Social Signaling and the Warrior-Big-Man among the Western Dani

We employ the Social Signaling Model (SSM) and life history of a Western Dani big-man, Tibenuk, to analyze a neglected curiosity in the career of the big-man type. The big-man is renowned as an economic entrepreneur, the master of material displays. In New Guinea, however, big-men had invariably first gained fame and some influence as eminent warriors. The SSM accounts for this two-part career path by proposing that small-scale social...