Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture

the advent of agriculture entailed more than a change in diet; it also launched a great revolution in the organization of economic life and culture as well as a transformation of the logic of violence. Farming created large-scale capital assets in land and sometimes in irrigation systems. The crops and domesticated animals farmers raised were valua

Margaret Mead says every human group makes a simple rule: thou shalt not kill members of our gang, but everyone else is fair game. According to Mead, each group says that all humans are brothers and declares that murdering humans is out of the question. Most groups, however, have very strange means of defining who is human.

La quasi-totalité des peuples premiers ne tuait pas sans nécessité vitale ; quant à le faire pour se divertir, c’était chose inconcevable, car c’eût été une profanation au sens strict du terme. Cela revenait à outrager gravement les forces de la vie et l’esprit immanent qui les gouverne. Entre rituels de gratitude et cérémonies de propitiation, le