As we think of street gangs in relation to warrior tribes, we might assume that street gangs differ insofar as they are everywhere intersecting with a larger, dominant culture. But in fact, even in ancient times, as states encroached upon tribal territories, warrior tribes all over the world have struggled to carry on their warrior ways. Tukup, we remember, laments that his people are now degenerate because the state— “white men” and the Shuar “Federation leaders”— has brought an end to war.

And consider the case of Sam Blowsnake.

Sam Blowsnake was a Winnebago Indian, born about 1875. In 1917 the anthropologist Paul Radin elicited an autobiography from Blowsnake. This Autobiography of a Winnebago Indian was very unusual among early tribal autobiographies in that Blowsnake wrote it himself. He wrote in Winnebago, in a syllabary then in use among the Winnebago. Blowsnake wrote about his vision quests, his relations with women, his hunting and his eventual conversion to the Peyote religion. And he tells a story about killing a Pottawatomie. He begins this story by recalling that his father and grandfather brought him up in the warrior way:

Blowsnake's grandfather might have fought in the days before the reservation, but Blowsnake's father could hardly have done so. The Winnebago had not been at war since 1832, when they fought in the Black Hawk War as allies of the Sauk and the Foxes.