War and Social Organization
Discussion
Brian Williams:
"Social organization must be taken into consideration by anyone who is interested in the origin of war, the pursuit of human justice, or conflict management. From one society to the next, types of violence and approaches to conflict management vary in relation to social organization. The range of human social organization can be divided into four basic types: bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states.
Bands are small in size, generally with about twenty-five to fifty members,- they are politically egalitarian, lack clear leadership, are nomadic or semi-nomadic, and engage in hunting and gathering as a way of making their living. The Siriono and the Paliyan, described in Chapter 3, are band societies. Individuals shift readily among different bands. Consequently, anthropologists refer to band composition as flexible and in flux. Additionally, band society lacks ranked statuses or classes and tends not to be subdivided into subgroups—social segments—on the basis of kinship or other distinctions. As we shall soon see, this last point, although often ignored, is of critical importance in understanding patterns of human aggressive behavior, including warfare. Nomadic, egalitarian hunter-gatherer band society is the oldest and simplest form of human social organization, extending back over humanity's evolutionary past. Anthropologists often note that members of the human line have spent over 99 percent of their existence on the planet living in nomadic bands. Before assuming that the evolutionary past was rife with warfare, it would be logical to first take a look at conflict patterns in band society.
Tribes tend to be sedentary and typically engage in horticulture or herding. Tribal settlements may contain a hundred or more people. Although headmen, big men, and other leadership roles tend to emerge in tribal societies, the leadership is weak. Tribal leaders attempt to exert their will through the art of persuasion and by leading through example, since they lack, for the most part, other forms of coercive power. Christopher Boehm uses the term acephalous (literally "headless") to reflect the lack of authority among tribal leaders. Headmen among the South American Yanomamo, for example, typify this pattern of weak leadership. The absence of positions of strong authority really means that tribal social organization remains largely egalitarian. Unlike bands, however, tribes tend to be segmented politically into lineages (societal subgroups with membership based on descent from a common ancestor), clans, or other such kinship distinctions. Evolutionarily, sedentary horticultural tribes represent a recent form of social organization compared to nomadic hunter-gatherer bands.
Chiefdoms exhibit considerable variability, although the existence of a social hierarchy is a distinguishing feature. Some chiefdoms vest minor authority in the chiefs, whereas in other cases chiefs wield considerable power. Chiefs are entitled to special privileges. Commoners pay tribute to chiefs, some of which the chiefs then redistribute back to their subjects. The economies of chiefdoms often are based on farming or fishing.
Complex sedentary hunter-gatherers are socially ranked societies with rulers and commoners, and sometimes slaves as well. They are chiefdoms. It is absolutely critical not to confuse complex sedentary hunter-gatherers with nomadic hunter-gatherer bands. These types of societies are as different as night and day. Complex hunter-gatherers exploit rich natural resources such as the salmon runs of the North American Northwest Coast. Population densities tend to be higher than in nomadic hunter-gatherer societies. Ethnographically, complex hunter-gatherers are very rare. Archaeological evidence shows the development of complex sedentary hunter-gatherer social organization to be recent, arising in particular places only within the last 25,000 years, yet most typically within the last 13,000 years or so.
As recently as 5,000 to 6,000 years ago some early chiefdoms underwent further organizational transformations, and the worlds first states were born. In the evolutionary history of the human species, this development of civilizations occurred only "yesterday."
The economy of states rests on agriculture. Typically, the rulers wield even more coercive power than do chiefs. Economic specialization, social class distinctions, centralized political and military organization, the use of writing and mathematics, urbanization, large-scale irrigation of crops, and the development of bureaucracy characterize states, ancient and modern. Boehm notes that "modern democracies may temper individual power with checks and balances, but centralized power still exists and is backed by coercive force supplied by professional policemen and soldiers."
To summarize, in bands and tribes, leadership and political power are weak and dispersed, or uncentralized. By contrast, in chiefdoms and especially in states, political power is centralized at the top of a social hierarchy. Social relations in bands and tribes are relatively egalitarian compared to those within chiefdoms and states that are structured according to ranks or social classes. Relatedly, hunting-and-gathering societies are of two general types: Simple nomadic hunter-gatherers have the band type of social organization and are egalitarian, whereas complex sedentary hunter-gatherers are small-scale chiefdoms with social classes or status hierarchies."
.... continued:
"Jonathan Haas correspondingly concludes that "the level, intensity, and impact of warfare tend to increase as cultural systems become more complex."
Even when aggression occurs in band society, it is relatively harmless. People sometimes fight, but grudges are personal affairs. In bands, most fighting is between individuals and nonlethal, although killings can occur. Violence, notes S. P. Reyna, is relatively ineffective for controlling people within the egalitarian band.16 Turning to tribes, Reyna points out that aggression still stems from personal grudges, but now can involve kin militias, fighting groups that are temporarily assembled on the basis of kinship ties. In tribal societies, there are no professional standing armies and no hierarchical military structures. Fighting most often involves brawls and raids, and less often small-scale battles.
Reyna writes of tribes that "the organized means of violence in such polities, though more effective than those found in bands, were still harmless when compared to those found in centralized polities." For example, when the tribal Yanomamo go on a raid, no one has the power to command obedience. Typically, raiders drop out and return home with excuses such as having sore feet or a stomachache. Command structure and authority are very weakly developed within tribal society.
Within the centralized polities of chiefdoms, chiefly militias come into play. The leaders and military specialists have authority to command obedience from the ranks, as illustrated in large chiefdoms such as Tahiti, Tonga, Fiji, and Hawaii.18 With chiefdoms, battles become more common than within tribal social organization.
Margaret Mead describes warfare between relatively simple village chiefdoms in the eastern part of Samoa. Surprise attacks were preferred, but arranged battles also took place. When opposing sides met in combat, each group used distinctive headbands or face paint so as to differentiate friend from foe more easily. Clubs, spears, and shields of bamboo were employed during fighting.
In some large-scale chiefdoms, such as Fiji with its six social classes, warfare involved large, bloody battles. Fijian chiefs tried to put as many men into combat as possible. Although standing armies did not exist and there was no formal draft, every man was expected to fight when ordered onto the field by his chief. Robert Carneiro explains, "Warfare among the Fijians was all-out and bloody, with no respect shown for sex or age. Women and children were killed ruthlessly and indiscriminately." The status arid power of a chief could rise with success in war. Commoners were allowed to feast on slain enemies, and human flesh became a favorite delicacy of some Fijian chiefs. Perhaps the all-time record was held by a chief named Ra Undreundre, whose tally of people consumed came to nine hundred.
As mentioned, complex hunter-gatherers are rare, exemplified most notably by a cluster of societies situated along the North American Pacific Coast between southern Alaska and northern California, such as the Bella Coola, Haida, Klallam, Kwakiutl, Nootka, Tlingit, andTsimshian. Elman Service explains that nature provided these "hunting-fishing societies with an abundance of food and materials perhaps unsurpassed anywhere in the world.
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The complex hunter-gatherers of this cultural area shared certain features: They subsisted largely on marine resources (such as highly valued salmon runs), lived in hierarchical class societies (consisting of chiefs or nobles, commoners, and often slaves), had highly developed arts, rituals, and economies based on the redistribution of goods, and, last but not least, engaged in warfare.
In this region, archaeological evidence suggests warfare over at least 3,000 years. Attacks often were carried out by sea, as raiders paddled scores or even hundreds of miles carrying their provisions with them. Brian Ferguson writes, "War parties varied in size from a few canoes to huge flotillas with many hundred men. . . . Tactics were tailored to maximize enemy casualties and captives." Wars stemmed from multiple motivations such as gaining access to salmon runs, acquiring slaves, exacting revenge for past wrongs, and gaining additional territory to support expanding populations.
Readers are probably intimately familiar with the state form of social organization, because today's world is divided into nation-states. State sociopolitical organization, which most people simply take for granted, is actually an extremely recent social development. The first archaic states arose only a few thousand years ago, and the birth of the nation-state is usually attributed to the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in AD 1648—a mere three and a half centuries ago.
States, ancient and modern, tend to have large permanent armies led by military specialists operating within hierarchical command structures.23 Under such conditions, elaborate military campaigns and protracted wars are possible. The recent military outlay of one current nation-state, the United States, is unprecedented in the history of the world, exceeding $400 billion a year.24 The differences in fighting tactics between bands and tribal societies and those used by even small states are immense. The tribal Yanomamos typical tactic is for raiders to hide outside an enemy village in the predawn hours, attempt to kill some unlucky person leaving the village at daybreak, and then run for their lives.25 But returning to the military apparatus of the state, Reyna uses a specific case to illustrate a broader idea: "Caesar's legions did not ambush a few Gauls and then run for home. Rather, they stayed for the duration—the remaining five hundred years of the empire."
It is imperative to highlight differences between simple hunter-gatherers (as archetypal nomadic bands) and complex hunter-gatherers (as low-level chiefdoms). Robert Kelly notes that the image of simple hunter-gatherers entails "small, peaceful, nomadic bands, men and women with few possessions] and who are equal in wealth, opportunity, and status." Kelly next generalizes that "complex hunter-gatherers are non-egalitarian societies, whose elites possess slaves, fybt wars, and overtly seek prestige." Some distinguishing points are summarized in Figure 6.3. One important observation is that lumping simple and complex forager societies together and then trying to make catchall generalizations about hunter-gatherer peace and war is an undertaking that is doomed to create confusion from the get-go."
(https://www.briangwilliams.us/beyond-war/the-link-between-warfare-and-social-organization.html_