Primitive War Lecture

Primitive War Lecture Some things we can say about "primitive warfare" (dubious term): 1) Not about territory. Seizing women (Yanomamo) & pigs is closest it gets to being about wealth 2) Feud = important "These people's wars and raids yield neither prisoners, territory, nor plunder. They fulfill the obligations of the living toward the slain -- in fact, the ghosts of the slain. Unavenged ghosts bring sickness, unhappiness and possibly disaster. It is for this reason that they go to war -- and because they like to." Feud not so foreign to us: gang warfare Northern ireland Mid East soccer hooligans in UK Strange way killing binds together villages in Dead Birds. Locked together in endless cycles of reciprocal killing. Each killing brings village together in commemoration. 3) Rules: no raiding at night or during celebration of killing (Dead Birds) Wait til each side is in position to fight (Dead Birds) -like eighteenth century armies. Axe-fights: only use blunt side of blades Yanomamo agree not to use bows & arrows All forms of warfare rule-bound, but the rules differ. Looks to an outsider like Hobbesian anarchy, but it isn't 4) Warfare is chaotic: Very individualistic (dead birds & Ilongot) though Yanomamo at least take it in turns to look out for ambush and cover one another. Discipline = one of great achievements of Western warfare: drilling (Foucault writes on this in Discipline and Punish) getting men to stand ground while charged and to rely on others to shoot with them at assailants We'd criticize Ilongots’ & New Guineans’ lack of tactics & discipline They criticize immorality of our form of warfare where one man orders another into danger 5) Fight to show will & save face. (Don't always really want to fight & kill? -- Chagnon). Similar to Western chivalric code & Wild west code of manliness. Do we see anything similar in U.S. behavior? 6) Killing as spiritually invigorating. Killing man = "tonic to the soul" (Dead Birds). Resonance with WWI discourse 7) Raiding as game with score & turn-taking. cf. Elaine Scarry on was as an “injuring contest” 8) Women and children fair game for New Guineans. Yanomamo not supposed to kill women -- tho can rape them Our distinction between combatants & non-combatants doesn't seem to apply -- though war = very gendered: for men to do. (Are feminists right that it's not women as victims but women as fighters that male soldiers can't stand?) 9) War as rite of passage for men (cf. Ehrenreich): Ilongot men get red hornbill earrings when take a head 10) More wounding than killing Death ends fighting pretty much (Iongot & Dead Birds) Wounds as mnemonics: Yanomamo skulls with scars Chopped fingers in New Guinea bleeding soccer fans having photo taken as souvenir