Erratic Retaliatior

"an·thro·po·mor·phism (ān'thrə-pə-môr'fĭz'əm) Pronunciation Key
n. Attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena." -www.dictionary.com
When Ishmael mentions anthropomorphism in this chapter I believe he is talking about how humans (and the people of "our culture") assume that animals have human characteristics, perform human like actions, and should be like humans because we believe that there is no other way to live, that we are civilized and living the way that humans were supposed to live (like Ishmael mentioned earlier when he talked about Tunes and Dancers). I think this because he says that "this anthropomorphism leads to much confusion. This is not only because animals are incapable of this level
of abstraction, but also because they know nothing about territories and have no interest in territories". This means that humans think that animals view territories the same way we do by actually claiming the land, but it turns out that they think entirely differently and it works for them, and that we should not assume there is only one style of doing things.
"This might be described as a strategy of erratic
retaliation: 'Give as good as you get, but don't be too predictable." When Ishmael says this he means if someone bothers you (like one of the tribes of Cawks) then bother them back, but if they aren't bothering you then it won't be a big deal if you bother them occasionally (because they will return the favor and make it even). Erratic Retaliation is a peacekeeping method because all who practice it understand the terms of it, so if someone attacks they just attack back and it never gets to out of hand (like annihilation). The reason Cawks just perform occasional attacks and don't just annihilate each other is because it does not follow the rules of Erratic Retaliation, and if one tribe started killing everyone then all the other tribes would take up the same practice, and soon there might not be any Cawks left. Another reason this wouldn't work is because if one tribe had five members left, and another only had two members left and they decided to unite against a greater enemy both of their tribes have different laws and customs which would clash and may cause conflict between them which would totally eliminate the purpose of uniting to kill the greater enemy.