Page 25 - 2011 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - January 2011

Chimpanzees and Romans Chimpanzees and Romans Why Both Make War by Howard Bloom Where violence takes place, children crop up over and over again. Stags fight for the right to have them. Humans declare wars to their sexual prime are completely unhurt. of a cliff. make the world safe for them. Strange as it The mass murder is anything but To the Yanomamo, this is an exhilarating sounds, children--and the genes they carry--are random. Like Effie's infanticide, it has a simple entertainment. They brag and boast as they one key to the mystery of violence. goal. This cluster of wives was raising the smash fresh newborns against the stones. When An adult male langur who's become the children of the old man who just fled. As long as the winning warriors have finished, not a single head of the establishment ensconces himself at the ladies continued to suckle infants, they suckling child remains. Then the triumphant the center of his group looking ever-so-regal. would be tied to the children of the toppled Yanomamo men lead the captured women back He has every reason for sitting pretty. If you authority figure. A natural birth-control device to a new life as secondary wives. No wonder the take a closer look at the cluster of langurs called lactational amenorrhea would keep them Yanomamo word for marriage means "dragging milling around him, you'll discover that all of uninterested in sex, preventing them from something away." them are either his wives or his children. The entering estrus, and blocking the females from What have the Yanomamo victors females do his bidding, and offer their bodies carrying the seed of the new conquerors. When accomplished? The same thing the langurs did. only to him. If they attempt a romance with a mother's baby is killed and her suckling stops, They have freed the females from the some dashing bachelor, they are severely however, the whole game changes. Her biochemical birth control device that keeps a punished. So is the hopeful seducer. No wonder biochemistry shifts, resurrecting her sexual suckling woman from bearing new progeny. the central male looks so lordly. He is interest. She becomes an empty womb waiting The Yanomamo fighters have made the wombs surrounded by a tribe devoted to one primary to have another child. And this time, the child of their captured consorts available to carry purpose--having and raising his kids. will not belong to the deposed monarch--it will fresh children...their children. The Yanomamo As we saw several chapters ago, not carry the legacy of one of the invaders. are not some strange aberration dragged out of every member of the langur society is happy But surely humans don't indulge in such the jungle to illustrate a far-fetched point. In the about this state of affairs. In the jungle nearby barbarities. Or do they? In the rain forests near early fourth century, Eusebius --the first roams a gang of post-pubertal hooligans who the Amazon live a people called the Yanomamo. historian of the Christian Church-- summarized have left home permanently to hang with toughs Their ethnographer, Napoleon Chagnon, calls what the study of history had focused on until their own age. Their newly spurting sexual them "the fierce people." They pride themselves his time: war, slaughters for the sake of country hormones have triggered the growth of on their cruelty, glorying in it so enthusiastically and children. Hugo Grotius in 1625 published horniness, muscle and a cocky aggression. that they make a great show of beating their De Jure Bellis ac Pacis (Concerning The Law of Periodically, the gang of youthful thugs wives. And the wives are as much a part of this War and Peace), a book that tried to make advances on the territory where the well-fixed viciousness as the husbands. A spouse who does Christian war more humane. In it, Grotius elder statesman sits in the midst of his massive not carry enough scars from her husband's justified killing children. He cited the 137th family. The hoodlums try to get his attention. blows feels rejected and complains miserably psalm, which said, "Happy shall he be who They mock and challenge the patriarch. He about her unbruised condition. It is a sign, she is takes and dashes your little ones against the sometimes sits aloof, refusing to dignify their certain, that her husband does not love her. rock." So Grotius was well aware of two things. taunts with a response. On other occasions, he Yanomamo men have two great sports-- That killing the children of the people you'd ambles over to the periphery of the harem, then hunting and war. The patterns of their warfare attacked was common in the days of the Old rears up and puts on a display of outrage that bear a strange resemblance to those of the Testament. And that it remained as common as chases the young Turks away. But from time to langur. Yanomamo men sneak up on a ever in the Europe of the 1600s. time, the massed delinquents continue their neighboring village and attack. If they are challenge, starting a fight that can be brutal successful, they kill or chase away the men. (Continued on Page 30) indeed. If they are lucky, the upstarts trounce They leave the sexually-capable young women their dignified superior thoroughly, chasing him unharmed. But they move methodically through from his comfortable home. the lean-to-like homes, grabbing babies from Then the newly triumphant members of the screaming captives. Like the langurs, the the younger generation execute an atrocity. Yanomamo men beat these infants against the They wade into the screaming females, ground, bash their brains out on the rocks, and grabbing babies left and right. They swing the make the footpaths wet with babies' blood. They infants against the trees, smash them against the spear the older children with the sharp ends of ground, bite their heads and crush their skulls. their bows, pinning their quivering bodies to the They kill and kill. When the orgy of bloodlust is ground. Others they simply throw from the edge over, not an infant remains. Yet the females in