friends in different villages. Alliances are passed along and preserved through many generations, because fathers bring their sons on their trips and families honor an association, no matter how long it has been since the last gift exchange.

The potlach, along with the Koha of the Maori, the Kula ring of the Trobriand Islands, the Moka and Sepik coast exchange of Papua New Guinea and other similar traditions are a first-rate example of what’s known as a gift culture or gift economy.

Gift economies are based on abundance, wherein there are more than enough resources for all members of one’s tribe or social group, and sharing is the norm. Hunter-gatherer societies generally share(d) food as “a safeguard against failure of any individual’s daily foraging.” As another site explains: “More generally, in hunter-gatherer societies the hunter’s status was not determined by how much of the kill he ate, but rather by what he brought back for others.”

Post-Scarcity Economics

8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

9 Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses,

10 Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat.

11 And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence.

12 And when ye come into an house, salute it.

13 And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you.

14 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.

- Matthew 10

The notion of providing for others - regardless of who they are - instead of hoarding wealth for oneself and one’s immediate family or social group is necessarily a revolutionary concept in today’s society, even though it is really nothing new. If anything, it has been the staple method whereby the human has looked after one another and made sure that each other were okay and that we simply survived. It’s interesting to note that despite Christian traditions of caritas and hospitality, missionaries in the New World attacked and banned gift economies like that of First Nations’ potlach festivals.

The simple act of sharing food and drink, of offering rest and lodging serves to tear down social walls between individuals and groups, binding people together in celebration of life’s most essential and basic components. Really, there is nothing else in this world but hospitality: being kind and generous to strangers and friends alike, sharing what you have with others, sharing the gifts of abundance you’ve received with others, so that the weight of their burden may be lessened and we may all dwell in joy, peace, harmony and unity. Happy Thanksgiving!

[Dedicated to the Schafer family]

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