In September of 1931, Margaret Mead and Reo Fortune set out from New York to conduct fieldwork in New Guinea. Their initial choice of field site was among a Plains people, later called the Abelam, “We had seen pictures of the splendid ceremonial houses and we hoped for an elaborate culture,” Mead w| Traditions of Conflict
It is to be remembered that a person's footprints are as well known as his face – Lorna Marshall, The !Kung of Nyae Nyae , 1976. You will know a man by the impressions he leaves behind. Deep or shallow; a long gait or a short stride; the force of his movement—keen observers pay careful attention| Traditions of Conflict
Should any man, Halimink warned me gravely, confide to a woman or an uninitiated lad anything of what went on in the Hain [men’s lodge], both he and the person to whom he had spoken would be killed—E.| traditionsofconflict.substack.com
There is an event recounted in the book Naven (1936) by Gregory Bateson, on the Iatmul fisher-foragers of New Guinea, that I have not been able to get out of my head since I first read it a few years back.| traditionsofconflict.substack.com
"The doom reserved for enemies marches on the ones we love most." - Sophocles, Antigone, 441 BC.| traditionsofconflict.substack.com