Mind-Munitions

Chapter 1
In the Beginning …
We still know so little about the dawn of mankind that it is
impossible to identify precisely when Palaeolithic man began to use
his tools for warlike purposes. Man’s earliest days were undoubtedly
violent, with the environment his greatest enemy. His struggle
to master that environment was made easier after 8000 BC when
the glaciers of the Ice Age began their retreat. Debate still rages
among anthropologists as to whether early man was peaceful or
warlike, but his struggle for mastery over his surroundings and his
developing hunting and farming skills may have provided him with
something wanted by others, and thus with something to fight over.
We shall probably never know why he first began to organize himself
for war. Yet even before he was learning to speak in a recognizable
language, early man was appreciating the need to communicate,
whether for peaceful or for warlike purposes. Anthropological and
archaeological research suggests that before speech (organized
language) all communication was visual. Primitive man communicated
non-verbally via gestures and signals although sounds – cries
and drum beats, for instance – were also important. Tribal man
developed masks, war cries, and threatening gestures both to
frighten his enemies and impress his friends.
Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist of the inter-war years
whose studies Coming of Age in Samoa and Growing Up in New
Guinea throw much light on the behaviour of primitive peoples,
suggests that visual symbols were used for very specific purposes.
For example, one village might send a message to another in the
form of leaves and weapons arranged in such a way as to suggest a
danger from a third village, thereby hoping to forge an alliance.
Equally, ‘the omission of some small formal act of courtesy was, in