Pomeroi:
> > 1) Young bachelors form their own war bands and raid other clans to
> get animals to give to the women they are trying to court.
>
> Raid and theft
> This may be _my_ different view, perhaps a result of language
> misconception, English being foreign to me. I always viewed a "raid"
> being much more like to try to "get it all", and thus threatening your
> victim to starvation (within short time in a forbidding land like Prax
> or Maasai home land) if it concerns your main - and almost only - source
> of food. Again: This is their death sentence!!
> A tribe can surely cope with a theft of some individual animals done by
> bachelors.
No. Theft is taking from someone else in your community and unacceptable. Raiding is
taking from another community and acceptable unless it causes problems for your
community.
Taking all the animals from another Praxian tribe would be war and involve a commitment
and risk disproportionate to the possible gain. A few young men killed or injured raiding
hurts the tribe a little. Sending most of the tribe's menfolk off to fight another risks crippling
losses and leaves the tribe's own animals vunerable to a third tribe while it's happening.
--
Donald Oddy