Contemporary Warfare in the New Guinea Highlands

<Tab/>New Guinea highlanders can go to war with each other to avenge ghosts or to exct revenge for the killing of one of their one. As we have to seen from other reports, or lessens we have discussed, people don't seen to comprehend the complex interrelationship among the various parts of their own social system. <Tab/>The leaders of Papua New Guinea see intertribal fighting as …

…of trade between autonomous political groups. With the early introduction of Western goods, particularly steel axes and salt, local production was discontinued, so declined the opportunity to make marriage arrangements between non adjacent groups. <Tab/>Intertribal marriages provided a linkage through which groups could communicate, and a mechanism and reason for containing conflict. With the decline in intergroup marriage over time, the likelihood of a dispute expanding into full-scale warfare increased.