"men confronted apex predators on a point of honor". Give me a break, maybe for the rush, or to gain a rep or make a buck or because that was part of their adaptation to their environment. Societies rewarded successful hunters because they provided, good earners get more rewards.
mike r
Outside of the social insects humans are about the only species where members of the group, especially males, routinely and voluntarily place themselves in extreme danger often to the point of death to protect the members of their social group.
You can believe that Indians in particular and/or all humans over the last 100,000 years had no sense of honor if ya want.
I was not aware of that, then I remembered soldiers and cops and firefighters etc. You too choose to live in your own world. Anyone who lives an honorable life probably has a sense of honor, this often varies w/in societies. Some embrace "honor killings" of their own families. Killing apex predators may just be a survival strategy for some. Romanticizing history is probably fun for many.
mike r
Cops, Firefighters and the Military Arms merely codify common and innate human values in place probably as long as there have been humans. If we accept that for probably more than 90,000 years Homo sapiens survived as Hunter-Gatherers, it would make sense if we were innately wired for that lifestyle. The average modern person may live in a community of millions, but commonly socially interacts with around 30 to 50 friends and relatives, about the size of a representative nomadic H-G band.
Within this close knit band an innate emphasis is placed on cooperation and sharing, to the point it becomes socially uncomfortable to NOT share food at least with group members when eating. In our free time we like to get together with the members of our social group and act like hunter-gatherers ie, light a fire, cook food and share it.
H-G groups had well defined gender roles, such that male and female roles complemented each other to the extent that a bonded male/female pair could survive better than either gender alone. Even today, elimination of innate gender roles is proving maddeningly difficult for progressives.
For early populations, a ratio of one male of combat age to four children/women/elderly was the approximate norm. Hence 30 - 50 humans give a combat/hunting band of about six to ten. No coincidence that most team sports field about that range of numbers on the field at any given time. Human males especially are wired to operate efficiently in groups of that range. In modern combat this relates to the size of an infantry squad.
The Biological Imperative to protect those bearing one's own genes is well understood. This applies most strongly to one's own children, extending in lesser degrees to other relatives. Within their social group, the group of combat/hunting age males will pretty much universally refer to themselves as "brothers" even if no blood kinship exists. And as every combat vet seems to affirm, in actual combat ya don't fight for some lofty cause, you fight to protect your band of brothers, blood kin or not.
Throughout most of human history, for almost all populations, death at the hands of other humans has always ranked right up there with starvation and disease as a cause of death. Note, for death at the hands of other humans, almost always from rival groups, to be a major cause of death people don't gotta die every week. If one lives 30 years before this happens to them, then one murder in 30 years is all it took for that particular individual.
A willingness to engage in combat with rival groups or dangerous predators on the part of the males had great survival value for the group, and was lauded and idealized in almost every society. Likewise in many societies adult males were taught to at least verbalize a contempt for their own death, and about every society recognized and revered the ultimate sacrifice.
Anyways, just throwing that out there for discussion. All of the above speaking in generalities of course.
I should also add every society we know about since the beginning of time presumably had a small minority of either gender who preferred to live to varying degrees as the opposite sex. For women this would be tough, and combat was unforgiving even for men.
