Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

510 J HOW THE MIND WORKSthe men are killed by other men. Forty-four percent of the men have killedsomeone. The Yanomamo call themselves the Fierce People, but otherpristine tribes give similar numbers. The archeologist Lawrence Keeley hasdocumented that New Guineans, Australian aborigines, Pacific Islanders,and Native Americans have been wracked by warfare, especially in thecenturies before the Pax Brittanica ended this nuisance to the colonialadministrators in much of the world. In primitive warfare, mobilization wasmore complete, battles were more frequent, casualties higher, prisonersfewer, and weapons more damaging. War is, to put it mildly, a major selectionpressure, and since it appears to have been a recurring event in ourevolutionary history, it must have shaped parts of the human psyche.Why would anyone be so stupid as to start a war? Tribal people canfight over anything of value, and the causes of tribal wars are as difficultto disentangle as the causes of World War I. But one motive that is surprisingto Westerners appears over and over. In foraging societies, men goto war to get or keep women—not necessarily as a conscious goal of thewarriors (though often it is exactly that), but as the ultimate payoff thatallowed a willingness to fight to evolve. Access to women is the limitingfactor on males' reproductive success. Having two wives can double a man'schildren, having three wives can triple it, and so on. For a man who is notat death's door, no other resource has as much impact on evolutionaryfitness. The most common spoils of tribal warfare are women. Raiderskill the men, abduct the nubile women, gang-rape them, and allocatethem as wives. Chagnon discovered that Yanomamo men who had killedan enemy had three times as many wives and three times as many childrenas those who had not. Most young men who had killed were married;most young men who had never killed were not. The difference isnot an accident of other differences between the killers and the nonkillers,such as size, strength, or number of kin. Killers are held inesteem in Yanomamo villages; they attract and are ceded more wives.The Yanomamo sometimes plan raids just to abduct women. Morefrequently, they plan them to avenge a past killing or abduction, but theyalways try to abduct women, too. Blood feuds, in which relatives avengea death with a death, either of the killer or of his relatives, are the majorimpetus to extended violence everywhere; the motive that drives themhas an obvious deterrent function, as we saw in Chapter 6. Blood feudscan extend for decades or longer because each side counts the score differently,so at any time each remembers injustices that must be redressed.(Imagine your feelings toward a neighboring people that has murdered