The triumph of social anthropology

Robert Knox Dentan's book "The Semai" was first published in 1968. My edition is from 1979. The Semai are an aboriginal people living in Malaya, the western part of Malaysia. They are agricultural, and are divided into two somewhat different groups: West Semai (who sometimes mimic the dominant Malay culture) and East Semai (who are more "wild"). Both groups are related to Semang, a group of hunters and gatherers.

This somewhat obscure people achieved notoriety during the 1970's, when sociobiologists and their opponents in the United States were debating whether or not humans are innately violent. The sociobiologists claimed that violence and aggression are universal traits, and therefore products of Darwinist natural selection. War is part of our human nature.

The sociobiologists were, of course, wrong.

The Semai are a non-violent people, and hence disprove sociobiology. Absurdely, the sociobiologists attempted to use Dentan's book to prove that the Semai actually were violent! From an extensive discussion of how the Semai avoid violence within their communities, the sociobiologist Edward Wilson chose to quote the following section: "Many people who knew the Semai insisted that such an unwarlike people could never make good soldiers. Interestingly enough, they were wrong. Communist terrorists had killed the kinsmen of some of the Semai counterinsurgency troops. Taken out of their nonviolent society and ordered to kill, they seem to have been swept up in a sort of insanity which they call `blood drunkenness'." From this Wilson drew the conclusion that the Semai had a gene for violence and aggression, and that all humans are naturally violent. But this is the only example in Dentan's book about the Semai actually killing people. The rest of the chapter deals with conflict resolution. Why didn't Wilson draw the opposite conclusion: that the Semai have peaceful genes? Or genes for both violence and pacifism? The answer is simple: political blinkers. Sociobiology, despite its "scientific" pretensions, is at bottom a pseudoscience the real purpose of which is to defend the status quo by claiming that peace, egalitarianism and gender equality are unnatural and maladaptive.

Dentan (who seems to have felt somewhat uneasy about "his" people being used in a political brawl) points out that the Semai have had a non-violent reputation for a long time. Indeed, they were almost notorious for fleeing rather than fighting the more powerful Malays and Chinese. Nor does Dentan mention any armed Semai struggle against the slave raids on their communities by the Malay. Only during the Communist insurgency in Malaysia during the 1950's did the Semai finally choose to fight, probably because the war between the Communists and the British affected their areas in a very direct and permanent manner (in contrast to the slave raids). But even then, most Semai attempted a more cunning, pacifist strategy, described by Dentan in the book. Apparently, a secret Semai association decided that Semai settlements in areas controlled by Communists should pretend to be pro-Communist, those in areas controlled by the British should pretend to be pro-British, and those in areas in between should stay neutral and act stupid. The various groups would meet in secret to discuss the next move, and when the British won, the "pro-British" Semai were to convince the colonial authorities that the "pro-Communist" Semai were really pro-British as well. Sounds like a strategy adapted by somebody who wants to avoid trouble at all costs!

Dentan describes Semai society in some detail. Murder is very uncommon, children are almost never beaten, and there is little overall violence. The Semai often adopt abandoned Malay or Chinese children, or illegitimate children of their own group, hence making them legitimate. Retarded people are tolerated. Among the east Semai, the sexual mores are quite loose. As for the authority structure, there hardly seems to be any. There are elders, and their advice is often heeded, but they have no real power to enforce decisions if people decide to go against them. Indeed, the smartest elders or headmen are those who simply heed to public opinion.

Semai society is also remarkably egalitarian. Food sharing is standard among the east Semai, where successful hunters share their kill with the entire settlement, even when they have hunted alone. Nor do the east Semai have a money economy. The lack of money makes sharing and bartering not only easier, but inevitable. The west Semai have money, and there sharing is limited to the family and closest kin.

Does this mean that the Semai live in some kind of utopia? Hardly. Disease is rampant, malaria and skin disease in particular. Infant mortality is very high, especially in the eastern group. The Malayan hills seem to be infested with wild and dangerous animals, and many of the domestic animals and pets kept by the Semai are inbred. Until recently, violence by outsiders was another tangible threat: slave raiders, Communists and anti-Communists, strangers in general. When Denton visited the area, east Semai women feared being raped by Malay men.

So no, utopia it is not.

It is, however, a peaceful and cooperative people. Something like the Arapesh, perhaps?

This book is another triumph for social anthropology, and another nail in the coffin of sociobiology.