Hunter gatherer violence

July 2024 Forums General discussion Hunter gatherer violence

Viewing 15 posts - 196 through 210 (of 308 total)
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  • #109739
    robbo203
    Participant
    LBird wrote:
    Well, I've tried to explain to you about scientific method, but clearly you're going to stick with your outdated 19th century method of 'non-ideological collection of raw material'.Your loss, comrade.You'll come to consciousness, one day. I'd rather help you for that to be sooner rather than later, but you won't listen. Keep reading, and eventually I'm sure that you'll come to understand. At least you're engaging, if not very successfully.'Established facts' establish themselves, do they? Think about it, robbo.

     You never stop with your misrepresentation, do you LBird?  "Non-ideological collection of raw material"???Read what I actually wrote for once, for chrissakes! I said the collection of raw material involves selection and therefore is necessarily ideological.  What part of that do you not understand?But enough of your nonsense.  For those who want to more constructively engage with this thread check out this link which I have just come acrosshttps://unsafeharbour.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/comments-on-pinkers-history-of-violence/A very useful article on the data Pinker (selectively) uses to support his thesis of pre-state violenceSecond warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

    #109740
    Hud955
    Participant

     Hi Robin The simple answer is don't expect consistency of usage even within a single writer.  There isn't any.  As any biological anthropologist will tell you (with eyes in the air), social anthropology is plauged with this problem.  (Biological and Social anthropologists are hardly on speaking terms any more – I mean that very literally – and this is one of the reasons.)   The problem lies deeply in the history of the discipline.  Although a few researchers were vaguely aware that egalitarian immediate return hunter gatherers existed before the 1960s, these societies were really only 'discovered' after that date by people like Richard Lee and James Woodburn.  And once they were,  the term hunter gatherer acquired new significance and researchers began to conceptualise it more carefully.  (Even so, the term is still very loose.  When does a hunter gatherer become a horticulturalist?  When s/he tends gardens for 10% of their energy input? 40%?  Over 50%?)  As anthropologists started to investigate these societies they began to make distinctions.  The terms, 'immediate-return' and 'delayed-return'  were introduced by James Woodburn when he noted that this kind of model mapped very well onto the levels of egalitarianism, stratification and violence found within them.  The term 'Complex hunter gatherers' was then introduced to define those groups that did not fit into either category.  These cateogries are fairly clear.  The terms 'tribe', and 'chiefdom' however, are much older.  They emerged before most anthropolgists knew that egalitarian hunter gatherer groups as we now understand them existed.   The terms  also belong to a period when the conceptual apparatus for defining pre-state societies was as yet undeveloped.  'Cheifdom' in its broadest sense simply means a society which has a chief.  The term could at that time be applied to pretty much all known non-state societies but it was often reserved for those that had a chief but did not have the level of fixed status relationships found in more formally organised tribes. The chief in a chiefdom can have real power or none. That's not part of the definition.  If this caused confusion then, it can cause even greater confusion now.  'Chiefdom', in its broader literal sense of a society with a chief, can apply not only to a tribal society but also to many of what we would now term delayed return hunter gatherer groups.  In other words it can span two separate categories which for other purposes we would prefer to distinguish.  Worse still, in this broader sense, it can also be quite rationally applied to complex hunter gatherers (all the ones I know of, at least).  All these categories have chiefs.  On the other hand, it would be quite consistent with normal practice to use the term in a more restrictive sense and apply it only to non-tribal societies with chiefs.  I'm simplifying here, and you'll have to accept my comments within the limits of my understanding of the history fo the subject, which is not extensive, but I hope this goes some way to illustrating the general nature of the problem.I'd recommend that you will save yourself a lot of headscratching by reconciling yourself to this situation, and not spend time looking for a consistent usages where none actually exist.  When you read an anthropological text, don't make assumptions but look for clues to how a writer is using his/her terms.  Sometimes (maybe even often, and particularly in popular works) you won't get any clues, and when that happens you just have to live with it, and make of it what you can.I heard a biological anthropologist at the RAI put it like this: you can put ten social anthropologists in a room and sit them down to listen to a lecture by another social anthropologist, and they will come out with ten different ideas of what they have just heard.  And it's getting worse not better.  Social anthropology is overrun these days with post-modernists who deny that we can establish a category of truth or that there can be a progression of knowledge, and therefore they claim it is not worth bothering about such terminological matters anyway. Fortunately, within anthropology as a whole, hunter gatherer specialists and ethnographers form a small, embattled group, which has largely rejected this view, and do try to keep some kind of consistencey in their terminology, at least within their own area – not that they always succeed.  Most of what I have written above is representative of their perspective. You could call my comments normative if you like, or you could call them sectarian, but they provide the only thing I can find to cling on to.  I don't have a lot of time to trawl back through texts right now, but I will try to see if I can find you some references. I tend not to rely on the internet.  Iwould say, though, that I'm not sure how useful they will be to you.  I think you just have to take anthropological texts as they come and when making up your own mind, take a position on this.That all sounds pretty miserable, doesn't it!Cheers  

    #109741
    Hud955
    Participant

    Hi LB.  You have made your logical point.  In its own abstract way it is a valid one, so thank you for that.  The discussion, though, is not about abstract logic; it's about violence among hunter gatherers, and the reiteration of your single point in post after post in ways which do not advance this discussion is not, therefore very helpful.Rather than devoting your energy to the solitary pursuit of criticising others for their supposed logical failing and telling them they need to think about things differently, it would be much more useful  if you chose to apply your understanding of this principle to the subject of hunter gatherers and do some substantive thinking about it yourself.  Anything which postively advances this discussion is to be welcomed.  Holding up hoops and demanding that others jump through them because you claim to know something about conceptual logic they don't, definitely isn't.  Nor is leeching onto the subject as a means of demanding  attention for your own abstract concerns.  You have pretty much lost my interest.  (I'd add that you won't regain it by your rapidly increasing habit of flinging patronising insults at anyone who disagrees with you.)Let me start the ball rolling then with a question.  How would you pursue the issue of understanding violence among hunter gatherers and in particular how would you develop a set of parameters we could use to discuss this in ways that are relevant to socialists? 

    #109742
    LBird
    Participant
    Hud955 wrote:
    Hi LB.  You have made your logical point.  In its own abstract way it is a valid one, so thank you for that.  The discussion, though, is not about abstract logic; it's about violence among hunter gatherers, and the reiteration of your single point in post after post in ways which do not advance this discussion is not, therefore very helpful.

    Yes, it is valid and logical, but not abstract at all.In fact, in your more lucid moments, as with robbo too, you both completely accept the so-called ‘abstract’ point that I’m making, that ideology is a fundamental concern for science and especially anthropology. The problem is, you both, in an invalid and illogical way, refuse to take your insight and understanding further, and help clarify for us all what the ideologies are, of Kelly and Fry, and of us, who are reading this thread.The simple point, as ever, is that one’s framework determines what one ‘sees’, through the mechanism of providing definitions of ‘what there is to be seen’. This applies to social structures (‘bands’, ‘tribes’, ‘chiefdoms’, ‘classes’ do not define themselves, they are not just waiting ‘out there’ to ‘be seen’ by the ‘observant’ anthropologist who supposedly ‘keeps ideology out of it’) and their social activities (the key for us on this thread, ‘violence’, still hasn’t been defined by us, never mind the anthropologists).

    Hud955 wrote:
    You have pretty much lost my interest.  (I'd add that you won't regain it by your rapidly increasing habit of flinging patronising insults at anyone who disagrees with you.)

    You are simply following the same method as the others of your ideological persuasion, here. This has happened many times before, on this site. You start the ‘insults’ because you don’t like my entirely valid questioning of your ignorance of the role of ideology in science, and then pretend to be outraged when I answer you in the same tone, and you attempt to revert to a ‘hurt academic objectivity’. Have a look at the list I gave in my last reply of what you said to me, and then look at your last post: ‘leeching’, ‘flinging’. How come you aren’t ‘leeching’ and ‘flinging’ when you use the thread to insult me?Well, let’s leave that behind us, and if you and robbo wish to leave unexamined the lacuna in your own understanding about your own ideology, so be it. I’m prepared to discuss, if you keep your comments to an acceptable academic standard, and refrain from personal attacks on me.

    Hud955 wrote:
    Let me start the ball rolling then with a question.  How would you pursue the issue of understanding violence among hunter gatherers and in particular how would you develop a set of parameters we could use to discuss this in ways that are relevant to socialists?

    [my bold]For socialists to come to some understanding of violence in hunter gatherer societies, they first have to come to a series of socialist definitions of the terms that we’ve already discussed. If socialists use conservative or liberal definitions, they will not develop a socialist understanding of anthropology, but will instead develop a ruling class understanding.Of course, as a Communist and a Marxist, I don’t subscribe to the 19th century ruling class idea that ‘if we keep ideology out of science, then the Truth will be found’. I agree with Einstein, that the position of observation determines what one sees in the universe. So, in line with my ideological science (Marx and Einstein), I don’t think that there is an ‘anthropological’ view to which ‘academics’ have access. There is only ‘socialist anthropology’, ‘conservative anthropology’, ‘liberal anthropology’, etc. I’ve tried to show this by my quotes from robbo’s links, to Fry and Kelly, to try to make clear that Fry and Kelly are not simple ‘anthropologists’, but are politically influenced. Hence, my insistence on socialist definitions, to ‘help get the ball rolling’.Perhaps it might be useful to make totally apparent our ideological concerns regarding the title of the thread, and tie together both social structures and behaviour (once they’ve been clarified further), and posit structures to replace ‘band’ and ‘tribe’?We could, as a tentative suggestion, define our basic structures as:‘peace-band’ and ‘war-band’ (or, alternatively, ‘non-violent-band’ and ‘violent-band’).Once we have defined these as our socialist view of structures, they we could search for the ‘evidence’ and ‘proof’ of the ‘real existence’ of our structures. I’m sure that you, robbo and YMS could come up with some names of various groups which have been studied, and which fit into these socialist categories.Of course, we could be accused of defining into (or out of) existence the very things that we wish to find, and I think someone has already provided an academic quote that says this already, earlier in the thread. But this ‘defining’ is exactly what every anthropologist does, either consciously (the better ones, who understand the role of ideology) or unconsciously (the worse ones, who simply use ruling class ideas that they’ve grown up with).These socialist definitions, if accepted, have the merit of exposing completely our underlying ideological concern with the relationship between human social organisation and the social nature of violence: ‘peace-band’ and ‘war band’. It will also serve to make clear that, as socialists, we don’t believe that ‘violence is a part of human nature’, and do believe that ‘violence is a structural attribute’ of human society, which may or may not be present, due to social and historical differences between 'peace-bands' and 'war-bands'.But……if any comrades here do think that ‘humans are naturally violent’ or that ‘violence is an individual trait, not a social trait’, then let them openly declare their ideology, because neither of those beliefs is compatible with socialism.Well, what do you think, Hud? Definitions required of violence, social structures and socialism? And an openness of the ideology that is behind those definitions?

    #109743

    From the article I linked to before, which I thought was a very interesting way of expressing it:

    Quote:
    In simple human societies, lethal violence may be high in aggregate statistical terms, but the pervasive ethos is one of active cooperative affiliation among diverse groups of relatives and nonrelatives (Knauft I987a).  The cultural norms of sociality in these societies seem to be both strong and prone to lethal contravention within the local group.  The violence that does occur has relatively little to do with territorial rights, property, ritual status, or male leadership concerns and is based more on consensually approved status leveling among men than on status elevation.

      I looked up the article for comparison with other great apes, and indeed:

    Quote:
    Damaging fights have not, however, been witnessed (de Waal I989b:22I-22), and techniques of managing conflict seem highly developed; in this respect, bonobos may exhibit important similarities with simple human societies in harboring both strong conflict-mediation  skills and the potential for rare but ultimately extreme violence

    (apparently a lot of bonobos are missing fingers, suggesting they mayhave been bitten off in a fight).

    Quote:
    In only 1of the 22 homicides listed by Lee (I97ga:383) for the !Kung did the killer run off with the victim's wife, and this case is itself revealing; despite the fact that the couple had previously been lovers, the woman was frightened by the killing and as a result soon returned alone.  In most simple societies, aggressively self-interested persons may be killed with the consent or active collaboration of the community at large (see Lee I979a:chap. I3; Balikci I970:chap. 9)

      The article notes that a lot of violence in simple societies takes the form of a directionless outburst, akin to a psychotic breakdown, and often the people killed are bystanders, not parties to a dispute:

    Quote:
    Some forms of violence in simple societies thus appear almost more dysfunctional than functional and bear at least a passing resemblance to the syndrome of "phylo-genetic regression" described by Bailey (i985, I987;cf.NeumanI987). Bailey argues on neurophysiological grounds that sudden aggressive outbursts stem from phylogenetically "primitive" parts of the brain and characterize various forms of genuine brain dysfunction.

      After all, simple human societies wouldn't need sophisticated conflict resolution and violence mitigaton strategies if there were no pre-disposition to violence at all.  The part I bolded is suggestive to me, if a coalition can come about to kill a wannabe leader, then it's only a small step to a leader using a coalition to kill rivals and become an achievement based leader…

    #109744
    LBird
    Participant
    YMS wrote:
    The part I bolded is suggestive to me, if a coalition can come about to kill a wannabe leader, then it's only a small step to a leader using a coalition to kill rivals and become an achievement based leader…

    But this is an issue of 'social power', not 'individual violence'.If we define 'violence' to be about 'individuals using pointy sticks against each other', that definition about 'individuals' is completely irrelevent regarding 'social power'.That is, 'killing' is not a 'biological act', but a 'social act'.In our social terms, 'murder' is irrelevant to understanding 'war'.I'd suggest that those who look to defining 'violence' in individual, biological, physical terms are employing a different ideology to those who wish to define 'violence' in social, structurally-emergent, power terms.We should attempt to clarify what is meant by 'violence' when the term is employed on this thread.If my socialist definition is employed, a society can exhibit individuals sticking point sticks into each other for personal reasons, and still be defined as 'non-violent', because there are no structures present in that society that can produce war.This is a definition of 'violence' as a structurally-produced phenomenon, which is unrelated to 'pointy sticks' and their usage to settle personal debates between individuals.

    #109745
    robbo203
    Participant

    For anyone who is interested in this subject of early human "warfare" (and its alleged implications for "human nature") there is a whole bunch of fascinating articles I came across on Brian Ferguson's "profile page" at the Rutgers University web site.  Just scroll down to his list of publications near the bottom of the pagehttp://www.ncas.rutgers.edu/r-brian-ferguson

    #109746
    robbo203
    Participant

    Hi Richard, Just a quick point of clarification – on the distinction between complex HG societies and tribal societies… I take your point about hunter gatherer specialists tending to keep these terms separate and apart.  Tribes as you say are "generally clan-based, patrilineal, status societies, of relatively recent origin, and they are almost invariably horticulturalists, drovers or pastoralists"  They also tend to be chiefdoms and although chiefs are also to be found among complex HG societies, they tend not to be formalised status-based positions.  There is a degree of social hierarchy and inequality in complex HG societies but it tends to be muted. Here's the problem though.  I recall reading Evan Pritchards, "The Nuer" quite a few years ago.  The Nuer are clearly a tribe in the above sense but they don't have chiefs. In fact if I remember correctly there is only somebody called the "leopard skin man" who arbitrates between individuals but has no special power  vested in him. The Nuer are highly egalitarian – what you call "extreme individualists" (which I personally think is a misleading term because "individualism" is not the same as "individuality" or "individuation" but never mind). However the Nuer are also clearly warlike and engage in wars with the neighbouring Dinka. This is not just the case back in the days when Evans Pritchard was doing his fieldwork but can be seen also today in the new state of Southern Sudan which I believe is still in the throes of civil war.  It is this combination of a highly egalitarian society and a proneness intergroup conflict that I find somewhat disturbing.  It kind of clashes with the thesis that in a society characterised by – to use your term – extreme " individualism", it is much more difficult  to organise and motivate intergroup conflict.  Of course , against that there is the fact that among the Nuer the principle of territoriality would prevail which would not be the case with a simple hunter gather band society. But all the same it is a bit of theoretical puzzle. By the way I'm curious about this distinction between complex hunter gatherers  and simple hunter gatherers. How and why did the former come about  and, also, when and where?  As I understand it complex HG groups are a peculiarity of particular resource=rich regions  which means that they tend to be more sedentary and large scale.  They don't need to move around to the extent that simple HG groups do becuase of the loicalised abundance of resoruces and this has implications for their social structure. Thoughts?….

    #109747
    LBird
    Participant
    robbo203 wrote:
    But all the same it is a bit of theoretical puzzle.

    This is your problem, robbo.Unless you use this insight to ask a few more questions about 'theoretical puzzles', rather than the 'details' of various groups, then you will remain 'puzzled'.The answer to your puzzle does not lie in empirical research, in the listing of 'apparent' characteristics of hundreds of groups that have been studied for a century, but in clarifying exactly what anthropologists mean by various terms.That is, the starting point for your solving of your puzzle lies in the anthropologists, not in the so-called 'empirical data', the pretended 'facts of the matter'.If one's method is to keep reading books, endless differing accounts of 'the facts', by numerous disputing anthropologists, as if 'The Truth' will emerge from detailed, academic study, without any reference to contending frameworks, then one is doomed to remain puzzled.Remember: Theory and practice.Both are required, in that order. Marx was onto something.The 'practical details' won't produce a 'theory'. Only you can provide yours, and you should be conscious of it.

    #109748
    LBird
    Participant
    Lewis Carroll wrote:
    “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

    The meaning of the term 'hunter gatherer' lies in the anthropologist, not in a simply observable thing, act or event.And so with the terms 'violence', 'individual', 'tribe', 'clan', 'band', etc., etc. Which is the 'master meaning'? It's a question of power and politics.Check out Humpty Dumpty's motives, robbo.

    #109749
    Hud955
    Participant

    Hi Robin, this will have to be a very short answer (for me), as I am in the last stages of preparing for my holiday.  It is nearly thirty years since I read Evans Pritchard so I don't recall much about the Nuer, but here are some things to consider.  You can tell me if they fit what you know about them.  Egalitarianism seems to be  closely related to and consequent on the way in which societies obtain their means of life.  It is principally found among hunter gatherers, both immediate and delayed return, though it does extend to some pastoralists and herders and even some horticulturalists where finely balanced factors may tip them either way.  It needs to be noted, however, that delayed return hunter gatherers, although they generally retain a largely egalitarian structure including the use of demand sharing, do tend to have some status relations and sometimes chiefs.  Structurally induced warfare on the other hand seems to be related primarily to delayed return systems and so includes states, tribes and delayed return hunter gatherers.  In other words delayed return hunter gatherers do sometimes make war, though less on the whole than tribes and states.  If I recall (correct me if I am wrong)  the Nuer have a delayed return system  so the fact that they make war would not be entirely surprising.  There is another big factor to consider, and that is the relationships of a group to other societies.  Warlike behaviour may not arise from the internal structures of a group; it may arise from the need to respond to external conditions.  Even immediate return hunter gatherers are known to have developed a warlike culture in circumstances where they are subject to attack or have been predated, often by slave traders and colonial and post colonial states.  And that is especially the case where they are hemmed in by the territorial claims of neighbouring peoples and cannot therefore flee.  I think much of this is the situation with the Nuer.Either of these conditions my therefore apply.These are, of course, highly generalised comments, so you always have to look at the ethnography of an individual group to determine what is going on among them and of course that may not always be possible.   (I think there are occasions like this when the use of rather baggy categories can be useful.  Pare them down and refine them too much and we lose the ability to make useful generalisations.)

    #109750
    Hud955
    Participant

    Just to add to that, Robin.  Immediate return hunter gatherers are largely confined to tropical regions, where food is available throughout the year.  In other latitudes the need to store food has given rise to more developed delayed return systems, and therefore to greater status relationships and to the kinds of behaviours that go with them.  In terms of human origins though, it is tropical immediate return hunter gatherers, principally those in Africa where our species began, that are important.  

    #109751
    LBird
    Participant
    Hud955 wrote:
    Structurally induced warfare on the other hand seems to be related primarily to delayed return systems and so includes states, tribes and delayed return hunter gatherers.  In other words delayed return hunter gatherers do sometimes make war, though less on the whole than tribes and states.

    Why wouldn't the concepts 'peace-band' and 'war-band' apply to these 'empirical facts'?

    #109752
    Hud955
    Participant

    I'm not entirely sure which 'empirical facts'  you are referring to, LB.   The term 'band' is only generally applicable to immediate return hunter gatherers.  Delayed return hunter gatherers are mostly sedentary or semi sedentary and do not live in communities composed of hunting bands.  If you are referring only to immediate term systems then you could, I suppose describe the majority of non-warring bands as  peace-bands' and the minority that do make war as  'war-bands', but what would be the point in this?  We can already make that distinction.  It would only add another set of complicating  labels.  It would also obscure the generalised relationship between immediate return bands and their structural propensity for peaceful behaviour which is not an a priori (definitional) relationship but one that can only be determined empirically.  And it would further obscure the fact that although some delayed-return hunter gatherers make war, not all do, and those that do, don't all the time, while few make war as frequently as tribal people.If you are wanting to identify immediate return bands as peace bands, and delayed return groups as war groups (not bands), then you would have a different kind of problem.  These labels are highly exacting, while the tendency to make war or otherwise does not map exactly onto immediate-return or delayed-retuirn hunter gatherers, for many of the reasons mentioned in my previous post.'Immediate-return' and 'delayed-return' are good and useful terms in my view since they identify a fundamental and useful aspect of the way such social groups reproduce their real lives and one that appears to have an impact on their behavour.  'Peace-band/group' and 'war-band/group' refer only to secondary behavioural characteristics of people in these different kinds of community. 

    #109753
    robbo203
    Participant
    Hud955 wrote:
    Hi Robin, this will have to be a very short answer (for me), as I am in the last stages of preparing for my holiday.  It is nearly thirty years since I read Evans Pritchard so I don't recall much about the Nuer, but here are some things to consider.  You can tell me if they fit what you know about them.  Egalitarianism seems to be  closely related to and consequent on the way in which societies obtain their means of life.  It is principally found among hunter gatherers, both immediate and delayed return, though it does extend to some pastoralists and herders and even some horticulturalists where finely balanced factors may tip them either way.  It needs to be noted, however, that delayed return hunter gatherers, although they generally retain a largely egalitarian structure including the use of demand sharing, do tend to have some status relations and sometimes chiefs.  Structurally induced warfare on the other hand seems to be related primarily to delayed return systems and so includes states, tribes and delayed return hunter gatherers.  In other words delayed return hunter gatherers do sometimes make war, though less on the whole than tribes and states.  If I recall (correct me if I am wrong)  the Nuer have a delayed return system  so the fact that they make war would not be entirely surprising.   

     Hi Richard,Like you, its a long time since I read Evans Pritchard's book on the Nuer but I still possess a copy which has been well thumbed and scribbled through (as is my habit).  EP describes the Nuer as essentially pastoralists but also "fishermen and gardeners".  So, yes, a mix of immediate and delayed return, I guess.  They are also to some extent nomadic, living in temporary villages and their social structure in EPs view, is heavily influenced by their physical environment,  They are divided into tribes which are in turn divided into territorial or tribal segments and they have no "centralised administration" . The only functional figures that stand out but have little power are the leopard skin chief and the prophet. Some points about Nuer violence.  According to EP intertribal fighting among the Nuer is generally fiercer than fighting with the neighbouring Dinka but is however governed by certain conventions – woman and children  were not molested, huts and byres were not destroyed and captives were not taken. Within the  tribe itself,  fighting among sections such as within a village itself tended to be carried using clubs rather than spears to minimise the risk of death and hence  blood feuds erupting  – quite an interesting point I thought. A brief quote from EP to give a flavour of the Nuer The ordered anarchy in which they live accords well with their character for it is impossible to live among the Nuer and conceive of rulers ruling over them. The Nuer is a product of hard and egalitarian upbringing, is deeply democratic and is easily roused to violence.  His turbulent spirit finds any restraint irksome and no man recognises a superior. Wealth makes no difference. A man with many cattle is envied but not treated differentl;y from a man with few cattle. You say also  that "There is another big factor to consider, and that is the relationships of a group to other societies" In the case of the Nuer it is (or was) mainly the Dinka who I think (I'm just giving the book a very quick skim!) are to all intents and purposes more of less identical to the Nuer. Indeed it is possible for individual Nuer tribesmen to have descended from the Dinka though they wont thank you for pointing that out and will probably club you according to EP!That very crudely is a basic summary of the Nuer and I'm wondering how these brief facts fit in with the model of violence you have put forward.  There are some things that accord with that model like the link between delayed return economies and violence chiefly because of the association of violence  with territoriality and border defence.  Other aspects of the Nuer Society I'm not quite sure of .  EPs claim that they are highly egalitarian and deeply democratic are a bit difficult to square with their apparent proneness to violence.Anyway have a great holiday and maybe take EP's book as part of your holiday reading material to ponder upon. I'm sure we will renew the discussion when you return

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