The last paragraph was pasted twice. You might want to fix that.
The claims about the Ik are so outstanding, I wanted to learn more about them.
Here’s a page that describes the Ik in a different way:
Child bearing is sign of blessings to humankind and to the Ik tribe raising children is a social responsibility. The parents share the asak with infants up to a certain age, 4 years on average and then the grandparents pick them up. The grandparents are a living information data bank from which children acquire basic life survival skills. At an average age of 13 years, the grand children leave their grandparents asak. Boys of the same age group erect their own asak and live as a gang, while girls are “mature” and ready for marriage.
While this page explains:
The Ik People became famous in 1972, British-American anthropologist Colin Turnbull published his book “The Mountain People” in which the Ik People came across as a people who did not love.
A visit to one of the Ik Villages on Mount Morungole will disprove that. They are quite loving, quite welcoming ad Turnbull simply got it wrong.
The Wikipedia page contains also substantial criticism of Turnbull’s work.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’d take a book called “the collapse of complex societies” with a massive grain of salt. YMMV.
