strongly works against the development of internal dueling. Feuding soci-
eties do not have dueling. In societies without feuding, those no longer in
the military and civilians imitating them may also engage in duels provided
they are of the same social class, stratification being a characteristic of most
centralized political systems. Middle and lower classes may imitate upper
classes and/or adopt their own forms of dueling. Thus, dueling first arises
in warfare and is then transferred to the civilian realm. The evidence sug-
gests the following sequence of stages: (1) no duels, (2) duels between elite
warriors from two political communities, (3) duels between military per-
sonnel within a political community, (4) duels between civilians within a
political community.
For those societies at the first two stages, the following features are
apparent. In nearly all uncentralized political systems every able-bodied
man carries weapons for hunting—the spear, the bow and arrow, or the
club. These weapons can also be used in warfare, assassinations, execu-
tions, self-defense, and dueling. A two-component warfare pattern consist-
ing of ambushes and lines occurs in nearly all uncentralized political sys-
tems that engage in warfare. Ambushes combine surprise with a
shoot-on-sight response, with better weapons than one’s enemies if possi-
ble—no duel here. Line formations, however, may place opposing combat-
ants a short distance from each other. Here is the place to start looking for
duels. Paintings on rock walls provide the first evidence for armed encoun-
ters that could be duels. In Arnham Land, northern Australia, 10,000 years
ago, Aborigines depicted warriors confronting each other with
boomerangs, used as throwing and shock weapons, and barbed spears.
Spears are shown plunged into fallen figures. Given the multiplicity of
weapons both in flight and sometimes lodged in one figure, these scenes ap-
pear to illustrate line formations rather than duels. These native Aus-
tralians, as well as !Kung Bushmen of South Africa, went armed most of
the time. For egalitarian societies, James Woodburn has noted that “hunt-
ing weapons are lethal not just for game animals but also for people.” He
describes “the access which all males have to weapons among the !Kung
[and other hunting and gathering peoples]. There are serious dangers in an-
tagonizing someone.... [H]e could respond with violence.... Effective
protection against ambush is impossible” (1982, 436). No duel here.
Tribes, the more developed of the two types of uncentralized political
systems, provide examples of dueling. The line formations of the Dani of
Highland New Guinea place enemy warriors in direct confrontation. The
ethnographic movie Dead Birdsby Robert Gardiner shows individual
spear-throwers skirmishing. Although weapons are matched, this is not a
duel. The confrontation arose during a battle, and there was no pre-
arrangement for these warriors to meet. While the Zulu were still at the
Dueling 101