book chapter
'I am very sorry I cannot kill you any more': war and peace among the Kapauku
Studying war : anthropological perspectives • 2 • Published In 1993 • Pages: 113-126
By: Pospisil, Leopold J..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this article, Pospisil analyzes the cause for war in the New Guinea highlands. The research is based on informants' accounts of 12 wars fought in the Kamu Valley in the twenty years prior to the author's arrival, and two wars he himself witnessed during his field work. Pospisil claims that in-laws living in different confederacies are the cause for both the instigation and termination of war. In-law relationships between poor families are unstable and fighting can easily erupt over bride price disputes. If in-laws live in different confederacies the only recourse is to go to war. In-law relationships among wealthy families are more stable because they are butressed by various economic relationships. It is these in-laws who usually step in as peace makers to stop hostilities. The article includes a good description of Kapauku warfare.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Mode of marriage
- Community heads
- Instigation of war
- Warfare
- Peacemaking
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Kapauku
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 1998
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Oceania
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Melanesia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- book chapter
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 1996
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1954-1955
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1935-1955
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Kamu Valley, central Highlands, Irian Jaya, Indonesia
- NotesAdditional notes
- Leopold Pospisil
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-126)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 93032710
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Kapauku (New Guinea people)