Warfare and Mortality

From: John Hughes <nysalor_at_...>
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 19:43:17 +1000


Benedict, on the HW list:

> I'd like to hear John Hughes' opinion on [warfare and mortality] , as he
is our resident
> anthropologist.

Ah, 'resident whatsit', the kiss of death. :) I might have a particular perspective, but that hardly makes it definitive or even persuasive. I don't have much familiarity with this particular topic, and I'm sure there are many people on both the GD and HW lists who can bring all sorts of historical, military, sociological and Dark Age warlord perspectives to bear.

This is getting way beyond HW play concerns, so I've taken it to the GD.

I have previously posted that I believe there's a strong ritual, psychological element in inter-clan raiding and warfare, - more bright cloaks, boasting and shouting insults than actual hatcheting - and that deaths are relatively rare (except, of course, when they aren't).

Distinctly anthropological approaches to warfare usually focus on whether or not violent warfare is 'innate' or even historically common: on the relationship of warfare to factors like local ecology, resources and demography, social structures, status and social power, competition for mates, multiple marriage and infanticide: on warfare and the cult of masculinity: how the invention of the city also 'invented' warfare: warfare as one of a range of possible violent and non-violent responses to conflict: warfare as a cure for boredom: and even warfare as the result of too little salt in the diet.:)

One general book on the subject of killing in war that completely blew me away (so to speak) is Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's 'On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society'. His basic thesis, backed by much evidence: very few soldiers will deliberately kill, even on the battlefield. Strong leaders help.

By way of comparison, I found the following at http://courses.washington.edu/anth457/competit.htm:

***

Cross-cultural sample of 87 societies representative of various regions of world and types of sociopolitical organization reveal following:

.61% engage in frequent warfare (at least yearly)

.21% engage in war less often (at least 1/generation)

.18% of societies rarely/never go to war (only 8% of truly autonomous)

.nearly 40% have high mortality in war (>one third of combatants die)

***

And some sample mortality rates from contemporary small-scale, war-like societies. Note that this is death via warfare, not general violence:

***

Mortality due to warfare:

Fore (New Guinea)
Adult Male: 14%
Adult Female: <1%

Enga (New Guinea)
Adult Male: 25%
Adult Female: <1%

Dugum Dani (New Guinea)
Adult Male: 29%
Adult Female: 3%

Yanomamo (Amazonia)
Adult Male:30%
Adult Female: 7%

[Note: even less effect in modern state warfare: annual growth rate in WW II = 5% Germans, 0.2% U.S.A.; Vietnamese in1960-1970 = 3%]

Cheers

John


nysalor_at_...                 John Hughes

No nation has its own culture, only its own barbarism.

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