ABSTRACT
Many Social Scientists have made the observation that human nature is, perhaps, encountered in the raw in the midst of a riot. As a discipline, however, anthropology has not generated a collective body of knowledge which could help us in formulating problems of anthropological ethics when engaged in the understanding of collective violence, nor has it reflected on problems of theory and method pertaining to societies caught in the savage brutalities of mass murder, arson, looting and rape. The following observations were formulated while I was engaged in the tasks of rehabilitating riot-victims. The issues have not been thought through, and if one is drawing attention to them at this stage, it is only in order that one may turn to the professional collectivity for enlightenment and for the fighting of personal despair.
