Comment by Antonis — November 4, 2008 @ 10:18 am. I can’t. world; Women, some pregnant, and children killed in tribal massacre in Papua New Guinea. Only West New Guinea, formerly Dutch-controlled, is under the Indonesian thumb. Endemic warfare is a state of continual or frequent warfare, such as is found in some tribal societies (but is not limited to tribal societies). The numbers alleged by Jared Diamond are indeed far fewer than those alleged by the generally reliable Amnesty International. I did try a game using my new army lists. Comment by Alan B — November 4, 2008 @ 8:22 am, Jared Diamond’s treatise sounds like the universal bore in the pub, who has an explanation and solution of stupefyingly moronic simplicity to everything and begins each sentence with “It’s very simple really…”. In the 1960s, the Indonesian government sent its troops in to destroy resistance to the Freeport mining that led to the death of at least 45,000 people. Small ships full of tourists buy thousands of Sepik carvings from here every year. It became an early manufacturing centre for early tourist art. I honestly don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Titled “Vengeance is Ours: What can tribal societies tell us about our need to get even?”, it is focused on his account of so-called tribal wars in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, where Diamond has conducted many field trips studying the flora and fauna, as well as the bestial tribesmen apparently. Unfortunately, I find Diamond’s reliance on the testimony of his subjects somewhat unreliable given what appears his tendency to put words in the Papuan’s mouth. Papua New Guinea. It basically made the game an ancients game instead of tribal warfare, which is more what I'm going for. Papua New Guinea Tribal Warfare. The basis used every time ranges from ancient and tribal societies to mammals and insect colonies. Places. With roughly a thousand languages divided into a surprising number of linguistic families, New Guinea is noted for its extraordinary cultural diversity (see map above). Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. But by relinquishing control to a higher body, a kind of primitive, almost animal-like satisfaction is lost as Diamond puts it: My conversations … made me understand what we have given up by leaving justice to the state. In the ongoing Sugu Valley conflict, a school and a health centre are also reported to have been razed to the ground. Using a picture of a “nearly naked native” is condescending. The election of 1800 established what party politics would bring to America. PNG has a different ‘culture’ of violence than the West(endemic tribal warfare in many parts). Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Recently somebody who shares my distaste for Jared Diamond alerted me to an article that appeared in the April 21, 2008 “New Yorker”. Tribal combat remains ubiquitous, especially in the troubled Southern Highland province of Papua New Guinea (PNG). A lot of traditional tribal art was from this area and heavily collected in the early 1960′s. Labels: Tribal Warfare. I am going back to just foot figures for this game. In an article titled “Ol I Skulim Mipela: Contemporary Warfare in the Papua New Guinea Eastern Highlands” that appeared in the Oct. 1984 issue of “Anthropological Quarterly”, George D. Westermark pointed to the introduction of capitalist farming in the region as a prime aggravator of tensions between native peoples forced to compete for fewer and fewer resources. The problem about trying to provide aid in areas where tribal warfare is allowed to happen is nothing new. In the 1960s, the Indonesian government sent its troops in to destroy resistance to the Freeport mining that led to the death of at least 45,000 people. The evil tongue of a woman A woman with a bad tongue is a restless ... evil, full of poison. Published 13 August 2014. Indigenous peoples armed with nothing but bows and arrows went into battle against the multinational that once again relied on the Indonesian government for protection.”. There may have been all sorts of reasons why tribes might have gone to war against one another, but it happened. ( Log Out /  The thing is, you just kind of mentioned Jared’s point of view, and sort of made the point that you think it is nonsense, however you never actually explained why you think so. ( Log Out /  Nicholas Yambu was Parish Priest at Tari, Hela Province Tribal fights in Hela are a common thing. You feel that you are reading something out of the Old Testament-but without the deity instructing the Israelis to punish the Egyptians, etc. Any tribal fighting is dwarfed by this kind of wholesale bloodshed. Tribal Warfare and "Ethnic" Conflict. In order to induce us to do so, state societies and their associated religions and moral codes teach us that seeking revenge is bad. Change ). Post was not sent - check your email addresses! The first thing that leapt out at me when reading Diamond’s article is how devoid of social or economic context it is. Villages were bombed and burned in an effort to break the back of the movement. 2 comments: Jon Meech August 2, 2018 at 3:37 PM. Ritualized warfare in New Guinea, 1963 With the help from Man of Tin blog, I finally figured out how to download the video of tribal warfare in New Guinea that I found on Youtube. Comment by louisproyect — November 4, 2008 @ 12:33 am, “Another copper company based in Bougainville was just as vicious. Unrepentant Marxist that I am, it is incumbent on me to bring up those oh-so-boring issues of land or population pressure. English News and Press Release on Papua New Guinea about Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding, Protection and Human Rights, Aged Persons, Children and more; published on 08 Aug 2017 by ANU It is still the most prolific art producing area in Papua New Guinea today. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. In his recent wide-ranging review of the theory and practice of restorative justice, John Braithwaite proposes that all cultures have traditions of restorative and retributive justice and, that 'in the circumstances of the modern world, they will Violence and oppression didn’t begin with capitalism. The feuding in the highlands, which usually involve slights such as a pig belonging to one clan ruining the garden of another clan, leads to a steady escalation of Hatfield-McCoy type confrontations that remind Diamond of the worst crimes of the 20th century: Indeed, his Papuan “confessor’s” bloodlust triggers memories of Diamond’s late father-in-law Jozef Nabel (a Jew) who refused at the list minute to wreak vengeance on Polish villagers who had killed his wife, sister and niece in pursuit of loot. In other words, the same kinds of pressures that made Rwanda a living hell have also increased in-fighting in the highlands of Papua. Small ships full of tourists buy thousands of Sepik carvings from here every year. Coffee plantations and cattle ranching promoted by Australians led to less land available for subsistence farming. He argues that since animals have an evolutionary imperative to pass on their genes, art must be a clever stratagem by men to lure women into bed. September 16, 2015 Hela Province in grip of tribal warfare: Nicholas Yambu. Monday's massacre in Papua New Guinea that claimed the lives of an estimated 16 people, including pregnant women and children, sent shock waves around the world. Vintage New Guinea Maramba Tribal Art Ancestral Wood Carving Sepik River c. 1960 . […] Jared Diamond on tribal warfare in New Guinea […], Pingback by Darwiniana » Jared Diamond and stealth sociobiology — November 3, 2008 @ 10:29 pm. American politics has always been rough. But, while acting on vengeful feelings clearly needs to be discouraged, acknowledging them should be not merely permitted but encouraged. Most conflicts here are localized, short, and fought with traditional weapons, but the cumulative casualty rates can be substantial. ( Log Out /  The central highlands of New Guinea also form a diversity center of a different sort: that of warfare. Comment by Salvus — August 13, 2014 @ 10:43 pm, […] here: https://louisproyect.org/2011/10/04/steven-pinker-hobbes-pangloss/. If you are supposedly so concerned about the people of Papua New Guinea, use a picture of a typical Papua New Guinean, not a picture that seems to portray us as naive, stupid, primitive peoples. Indigenous peoples armed with nothing but bows and arrows went into battle against the multinational that once again relied on the Indonesian government for protection. Most New Guinea shields were not used with War clubs but with projectile weapons. Half of its members were to be elected, and elections for this council were held the following year. Wemp had no idea that he or people he mentioned to Diamond in random stories about tribal warfare … This is the real story, not the Hatfield-McCoy scenario that Jared Diamond titillated his New Yorker audience with. So your article seems to claim that warfare is a recent or modern addition to Papua New Guinea, in fact that is exactly how it concludes. It became an early manufacturing centre for early tourist art. This led Tom Wilkie to drolly observe in the May 22, 1991 Independent that this lesson must have been lost on Tchaikovsky, Andy Warhol and other homosexual artists. Item Information. Despite Diamond’s reputation as a scrupulous biologist, his career involves making exactly the same types of speculations as a Robert Ardrey as I pointed out in one of the installments in my dissection of “Collapse”: Diamond showed his sympathy for this trend with the publication of “The Third Chimpanzee” in 1993. Once again, trying to add more to the game took something away from it. And on Jared Diamond here: https://louisproyect.org/2008/11/03/jared-diamond-on-tribal-warfare-in-new-guinea/. Darwiniana » Jared Diamond and stealth sociobiology, https://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/jared-diamond-on-tribal-warfare-in-new-guinea/, New Yorker Magazine sued by slandered New Guineans « Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist, https://louisproyect.org/2011/10/04/steven-pinker-hobbes-pangloss/, https://louisproyect.org/2008/11/03/jared-diamond-on-tribal-warfare-in-new-guinea/, On John Gray’s critique of Steven Pinker | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist, Cheap Motels and a Hotplate (Michael Yates), Ken McLeod: Early Days of a Better Nation. So what exactly was it then? In fact, there’s been efficient farming methods in png for quite a bit longer than capitalism (ie 50,000 years); I don’t know how far back the cycles of violence go but they definitely go pre outside contact. You are right that violence and oppression did not begin with capitalism, but in the concrete example of Papua the violence carried out by Freeport et al dwarfs anything done in the course of “tribal warfare”. The real problem is that those who allow tribal warfare to happen are just too unconcerned to prevent this misery because they are either profiting from it or just too disinterested while they persue personal wealth and prestige. It is with the imperialist system. This is nothing more than an attack on a guy you don’t like, who seems to be more profound than you are. Are saying that tribes never went to war against one another there? Very interesting, and exactly the look of your games! And every time historical & socioeconomical factors are glaringly absent. Yes the current impact of imperialism, government corruption and collusion etc in PNG is bad. In an effort to exploit the region’s riches, native peoples have been slaughtered and driven into submission. Yotube my footage: Massive Tribal Sing Sing in Papua New Guinea in Mt Hagen. Anthropologists who study warfare disagree about how much war there is, how far back it goes, and why it happens. Comment by Andrew — January 27, 2009 @ 3:55 am, […] After she referred me to the New Yorker article, I wrote this: https://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/jared-diamond-on-tribal-warfare-in-new-guinea/ […], Pingback by New Yorker Magazine sued by slandered New Guineans « Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist — April 22, 2009 @ 1:28 pm. Grumpy, my problem is not with Indonesia per se. Watched this on YouTube after your link. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Between 1960 and 1962, Indonesia continued its policy of confrontation against the Netherlands for the control of West New Guinea, combining diplomatic, political, and economic pressure with limited military force. Dozens of peoples never sent out groups of men with the intent to kill others. Forests were cleared in order to establish the copper mine in 1969, leaving hundreds of native peoples landless. Papua New Guinea Tribal Warfare. Any tribal fighting is … The recent fights have been different though,... 0. Details about Vintage New Guinea Maramba Tribal Art Ancestral Wood Carving Sepik River c. 1960. We bring you exclusive reports/news of tribal conflicts in PNG - a culturally diverse nation with hundreds of distinct traditional social groups (tribes). To a close relative or friend of someone who has been killed or seriously wronged, and to the victims of harm themselves, those feelings are natural and powerful. Author. I put no stock in your opinion. Another copper company based in Bougainville was just as vicious. But we could never have arrived at it by ourselves: we were trapped in our endless cycles of revenge killings. Papua New Guinea Tribal Warfare. You just a hipster and you probably think you are far smarter than you actually are. New Guinea Shields in Papua New Guinea are for open conflicts and not ambush warfare. Now I might be wrong, but somehow I find it far-fetched that a Papuan would have expressed himself to Jared Diamond in the words attributed to him in the New Yorker article: I admit that the New Guinea Highland way to solve the problem posed by a killing isn’t good. Our way disturbs our day-to-day life; we won’t be comfortable for the rest of our lives; we are always in effect living on the battlefield; and those feelings go on and on in us. Spokesman Junior Robert said: “This is Port Moresby and it’s home to all Papua New Guineans and those from abroad”. Certainly there is a lot of war in the ethnographic record, though it is far from universal. It is still the most prolific art producing area in Papua New Guinea today. Diamond also believes that sexual jealousy is an important cause of war: ”It was the seduction (abduction, rape) by Paris of Menelaus’s wife Helen that provoked the Trojan War”. 1.9K likes. This is the reason that they were brightly painted with dazzling designs. Papua New Guinea Tribal Warfare. This you concede to(which contradicts your article) and then go on to say that while you do accept that warfare existed there before modern times, it was not “tribal warfare”. However while not necessarily agreeing totally with diamond, I’m sorry to burst the balloon of your armchair philosophising. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest. TrackBack URI. ( Log Out /  The mine there was shut in 1989, after a local revolt that used weapons considerably more modern than bows and arrows. Perhaps you are not the sort of person who understands what the desire for revenge feels like, but trust me it is a real thing. Just try to imagine a Papuan self-confessed killer using these formulations. This is a region with a justified reputation for recurrent rounds of tribal warfare. Lurking beneath the surface of his article are certain assumptions about a “killer instinct” that fit neatly into the “naked ape” nonsense that flourished once upon a time in the pages of Time Magazine and elsewhere. I noticed somebody else already commented and made the point that warfare has actually existed for thousands of years in Papua New Guinea. Comment by Jerry Maino — April 20, 2010 @ 12:24 am. The Western way, of letting the government settle disputes by means of the legal system, is a better way. This exercise in sociobiology (an updated version of the 19th century social Darwinism) includes a chapter titled “The Golden Age That Never Was”… Diamond has many other interesting things to say about any number of subjects. Ritual fighting (or ritual battle or ritual warfare ) permits the display of courage , masculinity and the expression of emotion while resulting in … Eastern Highlands Province Papua New Guinea. Places. Tribal combat remains ubiquitous, especially in the troubled Southern Highland province of However, I included cavalry into the rules. Altogether two hundred and twenty (220) hectares of local forests were poisoned, felled and burnt, and then bulldozed into nearby river, along with tons of rich organic topsoil. Tribal warfare has hampered Southern Highlands and neighbouring Hela province in recent years, resulting in significant damage and destriction to public infrastructure. And finally on Chagnon there is this: […], Pingback by On John Gray’s critique of Steven Pinker | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist — March 17, 2015 @ 8:31 pm, RSS feed for comments on this post. Please explain how this is not true. But in the country's remote Western Highlands Province, fatalities from inter-tribal warfare have been all too common for decades. Amnesty International and most other human rights organizations agree that at least 100,000 Papuans (one sixth of the total population) have been killed during the occupation. You don’t seem to know enough about the things you are talking about to make such criticisms as these. By 1960, a legislative New Guinea Council had been established with a mixture of legislative, advisory and policy functions had been established. Villages were bombed and burned in an effort to break the back of the movement. Many state governments do attempt to grant the relatives of crime victims some personal satisfaction, by allowing them to be present at the trial of the accused, and, in some cases, to address the judge or jury, or even to watch the execution of their loved one’s murderer. As someone who’s lived in png, I can tell you that a lot of the cycles of tribal violence preceded any ‘capitalist’ introduction of farming methods or imperialist invasion. Also, are you saying that warfare did not sometimes(or most of the time) arise between these various people from very basic causes (like the stealing of a pig)? Tags: Papua New Guinea; Share this. Also the state DOES take away ones’ ability to have satisfaction through revenge, this is absolutely true. New Ancient Chinese Figures & Vacation Reading, New Peter Laing Purchase and a "No Brain Wargame". When Papua New Guinea researcher Michael Kigl, working with StinkyJournalism, went to Daniel Wemp’s Nipa home in the Southern Highlands, in July 2008 to ask him about The New Yorker article, he was shocked. The central highlands of New Guinea also form a diversity center of a different sort: that of warfare. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Tribal societies around the world fought/fight wars over local and escalating feuds, originating from sometimes menial events(Well they may seem menial to us, but are not menial to them). A lot of traditional tribal art was from this area and heavily collected in the early 1960′s. Relatives of the deceased, Wilson Alu, 36, from Jiwaka want tribal warfare eradicated from the city. A major part of the Papua New Guinea culture is still tribal living. Comment by Grumpy Old Man — November 3, 2008 @ 11:41 pm. We bring you exclusive reports/news of tribal conflicts in PNG - a culturally diverse nation with hundreds of distinct traditional social groups (tribes). I am a solo war gamer endlessly searching for old Peter Laing figures, and the perfect war-game rules to use with them. Frankly, it smacks of Jared Diamond using this unfortunate individual as a sock-puppet for his own sociobiological predispositions. Diamond makes it clear that such considerations do not interest him. As somebody with the kinds of connections he has with Chevron, which has seen its profits fattened through drilling in New Guinea, Diamond might persuade the owners of Freeport Copper to take their operations elsewhere given the impact they have had had on the lives of Papuans. Email This BlogThis! American politics has descended into tribal warfare. Using interviews with an ostensibly self-confessed killer, who is a member of the Handa clan, the innocent reader is led to believe that the highlands of Papua are a kind of a Rosetta stone for understanding wars and ethnic cleansing. I’m not going to speculate on the reasons (biological, social, economic or other) that brought it to this place; just to say that it might be better to at least give a little credit to someone who’s lived in or visited the place (like Diamond) rather than speculating when you’ve never even been there. Nabel, who served in a Polish division attached to the Red Army, eventually caught up with the perpetrators but decided at the last minute not to wreak vengeance since the new Polish government would be expected to carry out justice. 1.6K likes. The evidence is pretty overwhelming that hunter-gatherers, subsistence agriculturalists, and pastoralists, all without the state, engaged in low-level warfare and feuds, seemingly desultory but with a very high death rate. Further “economic development” left others without fishing rights. You seem to be speaking from an extremely narrow, self-satisfied, and ignorant point of view. R. Brian Ferguson. December 4, 2019 at 4:45 AM. Papua New Guinea has an ancient and very modern history. 0. These designs were a form of psychological warfare through tribal intimidation. That is why it is unwise for women to speak in any heated conversations that is highly likely to end badly. 2.1K likes. They hold onto tradition and have a rich culture which provides an insight into the past I haven’t seen elsewhere to such depth. Condition:--not specified “ As pictured ” Price: US $199.00. Papuan native: key to unlocking wars and ethnic cleansing? In light of the fact that the Iliad also claims that gods and goddesses took part in the fighting, Wilkie wonders how reliable a guide to history it is. We bring you exclusive reports/news of tribal conflicts in PNG - a culturally diverse nation with hundreds of distinct traditional social groups (tribes). You can’t blame the Indonesians for things that happen in Papua New Guinea, which is an independent country. Beautiful older authentic Asmat 1960 's woodcarving, Papua New Guinea Tribal art Measurements: 41 x 18 cm. All in all, the people of Papua New Guinea have been subjected to the same kinds of quasi-genocidal onslaughts from Indonesia that the people of East Timor have suffered. I have lived with tribes in Mali, Swaziland, and Fiji and LOVE the opportunity to connect with these tribes on their terms. No Interest if paid in full in 6 mo on $99+Opens in a new window or tab* No Interest if paid in full in 6 months on $99+. The position that “Warfare has been with us since the beginning of time, ergo it is a natural state of mankind” is nothing new. With that fact in mind, there are over 800 languages spoken in the country, and most of them are languages from the indigenous people or tribes scattered all over the islands. Furthermore, if Jared Diamond was truly interested in reducing the level of violence in New Guinea, he should start with the imperialist companies that have put these kinds of pressures on the indigenous peoples. But although less well known, it is also a region with its own ways of making peace, some of them long-established and others recent and remarkably innovatory. Tagged: Hela Province in grip of tribal warfare: Nicholas Yambu . Posted by jhnptrqn at 3:04 PM. A few wise women leaders' words bring healing, but for most, their rash words are like sword thrusts. No one in PNG dresses like that anymore. He writes: Anthropologists debate whether the wars really arise from some deeper underlying ultimate cause, such as land or population pressure, but the participants, when they are asked to name a cause, usually point to a woman or a pig.