Over at the Department of Anthropology web portal on the University of Alabama at Birmingham website, there is a section on ‘Peaceful Societies’, with an ‘encyclopedia’ listing 25 putatively peaceful societies. The page is clearly influenced by the work of Douglas Fry, who is the chair of the anthropology department at UAB, and, fittingly, two of his books are recommended on the ‘Best Books’ section of the site. Along with links to ‘News and Reviews’, and the ‘Peaceful Societies’ facebook page, there are two motivational quotes displayed on every page:

“RESPECT FOR THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS IS PEACE” -Benito Juarez

and,

“ANYTHING THAT EXISTS IS POSSIBLE” – Kenneth Boulding.

Aspiring to make the world a more peaceful place seems like a worthwhile goal to me. To that end, one would think that seeking out societies that have solved the problem of violence, and thus may be worthy of emulation, would be a productive endeavor. For each of the societies referenced, the website attributes their seemingly low rates of violence to social norms discouraging violent behavior, and traditional practices of peaceful conflict resolution.

Unfortunately, I think there is a very important factor being left out.

In addition to the fact that some of these populations had higher rates of recorded violence in the ethnographic past, many of the ‘peaceful societies’ mentioned have a long history of being violently subjugated and enslaved by more powerful neighboring societies.

Consider the G/wi foragers of the Kalahari Desert. The ‘Peaceful Societies’ page cites Hunter and Habitat in the Central Kalahari Desert (1981) by George B. Silberbauer as the “major book on the G/wi”. In that book, Silberbauer describes the G/wi as “a timid people, fearful and initially shy and reserved in the presence of strangers.” This is perhaps unsurprising considering the history of violent interactions with neighboring groups that Silberbauer describes;

John Campbell, who visited the southern Tswana in 1813 and 1820 describes Bushman [G/wi] raids on his hosts’ cattle as if they were of fairly frequent occurrence. Retaliation ranged from giving the reivers a severe thrashing to the indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, or children encountered by the punitive party. Missionaries and travlers who worked among and visited the Tswana in the second half of the last century report them as keeping Bushman slaves. Mackenzie, writing in 1870, said that the slaves were absolute property…He makes it clear that both the Tswana and the Kgalagari despised Bushman and treated them very badly at times. (Silberbauer 7)

In addition to violent conflict with various neighboring native African societies, Silberbauer also describes extensive violent interactions with Dutch, German, and British farmers during the 19th century, with the killing going both ways. In the 1970’s anthropologist Mathias Guenther noted that many Bushmen living in the same district as the G/wi began to refer to themselves as the 'kamka kwe, which in the Naro language means ‘weak or inconsequential people', comparing themselves unfavorably to more powerful neighboring societies.