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Aggregation and aggression The state of war in anthropological thoughtThomas S. Ablera

a Ethnohistorian in the Department of Anthropology, University of Waterloo,

Online publication date: 05 July 2010

To cite this Article Abler, Thomas S.(1991) 'Aggregation and aggression: The state of war in anthropological thought',Reviews in Anthropology, 17: 1, 285 — 294

To link to this Article DOI 10.1080/00988157.1991.9977929

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Reviews in Anthropology, Vol. 17, pp. 285-294 ©1991 Gordon and Breach Science Publishers S.A.

Reprints available directly from the publisher Printed in the United States of America

Photocopying permitted by license only

Aggregation and Aggression The State

of War in Anthropological Thought

hom s S Abler

Foster, Mary Lecron, and Robert A. Rubinstein, eds. Peace and War:

Cross-Cultural Perspectives. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction

Books, 1986. vii + 369 pp. including chapter references and index.

$29.95 cloth, $16.95 paper.

Mann, Michael. The Sources of Social Power: Volume I: A History of Power

from the Beginning to A.D. 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1986. v + 549 pp. including chapter bibliographies and index.

$59.50 cloth, $18.95 paper.

Shamgar-Handelman, Lea. Israeli War Widows: Beyond the Glory of Hero-ism. South Hadley, Massachusetts: Bergin and Garvey, 1986. vii + 219

pp. including index, appendices, chapter notes, and references. $29.95

cloth.

James Silverberg (p. 281 in the Foster and Rubinstein volume hereafter cited asP&W) notes that within and between human aggregates there remains open thepossibility of coalition, coexistence, or combat. In the same work, Rumanian

political scientist and former diplomat Silviu Brucan argues that the origin of warmust be sought in both basic types of human aggregation—ethnicity and class

(P&W p. 249). Thus one can look for the causes of combat, the third of Silverberg's

triad, not in an innate tendency of humans to be aggressive but rather in ourtendency to aggregate into social units. Throughout the evolution of human society

there has been a steady tendency to aggregate into larger and larger groups. This

ultimately led to the creation of the state with its ability to maintain internal order

and peace. Also throughout the evolution of human society relations with neigh-

bors on occasion took the form of aggression. The aggregation of populations into

larger social units, such as the state and its various forms, has simply increased thedestructive power that the social unit can inflict upon a neighbor. While the three

books here under review are disparate, all deal with a central theme of warfare inhuman society. It is also clear from reading these volumes that the understanding of

war by social scientists remains an area with room for growth.

THOMA S S. A B L E R IS an ethnohistorian in the Department of Anthropology at the University of W aterloo. His paper,

Iroquois Cannibalism: Fact not Fiction appeared in Ethnohistory. He organized a session on Late Prehistoric

and Historic Warfare in Northeastern North America for the 20th Annual Chacmool Conference (Conference

theme— Cultures in Conflict ), Department of A rchaeology, University of Calgary, November, 1987.

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286 T . S . A bler

The Foster and R ubinstein volume consists of 27 pap ers p lus introduction andconclusion. Twenty-six scholars con tributed, 21 of them being anthro polo gists, twobeing political scientists, one an ind ustrial engineer, one a psychiatrist, and anothe r

a practicing psychiatrist affiliated with an anthropology department. Most holdacademic appointments within U.S. academic institutions, but other countriesrepresented include R omania, B elgium, Mexico, the N etherlands, the U nion ofS oviet S ocialist R epublics, an d the Un ited Kingd om . The book g rew ou t of a four-day sym posium at the 11th International C ongress of the A nthropological andE thnological S ciences held in Vancouver, B ritish Colum bia, in 1983.

Peace an d War resembles three earlier volumes on war by anthropo logists wh ichassemble papers and discussion delivered to academic conferences (Fried et al.1968; N ettleship et al. 1975; Given an d N ettleship 1976) w hich have been described

as "bewildering because of the unarticulated diversity of ideas presented" (Fer-guson 1984a:2). Topics covered range from the motivation of warriors in specificsocieties to the relations amon g the sup er po w ers. I suspec t most other read ers willagree with m e that the editors might have taken a firmer han d; som e of the p apersincluded might have been more appropriately published elsewhere so that thevolume might have more unity. One can contrast this with the recently publishedexamination of war from a cultural materialist perspective (Ferguson 1984b) which,because of a comm on theoretical perspective (and also a focus alm ost entirely up onpeoples traditionally examined by anthropologists), is much more a book rather

than a collection of essays as is the case in the volume under review. It would beimpossible to provide a critique of each paper in this volume. In this review I willmention aspects of papers that particularly struck me, especially if those pointsrelate particularly to w hat I perceive as common elements w ith the other two w orkshere un de r review or if they relate to w hat I perceive as stren gth s an d w eaknesse s ofthe anthropology of war.

It is worthy of note tha t several authors in th is volume po int to the fact that peaceand w ar are not clear alternatives. S ilverberg (P&W p. 281) points out "p o li ti c s. .. issimply w ar carried o ut by non violent m ean s (to reverse von C lausewitz)." Frederick

Gam st in a well-w ritten sum m ary of war in the horn of A frica generalizes to notethat war and peace are in reality "polarities on a continuum." He argues that "anirregular cycle exists in war and peace with transition ph ase s, for exam ple, peacefulwartime (Sitzkreig) and hostile peace (Cold War)" {P&W p. 147). S imilarly, S amA rkesian in an analysis of percep tions of U.S . military capability notes that there isa "conflict spectrum" (P&W p. 211). R onald C oh en in an ana lysis of the frequen cy ofwar in industrial and non-industrial state systems mentions difficulties in usingbattlefield de aths as an indicator that a w ar has taken place (P&W p. 260—he citesthe Un iversity of Michigan Co rrelates of War Project wh ich d id n ot coun t conflict as

war u nles s 1000 died in battle). Gam st echoes this, asse rting that "actual d eterm ina-tion of the occurence of war must be done by arbitrary definition" (P&W p. 147).

It is asserted here that anth ropo logists have not given war the attention tha t is itsdu e, sentiments repeated by Foster and R ubinstein (P&W p. xii) and R ik Pinxten(P&W p. 269). Paul D oug hty finds in w ritings on w ar a "literature not impressivewhen compared to other anthropological literature" (P&W p. 105). However, onemight question how familiar these authors are with the literature that does exist.Foster an d R ubin stein fail to cite the w ork of Turney-High (1971), O tterbein (1968,1970,1973), Otterbe in an d O tterb ein (1965), Vayda (1976), or Wolf (1973). I nco m plete




Aggregation and Aggression 2 8 7

as it is, Divale's (1973) bibliography also deserves mention. Doughty does citeTurney-High and Wolf's recent (1982) book on E uro pea n ex pansio n bu t ignores th eother w orks just m entio ned . P inxten do es cite two of Otterbein's wo rks (1967; 1977[=1973 mentioned above]), but not the obvious one (1970). Moreover, Feest wouldprobably agree that his delightful study of artistic aspects of weaponry (1980,wh ich he with som e wit entitled The A rt o f War) do es not constitute "one of the mo stthoroug h stud ies in the anthrop ology of war" as Pinxten describes it (P&W p. 269).De spite the assertions by Foster and R ubinstein, by Doughty, and b y Pinxten, Iwou ld arg ue there is a solid basis of scholarship in the anthropo logy of war, smallbu t very solid. A failure to build on that foundation considerably w eakens aspectsof several of the papers found in Peace an d War.

In his paper, Walter Goldschmidt makes the rather puzzling (to me, anyway)

comm ent that anthropo logists "have for good intellectual and moral reasons lookedaway from this aspect [warfare] of tribal life" (P&W p. 9). Foster seem s to considerthe idea "repugnant" that "warfare has often been a successful coping device"(P&W p. 354). It is perh ap s a problem not only that m any anthrop ologists ignorewar as a topic to investigate in their field research but also that they ignore theliterature on war that does exist within the discipline.

S ome of the pape rs concentrate on the m otivations of the individu al w ho goes towar. Goldschm idt concentrates up on this issue. M . Margaret C lark in a provocativepaper focuses upon risk-seeking behavior. Carol Greenhouse makes the observa-tion that we "tend no t to question the 'prim itive' soldier's enthu siasm for the fight"(P&W p. 52). It is a B elgian psy chiatrist wh o gets cart an d horse in the right order,however. B arnard H uy gh e brilliantly reanalyz es H erdt's (1981) data on the S ambiaof New Guinea. Huyghe points out that the "argument that war creates a need forcertain typ es of men an d w omen has it backw ards, for group s of m en are culturallyconditioned to choose to become and to breed warriors, and once war begins, avicious circle with continued fighting and intensification of aggression is estab-lished" (P&W p. 45).

I do strongly feel that a mistake in several of these p ape rs is the assu m ption that if

we know why individuals go to war we will know why states (and non-statesocieties) fight each other. I t is in fact an im po rtan t ques tion as to how a society cansocialize a population so that individuals willingly put themselves at great risk(although Clark's paper mentioned above suggests that such behavior is perhapsnot as aberrant as I, a "devout coward," would intuitively believe it to be). Thecontentious issue of the cause of war has been subject to great and heated debate(see New com bl95 0,19 69 ; H allpike 1973; Koch, 1974; Divale a nd H arris 1976; Vayda1961,1976, 1979; and the papers in Ferguson 1984b, especially Ferguson's [1984a]superb review of the literature of war in the introduction to that volume). I findmyself in agreement with Jill Furst that "there is a need to separate quite firmly thepractical reasons for a war from its rhetoric" (P&W p. 103). I also am in agreem entwith her that "identification with the land, and ownership of it [I would sayresources rather than land], often lie at the root of conflict" (P&W p. 147). Gamstconcurs. "W arfare. . . is a social institution ordinarily resulting from economic andpolitical causes, often for the control of resource s" (P&W p. 147). U nfortuna tely theother authors of pap ers in this volume for the m ost p art ignore this central issue inmatters of peace and war.

I t is certainly true, as Peter Worsley points ou t, that "warfare is . . . not a




288 T . S . A bler

phenom enon w hich emerges with the state, and older anthropological and pop ularnotions that societies like the E skimo w ere free from m urd er a nd other kinds ofphysical violence can safely be dism issed as pastoral m yth " (P&W p. 299). How ever,

it clearly is also true that, as R onald Cohen has arg ued earlier, "states mak e war a ndw ars m ake states" (Cohen 1984). S everal pap ers consider war relative to the evolu-tion of culture, the development of states, and the state system as it exists in theworld today. Worsley's paper is in fact one of these in which he compares contem-porary conflict between states to the acephalous political fields which politicalanthro polog ists have been analyzin g for d ecad es. Worsley also refreshingly rejects"the traditional binary opposition between A merican 'cultural' anthropology andB ritish 'structural' or social anthropo logy " (P&W p. 293). He m akes a very cogentpoint about the comm on culture of warring groups w hen he points to the values an d

norms that are shared upon the battlefield (the "rules" of war). Gamst points outthat "the state exists by and for its monopoly on violence and force" and that"periodic open warfare is a hallmark of civilization." Indeed, he suggests that astate is a war waiting to happen" (P&W p. 148). S imilarly, C ohen arg ue s th at "theearly state was a war m achine" (P&W p. 264) bu t he also sees the frequency of w arsas a product of the number of neighbors a state has, that is the number of states inthe state system.

I will retu rn to Peace and War below, but it is now ap prop riate to take u p the secondof the books u nd er review, because it picks u p the them e of the relationship b etween

the state, conflict, a nd power. Michael Mann 's lengthy volume is but the first of aprop osed three-volume work to "provide a histor y an d theo ry of power relations inhu m an societies" (p. 1). This m ight to some be an aw esome task, bu t M ann clearlyfeels himself up to it. The project grew out of a paper he wrote "which purportednot only to refute Karl Marx and reorgan ize Max Weber but also to offer the outlinesof a better general theory of social stratification and social change" (p. vii). Manncertainly is not inhibited by self-doubt. Some might find such honest arrogancedisturbing; I found it refreshing. The enthusiasm he has for his own ideas iscatching.

Mann considers himself a comparative sociologist but recognizes that in histhree volumes h e will be w riting a h istory of all hum an societies as well as w riting ahistor y of power in society. There is mu ch in this volume w hich anthrop ologists willfind of interest, and Mann draws heavily upon anthropologists for some of hisch apte rs. I nde ed, he pays tribute to "the creative fusion of A merican social sciencein archaeology an d anthro polo gy" (p. 121). I n this review I will men tion a few pointswhich Mann has, in my opinion, misinterpreted contemporary anthropologicalthought, and doubtless other readers will find others. I do think, however, mostreaders will be impressed by Mann's breadth and depth of scholarship as demon-

strated in this book.M ann sug gests that reade rs migh t wish to skip his initial theoretical cha pter a nd

instead to begin with his substantive chapters and to return to the theory only ifone can not follow his argument. To do this would be a mistake for there is somefood for thought for political anthropologists in the initial chapter.

Mann recognizes "four sources of social power." These four are ideological,economic, military, and political. He characterizes these as both "overlappingnetwo rks of social interaction" an d "institutional m eans of attaining h um an goals"




A ggregation and A ggress ion 2 8 9

(p. 2). This approach proves to be a powerful tool for analyzing change anddevelopm ent in the d istribution of power in social fields. H is framework of an alysisbrings great clarity to his analysis of specific historical processes.

There are flaws in M ann's presentation w hich anthropo logists w ill find aggravat-ing. First, as he puts forth in his second chapter, he has difficulty conceiving ofpower without the state. One might wonder if political anthropology, as born inFortes an d E vans-P ritchard (1940), ha d never given its first na tal cry, let alone gro wnto maturity. S econd, he dism isses evolution at the po int that states come into being ,since here there are so few cases that one has simply history rather than generalevolution. However, when he goes on to consider the emergence of civilization, heargue s that the six or so cases we have are in fact "patterned " (p. 73). S uch pattern ingwo uld not, to my m ind, su ppo rt M ann's assertion that social an d cultural evolution"ended" with the advent of agricultural production. Third, he takes a very oldfashioned, E urocentric (indeed A nglocentric) view of history. He is adm ittedlydisarmingly cavalier and open in this. I really question that the "cutting edge" ofpower, to use his phrase, made a steady progression in time migrating to itsinevitable (an d rightful?) home in L ond on. I fail to find his dism issal of Chin a as aworld power prior to the expansion of E urope as convincing of any thing other th anethnocentrism. I must say, however, that he is aware of the tenuous nature of hisposition and that he presents arguments to defend himself. I feel his argum ents arewo rth reading, even if the reader mig ht in the end be unconvinced. On e could alsopoint to some minor points, such as his claim that "most gatherer-hunters do notpossess fixed territories" (p. 42).

Other aspects of his argument I find attractive. I would disagree with bothassertions in the title of his second chapter—"the end of general social evolution:how prehistoric peoples evaded power"—but elements of the presentation providea realistic view on non-state socio-political organization. I have always been trou-bled w ith th e chiefdom (S ervice 1962,1971,1975). I thin k M ann is right in consider-ing this usually as only a temporary phase in a cycle that returns to become afundamen tally egalitarian social system . People p u t u p w ith chiefs if they have to,but when normalcy returns, the egalitarian ethos returns. Leach's (1954) observa-tions amon g the Kachin of Highlan d B urma are representative of a general process.To quo te M ann : "Most of prehistory of society saw no sustained movem ent towa rdstratification of the state. Movement toward rank and political authority seemsendemic b ut reversib le (p. 6 7, emphasis added). He goes on to note that people"have rarely given away pow ers to elites that they could n ot recover; and w he n theyhave, they have had oppo rtunity, or been pre ssure d, to move away physically fromthat s phe re of power" (p. 67). He also feels tha t it is rare that th e elites them selves are"unitary." The overlapping and competing authorities among the elites—elders,lineage heads, big men, and chiefs—dilute powers of individual members of the

elite and leave openings to be exploited by the egalitarian mass.

M any anthro pologists (including m any archaeologists wh o have a great affectionfor the chiefdom) wou ld d ispu te th is. I think that M ann has it right. The concept ofchiefdom has always appeared to me to be one of the more abused terms in theanthropological literature. I think M ann has p ut chiefdoms in their proper place; itshould not be a m ystery if a chiefdom disa pp ear s or collapses—it is in the na ture ofthe beast to do so.

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Th ose familiar wit h th e literature on th e emergen ce of civilization an d the s tate inM esopotamia and M esoamerica will find mu ch that is familiar in Man n's cha pter o nthat topic. Mann himself does not "pretend to originality" (p. 76) for much of his

argument. However, certain aspects of Mann's terminology and metaphor willconstitute a contribution to that literature and will deserve citation in subsequentpublication on the to pic. He argu es: "Through it all was a drift toward g reater f ixityof settlement and organization, the core of the evolutionary story. Fixed settlementtraps people into living with each other, cooperating, and devising more complexforms of social organization. The metaphor of a caged society is approp riate" (p. 42,em pha sis in the original). The m etapho r of the "caged society" is one I expect willendure, or at least be subjected to test, in future literature on the emergence ofthe state and civilization.

It is important to note that while Mann considers the military as only one of thesour ces of social power, it is an extrem ely significant on e, at least in his a naly sis ofthe development of society from the origins of the state to the development ofE uropean agrarian states. M ann sees the importance of the military-industrialcomplex to the state beginnings is their combined origin with "high-investmentdefence . . . both in fortifications and in the dense, slow-moving phalanxes ofinfantry and animal carts that constituted the early arm ies" (p. 100). A lthough hedo es not use the ph ras e, he sug gests the military as the wo rld's oldest profession (p.194). The domination of the state by the military continues, for even in the mid-

eightee nth cen tury "the functions of the state app ear overw helmingly military andoverw helming ly geop olitical rather th an economic and dom estic" (p. 511). A fter1400, states in E uro pe grew dramatically, bu t almo st all of this gro w th lay in m ilitary(including naval) exp end iture. A lso, between 1560 and 1660 E urope experienced a"M ilitary R evolution" (pp. 453-458 ; see R oberts 1967) w hich ha d a direct impactupon the state.

M ann is relatively soph isticated in his discussion of the develop men t of m ilitarypower. He does confuse w eap on s system s with branch es of the military— infantry,cavalry, and artillery—suggesting that the first two belong to the last when using

bow s and arrow s. This is w ron g. H e fails to mention the distinction b etween missilean d shock weap on s (a comm on d istinction in the literature on war, see Turney-High1971) which would have saved him from the error cited. The disciplinary require-m ents of shock w eapo ns an d th e relationship to power an d organization are in factimplicit in the argument he presents. More important, however, is his emphasisupon logistics, a topic the anthropologists of war would do well to examine. It isseldom considered how a military force feeds itself when penetrating enemyterritory. (A n exception is H arris's [1985:216-218] explanation of battlefield can ni-balism )

Warfare and war-making institutions have been of great significance in thedevelopm ent of early states and in the formation of Post-R enaissance states inE uro pe, as Man n ha s clearly dem on strated . They continue to be of significance inthe m ode rn state system . A feeling is often exp ressed that anthropo logists sho uldbe subjecting this to their own examination, but it is a task that anthropologistsoften fail to do well. This is possibly because, as Foster points out, we are nottrained to do macrolevel research (P&W p. 354) or because w e are not trained aspolicy scientists (B ela M aday in P&W). S everal pap ers in the Foster and R ubinstein




Aggregation and Aggression 2 91

volume m ake an attem pt at looking at peace and war in the m odern state system,w ith W orsley's bein g the m ost successful general effort an d w ith W illiam B eeman'sanalysis of the negotiations surrou nd ing th e Iranian-A me rican hostage crisis of1979-1981 (P&W p. 333-342) giving ho pe that anthrop ology can m ake a contribu-tion to issue s of conflict in the w orld. He outlines the basic beliefs of U.S . S tateDepartment officials as to how the world functions and shows how these beliefsprevented movement toward resolving the crisis. This particular piece would beexcellent read ing for introductory an thropology stud en ts in A merican colleges anduniversities, assuming that the U.S. government and media persist in their presentstance vis-a-vis the current regime in Iran.

B eeman's study is perh aps the sort that David Mandlebaum had in mind in hiscall for anthropologists to study military institutions of modern states (P&W p.316). A nother pap er in this volume , A lexander R andall's analysis of the culture ofUn ited S tates m ilitary enclaves, is not as insightful. (R andall, to be fair, did not visitU. S. military bases w ith the g oal of stud yin g their culture ; he was there as a teacher.)Nonetheless, his claim that "the official doctrine of the military is egalitarian" isastounding B oth he and Goldschmidt do m ake the telling point of what smallportion of the contemporary military institution is in fact composed of combattroo ps. M ost contem porary soldiers are bureaucrats not w arriors, a significant factin their motivations as they play their roles.

I n the third book unde r review here, L ea S ham gar-Handelm an examines aspectsof the life of w idow s following a war. Professor S ham gar-H andelm an holds a p ostin a sociology department, but this book is the culmination of work initiated by asocial worker at the behest of the Israeli Ministry of Defence.

In this study the widows are those of personnel who were killed in the Six-DayWar of 1967. The prim ary pe riod of investigation covered the y ear s from 1970 to 1972(when a report was subm itted to the Ministry of Defence) w ith research continuingto 1975. The prima ry data are derived from interviews with 7 widow s, a group withwhom S hamg ar-Handelman obviously has great sym pathy and w hose rapport sheseems to have enjoyed.

This sample is large, relative to the population under investigation. For reasonsnot mad e clear neither childless widows nor widow s wh o were kibbutz m em berswere included in the population to be sampled. This left 234 women, so nearly athird were interviewed. Care was taken to obtain a random sample of 25 per centfrom across Israel and in addition all the widows in one urban center were inter-viewed. Here the interest was to see the degree to which widows interacted andsupported each other.

The complete sample is described in an appen dix. A ssuming what is writtenthere can be taken at face value, I feel there might be ethical questions in the datarevealed there. E ach wido w is identified by initials, wh ich one wo uld expect to be

false. However, each is described in great detail, with notation of such matters asage, birthplace of the widow a nd h er late husb an d, family com position, occupationof the widow and her late husband, etc. If these data have been disguised, there islittle point in including them ; if they are true, they could, one w ould expect, lead toeasy identification of the women involved. Particular problems arise when thesedata are linked to materials in the text, such as details of family stru ctur e (includingstrains w ith in-laws), financial troubles, and other m atters. A social worker is

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quo ted (pp. 37-38) as defining N o. 62 of the samp le as having limited intelligence.(S hamgar-Handelman does state her disagreement w ith this evaluation, but thenone wonders about the reaction of the social worker in reading this passage.)

The text documents the relation of the widows to the state, both as the statedefined their situation and its obligation to the wido w and as the ma nn er in wh ichas individuals the widows dealt with individual bureaucrats of the state. Shamgar-Handelman goes on to document how widowhood led to changes in householdstructure and to relationships with family and friends. Household structure wasquite variable because of changing circumstances (age, economic position) ofrelatives who might form a joint household with a widow. I do find it strange thatA ppendix II lists household apparently consisting of a widow and her children as a"nuclear family h ouse hold ." I also find it strang e that the issue of wido w rem arriageis not taken u p in the book. A lso, no tables of statistical information are p resen ted,although data were gathered which could have been easily quantified and pre-sented in that form. I nstead the "docum entation" is almost exclusively from directquotations of the w idow s themselves and description s of the case histories of som eof them.

These stories do have an im pact that quantified data in a table would not have. A swars go , the Six-Day War was not large. S hamg ar-Handelman has provided us w itha clear imag e of the im pact of even such a sm all war on the families of thos e killedin battle.

R eading this book led me to reflect again on the n ature of the anthropologicalliterature on war. It has been estimated that around 25 percent of the male popula-tion of the Y anomamo (Ch agn on 1968:140), the D ani (H eider 1979:106), an d the M aeE nga (M eggitt 1977:110) die in w ar. E we rs (1980:212) su gg est s o ne p erc en t of theB lackfoot m en w ere killed in battle each year in bison hu ntin g day s.

1 Were these all

bachelors or did these men leave wives and children? If the latter how do thesesocieties deal w ith w idow hoo d from a hu sba nd 's death in battle? M eggitt providessome data w hile E wers sees war as a causal factor in polygyny.

I t is more th an a wife wh o suffers w hen a male dies at war. I n E nglish w e have asocial category of widow (and indeed, we have the phrase "war widow"), but wehave no separate term for the parents or siblings of a young man slain in battle.Graphic images of initial grief (Gardner 1963; Gardner and Heider 1969) are foundin our anthropological libraries, but I think the field is open for investigation of thehuman cost of war upon those who survive it. There are some data available,however. Meggitt separates bachelor death s from those of married Mae E nga an ddiscusses widow remarriage, to point to one example. To point to others, Lowie(1935) discusse d the relationship of the C row warrior to h is kins m an, especially hisparen ts, an d o utlined the obligations if he died at war. R ichter (1983) docum ents therole of grief and mourning in Iroquois war.

A s I indicated earlier in this essay, I strongly believe the anthropological literatureon warfare, when one concentrates on works of substance rather than polemic, ishigher than is usually conceded. We know a great deal about war in certain hu m ansocieties; we know eno ugh ab out w ar to make reason able generalizations ab out itsoccurence cross-culturally and about its place in the evolution of society. There is,however, much that has not been learned, and I feel it of great importance thatanthropological researchers bring the skills and theories that are their strength to




A ggregation and A ggress ion 293

the social science investigation of violent hu m an conflicts. B ut we also nee d to knowwhat we do know about war. There is need for a synthesis of the anthropology ofwar, placing in its social and cultural context. A nthropo logical kno wled ge of w ar isa widely dispersed literature. It would be useful for someone to systematically

bring it together in a single study.

OT

1. The clustering of these figure s about 25 percent is of interest, as Meggitt (1977:201) has n oted . A ctualfigures are (sources as cited in the text):Yanomamo 23.9% (includes Warfare and Club Fights)Dani 28.5%

Mae E nga 34.8% (correct to "the order of 25 percent")B lackfoot 25% (L ivingston's [1968:9] derivation from the data of E wers)

R F R N S

Chagnon, Napoleon1968 Yanomamo S ocial Orga nization and Warfare. In War: The A nthropology of A rmed Conflict an d

A ggression. Morton Fried, Marvin Harris, and R obert Murphy, e ds. p p. 109-159. Garden City,New York: Natural History Press.

Cohen, R onald1984 Warfare an d S tate Formation: Wars Make S tates and S tates Make Wars. InW arfare, Cultur e, and

E nvironment. R . B rian Ferguson, ed. pp. 392-358. Orland o: A cademic Press.Divale, William Tulio

1973 Warfare in Primitive S ociety: A B ilbiography. S anta B arbara: A B C-Clio.Divale, William Tulio, and Marvin Harris

1976 Population, Warfare, and the Male S upremacist Complex. A merican A nthropologist 78:521-538.

Ewers, John C.1980 The Horse in B lackfoot I ndian C ulture. Washington: S mithsonian I nstitution Press.

Feest, Christian1980 The A rt of War. L ondon: Thames and H uds on.

Ferguson, R. B rian1984a In troduction : S tudying War. In Warfare, Culture, and E nvironment. R . B rian Ferguson, ed . pp.

1-81. Orlando: A cademic Press.Ferguson, R . B rian, ed.

1984b Warfare, C ulture, and E nvironment. Orlando : A cademic Press.Fortes, Meyer, and E .E. E vans-Pritchard, eds.

1940 A frican Political S ystem s. Oxford: Oxford University Pre ss.Fried, Morton, Marvin Harris, and R obert Murphy, eds .

1968 War: The A nthropology of A rmed Conflict and A ggression. Garden City, New York: Natural

History Press.Gardner, R obert G.1963 Dead B irds. A film produced by the Film S tudy Center, Peabody Mu seum , Harvard University.

Gardner, R obert G., and Karl G. Heider1969 Gard ens of War: L ive and Death in the New Guinea S tone A ge.

Givens, R . Dale, and Martin A . Nettleship, ed s.1976 Discussions on War and Hum an A ggression. The Hagu e: Mouton.

Hallpike, C. R.1973 Functionalist In terpretations of Primitive Warfare. Man N .S . 8:461-470.




294 T. S . Ab ler

Harris, Marvin1985 Good to E at: R iddles of Food and Cultur e. New York: S imon and S chuster.

Heider, Karl

1979 Gran d Valley Dan i: Peaceful Wa rriors. New York: Holt, R ineha rt and W inston .

Herdt, Gilbert1981 Gu ard ian s of the Flu tes: I diom s of Mascu linity. Ne w York:McGraw-Hill.

Koch, Klaus-Friedrich1974 The A nthropology of Warfare. A ddison-Wesley Module in A nthropology No. 52. R eading,

M assachu setts: A ddison-Wesley.

L each, E dmund R.

1954 Political S ystem s of Highla nd B urm an. B oston: B eacon.L ivingstone, Frank B .

1968 The Effects of Warfare on the B iology of the Hu m an S pecies. In War: The A nthropology ofA rmed Conflict and A ggression. Morton Fried, Marvin Harris, and R obert Murphy, eds. pp .3-15. Garden City, New York: Natural History Press.

L owie, R obert H.1935 The Crow In dians. New York: Farrar and R inehart.

Meggitt, Mervyn1977 B lood Is Their A rgum ent: Warfare amo ng the Mae E nga Tribesmen of the New Guinea

Hig hlan ds. Palo A lto: Mayfield.Nettleship, Martin A ., R. Dale Givens, and A nderson N ettleship, eds.

1975 War, I ts Causes and Correlates. The Ha gue : Mo uton.Newcomb, W. W.

1950 A R e-examination of the Causes of Plains Warfare. A merican A nthropologist 52:317-330.1960 Toward an Un dersta nding of War. In E ssays in the S cience of Culture. G. Dole and R . Carniero,

eds. pp. 317-336. New York: Thomas Crowell.Otterbein, Keith F.

1967 The E volution of Zu lu Warfare. In L aw and W arfare: S tudies in the A nthropolo gy of Conflict.Paul B ohanna n, ed. p p. 351-357. Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History Press.

1968 Internal War: A Cross-Cultural S tudy. A merican A nthropologist 70:277-289.1970 The E volution of War: A Cross-Cultural Study. New Haven: HR A F Press.

1973 The A nthropo logy of War. In Handbook of S ocial and Cultural A nthropology. J. Honigm ann,ed. pp. 923-958. C hicago: R and McNally.

Otterbein, Keith F., and Charlotte S. Otterbein

1965 A n E ye for an E ye, a Tooth for a Tooth: A Cross-Cultural S tudy of Feuding. A mericanA nthropologist 67:1470-1482.

R ichter, Daniel1983 War and C ulture: The Iro quois E xperience. William and Ma ry Qua rterly 3rd S eries 40:528-559.R oberts, Michael

1967 E ssays in S wedish History. L ondon: Weidenfeld and N icholson.Service, Elman R.

1962 Primitive S ocial Organization: A n E volutionary Perspective. New York: R andom H ouse.Service, Elman R.

1971 Profiles in E thnology. R evised E dition. New York: Harp er and R ow.1975 Orig ins of the S tate an d Civilization. New York: No rton.

Turney-High, Harry Holbert

1971 Primitive War: I ts Practice and C oncepts. S econd E dition. Columbia, S outh Carolina: Univer-

sity of S outh C arolina Pre ss.Vayda, A ndrew P.

1961 E xpansion and Warfare among S widden A griculturalists. A merican A nthropologist 63:346-358.

1976 War in E cological Perspective: Persistence, Chan ge, and A daptive Process in Three O ceanianSocieties. New York: Plenum.

1979 War and Co ping. R eviews in A nthropolo gy 6:191-198.Wolf, Eric R.

1973 Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. L ondon: Faber and Faber.1982 E urope an d the People with out History. B erkeley: University of California Pres s.


Abler Thomas, El Estado de Guerra en Antropologia, GUERRA ANTROPOLOGIA

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