6
6
6
that a
griculture would go away so we could rediscover peace. But
Leaky is very wrong. Violence is not a product of the digging stick and
hoe.10
In the Kalahari desert of southern Africa live a people called the
!Kung. The !Kung have no agriculture and very little technology.
They live off the fruit and plants their women gather and the animals
their men hunt. Their way of life is so simple that hordes of
anthropologists have studied them, convinced that the !Kung live as
our ancestors must have over ten thousand years ago, before the
domestication of plants. In the early years of !Kung ethnography,
anthropologists became wildly excited. These simple people had no
violence, they said. Anthropology had discovered the key to human
harmony--abolish the modern world and return to hunting and
gathering.
Richard Leakey used the !Kung as his model of paradisal
pre-agriculturists. The !Kung way of life proved that without the plow,
men would not have the sword. Yet later studies revealed a blunt and
still under-publicized fact. !Kung men solve the problem of adultery
through murder. As a result, the !Kung have a homicide rate higher
than that in New York.11
!Kung violence takes place primarily between individuals. In
both humans and animals, however, the greatest violence occurs not
between individuals but between groups. It is most appalling in war.
Diane Fossey, the woman who devoted nineteen years12 to living
among and observing the mountain gorillas of Central Africa's Virunga
mountains, felt these creatures were among the most peaceful on earth.
Yet mountain gorillas become killers when their social groups come
face to face. Clashes between social units, said Fossey, account for 62%
of the wounds on gorillas. 74% of the males Fossey observed carried
the scars of battle, and 80% had canine teeth they'd lost or broken when
trying to bite the opposition. Fossey actually recovered skulls with
canine cusps still embedded in their crests.13
<< < GO > >>
6
6
6
that a
griculture would go away so we could rediscover peace. But
Leaky is very wrong. Violence is not a product of the digging stick and
hoe.10
In the Kalahari desert of southern Africa live a people called the
!Kung. The !Kung have no agriculture and very little technology.
They live off the fruit and plants their women gather and the animals
their men hunt. Their way of life is so simple that hordes of
anthropologists have studied them, convinced that the !Kung live as
our ancestors must have over ten thousand years ago, before the
domestication of plants. In the early years of !Kung ethnography,
anthropologists became wildly excited. These simple people had no
violence, they said. Anthropology had discovered the key to human
harmony--abolish the modern world and return to hunting and
gathering.
Richard Leakey used the !Kung as his model of paradisal
pre-agriculturists. The !Kung way of life proved that without the plow,
men would not have the sword. Yet later studies revealed a blunt and
still under-publicized fact. !Kung men solve the problem of adultery
through murder. As a result, the !Kung have a homicide rate higher
than that in New York.11
!Kung violence takes place primarily between individuals. In
both humans and animals, however, the greatest violence occurs not
between individuals but between groups. It is most appalling in war.
Diane Fossey, the woman who devoted nineteen years12 to living
among and observing the mountain gorillas of Central Africa's Virunga
mountains, felt these creatures were among the most peaceful on earth.
Yet mountain gorillas become killers when their social groups come
face to face. Clashes between social units, said Fossey, account for 62%
of the wounds on gorillas. 74% of the males Fossey observed carried
the scars of battle, and 80% had canine teeth they'd lost or broken when
trying to bite the opposition. Fossey actually recovered skulls with
canine cusps still embedded in their crests.13
<< < GO > >>