Keeping Conflict Hidden

Gebusi are an exuberant, warm, and friendly people. Their pervasive spirit is one of collective good will and camaraderie, and their very word for culture (kogwayay) is also their concept of “good company.” Good company is the sine qua non of daily social life and is also the theme of the Gebusi's major gatherings—ritual feasts, spirit seances, and the telling of narratives.

of amity is indeed idyllic (Knauft 1985: 1-2).

Yet, there is a suggestion that such behavior can create its own problems. As con­flicts are driven under the surface, grievances build up and they may culminate in an ac­cusation of sorcery. This is a very serious thing in Gebusi society as sorcerers can be killed, beaten, burned, “clubbed over the head,” “shot with arrows,” and occasionally, eaten (Knauft 1985: 102,105). As Knauft wrote,

It might even be argued that, far from fending off aggressiveness, Gebusi violence is predicated on Gebusi good company, and on the extended conflict avoidance this orientation entails. With antagonisms ignored and denied for long periods of time, they could be expected to build up until they are triggered in a culturally legitimated context where violence is normatively sanctioned—namely a sorcery attribution following a sickness death. Hostility in this setting is all the more severe for having been previously unexpressed, and may serve as a legitimate means of displacing or making manifest antagonisms from many sources and/or from many people.................................. What ultimately results is juxtaposition of pervasive good

company with occasional but extreme violence (Knauft 1985: 79).

There are Freudian psychodynamic explanations for this type of pattern—namely that hostility becomes repressed, pressurized because it is held down, and then ultimately explodes out like a shaken-up can of soda pop. But there are also more strategic and “rational” reasons why such a pattern of repressed conflict and sudden explosion might occur.

The economist Thomas Schelling (1978) has described many conflicts as amounting to coordination games. That is, if two parties are in a conflict, they must somehow signal to each other what will be tolerated and what constitutes an unacceptable act of aggres­sion that calls for retaliation. This understanding must be arrived at either through ac­knowledging the natural boundaries of the situation or through subtle or overt communi­cation about where the “line in the sand” lies. This communication can take the form of veiled threats, calculated bluffs, biting humor, verbal jousts, or overt warnings. However, in cultures with extreme emphases on politeness and congeniality, many of these avenues are cut off. These techniques are not part of the “cultural tool kit” that people have for re­solving conflicts. And thus, a forced friendliness keeps people from telling others to back off and it keeps issues under the surface—until it is too late and one party has crossed over the line or passed the point of no return.

Further, the problem is especially acute in cultures that have stringent norms for po­liteness and violence. In such cultures, anger or hostility is not something to be taken lightly. Thus, anger may not often be expressed; but when it is expressed, it means some­thing and both parties know it. It therefore becomes extremely dangerous to let even a lit­tle hostility leak out prematurely. The other person may take this as a sign that the con­flict is about to become violent and may thus race to strike the first blow. Aside from participants being unable to signal their hostility because they don't have the behavioral repertoire to do so, they may also strategically and consciously choose to inhibit their hostility until they are ready to go into a full blown attack. For both strategic and “cul­tural tool kit” reasons—as well as for psychodynamic ones—politeness, hospitality, and violence may go together in many cultures.