Free The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond Page A

about Billy, held up a photograph of his son, and said, ‘We miss him.’ Billy’s mother sat quietly behind the father as he spoke. A few others of Billy’s uncles stood up and reiterated, ‘You people won’t have any problems with us, we are satisfied with your response and with the compensation.’ Everybody—my colleagues and I, and Billy’s whole family—was crying.”
    The transfer of food consisted of Gideon and his colleagues handing the food over in order to “say sorry,” with the words “This food is to help you in this hard time.” After the talks, the family and the visitors ate together a simple meal of sweet potato (the traditional New Guinea staple food) and other vegetables. There was much shaking of hands at the end of the ceremony. I asked Gideon whether there had also been any hugging, and whether for instance he and the father had hugged each other while they were crying. But Gideon’s answer was “No, the ceremony was structured, and it was very formal.” Still, I have difficulty imagining in the U.S. or any other Western society a similar meeting of reconciliation, in which a dead child’s family and the child’s accidental killers, previously strangers to each other, sit down and cry together and share a meal a few days after the death. Instead, the child’s family would be planning a civil lawsuit, and the accidental killer’s family would be consulting lawyers and their insurance broker in order to prepare to defend themselves against the lawsuit plus possible criminal charges.
What if …?
    As Billy’s father and relatives agreed, Malo hadn’t intended to kill Billy. I asked Malo and Gideon what would have happened if Malo really had murdered Billy intentionally, or if Malo had at least been unequivocally negligent.
    Malo and Gideon replied that, in that case, the matter could still have been settled by the same compensation process. The result would just have been more uncertain, the situation more dangerous, and the required compensation payment larger. There would have been a greater risk thatBilly’s relatives would not have awaited the outcome of compensation negotiations, or else would have refused payment and instead would have carried out a so-called payback killing: preferably by killing Malo himself, or else someone of his close family if they didn’t succeed in killing Malo, or else a more distantly related fellow clansman of Malo’s if they couldn’t kill a member of his immediate family. If, however, Billy’s relatives could have been prevailed on to await the outcome of the compensation process, they would have demanded much higher compensation. Malo estimated for me the required compensation (if he had been clearly responsible for Billy’s death) as approximately five pigs, plus 10,000 kina (equal to about $3,000), plus a quantity of local food including a bunch of bananas, taro, sweet potatoes, sago, garden vegetables, and dried fish.
    I also wondered what would have happened if Malo hadn’t been a driver for a company but just a private New Guinean, and thus if the company hadn’t been involved. Malo answered that the compensation negotiations from his side would then not have been handled by his office colleague Yaghean, but instead by some of his uncles and by elders from his village. The compensation itself would not have been paid by the company, but rather by Malo’s whole village, including his family, his fellow clanspeople, and villagers belonging to other clans whom Malo might have had to call upon for help in raising the payment. Malo would thereby have incurred obligations to all those who had contributed. At some later time in his life, Malo would have had to make payments to those people for their contributions, and to his uncles for their hard work in handling the negotiations. Had Malo died before making such payments, the contributors and his uncles would have claimed payment from Malo’s family and clan. However, apart from those