Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Evidence for third-party mediation but not punishment in Mentawai justice

Nature Human Behaviour volume 6, pages 930–940 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Researchers argue that third parties help sustain human cooperation, yet how they contribute remains unclear, especially in small-scale, politically decentralized societies. Studying justice among Mentawai horticulturalists in Indonesia, we examined evidence for punishment and mediation by third parties. Across a sample of 444 transgressions, we find no evidence of direct third-party punishment. Most victims and aggrieved parties demanded payment, and if a transgressor faced punishment, this was never imposed by third parties. We find little evidence of indirect sanctions by third parties. Nearly 20% of transgressions were followed by no payment, and as predicted by dyadic models of sanctions, payments were less likely when transgressions were among related individuals. Approximately 75% of non-governmental mediators called were third parties, especially shamans and elders, and mediators were called more as cooperation was threatened. Our findings suggest that, among the Mentawai, institutionalized penalties function more to restore dyadic cooperation than to enforce norms.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: A victim lists his demands.
Fig. 2: The distributions of tulou payments for different categories of transgression.
Fig. 3: Predictors of a tulou payment occurring.
Fig. 4: Predictors of being called to mediate.
Fig. 5: Simulated rates of third-party mediation.

Data availability

All cleaned, anonymized data are available at the OSF project page at https://osf.io/r5jv6/.

Code availability

All code used in analyses is available at the OSF project page at https://osf.io/r5jv6/.

References

  1. Durkheim, E. On the division of labor in society. Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung https://doi.org/10.5840/zfs19343310 (1934).

  2. Boyd, R., Gintis, H., Bowles, S. & Richerson, P. J. The evolution of altruistic punishment. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 100, 3531–3535 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Boyd, R., Gintis, H. & Bowles, S. Coordinated punishment of defectors sustains cooperation and can proliferate when rare. Science 328, 617–620 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. Punishment allows the evolution of cooperation (or anything else) in sizable groups. Ethol. Sociobiol. 13, 171–195 (1992).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Marshall, J., Yudkin, D. A. & Crockett, M. J. Children punish third parties to satisfy both consequentialist and retributive motives. Nat. Hum. Behav. 5, 361–368 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Hamlin, J. K., Wynn, K., Bloom, P. & Mahajan, N. How infants and toddlers react to antisocial others. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108, 19931–19936 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Heyman, G. D., Chiu Loke, I. & Lee, K. Children spontaneously police adults’ transgressions. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 150, 155–164 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. House, B. R. et al. Social norms and cultural diversity in the development of third-party punishment. Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 287, 20192794 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Balafoutas, L., Nikiforakis, N. & Rockenbach, B. Direct and indirect punishment among strangers in the field. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 15924–15927 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Mathew, S. How the second-order free rider problem is solved in a small-scale society. Am. Econ. Rev. 107, 578–581 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Mathew, S. & Boyd, R. Punishment sustains large-scale cooperation in prestate warfare. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108, 11375–11380 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Leeson, P. T. An-arrgh‐chy: the law and economics of pirate organization. J. Polit. Econ. 115, 1049–1094 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. McDowell, A. G. From commons to claims: property rights in the California gold rush. Yale J. Law Humanit. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/7318 (2002).

  14. Hadfield, G. K. & Weingast, B. R. Law without the state: legal attributes and the coordination of decentralized collective punishment. J. Law Court. https://doi.org/10.1086/668604 (2013).

  15. Boehm, C. Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame (Basic Books, 2012).

  16. Wrangham, R. W. The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship between Peace and Violence in Human Evolution (Vintage, 2019).

  17. Wrangham, R. W. Targeted conspiratorial killing, human self-domestication and the evolution of groupishness. Evol. Hum. Sci. 3, e26 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Boyd, R. A Different Kind of Animal: How Culture Transformed our Species (Princeton Univ. Press, 2018).

  19. Henrich, J. et al. Markets, religion, community size, and the evolution of fairness and punishment. Science 327, 1480–1484 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Baumard, N. Has punishment played a role in the evolution of cooperation? A critical review. Mind Soc. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-010-0079-9 (2010).

  21. Black, D. On the origin of morality. J. Conscious. Stud. 7, 107–119 (2000).

    Google Scholar 

  22. Marlowe, F. W. et al. More ‘altruistic’ punishment in larger societies. Proc. Biol. Sci. 275, 587–590 (2008).

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Berndt, R. M. & Berndt, C. H. The World of the First Australians: Aboriginal Traditional Life: Past and Present (Aboriginal Studies Press, 1988).

  24. Berndt, R. M. in Aboriginal Man in Australia: Essays in Honour of Emeritus Professor A. P. Elkin (eds Berndt, R. M. & Berndt, C. H.) 167–206 (Angus and Robertson, 1965).

  25. Raihani, N. J. & Bshary, R. Punishment: One tool, many uses. Evol. Hum. Sci. 2, E4 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Hoebel, E. A. The Law of Primitive Man: A Study in Comparative Legal Dynamics (Harvard Univ. Press, 1954).

  27. Henrich, J. & Muthukrishna, M. The origins and psychology of human cooperation. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 72, 207–240 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Boyd, R. & Mathew, S. Arbitration supports reciprocity when there are frequent perception errors. Nat. Hum. Behav. 5, 596–603 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Smith, J. E. et al. Leadership in mammalian societies: emergence, distribution, power, and payoff. Trends Ecol. Evol. 31, 54–66 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Garfield, Z. H., Syme, K. L. & Hagen, E. H. Universal and variable leadership dimensions across human societies. Evol. Hum. Behav. 41, 397–414 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Garfield, Z. H. Correlates of conflict resolution across cultures. Evol. Hum. Sci. 3, e45 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Glowacki, L. & von Rueden, C. Leadership solves collective action problems in small-scale societies. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B. 370, 20150010 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Wiessner, P. Norm enforcement among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen. Hum. Nat. 16, 115–145 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Wiessner, P. The role of third parties in norm enforcement in customary courts among the Enga of Papua. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117, 32320–32328 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  35. Tulius, J. Family Stories: Oral Tradition, Memories of the Past, and Contemporary Conflicts Over Land In Mentawai – Indonesia. (Leiden Univ., 2012).

  36. 2011-2012 Community Research Report (Suku Mentawai: Indigenous Education Foundation, 2012); https://iefprograms.org/wp-content/documents/suku-mentawai/SukuMentawai_CRR.pdf

  37. Schefold, R. Lia: Das grosse Ritual auf den Mentawai-Inseln (Indonesien) (Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1988).

  38. Delfi, M. Local belief system, tatouage, tradition and adaptation in Mentawai. In Proc. 3rd International Indonesian Forum for Asian Studies 900–911 (2017).

  39. Hammons, C. S. Sakaliou: Reciprocity, Mimesis, and the Cultural Economy Of Tradition In Siberut, Mentawai Islands, Indonesia (Univ. Southern California, 2010).

  40. Singh, M. & Henrich, J. Why do religious leaders observe costly prohibitions? Examining taboos on Mentawai shamans. Evol. Hum. Sci. 2, e32 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Singh, M., Kaptchuk, T. J. & Henrich, J. Small gods, rituals, and cooperation: the Mentawai water spirit Sikameinan. Evol. Hum. Behav. 42, 61–72 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Schefold, R. Ambivalent blessings: head-hunting on Siberut (Mentawai) in a comparative Southeast Asian perspective. Anthropos 102, 479–494 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Loeb, E. M. Mentawei social organization. Am. Anthropol. 3, 408–433 (1928).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Tulius, J. in Heritage and Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Patrimonio y derechos de los pueblos indigenas) (eds Castillo, M. M. & Strecker, A.) 109–136 (Leiden Univ. Press, 2017).

  45. Delfi, M. Islam and Arat Sabulungan in Mentawai. Al-Jami’ah J. Islam. Stud. https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2013.512.475-499 (2013).

  46. Schefold, R. The culinary code in the puliaijat ritual of the Mentawaians. Bijdr. tot Taal-, Land-en. Volkenkd. 138, 64–97 (1982).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Caissutti, T. La Cultura Mentawaiana (Asian Study Centre, 2015).

  48. Darmanto, D. Good to Produce, Good to Share: Food, Hunger, and Social Values in a Contemporary Mentawaian Community, Indonesia (Leiden Univ., 2020).

  49. Persoon, G. A. in The Leiden Tradition in Structural Anthropology: Essays in Honor of P. E. de Josselin de Jong (eds de Ridder, R. & Karremans, J. A. J.) 140–160 (Brill, 1987).

  50. Persoon, G. A. Vluchten of Veranderen: Processen van Verandering en Ontwikkeling bij Tribale Groepen in Indonesië. PhD thesis, Leiden Univ. (1994).

  51. Panchanathan, K. & Boyd, R. Indirect reciprocity can stabilize cooperation without the second-order free rider problem. Nature 432, 499–502 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  52. Delton, A. W. & Krasnow, M. M. The psychology of deterrence explains why group membership matters for third-party punishment. Evol. Hum. Behav. 38, 734–743 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. McCullough, M. E., Kurzban, R. & Tabak, B. A. Cognitive systems for revenge and forgiveness. Behav. Brain Sci. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X11002160 (2013).

  54. Singh, M. The cultural evolution of shamanism. Behav. Brain Sci. 41, e66 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Winkelman, M. J. Shamans and other ‘magico-religious’ healers: a cross-cultural study of their origins, nature, and social transformations. Ethos 18, 308–352 (1990).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. Third-party punishment and social norms. Evol. Hum. Behav. 25, 63–87 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Petersen, M. B., Sell, A., Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. To punish or repair? Evolutionary psychology and lay intuitions about modern criminal justice. Evol. Hum. Behav. 33, 682–695 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Garfield, Z. H. et al. The content and structure of reputation domains across human societies: a view from the evolutionary social sciences. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 376, 20200296 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Lightner, A. D., Heckelsmiller, C. & Hagen, E. H. Ethnoscientific expertise and knowledge specialisation in 55 traditional cultures. Evol. Hum. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2021.31 (2021).

  60. Sahlins, M. D. Poor man, rich man, big-man, chief: political types in Melanesia and Polynesia. Comp. Stud. Soc. Hist. 5, 285–303 (1963).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. Singh, M. & Glowacki, L. Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model. Preprint at https://ecoevorxiv.org/vusye/ (2021).

  62. Wiessner, P. in Überlebensstrategien in Afrika (eds Bollig, M. & Klees, F.) 101–124 (Heinrich-Barth Institut, 1994).

  63. Garfield, Z. H. & Hagen, E. H. Investigating evolutionary models of leadership among recently settled Ethiopian hunter-gatherers. Leadersh. Q. 31, 101290 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  64. Ghosh, J., Li, Y. & Mitra, R. On the use of Cauchy prior distributions. Bayesian Anal. 13, 359–383 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. Gelman, A. & Tuerlinckx, F. Type S error rates classical and Bayesian single and multiple comparison procedures. Comput. Stat. 15, 373–390 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

L. Fitouchi, L. Glowacki, J. Henrich, H. Larreguy, S. Mathew, C. Molho, C. von Rueden and members of IAST’s Social Evolution Team shared valuable comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. M. Delfi, B. Sakaliou and G. Sakaliou assisted with fieldwork. R. Henry and J. Tulius assisted with clarifying Mentawai terminology. Data collection by M.S. was funded by a National Science Graduate Research Fellowship, a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship from the Harvard Committee on General Scholarships and a grant from the Mind, Brain and Behavior Initiative at Harvard University. Both authors acknowledge IAST funding from ANR under grant no. ANR-17-EURE-0010 (Investissements d’Avenir programme).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France

    Manvir Singh & Zachary H. Garfield

Authors
  1. Manvir Singh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Zachary H. Garfield
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

M.S. collected data as part of ongoing field research. M.S. and Z.H.G. conceived the study, designed and conducted analyses, and wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manvir Singh.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Human Behaviour thanks Lee Cronk, Gerard Persoon, Jeffrey Winking and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Predictors of a case being mediated.

The figure shows the estimated log odds (x-axis) for predicting whether a mediator was called (model 3) (n = 199 cases). ‘Same clan status’ is a binary variable capturing whether disputants are in the same clan (1) or different clans (0). Points and error bars are posterior means with 95% credible intervals. The shaded areas and distributions respectively represent 50%, 80%, and 95% of the posterior distributions.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Comparing governmental and non-governmental mediation.

The figure shows the estimated severities of transgressions (x-axis) for which local mediators were called and for which governmental officials were called to mediate (n = 208 cases). Points and error bars are posterior means with 95% credible intervals. The shaded areas and distributions respectively represent 50%, 80%, and 95% of the posterior distributions.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1 and 2 and Tables 1–10.

Reporting Summary

Peer Review File

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Singh, M., Garfield, Z.H. Evidence for third-party mediation but not punishment in Mentawai justice. Nat Hum Behav 6, 930–940 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01341-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01341-7

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing