A Different Way of Living: Learning from Peaceful Societies

by John Whitehead

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Cover photo of Zapotec women from the D.P. Fry photo collection

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Consistent Life Ethic activism requires paying close attention to the many types of violence in the world. To defend human life, we need to be aware of the many ways life is destroyed, harmed, or threatened. 

Yet equally important (but perhaps more often neglected) is paying attention to the many ways life is successfully protected and nurtured. Positive examples of how violence is prevented can serve as models and inspirations.

Among the positive examples of violence prevention are an array of communities across the world that have significantly low levels of violence. Anthropologists have studied these communities for decades and a distinct body of research has accumulated about what have been dubbed “peaceful societies.” Important figures in this field include Douglas Fry of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the late Bruce Bonta, a librarian and independent researcher who compiled an “Encyclopedia of Peaceful Societies,” currently also hosted by UNC-Greensboro.

Learning about these peaceful societies may be helpful to Consistent Life Ethic activists. In this article, I will review just two notable examples of such societies and the characteristics that may help them keep violence so rare. 

Before describing these two societies, I should make a few crucial qualifications: 

First, because these peaceful societies are quite small, relatively homogenous communities with their own distinct circumstances, their experiences and methods of preventing violence are not necessarily applicable everywhere, at least not directly. 

Second, because these societies tend to be private and wary of both authorities and outsiders, information about their communal life is probably incomplete. These societies may well both experience acts of violence and have methods of preventing violence that go unnoticed and unrecorded. 

Third, the types of violence these societies successfully avoid are not the types that Consistent Life Ethic activists usually give the most attention to. As communities existing within or on the fringes of larger nations, these societies do not have the power or authority to wage war or impose the death penalty. How prevalent abortion or suicide is within these societies is unclear, as the anthropologists’ research does not address these questions. Rather, the research focuses on the rarity in these communities of such types of violence as criminal homicide and other violent crime, including domestic violence, as well as violent civil strife generally.    

Even after making these qualifications, though, studying these societies is still worthwhile. The fact that certain communities in our world appear to have done a much better job of avoiding violent conflict than others is an important finding. 

While the experiences of these societies may not provide a simple solution to all violence in our world, they can at least suggest ways of preventing violence and making human society more peaceful. I would encourage those interested in the topic to consult the Encyclopedia and further investigate these and other peaceful societies.

“Because She Is a Person!”: The Paliyans of India

The Paliyans are an indigenous people, numbering about 5,000, who live in the forests and neighboring villages of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. The Paliyans have traditionally been hunter-gatherers who also trade forest goods with outside communities. Some Paliyans do contract labor. 

The Paliyans practice Hinduism and speak Tamil. Forest dwellers tend to be nomadic, staying in simple shelters between periodic moves. Other Paliyans have permanently settled into village life.

Anthropologist Peter Gardner of the University of Missouri studied Paliyan communities for roughly 40 years, doing extensive research among the Paliyans in the early 1960s and making follow-up visits in 1978 and 2000-2001. He noted their generally nonviolent communal life. 

The Paliyans said they knew of no homicides ever occurring among them and this impression was confirmed by outsiders. Forestry officers, teachers, malaria eradication workers, and others who had experience with Paliyans said that they knew of no homicides within Paliyan society (although they knew of a limited number of cases where outsiders had killed Paliyans).

As part of his research, Gardener spent roughly seven months living continuously among the Paliyans. During this time, Gardener observed a small number of instances of low-level violence. These cases were typically either children fighting or mothers disciplining their children, usually “with a slap of the open hand, but two mothers just swatted at a child with soft plant fiber.” Gardener recorded only a handful of cases of adults striking other adults, and none of these conflicts seemed to escalate.

The low levels of violence in the community may be partly the result of certain communal values. The Paliyans place great cultural importance on equality and independence. They do not have (with a couple possible exceptions) formal leaders: “no husband, parent, kin group elder, or anyone else holds a position of authority.” 

The Paliyans generally do not differentiate rights and responsibilities by age or gender. For example, Gardener heard a 75-year-old Paliyan man speak of his 10-year-old stepdaughter in terms that indicated great respect. Asked why he used such deferential language, he replied, “because she is a person!”

In keeping with the Paliyan value of independence, households generally gather food exclusively for themselves. Dependency is acceptable only for the very young, very old, or those with significant disabilities. 

Gardener witnessed this Paliyan aversion to presumed superiority or dependence in practice. Both an older man who presumed to berate others and a 25-year-old woman perceived to be malingering were shunned by the community.

One partial exception to these egalitarian values appears during religious ceremonies, when a member of the community acts as a medium for the gods. On these occasions, the medium may admonish people for bad behavior. Otherwise, though, acting superior to or dependent on others is frowned upon.

Paliyans tend to deal with conflict by ignoring disrespectful or disruptive behavior or withdrawing from confrontations. One man’s petty theft was tolerated by the community, for example. When people are offended by or irritated with others, they often just walk away. 

Marital conflicts over real or imagined infidelity were generally resolved with the offended spouse voicing objections, leaving the marriage, or tolerating the affair. As one man commented about his wife’s lover, “It’s not my business.”

Sometimes members of the community will intervene to defuse conflicts by soothing or distracting those involved. People who serve this conciliatory role are the other possible exception to the Paliyans’ rejection of authority figures. The conciliators cannot impose punishments or force people to behave a certain way, though.

When faced with potential threats from outside their community, the traditional Paliyan response has been to withdraw from conflict into the forest. Gardener records an incident where an outsider killed three Paliyans in a village community and the rest of the community immediately left the village for the forest. Five years later, they were slowly returning to the area outside the forest.

In the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, economic development made it much harder for Paliyans to maintain their traditional ways of life. Paliyans have faced dispossession, exploitation, and harassment at the hands of business and government representatives. Nevertheless, they have had some success in defending themselves by more modern (but still nonviolent) means such as working through the Indian legal system. 

As Bonta observed, 21^st-century Paliyans are responding to discrimination and abuse “by protesting, by filing complaints, and by contacting prominent advocates. The days when the Paliyans simply faded into the forest to avoid conflicts appear to be ending.”

“We Must Be in Accord with Each Other”: The Zapotec of La Paz, Mexico

The Zapotec are an indigenous people who live in Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca. One Zapotec village has been the subject of extensive study, from the 1960s to the 1990s, by the anthropologists Carl W. O’Nell and Douglas Fry. Both men were struck by the village’s unusually nonviolent communal life. To preserve the residents’ privacy, they have referred to the village by the pseudonym “La Paz.”

La Paz has existed since at least the 1500s and had a population of about 2,000 by the 1980s. The people practice small-scale family farming of maize, beans, and squash and the cash crop maguey. Women in La Paz also engage in pottery making.

La Paz residents generally speak Zapotec, although most men and some women speak Spanish. Most residents practice Catholicism, although La Paz also has an Evangelical Christian minority. The main village political authorities are a mayor and judge who are elected to serve one-year, unpaid terms.

Homicide is quite rare in La Paz: district records for the period 1920 to 1968 show a homicide rate that is a tiny fraction of that for Oaxaca State as a whole. O’Nell identified one homicide in La Paz in 1935. When Fry interviewed La Paz residents, none could recall a homicide in living memory.

The nonviolent nature of La Paz is even more pronounced when compared to a neighboring Oaxaca community Fry dubbed “San Andres.” Located roughly seven kilometers away from La Paz, San Andres is very similar: a small-scale farming community in which Zapotec is the primary language and the community is governed by a mayor and judge.

La Paz and San Andres differ in a few, relatively subtle ways. San Andres has a larger population of almost 3,000. Perhaps because of this larger population, farm sizes tend to be smaller in San Andres than in La Paz and a larger percentage of the residents own little or no land. San Andres is uniformly Catholic, without La Paz’s Evangelical minority.

Despite their similarities, the two communities contrast dramatically in their levels of violence. District records for 1920 to 1968 reveal a homicide rate in San Andres five times higher than that in La Paz. Fry did not have to search for evidence of homicide: a man had been killed in the community just days before one of the anthropologist’s visits there.

Other types of violence also seem to be more prevalent in San Andres than La Paz. Judicial records for the district show a much higher assault rate in San Andres. 

Fry’s own observations confirm this statistical record. He comments, “In San Andres, I personally witnessed three instances of wife beating, repeated occurrences of children being physically punished, numerous fights between men — usually after they had been drinking alcohol — and several physical altercations between women.” 

In contrast, neither Fry nor O’Nell ever witnessed husbands hitting their wives or parents hitting their children during any of their visits to La Paz. Fry observed three instances of men fighting in La Paz (never women), but the fights tended to be quickly resolved.

What accounts for the differing levels of violence between La Paz and San Andres? Both communities are governed by similar civil authorities, which suggests something other than formal legal restraints is involved. Fry identified several informal cultural factors that may keep violence low in La Paz.  

One basic but important factor is that residents of La Paz place a high value on avoiding violence. One resident described the people of La Paz as “pacifists” (pacificos) and several emphasized that people there do not fight. In contrast, San Andres residents seem to have a more ambivalent attitude toward violence, saying that violence might be justified to avenge the death of a loved one and that violence prompted by sexual rivalry or intoxication is at least understandable.

Residents of La Paz favor withdrawing from confrontational situations. Two of the three fights Fry observed in the community ended with one of the men simply retreating. When O’Nell was being harassed by a drunk man in La Paz, he was inclined to stand his ground, but other residents counseled him that simply walking away was best. In contrast, people fighting in San Andres generally continue until outsiders break up the fight.

More broadly, La Paz residents try to avoid conflict and competition. One resident commented, “It was not good to prolong a dispute and make someone angry at you for a long time.”

Because his research required Fry to rent houses in both La Paz and San Andres, his La Paz landlord insisted on meeting with the San Andres landlord. At the meeting, the La Paz landlord explained (to the apparent puzzlement of the San Andres landlord) that the dual residences were necessary for Fry’s work and did not imply any rivalry between the two communities. The La Paz landlord emphasized to his counterpart “We must be in accord with each other” and told Fry that “it was good to avoid envy.”

Child rearing practices may also play a role. Children who experience or witness violence may be more likely to take violence as a model for their own behavior.

As noted, neither O’Nell nor Fry ever observed adults hitting children in La Paz. In San Andres, though, Fry saw at least 11 instances of adults hitting children with sticks, ropes, or belts.

These observations are consistent with interviews Fry conducted with fathers from both communities. Asked how they would deal with various types of misbehavior by their children, fathers from San Andres favored physical punishment more often than La Paz fathers. However, La Paz fathers favored talking to children in positive ways, by encouraging and explaining correct behavior.

One La Paz father comments, “If my boy sees that I also do not have respect for other persons, well…he thus acquires the same sentiment. But if I have respect for others, well he imitates me…Above all, the father must make himself an example, by showing how to respect.”

These diverging parenting approaches may make a difference. Fry observed that young children in San Andres tended to act or play aggressively more often than children in La Paz.

Possible Lessons from Peaceful Societies

Despite their dramatic cultural differences, the nonviolent communities of the Paliyans and the Zapotec of La Paz have certain common features. Moreover, many of these common features turn up in other communities that anthropologists have identified as largely nonviolent.

One structural similarity of the Paliyans and La Paz residents is a high level of equality. The Paliyans reject hierarchy and value treating people equally. La Paz residents share a common way of life as small farmers, and while there is variation in landholdings no one in the community has large estates and relatively few people have no land at all (again, in contrast to San Andres). The presence of a cottage industry in pottery making among La Paz women gives the women independent economic power and heightens gender equality.

Among cultural factors, both communities place great importance on avoiding violence. This may be a banal observation, but it is worth emphasizing: avoiding violence within a community may well require an explicit commitment to this goal. Low levels of violence may not necessarily arise purely as a by-product of other conditions. Further, part of a commitment to nonviolence is carefully raising children to appreciate and share this commitment. 

Subtler cultural attitudes that discourage violence are a common concern for avoiding conflict and competition. Ignoring or withdrawing from confrontations is a preferred strategy among the Paliyans and La Paz residents. Rivalry, jealousy, and acting superior to others are frowned on in these communities.

If these characteristics observed among the Paliyans, La Paz residents, and other societies do foster nonviolence, then other societies would do well to imitate them. Imitation of these peaceful societies poses clear challenges, though.

Equality and values such as avoiding violence, conflict, and competition are clearly challenging to the dominant structure and values of the United States and many other nations. Less obvious but still important, though, is the challenge some of these values pose to contemporary activists, including Consistent Life Ethic activists.

Many activists committed to social change, whatever their precise philosophy, often value and cultivate a confrontational approach. Being angry or indignant about injustice and acting to confront and overturn injustice are typically treated as positive models of activist behavior. Viewed next to such models, the Paliyan and La Paz preference for avoiding conflict and retreating from confrontation may seem inadequate or even cowardly.

Granted, confrontation and nonviolent behavior are not mutually exclusive; the concept of nonviolent resistance is based on the compatibility of these practices. The adoption of more assertive political action by the Paliyans may be an example of such compatibility. 

Nevertheless, the cultivation of non-confrontational, conflict-averse values in societies such as the Paliyans and La Paz probably does contribute to the low levels of violence in these societies. Those of us committed to nonviolence and peacemaking may wish to reflect seriously on the examples of these societies and consider how to cultivate such values within our own lives and activism.