I walked into a village that was being attacked by Njerpez -- I saw the red cloak the move before I went into the village, saw the messages that I heard sounds of fighting, saw a fleeing villager, and then I ran out. I went back later in the day, and there's two Njerpez dead in the middle of town. I took their stuff to try to trade for it, but the villagers didn't want anything for it -- just for a small knife that I can only presume belonged to one of them that died fighting (I actually traded some of the Njzerpez clothing back to them for it). So I'm now rolling with llamellar cuirass, iron helm, and shortsword almost from the start of the game. This character is an escaped slave so there's some justice to it, but the whole thing seemed worth reporting as a potential bug. Logically it would seem like the villagers would feel ownership over possessions of Njerpez they killed.
Oh, also, maybe consider increasing the frequency of axes of some kind in Kaumo villages. For such a core item they seem to extremely rare. (This is why I was wandering village to village in the first place, and this is the second game I've started near Kaumo lands and have had a lot of difficulty obtaining an axe).