Did Australian Aboriginal peoples fight each other? This question arises in the context of a fierce debate over whether hunter-gatherer societies practised warfare or not. Darmangeat's book is an important contribution towards answering this question. The author's great achievement is having created an impressive database containing detailed information on war amongst Australian Aboriginal peoples between 1803 and 1951. As the author deplores, archaeological studies usually provide disappointingly little data on warfare in Aboriginal Australia, and most ethnographers—with a few exceptions, such as Lloyd Warner—only entered the field at a time when societies were already disintegrating and populations disappearing. Darmangeat manages to tap rich sources of historical data on warfare, such as accounts from early explorers and settlers, colonial officials and police officers, as well as castaways and escaped convicts.
In Chapter 3, he explains the basis of his data set, which consists of 199 cases of violent clashes between armed groups. He excludes duels and corporal punishment, as well as penalty challenges, and focuses instead on regulated battles and “judicial assassinations” (p. 54) that targeted more than one individual. In 39 of 199 cases, the armed clashes took the form of raids and ambushes, and in 124 cases, open battles. In 46 of 199 cases, collective violence caused 10 or more fatalities. Some cases of warfare are excluded as doubtful—among them the massacre at Irbmangkara reported by Ted Strehlow. The discussion of this particular case shows how careful and critical Darmangeat is in assessing the data. The most frequent reasons for the wars in the sample of 199 cases are disputes over women (69 cases) and revenge (35 cases). On the other hand, wars are seldom fought over territory, territorial expansion or the opportunity to gain loot (only 11 cases), as noted in Chapter 4.
Darmangeat focuses on the important difference between war and feud in Chapter 6. While feuds exist throughout Australia, war does not, neither in the Western Desert nor amongst the Tiwi. The concepts of ‘war’ and ‘feud’, however, remain somewhat unclear. Instead of referring to the widely accepted definitions (i.e. ‘warfare’ as an armed combat between political communities and ‘feud’ as fighting between individuals or families belonging to different political communities), Darmangeat relies on motives and outcomes. He defines ‘feud’ as limited warfare aimed at equalising the balance of casualties and ‘warfare’ as unrestricted revenge that inflicts maximum damage on the enemy. In my view, revenge is dubious grounds on which to build a classification. The call for revenge is often not the result of a judicial fact (e.g. murder or sorcery), but rather, an (often invented) reason to start a war and mobilise the group's warriors and allies against an enemy. Furthermore, motives such as revenge vary within a group, as well as in the course of enmities.
Darmangeat's attempt to link wars to social organisation also remains somewhat unsatisfactory. He claims that the wars between the Kurnai and the Bangerang can be explained by the fact that local groups among the Kurnai maintained conflictive yet peaceful relations with neighbouring local groups, but regarded more distant local groups as enemies. This assertion is equally as questionable as the suggestion that, amongst the Murngin, predominantly local clans of the same patri-moiety fought each other because they competed for the same women. It does point, however, to the necessity to gather more information on settlement patterns, social organisation and the economy of these societies, and integrate them into Darmangeat's database.
Chapter 7 contains a sophisticated discussion of weapons: various spears and clubs, but also shields. Darmangeat demonstrates that some spears were used specifically for warfare, notably those with barbs aligned in both directions, death spears with quartz stones and spears with breakable tips. The question of war leadership is also addressed. Among the Walbiri, any man could assume this role, whereas in West Queensland—among the Wathi-Wathi and the Kurnai—war leaders were elected or appointed, and among the Murngin and the Yaraldi the role was reserved for clan chiefs.
Broadening the scope, Darmangeat discusses some statistical studies on war among hunter-gatherers in many parts of the world (Chapter 8). Although their results vary considerably, all these studies show that warfare also exists in some mobile-foraging band societies, although to a much lesser degree than in complex hunter-gatherer societies. Archaeological evidence (e.g. visual art, war-related material and human remains exhibiting trauma related to violence) for war among hunter-gatherers is not plentiful, but “the absence of evidence is not evidence for absence” (p. 211). The first archaeological evidence of war is at Jebel Sahaba, a Mesolithic settlement dating to c. 12 000 BP. Darmangeat draws an analogy to the Aboriginal groups on the Murray River, with their reduced nomadism, stronger territoriality, higher population densities and higher social complexity. But it remains unclear what conclusion is to be drawn from this comparison. According to the author, collective conflicts vary in frequency, but were always fought over women and for revenge among hunter-gatherers without wealth (i.e. mobile-foraging band societies); it is questionable whether Darmangeat's data support this thesis. In complex societies with wealth inequalities, on the other hand, wars were often waged for economic reasons (e.g. looting, territorial conflicts), whether these societies lived by hunting, fishing or farming.
In the end, the pertinent question is not whether wars occur between hunter-gatherer groups, but rather what hunter-gatherers are. Does it make sense to classify ‘mobile-foraging bands’ and ‘complex hunter-gatherer societies’ together in one type of society, or not? Regardless, Darmangeat's study is an important step forward in studying violence and warfare among hunter-gatherers.
