Geographically speaking the incidence of such arrangements is very widespread.52 Peoples living as far apart as the Kalinga of Luzon, the Algonquian of the northeastern United States, and, on the opposite side of North America, several groups of Californian Indians were all familiar with them. So were the Tinglit of the northwestern United States, the Eskimo of Alaska, the Maya of Chiapas in central Mexico, the Yanomamo of the Amazonian rain forest, the Chumash of California (whose battles one modern authority describes as “comic opera encounter[s]”),53 the Maori of New Zealand, and at least some of the Australian aborigine tribes. It was practiced in Melanesia where it formed part of a peculiar complex involving alternate fighting and feasting.54 As if to make sure no continent was left out, the Higi of Nigeria-Cameroon, the Nguni of southeastern Africa, and, according to at least one source, the Montenegrins, on the shores of the Adriatic, also practiced the custom. One place where it was particularly common, and where it attracted anthropologists like flies, was Papua New Guinea with its population of numerous, often bitterly hostile, tribes.
Separated by thousands of miles of land and ocean, these and other societies must have developed the custom independently. Hence, though the principle is basically the same everywhere, it is scant wonder that there was considerable variation from one place to another. The encounters’ one-time existence, side by side with the other above-listed forms of war, is admitted even by a well-known anthropologist who made his career by showing that tribal war was ferocious and “the noble savage” a myth.55 Another scholar, while claiming that he had never come across them, forgot that in an earlier publication he himself listed some peoples that had them.56
The most detailed description of ritualized combat we have comes from Mervyn Meggitt, an Australian anthropologist. As he notes in the preface to his book, he worked in Papua New Guinea during the 1950s and 1960s. His specific field was the Mae Enga, a people of the Western Highlands that made its living by means of horticulture, raising livestock and engaging in trade with other tribes. Meggitt’s objective was to reconstruct Mae life as it has been until about 1950 when the heavy hand of the Australian administration really began making itself felt. One outcome was the abolition of the kind of war we are concerned with here along with all the others.57 It did, however, survive for another decade or so among some other New Guinean tribes until a combination of more lethal weapons and strict supervision from above brought it to an end.
The total number of Mae people was estimated at about 100,000–150,000. They lived in a very large number of kin-based tribes and clans, forming an interlocking, immensely complicated network where every individual belonged to several groups at once. Every adult man was free to participate in war; on the other hand, since government was weak, there could be little question of anybody being compelled to do so. Furthermore, since kin-ties with other people were both numerous and very complex, the men often had a fair amount of freedom in choosing which camp to join. As was also true of other tribes around the world, “great fights,” as the Mae called them, did not stand alone, but represented one out of several forms of war. But whereas the remaining types, mostly consisting of raids and ambushes, were directed by one or more clans of one tribe against the clans of another, “great fights” were intra-tribal affairs and involved a larger number of related clans clashing with one another.
The number of warriors on each side might be 250–500, though on one occasion as many as 1,000 may have taken part. This was far more than in any other form of armed conflict. It was certainly more than would ever join a raiding party whose size, owing to the need for speed and secrecy as well as logistics, was kept much smaller. Compared to other kinds of war such fights were relatively rare, taking place every few years on the average. One old man told Meggitt that he could only recall four of them in his lifetime and that his father had told him he could only remember four more.
Like other forms of war, great fights were occasioned mainly by theft, especially of livestock, and insult. However, these were often no more than excuses. Instead, Meggitt says, such fights were “deliberately planned affairs . . . whose main function appeared to be display”; in other words, they served as “tests of strength and as opportunities for individual warriors and groups to enhance their prestige.” Sometimes it was simply a question of men “spoiling for a fight.” As if to confirm the fact that the entire affair did not serve strictly utilitarian purposes, the dress and equipment worn were more elaborate than those used during raids, when mobility and stealth were at a premium. Both warriors and their so-called “fight leaders” added plumes, shells, and other ornaments to their normal attire of wig, apron, and rump leaves.58
The men of the first clan would assemble on a convenient hillside. Mixing boasts and insults, they would call upon their opponents to accept a challenge. The opponents would reply in kind, and a suitable time and place would be agreed on. Early on the appointed day warriors from both sides, decorated and armed with bows, arrows, spears, and shields, presented themselves at the lists. The chosen site was a gently sloping grassy down. It lay on the belligerents’ common border and had to be sufficiently large to offer plenty of room for maneuvering. Directed by their fight leaders, the men formed extended lines along opposite sides of the arena, arranged more or less by clans with the two clans that initiated the confrontation located opposite one another. There was, however, no strict order; nothing could prevent individual men from changing their place if they found themselves face to face with close relatives on the other side. Friends and kinsmen were also free to participate if they wanted to. Young bachelors in particular were likely to join in, either to help their relatives, or to gain combat experience, or just for the hell of it. The tangled network of kin connections meant that volunteers from one clan might well find themselves operating on opposite sides, in which case they took care not to harm each other.
The proceedings opened with a period of massed chanting, the shouting of insults, and stylized displays of aggression, such as the brandishing of weapons, feints, and the like. Next, fight leaders on each side challenged men of comparable reputation from the other to duels. Each pair might begin by firing arrows, which of course implies that a considerable space had to be left for them to maneuver in. Later, using shields and spears, they fought at close quarters in the middle of the field. These encounters were rarely fatal, partly because the antagonists were evenly matched, partly because they were more concerned to wound than to kill. The duel ended when one man was injured or weapons had been expended. At that point the champions would congratulate each other, embrace, and exchange decorations, which might include plumes, shells, and the lethal stone axes that they carried but were not supposed to use in combats of this kind. Next, each one rejoined the warriors of his own side.
During these “balletic” episodes, to use Meggitt’s term, the remaining warriors on both sides simply acted as interested and knowledgeable spectators. They shouted advice and encouragement while also occasionally helping wounded men off the field and looking after them. On no account were they supposed to fire their bows on an enemy duelist. If a man were to do so, angry Big Men or fight leaders of his own group might well attack him, the reason being that his action, especially if he killed the opposing champion, counted as a foul. It could easily convert the tourney into serious warfare.
Once one-on-one dueling had ended, the two sides opened fire with their bows. The field would be filled with men moving rapidly about, advancing, shooting, dodging arrows, advancing, and falling back. Though the skirmishing went on at a great pace, it was not unusual for warriors to withdraw from time to time to catch their breath and replenish their arrows. Doing so, they also formed a changing reserve force that the fight leaders or Big Men could use to strengthen weak points in the front line. The fight leaders themselves alternated between observing and advising from behind and rushing into the fray to rally faltering groups. On the whole, hand-to-hand combat was carefully avoided and most casualties resulted from ar
rows fired at a distance.
While formations were very loose – in New Guinea as elsewhere, bows and arrows, unless they are fired from behind some kind of shelter, are hardly conducive to anything else – the warriors on each side did have a definite objective: namely, to preserve their own extended skirmishing line while trying to turn the others’ flank. If successful, the maneuver would enable them to take the opponent under a heavy death-dealing crossfire. Both groupings had the same goal in mind. However, neither was supposed to move off the field into the trees and gardens or among the houses to achieve it, and in any case people were watching. Thus the normal outcome was a stalemate.
Given the numbers involved and the style of battle, for one side to suffer such disproportionate losses that it unilaterally broke off the engagement and withdrew was very unusual. If the weather held, the fighting went on until dusk; however, normally it was halted by the late afternoon rain. In the highlands the downpours are miserably cold and uncomfortable, so that allowing the fighting to continue might cause great damage to the highly prized plumes. Besides, the poor light made it hard for the bowmen to see their targets so that they might hit relatives on the other side by mistake.
When the fight leaders and Big Men decided that enough was enough they told their men to fall back in an orderly manner into their own territory, if necessary reining in young blades who had not yet had their fill of fighting. Weather permitting, some fight leaders might formally bring the proceedings to an end by once again engaging in duels. The final act consisted of speeches by the Big Men on each side. They would sum up the day’s events, list the dead (if any), and, since the speeches were aimed at their opponents as well as their own followers, set the scene for future relations between the two groups. That accomplished, everybody would go home.
Understood as one among several forms of war, great fights formed a sharp contrast with the vicious warfare fought by clans against each other. The latter was an expression of realpolitik in which almost any action was acceptable. Whereas in “real” warfare anybody was free to engage anybody else, great fights were supposed to pit equals against one another. Whereas war was waged by means of mobility and stealth, great fights were largely stationary affairs, both spectacular and noisy. Whereas war could take place anywhere, great fights were confined to an agreed-on location so that property such as houses, gardens, and valuable trees was immune. Wounded warriors were also immune – the rules prohibited any interference with attempts to help them – together with what we would call noncombatants, meaning women and children. Members of those two groups were allowed either to go about their day-to-day business or to observe the proceedings. Boys in particular were encouraged to watch what their elders were doing. However, they were not supposed to participate by gathering spent arrows and the like.
Still, perhaps the most striking aspect of the whole business was the fact that, if one of the contending groups was so badly mauled that it had to withdraw (as sometimes happened), the victors’ only profit consisted of enhanced prestige, and perhaps deterrent power. A great fight, Meggitt concludes, corresponded to participants’ memories of it. Differing sharply from other forms of war, it was mainly a day of good sport, spiced with moderate danger. Its main function was to present men − young men in particular − with an opportunity both to increase their skill in case it was needed in “real” warfare and to put it on display for the benefit of friends and enemies alike.
In the words of another expert on warfare in Papua New Guinea, the opponents were there to be fought, not annihilated.59 The number of injured was much larger than the number of dead. The fights were expected, recurrent, and coordinated between the two opposing groups. They bore a noticeable ceremonial character. Among the Kiwai, another New Guinean tribe, this was carried to the point where the fights took place at night; to assist the proceedings, the scene might be illuminated by bonfires on the ground or else with the aid of torches held by the women. The scene, consisting of two opposing groups of men throwing objects (including firebrands) at each other, while simultaneously leaping about their own shadows, is hard even to imagine.60
To modern strategists raised on Clausewitz’s dictum that war is the continuation of policy by other means, all this will sound strange indeed. It is, however, confirmed by other travelers and anthropologists who lived among, or did work with, other peoples around the world. Take the Yanomamo, a people of the upper Amazonian rain forest whose war-making system, thanks to Napoleon Chagnon in his 1968 volume, The Fierce People,61 has attracted much attention. Widely seen as one of the socially and technologically least advanced tribal societies left on Earth, the Yanomamo make their living by gathering, hunting, fishing, and cultivating small transient gardens. As in New Guinea, kin relationships are extremely complex and spread their net far and wide. However, political authority exists, if at all, only within individual villages.
As with other tribes, normally conflicts grew out of disputes over property, women, or insults. The relative importance of these three causes is hotly disputed among anthropologists. Depending on how many friends and relatives each man could gather in his support, the antagonists could be either individuals or groups. Either way they would face each other and exchange blows. The mildest form of conflict, fought with bare hands, consisted of chest-pounding, which the antagonists inflicted in rotation on each other. Next came side-slapping, also performed with bare hands on unresisting opponents. These two forms of combat, if that is the right word, put greater emphasis on the ability to withstand blows than to deliver and avoid them. To that extent they were similar to the European pistol duel as it developed from about 1850 on.
Matters might very well end at this point, proving that escalation was by no means inevitable. When it did occur, or when the grievances at stake were of a more important kind, the outcome was club fights. These were much more serious affairs and often led to injuries, though fatalities rarely ensued. Many Yanomamo men proudly displayed the resulting physical deformations, especially dents in the head. Much like modern decorations, they acted as proofs of courage and told everybody that their owner was able and willing to avenge any insult to which he might be subjected.
The bloodiest fights of all were waged with wooden spears and bows and arrows which, until the arrival of white traders who brought with them steel axes and machetes, formed the Yanomamo’s most deadly weapons for both hunting and war. Yet even so things were rarely taken to extremes. Injuries were frequent, but not deaths. So highly ritualized − in other words game-like − were all these forms of combat that some commentators did not regard them as war at all. Instead they spoke of “a complex cultural construct consisting of a classification of socio-political distances, a theory of physical and supernatural aggression, and a system of symbolic exchanges via funerary and war rituals.”62 Others used them to argue that the Yanomamo are not really “fierce”: a view that is not without implications either for our understanding of early mankind in general or for ongoing political discussions concerning the best way to treat tribal peoples in today’s Brazil and Venezuela.63 However that may be, the contests were certainly far less lethal than the predawn raids and the treacherous banquets on which Yanomamo warriors, when truly angry at members of some another tribe to whom they were not closely related, also engaged. Indeed, the great majority of men who met a violent end seem to have died as a result of raiding in particular.
Some sixty miles south of New Guinea lies the northern tip of Arnhem Land, Australia, home of the Murngrin tribe.64 According to W. Lloyd Warner, another Australian anthropologist, the Murngrin had no fewer than six forms of war, all of which were sufficiently distinct to be called by their own names. Some, such as the maringo (death adder), a night raid on a neighboring village, and the gaingar (ghost spear), a pitched battle, were as lethal as the available weapons and techniques permitted. Yet there was also makarata, best described as a ceremonial peace-making fight.
A makarata ensued when, a considerable time having pass
ed since a killing, the men of the injured clan sent a message to their opponents that they were ready. The ceremony itself involved the two sides taking up positions at a little more than spear-throwing distance. First, those indirectly involved in the injury, known as the pushers, and accompanied by relatives from the other side, had to run between the lines. They thereby exposed themselves to spears thrown by men of the injured side from which, however, the stone heads had been removed. Next those actually responsible for the injury had to do the same, except that this time the spears were sharp. The ceremony went on until the elders on the injured side declared that enough was enough. Then a man on the injured side jabbed a spear through the thigh of one of the killers, signifying the end of the dispute. Finally the two sides danced together as a gesture of solidarity.
The following refers to a similar encounter among the Tiwi, another tribe of northern Australia:65
Thus Tiwi battles had to be the confused, disorderly, inconclusive things they always were. They usually lasted all day, during which about two-thirds of the elapsed time was consumed in violent talk and mutual abuse . . . The remaining third of the time was divided between duels involving a pair of men who threw spears at each other until one was wounded, and brief flurries of more general weapon-throwing involving perhaps a dozen men at a time, which ended whenever somebody, even a spectator, was hit.
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