A Book Review Of Tribe By Sebastian Junger

For centuries prior to modern day civilization, men and women had stuck together in a tribe-like fashion to ward off any and all adversities that would threaten their community. In his book, Tribe, Sebastian Junger used some of these century old examples to explain man’s seemingly subconscious desire to be in a tribe-like society, the benefits of joining a tribal community, and why those who were in a tribe seemed to not want to leave. In order to demonstrate this idea clearly and directly, Junger began his book by concentrating on Native American tribes during the colonial period. He focused on men leaving white society to join a tribe and how those men were reluctant to reintegrate back into white society after spending time with the Natives, and how Europeans were getting married to Native Americans. Overall, he seemed to have no strong bias in his portrayal of the Native Americans, but it was clear he wanted to begin his book discussing Native Americans as they related directly to his concept of men being drawn to tribal life. However, though much of what Junger presented in Tribe came from a credible

This was a large oversight. Even though those who were captured may have chosen to remain with their captors later on, they did not freely chose to join the tribes as Junger tried to establish prior. There were many stories of men who joined tribes solely because it was their only available option for survival; take the story of Jerónimo de Aguilar, for example. He was stranded after a shipwreck where he ran into a cannibal tribe. He was able to escape and run to an enemy tribe who spared his life, this resulted in Aguilar remaining with the tribe for eight more years before he was eventually rescued (Naranjo, 97). This was just one of many stories about men who joined tribes solely in order to survive, a prominent reason Junger failed to mention in his