[P2P-F] Fwd: Modesty , Equality and Sharing as Insurance in ( Nomadic ) Communities ? - ‘Egalitarianism Among Hunters and Gatherers’

[Michel Bauwens]

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From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 11:24 AM
Subject: Modesty , Equality and Sharing as Insurance in ( Nomadic )
Communities ? - ‘Egalitarianism Among Hunters and Gatherers’
To: econowmix at googlegroups.com, op-n-m at googlegroups.com


‘Egalitarianism Among Hunters and Gatherers’ - Elizabeth A. Cashdan

“The theories and discussions on the causes of stratification, while
egalitarianism has largely been considered to be simply the baseline upon
which stratification develops. Material from !Kung ethnographers, however,
indicates that the egalitarianism found among most Bushman groups is a
phenomenon resulting from stringent constraints, not simply a natural
condition that represents the absence of stratification. These constraints
arise from high spatial and temporal variability in food supply, together
with a paucity of means to buffer this variability. The //Gana Bushmen of
the northeastern Kalahari, on the other hand, have ways of buffering
environmental variability that are not available to most other Bushman
groups, and it appears that these buffers allow a relaxing of the
constraints that make strict egalitarianism a necessity. Among the //Gana
one sees a greater tolerance for individual accumulation, and greater
(although uninstitutionalized) economic and political inequality. The
following discussion considers the implications of those environ- mental
buffers on the question of egalitarianism, using data collected by the
author in 1976 and 1977.

Bushman Egalitarianism:

One obvious reason for the economic egalitarianism prevalent among
hunter-gatherers in general and Bushman groups in particular is that the
mobility associated with hunting and gathering hinders the accumulation of
property; material goods cannot readily be carried from camp to camp, and
without a home base, any substantial accumulation of property is prevented.
If that were the sole cause of Bushman egalitarianism, however, an
“equality” based on lack of material goods would arise automatically from
the conditions of hunting and gathering, and no social sanctions to
reinforce sharing and egalitarianism would be needed. Bushman groups,
however, are in fact typified by strong and continual socialization against
hoarding (i.e., toward economic equality) and against displays of arrogance
and authority (i.e., toward social and political equality). This has been
discussed most fully for the !Kung; Lee (1969) has eloquently described how
his at- tempts to provide a large ox for a Christmas feast were met with
scorn by the !Kung recipients, the scorn succeeding as a mechanism that
prevents any tendency on the part of a good hunter or provider to become
arrogant and think of himself as a “big man.” The proper behavior of a
!Kung hunter who has made a big kill is to speak of it in passing and in a
deprecating manner (Lee 1969; Draper 1978); if an individual does not
minimize or speak lightly of his own accomplishments, his friends and
relatives will not hesitate to do it for him. The social pressure toward
economic equality and sharing is equally strong. Both food and material
goods are continually shared and circulated (Marshall 1961; Draper 1978;
Wiessner 1977), and if a person is not generous, the norms of sharing are
“reinforced” by continual badgering and dunning for gifts (Draper 1978).

Draper (1978) and Wiessner (1977) argue that the emphasis on sharing and
recirculation is a kind of “insurance” against local scarcity and
environmental variability among a people who have no other means of
buffering the variability. Speaking of the !Kung, Draper says that because
their “mobility renders food storage virtually impossible, the !Kung have
no insurance against hard times... For the !Kung... the stored surplus is
the group and the more distant groups scattered in the bush, with the
social and economic insurance which they provide” (1978:40). She argues
that “under these circumstances, one would expect to find cultural
values... in favor of regular sharing of temporary windfalls” (1978:40).
Wiessner (1977) argues similarly that the !Kung have no means of coping
with environmental variability other than a strategy of “pooling risk.” In
Wiessner’s discussion this takes the form of a “storage of social
obligations” through the delayed reciprocity of hxaro exchange, but it
applies also to all the mechanisms for economic leveling among the !Kung.
Because an individual shares what he has when someone is in need, without
regard to the direct equality of balanced reciprocity, such a strategy
protects the !Kung from an uncertain but devastating loss by substituting a
certain but small loss (Wiessner 1977). Mechanisms for leveling wealth
(which include the pervasive socialization against the individual
accumulation of property) are therefore a kind of social insurance that
protects the lKung from the extreme variability of their Kalahari
environment.

//Gana Subsistence and Economic Buffers:

The relationship between egalitarianism and lack of economic buffers among
the !Kung appears to be typical of most Bushman groups, but the //Gana are
an interesting exception - an exception that in fact “proves the rule.” The
//Gana are a population of about 800 individuals who live in the northern
and eastern parts of Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Their
territory overlaps with that of the G/wi, to the southwest, but the //Gana
described here comprise 209 individuals who live in the northeastern parts
of the region. The //Gana, like the G/wi, must cope with an environment
characterized by low and extremely variable rainfall, and by an absence of
permanent standing water (see Silberbauer 1965, 1972; Tanaka 1969, 1976).
Unlike the C/wi, however, the //Gana supplement their basic
hunting-and-gathering subsistence strategy with a small amount of food
production as a measure of protection against environmental variability
that is unavailable to other Bushman groups.

Together with beans and some maize, the //Gana cultivate a type of
domesticated tsama melon called marotsi, which is valued for its water
storage capacity. Because water does not last in the pans of this region
for longer than one or two weeks after a heavy rain, cultivation of a
naturally storable form of moisture (the marotsi melons) is a buffer
against local variability in water and is important also in that it permits
the //Gana a degree of sedentism unavailable to the G/wi. Unlike the G/wi,
who must move from pan to pan in search of water even during the rainy
season, the cultivated marotsi melons provide the //Gana with moisture
between showers when the nearby pans become dry and help them to remain
virtually sedentary throughout the rainy season. If the crop has been a
good one, the marotsi provides additional moisture for a few months into
the dry season as well.

The resulting sedentism is particularly impor- tant in that it makes it
feasible for the //Gana to have a permanent home-base settlement at the
field location. The //Gana spend about half the year at wild-melon
locations, where they subsist chiefly on game and bush foods, but they use
their home base as a storage site throughout the year for both bush foods
(in particular dry game meat and dry berries) and cultivated crops (beans,
marotsi, and maize). The practice of storing meat is particularly striking
in view of its absence in other Bushman groups, where the rules of meat
distribution ensure that all meat gets distributed widely and the hunter
himself keeps only a small portion of his own kill. Although considerable
informal sharing of food occurs among the //Gana, even with agricultural
food, there appears to be considerably greater tolerance for accumulation
than among other Bushman groups.

The home base also enables the //Gana to store items of wealth and the
means to obtain wealth, particularly skins and furs, which are collected in
quantity and traded outside the Central Reserve. Some of the items
purchased in exchange for the skins (drums and other water containers) are
further protection against the uncertainties of local rainfall. The wealth
that the //Gana have derived from the sale of furs and skin mats has even
enabled a few //Gana entrepreneurs to purchase in the last few years a
small number of cattle. These animals are kept with relatives outside the
Central Reserve because there is insufficient water for cattle within the
reserve. Because they are kept outside the region, they have no direct
effect on //Gana subsistence, but they have a potential indirect effect
since, like the hard cash that purchased them, they can be converted into
food by trading them to Bantu farmers outside the reserve.

Food production among the //Gana also takes the form of goat husbandry.
Goats, unlike cattle, are able to obtain sufficient moisture from wild
plants (chiefly moisture-bearing melons and roots), and therefore remain
with the //Gana in the Central Reserve throughout the year. The potential
significance of goat meat as a buffer in a hunter-gatherer diet is obvious
although the actual impact of goat meat on the //Gana diet is difficult to
assess. In “normal” years of abundant game the number of goats killed
solely for food is extremely small, even in bands with a large number of
goats, but goats are also eaten on certain ritual occasions and are eaten
when they die of natural causes. During my stay with the //Gana, there was
abundant game meat, and goats appeared to be a very minor part of the diet,
but it would be reasonable to expect that goats, as a “stored” form of meat
on the hoof, would be an important source of meat during years of little
game.

Lack of Egalitarianism Among the //Gana:

Although this summary of //Gana subsistence is brief (further discussion is
in Cashdan 1977), it can be seen that agriculture, storage, and husbandry
are important buffers that protect the //Gana to some extent from temporal
variability in the supply of water, bush foods, and game. It can therefore
be expected that the //Gana are somewhat less dependent on the insurance
provided by the economic leveling mechanisms typical of other Bushman
groups, and therefore a greater tolerance of the accumulation of
possessions by individuals and a greater disparity in wealth among both
individuals and bands could also be expected.

Comparison of animal ownership is particularly revealing as a measure of
equality, because, together with the possession of cash, it is probably the
best way of storing wealth. The //Gana invest in few possessions other than
some basic household effects such as blankets, cups, and pots. The
inequality of ownership is illustrated in Figure 1 , which shows ownership
of the most expensive items - donkeys, horses, drums, and cattle. Since the
people who own a large number of any one of these items are also likely to
own a large number of the other items, the inequality in total ownership is
considerable. Wealth varies not only from individual to individual but from
band to band, as Table I illustrates. The variance in ownership between
bands is particularly obvious with respect to goat ownership, with a
wealthy band owning
about 150 goats (including kids) and a poor band owning only about 20.
These figures are based on observations of goats kept in kraals and camps,
and the actual range of ownership is probably even greater than these
figures suggest, because people with few or no goats care for the goats of
wealthier individuals.

Evidence for economic inequality among the //Gana can be found also in
their comparatively high rate of polygyny. Polygyny is permitted in other
Bushman groups but is rare. Among the IKung, fewer than 5% of married men
have more than one wife, although within this population the more sedentary
IKung tend to be the most polygynous (H. C. Harpending: personal
communication). Among the //Gana, on the other hand, approximately 25% of
married men have more than one wife; almost 10% of married men had 3 wives
(4/41), while 15% (6/41) had two wives. Marriage among the //Gana typically
involves a bride-price of goats (in 9 marriages, the mode was 10 goats paid
as bride-price), so only a wealthy man can afford to have many wives.

Unfortunately, I have no data on political inequality to compare with the
data on economic inequality, but, impressionistically, the difference
betweeen the //Gana and other Bushman groups is striking. Before my first
meeting with the //Gana, I had visited the Dobe area and had seen for
myself the self-deprecating manner of the !Kung. I was thus totally
unprepared for my first encounter with the //Gana, in which several
individuals each claimed to be the “headman” of Molapo (a major //Gana
home-base location) and attempted to speak for others, including those in
other Molapo bands. As such behavior would indicate, there are no clear-cut
positions of authority among the //Gana; it became apparent, however, that
there is a fairly general agreement about which individuals have the
prestige and authority to speak for the group. Not surprisingly, these
prestigious individuals were chiefly middle-aged or older men with three
wives and were among the wealthiest of the //Gana. They owned most of the
animals and drums, and were the sole owners of certain other scarce and
valuable items (e.g., the firearm and the two large steel traps known to be
in the region). The exceptions to this association of wealth with political
prestige are younger men who have recently begun leaving the Central
Reserve for several months at a time in order to do wage work in the
Johannesburg mines. Among the //Gana, then, wealth and prestige are
associated, and a wealthy person is respected. This contrasts strikingly
with other Bushman groups, where there are constraints against the
accumulation of property by individuals, and a “wealthy” person who does
not recirculate his possessions is subject to disapproval and criticism
rather than respect.

Conclusion:

The inequality that exists among the //Gana has an entrepreneurial “big
man” flavor; there are no formal positions of leadership, and the “headmen”
have no economic redistributive role, nor any formal political power.
Inequality among the //Gana can therefore be explained best not as the
development of any formal organization of “ranking” or “stratification,”
but, rather, as the inevitable result of the lifting of the constraints
that produce strict egalitarianism among other Kalahari hunter-gatherers.
These constraints arise from a lack of means to buffer environmental
variability, and are a form of social insurance for hunter-gatherers living
in unpredictable environments. This view, then, holds that there is nothing
“natural” (statistically or socially) about the extreme leveling typical of
most Bushman groups and suggests that the type of inequality found among
the //Gana can be seen as the inevitable result of economic buffers that
make such leveling mechanisms unnecessary.”




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