The hidden forces behind revenge

Explore how a mix of punishment, revenge, and mercy shapes our world — and why we still struggle with every outcome.

It is said that you, Utahania,
Came stealthily creeping
In to your little sister
Qahatlovaq
To go-whoring with her!
And then, when she asked you
'What is it you want?'
You looked rather foolish, did you not?

This is a fragment of an Inuit mocking song, recorded in Greenland in the 1920s by the Danish ethnographer Knud Rasmussen. The nomadic Inuit have a unique …