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Authors: Jared Diamond
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and social motives played an even larger role in their trade relationships than they do in ours. In the next three chapters we shall discover how these tiny traditional nations maintained peace, and how they made war.
PART TWO
PEACE AND WAR
Chapter 2
Compensation for the Death of a Child
An accident A ceremony What if …? What the state did New Guinea compensation Life-long relationships Other non-state societies State authority State civil justice Defects in state civil justice State criminal justice Restorative justice Advantages and their price
An accident
Late one afternoon towards the end of the dry season, a car driven by a man named Malo accidentally struck and killed a young schoolboy, Billy, on a road in Papua New Guinea. Billy was riding home from school in a public mini-bus (not a marked school bus), and his uncle Genjimp was waiting to meet him on the other side of the road. Malo, the driver for a local small business, was bringing office staff home at the end of the day and was driving in the opposite direction from the mini-bus carrying Billy. When Billy jumped down from the mini-bus, he saw his uncle Genjimp and started running across the road to join him. However, in crossing the road, Billy didn’t walk in front of the mini-bus, which would have left him visible to Malo’s car and other on-coming traffic. Instead, Billy ran out of sight behind the mini-bus and became visible to Malo only at the instant when he darted out into the middle of the road. Malo couldn’t stop in time, and his car’s hood struck Billy in the head and tossed him into the air. Uncle Genjimp took Billy straight to the hospital emergency room, but Billy died there several hours later from massive head injuries.
In the United States a driver involved in a serious accident is expected to remain at the scene until police arrive: if he leaves and doesn’t report to the police, he is viewed as fleeing, and that itself is considered a crime. In Papua New Guinea, though, as in some other countries, the law permits,and police and common sense urge, the driver not to stay at the scene but to drive straight to the nearest police station. That’s because angry bystanders are likely to drag the offending driver from his car and beat him to death on the spot, even if the accident was the pedestrian’s fault. Adding to the risk to Malo and his passengers, Malo and Billy belonged to different ethnic groups, which in Papua New Guinea is often a recipe for tension. Malo was a local resident from a nearby village, but Billy belonged to a group of lowlanders originating many miles away. Many lowlanders who had migrated to the area for work lived near the accident’s site. If Malo had stopped and gotten out to help the boy, he might well have been killed by lowlander bystanders, and possibly his passengers would have been dragged out and killed as well. But Malo had the presence of mind to drive to the local police station and surrender himself. The police locked up the passengers temporarily at the station for their own safety, and escorted Malo for his own safety back to his village, where he remained for the next several months.
The ensuing events illustrate how New Guineans, like many other traditional peoples living largely outside the effective control of systems of justice established by state governments, nevertheless achieve justice and peacefully resolve disputes by traditional mechanisms of their own. Such mechanisms of dispute resolution probably operated throughout human prehistory, until the rise of states with their codified laws, courts, judges, and police beginning 5,400 years ago. The case of Billy and Malo contrasts with a case that I shall relate in the next chapter, a case also resolved by traditional means, but ones opposite to those used in the case of Billy and Malo: by revenge killings and war. Depending on the circumstances and the parties involved, disputes in traditional societies may be resolved either peacefully,
PART TWO
PEACE AND WAR
Chapter 2
Compensation for the Death of a Child
An accident A ceremony What if …? What the state did New Guinea compensation Life-long relationships Other non-state societies State authority State civil justice Defects in state civil justice State criminal justice Restorative justice Advantages and their price
An accident
Late one afternoon towards the end of the dry season, a car driven by a man named Malo accidentally struck and killed a young schoolboy, Billy, on a road in Papua New Guinea. Billy was riding home from school in a public mini-bus (not a marked school bus), and his uncle Genjimp was waiting to meet him on the other side of the road. Malo, the driver for a local small business, was bringing office staff home at the end of the day and was driving in the opposite direction from the mini-bus carrying Billy. When Billy jumped down from the mini-bus, he saw his uncle Genjimp and started running across the road to join him. However, in crossing the road, Billy didn’t walk in front of the mini-bus, which would have left him visible to Malo’s car and other on-coming traffic. Instead, Billy ran out of sight behind the mini-bus and became visible to Malo only at the instant when he darted out into the middle of the road. Malo couldn’t stop in time, and his car’s hood struck Billy in the head and tossed him into the air. Uncle Genjimp took Billy straight to the hospital emergency room, but Billy died there several hours later from massive head injuries.
In the United States a driver involved in a serious accident is expected to remain at the scene until police arrive: if he leaves and doesn’t report to the police, he is viewed as fleeing, and that itself is considered a crime. In Papua New Guinea, though, as in some other countries, the law permits,and police and common sense urge, the driver not to stay at the scene but to drive straight to the nearest police station. That’s because angry bystanders are likely to drag the offending driver from his car and beat him to death on the spot, even if the accident was the pedestrian’s fault. Adding to the risk to Malo and his passengers, Malo and Billy belonged to different ethnic groups, which in Papua New Guinea is often a recipe for tension. Malo was a local resident from a nearby village, but Billy belonged to a group of lowlanders originating many miles away. Many lowlanders who had migrated to the area for work lived near the accident’s site. If Malo had stopped and gotten out to help the boy, he might well have been killed by lowlander bystanders, and possibly his passengers would have been dragged out and killed as well. But Malo had the presence of mind to drive to the local police station and surrender himself. The police locked up the passengers temporarily at the station for their own safety, and escorted Malo for his own safety back to his village, where he remained for the next several months.
The ensuing events illustrate how New Guineans, like many other traditional peoples living largely outside the effective control of systems of justice established by state governments, nevertheless achieve justice and peacefully resolve disputes by traditional mechanisms of their own. Such mechanisms of dispute resolution probably operated throughout human prehistory, until the rise of states with their codified laws, courts, judges, and police beginning 5,400 years ago. The case of Billy and Malo contrasts with a case that I shall relate in the next chapter, a case also resolved by traditional means, but ones opposite to those used in the case of Billy and Malo: by revenge killings and war. Depending on the circumstances and the parties involved, disputes in traditional societies may be resolved either peacefully,
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