#DavidGraeber and #DavidWengrow in Dawn of Everything, chapter 12 write:
All Wendat wars were, in fact, ‘mourning wars’, carried out to assuage the grief felt by close relatives of someone who had been killed.Typically, a war party would strike against traditional enemies, bringing back a few scalps and a small number of prisoners. Captive women and children would be adopted. The fate of men was largely up to the mourners, particularly the women, and appeared to outsiders at least to be entirely arbitrary. If the mourners felt it appropriate a male captive might be given a name, even the name of the original victim. The captive enemy would henceforth become that other person and, after a few years’ trial period, be treated as a full member of society. If for any reason that did not happen, however, he suffered a very different fate. For a male warrior taken prisoner, the only alternative to full adoption into Wendat society was excruciating death by torture.
[...] The violence seems all the more extraordinary once we recall how these same Wendat societies refused to spank children, directly punish thieves or murderers, or take any measure against their own members that smacked of arbitrary authority. In virtually all other areas of social life they were renowned for solving their problems through calm and reasoned debate.
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