Sebastian Junger Tribe Summary

Community, a word we all know, but do not really think about when it could be a reason for the downfall of modern man. The problem with the community in the 21st century is that people have become complacent. They no longer have to be in fear. In the book Tribe, by Sebastian Junger, he gives the perspective of the Native American Indians in the time of colonialism. He claims that Indian communities were strong and that a community in todays world would not come close to the quality of the Indians. The thing is, though he states this and supports it with what he believes are facts, we cannot confirm the credibility if them. He gives numerous examples including instances where British people would abandon their village in order to join the Indian

community. The only problem is that there is no in text citation to account for these people. Although there is research that went into this book the only real citations are in the back pages of the book. In the book Tribe, by Sebastian Junger, he evaluates communities of the past and now using biased statements and inaccurate research, which is contradicted by scholarly peer reviewed articles from Khalsa, Alcantara and Gone, in order to prove his point and therefore his work cannot be considered a reliable source of information.
In his book, Junger talks about the overall happiness of the tribe based of factors that he decided correlates to the feeling of happiness.

One of these factors was that the suicide rate of Native Americans was extremely low. As Junger states in his book, “Among American Indians, for example, suicide was understood to apply in vary narrow circumstances: in old age to avoid burdening the tribe, in ritual paroxysms of grief following death of a spouse…” (Junger 19). As Junger says that the application of suicide was very narrow, it is safe to say that he believes that this means that the suicide rate of Native Americans was very small. There are many peer reviewed articles that would state otherwise. In the Scholarly article Reviewing Suicide in Native American Communities, the writers state that, “In addition, the age-adjusted suicide death rate for AI/Ans (American Indians and Alaskan Natives) is 20.2 per 100,000, approximately twice as high as the U.S. all-races rate of 10.6 per 100,000, with males accounting for the majority of suicide decedents”(Alcantara, Gone 461). As one can see these two quotes have contradictory statements. The only thing that separates them is that the first comes from a book with no direct citation and the second came from a scholarly, peer reviewed article. Junger does not make references to outside sources when it comes to the claims in question until the reader reaches the back of the book with a list of resources that he used. Because of a

lack of correlation to the claim and the cited source that he used, it is difficult to say which source correlates with each claim. Another aspect that weakens the credibility to a reader is the phrasing of the claim. Junger uses the phrase “was understood to” which hints towards uncertainty within this claim. If he wanted to state this as fact, then Junger should have used “it was known that” or “(place source here) states that…” but because there are hinds of uncertainty within this statement, the reader must take this statement with a grain of salt because this cannot be labeled as a fact until further research is done.
As the explanation of the overall happiness of the Indian Community progresses, Junger goes on to say, “according to The Ethics of Suicide: Historical Sources, early chroniclers of the American Indians couldn’t find any other examples of suicide that were rooted in psychological causes” (Junger 20). While reading through this, this statement jumped out as false right away. This is because of personal experience with factors, such as depression, that can fuel this urge of self-harm. Suicide can be caused by many internal factors that some human can experience. This includes depression which is causes by internal factors most of the time. According to a article in The Journal of Clinical Psychology, “Studies on beliefs about mental illness have identified a variety of causes that patients endorse, including interpersonal problems (e.g., poor social skills, bad romantic relationships, mistreatment by others), developmental events (e.g., childhood problems, unresolved issues with one’s family), personality or cognitive causes (e.g., irrational concerns, emotional upset, depressive ways of thinking), biological factors (e.g., genetics, biochemical imbalances),environmental factors (e.g., stress, illness of self or others), and religious causes (e.g., bad luck, fate, God’s will) among others”(Kahlsa 539). This proves depression can be caused by many different sources that humans experience in their day to day lives. This means that none of these could be ruled out as a factor for suicide within the Native American community. Factors that could contribute to depression within the community specifically could have been a thirst from drought, hunger lack of game to hunt for food, or even grieving and suffering from the death of someone in a close relationship. Risk of depression can also be passed down genetically and therefore can keep this risk within the tribe.
The final point that this comes to is that when Junger compares the modern day government, specifically republican senior executives, with the community of the !King Tribe.

He compares these two in regards to wealth or food and the accumulation of it. He states that “In hunter-gatherer terms, these senior executives are claiming a disproportionate amount of food simply because they have the power to do so. A tribe like the !Kung would not permit that because it would represent a serious threat to group cohesion and survival, but that is not true for a wealthy country like the United States.” (Junger 32). First off, there is no introduction to this claim about the !Kung tribe and so there cant be a credible source to back this statement up. The author seems to be talking like he knows the tribe personally, which we know is not the case. Saying this, nobody can actually prove this point unless there was someone that still practices the traditions of the !Kung tribe to verify the practices of the tribe would, indeed, act this way. This claim seems to have tones of personal emotion from the author in which it relates to his political beliefs. Even if this is not a claim that is tied to political beliefs, the comparison in general is not viable due to the fact the government in todays society is in drastically different conditions to that of which the !Kung were put under. The tribe had to worry about their survival and where their next meal would come from. If they were under

the same circumstances that modern day society is, it is very difficult to say how they would behave.
Some of the claims are factual and accurate but the validity of the book is still in question to readers because of the lack of in text citations along with numerous a lack of references to outside sources in the text. All it takes is one false claim to cause a whole piece of work to be questioned, and therefore this book cannot be considered a reliable source of information because of the discrepancy within the text. According to Colorado states official webpage on credibility of statements, they state, “Show your listeners that you are qualified to speak by making a specific reference to a helpful resource. This is one way to demonstrate competence.” (writing.colostate.edu). Although Junger does have this for some of his statements, he lacks this for all of them. This creates doubt within the reader and according to Colorado State, this can cause his claims to not be credible.
The book Tribe, by Sebastian Junger, cannot be considered completely factual or reliable. He holds many opinionated claims along with claims that contradict modern scholarly and peer reviewed articles. this was seen when Junger talked about suicide rate in Native Indian community and the lack of reasons within their society to cause such action against an individual’s own life. His opinionated claims were shown when he talked about the culture of the !Kung tribe and how they would have handled a situation if it arose. Although there may be well supported claims in the text, the overall the inaccurate and opinionated claims destroy the credibility of the book for a reader.

Works Cited

Alcantara, Carmela, and Joseph P. Gone. “Reviewing Suicide in Native American
Communities: Situating Risk and Protective Factors within a Transactional Ecological Framework.” Death Studies, vol. 31, no. 5, 2007, pp. 457–477., doi:10.1080/07481180701244587.

Khalsa, Shabad-Ratan, et al. “Beliefs about the Causes of Depression and Treatment
Preferences.” Journal of Clinical Psychology, vol. 67, no. 6, 2011, pp. 539–549., doi:10.1002/jclp.20785

Junger, Sebastian. Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging. Fourth Estate Ltd, 2017.

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