Moral Origins

by Christopher Boehm

  Except when storms are raging, this huge inland waterway is easy enough to cross, and on those distant hills some nights the fires burned bright orange for hours, the visible signature of rebel forces resisting the Zairian government and attacking agricultural villages that did not cooperate with them. A few years earlier forty of those same rebels had motored right across the lake to kidnap four of Jane’s student fieldworkers, so watching these burning villages definitely brought a sense of malaise. As I heard it, the Stanford University students were eventually ransomed for $500,000 by one student’s father, but I knew that if the chips were down, I personally would have no such backer.

  The Mbuti Pygmies live in the interior far beyond those hills, in truly dense forests that provide these skillful hunters with enough meat to satisfy their needs because they trade some of it with Bantu farmers for grain the farmers grow.20 Aside from this unusual economic symbiosis, these foragers live pretty much as other mobile hunter-gatherers do, camping in small egalitarian bands of up to a dozen or so families in one locale, until it is time to move on and exploit another. The Mbuti have no formal religion as we know it, but in their own way they use rituals to worship and placate “The Forest,” which, as they see things, provides generously for them. They are a loquacious and intelligent people, and if they are morally aroused, their capacity to express themselves is far from restrained.

  Anthropologist Colin Turnbull lived with these people and wrote several books about their way of life. An excellent writer, Turnbull was exceptionally sensitive to the nuances that attend social life in small moral communities. Like myself when I am studying humans rather than chimpanzees, he felt it was important to become reasonably proficient in the native language, and surely, like all cultural anthropologists when a situation of exceptional social interest arose, he took notes as things went along and afterward checked his records independently with a number of indigenous informants to make sure he’d gotten it all right.

  The episode I shall be describing here—often using Turnbull’s own words and the words of the Pygmies themselves—is one that reflects some of the core moral values in forager life. These involve political egalitarianism and cooperation in procuring and sharing meat, and both practices will play a key role in the coming prehistoric analysis of conscience evolution, just as they play a central role in the social lives of all mobile foragers today.

  Here’s the shameful story. A rather arrogant mature hunter named Cephu was a member of the Mbuti band in question, even though his extended family seemed to be not as well integrated into the band as the rest of the families, a few of which were closely related by blood but most not. Such an admixture is typical of forager bands, and even though these people are quick to show preference toward their kinsmen, just as Hamilton’s kin selection theory predicts, they will in many contexts treat everyone in the band almost like “family.”

  This is particularly the case when large game—a favorite food because of its exceptional fat content and general nutritious value—is taken down. All over the world, mobile hunter-gatherers use social control guided by moral rules to see to it that when a successful hunter kills a large mammal, his ego is held in check. To this end, he is not only precluded from decisively favoring his family and kinsmen with larger portions of the meat, but usually he is also forbidden by his fellow egalitarians even to preside over and distribute the meat—for fear that he might use this position to gain political or social advantages. Rather, the band sees to it that some neutral person will distribute the meat fairly and equitably, according to the rules.21 These rules are, of course, moral, and it is virtuous, as well as mandatory, to give over one’s kill to the entire group. By the same token, it’s dangerously deviant to play the possessive meat bully—and downright shameful to sneakily cheat on the system. This last is precisely what Cephu did.

  Foragers most often use projectile weapons to hunt large game in small groups, but the Mbuti sometimes engage in collaborative net hunts that involve the entire band. Each man has a very long net, and up to a dozen nets are positioned so that they form an extremely long, semicircular trap. Some distance away the women and children then start beating the bush and approaching the nets to drive frightened animals like forest antelope into this trap. Each man then spears any prey that become ensnared and keeps the meat for his family.

  This variant of Pygmy hunting and sharing does not require a designated, fair-minded meat distributor because the game are medium to small and the nets are so long that everyone is bound to get about the same amount of meat. But that is true only if no one cheats. During the net hunt in question, the egoistic Cephu quietly decided he wasn’t getting his due. As fleeing animals randomly rushed into other nets and were speared by their owners, Cephu decided to improve his luck. When he thought no one was looking, in the dense forest he repositioned his net so that it would be well ahead of all the others, and the driven animals would run into his net first. Cephu succeeded very well in the final take, but this cheater had the misfortune of being spotted.22

  Colin Turnbull had gone along on the hunt, but he was unaware of Cephu’s crime, just as Cephu was unaware that his dastardly act had been witnessed. As most of the families were returning to camp, Turnbull noticed a very gloomy mood among them, and he heard both men and women quietly swearing at Cephu, who had yet to arrive. No one would tell Turnbull what had happened, but finally an adult male, Kenge, said to the group, “Cephu is an impotent old fool. No, he isn’t, he is an impotent old animal—we have treated him like a man for long enough, now we should treat him like an animal. Animal!”

  This statement broke the ice, and some serious gossiping began as the score was carefully added up and a group consensus materialized. The result of Kenge’s tirade was that everyone calmed down and began criticizing Cephu a little less heatedly, but on every possible score: the way he always built his camp separately, the way he had even referred to it as a separate camp, the way he mistreated his relatives, his general deceitfulness, the dirtiness of his camp, and even his own personal habits.

  Just then, Cephu returned from the hunt. As he stopped at his hut, Kenge shouted over to Cephu that he was an animal! As he strolled over to the main camp, Cephu attempted to tough it out:

  Trying not to walk too quickly, yet afraid to dawdle too deliberately, he made an awkward entrance. For as good an actor as Cephu it was surprising. By the time he got to the kumamolimo everyone was doing something to occupy himself—staring into the fire or up at the tree tops, roasting plantains, smoking, or whittling away at arrow shafts. Only Ekianga and Manyalibo looked impatient, but they said nothing. Cephu walked into the group, and still nobody spoke. He went up to where a youth was sitting in a chair. Usually he would have been offered a seat without his having to ask, and now he did not dare ask, and the youth continued to sit there in as nonchalant a manner as he could muster. Cephu went to another chair where Amabosu was sitting. He shook it violently when Amabosu ignored him, at which he was told, “Animals lie on the ground.”

  Next Cephu was told that he took more help from other band members than he gave back, and Cephu tried to defend himself. It is at that point that Ekianga, another adult male, let on in no uncertain terms that the group knew what had gone on. “Ekianga leaped to his feet and brandished his hairy fist across the fire. He said that he hoped Cephu would fall on his spear and kill himself like the animal he was. Who but an animal would steal meat from others? There were cries of rage from everyone, and Cephu burst into tears.”

  This action involved very strong shaming, and Turnbull makes it clear that Cephu’s deviance was extraordinary: “I had never heard of this happening before, and it was obviously a serious offense. In a small and tightly knit hunting band, survival can be achieved only by the closest co-operation and by an elaborate system of reciprocal obligations which insures that everyone has some share in the day’s catch. Some days one gets more than others, but nobody ever goes without. There is, as often as not, a great deal of squabbl
ing over the division of the game, but that is expected, and nobody tries to take what is not his due.”

  Cephu’s next acts were to cover his deviance with a lie and then engage in some egoistic boasting, which, to me, seems almost worthy of the sometimes megalomaniac, fast-talking, recklessly-lying psychopaths described by Hare and Kiehl:

  Cephu tried very weakly to say that he had lost touch with the others and was still waiting when he heard the beating begin. It was only then that he had set up his net, where he was. Knowing that nobody believed him, he added that in any case he felt he deserved a better place in the line of nets. After all, was he not an important man, a chief, in fact, of his own band? Manyalibo tugged at Ekianga to sit down, and sitting down himself he said there was obviously no use prolonging the discussion. Cephu was a big chief, and Mbuti never have chiefs. And Cephu had his own band, of which he was chief, so let him go with it and hunt elsewhere and be a chief elsewhere. Manyalibo ended a very eloquent speech with “Pisa me taba” (“Pass me the tobacco”). Cephu knew he was defeated and humiliated.

  Cephu could have continued to protest his innocence and left the band. But he didn’t, and Turnbull knew exactly what Cephu had to be thinking.

  Alone, his band of four or five families was too small to make an efficient hunting unit. He apologized profusely, reiterated that he really did not know he had set up his net in front of the others, and said that in any case he would hand over all the meat. This settled the matter, and accompanied by most of the group he returned to his little camp and brusquely ordered his wife to hand over the spoils. She had little chance to refuse, as hands were already reaching into her basket and under the leaves of the roof where she had hidden some liver in anticipation of just such a contingency. Even her cooking pot was emptied. Then each of the other huts was searched and all the meat taken. Cephu’s family protested loudly and Cephu tried hard to cry, but this time it was forced and everyone laughed at him. He clutched his stomach and said he would die; die because he was hungry and his brothers had taken away all his food; die because he was not respected.

  The playacting was totally ignored, but Turnbull makes it clear that Cephu’s apology and concession of the meat set things on a conciliatory path. Within a few hours, Cephu joined the group in its evening singing ritual, and he and his extended family were no longer socially distanced deviants but accepted members of the group again. Reconciliation was, of course, in the interest of all, for it enabled the band to continue to have many hunters and frequent opportunities to eat their beloved meat.

  Turnbull, who like myself surely has read famous French sociologist Émile Durkheim on the punitive power of small moral communities, sums up this group-sanctioning episode very nicely:

  Cephu had committed what is probably one of the most heinous crimes in Pygmy eyes, and one that rarely occurs. Yet the case was settled simply and effectively, without any evident legal system being brought into force. It cannot be said that Cephu went unpunished, because for those few hours when nobody would speak to him he must have suffered the equivalent of as many days solitary confinement for anyone else. To have been refused a chair by a mere youth, not even one of the great hunters; to have been laughed at by women and children; to have been ignored by men—none of these things would be quickly forgotten. Without any formal process of law Cephu had been firmly put in his place, and it was unlikely he would do the same thing again.

  This was a case of corrective social control through shaming and threat of expulsion in which a deviant’s behavior was modified so that the group needn’t lose a productive member who was misbehaving. The breach of mores was serious, and Manyalibo made one thing clear: if Cephu really thought he was too good to be just another egalitarian band member who followed the group’s rules, he was free to take his little handful of relatives and friends, go elsewhere, play the “big chief,” and possibly starve. Thus, in trying to defend himself in one transgression, Cephu committed another: he tried to lord it over his egalitarian peers. For both sins he was forgiven, but only after proffering a weepingly submissive apology.

  All of these nuances become so obvious because Turnbull offers an unusually detailed description. Cephu’s life was never in immediate danger, but the threat of expulsion from the band was a compelling one. People in small moral communities fear the wrath of the group for good reason. If a crime is an ultimate one, and if words and social pressure are not sufficient to rehabilitate the transgressor, sanctioning, both physical and verbal, can become far more decisive. Although some hunter-gatherers don’t do this, the Mbuti beat sneak thieves when they are caught. And any small human group has the potential to use capital punishment if a deviant poses a sufficiently ultimate danger. But even just being expelled from a band can bring serious risks, and it was in the face of such a threat that Cephu came down off of his defensive high horse, grudgingly but apologetically all but admitted his shameful act, and, having submitted, became an accepted group member again.

  THE EVER-PRESENT THREAT OF RIDICULE

  The impact of actively shaming deviants deserves further discussion. Once ridicule has been used to shame someone, say for behaving arrogantly, others with a similar penchant are likely to stay in line almost automatically—just to avoid similar humiliation. More than fear is at work here, for the potential deviants have internalized egalitarian group mores that condemn self-aggrandizement, have personally experienced shame feelings while growing up, and fear being further ridiculed or shamed as adults. They also have language, so the learning of moral lessons can be vicarious. Any Pygmy who later heard the story of Cephu would think twice before shifting his net ahead of the others.

  The effectiveness of even mild forms of ridicule is perhaps best seen in anthropologist Richard Lee’s vivid (and oft-quoted) descriptions of how the !Kung Bushmen keep alpha-male tendencies in check. (The “!” that precedes “Kung” is a clicking sound that is part of their language.) Unlike the Mbuti, these Kalahari Bushmen are economically independent mobile foragers of the same general type as people who were evolving our genes for us 45,000 years ago, and they, too, are verbally adept. When a !Kung hunter comes back from a hunting expedition, others in the camp are eager to eat their favorite food, meat, and expectantly they’ll ask him what he has killed. Knowing that he’ll be subjected to ridicule if he shows the slightest tendency to boast and set himself up as being a superior hunter, he’ll all but poetically deprecate the size and quality of his prey. An articulate Bushman named Gaugo tells Lee, “Say that a man has been hunting. He must not come home and announce like a braggart, ‘I have killed a big one in the bush!’ He must first sit down in silence until someone else comes up to his fire and asks, ‘What did you see today?’ He replies quietly, ‘Ah, I’m no good for hunting. I saw nothing at all . . . maybe just a tiny one.’ Then I smile to myself because I know he has killed something big.”23

  Or as a renowned healer named Tomazho says, “When a young man kills much meat, he comes to think of himself as a chief or a big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as his servants or inferiors. We can’t accept this. We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. In this way we cool his heart and make him gentle.”24

  Thus, even though the successful hunter’s chest may be quietly swelling with pride, he’ll shape his words very humbly, and his egalitarian peers, all too ready to put him down with ridicule, will approve his self-effacement and respect him both as a hunter and as a person of humility.

  Cutting proud hunters down to size verbally isn’t the end of it, for usually Bushmen don’t even get to distribute the meat they’ve hunted. Once the carcass is hauled into camp, by custom someone else will probably preside over the meat and share it out to the main kin groups in the band—who’ll then share it further with their close kin and other associates. The effect is to remove the hunter from the meat he has killed as a possible ticket to power, and the Bushmen understand this situation all too well. />
  WAS CEPHU A PSYCHOPATH?

  This beautifully detailed pair of ethnographic descriptions from sub-Saharan Africa shows how groups morally manipulate individuals for practical purposes that serve everyone but the would-be deviant and his family. With the Pygmies we saw how morally based indignation can spread contagiously through a group so that almost everyone becomes emotionally exercised—even though a few persons may take the lead. It also shows that the close relatives of the culprit may stand aside and remain neutral, for Cephu’s extended family didn’t verbally attack Cephu or join in the shaming.

  But even though they didn’t enter into the active criticism, ridicule, shaming, and threat of expulsion directed at Cephu, they were not trying to defend him either. Had they done so actively, we simply would have had a case of conflict within the group, with both sides trying to use morality to justify themselves. Instead, we had an instance of moral sanctioning in the name of the group and its vital social functions, with a familial faction choosing to stand aside rather than backing their leader, who was so clearly in the wrong.

  Cephu did try to defend himself, but we must assume that he understood all too well how repugnant meat-cheating was to his bandmates and that to some significant degree he’d internalized group values that condemned such behavior—unless he was a full-blown psychopath. His argument that he was a “big man” who need not follow the rules was extremely repugnant to his Pygmy colleagues, just as it would be in any mobile forager band, with its emphasis on the essential equality of all the adult hunters. And it smacked of the grandiosity that we see in American psychopaths who are incarcerated. But all that line of reasoning got him was a threat—that if this was the case, then he could take his extended family with him and split from the band.