updatorama
ok, so that whole update every day thing tanked like all hell. But I'll keep plowing away at it. I'm super happy fun time about my new lap top. I feel all Kid Video while I'm taking class notes on this thing. Want to take a peek at my class notes? Well too bad. It's late, I'm tired and damn it, you'll come out of the experience more enriched.
War Peace & Violence Class Notes
February 23, 2005
Inuit, Bushmen & Australian aborigines
Three main foraging groups discussed by LeBlanc
There is a brief discussion on page 124-126 about Cro-Magnons
Discussing upper Paleolithic period beyond Neandertals
Dolni Vestonice, has a little museum and some stuff in Austria
Also some discussion about Africa Upper Paleolithic and North America (Kennewick man) & PaleoIndian
There’s a little summary statement about the different kinds of evidence
Anytime there’s a lot of variables in one place the potential of something violent being the cause is slim
Mentions lots of bodies found in different places
What are other pieces of alleged evidence?
Re: burial sites: pg 125 “the heads with parts of the necks still attached in bits…”
Above is Mesolithic (talking lady brought it up)
It’s thrown in as part of evidence of the case
Are the analogies that he draws accurate (between Prehistoric and modern groups)
We’ll make the case that we’re dealing with high end groups that do not make a good analogy
Dolni Vestonice: a failed mammoth hunt, mass burial of fighting age males who have wounds to the head, could have been killed in mammoth hunt (but warfare is more credible given high up location according to LeBlanc) so every high up village is because of defensive?
Wall or fence of mammoth bones? (boy, what an impenetrable wall), “blows to the head or cutmarks on bones, including possible cases”
Just the bashes on the skull alone are not gonna do it to prove warfare
Western Europe evidence according to him is rock art. Humans shown in various scenes of battles, & Sudanese example is graveyards of foragers with arrows and spears in the body (really terminal Paleolithic or early Holocene, and dynamics of Nile Valley is riper for Conflict)
North American evidence: Kennewick Man and Pacific Northwest sites. Most of these are the same skeletons (Spirit Cave) that are also said to me ethnically distinct from other groups “Caucasoidal” features, perhaps Na-dene groups that are having conflict with established group, and a lot of these sites are Early Holocene, not ice age. A lot of this is antecdotal, not a statistically viable way of looking at the data. Discussion about Santa Barbara material is a lot later stuff as well.
If he’s free to discuss this later stuff in North America then later stuff from Old World should be brought in.
Overall, yes there are cases of patterned violence, but what is the prevalence?
What is the main meat of the chapter? Ethnographic record of warfare.
Really starts the discussion around page 114. talks a bit about infanticide before this (113) “Infanticide was common among all foragers and all Eskimo groups, it was significant among South American foragers like the Ache….” In terms of these other groups, these are just thrown out as provocative statements when its really limited to the High Arctic and some Australian groups (best case for systematic practice, but even there is debate about prevalence) you can always question the particular time the data is being gathered, as well as other conditions. In other words, how representative of the culture is the time period observed?
As cultural practices that are invariant over time, this is unlikely to be included. Ache lived much of the year in mission sites, and they were only really observed while away from the missions, and that’s when they focused on meat in their diets. So the ethnographic data only reflects their “field seasons”
Ok, now page 114:
Starts out with the Australians: original studies around 1800 by Buckley, where he discusses a fight between two hostile tribes. Addresses coast versus interior later on:
On page 120 prevalent aboriginal model is that its not lethal, does not acknowledge that warfare is common and they had tools of warfare (this is LeBlanc’s theory, not popular) (talking lady brings up red kangaroo defense)
Also rock art showing warfare and skeletons that reflect warfare, only a few but that demonstrates common warfare according to him
Back to Buckley’s discussion in late 1700’s , Europeans arrived on the Coast, so they hit this “most violent” group first
Arnhem Land region, 25% of men died in warfare, terminology for six different types of fighting, etc….all further points of evidence, but when we look at them its really clear that when we see them is on the coast. Tindale established that there was higher population density on coast than inland (up to 40 times)
Coastal group had fish weirs, landscape modification with fire, intensive gathering, doing some quasi agricultural things, pretty different than highly nomadic lifestyle. LeBlanc fails to draw some of the distinctions between these coastal and inland groups.
In regards to Bushmen: “Kung People of today are not the Kung people of the past”. Classifies them linguistically pg 113. he says they perpetuate myth of peace in the past because they are peaceful now
Groups of these small bushmen bands defended territories from Bantu. Rockart depicted battle scenes
Some Bantu farming groups use Bushmen as their guards. In the other article LeBlanc mentions how this data could be manipulated to misrepresent people. Re: fight in Namibia when they were drawn in, but in this case they were pressed to fight.
Dutch accounts of raiding rival groups. Defending particularly productive trees (in general going along with Eiblesfeldt)
Third group is the Arctic: evidence is infanticide again, significant warfare among the Inuit in general, slat armor (but most of this is in the Bering Sea region). Ethnographically collected oral histories as well. Bows made from bone, high quality implies they were used for war rather than hunting. Mentions Tiger Birch’s work. One of most noted of independent researchers, affiliated with Smithsonian. Wrote a book called “the Eskimo nations of Northwest Alaska” he really initiated the notion that there was warfare among Eskimo groups. Before he started doing this twenty years ago no one really knew about it.
Further south Anne Reardon took up the guantlent and tried to elicit from elders and determined that there was warfare from Yup’ik. But when you get the stories you don’t know how statistically common it is.
Birch talks about warfare between Eskimo and Athabaskan groups and between Eskimo groups.
Some of the different kinds of things Birch was talking about the frequency of warfare, the areas it happened, defensive fortification (tunnels dug in houses, dogs,) some open battles. Lines of men facing each other with shields and bows and arrows. Talks about one archaeological site in Beaufort Sea with skeletal evidence on men, women and children. Brings it closer to home with Ahtna island between Ahtna and Eskimo. A lot of these uncovered by Frederica de Laguna and oil spill. Mummy island as well. Lots of these places considered highly sacred and of course they’ll be defended
Then we have this argument about going from population regulation. Another way of looking at it was under conditions where optimal conditions led to growth, higher density led to higher probability for conflict. (this looks at same data as population regulation theory)
In regards to infanticide, its inclusion as murder is still up in the air
From the Bushman myth-article. By Robert Gordon (pg 74)
Explores how bushman have been seen over time. The rulers of South Africa were mostly Dutch, but German influences. Predominance of german ethnographers (Eibelsfeldt). Shapea, studied a lot before Lee ever got there.
Original attitude was wild and savage, vermin of the veldt. He talks about Botswana bushman and Bantu farmers. Bantu forced them into more and more remote areas. They occupied areas outside highly desert like areas that they are confined to today. In 1906 and 1914 policy to wipe out the Bushman. In Nazi Germany there is a parallel. “Radically conservative individuals” cut their teeth on the Bushmen debate. Bushmen as noble hunter gatherers or marginalized ekeing out existence. Early stages of development of humans and prehumans. More likely to present a primitive stage. Curious that those groups furthest from Europe were considered more primitive. Key to understanding 19 and early 20th century thinking today. They have been romanticized in a Rousseuian state of nature. LeBlanc represents cycling back to that earlier idea.
Resolving Conflict Within the Law: The Mardu Aborigines of Australia: Tonkinson
In beginning he does talk about modern world and Brigg’s article “drinking and killing people” How has alcohol messed things up: this cultural lag in dealing with alcohol as an institutional phenomena. Can’t deal well with this unstructured conflict with alcohol. Led to a big escalation in injuries and death. People would rather flee than confront drunks. We’re looking at rules to deal with situations where the rules fall apart. Ie. Rules for breaking the rules. The point is that its very difficult to have rules for this yet. Aimed at minimizing the impact of alcohol (brings up Jigalong). There is this concept of law.
The concept of the Law really derives from indigenous cultural mode, not Western influence.
Are all hunter gatherers by definition peaceful?
All kinds of mechanisms for minimizing conflict and antisocial tendencies. But there is deviation which is a threat to the order. Tonkinson says the exact opposite of LeBlanc about structures, saying that they are clearly to reduce conflict, not evidence of conflict.
In desert rainfall is not predictable, so you don’t set hard and fast rules on letting people in your territory because you don’t want hard and fast rules to apply to you. No evidence for long standing group animosity. Tonkinson is looking at central desert, LeBlanc is looking at the coast.
Rest of the chapter discusses what happens when conflict does occur. Next time look at management techniques, Southeast Asian group articles. Particularly read the Samai.
February 28, 2005
Reading up on the Southwest Asian stuff.
Up till now been looking at simple hg’s and Paleolithic hg’s.
Now looking at Southeast Asian foragers. Phillipines, Malaysia and India. Rainforest groups. One group violent and the other two peaceful. They illustrate a number of points, to what degree are they always have been hg’s? have some been formerly associated with agriculture. Have they been marginalized in some way? What is the long term history of these groups? What is their level of interaction with others? How much does the impact of these other groups have in characterizing these groups as peaceful or violent?
Ilongot headhunters by Rosaldo. Since his wife died he readily empathizes with his subjects.
In a way it illustrates some of the broader problems of anthropology as a whole, what is the historical context for which people were violent and nonviolent?
Its an explanation to say that headhunting occurs because of grief.
Article that wasn’t put up
Another view of the Semai, ghost and witches (Semai peacefulness) reversal of normal human behavior, cannibalism, murder, etc.. goes back to 1950’s psychoanalytical theory that in more complex societies with coercive institutions , hg’s are in contrast because they do not have institutionalized control. You find witchcraft accusations where this control is missing. Yet Semai do not have witchcraft. Because it would be too damaging to this very small scale egalitarian society and an attempt to show concepts of good is related to band members and all bad is embodied in others, so no band members can be witches. So how do deal with the problem of people breaking the norms of society? The idea is to do it through ghosts. Encompasses a lot of the idea of what witches do. Ghosts are not living people. You can place a lot the blame on others and ghosts. When a death occurs they come in droves and eat the corpse. Ghosts like witches are especially good vehicles of evil, and direct hostility. Why kill the ghosts of kinsmen?
The witch image of foreign malevolence is increasing. Increasing external orientation.
Dentan article
Actively oppressed.
March 2, 2005
“Peace is a practical solution, not a Utopian myth” the author intro
Dentan talks about the characterizations of the Semai. In-group out group sort of thing relationship. Clearly there’s some kind of linkage suggested. Second suggestion is basically the thesis of the rest of his paper.
Top of page 170 discusses suicide and how it is not born of rage. Thus its an extension of the concept of peace.
Kids are not expected to get hurt. But they do get angry: they can withdraw. They break off contact with the person with whom they are angry. Rarity of violence within the community. People as a result have no experience with violence, they consider it abnormal. They gossip maliciously.
Semai have capacity for violence, but unwilling. Dentan does give himself an “out” with saying it’s a conjectural history.
Semai repeatedly subjected to pacification and slavery.
Pg. 172 this belief system that sanctifies and justifies slavery …
Fear born peace, is it peace
How contextual are some of the statements being made there? Semai response to state is to flee with pulses of invasion, if it was constant it wouldn’t work.
So is it pacification if they avoid the confrontation?
they would shun violence when they would lose by it, so its an adaption. They have accepted their plight in the face of more dominant neighbors.
What advantages do oppressors have when people withdraw?
Sometimes it’s to their disadvantage
One could get on with the business of living life. What is the difference of Buddhist serenity and depression?
Fight, flight, caring for children as responses to violence. Surrenders only under particular conditions.
Violence as a reproductive strategy
Basic idea is that just because you’re the dominant culture it doesn’t mean that you have more kids, there’s a relationship between having kids (176) and how healthy you are.
“Prolonged stress and agonistic male behavior” is unhealthy. Ie. Too much testosterone is bad for you.
There’s other theories, such as the Show Off Hypothesis, but researcher did not find a correlation between showing off and differential reproductive success.
So consider men going off to war, what is the evolutionary advantage? Sociobiologically your genes are held back home, hence getting married before you take off.
Need to look at history of a group and region where in the face of the loss of power over a long period of time then withdrawal is an optimal strategy.
On 179. there’s men looking after children, gender inequalities minimal. In communities where all the members look after the children there is less violence.
Fear of outsiders means love of insiders? No.
Read Chapter 7 and chapter 9 and chapter 4, Violence and Warfare in the Past
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