CONTENT
List of Tables and Figures xi
PROLOGUE: At the Airport i
An airport scene * Why study traditional societies? o States " Types of traditional societies * Approaches, causes, and sources " A small book about a big subject * Plan of the book
PART ONE: SETTING THE STAGE BY DIVIDING SPACE
CHAPTER i. Friends, Enemies, Strangers, and Traders 37
A boundary " Mutually exclusive territories o Non-exclusive land use " Friends, enemies, and strangers o First contacts * Trade and traders " Market economies o Traditional forms of trade " Traditional trade items o Who trades what? " Tiny nations
PART TWO: PEACE AND WAR
CHAPTER 2. Compensation for the Death of a Child 79
An accident " A ceremony " What if. . . ? * What the state did " New Guinea compensation " Life-long relationships o Other non-state societies * State authority * State civil justice o Defects in state civil justice o State criminal justice * Restorative justice " Advantages and their price
CHAPTER 3. A Short Chapter, About a Tiny War 119
The Dani War " The war's time-line * The war's death toll
CHAPTER 4. A Longer Chapter, About Many Wars 129
Definitions of war " Sources of information o Forms of traditional warfare * Mortality rates " Similarities and differences o Ending warfare " Effects of European contact " Warlike animals, peaceful peoples * Motives for traditional war * Ultimate reasons " Whom do people fight? * Forgetting Pearl Harbor
PART THREE: YOUNG AND OLD
CHAPTER 5. Bringing Up Children 173
Comparisons of child-rearing o Childbirth " Infanticide * Weaning and birth interval o On-demand nursing " Infant-adult contact * Fathers and allo-parents " Responses to crying infants " Physical punishment * Child autonomy " Multi-age playgroups * Child play and education " Their kids and our kids
CHAPTER 6. The Treatment of Old People: Cherish, Abandon,
or Kill? 210
The elderly " Expectations about eldercare * Why abandon or kill? o Usefulness of old people * Society's values " Society's rules * Better or worse today? * What to do with older people?
PART FOUR: DANGER AND RESPONSE
CHAPTER 7. Constructive Paranoia 243
Attitudes towards danger * A night visit " A boat accident o Just a stick in the ground " Taking risks * Risks and talkativeness
CHAPTER 8. Lions and Other Dangers 276
Dangers of traditional life * Accidents * Vigilance * Human violence * Diseases * Responses to diseases o Starvation * Unpredictable food shortages o Scatter your land * Seasonally and food storage " Diet broadening " Aggregation and dispersal " Responses to danger
PART FIVE: RELIGION, LANGUAGE, AND HEALTH
CHAPTER 9. What Electric Eels Tell Us About the Evolution
of Religion 323
Questions about religion * Definitions of religion o Functions and electric eels * The search for causal explanations " Supernatural beliefs " Religion's function of explanation * Defusing anxiety * Providing comfort o Organization and obedience " Codes of behavior towards strangers o Justifying war " Badges of commitment * Measures of religious success o Changes in religion's functions
CHAPTER 10. Speaking in Many Tongues 369
Multilingualism * The world's language total * How languages evolve * Geography of language diversity " Traditional multilin-gualism " Benefits of bilingualism * Alzheimer's disease o Vanishing languages " How languages disappear * Are minority languages harmful? " Why preserve languages? * How can we protect languages?
CHAPTER 11. Salt, Sugar, Fat, and Sloth 410
Non-communicable diseases * Our salt intake o Salt and blood pressure " Causes of hypertension " Dietary sources of salt * Diabetes * Types of diabetes * Genes, environment, and diabetes * Pima Indians and Nauru Islanders " Diabetes in India " Benefits of genes for diabetes " Why is diabetes low in Europeans? o The future of non-communicable diseases
EPILOGUE: At Another Airport 452
From the jungle to the 405 " Advantages of the"modern world * Advantages of the traditional world * What can we learn?
Acknowledgments 467
Further Readings 471
Index 483
Illustration Credits 499
Figure i Locations of 39 societies that will be discussed
frequently in this book 26-27
Table 1.1 Objects traded by some traditional societies 68
Table 3.1 Membership of two warring Dani alliances 122
Table 8.1 Causes of accidental death and injury 279
Table 8.2 Traditional food storage around the world 309
Table 9.1 Some proposed definitions of religion 327
Table 9.2 Examples of supernatural beliefs confined to
particular religions 341
Figure 9.1 Religion's functions changing through time 367
Table 11.1 Prevalences of Type-2 diabetes around the world 438
Table 11.2 Examples of gluttony when food is abundantly available 444