Rethinking Social Evolution: The Perspective from Middle-Range Societies 9780773560185

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution
2 Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers
3 From Immediate- to Delayed Return Systems: The Emergence of Middle-Range Societies
4 Structures of Order at the Domestic Level
5 Societies with Increased Socio-economic Differentiation
6 Emergent Properties of Complex Middle-Range Societies
7 The Process of Social Evolution
Conclusion
Glossary
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
K
M
N
P
S
T
U
V
Notes
References
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y

Citation preview

rethinking social evolution

This page intentionally left blank

Rethinking Social Evolution The Perspective from Middle-Range Societies j é r ô m e r o u s s e au

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2006 isbn-13: 978-0-7735–3110-9 isbn-10: 0-7735–3110-6 Legal deposit fourth quarter 2006 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (bpidp) for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Rousseau, Jérôme Rethinking social evolution: the perspective from middle-range societies / Jérôme Rousseau. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-0-7735-3110-9 isbn-10: 0-7735-3110-6 1. Social evolution. I. Title. gn358.r68 2006

303.4

c2006-902334-4

This book was typeset by Interscript in 10/13 Palatino.

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

ix

3

1 Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

12

2 Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers 42 3 From Immediate- to Delayed Return Systems: The Emergence of Middle-Range Societies 60 4 Structures of Order at the Domestic Level 88 5 Societies with Increased Socio-economic Differentiation 149 6 Emergent Properties of Complex Middle-Range Societies 7 The Process of Social Evolution Conclusion

238

Glossary 247 Notes

253

References Index

287

267

224

188

This page intentionally left blank

Tables and figures

ta b l e s 1.1

Hunter-gatherers vs. states

31

2.1

Variations in autonomy among hunter-gatherers

3.1

Immediate- and delayed-return systems

3.2

Economic systems

4.1

Some differences between groups of the Malay Peninsula

4.2

Western and Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

4.3

Exchange systems in the Western New Guinea Highlands 121

4.4

Exchanges among the Mae Enga, Melpa, and Maring

4.5

Population density and land conquest in New Guinea

6.1

Stratification and the economic role of leaders 195

59

70

71

figures 1.1

Social consequences of biological transformations

3.1

Evolution of reciprocity 61

39

91

118

124 137

viii

Tables and figures

3.2

Consequences of delayed-return systems

75

4.1

Evolution of the New Guinea Highlands

132

6.1

Explanations of Polynesian stratification

196

6.2

Causal factors of stratification 200

6.3

Alternative responses to land pressure

6.4

Economy and stratification on the Northwest Coast

6.5

Production and consumption

7.1

Deviation-amplifying in the Northwest Coast 233

7.2

Multilinear trajectories of prestige goods systems (Melanesia and Polynesia) 237

map Ethnographic examples

x

204

210

205

Acknowledgments

André Costopoulos, Csilla Dallos, and Steve Chrisomalis were kind enough to read a previous version and provide invaluable comments. Claire Lorrain, Robert K. Dentan, Peter Whiteley, Bruce Trigger, Phillip Guddemi, Geoffrey Benjamin, Leslie Butt, and Leland Donald provided useful suggestions and corrections for specific ethnographic examples. Rebekah Jobling and Colin Nielsen drew the map of ethnographic examples. Joanne Richardson edited the manuscript. Special thanks go to my wife, Madeleine Palmer, who read every version and provided extensive editorial advice. This research was supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities of Canada as well as internal grants of McGill University’s Social Sciences Research Grants Subcommittee. n o t e : unless otherwise noted, emphasis in quotes is original.

Ethnographic examples

rethinking social evolution

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction

As members of society, we know social life is not random; we often understand why people act as they do and we can anticipate a limited number of outcomes when presented with specific situations. A systematic inquiry into social evolution can follow from this starting point. Social evolution involves increasing control over people’s actions. This is a consequence of the progressive development of social structures that constrain choices. These new structures arise because people try to change their natural and social environment in their own interest. The new structures create tensions and contradictions that are the impetus for further transformations. Socio-cultural evolution is, first and foremost, the rise of inequality and of increasingly encompassing socio-political structures. Inequality is a consequence of the exercise of self-interest, which leads to increased order; order requires control over people; people in control can be exploitative; then we have inequality. This book takes stock of developments in the anthropological study of social evolution. Social evolution was a major topic in anthropology a few decades ago; it has become less popular in recent years. Nonetheless, as a perusal of the References will show, many anthropologists have continued to work on the issue, especially archaeologists (e.g. Trigger 1998). My goal is not to say the last word on the subject but, rather, to contribute to an ongoing discussion. This is a progress report and part of a larger project. As we have limited data

4

Rethinking Social Evolution

on historical sequences, the main anthropological strategy to explain social change has been to compare different social systems and to construct narratives linking them in a transformational sequence. In some cases, these narratives have been enhanced by archaeological data. Rethinking Social Evolution is part of this tradition. This approach leaves much room for uncertainty because it is not sufficient to have coherent hypotheses that are not contradicted by data. In a later stage – already in progress – I will use computer simulations in order to carry these analyses further. Simulations should help to test the realism of these narratives and improve on our hypotheses. However, to be useful, simulations require clear formulations of the initial assumptions; this is what this book seeks to achieve.

overview Chapter One This chapter presents the background to my argument. After defining several key concepts, I briefly review some themes contained in theories of social evolution. Finally, I link social and biological evolution with a glimpse of the cognitive and social aspects of hominization. Given that all organisms act in their own interest, it is important to understand the extent to which they understand it. Increased cognitive abilities are a fundamental aspect of the human species; this includes a theory of mind (i.e., the ability to consider the viewpoints of other actors and make inferences about what they think). Language is an important factor in cognitive complexification. From this cognitive starting point, it follows that social evolution cannot be understood without paying attention to the choices and decisions of social actors. The results, constraints, and options that emerge from them are often discernable only after long periods. Chapter Two Individual autonomy is the crucial factor in understanding social life among simple hunter-gatherers. People are not dependent on specific others. However, individual autonomy is tempered by the human need for sociality, the desire to form pair-bonds, and the long-term dependence of children on adults. Furthermore, while foragers may not be dependent on specific others, provisioning strategies favour

Introduction

5

social living: individuals try to benefit from the work of others. This is called demand sharing. The tensions arising from demand sharing can be tempered by cloaking it with an ideology of generosity and responsibility. Ethically based demand sharing is called generalized reciprocity. When a society is regulated by demand sharing and generalized reciprocity, it has an immediate-return economy. Because individual autonomy gives precedence to self-interest, there is no reason to expect foragers to be egalitarian. Furthermore, social gender differentiation is well established among hunter-gatherers. Chapter Three Generalized reciprocity is in tension with self-interest; this tension gives rise to accountable reciprocity in order to limit the scope of reciprocity and generosity. Accountable reciprocity is present when an account is kept of value given and value received; the equivalence of exchange values regulates exchanges, unlike generalized reciprocity, where need is a sufficient justification for sharing and reciprocity. When a society is regulated by accountable reciprocity, it is called a delayed-return society. Accountable reciprocity becomes the basis for a radically different societal model; it transforms the significance of the domestic unit, brings about new forms of cooperation, and calls for new ways to manage conflict. The most fundamental consequence of accountable reciprocity is a reduction in individual autonomy. Membership in groups becomes a central feature of social life. With the appearance of accountable reciprocity, domestic units become economic corporations managing the labour of their members and its output. Individuals become members of closed groups with exclusive control of resources rather than being free to change their affiliation, as in hunting-gathering societies. This calls for more complex forms of political organization in order to manage the group’s resources. At first, leaders have little power; their main role is to limit conflicts, given that people cannot readily move away when problems arise. Chapter Four The previous chapter focuses on the common characteristics of delayed-return systems. Chapters 4 and 5 document the variability of middle-range societies. Chapter 4 considers societies in which social

6

Rethinking Social Evolution

order derives from domestic organization; they share many features with simple foraging societies. Wealth disparities and power differentials are limited. Nonetheless, as chapter 3 shows, these societies have already crossed a fundamental threshold of social evolution. Order comes through economic, domestic, and residential arrangements. Because of accountable reciprocity, domestic units are corporations that control the product of their labour. Similarly, local groups acquire a stability absent in foraging bands. To persist, these almost subliminal forms of control require an investment in shaping the environment and the younger generations. Because domestic units control the product of their labour, and because community membership is stable, it becomes possible to invest in more complex forms of organization. As people try to protect and enhance their own interests, they are motivated to bring about new regularities from which they expect to benefit. For instance, because the domestic unit is a corporation, it becomes important to develop strategies to manage its membership. In so far as communities keep people together, it becomes imperative to manage conflict in order to prevent community fragmentation. These inescapable imperatives can be realized in a huge variety of ways, which is the reason for the variability of middle-range societies. Gender roles may be more or less contrasted; gender and age differences may be more or less hierarchical; leadership may be diffuse or concentrated, more or less inclusive. In this chapter, I contrast two strategies: limited leadership and competitive equality. In both cases, structures of control within the domestic unit are at the core of social organization. Chapter Five The societies of the previous chapter find their structure at the level of the domestic unit. If there is inequality, it is within households. Greater complexification is possible only by constructing structures beyond the domestic unit. Unlike the shift from immediate- to delayedreturn economies, there is no sharp threshold between the societies of chapters 4 and 5 but, rather, a continuum of increasing marginalization, whereby an increasing proportion of the population plays a minor role in decision making. The first step consists in trying to push the boundaries of domestic organization so that the dominant members of domestic units benefit from the work of more people. After the upper limits of this strategy

Introduction

7

have been reached, further complexification calls for structures beyond the domestic unit. Two related strategies are the rise of hereditary stratification, which establishes a long-term differentiation between households with a higher or a lower status, and supra-domestic surplus appropriation. Religion can also play an increasing role in social control. The societies described in this chapter are the precursors of complex chiefdoms, in which several communities are integrated into a polity under a paramount chief. Chapter Six Strong domestic units, stable local groups, and some form of local leadership emerge from accountable reciprocity. They are the backdrop for other social structures that may become salient in middle-range (and complex) societies: kinship, hereditary stratification, surplus appropriation, and classes. Kinship exists in all human societies, but delayed-return economies make it possible for kinship to be an important principle of social organization. Even in middle-range societies, the salience of kinship may be limited: it may play a secondary role in social organization if other features generate adequate networks or if it competes with other forms of order, such as hereditary stratification. A consideration of the factors leading to hereditary stratification is important in understanding social evolution. I argue that economic factors such as surplus, scarcity, trade, or settlement patterns are not directly the cause of stratification, although they establish limits to what is possible. The nature of leadership is crucial to the presence or absence of stratification. Ideological factors are as important as ecological, economic, and demographic variables. Because social stratification derives from political practice, it is at least in part a consequence of conscious choices; social actors are in a position to select alternatives on the basis of their perceived self-interest and their power. Surplus appropriation occurs in all societies. In immediate-return economies, it is present in the form of demand sharing. It takes on a new significance in delayed-return economies because it can be linked to systematic imbalances. This can happen within the domestic unit; it is then the motor of domestic intensification strategies. Surplus appropriation can also occur beyond the domestic unit on the basis of political differentials. Surplus appropriation can take place systematically without control over the means of production.

8

Rethinking Social Evolution

The next step is to link surplus appropriation with control over the means of production. While control over the means of production is not the overall principle of surplus appropriation in middle-range societies, it first emerges among them. Given that control over the means of production is an emergent feature of middle-range societies, it follows that the notion of mode of production is not applicable to all societies because it is defined primarily through control over the means of production. I also argue that social classes can manage surplus appropriation in the absence of control over the means of production. Chapter Seven While specific historical changes are unpredictable, the general process of social evolution is comprehensible. The main triggers of complexification are environmental, technological, demographic, and economic. Ultimately, these triggers are integrated by self-interest. Without a consideration of the actors’ motivations, it is difficult to achieve a meaningful understanding of social change. The extent to which change is the result of deliberate choices or is the result of unexpected consequences identifies different kinds of social change. Social change can be continuous or discontinuous; most major changes involve significant discontinuities. Human life is organized and controlled in order to bring about a status quo. As pressure for change increases, a new status quo is established. There is another reason for punctuated change: some configurations contain the seeds of further transformations. They include deviation-amplifying mechanisms that constitute a blueprint for future change. The process of social evolution allows for alternatives. Initial conditions constrain the range of future transformations but rarely establish a single trajectory. Consequently, it is possible to explain why social change has taken place, but we cannot predict the future beyond identifying impossible or highly unlikely scenarios. Conclusion In addition to reviewing the major findings of Rethinking Social Evolution, the conclusion briefly delineates the relationship between the evolution of middle-range societies and the emergence of states.

Introduction

9

Glossary Key concepts are defined in chapter 1. The glossary provides capsule definitions of a broader range of anthropological concepts.

th e s e l e c t i o n o f c a s e s t u d i e s In order to consider the significance of small-scale sedentary societies in social evolution, I must first document and analyze their social systems. I have selected examples that allow for comparison and contrast. In doing so, I do not limit myself to “pristine” stateless sedentary societies; that is, societies that have not been affected by states. Such a limitation would eliminate almost the entire ethnographic record. It is crucial to remain aware of the extent to which “stateless” societies have been transformed by states at their margins. Each example illustrates a point relevant to the chapter in which it is presented. I also compare ethnographic examples across chapters. While examples have been selected to illustrate broad sets of social configurations, I have tried to provide enough detail to show how general frameworks are realized in specific instances. Comparative social anthropology seeks to explain a large variety of social factors in a coherent way. Statistical cross-cultural comparisons provide a valuable contribution to social theory in pointing out associations between different traits and factors (cf. Burton and White 1987), but case studies are needed in order to see how these different traits and factors are integrated in functioning societies. Several examples in this book have been selected because they are well known and well documented. I use a mixed approach: in some cases, such as Lowland South America, the New Guinea Highlands, and the Northwest Coast, I develop regional comparisons in order to show how a general framework allows for alternatives. I also compare unrelated societies. Although the latter kind of comparison is less well controlled than a regional comparison (Sarana 1996, 119), it remains an essential element of the analysis. I expect that a consideration of other ethnographic examples would broaden and, in some cases, modify aspects of my argument. For the present volume, I have tried to find a compromise between thoroughness and brevity. My bias is evident in one respect: I often refer to societies I studied. I carried out fieldwork in 1967 and 1968 among the Inuit of Pond Inlet

10

Rethinking Social Evolution

on Baffin Island, at a time when acculturative influences were becoming more pressing. The economy was based almost entirely on hunting, both for subsistence and for sale (especially seal skins and narwhal tusks). The Canadian government had recently built permanent residences in the administrative centre, from which people went to hunting camps for several months of the year. I spent the first summer in a hunting camp and the second summer in the new village. My focus of interest was the “traditional” social organization, which I learned about partly through fieldwork, partly through the literature. My doctoral fieldwork in 1970–72 was conducted among the Kayan of the Baluy area in Sarawak, Malaysia; I did additional fieldwork in 1974 and 1984 (the latter in the Mahakam area of Kalimantan Timur, Indonesia). My focus was again social organization. This time, I was living among swidden agriculturalists with hereditary stratification and longhouse settlements. The Baluy Kayan lived in a remote area where the effects of modernization had been limited. The most radical change was the elimination of headhunting in the 1920s (with a revival of the practice during the Second World War at the instigation of the British). Starting in the 1960s, health measures reduced mortality rates, especially infant mortality. While there still were slaves at the time of my fieldwork, no slave had been sold since 1963. At the time, few Baluy Kayan had a clear image of their membership in the state of Sarawak; the integration of Sarawak to Malaysia was nebulous to many of them. The Baluy Kayan, then central Borneo as a whole (1990), were for twenty years my favourite examples to use when thinking about social organization. They called for answers to several questions: why are the Kayan stratified (1979a) when their neighbours the Iban are not (1980)? What circumstances give rise to hereditary stratification (2001)? My analysis of Kwakiutl hierarchy and stratification (1979b) helped me to better understand the Kayan situation. My Borneo focus predisposed me to be sceptical about the significance of ethnic identity in establishing social boundaries. The absence of private property of fallows among the Baluy Kayan led me to look at mechanisms of social control other than ownership of the means of production. Despite their apparent isolation, the people of central Borneo have long been part of trade networks extending as far as China; this helped me abandon the traditional anthropological model of isolated “tribal” societies. The limited importance of kinship in central Borneo societies led me to doubt its alleged significance in some other societies.

Introduction

11

Rethinking Social Evolution calls for a broader ethnographic framework. In order to discuss socio-cultural evolution, it is necessary to consider ethnographic cases that help place the general processes in context. The selected cases share several features: a reasonably good ethnographic corpus and a limited impact on the part of industrial societies. I have avoided examples associated with complex chiefdoms and states because these introduce dimensions that are beyond the focus of this book. As a consequence, African and mainland Asian societies are underrepresented here. I do not assume that any of these examples are “pristine” – some, like the Senoi, clearly are not. In every case, the intervention of colonial and postcolonial structures remains an issue. For clarity, I use the “ethnographic present,” despite its dubious associations.1 Otherwise, the whole book would be in the past tense because small-scale societies have been integrated into state systems and no longer exist as distinct societies. In most cases, the societies described here live very different lives now. By using the ethnographic present, I am not trying to present an image of fixity or to enshrine the specific moment of fieldwork. It may seem odd that I make little use of archaeological examples, as they provide a time depth usually absent in ethnographies. Archaeology is indispensable to an understanding of social evolution. However, in Rethinking Social Evolution, I analyze explanatory frameworks. Given that archaeological explanations are largely developed by analogy with contemporary societies, it would be circular at this stage to evaluate socio-anthropological theories by reference to archaeology. I foresee that, when theoretical frameworks for the explanation of social change have been strengthened and tested with computer simulations, a broader integration of socio-anthropological and archaeological data and explanations will bring invaluable results.

1 Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

In this chapter, I present some of the background to my argument. After defining several key concepts, I briefly review some themes in theories of social evolution. Finally, I articulate social and biological evolution with some of the cognitive and social aspects of hominization.

key concepts Definitions exist to facilitate dialogue; their adequation to reality varies. Definitions represent reality best when there is a stable configuration, less so when there is a transition. In other words, the concept may be clear, but its application may be more or less felicitous within various settings. The following definitions are meant to provide preliminary guideposts; they may need to be qualified when they are applied to specific cases. What is a society? This project is based on the comparison of societies. Let us first identify what a society is not. •

•

A society is not an ethnic group. Ethnic identity may or may not mark social boundaries. A society does not necessarily have a homogeneous culture.

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution •

•

•

13

While a society cannot exist without people, a society is not the sum of the individuals who constitute it. A society cannot be reduced to individual characteristics; rather, it plays a major role in constituting individuals. Like “society,” “culture” is a methodological construct rather than a given. Unlike “society,” “culture” is not an effective conceptual tool because it lacks a workable definition.

For instance, the Kayan of central Borneo would seem to be an unproblematic example of an “ethnic group”: they speak one language, they claim a common origin, and they share a number of cultural characteristics. From this, it does not follow that they have a single social system: in one region, postmarital residence is uxorilocal, in another, utrolocal. Through most of their range they are monogamous, but chiefs practised polygyny in one region. In some regions, villages are formed by a single longhouse, while multi-longhouse villages are the norm elsewhere. In one area, villages are not ethnically homogeneous because their chiefs belong to another ethnic category and speak another language. It may be obvious that “society” is a construct, but I hope to be forgiven for belabouring the point. Unlike individuals, societies cannot be perceived in a commonsensical way. In some settings, it is easy to identify social groupings (e.g., domestic units and communities). When we look at delayed-return systems, it will become evident why domestic units are clearly recognizable in most societies. Identifying communities is sometimes more difficult, although this tends to be less of a problem for middle-range societies than it is for some hunter-gatherers and complex societies. The flexibility of some foraging societies means that there are no stable communities. Conversely, in complex societies, the scale of social relationships often blurs community boundaries. On the other hand, it seems easier to identify modern societies because of the conceptual hegemony of nationstates. To a large extent, as sociologists and anthropologists, we are wedded to the notion of society because we have constructed it in the image of the nation-state. Unfortunately, the notion becomes problematic in smaller-scale systems. There is no clearly delimited “Kayan society” offering itself for analysis; therefore, ethnographers need to construct their object. Quite reasonably, many ethnographies have avoided the problem by

14

Rethinking Social Evolution

taking the inductive approach of the community study. In settings in which it is easy to identify communities, we are justified in assuming that the community is a fundamental unit of social relationships and that we can take it as our starting point. While a community focus is appropriate for ethnography, it will not suffice for social theory. If I compare and contrast social systems, I need to know what I am comparing and contrasting. I was faced with this problem in central Borneo. I wished to explain social life in a region where there is ethnic diversity and variations in social practice (Rousseau 1990). I started with the classical anthropological approach of comparing ethnic groups and tried to write separate chapters on the Kayan, the Kenyah, the Kajang, the Modang, the Kelabit, and other smaller groups. The result was confusing because the Kayan are dispersed over five major river basins, while the Kenyah live in four basins and comprise a variety of ethnic units speaking a number of languages, some of which are not mutually intelligible. Some Kenyah and Kajang cheerfully acknowledge that they do not share a common origin with other Kenyah and Kajang, respectively. I have already pointed out that members of the same ethnic unit have different social practices in different regions. My analysis started making sense when I reorganized my data by using two definitions of “society,” depending on the context. In order to understand how people live, I focused on the riverbased grouping, a social network defined by partially correlated forms of interaction (marriages, commerce, political alliances). A river-based grouping contains different language groups and sociotechnological adaptations (swiddeners and hunter-gatherers). Throughout Borneo, river-based groupings tended to avoid headhunting among themselves. A river-based grouping was not automatically a political unit, but strong leaders often emerged to control it. From this viewpoint a society is defined as a network. Network maps show variation in the density of relationships between elements. A network map often suggests boundaries between different units because there is a high density of interrelationships between some elements forming distinct nodes. For instance, Borneo watersheds create constraints to communication and create boundaries limiting interaction between river basins. The river-based grouping is considerably more relevant than is the ethnic group when it comes to understanding social life in central Borneo, but it remains a crude tool. It suggests a set of regions

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

15

delimited by natural features. While this is true, a network analysis can go further by showing a hierarchy of networks. In central Borneo (and much of Borneo, for that matter), individual communities form the tightest network nodes, and there are sharp social boundaries between communities. Beyond the community, most contacts are with residents of the river basin, with a sharp tapering-off of links as distance increases. In practice, a community has significant interaction with a few villages (e.g., the closest four or five villages in a river basin with thirty or forty villages). As settlement is linear along the river, each community has its own network, and two neighbouring communities have partially overlapping networks. There is yet another level of interconnections. In central Borneo, we need to distinguish aristocratic and commoner networks. Commoners interact primarily with members of four or five communities, among whom nearly all marriages and adoptions take place. Aristocrats, who favour stratum endogamy, interact over a greater geographical distance; the aristocratic network corresponds essentially to the riverbased grouping. This leads us to the second definition of society. “Central Borneo society” is a social system present in several river basins. This second definition of society is not based on networks but, rather, on a model specifying how people organize their lives by sharing a similar structure (where a significant part of the shared structure is a consequence of historical factors). In this second definition, a society is an assemblage of people who interact with each other on the basis of regular, recurrent, processes. A network analysis leads us to an understanding of these processes. Conversely, when we have understood the latter, we should be able to explain how these processes generate the networks we have observed. The second definition requires further clarification. It might be interpreted to mean that a society can be explained by reference to underlying principles; however, a society is not the working out of rules, in the same way that a language is not the application of grammatical rules. We often think of speech as the manipulation of grammatical rules and semantic arrays. This economical way of describing speech mirrors, but does not describe, the experience of speech events. In the same way, a rule-based model of society is not a description of social reality. When we infer underlying principles and processes, this does not eliminate the agency of individuals and small groupings because social life is also the working out of varied,

16

Rethinking Social Evolution

sometimes antagonistic, interests. Structure and practice are articulated but not identical. For instance, the Kayan say that collaterals are considered to be relatives up to the sixth degree. In practice, relatives beyond second cousins are not important. In this case, the Kayan theory of kinship does not serve as a model for social relations. Remembering first and second cousins, but not third to sixth cousins, follows from the predominance of practicality over theory. For most Kayan, the cost of remembering genealogical relationships beyond second cousins is not worth the effort. However, the structural definition of kinship could be useful in changed circumstances; for example, if fallows were owned by the descendants of an apical ancestor,1 there might be a benefit in tracking down more distant kinship relations. Human life is neither a fortuitous assemblage of independent traits nor a set of hyper-coherent structures imposing themselves on individuals but something in between. All “traits” are not created equal; some of them generate a master plan, or, to use the terminology of complexity theory, some factors interact in the formation of emergent structures. In asking ourselves whether societies are “real,” we must avoid reification. For each activity, we must ask who the participants are. Small groupings are related to larger groupings: households can be subsets of productive and reproductive networks. At its maximal extension, a society could be a political unit (France and the European Union are both “societies,” although one is a member of the other) or a configuration of social practices with internal coherence. A “society” is an object constructed by observers in order to approximate real events through a process of abstraction. Ethnic identity cannot be the starting point of the analysis. In small-scale societies, ethnic identity is rarely a major factor in group formation. The social significance of ethnic identity is a late phenomenon in the evolution of social forms; it usually becomes significant well after state formation. For instance, we saw that, throughout Borneo, river-based groupings are the most important social units, of more consequence than ethnic categories. They are the strongest and most frequently invoked subjective unit of classification of collectivities (King 1979, 3). The river area is the locus for marital and economic exchanges, warfare, and other forms of political activity. While ethnic identity is not irrelevant to such a feeling of kind, neither is it the basis of the grouping. Despite ethnic differences, the members of a river-based grouping have a consciousness of kind: they are not simply neighbours but a people. This can express itself in statements

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

17

of multiple ethnic identities within the ruling class. Proximity is the basis of commonality. An awareness of the limited importance of ethnic identity allows for a better understanding of the ethnographic record. Ethnic identity does not delineate a social system; there is no intrinsic reason for ethnic identity to form the basis of social groupings or coalitions. When it does, this is not a self-evident fact but, rather, something requiring explanation. Therefore, a society is not an object available to scrutiny at the beginning of the analysis but, rather, a construct of the analysis. Whether we use the network or the structural definition of society, we need to specify the extension of the object we have defined. Georges Condominas (1980) has addressed this issue with the notion of social space. Modern states occupy a large social space: even residents of small villages are part of a larger polity affecting their daily life. By contrast, middle-range societies have a smaller social space: most social needs are satisfied within the village or a few villages. •

•

•

•

•

Beyond the actual geographical space, people’s image of the world establishes the limit of their world. This imagined space may include supernatural elements. The Hinduized states of Southeast Asia saw the capital and its god-king as the centre of the universe. Time is another factor: what are the temporal limits of the group? Some people have almost no history. Many hunter-gatherers have a very shallow genealogical reckoning: they may not be able to establish precise kinship links beyond first or second cousins. For others, history extends back for many generations. To what extent is the group endogamous? Marital alliances are only one aspect of social space: neighbourly relations are also a factor. How does a group relate to its environment? Some habitats may not be considered relevant, even if they are accessible. Most Javanese are frightened of the jungle, which they see as foreign and dangerous. It is outside their social space. A society’s orientation to the environment is intimately linked with its technology: per capita, hunter-gatherers need more space than do agriculturalists. The technology is related to the economy: specific activities call for a smaller or larger workforce and different kinds of reciprocity. The economy plays a fundamental role in defining social space, which changes through time. For instance, if subsistence agriculturalists adopt cash crops, they are expanding their social space because they are producing for outsiders.

18 •

• •

Rethinking Social Evolution

Even in societies with a limited involvement in trade, there may be exchanges. These exchanges may be from one social space to the other or within a social space. Throughout Southeast Asia, a distinction is made between ordinary objects used for everyday life, which are exchanged within the village or between neighbouring villages, and prestige property (jars, gongs, etc.), which is acquired from the outside. Warfare can be either internal or external. The social space of a group is significantly expanded by new means of communication, such as literacy and mass media. A lingua franca plays the same role. Culture

“Culture” is a confusing term: it has a variety of meanings in different contexts. Most of the time, it promises more than it can deliver. “Culture” is unproblematic when referring to learned representations and actions that cannot be attributed to genetic factors or biological make-up. Problems arise when talking about a culture: French culture, Kwakiutl culture, Maori culture. Here, there is an assumption that a culture integrates subsystems such as technology, economy, the socio-political system, religion, and language into a bounded system. However, cultures, unlike languages, are not systems but, rather, assemblages of practices associated with specific populations – or parts thereof – in given situations. Within what we call culture, there are systems, (e.g., the economy, language, animal taxonomies, technological specializations, ritual and belief systems). However, these systems are not related to each other in a necessary way: they may evolve independently of each other. Nor should we assume that each individual belongs to one culture. Individuals engage in unrelated or even contradictory activities. As Keesing (1974, 90) argues, “We cannot understand other people’s lives simply by mapping their culture. A competence model of Trobriand culture would tell us what classes of things, people, and events there are and what kind of a world they are situated in, and it would give rules for how to garden, trace descent, exchange, and reside. But it would tell us nothing about residence patterns, descent groups, agricultural production, or the flow of exchange – or even how many Trobrianders there are and where they live.”

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

19

As social evolution deals with the ways in which people organize their lives and make decisions, the notion of culture is not particularly helpful in explaining what happens. “Culture” is also too vague to help clarify descriptions. Rather than saying that something is a cultural practice, it is more useful to say that it is a norm (and then we try to understand how the norm is upheld and when it is honoured in the breach) or a habitual practice (and then we try to find out why it is habitual).2 Economic systems Part of my argument about social evolution is based on the contrast between immediate- and delayed-return economies (Woodburn 1982). These two economic models correspond to different forms of reciprocity. In an immediate-return economy, the principle is essentially: “From everyone according to their ability to everyone according to their needs.” In delayed-return economies, the principle is: “From some people according to their willingness to provide a commodity and/or labour to some other people according to their ability to provide some commodity and/or labour in return, so that the exchanges are deemed to be equivalent.” These two economic models may co-exist in a given society, but they form distinct sectors that are insulated from each other. All societies that practise an immediatereturn economy are hunter-gatherers. All other societies are regulated by a delayed-return economy.3 One should not make too much of the labels “immediate-return” and “delayed-return.” Not everything in an immediate-return economy takes place immediately, and delays are not a universal requirement of delayed-return economies. As we will see in chapter 3, Woodburn chose these labels because immediate- and delayed-return economies manage time differently. The fact that a large animal catch may be eaten over a long period is not a delayed-return arrangement. For ecological reasons, food may be stored beyond immediate needs in immediate-return economies (Ingold 1983). Immediate- and delayed-return systems are not defined by time factors: there are time lags in immediate-return economies, for instance when long-term investments are made, such as building elaborate fences to catch caribou (566). Borneo hunter-gatherers manage wild sago groves to augment their productivity in future years; Arctic fish weirs and cairns remain in use for long periods. The immediacy refers to needs:

20

Rethinking Social Evolution

people use resources when they need them, without a notion of private ownership. Conversely, delay is not the central issue in delayed-return economies. If a crop matures all at once and needs to be rationed to serve the needs of the producers for a whole year, then eating it all at once would clearly be a self-defeating strategy. However, the need to ration a crop over the year is not the reason agriculturalists control the product of their labour. This requirement exists in non-seasonal agriculture as well (e.g., Melanesian tuber gardens). Middle-range societies Middle-range societies and states have delayed-return economies. In states, decision-making authority is centralized at both the regional and community levels; it is also internally specialized, so that “the central process is divisible into separate activities which can be performed at different places at different times” (Wright 1977, 383): central authority is divisible into many specialized roles, which are then arranged hierarchically, with the state ruler at the top in familiar bureaucratic fashion (Spencer 1987, 372). Middle-range societies lack the differentiation of states but are more complex societies than are immediate-return hunter-gatherers. The concept of middle-range society replaces the earlier anthropological notion of “tribe,” which has lost currency because it suggests a spurious homogeneity, as in the following quotes: [“Tribal” social systems are] social networks integrated by cross-cutting panresidential institutions, but lacking class structure or full-time segmental specialization. Such systems also may be termed “nonhierarchical,” in the sense that decision-making occurs primarily through consensus rather than through the full-time exercise of power by formally sanctified authorities. We realize that the terms “tribal” and “nonhierarchical” are awkward, but our profession lacks a more adequate set of terms for discussing such social phenomena (Braun and Plog 1982, 504). The composite units within a tribe, generally consisting of individual communities or extended kin units, are largely independent of one another economically, but politically and ceremonially interdependent … Production within the tribal economy is at a subsistence level, with limited surplus production (Creamer and Haas 1985, 739).

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

21

These conceptualizations of “tribe” postulate a specific constellation of features: they do not describe reality. In the same way, it has often been assumed that kinship plays a dominant role in “tribal” societies, while the salience of kinship in social life varies considerably in middle-range societies. The notion of middle-range society avoids these presuppositions. The very blandness of the term (“It is neither this nor that”) forces us to avoid reductionist assumptions. The notion of middle-range society has arisen in order to provide a better framework for understanding social evolution (Taylor 1975; Upham 1987). Middle-range societies are often treated as mere stepping-stones in an evolutionary path between hunter-gatherers and preindustrial states,4 but they display many social features that disappear or take on a new significance with state formation. As Hallpike (1986, 215) indicates, “Early states have more in common [with each other] than do chiefdoms or tribes, and industrial states resemble one another more than do early states.” The variability of social forms in middle-range societies is of great theoretical significance. These societies provide settings within which a relatively limited number of features can be compared. Advantages such as authority, prestige, knowledge, resources, and control over surplus may or may not be distributed unequally. When it is present, social inequality may be expressed as the differential treatment of individuals, social categories (age levels, genders, kinship positions, and strata), or groups (domestic units, kin groups, and communities). The actors’ perceptions of inequality, and the forms of resistance to inequality, are of crucial importance. For both hunter-gatherers and states, constraints reduce the range of social variability. Middle-range societies show great social variability, while hunter-gatherers are limited by technology and demography. With states, the concentration of political and economic power limits variety. Middle-range societies have more complex technology and larger group size than do foragers, without having the same levels of political and economic control as states. The balance of constraints and possibilities in this phase allows for great variability and experimentation. Within this broad category of middle-range societies, individual systems may remain stable for very long periods. The notion of middle-range societies is evolutionary: the systems that preceded them create contingencies, and internal factors bring about new developments. In turn, states appear out of middle-range societies, constrained by

22

Rethinking Social Evolution

contingencies developed in the latter and by new constraints specific to them. In other words, the development of political authority and inequality in middle-range societies is crucial to understanding what came later: they are the setting in which crucial changes in human social and political organization took place. Complexification Complexification is one aspect of social evolution: it occurs when the number of social roles and statuses increases. Social exclusivity is one of the first steps towards complexification: social groups are clearly distinguished from other groups, each with their rights; individuals have exclusive membership in a group, which they cannot change freely. Group membership radically transforms social interaction because it reduces the number of independent agents who interact with each other; it channels interaction through specific channels, which Braun calls “sequential hierarchy.” Sequential hierarchy “consists of a nesting of patterns of interaction and decision making, so that people interact as members of nested categories of social identity. That is, people do not interact randomly across the landscape; rather, they interact as members of culturally defined groups. Within each group, in turn, people interact as members of yet smaller groupings, and so forth on down to the level of individual households” (Braun 1991, 435). Marginalization Marginalization is the process by which established or emerging elites create socioeconomic relations of superior versus subordinate/dependent through manipulations of labor and distributions of social resources … Marginalizing behavior occurs at different nodes of social interaction and in societies of various scales; it may, for example, be observed between households, between elites and commoners, between communities, and between societies of any type or size (hunter-gatherer, agricultural, colonial) at borders and frontiers. This definition of marginalization indicates that rising leaders devise and accelerate socioeconomic changes and explicitly counters the position that leaders and followers … are created by large-scale social processes beyond their control. (Arnold 1995, 88–9) “Marginalization,” then, when applied to cultural evolution, refers most broadly to a process by which persons or positions are separated from central

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

23

operations of a society. It implies, as well, instability, expendability, lack of power, and an absence of full integration with centralized decision-making. (Arnold 1995, 91–2)

Causality I try to explain why and how social evolution occurs, and this brings up questions of causality. Some phenomena are ordered in a simple way: a linear equation describes a comet’s trajectory. When systems have regular distributions, classical Newtonian science is spectacularly successful in reducing the complexity of observed events to the simplicity of linear equations. This approach becomes increasingly inefficient as phenomena become more complex, for example, the weather. Living systems exemplify the same kind of complexity. The course of biological evolution is not amenable to predictive law-like propositions, but it is not indeterminate chaos, where anything can happen. On the contrary, we can make sense of evolution because it operates within boundary conditions and is contingent upon antecedent states. We need different notions of causality to deal with different processes. 1 The classical Newtonian model presents a linear relationship: a straightforward transformational rule (of the type X = kYz) identifies how changes in the independent variable(s) bring about commensurate changes in the dependent variable(s). For instance, C14 decays regularly through time until all radioactivity disappears.5 Some human activities are amenable to this kind of explanation. For instance, using Pospisil’s (1963) data on Kapauku agriculture, White (1973, 395–9) shows that the intersection of three simple equations explains Kapauku time allocations for the cultivation of root crops, sugar cane, and sweet potatoes. 2 Some systems are near equilibrium: boundary conditions establish maximum and minimum limits. Superficially, systems near equilibrium may look like fuzzy linear relationships, but the mechanisms are different. Systems near equilibrium (e.g., a thermostat) call for a change of direction when a boundary is breached. For instance, rice production among the Kayan of central Borneo was a system near equilibrium before they gained access to markets in which they could sell agricultural products. The amount of rice produced by a domestic unit was a function of the number of active members and

24

Rethinking Social Evolution

mouths to feed. The definition of per-capita rice needs established a lower limit, which, if breached, called for corrective action, and a higher limit beyond which extra work would be a waste of energy, given limitations in the ability to store or use rice surpluses. The upper and lower boundaries each have their own mechanism: people do not want to produce less than the minimum because, if they do, they will go hungry; they do not want to produce more than the maximum because they can use their time otherwise. 3 Some systems are far from equilibrium. They change in an irregular fashion: they may remain stable for long periods and then change rapidly (or at variable rates). Unlike systems near equilibrium, change is not constrained by stable boundaries; rather, periods of stability are followed by systemic change. Systems far from equilibrium are inherently evolutionary. Change may occur as such systems interact with their environment. Internal factors may also trigger evolution. “Spontaneous internal fluctuations in far from equilibric systems test the boundaries of the system continuously. Either because of the occasional internal strength of such fluctuations, or because internal fluctuations interact with external perturbations, then the system’s boundaries are breached and it is forced into a new and radically different trajectory” (Byrne 1998, 30–1). Biological evolution is an example of such change. Biological forms stay unchanged for long periods, followed by rapid transformation to new forms (Eldredge and Gould 1972). Such change is contingent upon previous states: the panda’s “thumb” was cobbled up from another anatomical feature because the digit that would be a thumb in other mammals had already been co-opted for another purpose (Gould 1980). There is no general biological “law” according to which the first digit of mammals must evolve into a thumb. Given that change does not follow a predetermined path, systems far from equilibrium can go in more than one direction. Complexity theory provides heuristic tools for systems far from equilibrium. Much of the world is situated between absolute chaos (about which little can be said) and stable systems operating according to simple, rigid procedures (e.g., the movement of pendulums or the growth of crystals). Complexity theory is particularly relevant to an understanding of social evolution because it provides ways to explain how order emerges out of chaos (Prigogine and Stengers 1984).

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

25

Complexity theory builds on systems theory but abandons the latter’s assumption of systemic coherence. Some notions of complexity theory are used later in this book: these are bifurcation, dependence on initial conditions, and fitness landscapes. We saw that, in systems far from equilibrium, change does not occur in a regular manner. In fact, long periods of stability may be followed by rapid change. A phase transition is the kind of change that brings about a transformation into a radically different system. A bifurcation occurs when alternatives become available. These bifurcations usually cannot be predicted ahead of time, but they are easily recognized once they have taken place: “Very small differences in the values of control parameters at the bifurcation point determine which of two radically different trajectories the system settles into” (Byrne 1998, 28). The unpredictability of change means that systems far from equilibrium are dependent on initial conditions. We understand this intuitively in relation to historical events, but it is important to recognize how different this process is from equilibric systems. For instance, the state of water (ice, liquid, or gas) is not dependent on initial conditions but on current conditions of temperature, pressure, and chemical composition. Some early approaches in human ecology similarly assumed that people were shaped by their landscape. In that sense and in this context, they assumed the validity of Newtonian causality.6 We now know this does not work. The notion of fitness landscape offers a way to represent evolutionary possibilities “by a landscape of peaks and valleys. The peaks represent high fitness. The point about the landscape formulation is that it shows that where you start from is of great importance. It is much easier to go up a ridge to a local peak than to descend into a valley and ascend again towards a more remote and higher peak” (Byrne 1998, 32). The notion of fitness landscape underlines the importance of initial conditions. For instance, if warfare is endemic in a region, then it might seem reasonable to seek peaceful alternatives for conflict resolution. However, this is not going to happen unless those who are in a position to change the situation find it to their advantage. While there are good theoretical reason to make the trip from one peak (warfare) to the other (peaceful conflict resolution), there may be several good practical reasons not to do so. In chapter 4, we see that Western and Eastern New Guinea societies came to opposite conclusions in this respect.

26

Rethinking Social Evolution

issues in social evolution Social evolution and social change Social systems are far from equilibrium. How do they change? In anthropology, the topic has been addressed under the rubric of social (or socio-cultural) evolution. The variations and disagreements about its conceptualization have been covered brilliantly by Ingold (1986) and Trigger (1998); I will limit myself to aspects relevant to my argument. Evolution involves complexity. There are two aspects to complexity: segregation (the amount of internal differentiation and specialization) and centralization (the degree of linkage between subsystems) (Flannery 1972, 409). The process is the same for biological and social evolution: simple forms mutate into more complex forms at thresholds. At an early stage, the new complex forms are all viable; some of them come under threat later if they share the same environment. By pointing out that some forms replace others, one is not saying they are “better” in any specific way, except for their continued existence. The notion of social evolution is derived from the Darwinian formulation of “descent with modification.” It does not specify what entities are transmitted or how they are transmitted and modified. If we model socio-cultural evolution on biological evolution, we can posit that socio-cultural traits are transmitted from one generation to the other, not unlike the way in which genetic traits are transmitted. On the surface, this seems to makes sense; in practice, the comparison is lame. As traits are transmitted differently in biological and sociocultural evolution, the process of change may be different. In biological evolution, descent (possibly with modification) must come first because biological “invention” consists of modifications of the genetic code. In biological systems, genetic traits are transmitted through reproduction; mutations modify traits; and reproduction and selection affect trait frequency. Socio-cultural evolution is more complicated. One could postulate that socio-cultural units are similar to genes and call them “culturgens,” “memes,” “bundles,” or “traits” (Durham 1990, 197), but these constructs do not have the same ontological validity as genes. Socio-cultural invention is also a modification of pre-existing traits, but the ontological similarity between antecedent and consequent is more doubtful because what constitutes a cultural trait depends on people’s perceptions. Thus, in a cultural history of commodities, it is

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

27

instructive to note that Coca-Cola started as a tonic and became a soft drink. If people remember that the old recipe purportedly contained coca and kola, then there is an ontological unity between nineteenthcentury and twenty-first-century Coca-Cola. But for many consumers, Coca-Cola is a different object or, more likely, part of a trait (e.g., “Americanism,” however defined). The transmission of traits in socio-cultural systems is more complicated than is biological inheritance. It occurs not only from parents to offspring but, potentially, from anybody to anybody else (and through a multiplicity of channels and procedures). Differences between genetic and cultural inheritance mean that “cultural transmission is everywhere fragmentary or ‘piecemeal,’ such that whole cultural systems are rarely, if ever, conveyed (or not conveyed as all-or-nothing units” (Durham 1990, 197). Consequently, the image of a tree whose limbs branch off is a reasonable simile for biological evolution but not for socio-cultural evolution. Differences in the mechanisms of biological and social evolution are so major that they cannot be considered as the same phenomenon, although they have elements in common. In biological evolution, a new branch appears when two populations cease to interbreed. Sociocultural traits change in many ways because they are not obligatorily tied to reproduction. Because biological evolution is encoded in genes, lost traits are irreversibly gone, except if a mutation reinstates them. Gene stability and variation are completely dependent on the process of reproduction, and exchanges of traits are limited by reproductive constraints, especially limitations on the exchange of genetic code from one species to another.7 Trait selection follows different procedures in biological and social systems. Genes take their significance by being packaged in two nested structures: the individual organism and the species. While selection can favour or discriminate against specific genes, it can do so only by affecting the reproductive ability of an organism. If a moth benefits from a mutation that makes it less visible to its predators, its offspring not only inherit this new trait but also a complete genome. By contrast, socio-cultural traits can be transferred in a myriad of ways: they can be stored, they can be rearranged, they can be revived (e.g., “retro” styles). Cultural traits lack the ontological basis of genetic traits. In socio-cultural evolution, traits are free agents. If I enjoy Thai food, I do not need to adopt Theravada Buddhism or appreciate

28

Rethinking Social Evolution

all Thai recipes; nothing stops me substituting or omitting ingredients. Thai cooking is not a trait unless enough people agree it is. Finally, biological evolution is different from social evolution because a society is not comparable to a species. Biological and social evolution differ in another way. On the basis of his principle that “descent generally comes first” in cultural evolution, Durham (1990, 192) argues that theories “about stages of societal progression, integration, or complexity … [which] examine cumulative changes in the structure or organization of human societies” do not constitute evolutionary culture theory because they are typological rather than genealogical or descent-based. In nearly every case their goal is to validate a social trajectory of parallel stages (e.g., the familiar sequence: band, tribe, chiefdom, state) across a broad cross-cultural sample. This is attempted through a deliberate search for similarities that cannot be traced to common origin and shared descent. Regularities thus discovered are often interesting and provocative, and they may well help us to identify underlying commonalities of human experience that foster convergent social structures; but stage-like sequences are not intrinsic to evolution as the term is defined here. (192)

Durham makes a useful distinction, although I would argue that theories about stages of societal transformations are also evolutionary. Compare the following statements: 1 States evolve from chiefdoms. 2 Some early Southeast Asian states developed out of chiefdoms because of their position on trade routes. In Durham’s terminology, (2) refers to an evolutionary sequence because we can trace descent between specific polities, while (1) does not. We need to apply different criteria to (1) and (2) in order to evaluate their veracity, but there is a link between them. (1) is an evolutionary argument deriving its validity from statements of type (2). In turn, type (1) statements are heuristic devices to help us to identify specific historical links of type (2). The typology band/tribe/chiefdom/state is too crude to be of much use in studying social evolution, but this does not mean it is not evolutionary. Similarly, Marx’s (1964) sequence of pre-capitalist societies matches our knowledge of history only partially, but it attempts to make an evolutionary argument by describing the “forms that preceded the capitalist social

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

29

formation.” Both typologies fail, not because they are not evolutionary but because they do not match reality sufficiently. There is another reason why we cannot use biological evolution directly as a model for social evolution: it does not leave the same traces. Fossils and morphological similarities (including DNA) provide an extensive, if incomplete, record of biological evolution. In social evolution, such a historical approach is limited by the lack of precise evidence about many aspects of prehistoric social life. We need to compensate for this by looking at systems rather than traits. Durham’s contrast between evolution and descent can also obscure the differences between processes. It is not sufficient to identify descent links: we must establish their significance. For instance, some people in the Sultanate of Kutei on Borneo’s east coast are descendants of indigenous stateless populations who adopted Islam; they have forgotten their non-Muslim origins (Rousseau 1989). To what extent are they descendants of their swiddener ancestors? In a cultural sense it is more accurate to say they are descendants of Malay Islam; in so far as they combine Malay-Muslim and Dayak traits, we could say they are hybrids. Identifying historical links is only the first step. When we are studying social evolution, we are going beyond a consideration of descent: we are studying general processes. There are two ways to interpret the evidence of temporal change. A historical approach explains change as the result of inheritance, while a processual approach tries to explain existing forms – and changes to these forms – as a result of adaptation to circumstances and systemic interactions (e.g., Shennan 2000). Some phenomena are more amenable to a culture-historical explanation (e.g., decorations on pottery), while others (e.g., agricultural practices) necessarily emphasize the relevance of adaptive practices. Obviously, history and adaptation are not mutually exclusive. Culturally transmitted knowledge and practices have the potential of being affected by selective forces. Theories Some explanations of social evolution have sought to identify one central factor. The search for a single prime mover has survived the demise of unilineal evolutionism. There are three major hypotheses: population growth, circumscription, and the quest for surplus appropriation. These scenarios of social evolution sound convincing but are either thinly related to evidence or apply only to specific cases. It is

30

Rethinking Social Evolution

hard to generalize from these cases. “A frequent joke [at a conference on chiefdoms] was that we could speak confidently of cause and consequence only when we knew little” (Earle 1991b, 14). Social inequality has been a major focus in the study of social evolution. Wherever inequality is present, theories exist to justify or condemn it. For instance, a Kayan myth explains the origin of hereditary stratification. The first human couple had four sons and four daughters who married each other. To establish status differences, the father made his sons race against each other: the winner would become the ruler, the runner-up a lower aristocrat, the next a commoner, and the last a slave. The contenders ended the race in order of age, and the winner gloated over his victory. The father was shocked by his eldest son’s boastfulness. He was also concerned for his last-born, who looked vulnerable and in need of help, so he reversed his decision: the loser would become the leader, while the winner would be a slave. From then on, these statuses were to be hereditary. This myth justifies stratification in several ways: rulers have slaves because they need them; slaves deserve their lowly position because of the original sin of pride. Not only is stratum ascription hereditary but it is coterminous with the emergence of humanity. We have no difficulty in recognizing this myth as a just-so story, but we should also be aware of the mythical aspects of contemporary explanations of social inequality. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Marx helped set the stage. Rousseau opposed the idealized egalitarianism of the “good savage” to the inequality of eighteenth-century Europe. Marx expanded this scheme by imagining a future golden age that would surpass the past golden age. Rousseau’s dichotomy between the good savage and the degenerate modern is still with us, albeit in a new form (see table 1.1). This basic opposition has framed studies of equality and inequality. Marx’s goal was to understand capitalist society in order to change it. With this purpose in mind, he tried to understand the antecedents of capitalism (Marx 1964). His framework had a teleological flavour: previous social forms led to capitalism, which, he hoped, would lead to socialism and communism. This approach is insufficient to explain social evolution. As Cancian (1977, 228) argues, “The course of history can no longer be seen as a gradual ascent to postindustrial society.” Marx’s contribution was to suggest that societies evolve in comprehensible ways. This has remained an important element of social

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

31

Table 1.1 Hunter-gatherers vs. states Hunter-gatherers

States

Egalitarian

Unequal

In a state of nature

Transforming nature

Primitive

Evolved

Simple

Complex

Lack property

Based on private property

anthropology and anthropological archaeology. In practice, the study of inequality was split into two partially autonomous domains. Some researchers focused on the egalitarianism of hunter-gatherers, while others looked at inequality in complex societies. I try to bridge this gap by paying particular attention to middle-range societies. The various approaches have agreed to present a polar opposition between equality and inequality, and this opposition has guided their methodologies. However, it makes it extremely difficult to understand social change. Social relationships are guided by social values; these entail evaluations and differentiation (cf. Yanagisako and Collier 1987, 39–40). For instance, in so-called “egalitarian” societies, the injunction to share establishes that all behaviours are not equal. If the contributions of different people or categories of people are valued differentially, this again is inequality. “If we assume that all societies are systems of inequality, then we, as social scientists, are forced to explain not the existence of inequality itself but rather why it takes the qualitatively different forms it does” (40). If it becomes impossible to make a valid contrast between egalitarian and inegalitarian societies, then we have to look elsewhere to understand the variability of social systems. To date, comparative studies of inequality and social evolution have focused on the following variables: demography (population size and density, settlement patterns), technology (especially food production, which affects sedentarization), economy (division of labour within the domestic unit and the community, exchanges between communities, shift from production for local consumption to production for exchange, appropriation of surplus), and the political system. These variables are undoubtedly important in social evolution, but we cannot accept them a priori as causal factors. As is seen in chapters 4 and 5, political differentiation sometimes precedes production for exchange or even an elaborate division of labour. An increase in leaders’ authority

32

Rethinking Social Evolution

may bring about higher productivity; this creates a precondition for, but not the necessity of, surplus appropriation by leaders (Cancian 1977, 229). In some cases, the reverse may be true: the appropriation of surplus by a minority may be a cause of increased productivity. Several approaches propose explanations for social change. Selectionism does so by adapting to human life the biological model of natural selection. Its central hypothesis is that alternative practices may differ in the survival advantage they provide. Selection does not mean the best solution has been arrived at. “Selection does not guarantee that people will not pursue cultural practices that have adverse consequences for their own replicative success. It guarantees only that people who persist in less effective practices will not perpetuate their practices as well as other people pursuing different practices” (Braun 1990, 80–2). While it is hard to disagree with this statement, it tells us less than we might think. It does not mean that some practices will be eliminated but, rather, that they have consequences limiting their perpetuation. However, this is often an effect of scale. For instance, the celibacy of Roman Catholic priests is not adaptive in recruiting clergy, but this has not brought about its repeal. If priestly celibacy disappears, it will not be due to “natural selection” (i.e., blind selection) but to purposeful transformations within the Roman Catholic Church (i.e., a redistribution of power). From a selectionist framework, one might feel justified a priori in predicting the failure of Roman Catholic proselytization in the Third World due to the celibacy rule. This has not been the case because a large missionization apparatus has compensated for this “maladaptive” trait. All other things being equal, celibacy is maladaptive: but all other things are not equal. Finally, celibacy is maladaptive from the viewpoint of recruiting clergy, but it is adaptive for the Church hierarchy because it produces a clergy with fewer conflicting loyalties. We are left with the explanation that, if something exists, it can’t be all bad – at least not in the short term. Selection processes can be complex. In Southeast Asia, various root crops were displaced by cassava, which is more productive and convenient. However, many swiddeners have not discarded the old tubers. In the Kayan village where I lived, minute quantities of taro were cultivated in case they might be useful some day. While this does not negate the significance of selection, it does suggest that there can be simpler or more complex ways of reasoning about the selection process. It certainly emphasizes the importance of intentionality and forethought in selection.

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

33

Selection certainly takes place, but it is not a general explanation of social evolution. It is sufficient in extreme cases, in so far as spectacularly disadvantageous practices are likely to be selected out. Even there, the selecting process may not eliminate a deleterious practice: among the Marind-Anim of New Guinea’s south coast, women’s fertility was radically reduced by ritual serial copulation more than twenty times a year (Knauft 1993, 161–7), but this did not eliminate the practice – or the Marind-Anim. They resorted to the extensive capture and assimilation of children from other groups. Where there is direct competition between distinct populations, it is reasonable to expect the more “efficient” society to prosper. However, competition is not ubiquitous: it is only a moment in historical change, not the overall explanation. Given the sudden arrival in Mauritius of European sailors, dodos were doomed. Until then, they were not ill-adapted in any general sense. More generally, sub-optimal features persist because they seem to work (e.g., divination) or because they work better than nothing. This is what Hallpike (1986, chap. 3) calls “the survival of the mediocre.” The Darwinian view that selection produces increased efficiency is based on the assumption of the co-presence of various forms in competition. Often enough, and particularly in small-scale societies, such variability and co-presence are absent (120); this reduces the explanatory scope of selectionism without eliminating it. A practical problem of the selectionist view involves identifying the features that are the object of selection. In the Darwinist model, specific genes are selected. In social evolution. selection does not necessarily operate at the level of individual traits but, rather, at the level of complex configurations such as agriculture, which has many facets (population, sedentism, systems of exchange, etc.) (209). Thus, it is difficult to formulate clear hypotheses about what might be selected. Functionalisms start from the reasonable assumption that we can ask questions about the forms, causes, and consequences of social evolution only if we assume the existence of comprehensible relationships between features of social life. This calls for simplifying assumptions, otherwise one is left with the unenlightening recognition that everything is related to everything.8 Some functionalist explanations have been integrated into the systems model, for which “processes like population growth, competition over resources, agricultural intensification, and political centralization are seen as a suite of processes that consistently covary” (Upham 1990, 2).

34

Rethinking Social Evolution

Systems theory is useful in encompassing change and stability: all systems have feedback mechanisms. Negative feedback maintains the system in a constant state; positive feedback maximizes change. The systems model tends to favour a deterministic approach to social evolution in which the system tends towards coherence. This needs to be substantiated rather than assumed; in particular, we cannot understand feedback in human systems without considering people’s perceptions and knowledge. Functionalism imagines a selfregulating system that somehow responds to stresses, but it is not a real explanation if it does not specify the mechanisms of change. A potential limitation of systems theory is exemplified by the adaptationist approach to social evolution, which assumes a rather passive reaction of societies to their environment: change follows adaptive stress. There are problems with this. Adaptationist interpretations treat continuity and adaptations as properties of a “system” participated in by a community. System persistence results from the adjustment of individuals’ and groups’ actions toward the collective benefit of the community. While conflicts over specific transactions are recognized, it is assumed that everyone accepts and plays by the same set of rules and for the same kinds of goals. The community comes to be portrayed to us in a highly normative fashion, with the collective norms themselves viewed as part of the adaptation … Such holism allows us no insight into how change can come about. (Braun 1990, 73)

The adaptationist approach finds it difficult to avoid tautology: “If one assumes that organizational traits are selected for because they increase efficiency or reduce risk, then there is no other possible explanation for their existence in the cultural repertoire. The very fact that they exist is then sufficient proof of their adaptive value” (Sebastian 1992, 63). In reality, people may vary their practices without any change in external circumstances; some social practices may have no adaptive consequences (Braun 1990, 74). In his discussion of culturally related groups in Ethiopia that have different economic organizations, Hallpike (1986, 207) concludes “that a distinctive combination of social characteristics may be largely unaffected by type of economy and environment.” They share cultural traits, such as a generation-grading system, that are not constrained by economic or environmental factors. Similarly, in North American native societies, kin avoidance is better explained by diffusionist factors than by functional, evolutionary

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

35

explanations (Driver 1966; Jorgensen 1966, 161). The adaptationist framework is insufficient because “people act not only to maintain, but to extend their conditions of existence” (Braun 1990, 75). Social conflicts are common and social change results from efforts to resolve or exploit conflicts of interest. Saying that social features are functional does not mean they operate in an ideal fashion: There are dysfunctional realities as well, but they are dysfunctional only in relation to an existing society: everything is not functional for the existing society. If we ask why dysfunctional elements appear in this society … the only answer is precisely because men have meaningful reasons (which does not denote conscious elements) for behaving dysfunctionally in relation to that society. But this means that a new functionality is arising. Every phenomenon is dysfunctional or functional in relation to what exists; but when dysfunctional in relation to what exists, it becomes functional in relation to a society in becoming, to something in the process of transformation which because of opposition may never come into being, but which has a meaning for men’s behavior. (Goldmann 1971, 95–6)

Instead of considering functionality and selection as constants, Hallpike sees them as emerging aspects of state formation. His view is unambiguous: “The emergence of the state can be said to involve the steady rationalization of society” (Hallpike 1986, 268). In small-scale societies, with only a few thousand members at most, and with rudimentary subsistence economies, a very wide range of institutional arrangements will all work perfectly well, because the demands on functional and adaptive efficiency are very low. What we find is that a limited number of institutions, based on such ascriptive principles as kinship and affinity, gender, age, and ritual status perform all those “functions” which, in more complex societies are differentiated … Functional efficiency of organization only becomes of major significance with political centralization and the emergence of the state, bureaucracy, professional military organization, large-scale trade and public works, and a high level of division of labour. (141–2)

It is true that middle-range societies present a wide variety of social arrangements, but we cannot conclude from this that large-scale societies are more “functional” than small-scale societies. Criteria of functionality or efficiency can be applied to all societies. Increased scale

36

Rethinking Social Evolution

may improve efficiency, but increased scale also creates feedback problems because decision making is fragmented. In any case, state formation does not occur in order to bring about greater efficiency but, rather, in order to control more people. There is no a priori reason to assume that states are more efficient for everyone, although they may be more efficient from the rulers’ viewpoint. Hallpike makes a link between evolution and progress; however, each social transformation takes place because of proximate circumstances, not because of some theoretical end-point, and each bifurcation constrains future choices. Hence, there is no reason to expect increased efficiency. An exclusive focus on ecological, technological, and demographic factors as well as surplus appropriation either assumes a deterministic structure of human life or gives secondary importance to the aspects of life not directly affected by technology, demography, and control over production. In the same way, Marxist class analysis has tended to assign a secondary importance to social ties that crosscut classes and contradict them (cf. Cancian 1977, 234). These conceptualizations of causality and evolution, while useful in their simplifying assumptions, are not sufficient. Deterministic explanations depict human choices as consequences of existing structures. While some decisions indeed reproduce the status quo, others have transformational consequences. Therefore, a theory of social change must take account of human agency. Another limitation of deterministic models is a narrow conception of causality. The core of social life is interaction between people, and many crucial forms of interaction leave few traces. At first glance, this suggests that the mechanisms of socio-cultural evolution are almost invisible. This is not the case. While there is enormous socio-cultural diversity, the frequency of parallels in all parts of the world suggests the presence of some order: (1) Humans share a common descent and characteristics establishing boundary conditions for subsistence, interaction, cognition, and so on; and (2) many social skills are acquired by imitation, experience, and instruction. Selection may also reduce the range of possible socio-cultural diversity. (3) Order emerges out of chaos, or, to put it another way, systems far from equilibrium have emergent properties. They contain within themselves the seeds of their own transformations (Bak and Chen 1991).9 All these factors suggest that socio-cultural evolution operates with some degree of order and that it can be the object of systematic enquiry.

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

37

It may be evident by now that I reject teleological views of evolution. On the other hand, the plan of Rethinking Social Evolution presents a sequence of increasing complexity, from simple hunter-gatherers to states. Does this suggest inevitability in social evolution? Yes and no. For instance, hunter-gatherers do not inevitably adopt agriculture; hunter-gatherers who develop some form of agriculture may abandon it and agriculturalists may switch to foraging (e.g., Stearman 1984). Such change is reversible. On the other hand, if a population grows significantly after adopting agriculture, most of its members can no longer return to foraging because there are too many people for the carrying capacity of the environment. Some increases in complexity are irreversible in that environment (although dispersal to sparsely occupied regions might allow a renewed foraging technology). This example suggests that we may be asking the wrong question when we ask whether social evolution is inevitable. A return to hunting-gathering may not be impossible, but will people avail themselves of the opportunity? Even if a social transformation is not inevitable, there may still be a statistically likely sequence of social forms. If, for whatever reasons, it is more common for hunter-gatherers to become agriculturalists than the reverse, we have identified a sequence of social evolution. In this book, I try to identify such sequences by looking at different social configurations and identifying factors that channel and constrain further changes.

a s ta rt i n g p oi nt : c og n i t i ve fact o rs in the origin of social systems We have no difficulty in recognizing that we live within social systems: our lives are organized by political, economic, and ideological constraints. We follow laws and customs; other people’s opinions guide our actions. But how did we get there? What are the origins of social order? In other words, how did humans start constructing social systems? The fragmentary records of our ancestors’ actions make it difficult to answer this question. We have some information about the technology, ecological adaptations, and demography of early humans, but we know less about social interaction. One way to understand the emergence of social systems is to reason from first principles. Classical explanations of the evolution of social systems have identified ecological and demographic changes as

38

Rethinking Social Evolution

prime movers. As we know, these factors are at the core of biological evolution. Ecological and demographic factors never cease to be important in human life, but they are unable to explain how humans developed social systems. While an environmental adaptation triggered the anatomical and physiological changes of hominization, increased cognitive abilities constitute the impetus for human social systems (cf. Costopoulos 2001). Self-interest is the default strategy for any organism. With increasing cognitive abilities, self-interest gives rise to social order among social animals. Increased encephalization and language create possibilities for social order among humans that are unparalleled among other species. In order to understand how our early ancestors might have acted, it is useful to compare humans to their closest primate relatives, particularly chimpanzees. Primates, including humans In the next chapter, we see that personal autonomy is a characteristic of foraging societies. Contemporary hunter-gatherers often live in much smaller groups than do other social primates. Among the latter, such as baboons and Japanese monkeys, the concentration of individuals, linked to competition for food, is a basis for hierarchy. The unity of the group is maintained by the presence of outside dangers. Human language (along with other shared symbolic features) plays a crucial role in “release from proximity” (Rodseth, Wrangham, Harrigan, and Smuts 1991, 240). It strengthens and organizes memory. It makes it possible to maintain long-term relationships despite dispersal. Another important element of hominization is a reduction of anatomical sexual dimorphism. This reduces the likelihood of sexbased hierarchies, and it is probably relevant to understanding the specificity of human pair-bonds. Primates share fundamental social features: • •

•

They are social animals. They recognize other individuals and consistently differentiate among juveniles, adults, friends, enemies, sex partners, and kin (Rodseth, Wrangham, Harrigan, and Smuts 1991, 222). They have a theory of mind: they are able to consider how other group members think; in chimpanzees, this can express itself in

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

39

Figure 1.1 Social consequences of biological transformations

Adaptations for improved meat consumption: bipedalism, encephalization and improved breathing

Long-term dependence of children on their mother Reduced sexual dimorphism; hidden oestrus

Pair-bonds

•

Language & increased cognitive abilities

Release from proximity allows for smaller groups

New alternatives to aggression; greater autonomy

tactical deception (i.e., acts that are intended to mislead other chimpanzees into misinterpreting what is going on) (Byrne and Whiten 1992). Nearly all primates avoid mating with immediate genetic relatives (1991, 235). This provides an impetus for finding mates outside the natal group.

At the same time, hominids have special characteristics (see figure 1.1). Humans walk on two legs and can run for long distances. Bipedalism was already present among Australopithecines, who were vegetarian. Later hominids were scavengers as well as tool makers, and hunting was a logical progression. The need for long-distance running required additional neurons and neural interconnections to deal with balance and to enhance running. While encephalization may have been a requirement for bipedal stability, it triggered further encephalization.10 Running also required improvements in breathing in order to provide sufficient oxygenation and cooling, leading to a modification of the lower larynx for voluntary mouth breathing (Fialkowski 1994, 447). The increase in brain size among hominids was very rapid, suggesting strong selection pressure: the less intelligent hominids died earlier or had more problems finding sexual partners (446).11

40

Rethinking Social Evolution

Bipedalism requires changes to human anatomy, particularly a narrowing of the birth canal. As humans have comparatively larger brains than chimpanzees, human women need to give birth to infants who are smaller and consequently more immature than are other primate infants. This is one reason for the longer dependence of human babies on their mother. Sexual dimorphism is less marked among humans than among chimpanzees: among chimpanzees, there is a greater difference in overall size, as well as the size of eye-teeth, between males and females. This is correlated with a higher incidence of competition among males for food and status. To put it another way, anatomical changes among hominids suggest reduced competition in comparison with chimpanzees. Language The fundamental difference between humans and other primates is the role language plays in our lives. The appearance of language was made possible by encephalization and larynx change (Fialkowski 1994, 447). Language and other semiological systems strengthen and organize memory and play a crucial role in human social interaction. A crucial feature of language is that it gives us the ability to refer to other times and places (Rodseth, Wrangham, Harrigan, and Smuts 1991, 240). This makes it easier for humans to take decisions, not only in the here and now, but also in relation to the past and the future. “Release from proximity” is a hallmark of human social organization (ibid.). This is why bands of hunter-gatherers can be very small, although they are too small to allow for reproduction.12 Language makes it possible to maintain social relations with people who are away; therefore, dispersal becomes possible. Humans are the only primates in which both sexes maintain lifelong relationships with dispersing offspring. This allows the formation of intergroup alliances through kinship, marriage, and other principles (221, 229). Language plays a major role in reducing competition and dominance hierarchies, which are characteristic of social primates, because it makes it easier to form coalitions and to resist dominance displays (cf. Boehm 1993). Language allows for alternatives to physical aggression (e.g., gossip). Furthermore, by making it possible to reduce the number of people who are together, language reduces the likelihood of aggression: there are fewer people who could be aggressive and there is less competition for scarce resources.

Concepts and Issues in Social Evolution

41

Cooperation and sharing Primates express social relationships by sharing food; among chimpanzees, meat sharing gains particular importance. Chimpanzees probably hunt both for nutritional and political reasons: alliances are strengthened by giving meat to allies or potential allies. Also, males sometimes offer meat to females and mate with them in the process (Stanford 1998, 404–5). Females choose mates who have previously groomed them or shared food with them (405). This kind of arrangement forms a backdrop for human cooperation and sharing. Language enhances sharing. Indeed, it is itself a form of sharing. Among primates, grooming is a way to maintain social relations. It has been suggested that language developed in part as a form of social grooming (Dunbar 1998) and that the informational aspects of language developed later, as a side-effect. This is an important point. When we think of the origins of language, we have an image of cavemen saying things like, “Mammoth! Kill!” while the first topics of conversation were social: “I like you.” Be that as it may, it is obvious that language plays a major role in managing social interaction, not only when sharing food but also when engaging in cooperative activities (either to obtain food or to defend against intruders).

conclusion •

•

•

•

•

Greater encephalization and language increase cognitive capacities and release early humans from having to live in close proximity. To reduce the tensions inherent in any group, people form smaller groups, but they remember people in other groups and keep in touch with them. Increased cognitive abilities help generate alternatives to aggression. In relation to food, for instance, fighting is replaced by demand sharing. Demographic and biological changes lead to long-term pair bonds as the default mating strategy. While increased cognitive abilities help reduce aggression and tension, they cannot eliminate them. Humans need to live in society, but social life causes tensions. Each solution to previous problems raises new problems.

2 Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers

In Rethinking Social Evolution, I seek to understand the emergence and transformations of middle-range societies. This calls for a brief consideration of hunter-gatherers, among whom the initial conditions for the appearance of middle-range societies are to be found. In this chapter, I focus on simple hunter-gatherers. Complex hunter-gatherers, such as Northwest Coast groups, are significantly different from simple hunter-gatherers and are described in chapter 5. Individual autonomy is the crucial factor in understanding social life among hunter-gatherers. People are not dependent on specific others. Individual autonomy is tempered by the human need for sociality, the desire to form pair bonds, and children’s long-term dependence on adults. While foragers may not be dependent on specific others, provisioning strategies favour social living: individuals try to benefit from the work of others. This is called demand sharing. The tensions arising out of the egocentric aspects of demand sharing can be tempered by cloaking it with an ideology of generosity and responsibility. Ethically based demand sharing is called generalized reciprocity. Demand sharing and generalized reciprocity are at the core of immediate-return economies. The principle of an immediatereturn economy is: “From everyone according to their ability to everyone according to their needs.” Because individual autonomy gives precedence to self-interest, we cannot always expect foragers to

Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers

43

be egalitarian. Furthermore, social gender differentiation is well established among hunter-gatherers.

au t o n o m y a n d s o c i a l i t y Researchers often look at hunter-gatherers through the lens of complex societies. Some authors have equated the egalitarianism of hunter-gatherers with the ideal of modern democratic equality.1 However, in complex societies, such as our own, individuals are embedded in a complex array of mutual rights, obligations, and commitments. By contrast, individual autonomy is fundamental for so-called egalitarian hunter-gatherers, such as Kung Bushmen and Algonquian groups of the boreal forest (Gardner 1991). Autonomy exists by default: in the absence of a social system constraining individual action, social actors have greater scope for expressing their self-interest. The individual autonomy of contemporary hunter-gatherers echoes the social consequences of hominization. Autonomy and reduced competition are, in a sense, the same phenomenon. Autonomy is not necessarily asocial or solitary: it often manifests itself in social contexts, For instance, when children say to their parents, “Let me do it!” they are affirming their autonomy by imitating other people. Also, autonomy is not always individual. Even among simple hunter-gatherers, individuals cooperate. Even if they are free to associate with different people, they cannot persistently live alone. In all human societies, many activities are carried out in concert with others. Individual autonomy is not a recipe for chaos because it is constrained by human sociality and dependence on others – emotionally and practically. Furthermore, while foragers may lack binding contracts with specific others, they still need to cooperate. Even in the absence of formal rules defining domestic units, multigenerational households emerge among immediate-return foragers because of long-term commitments. Also, while the young are free to take decisions independently of their parents or other adults, they are still constrained by the limits of their individual imaginations and skills: they are likely to copy existing practices. In a formal sense, they are free to decide whether or not to seek the advice of others or to see them as role models; in another sense, they have little choice but to do so. Hunting and gathering favour autonomy: in most cases, resources are variable and dispersed, with little accumulation of food or

44

Rethinking Social Evolution

property. Mobility fosters interrelated open groups with flexible membership. There is an emphasis on the nuclear family, individual decision making, ad hoc arrangements, and informal structures. Long-term commitments are avoided (cf. Dallos 1994; Gardner 1991, 549). Autonomy can be understood behaviourally and cognitively: agents tend to act independently of each other, and autonomy may become a desired goal. However, autonomy does not guarantee peacefulness: “A pronounced aversion to confrontation in social life is combined with an ultimate tendency toward extreme violence – a tendency exacerbated by the scarcity of sociopolitical means of responding to it” (Knauft 1987, 475). The desire for harmony constrains people from addressing their hostility towards neighbours, and this makes violent explosions more likely. On the other hand, there is no escalation of violence: murders are rarely avenged. The desire for personal autonomy is in tension with the human need for sociality, which has two sources: (1) humans, like other primates, are social, and (2) human babies are more immature than are other primate neonates. Therefore, they are dependent for a longer period, creating a stronger bond between mother and offspring. The long maturation of children and the lengthy period until sexual maturity allow for an extended period of social learning (cf. Flinn, Geary, and Ward 2005). The long dependence of children may also increase the need for male participation in feeding. This is particularly relevant because of the increased importance of meat in the human diet: meat is less easy for a mother to obtain if she is caring for an infant. A long-term pair bond between sexual partners can increase male participation in child care. However, the fact that a pair bond between a mother and her children’s genitor is a good idea does not explain why it occurred. Why would males develop an interest in their offspring? Various aspects of hominization make this strategy likely. •

•

We have seen that a significant reduction in sexual dimorphism is an element of hominization. This reduces the likelihood of sexbased hierarchies, in which a dominant male has a harem that he guards against other males. Male competition reduces opportunities to interact with one’s offspring. Male-female pairing is also understandable in games-theoretical terms. In large groups, several potential mates are available, making it is easy to have multiple partners. By contrast, the release from

Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers

•

45

proximity that characterizes the simplest human societies means that groups tend to be smaller. With fewer members, it is more difficult to have multiple partners. Consequently, it becomes preferable to establish a long-term relationship in order to ensure sexual gratification. Another evolutionary change makes pair bonding more attractive. Among humans, oestrus is hidden (i.e., women do not display their fertile status). Linked to this is a broadened receptivity to sex. Again, from a games-theoretical viewpoint, the most economical strategy both for men and women is to stay put with the same partner, as this maximizes mating opportunities. In other terms, a couple has more opportunities for sex than do unmatched individuals; furthermore, pair bonds reduce the incidence of competition for mates.

Pair bonding is the outcome of the combined effects of reduced sexual dimorphism, smaller groups, and increased sexual receptivity. Each of these factors in isolation is insufficient to explain pair bonding, but together they bring about a fundamental social change. What drives the formation of long-term couples is desire for sexual access, but the father’s nurturing of his offspring is a side-effect: being in proximity with his sexual partner, he is also in contact with their offspring. Also, in so far as the mother is attached to her children, the maintenance of the pair bond requires him to be interested in his offspring. Language enhances long-term pair bonds because it makes it possible to maintain continuity without constant contact. We can contrast non-human primates and humans in this respect. If a male baboon or chimpanzee is concerned that his mate of the moment might be having sex with another male, he has to keep watch to prevent it happening. With language, it becomes possible to know what happened in one’s absence because someone can report the event. There is another difference between chimpanzees and humans: only male chimpanzees seem concerned about their mates having sex with other males; the concern is reciprocal among humans because the existing pair bond is a mutual arrangement and the woman has something to lose if her mate strays with (and hunts for) other women. The tension between individual autonomy and the need for sociality constitutes the first internal contradiction of human life. Autonomy is an effective strategy for avoiding obligations and conflict, but children need to be looked after, and adults want mates and general companionship. In addition, living with others may be a better survival

46

Rethinking Social Evolution

strategy than living alone. This leads to the development of enduring families. The need to learn from others limits the randomizing consequences of individual autonomy.

demand sharing and generalized reciprocity Social animals watch each other acquiring food and may try to obtain food from successful individuals (Giraldeau and Caraco 2000); primates are no exception. They fight about food and strong individuals take food from weaker ones. For humans, reduced group size limits the incidence of conflicts, and language provides alternatives to aggression. The characteristic tension between autonomy and the need for others among simple hunter-gatherers is also evident with demand sharing (Peterson 1993). People share because others ask for it. In fact, demand sharing is a form of foraging, where the desired object is obtained from a person rather than from nature. Demands are an expression of egocentrism: “I want, so give me.” The demand is not initially motivated by a desire to fit within a network of reciprocity. In some cases, it verges on tolerated theft (Blurton Jones 1987). In other cases, demand sharing occurs successfully because the giver and the recipient do not equally value what is shared. For instance, if a hunter kills a large animal, he will be keen to secure a portion to feed his family, but they cannot eat all the meat immediately. Other group members without meat have a more immediate interest in the rest of the catch, and the hunter cannot reasonably refuse them.2 Increased cognitive abilities make it easier to recognize that it is a good strategy to let others help themselves to the surplus. If one’s immediate needs are met, it is easier to let others take a share than to fight about it. Demand sharing is an unstable arrangement between autonomy and other people’s needs. It does not require egalitarianism and can precede the development of an egalitarian ideology. It can also exist without generosity and altruism. The development of a strong ethic of redistribution requires defining with whom one should share. Flexible, ad hoc groups militate against this. However, demand sharing can develop into a positive form of reciprocity based on longterm networks. Generalized reciprocity is an important extension of demand sharing. It is demand sharing augmented by an ethical injunction to share with others. If we consider only the movement of goods, there is no

Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers

47

difference between demand sharing and generalized reciprocity: in both cases, goods are obtained according to need. However, there is an important social distinction. Demand sharing is explained entirely by the end users’ needs. Generalized reciprocity adds a new dimension: it is a moral obligation for those who have to share with those who need. Consequently, it is virtuous to be a giver. Altruistic generalized reciprocity never eliminates egocentric demand sharing. Indeed, it is often difficult to specify where one starts and the other ends. For instance, if a husband is taking bits of food from his wife’s plate, it is not always clear whether he is poaching or taking food he knows she does not want. More generally, altruistic generalized reciprocity gives legitimacy to demand sharing: while the giver may accept a demand because of psychological or other pressures, it becomes less frustrating to be a giver if the act of giving is acknowledged to be virtuous. Successful hunters continue to hunt because they derive social benefits from their achievements: this is a win-win situation, with others getting more meat than they would otherwise have had and the hunter gaining social recognition.

th e d y na m i c s o f i m m e d i at e - r e t u r n s y s t e m s Demand sharing and generalized reciprocity are at the core of immediate-return economies. In an immediate-return economy, the principle is essentially: “From everyone according to their ability to everyone according to their needs.” Contemporary simple hunter-gatherers exemplify the consequences of generalized reciprocity: • •

•

•

•

• •

Social groupings are flexible. Individuals can choose with whom they associate. They can move about freely. People are not dependent upon specific others for their basic requirements. Relationships between people stress sharing and mutuality, but there are no long-term commitments. The young are autonomous; they work when they want rather than under the direction of their parents. Access to territory is open to all. Meat sharing is not reciprocity because sharing is obligatory and disconnected from the right to receive. Donors often persist in giving more than they receive.

48 •

•

•

Rethinking Social Evolution

Mechanisms limit the accumulation of personal possessions, even if these are small and portable. Nomadism allows people to avoid conflict by moving away from obnoxious people. Nomadism prevents the development of authority (Woodburn 1982, 434–2; 1998, 51).

As long as they are present, demand sharing, the limited extent of long-term commitments, and the desire for autonomy are not simply adaptations to material circumstances but, rather, constraints upon individual choice. Simple hunter-gatherers have small and flexible groups because this is a reasonable adaptation, but the groups remain small because the ideology of autonomy prevents the formation of large, stable groups.3 Production is almost entirely for use rather than for exchange because demand sharing prevents hoarding. The likelihood of demand sharing makes it an unproductive strategy to accumulate for future needs: it is wiser to satisfy immediate needs rather than to accumulate for later needs if one is uncertain of benefiting from one’s work. Hunter-gatherers may also scatter in order to reduce the obligation to share. The technology remains simple because there is no point in investing time and energy in a complex technology if demand sharing means someone else will benefit from one’s labour. Genealogical reckoning remains shallow not for cognitive reasons but because an elaborate knowledge of genealogies would serve no practical purpose.

eg a li ta r i a n i sm Egalitarianism emerges from autonomy rather than from an abstract notion of equality: all are equally free to stay or leave, to hunt or rest, within the limits of their abilities and needs. Equally important, equality is not an inevitable consequence of autonomy (cf. Helliwell 1995). What we call equality is actually an absence of differentiation and structuration. Equality is achieved through direct, individual access to resources; through direct, individual access to means of coercion and means of mobility which limit the imposition of control; through procedures which prevent saving and accumulation and impose sharing; through mechanisms which allow goods to circulate without making people dependent upon one another. People are

Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers

49

systematically disengaged from property and therefore from the potentiality in property for creating dependency … The value systems of non-competitive, egalitarian hunter-gatherers limit the development of agriculture because rules on sharing restrict the investment and savings necessary for agriculture; they may limit the care provided for the incapacitated because of the controls on dependency. (Woodburn 1982, 431)

Recognizing the presence of hierarchy among social primates, Christopher Boehm seeks the trajectory to equality.4 He argues that “egalitarian political styles developed [among hominids] only after the emergence of the human capacity for purposeful, moralistic sanctioning,” and he goes on to hypothesise that “an egalitarian relation between followers and their leader is deliberately made to happen by collectively assertive followers” (Boehm 1993, 233). This view, he feels, is supported by available data. However, the same data can be interpreted as a consequence of the tension between the advantages of leadership and the desire for autonomy.5 Erdal and Whiten (1994, 178) modify Boehm’s argument: “Egalitarian behaviour patterns evolved because with the development of self-control individuals became so clever at not losing out to dominant individuals that vigilant sharing became possible, and this was the most effective economic strategy in the circumstances in which H. sapiens evolved.”6 In other words, primate patterns persist among humans but are neutralized by counter-dominant tactics. A more straightforward explanation may be that simple human societies are not striving for egalitarianism; rather, its members are trying to remain autonomous. This does not prevent inequality, but it considerably reduces its scope. It is simplistic to assert that all immediate-return societies are necessarily egalitarian. For instance, the Inuit are less egalitarian than are the Penan of Borneo, the Batek of the Malay Peninsula, or the !Kung (Draper 1978). The Penan have a clear ideology of egalitarianism: rules call for restraint and concern towards other people. The Inuit, on the other hand, show a higher level of violence against women and between men as well as greater readiness to take advantage of others (Saladin d’Anglure 1977), in olden times even murdering them when the opportunity arose (Rasmussen 1931). Penan egalitarianism is likely to have been influenced by interaction with the agriculturalists who occasionally exploit them. They may have formulated an ethics of egalitarianism because they are aware of the alternative.

50

Rethinking Social Evolution

Similarly, the Batek De of the Malay Peninsula “expect people to share any food they obtain with other members of a camp, and they adhere closely to this expectation. The general principle is that they must give shares first to their own children and spouse, then to any parents-in-law or parents present, and finally to all other families in camp. Thus, if they obtain only a small amount of food, it will be consumed within the procurer’s conjugal family, but if there is more than the family needs, they will share it with other families” (Endicott 1988, 116). Food is divided into substantial portions rather than distributed so that everyone gets a small share. This kind of arrangement is a formalization of demand sharing: the satisfaction of other people’s practical needs is more important than is a principle of equity resulting in equal, small portions. The demand-sharing aspect of reciprocity remains evident: “there is always an element of randomness in who is given a family’s extra food, and it often seems to favor the persons who just happen to be there when the distribution is made. This, too, can occasionally cause hurt feelings” (125). “Yet even when food is abundant, the sharing goes on according to the same principles, thus taking on a ritualized aspect as each family gives portions of its excess food to other families and receives portions – sometimes of the same kind of food – in turn … This apparently unnecessary distribution confirms that sharing of food is a dominant value in Batek culture” (116). As a habitual practice, demand sharing creates expectations: “Sharing food is an absolute obligation to the Batek, not something the giver has much discretion over. As one hunter said: ‘If I didn’t take the meat back to camp, everyone would be angry at me’” (117). For the Batek, demand sharing has become integrated into an ethic of sharing. We will never know exactly when and how an ethics of generosity developed, but Csilla Dallos (2003, 258) has come up with an attractive hypothesis. She thinks that older community members elaborated an ethics of generosity because, as they became less efficient at obtaining food, they were increasingly dependent upon younger people. An ethics of generosity would certainly help in encouraging contributions. If we cannot know when an ethics of generosity appeared, it is easy to understand why. Given that humans have a theory of mind, they can understand how beneficiaries of demand sharing feel. It becomes possible to manipulate events of demand sharing so that they generate in the recipient some kind of positive evaluation. When

Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers

51

this has been achieved, demand sharing is no longer the result of actions by egocentric actors but, rather, a form of cooperation.

limits to generosity among hunter-gatherers If autonomy, rather than equality, is the basic characteristic of simple hunter-gatherers, then we need not be surprised when they try to avoid being generous. Ethically based generalized reciprocity comes into conflict with self-interest.7 This is demonstrated graphically in situations in which people eat extraordinary amounts of meat after a large animal has been killed because they know that, if they keep some meat for another occasion, they will not be able to hold on to it (e.g., Woodburn 1998, 52). The simplest way to avoid demands is to hide valuables. In order to avoid freeloading, individuals can also “target resources that are easy to collect and store but costly to process for subsequent consumption, since this reduces the cost of resources lost to freeloaders while increasing the cost of freeloading” (Bettinger 1998, 666). In some cases, foragers are able to plan for the future by storing food in order to cope with expected periods of scarcity. Ad hoc arrangements allow for continued control, even in the absence of a theory of private property. The Inuit family with whom I spent the summer of 1967 made several seal caches to feed their dogs in the winter. They expected to benefit from their labour, but for practical reasons rather than economic principles. They were planning to return to the same camp in the winter. This location was recognized as “their camp,” hence it was unlikely that others would help themselves to the cache. However, they did not think they had an uncontested right. When we returned to Pond Inlet at the end of August, the women stayed behind and the hunting camp did not remain unoccupied much (or at all) until the winter. By their presence, they made it difficult for others to help themselves to the caches. When discussing generalized reciprocity or demand sharing, it is not sufficient to focus on the principle of general availability; we must also see to what extent the producers manage to benefit from their labour. Generosity can be limited further by developing formal exchange partnerships. Among the Netsilik Inuit, “Every hunter had a number of sharing partners for each part of seal meat and blubber … Ideally,

52

Rethinking Social Evolution

there were twelve, and they were chosen by the hunter’s mother either shortly after birth or during his childhood. Whenever the hunter killed a seal his wife cut up the animal and gave the appropriate parts to each one of his partners’ wives” (Balikci 1970, 135). These life-long relationships could be inherited by a son or another man with the same name as the deceased. According to Balikci, “close relatives and members of the same commensal unit could not become partners” (137). While these arrangements stipulated mutuality between partners, they also created different categories of people: the “real sharing partners” established in childhood, other sharing partners established later in life, temporary sharing partners when a partner was absent from the camp, and those who were not sharing partners at all (136–7). These relationships counteracted the autonomy inherent to immediate-return systems. They reduced the scope of demand sharing as an obligation towards partners superseded other demands. This kind of partnership “ensures that no one will become unexpectedly burdened, or burdened against their will, by incomer-destitutes” (Riches 1995, 690). Netsilik partnership is only one way among many to limit generosity. The Hadza define a portion of large animals as God’s meat, and it is eaten only by initiated men (Woodburn 1998, 51). Similarly, Riches (1995, 689) argues that Australian section systems serve to reduce the number of people to whom one must provide assistance.

power differentials among hunter-gatherers Immediate-return foragers usually lack institutionalized asymmetrical situations. Does it follow that power is absent in such societies? If A exerts pressure on B with force X, while B resists with an equal force X, there is no power differential, but power has nonetheless been exerted by A and B: they cancel each other out. If we switch our focus from power to power differentials, it becomes easier to record resistance to pressure, to observe non-institutionalized power, and to see how the exercise of non-institutionalized power can lead to the development of institutions (which may be egalitarian or inegalitarian). While power can be used for dominance and differential access to resources, it can also serve to negate dominance. This is particularly evident in formally egalitarian societies, such as socialist kibbutzim, where equality is the result of coercion. (Coercion is not

Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers

53

necessarily tyrannical: people choose to join these egalitarian organizations but are then bound by their rules.) In the same way, among the Penan of central Borneo, someone who behaves violently is restrained. This constitutes a power differential between one violent actor and everyone else who is around. Hence, power asymmetry is not the same as stratification or hierarchy. Power differentials exist everywhere, although they are not institutionalized in immediate-return societies. These non-institutionalized power differentials are important in social evolution as they are the building blocks of institutional power differentials. This becomes more evident with small-scale sedentary societies, in which the interaction of non-institutionalized and institutionalized power differentials is a significant factor in social dynamics. Because institutionalized power differentials are absent among immediate-return foragers, some of them lack a concept of power. I am reminded of a conversation I had with two Borneo men: one was a prominent Kayan (agriculturalist) commoner, the other a middleaged nomadic Penan with some experience of interacting with agriculturalists. The Kayan man and I met the Penan by chance while paddling to the farm, and we chatted about matters of mutual interest. The Penan referred to us three as Kame’ peritah, “We, the government.” The Kayan was amused at the Penan’s naivety. To the Penan man, peritah denoted an exchange of views between people who were at some distance from each other, without any connotation of power differentials. I am sure people perceive power differentials in all societies; however, they may not perceive them as power differentials but, for example, as character traits: “This person is unpleasant/antisocial/overbearing/ demanding.” In some cases, power differentials are recognized but depersonalized, such as with the Batek of the Malay Peninsula, whose deference to collective needs and belief in supernatural forces form a Batek theory of power. If the political system is defined in terms of the use of power, then the Batek can hardly be said to have one. Even defined more broadly, as the means by which a people make group decisions and coordinate collective actions, the Batek political system is exceedingly rudimentary … In fact, the only power found in the Batek political system resides in the group and in the superhuman beings. Social pressure is strong in enforcing the behaviors thought crucial to the survival and well-being of the group: the sharing of food, care for the sick and elderly, suppression of violence, and so on … The most formal rules of proper conduct

54

Rethinking Social Evolution

are the religious prohibitions … These disallow such acts as incest, mocking certain animals and mixing foods of various categories. People breaking these rules are punished by the thundergod Gobar. (Endicott 1988, 122–3)

Earlier, I expressed some scepticism about Boehm’s (1993) argument that equality among hunter-gatherers is the result of counterdominant action by followers towards their leaders (p. 49). I do not see this as a general explanation because systematic counterdominant action would not be needed unless leadership implied an attempt at dominance by the leader. The notion of counter-dominance may be relevant in another way, however. Woodburn (1982, 436) argues that males’ access to weapons constitutes a form of equalization: people may be reluctant to antagonize others because of the possibility of violent retaliation. This argument might be valid for the Hadza studied by Woodburn, but it is not valid for the Batek: “the sheer unacceptability of aggressive behavior suppresses attempted coercion as effectively as the threat of violent retribution, since all Batek know that if they acted belligerently the entire group would abandon them. One notable result of the Batek prohibition of violence is that women as well as men enjoy freedom from the threat of physical coercion” (Endicott 1988, 122). From numerous studies of foragers, we know that the presence of a leader does not automatically entail power differentials or material rewards. Indeed, the hereditary transmission of leadership in some hunting-gathering societies is not necessarily an attempt by a family to appropriate leadership but, rather, a means for the group to make sure the leader has a successor. Hereditary leadership may also emerge from another procedure for guaranteeing leadership continuity, when an ageing leader nominates his successor. Even in its most minimal guise, leadership implies some form of social differentiation: leaders – however defined – are often male, and age is a factor in their selection. Making the leader the custodian of the resources can establish the foraging band’s collective control over a territory’s resources. This does not entail inequality because the leader does not control resources; however, it underlines a basic ideological feature of leadership. The social group is defined, at least in part, by making the leader its representative: “it may be said that leadership does not exist as a result of the band’s needs, but, instead, that the band receives its shape, its size, and even its origin, from the

Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers

55

potential leader who antedates it” (Lévi-Strauss 1944, 30). This is hardly true of all hunter-gatherers, but it may be the occasion of further transformations.

g en d er di f f e re n ti ati on am o n g hunter-gatherers At the beginning of this chapter, we saw why enduring pair bonds are a general feature of human social organization. Among huntergatherers, most conjugal relationships are monogamous, although this is not usually sanctioned normatively. Divorce may be easy, in some cases frequent, but most adults form enduring pair bonds. Whatever the original reasons for pair bonding, it reduces individual autonomy. Pair bonding makes possible the development of a gender-based division of labour. Ideology strengthens it further when marriage becomes an essential component of full personhood. Relationships between men and women can be explained by the arithmetic of self-interest, affection, love, greed, physical strength, and so on. These elements identify the power of each agent and serve as the basis of the power differential. Not surprisingly, there are various outcomes (some couples are devoted to each other, others quarrel, some men beat their wives and rape other women, etc.). In addition to individual variations, different forager groups have contrasting attitudes towards gender relationships. There is more gender equality among the Mbuti, where women’s gathering is valued as much as is men’s hunting (Turnbull 1965), and more gender inequality among the Inuit, where men are more likely to be violent towards women (Saladin d’Anglure 1977). The centrality of men’s hunting role seems to be a reason for Inuit gender inequality. Similarly, among the Chipewyan, where 90 percent of the food is obtained by men, virilocal residence and the higher status of men are not surprising (Tanner 1983, 339–40). Where it is habitual, violence towards women persists because boys learn the behaviour through observing it. This can be contrasted with hunter-gatherers in tropical areas, where women’s contribution to food (whether through gathering or hunting) is considerably more important than it is in northern areas (340). For instance, the Penan of central Borneo are enculturated to treat each other gently within the group. However, the importance of hunting is not the general explanation for gender inequality, for

56

Rethinking Social Evolution

instance among Australian Aborigines, where male violence towards women is not rare, despite the fact that hunting provides only a fraction of the diet. In Australia, power differentials between men and women are buttressed by rituals. Gender asymmetry can take other forms as well, such as Inuit wife exchange. A wife-exchange relationship could be initiated in many ways. It may have been the result of an already existing friendship. The wives were usually consulted as to whether they would be willing to have the other man. Generally they agreed. Or a man could conceive an intense desire for a particular woman, propose and obtain an agreement for an exchange from her husband. In this situation there were cases when a strong jealousy expressed by the wife of the man who had proposed the exchange led to a flat refusal to enter such an arrangement, though in such cases the recalcitrant wife was nearly always given a good thrashing by her husband and things proceeded according to his will … There were also situations when the wife-exchange process was arranged by the wives themselves. (Balikci 1970, 141–2)

Gender differentiation is present in all human societies; it is expressed practically in a gender-based division of labour and conceptually in the definition of gender characteristics. The gendered division of labour varies among foragers; even if males do most of the hunting, men’s participation in gathering varies. Furthermore, gathering has greater importance in tropical areas, while hunting is the main source of food in northern areas. Among the Matses of the Peruvian Amazon, women participate in the hunt, possibly because they live in longhouses, which facilitate the sharing of child care. The Matses example suggests that factors other than biological differences between men and women explain a male predominance in hunting (Romanoff 1983). A gender-based division of labour follows from the assumption that children are cared for by women, especially the mother, but this does not fully explain how it came about. It would be possible to have collective child rearing: men could participate in rearing children and in women’s activities. Furthermore, some women (i.e., those not caring for an infant or young children) could participate in hunting. While there may be a physiological basis to the gender division of some tasks, this is not a complete explanation. Given an initial, limited division of labour, it makes sense to generalize it to other tasks with the same

Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers

57

characteristics: activities associated with travelling may be performed more efficiently by hunters, while activities associated with child rearing may devolve to those who rear children. Because activities that are performed in sequence may be carried out more economically by the same people, the development of a gender-based division of labour is a snowball process in which limited differences are intensified (cf. Brown 1970; White, Burton, and Brudner 1977, 3). The acquisition of expertise in certain conditions makes it more likely that the specialization will be retained when conditions change: women with babies engage in compatible tasks that they could abandon when their children are more independent, but they carry on with them because it has become a routine. The issue of expertise is relevant both intrinsically (it takes time to be an efficient hunter or gatherer) and conceptually: expertise not only gets the job done but it can also valorize the person who does it.8 Social differentiations of gender and age among foragers have an impact beyond foraging societies because they can serve as a template for organizing further social transformations. Hunter-gatherers share the following traits: •

•

•

A practical and ideological division of labour is based on gender; this socially established division of labour is seen to be “natural” and produces stereotypes (La Fontaine 1981). Men and women form couples who are sexual partners, co-workers (on the basis of a gender-based division of labour), and preferential nurturers of their offspring. The combination of enduring sexual/procreative couples linked with incest prohibitions makes marriages into social relationships. They form the conceptual basis for the development of kinship, a device that explains relationships between people through the extension of the concepts of husband-wife and parent-child: “The family or the household are not the building blocks of society but products of its overall organisation.” (La Fontaine 1981, 333)

conclusion In some ways, simple hunter-gatherers constitute systems near equilibrium (p. 23). The hunting-gathering adaptation establishes upper limits to group size and stability, while lower limits are set by minimal requirements for reproduction and cooperation. Cooperation itself is a

58

Rethinking Social Evolution

system near equilibrium among immediate-return hunter-gatherers: individual autonomy and demand sharing limit the extent of cooperation, and these are causes as well as consequences of the variation in group membership. To say that simple hunter-gatherers are systems near equilibrium does not imply the absence of internal contradictions. The tension between autonomy and dependence has its costs. It requires repression of anger, but in the absence of developed forms of social control, this may lead to violent explosions and sudden violence, as several ethnographies of hunter-gatherers have shown. The concept of fitness landscape (p. 25) helps explain the persistence of hunting and gathering over the millennia. In many environments, the transformation from a nomadic (and immediate-return) to a stable (and delayed-return) system requires moving away from the foraging fitness peak through a “valley” before climbing the delayed-return agricultural peak. The transition from one system to the other requires a curtailment of individual autonomy, the abandonment of demand sharing, and the marginalization of generalized reciprocity, all of which are significant costs. Change occurs only when the benefits seem to outweigh these costs. Foraging systems have emergent properties: not only can they transform themselves into delayed-return systems (chapter 3), but some emergent properties are observable within the hunting-gathering spectrum. Demand sharing can evolve into generalized reciprocity and individual autonomy can transform itself into a search for consensus (see table 2.1).9 (Consensus is the process whereby ideas presented by some people are eventually shared by all.) Reciprocity emerges because demand sharing is an egocentric arrangement that requires little formalization. If people are in a position to interact with each other over a long period, then there are potential advantages in forging coalitions. This is the first step towards reciprocity. Generalized reciprocity does not exist in opposition to demand sharing; rather, it is a modification of demand sharing. Therefore, it is not surprising that egocentric demand sharing and generalized reciprocity should coexist; indeed, they cannot always be differentiated from each other. Demand sharing never disappears in any society, as parents can attest. With regard to decision making, consensus follows the same logic as does reciprocity at the economic level: it gives validity to other people’s views while maintaining self-interest. Here again, individual and autonomous decision making can co-exist with consensus, depending on circumstances.

Equality and Autonomy among Hunter-gatherers

59

Table 2.1 Variations in autonomy among hunter-gatherers Degree of individual autonomy

Higher

Lower

Dominant form of appropriation

Predation and demand sharing

Generalized reciprocity, formal rules for sharing

Emphasis in decisionmaking

Individuals make their own decisions or impose their will

Consensus is sought

Because they contain internal contradictions, foraging systems are far from equilibrium: ethically based reciprocity may make life easier than self-centred demand sharing, but it still comes into conflict with self-interest. A simple solution may be to move away from habitual beggars and those who are less competent at finding food, but this is not ideal. For instance, during my first fieldwork in North Baffin Land, I lived with a family of five people with two excellent hunters. They had a profitable, relaxed summer because no one else was around to cadge food from them.10 However, people cannot live in isolation all the time. Other solutions must be found. A more fundamental solution is to tinker with the definition of reciprocity in order to reduce its scope and to increase the likelihood of more balanced arrangements. These changes, in turn, can play a role in the evolution of huntinggathering societies. Once reciprocity is based on norms, individual autonomy is curtailed. The way in which younger members of the society are enculturated may change: if a society emphasizes autonomy, then different individuals may do things in different ways. Imitation can be expected to follow the frequency of variants: the most common ways of doing something are most likely to be imitated (cf. Boyd and Richerson 1985). Once norms appear, imitation becomes normative: the most admired individuals (those who embody the norms) serve as role models. If immediate-return hunter-gatherers are sometimes close to equilibrium, in what circumstances do they become systems far from equilibrium; that is, how do they evolve into delayed-return societies? This is the topic of the next chapter, in which I begin by discussing Australian Aborigines, who show the beginnings of complexification.

3 From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems: The Emergence of Middle-Range Societies

In this chapter, we see how the contradictions inherent in generalized reciprocity lead to accountable reciprocity. Accountable reciprocity is present when an account is kept of value given and value received. The equivalence of exchange values regulates exchanges, unlike in generalized reciprocity, where needs are a sufficient justification for reciprocity. Accountable reciprocity becomes the basis for a radically different societal model: it transforms the significance of the domestic unit, brings about new forms of cooperation, and calls for new ways to manage conflict. With accountable reciprocity, individuals become members of a single local group as opposed to being free to switch groups at will. Membership in groups becomes a central feature of social life, which brings about a significant reduction in individual autonomy. In previous chapters, we saw that various aspects of hominization bring about demand sharing, from which emerges generalized reciprocity. The contradiction between generalized reciprocity and self-interest is the impetus for accountable reciprocity (figure 3.1).

f r o m i m m e d i at e - t o d e l ay e d - r e t u r n economies As we saw, the principle of immediate-return economies is: “From everyone according to their ability to everyone according to their needs.” The principle of delayed-return economies is: “From some people according to their readiness to provide a commodity and/or

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

61

Figure 3.1 Evolution of reciprocity

Non-human social primates: aggression and limited co-operation Cognitive intensification and language Alternatives to aggression: demand sharing

Demand sharing is intensified with an ethic of generosity: generalized reciprocity

The problems of generalized reciprocity are reduced by adopting accountable reciprocity

labour to some other people according to their ability to provide some commodity and/or labour in return so that the exchanges are deemed to be equivalent.” To function, delayed-return economies require that an account be kept of value received versus value given away. This is the antithesis of generalized reciprocity,1 and it is usually referred to as “balanced reciprocity.” However, the expression is misleading because it implies, at the outset, that exchanges are equivalent; instead, I refer to accountable reciprocity.2 The shift from immediate- to delayed-return economies occurs because it resolves a problem of immediate-return economies: it is onerous to be obliged to share the product of one’s labour with others. We have seen that immediate-return economics have developed strategies to reduce the tensions inherent in demand sharing. One approach is to develop an ethic of generosity. It is also possible to limit demands from others by rapidly consuming food before it can be shared, by hiding it, by dissuading others from using caches of food, or by forming exchange partnerships that reduce liability to generalized reciprocity (pp. 51–2). These tactics help to mitigate the tensions arising from demand sharing, but they do not eliminate them. A more significant strategy is to reduce sharing by turning to accountable reciprocity and developing a delayed-return economy.

62

Rethinking Social Evolution

It is impossible to specify a priori when the transition from an immediate- to a delayed-return economy will take place, except to say that it is a choice based on perceived self-interest. Woodburn (1988, 35) suggests that harsh seasonality might “stimulate the development of and the endurance of delayed-return systems,” but the ethnographic evidence shows that an ecological explanation is insufficient in and of itself. I assume that delayed-return economies were created independently many times in human history, each time with specific triggers and different configurations. However, while the starting points may be idiosyncratic, the principles of delayed-return economies lead to common characteristics. It is easy to understand why delayed-return economies appear. How they occur is more difficult to understand, because the contrast between the two forms of reciprocity is radical. On one side is the principle of “What is mine is yours” (or “What is yours is mine”!), on the other a set of procedures that aims to make sure that producers control the result of their labour. How does the transition from one system to the other occur? First of all, the shift from an immediate- to a delayed-return economy can be enacted in stages. In other words, a society may have distinct economic sectors. For example, when we look at Australian Aborigines later in this chapter, we see that generalized reciprocity forms the framework of daily life – except for marriages, which are arranged on the basis of accountable reciprocity. The Penan hunter-gatherers of central Borneo are another example. Borneo foragers exchange jungle produce for goods that they obtain from neighbouring agriculturalists. This trade operates on the basis of accountable reciprocity. Among themselves, hunter-gatherers interact with each other on the basis of generalized reciprocity, except for goods obtained through trade, where accountable reciprocity is the norm. Thus, game is shared freely with group members, but if a Penan obtains a shotgun or a transistor radio through trade, it is private property. The co-existence of generalized and accountable reciprocity is not a temporary aberration but a common configuration. While generalized and accountable reciprocity are characteristic of immediate- and delayed-return economies, respectively, delayed-return economies show both forms of reciprocity to some degree. For example, while our society is characterized by a delayed-return economy and accountable reciprocity, we have not abandoned generalized reciprocity: it remains the primary mode of interaction in our relationships

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

63

between parents and children and between friends. Charity is another instance of generalized reciprocity. Nor does demand sharing ever disappear entirely. It reappears in every generation because children demand care and attention; the difference is that, in delayed return systems, demand sharing is contained and limited. Finally, the various forms of modern social security are regulated by the mechanisms of delayed-return economies but are inspired by the principles of generalized reciprocity. However, it is clear that accountable reciprocity is the overall framework of our social life.3 While generalized and accountable reciprocity can co-exist, there are several hurdles to the initial emergence of the latter: •

•

•

There is no practical point in exchanging equal amounts of the same food at the same time. If one wants equal exchanges, it is necessary to spread them over time: today, I give you something in the expectation that you will give me the same amount of the same thing later on. However, if I give you something with the expectation of an equivalent return, I need you to be there later to reciprocate. I must be able to count on you. This is far from certain in a society where groups are unstable and where the composition of hunting bands changes according to the whims of individuals. The solution to this problem is social exclusivity. Each social group becomes clearly distinguished from other groups. Individuals are now members of a single group and no longer can change their affiliation at the drop of a hat. Group membership radically transforms social interaction because it reduces the number of independent agents who interact with each other; it channels interaction through specific paths. The next step is to exchange different objects, but this requires a procedure that enables one to compare objects with different uses. Several factors could be relevant, such as relative utility of different goods for both parties. Another factor is the amount of time needed to obtain or produce the respective objects. In other words, labour becomes a criterion of exchange. Sedentarization and agriculture

As sedentary societies with a delayed-return economy are the primary focus of Rethinking Social Evolution, it may be useful to briefly consider the sedentarization process. First of all, it would be a mistake to make

64

Rethinking Social Evolution

too stark a contrast between nomadic and sedentary modes of residence. For example, nomadic groups are sedentary for varying periods and they often return to the same places. Also, swidden agriculture requires periods of stability punctuated by migrations. Rosenberg (1998, 663) argues that “stress resulting from resource competition (i.e., population pressure) will tend to both induce intensificatory innovations and independently select for them, resulting in territorial compression.” While commentators on Rosenberg’s article agree with the relevance of population pressure, they suggest alternative mechanisms. For example, sedentarization can emerge because of increased cooperation rather than increased competition (Gilbert 1998). While Rosenberg thinks sedentarization is always costly and will happen only in the face of resource competition, some groups may have been “pulled” into sedentism by climatically induced changes in the distributions of certain r-selected resources.4 These largely consisted of the products of warmth-loving plants of the Mediterranean biome including wild cereals, nuts, and legumes … Exploitation of these resources is likely to have reduced search time, risk, and the overall energy-resource-yield ratio for any group adopting the pattern … [T]he attendant sedentism was not beneficial, at least in the long run, for it gave rise to rapid, unsupportable population growth and overall system instability … but this could not have been foreseen 1,500 years in advance. (Henry 1998, 669)

These alternative explanations may all be relevant in specific circumstances. In any case, it remains that, while foraging can operate both under generalized and accountable reciprocity, agriculture is predicated on the latter. In so far as a crop is the result of several months of labour, generalized reciprocity is unworkable. There is no point in producing agricultural goods if they are going to be appropriated by less diligent neighbours. The right to appropriate the product of labour can no longer be based on need; it must take into account the labour investment. Storage becomes possible because of accountable reciprocity: both imply control. In order to allow for agriculture, the following changes are necessary. First, if only some group members are agriculturalists, crops must be exempted from the collective appropriation of the product. Second, if all members are engaged in agriculture, it is still necessary to resort to accountable reciprocity because there is no reason to expect all producers to be equally productive. Persisting with generalized reciprocity

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

65

would give an unfair advantage to less productive cultivators. The transition to a delayed-return economy is the essential factor. Knowledge of agricultural methods does not by itself bring about agriculture: “In most areas of the New World, the technology necessary to process and store cultigens efficiently was present in combination with periods of favorable climatic conditions and productive varieties of cultigens well before sedentism and agricultural dependence evolved” (Plog 1990, 182).5 The adoption of agriculture is not the cause but, rather, the consequence of the dissolution of immediate-return systems. In any case, complex hunter-gatherers, such as Northwest Coast societies, demonstrate the viability of delayed-return economies in the absence of agriculture. The Sawiyanö Because the principles of immediate- and delayed-return economies are so different from each other, it is sometimes difficult to picture how the transition can occur. The example of the Sawiyanö of New Guinea is helpful because they display a relatively small gap between immediate- and delayed-return strategies. Sawiyanö agriculture is regulated by accountable reciprocity, as it must be, but the Sawiyanö continue to emphasize the ideology of generalized reciprocity, except for marriage arrangements. The subsistence and social organization of the Sawiyanö, despite the undisputed and longstanding presence of cultivation, are in many ways more like those of hunter-gatherer societies than like those of the horticulturalists of Highland New Guinea or lowland peoples such as those of the Arapesh or Abelam in the Sepik region. Like hunter-gatherers, but unlike these latter groups, the Sawiyanö have flexible, ad hoc social groups the members of which are constantly moving from place to place. Particularly outside ritual contexts, they produce from day to day with little or no storage of food. Men identify themselves as hunters, but use few traps or other “delayed-return” forms of hunting … Women also identify themselves as hunters. A moral code of sharing ensures that meat and other goods are distributed widely (when they cannot be concealed). (Guddemi 1992, 311)

Also, the Sawiyanö retain a mobility reminiscent of hunter-gatherers. “Individuals and small family groups constantly move about between residences and indeed between settlements, staying in each for

66

Rethinking Social Evolution

what is often a matter of a few months” (Guddemi 1992, 308). However, this apparent flexibility hides mechanisms of control over resources. For example, rights to hunting grounds and to sites for planting are based on ancestry and use. “The extent to which ‘pristine’ rainforest territories are subdivided in terms of hunting access was rather astonishing, considering that each territory ‘subtends’ a slightly different group of users with primary rights to it, based on kinship calculations combined with the history of the use of that area. They themselves claim to guard hunting rights more vigilantly than rights to garden in an area – which fits their greater cultural emphasis on hunting” (Guddemi, personal communication). While control of hunting territories derives from ancestry and continued use, Sawiyanö agriculturalists have rights over horticultural produce on the grounds that it is the product of their labour. Producers have a right to dispose of what they have planted or raised; others need their permission to have access to their trees and gardens. The scope of demand sharing or tolerated theft is limited to relatives (Guddemi, personal communication). In the same way, a pig “can only be eaten by the cross-cousins of the couple who raised it, and by parents and children of these cross-cousins” (Guddemi 1992, 306). Other resources are individually owned. Sustained labour over time – which is characteristic of agriculture – seems to be the variable establishing ownership, as hunting and gathering of wild foods do not establish ownership. As in many foraging societies, the hunter does not partake of the catch – at least if it is a wild pig – and it is distributed widely (although close relatives are given preference) (305–6). More generally, when wild foods are harvested, they are distributed widely. “The knowledge of who is going to harvest it is known at the time, and anyone who knows that someone is going to harvest it will probably share in the harvest. The engine of sharing, so to speak, is the shame which is felt if someone who knows about a certain item of food does not share in it” (Guddemi, personal communication). The crucial factor seems to be the abundance of a wild resource disproportionate to the amount of labour necessary to collect it. Other factors, such as rights over hunting grounds, are not sufficient to prevent sharing. In the same way, the neighbouring Yafar have the obligation to share large game because there is too much meat for a single hunter and his family; sharing takes place irrespective of the way in which the animal was captured (Juillerat 1986, 184).

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

67

The link between abundance and sharing may explain why “tubers or fruits are harvested when they are ready, and generally eaten immediately” (Guddemi 1992, 309). This has economic as well as technological significance: it reduces the scope of demand sharing. Under the rules of demand sharing, stored agricultural products might be legitimate targets; conversely, people may not help themselves to someone else’s garden or tree fruits. There is no way to control the size of game or the yield of wild fruit, while agriculture gives better control over yields. The Sawiyanö are still negotiating the boundaries between generalized and accountable reciprocity, and the latter “is ideologically so to speak silent. This is partly because horticultural produce is not as significant to the diet, either nutritionally or ideologically, as are the culturally recognized staple foods of sago and meat … The Sawiyanö ideal of themselves is as generous sharers, according to an immediate-return style of ideology, and they tend to obscure or deny any tendency to keep food or goods within a household” (Guddemi, personal communication). Wild and planted sago are not considered to be different (Guddemi 1992, 305) because “sago, culturally speaking, is supposed to be taken for granted as present and available, particularly since other foods such as meat and certain greens are only supposed to be eaten along with sago … In that sense, wild and planted sago are the same, although rights to work them are allocated on different principles” (Guddemi, personal communication). Marriage arrangements are the one sector where balanced reciprocity is clearly affirmed: The marriage system is an interesting version of sister exchange. A young man wishing a bride must first obtain a classificatory sister, called an “exchange,” and give her gifts of garden food and meat until he exchanges her with another man in marriage. Men are supposed to live with their bride’s father after marriage until he dies. In fact 30 per cent of men in a sample of 51 marriages did reside uxorilocally in 1987, while another 20 per cent had married within the local residence group. The rest resided patrilocally for their primary residence, but many of these had married widows or had married by capture rather than exchange. Men become clan and residence group members where they live (being recruited through their wives), but lack automatic rights to a wife’s land. (Their children do obtain such rights to their mother’s land.) Bridewealth is paid in rare instances, many of which involve outmarriage with bridewealth-using groups. (Guddemi 1992, 309)

68

Rethinking Social Evolution

The Sawiyanö are hanging on to elements of generalized reciprocity, but agriculture is precluding this. Because agriculture requires sustained labour over time, it becomes compelling to retain control over the crops. For marriage arrangements, they have entirely embraced the idea of balanced reciprocity. The contrast between immediate- and delayed-return is just as complete among the Sawiyanö as it is anywhere else; this case is interesting because the two economic principles are almost equally important.6 A good part of the process of social evolution can be mapped with the help of these two concepts. The reduction and encapsulation of the immediate-return sector is an important index of complexification. Is the transition to a delayed-return economy irreversible? Ultimately, the transition to a delayed-return economy occurs because people act in their own interest in order to consume what they produce. Can self-interest bring about a reversal to an immediate-return economy? The question arises because delayed-return systems are not inherently superior to immediate-return systems. Both systems have their internal contradictions, and it is possible for delayed-return societies to adopt an immediate-return model. Turnbull (1965) suggests that some hunter-gatherers retain an immediate-return system as a strategy of mobility and flexibility to avoid domination by agricultural neighbours. In other words, if hunter-gatherers are socially encapsulated by delayed-return societies, it may be advantageous for them to enhance existing immediate-return arrangements because it allows them to occupy a distinct economic niche; if they are delayed-return hunter-gatherers, they might adopt an immediate-return economy in order to maintain their distinctiveness from the encapsulating groups (Woodburn 1988, 62). Similarly, it is possible for agriculturalists to turn to a foraging adaptation. The relative balance of immediate-return and delayed-return arrangements may be affected by the cultural instability of egalitarian societies. Brunton (1989) sees this instability as the reason why immediate-return societies are so rare: in the absence of rigid codes of conduct, which are impossible without a structure of authority, the principles of immediate-return societies are at the mercy of innovators.7 Ecological circumstances may make a delayed-return economy attractive, such as the availability of a prolific resource requiring

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

69

protection from outsiders or the specialized exploitation of a single resource (Woodburn 1980, 111–12). In any case, the transition from immediate- to delayed-return systems can be understood better with the notion of fitness landscape (p. 25): immediate-return exchanges are the starting point, and the elaboration of delayed-return arrangements is made in relation to this starting point. As long as it is not costly to return to an immediatereturn system or to hunting-gathering, then reversibility remains. On the other hand, after a certain point the economic, social, and ideological investment in a delayed-return economy may preclude a return to an immediate-return economy. This is particularly true when the consequences of delayed-return economies have changed the natural and social landscape.

c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s o f d e l ay e d - r e t u r n s y s t e m s In delayed-return systems, people hold rights over assets: technical facilities used in production (boats, nets, weirs, stockades, traps); processed and stored food or materials; wild products improved by human labour (e.g., culled wild herds, tended wild food-processing plants); and rights held by men over female kin who are bestowed in marriage on other men (Woodburn 1982, 432–3). Delayed-return systems “imply binding commitments and dependencies between people” (433) because they require long-term organization (table 3.1). In other words, they call for a social system. Producers require the support of others to secure the product of their labour. Cooperation is no longer a series of discrete events but, rather, a chain of exchanges. A consequence of cooperation is the development of established social groupings (permanent villages, kinship groups, clans, and established marital exchanges) (433). Cooperation increases group stability because it is easier to cooperate with the same people over a long time. Stability sharpens group identity, and distinct groups can develop divergent interests (e.g., mutually exclusive village territories). In immediate-return economies, immediate need is a sufficient justification for appropriating the product of someone else’s labour. In delayed-return economies, the right to appropriate something is no longer based on need but, rather, on one’s investment in production. Accountable reciprocity requires a system of valuation for long-term exchanges to be a worthwhile strategy. Labour becomes the central criterion for regulating exchanges. Delayed-return systems require

70

Rethinking Social Evolution

Table 3.1 Immediate- and delayed-return systems Immediate-return systems

Delayed-return systems

Simple hunter-gatherers

All other societies: complex hunter-gatherers, agriculturalists, pastoralists, industrial societies

Demand sharing/generalized reciprocity

Regulated exchanges (local and regional)

Loose value schemes

Shared value schemes and accounting procedures

Individual autonomy linked to flexible associations

Integration into stable social groups and networks (permanent villages, kinship networks and groups, clans, affinal networks)

Small, flexible groups

Larger groups with membership criteria

Ad hoc c0-operation

Formalized cooperation

Relatives and non-relatives are treated equally

Distinction between relatives and non-relatives

Households are primarily units of reproduction

Households are also units of production and consumption

No accumulation of goods

Accumulation of goods, concepts of property, and wealth differences

Flexible feeding

Meals regulate access to food

Ad hoc leadership

Formalized leadership

Flexible group action

Groups act as units

Limited opportunities for competition and c0-operation between local groups

Increased opportunities for competition and c0-operation between local groups (war, trading networks)

accounting of production and exchanges. This transforms the household from a grouping based on conjugal and parent-child links to an economic unit of production and consumption. The household becomes the major economic actor. Exchanges take place between productive units; this entails evaluation and acknowledgment of differences. Even in delayed-return systems, which promote equality and generosity between domestic units, differences in productivity are noticed. Unless there are formal levelling mechanisms (whose presence needs to be explained) status differences develop. The domestic unit’s control over its production allows for differences of wealth and status within the community. Owned goods are tools for social action (rather than a product shared without social differentiation, as in immediate-return systems). In some cases, accountable reciprocity is not based on a comparison of labour time but on identity. The restricted exchange of Aboriginal Australian marriage systems (discussed later in this chapter) posits

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

71

Table 3.2 Economic systems Criterion of exchange

Type of economy

Need only

Immediate-return economy

Equivalence of exchange-value

Delayed-return economy

that women have equivalent value. This seemingly self-evident fact hides a conceptual revolution. Two individuals can only be “the same” if one has chosen to ignore most aspects of their identities. This form of reciprocity is based on unequal gender relationships. In delayed-return economies, exchanges can even take on a life of their own without a utilitarian purposes, for instance when people exchange identical objects within a ritual context (e.g., the tee exchange, p. 122). These exchanges may appear pointless as they satisfy no practical need; however, their purpose is to use a self-evident equivalence to emphasize social relations. To recapitulate, the economy consists of the ways in which people exchange goods and services with each other in order to satisfy their needs; thus, different types of economies are defined by the principles of exchange (table 3.2). Delayed-return economies are further differentiated between those in which local communities provide for most of their needs (“natural economies”) and those in which production is primarily for exchange.

households as economic units In all societies, there is a division of labour between men and women articulated around the relationship between husband and wife and the care of children. In this sense, domestic units exist in all societies. Delayed-return economies enhance the significance of domestic units through accountable reciprocity: they become productive units. Theoretically, it might seem simplest for individuals to be the units of reckoning in exchanges; however, a division of labour on the basis of gender and age makes this impractical. The relationship between parents and children cannot rest on accountable reciprocity, given the long-term imbalances in flows of goods and services between parents and children. These relationships continue to be managed according to generalized reciprocity. The domestic unit, then, is the smallest unit readily regulated by delayed-return arrangements. As generalized

72

Rethinking Social Evolution

reciprocity remains the principle of exchange within the family, there has to be a boundary between family and the rest of the society. Therefore, the family becomes an economic corporation that manages its labour and the product of its labour for its own interest. Thus, it becomes possible for some families to be better off than others. The fact that domestic units operate according to a specific economic regime does not mean that their members automatically share the same views, interests, or strategies (Yanagisako and Collier 1987). In fact, because the domestic unit is a clearly bounded group, we can expect the opposite to be true. Closing a network into a group with fixed boundaries allows for social inequality within the group (e.g., the Tiwi, discussed later in this chapter). The existence of corporate domestic units may have the same consequence, as we will see through several examples. Households may strive to maintain or increase their status as homogeneous units; alternatively, they may become internally differentiated, with some individuals controlling others (Blanton 1995, 108). The two strategies are not mutually exclusive: internal differentiation within households can be an element in differentiating between households. In any case, the household is the first grouping with a demarcation between decision makers and followers. At a minimum, this may consist in the parents’ influence over their children. Hierarchy may be intensified within larger domestic units (stem, extended, or polygynous families). If a gender-based social differentiation is significant, it is located first within the domestic unit. Technological diversification may encourage further specialization, which becomes possible in a delayed-return system because specialists can benefit from their expertise. The routine of daily life changes in delayed-return economies. Under generalized reciprocity, there is no need to regulate food because people help themselves according to their needs and wishes; therefore, feeding times are irregular. With accountable reciprocity, regular mealtimes become a device for economic control: people eat the food produced by their own family. When all households eat at the same time, each household can easily control its own resources. Regular meals are not a consequence of food technology but, rather, a form of economic control. The timing of meals is a direct consequence of control: there cannot be regular mealtimes unless someone can say the meal is ready. A contrast may be made between routine meals (in which a domestic unit consumes the product of its own labour) and feasts (in which guests partake on a basis of generalized reciprocity).

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

73

This distinction is absent in immediate-return economies. Control over food can be organized in a number of ways. The Kayan employ the common strategy of defining a standardized portion, especially with regard to the staple: I was struck by the fact that, in all communities, rice portions were packed in leaf bundles of the same size. Like domestic units, cooperation and reciprocity are also panhuman phenomena. This hides the fact that cooperation takes on a new significance in delayed-return economies. Among immediate-return hunter-gatherers, cooperation has the practical effect of pooling and enhancing the results of individual labour, but from the viewpoint of individual actors, it may be a strategy to benefit from the labour of others: if you participate in a collective hunt, then you benefit from its results, however competent or incompetent you may be. In delayedreturn systems, there is not only a more obvious insistence on accountable reciprocity than there is in immediate-return systems but also the units of reciprocity are domestic units rather than individuals. One can achieve balance through different procedures: many Borneo swiddeners perform a portion of the agricultural work through multi-household cooperation groups who work on a rotation basis in their members’ fields. Among the Land Dayak (Geddes 1954), multi-household groups have a lower per capita productivity than do people working independently on their own farms. Among the Kayan, the reverse is the case. Both strategies follow the principle of accountable reciprocity. In the first case, people adapt to the lowest common denominator (i.e., they do no more than their lazier coworkers). By contrast, the Kayan work as hard as they can for others because, later on, they want their team-mates to do the same for them. The autonomy of the domestic unit also explains limitations in cooperation. While one might expect widespread sharing as a riskreduction strategy in marginal agricultural environments such as that in the southwestern United States, the opposite is the case: “exchange intensity increased when conditions for agriculture were better and surpluses were more likely; exchange activity then declined when agricultural conditions deteriorated. This pattern suggests that groups opted to limit their obligations when productive risks increased” (Plog 1995, 197). As domestic units become the minimal economic grouping of delayed-return economies, members of a domestic unit have common interests. This forms the basis for a domestic unit to become a political entity: people speak not in their own name but in the name of their

74

Rethinking Social Evolution

domestic unit. This is particularly relevant because delayed-return economies have to develop procedures to deal with political issues that, among nomadic hunter-gatherers, are resolved more informally.

l e a d e r s hi p a n d t h e m a na g e m e n t o f v i o l e n c e A concomitant of delayed-return systems is an increase in group size, density, and stability. Delayed, accountable reciprocity requires cooperators to stay together in order to complete exchanges; it is no longer possible to move away whenever conflicts arise. New forms of conflict resolution are required. By the same token, the need for orderly governance brings about the development of norms in order to regulate behaviour in a consistent manner. Accountable reciprocity and stable norms are two sides of the same coin: just as people seek to engage in equal exchanges, so they want their neighbours to behave in predictable ways. A delayed-return economy removes the structural problems compelling immediate-return societies to be small. It also provides incentives for growth: a larger pool of potential cooperators allows for greater flexibility. Furthermore, ambitious individuals may benefit from an increase in group size. All these factors intensify each other. This is the reason why the movement from immediate- to delayedreturn systems is rapid and discontinuous: it is a rapid phase transition in which many elements of the old system are modified to operate within a delayed-return environment. All these changes increase the potential for conflict: sedentarization and stable groups make it difficult or impossible to resolve conflicts by moving away. Rules of accountable reciprocity, being less ambiguous than the principles of generalized reciprocity, make it easier to express complaints and resentment. Similarly, there is a greater potential for intercommunity clashes.8 These call for structures of leadership. While there is a chasm between immediate-return and delayedreturn economies, the gap in leadership style between these two kinds of societies is less extreme. It is insufficient to observe that “egalitarian” hunter-gatherers operate according to consensus. We tend to think of consensus as an egalitarian form of decision making, but consensus is hard to achieve without power differentials. A decision is consensual when no participants persist in opposing it. This may happen because opponents and doubters have yielded to pressure. In

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

75

Figure 3.2 Consequences of delayed-return systems

delayed-return systems

Regulating the economy (household economy)

Primarily about women (e.g., Australian Aborigines)

Increased production (e.g., agriculture)

Households as productive units Co-operation between units

Differentiation between households

Larger, enduring, communities amplify the potential for conflict Conflict-resolution mechanisms

Potential for social inequality Alternative trajectories Causal link

delayed-return societies, the coercion inherent in consensus receives further elaboration. For instance, “in societies such as the Kulina, rituals play a fundamental role in the ‘manufacture of consensus’” (Lorrain 1994, 219). The leaders of immediate-return societies can only hope to influence those who happen to be around them. In delayed-return systems, leaders are in a relationship to a formally established group whom they represent. Alliances between leaders are also alliances between communities (sometimes, but not necessarily, through marriages and kinship). Leaders facilitate the development of group hierarchy. Because the formation of groups and differentiated roles allows for the expression of contradictory interests, differential involvement in decision making is an impetus for further transformations and the development of inequality. People interact as members of nested categories of social identity. They are no longer independent agents but members of social groups (Braun 1991, 435). Figure 3.2 sketches the causal relationship between some of the elements I have discussed above.

76

Rethinking Social Evolution

All the socio-economic features that follow from accountable reciprocity become the new framework for the expression of self-interest. They allow for increased social complexity: groups become larger, leadership and governance have increasingly broader reach, and economic inequality becomes greater. This is not a unilineal process. Mechanisms for conflict resolution allowing for the maintenance of enduring communities are a systemic requirement for delayed-return societies, but each social system finds different solutions to the basic problems of reciprocity and social order.

th e c o n s t r u c t i o n o f a s o c i a l s y s t e m Small-scale sedentary societies could not exist without shared values. At the bare minimum, a delayed-return economy requires a valuation of products and labour to allow for exchange. The need to keep violence at an acceptable level also entails shared values. With shared values, self-interest becomes a source of conformity. If there are appropriate ways of behaving, people will comply in order to blend in or to control others. Alternative strategies are possible here: if communal harmony is highly prized, this may mean some people will tolerate occasional unpleasantness rather than make a fuss. By contrast, if controlling other people and resources brings prestige, this can produce competitive systems such as big-man organizations (see chapter 4). In other words, self-interest motivates some individuals to realize a particular model; in the process, they shape social relations in general. From an evolutionary viewpoint, we can start with values that form part of our species’ make-up: food, sex, sleep, security, company. Selfinterest brings about the formation of regularities, including the development of new values orienting behaviour in new directions. This is not limited to economic issues; rather, it spreads to social activities such as religion, which becomes rule-governed and more complex. Whatever their forms, delayed-return societies have mechanisms to regulate the way in which individuals are constructed and interact with each other. Various devices, such as initiations, serve to mould individuals into society members. In some cases, the transformation is made visible and has a great impact on the individual who is being transformed. This is evident in south coast New Guinea, where youths were often traumatized by their elders in violent initiation practices, and where females were forced into serial sexual intercourse, sometimes

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

77

at a young age and in a way that could compromise their health and fertility. All this took place with minimal help from agents or forces of state control. Melanesian bodily inscriptions could institutionalize categorical social divisions through traumatic nose-bleeding, penis-bleeding, tongue-bleeding, finger-lopping, burning, rubbing with nettles, food taboos, forced feeding, scarification, teeth-blackening, widow-strangulation, bodily adornment, sex via vaginal, anal, oral, or dermal penetration, and, after death, endocannibalism, exocannibalism, exhumation, relic disembodiment, or anointment by or drinking of cadaveric fluid … Dizzying arrays of bodily practices could radically empower men over women, elders over juniors, political dominants over political subordinates, or one clan or ethnic enemy over another. (Knauft 1996, 158–9)

The use of this degree of violence to shape people into members of a society is not the norm. In the simplest non-agricultural societies, sexual freedom among adolescents is greater if an initiation ceremony for girls is absent (Barry and Schlegel 1986). In fact, nurturing attention may be equally effective in shaping social individuals. In contrast with my own upbringing, I was struck with the Kayan attitude that being alone is a misfortune. For them, togetherness was more than the inevitable gregariousness of longhouses. One evening, as my employee had been called away on family business, I was looking forward to being by myself in my apartment. It did not happen. An old man moved his bedding to my room out of affection for me; it would have been too sad, he said, if I were to spend the night alone. The value of togetherness is instilled in Kayan children through a constant link with others. Until they are two or three years old, they are in almost continuous contact with an adult. Older children are always in groups. This way of raising children is not the consequence of a conscious, directed program; rather, it reproduces what is self-evidently considered to be the greater good. If the Kayan learn tacitly that one exists only as a social person, a more conscious intervention teaches them to distrust outsiders. Whenever a stranger came to a longhouse – or anyone unknown to small children – adults pointed him out to children and told them to be afraid. They did this until the child burst out crying and sought the comfort of a relative. Clearly, these childhood experiences play an important role in making Kayan commoners distrustful of outsiders.9 A mixture of “tradition” and active intervention similarly reproduces the social grids of gender and age.

78

Rethinking Social Evolution

The environment is also constructed. Obviously, hunter-gatherers shape their environment, but this process is intensified in delayedreturn economies. Agriculture not only transforms ecological adaptation and mobility but it also constructs a new world of fields, villages, and paths. Settlement patterns form the framework of social relationships. Ethnographers of Borneo and the South American lowlands are immediately struck by the extent to which longhouses and semicircular villages are the blueprints of models for living. Such habitual patterns can bring social intervention to another level, as in south coast New Guinea, where “the indigenous men’s house had its own power of classification, domination, and bodily inscription. Flanked by enemy skulls, sacred ancestral carvings, and traumatizing elders, young men could be reborn through awe and terror to a world in which age, sex, and tribal enmity were markers of life force and selfhood that were violently wrested and brutally maintained” (Knauft 1996, 160). The elaboration of kinship is another way to construct a structured society. Kinship reckoning exists in all human societies, but it can take a more significant role in delayed-return societies (i.e., it may become a significant factor in organizing social interaction, as we see in the next chapters). Kinship takes its root in the long maturation process of human infants, which makes them dependent on their mothers for several years; however, this is insufficient as an explanation. Kinship cannot become important before the parent-child relationship involves reciprocity so that children maintain an enduring bond with their parents when they are adults. Sex avoidance between close relatives is another source for kinship.10 Whether exogamy occurs by accident or by design, once it exists, it creates a basis for a social network. The conceptualization of kinship relationships is a way to code such networks. In this sense, kinship can codify morality by extending beyond the domestic unit forms of reciprocity already habitual at the domestic level. This also explains why, among hunter-gatherers, where kinship serves only limited social ends (Keesing 1975, 7), it operates as an idiom to deal with social relationships in general rather than as a strict reference to genealogy. At least conceptually, kinship already has the potential to differentiate between kin and non-kin among hunter-gatherers, even if they choose not to do so. This differentiation gains greater salience in societies where accountable reciprocity is dominant because kinship can serve to micro-manage the boundary between generalized and accountable reciprocity.

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

79

g r o u p c l o s u r e : au s t r a l i a n a b o r i g i n e s I have described the general process of transition from immediate to delayed-return economy. The Tiwi of Northern Australia are a contemporary example of a society in which the delayed-return principle only applies to a single, crucial aspect of life: marriage. Marriageable women are perceived as valuables that must be exchanged according to strict principles of accountable reciprocity. The rest of the economy tries to operate according to generalized reciprocity, although the exchange of women reverberates on all aspects of social life. I do not present this example because it is typical; indeed, compared to the corpus of ethnographic accounts, the Tiwi are rather outlandish. There are few societies in which all girls are betrothed at birth. Nonetheless, despite their unusual marriage arrangements, the Tiwi exemplify a crucial aspect of social complexification: in order to have accountable reciprocity, it is essential to have clearly defined social groups to which individuals must belong in order to participate in social life. This crucial stability then makes it possible for ambitious individuals to take steps to further their own interests. In order to better understand the unique characteristics of Tiwi society, I place them within the framework of Australian Aboriginal societies, of which they are a variant. Later in the book, I return to the Tiwi example as it serves as a useful point of comparison with other societies. Australian aboriginal daily life is similar to that of other huntergatherers, such as the Bushmen or the Inuit, but Australian Aborigines differ from them in the greater complexity of their social structure. Australian Aborigines have occupied an important place in the anthropological imagination: following Durkheim and Mauss, they have become the archetype of a “primitive” society. Recent analyses show them to be far from the ideal representative of an immediate-return system (e.g., Lourandos 1997); rather, these analyses show how there can be “intensification of control by men of rights over women who are to be given in marriage” (Woodburn 1980, 111). The culture and social organization of Australian Aborigines differ radically from those of immediate-return hunter-gatherers. They have a variety of bounded kinship and other groups, membership of which involves specific, ascriptive entitlements and duties. Interpersonal kinship relationships are very obviously load-bearing: kinsmen recognise a wide variety of specific differentiated rights and obligations to each other and to their

80

Rethinking Social Evolution

various affines. The moral commitment of kin to each other appears, even in ecologically difficult areas, to rule out the abandonment of the sick and the aged. Some kinsmen are dependent on others for access to “assets” which they need to achieve fully-fledged adult status and those who are dependent are subject to the authority of those on whom they depend. There are conflicts of interest between individuals and between groups over assets and these lead to fighting and accusations of witchcraft and sorcery. The Australians have an elaborate religious life which is controlled by the older men who partially exclude women and younger men from access to secret religious knowledge. Men give and receive women in marriage. (Woodburn 1980, 107–9)

Men’s control over women cannot be explained by reference to the management of subsistence, which broadly corresponds to the model of simple hunter-gatherers. Power over women converts “what would otherwise be only immediate short-term rights in selfacquired and group-acquired foodstuffs and other materials into specific long-term claims … [T]raditional Australian social organisation in all its variety is to be seen as centrally and essentially connected with the maintenance, manipulation and transmission of these longterm rights” (Woodburn 1980, 107–9). Unlike simpler hunter-gatherers, Australian Aborigines have sociocentric structures: tribes, sections, and totemic clans (Riches 1995).11 Sections serve a purpose similar to Inuit partnerships (pp. 51–2), namely, to reduce the number of people with whom one is obliged to share. Historically, “section arrangements in any one area always develop in terms of a proliferation (rather than a reduction) in divisions” (689), further restricting obligations towards others. In order to exist, these sections need the conceptual underpinning of “tribes” (i.e., socio-territorial groupings whose members rarely meet as a group [685]) and totemic clans (i.e., descent groups linked to each other by cross-cousin marriages [687]).12 Socially, Australian Aborigines have much in common with Northwest Coast societies as both are structured by institutions which express the subordination of the individual. Such subordination may be manifest either in terms of the individual’s inclusion in (or by implication, exclusion from) a specific corporate group or category, or else by the individual’s incumbency in a role which implies a distinct social hierarchy. Thus among the Australians individuals are members, by ascription, in a tribe, a

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

81

section and a totemic group. Among the middle and northern latitude Northwest Coast Indian societies they are members, again by ascription, in descent groups (either unilineal or cognatic), and they are also liable to the edicts of the high ranking members (nobles) of these groups. (Woodburn 1995, 692)

By contrast, such foragers as the Inuit and the Bushmen lack authoritative leadership. Their leaders are identified as such because of their abilities and knowledge, but their leadership position does not give them authority: no ideology legitimates compliance (Woodburn 1995, 693). The transformation from the Inuit/Bushman to the Australian model hinges on the ideological development of groups (“tribes”) that allow for a process of inclusion and exclusion (Woodburn 1995, 694). The Tiwi have carried to an extreme a feature they share with other Australian Aborigines: subsistence is regulated by immediate-return principles, while marriage operates on a delayed-return basis. On the mainland, the exchange of wives is conceptually managed by complex kinship and marriage systems (which the Tiwi do not need, as we will see). The Tiwi deserve special consideration due to their extreme form of group closure. They live in a fairly rich environment on Bathurst and Melville Islands, off northern Australia’s coast. They were isolated from the mainland, lacking the technology to use seagoing boats. There were nine bands, each covering about 500 square kilometres and having a membership of 100 to 300. One thousand people occupied 7,500 square kilometres. The bands were patrilineal territorial groups whose main role was borne out in the feuding system (Hart, Pilling, and Goodale 1988). Isolation transformed the general characteristics of Australian societies into something unique.13 A key feature of Tiwi society is the assumed ignorance of a link between copulation and pregnancy. Any woman could be expected to be pregnant at any time, and it was deemed essential for children not to be fatherless.14 Consequently, girls were married off at birth. Fathers managed the marital alliances of their daughters, hence they controlled men who wanted wives. As a consequence of political manoeuvring, some men were able to have several wives. Powerful men could exchange daughters. Girls were married to men who were usually at least twenty-five years old, often much older; they did not leave their homes until puberty, at which point their husbands were about forty. Getting the first wife was hardest. When one father had entrusted someone with a daughter, other fathers were more likely to follow suit.

82

Rethinking Social Evolution

Within a short time the new husband could have numerous wives (Hart, Pilling, and Goodale 1988, 20). As late as 1930, men often had ten to twelve wives (21). All Tiwi marriages were supposed to be between cross-cousins; however, in practice, kinship relations were adjusted to fit circumstances. Patrilocality was not a steadfast rule: a son-in-law might move to his father-in-law’s band to make sure his promised bride would not be bestowed upon someone else (35). Girls were an asset to fathers: a female baby would be bestowed upon a male who could offer her father potential wealth, status, or alliance in return. Often this husband had already given the father a wife or was a relative of a wife giver. Alternatively, the father could look for a man who was younger than him but who showed signs of being a talented hunter or fighter or who was climbing the political ladder. In this way, the father would get a son-in-law to provide for him when he was elderly. The father might also owe his daughter to a certain man or family because of previous commitments, for instance if a man married a woman under the condition that a daughter of his would then be returned to the wife-giver (Hart, Pilling, and Goodale 1988, 19). Because of the age discrepancy between spouses, there were many widows. While older women were forced to remarry, they could choose their husband and were often able to override their father’s wishes (Hart, Pilling, and Goodale 1988, 23). A young man’s first wife was often an older widow. In the genealogical census of 1928–29, nearly 100 percent of men between the ages of thirty-two and thirtyseven had at least one elderly widow for a wife. Many had two and a few had three wives. Less than one-fifth had a younger wife living with them, but 50 percent had a bestowed wife, most of whom were around age four at the time of bestowal. The first wife managed secondary wives, and there was a direct relation between the number of wives and the husband’s prestige. Polygyny operated within a technological and economic framework similar to that of mainland Aborigines. Bands were autonomous food-producing and consumption units made up of one or more households (i.e., one married man, his wife or wives, and their children) (74). Women provided the staples by gathering plants and insects while younger men hunted game (37). A senior female could offer food to women or children but not to any male outsiders, especially not to younger men, of whom senior males were highly suspicious (39–41). The bigger households with working wives were well-off. A household head with many wives

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

83

was, in Tiwi terms, a wealthy man who could retire entirely from the food quest and devote his time to other activities, such as manufacturing useful and ceremonial objects and participating in ceremonial affairs and public life (55). Polygyny and delayed marriages increased the frequency of adultery, creating conflicts between older polygynous men and younger men. The problem was minimized by requiring male initiands between the ages of fourteen and twenty to live in isolation in the bush, speaking to no one outside the group, especially women, and getting their own food. Initiands learned ritual knowledge at this time (Hart, Pilling, and Goodale 1988, 103): “Tiwi fathers, it would seem, in arranging for the initiation of their sons to begin just when they were becoming productive hunters, were willing to sacrifice that productivity for less tangible advantages. The youths, secluded and guarded in the bush while getting an education, were not only out of the work force but were also out of the predatory-bachelor force. A Tiwi elder made sacrifices to ‘send his sons to college’ but he breathed easier to know that the sons of the other elders were all there too” (104). This was not always sufficient. If an older man accused a younger man of adultery, the younger man might slip away into another camp and let the matter die down. If the behaviour continued, public opinion would be called upon to settle the matter. The husband could challenge the adulterer to an unequal duel in which he alone wielded weapons, and the culprit had to accept punishment, otherwise other elders would make sure he was punished (Hart, Pilling, and Goodale 1988, 44). Elopement was not a possibility: there was nowhere to go without being found by a war party consisting of the husband’s friends and relatives (85). Compared to other hunter-gatherers, wars between Tiwi bands were relatively frequent, both because of proximity and because of the non-delivery of bestowed daughters or other broken promises. Warfare was not organized; rather, it was an occasion for settling individual conflicts. Was polygyny worth all this strife? Its main advantage was not sexual; indeed, polygynous men did not always have sexual relations with all their wives. Polygyny provided them with a labour force and freed them from work. They also benefited from the labour of younger men who hoped for a wife or had been promised one. They were able to attend feasts given by other bands, maintain links with other important men, and arrange marriages. They formed a gerontocracy based on the fathers’ control of their daughters’ marriages.

84

Rethinking Social Evolution

Control over women gave power: the accumulation of wives was a demonstration of power. Long-term alliances were established between men in order to control women. Gender inequality was further emphasized because men could punish women, who were not expected to strike back. Status differences were marked ideologically. Big men had to be serious about religious restrictions in order not to tarnish their reputation. Only the less successful could dare to break taboos and deal with the consequences (Hart, Pilling, and Goodale 1988, 94). This unusual social system would have been impossible if the Tiwi had not been marooned on an island. The social systems of mainland groups were not very different from the Tiwi’s, with one fundamental exception: people could move away. Young couples could elope; young men could hope to find a wife elsewhere. This made it impossible for men to control their daughters’ marriages to the same extent as did the Tiwi. It is rare for a population to be so completely isolated by a combination of geographical and technological constraints; however, if the Tiwi are a rarity, they are not an oddity. Group closure is a fundamental element in the development of social complexity. In most societies, closure is attained by social means (I return to this issue later). The Tiwi illustrate the fact that a delayed-return system is not in any simple way a result of technological change. The Tiwi developed a system of inequality based on the control of daughters by their fathers not because of technological or economic complexity but, rather, because they could get away with it. Other hunter-gatherers attempt to gain advantages over others, but they cannot usually sustain it. Because of limitations on mobility, the Tiwi had no need to maintain elaborate conceptual systems of spouse exchange as was the case on the mainland, where men had a relatively limited ability to coerce others. Among the Tiwi, straightforward self-interest was sufficient because subordinates could not move away. Self-interest was cloaked in religious explanations, with initiations, feasts, and rigid taboo observances for high-status males. This appropriation of religion for social purposes is a common feature of middle-range societies. However, Australian Aborigines are not typical examples of delayed-return economies. They articulate immediatereturn principles with delayed-return marital arrangements. Such a mixed system may be an early stage of social complexification, but there is no reason to think it is a necessary step everywhere.

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

85

conclusion Together, the following forms of complexification constitute a phase transition. They are not separate phenomena but, rather, different facets of a single transformation. •

•

•

• •

•

•

Norms regulate the appropriation of goods from others. This first appears as an elaboration of demand sharing into generalized reciprocity. The categorization of people makes it possible to reduce the scope of demand sharing/generalized reciprocity. Groups are clearly defined; this allows a distinction between insiders and outsiders. Delayed-return economies replace immediate-return economies. Domestic units become units of production and managers of consumption. Reduced social mobility means a reduced choice of people with whom to interact. Increases in conflict, which are a consequence of reduced mobility and disagreements about reciprocity, call for the development of authoritative leadership.

These changes entail each other, but they do not appear together all at once. The above list is roughly in order of logical appearance. The movement from opportunistic demand sharing to morally sanctioned generalized reciprocity is a first revolution, which transforms interaction from an egocentric to a socio-centric focus. After the appearance of morally justified generalized reciprocity, egocentric demand sharing continues to exist, but its scope and its potential for creating conflict are reduced. The importance of this change has sometimes been misunderstood. Coming from radically inegalitarian societies, anthropologists have, with good reason, emphasized the exoticism of generalized reciprocity. We must also recognise the similarities between such “egalitarian” societies and ours: in both cases, norms frame behaviour. Categorizing people in order to reduce the scope of sharing is an indirect consequence of generalized reciprocity: the moral obligation to share according to other people’s needs can be a greater burden than being the target of someone else’s demands. Pushed to its logical

86

Rethinking Social Evolution

extreme, generalized reciprocity is not sustainable, as Lévi-Strauss (1944) shows in his description of the travails of the Nambikwara leader who must exhaust himself in order to feed his band. Rules limiting the scope of reciprocity help sustain generalized reciprocity; however, these strategies weaken the latter’s foundation (“to all according to need, from all according to ability”) by adding the rider “but only if you qualify.” In other words, such rules serve as the basis of exclusive group membership. Delayed-return arrangements take a further step away from generalized reciprocity. Delayed-return economies are based on an apparently straightforward principle: “Workers should benefit from their own work.” This principle runs against the fact that individuals cannot exist independently. The young and the old have limited productivity; even adults need to cooperate, due to the uncertainties of production. Domestic units that are at the same time units of production and consumption develop in parallel with the appearance of delayed-return economies. The inevitable long-term imbalances in reciprocity between young, adult, and elderly must be encapsulated in order to create comparable multigenerational units. Finally, finding a spouse requires some form of cooperation. Accountable reciprocity becomes practicable only when groups are stable enough to enforce long-term contracts. I suggest that the move from generalized to accountable reciprocity happens in practice before it is recognised normatively. If an individual is a net giver in relation to some people, while other band members usually respond with counter-gifts of approximately equal value, it is to his advantage to favour cooperation with those who reciprocate more generously.15 The development of long-term cooperation and co-residence solves some problems and creates new ones. When there are conflicts, it is no longer easy to move away; new procedures of conflict resolution must be found. Is change inevitable? Yes, in the sense that, even if there are barriers to complexification, these are bound to be breached some day. Australians are a useful example: their environment is not particularly rich. Their social transition was not caused by ecological or demographic variables; rather, their desire to protect themselves from demand sharing was a sufficient motor for change. In a statistical sense, these changes are irreversible. Once established, each of the features of complexification transforms the social arena so that people protect their newly defined interests. Complexification can sometimes be reversed,

From Immediate- to Delayed-Return Systems

87

but only in limited circumstances. In Borneo, there are instances of Iban men abandoning their swiddener lifestyle to join nomadic bands (it is more difficult for whole groups to do this). Exceptions need to be explained, such as the foraging Siriono, who are descendants of agriculturalists (Stearman 1984). They became hunter-gatherers because of dramatic circumstances that destroyed the agriculturalist social system. I do not suggest that complexification follows a rigid sequence. In particular, when complexification has already taken place in neighbouring societies, the process is likely to be different from situations where complexification occurs independently. For instance, many immediate-return Borneo hunter-gatherers became delayed-return swiddeners after agriculturalist men joined their bands in order to trade with them. In some cases, these men became leaders; when they did, they imported elements of swiddener social organization, including, in some cases, hereditary stratification. Even in the absence of nearby complex systems, other trajectories are feasible: Tiwi complexification is explainable in large part by the ecological/technological circumstances (isolation on an island and minimal opportunities to reach the mainland) that produced circumscription. This, in turn, was the precondition of other transformations, in this case a system of inequality based on gender and age. I am not trying to invent a hypothetical history but, rather, to look at lines of causality. This can then allow us to look at real historical transformations. While the sequence I suggest is certainly a historical possibility, in a number of cases other circumstances will produce similar results. The shift to delayed-return economies holds the potential for further transformations; many alternatives are possible. This is the subject of the next chapters.

4 Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

In the last chapter, I described a number of features that constitute the main forms of control in the societies discussed in the present chapter. These include a delayed-return economy, which calls for binding commitments between specific people and control over the product of labour, domestic units regulating the choices of individuals, a structure of leadership to contain conflicts, group closure, and shared values to establish regulated lives. Having described the common characteristics of delayed-return systems, I now turn to the variability between middle-range societies. They demonstrate a great variety in the extent and forms of social inequality, the importance of kinship, the definitions of gender and age categories, the centrality of rituals, and so on. There are variations in scale: some middle-range societies organize a few hundred individuals, others several thousand. This chapter considers societies with limited political differentiation; they share many features with simple foraging societies. Wealth and power differentials are limited. In societies with limited political hierarchies, order is established through economic, domestic, and residential arrangements. As a consequence of accountable reciprocity, domestic units are corporations that control the product of their labour. Similarly, the membership of local groups becomes more stable than in foraging bands. Individuals interact with each other not only as unique individuals but also as exemplars of social categories; for instance, they represent the domestic

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

89

unit and the local group to which they belong. In a general sense, these procedures constitute social persons in order to internalize social control. For example, an expectation of responsibility towards relatives is sufficient to attenuate the individualism and the flexibility that are characteristic of demand sharing among simple hunter-gatherers. In order to persist, these almost subliminal forms of control require an investment in shaping the environment and younger generations. These features are common to all delayed-return societies; however, it is useful to remember that they are, by default, the main forms of control in the societies forming the object of this chapter. These structures of order are the reason for the variability of middle-range societies: because domestic units control the product of their labour and because community membership is stable, it becomes possible for groups to invest in more complex forms of organization. As people try to protect and enhance their own interests, they are motivated to bring about new regularities from which they think they can benefit. For instance, in so far as the domestic unit is a corporation, it becomes important to develop strategies to manage its membership. In so far as communities keep people together, it becomes imperative to manage conflict in order to prevent community fragmentation. These inescapable imperatives can be realized in a variety of ways by defining the responsibilities of each gender and age as well as leaders and followers. Gender roles may be more or less contrasted; gender and age differences may be more or less hierarchical; and leadership may be diffuse or concentrated and more or less inclusive. From this variability, it follows that some dimensions fluctuate along a continuum: if leadership is weak and diffuse in one society, it is slightly stronger and more concentrated in another one. In this chapter, I contrast two strategies: limited leadership and competitive equality. In both cases, structures of control within the domestic unit are at the core of social organization. I illustrate these two strategies with several ethnographic examples in order to show their workings and their variants. I conclude with general considerations of peace and warfare, gender and age, and domestic units.

societies with limited leadership The Senoi of the Malay Peninsula, the groups of lowland South America, and the Iroquoians exemplify different models of social organization for societies with limited leadership. We can think of leadership in

90

Rethinking Social Evolution

these societies as adaptations of immediate-return leadership patterns to the new features of delayed-return societies. Later in the chapter, I compare these three examples with the Nuer and Highland New Guinea societies. The examples in this section illustrate fundamental variants of the simplest delayed-return societies. I start with the Senoi in order to emphasize the fact that societal models cannot be understood fully until they are placed within a broad socio-political framework. The Senoi are swiddeners in the highlands of the Malay Peninsula. They de-emphasize differences between people: leaders are not powerful, community membership is flexible, gender relationships are complementary rather than hierarchical, and there is a strong anti-violence ethic. While these features might exist in an isolated society, in this case they appear to be a reaction to the more powerful Malays who surround them. The societies of Lowland South America share a number of features with the Senoi. In particular, leadership is diffuse. However, by contrast with the Senoi, they establish strong communities with huts arranged in a half-circle, enabling everyone to watch everyone else. Also unlike the Senoi, they establish a hierarchical contrast between men and women and between young and old. Warfare is an important feature of these societies. Upon this central core, lowland South American societies construct several variants: I compare the Mekranoti, the Shavante, the groups of the upper Xingu, and the Piaroa. The comparison between Senoi and Piaroa is particularly interesting in so far as the latter buck the lowland South American trend by avoiding warfare, but they do so while retaining the overall pattern of the region. Iroquoian groups show yet another arrangement. Matrilineal kinship forms the blueprint of domestic units, villages, and regional alliances. This is linked to strongly contrasted gender roles in which, unlike in lowland South America, one gender does not dominate the other. Iroquoian groups contrast an ideal of local harmony with external warfare. Leaders have more executive authority than do leaders among the Senoi or lowland South America, but they are dependent on popular support, especially from female matrilineal elders, to retain their position. The political structure is more elaborate than among the Senoi or in lowland South America, with multi-village alliances. At the ideological level, village leadership is depersonalized in so far as a leader tends to take the name of his predecessor. We have here a clear example of leadership being openly acknowledged as a stable position, with the incumbents being replaceable.

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

91

Table 4.1 Some differences between groups of the Malay Peninsula Semang

Senoi (incl. Semai and Temiar)

Malays

Technology

Nomads

Swiddeners

Settled agriculturalists, traders, collectors

Mobility

Great mobility

Limited mobility

Settled

Settlement patterns

Residential dispersal

Residential concentration and dispersal (core/periphery)

Residential concentration

Basis of local group

Fluid

Core group and peripheral people

Core group only

Kinship reckoning

Inclusive

Inclusive

Exclusive

Domestic unit

Conjugal family

Descent group

Conjugal family

Kin groups

Patrifocal

Ambilateral (corporate cognatic descent groups)

Matrifocal

Marriage rules

Kin exogamy

Consanguineal exogamy and affinal endogamy

Kin endogamy

Basis of male solidarity

Consanguinity

Consanguinity

Politics

Rules of avoidance

Yes

No

No

Social system

Egalitarian

Egalitarian

Ranked

(From Benjamin 1985)

The Senoi of the Malay Peninsula The minority groups of the Malay Peninsula (collectively designated as orang asli, “aboriginals”) are swiddeners and hunter-gatherers whose peacefulness has often been noted (Dentan 1992, 219). We need to place the Senoi within a broad framework if we are to understand their characteristics. There are three traditional social models in the Malay Peninsula (table 4.1): the Semang pattern of hunter-gatherers in the northern part of the Peninsula; the Senoi pattern of inland swiddeners; and the Malay pattern, represented by both non-Muslim minorities in the south of the peninsula and the Muslim Malays. The main difference between the Malay speakers consists in whether or not they belong to a state system (Benjamin 1985). The Semang and Senoi are culturally related; they are part of the Aslian subset of the Austroasiatic linguistic family, while the Malays belong to the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) linguistic family.

92

Rethinking Social Evolution

The Semang pattern militates against permanent sedentism. It encourages constant dispersal in time, place, and consociation. The ideal form is an inclusive network. This is expressed in a kinship system that includes everyone (even those who are not genealogically related). This pattern is suited to the dispersal of natural resources in the jungle and the need to share them with other nomadic groups. Their opportunistic foraging (a mix of hunting and gathering with trading and occasional wage labour) makes the conjugal family paramount; any larger grouping is a temporary arrangement. Kinship does not serve as a basis for group membership because there is no distinction between relatives and non-relatives. Kin avoidance rules are the only major exception, but they also prevent the formation of kin-based groups: rules of avoidance between specific categories of relatives counteract the tendency for relatives to live with each other. For instance, a son-in-law should not interact casually with his motherin-law or talk to her, which makes it difficult for them to live together. At the other extreme, the Malay pattern emphasizes social groupings with exclusive control over a territory for a long period. The local group consists only of core group members. Relations with other settlements are deliberately restricted, and outsiders are not usually welcome to join. The Malays have been settled agriculturalists as well as traders and collectors, and their trading relations are concentrated rather than diffuse. The Malay kinship system is exclusive: it distinguishes kin from non-kin. It is based on conjugal-family units, and there are no higher-level corporate groups. This fact is linked to the predominance of individual activities such as trade and the collection of produce for trade. Given their extensive contacts with the outside world and their inclusion in state societies, they have developed a hierarchy. The Senoi pattern integrates aspects of both systems: as swidden agriculturalists, their sedentism is punctuated by cyclical migrations; they expect to return to the same locations. Communities are composed of a core group (descendants of the founding families) and peripheral people. The main resources are swiddens and the stands of long-lasting seasonal fruit trees that succeed them. Fields are concentrated spatially within the short-term context of village and swidden, but they are diffuse within the mid-term context of territorial range. Postmarital residence is fluid; young couples may alternate residence between the husband’s and the wife’s parents until they settle with one or the other (Benjamin 1968, 29; Dentan, Endicott, Gomes, and

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

93

Hooker 1997, 35).1 Among some Senoi groups, corporate cognatic descent groups manage fallows. Although they are culturally related to the Semang, the Senoi lack their elaborate rules of avoidance, except, in some cases, for mother-in-law avoidance (Benjamin 1985, 252). This allows for cooperation. Further, “the male/female distinction is not an important structural principle in [Senoi] Semai society” (Robarchek 1989, 36). In contrast to settled groups downriver, to whom they provide jungle produce, Semang foragers have maintained their nomadic system. They are in contact with settled groups as well as with other nomads. The Semang also make use the opened-up areas of the Senoi and the Malays, which are richer than is the primary forest. Hence, they live on the margin of both systems. The Semang coordinate their life with settled groups, but their nomadic existence allows them to maintain their independence: they can move away whenever they perceive danger. The Senoi are less mobile than the Semang because they have an investment in their swiddens. For them, safety lies in isolation rather than in contact. The Semang and Senoi appear to have intensified their respective lifestyles in order not to compete with each other. Present-day Senoi enjoy hunting but limit it to a part-time activity, otherwise their crops would suffer. The Semang enjoy the food grown by the Senoi but they hold these desires in check, otherwise they would lose their freedom (Benjamin 1985, 242). Within the precolonial context, Malays regarded non-Muslims as half-beasts and used them as slaves; for protection, the latter moved far away into the jungle. At the same time, Malays believed that non-Muslims had supernatural powers and must be treated with caution. Relations were not always antagonistic: trade and marriages also brought them together. Non-Muslims needed iron, salt, cloth, tobacco, rice, goats – even opium. In return, they gave the Malays jungle produce such as resins, various woods, medicinal plants, and rattan. Non-Muslims bartered their labour for harvests, house building, and forest clearance. Some Malays had a monopoly on specific groups of non-Muslims (Dodge 1981, 7). While minority groups considered themselves independent, the Malays saw them as subordinate. In the colonial period, the Orang Asli were administered separately by a paternalistic bureaucracy. This model has been maintained in postindependence Malaysia. Benjamin’s (1968, 28–9) description of Temiar leadership applies to the Senoi in general. They

94

Rethinking Social Evolution

have no explicit ideology of leadership at the household-cluster level; they merely say that they “follow” someone, meaning that if he builds a new house or moves for a season to another village, they go with him. Secondly, there is certainly no rule that leadership should be in the hands of the eldest son … Leadership at the household-cluster level amounts to little more than authority-holding within the kinship domain. But since not everyone can be a leader, certain non-kinship elements must enter into consideration. What then in this role-deficient society are the special characteristics that can pick a man out from the crowd? In most cases it is the possession of special skills that counts: the good hunter, the shaman, the skilled house-builder, the knowledgeable farmer, the inventive musician, the “walking encyclopedia” of Temiar culture, the well-travelled Malay-speaking sophisticate, the man who can read and write, and the tough, hard worker … The scope of leadership at this level is ill-defined … [T]he normal unit of enterprise in Temiar society is the household-cluster. But in some villages it is actually the village as a whole that acts as the work unit; while in others it is the individual household. Size obviously is an important factor: villages of sixty or more people often result from the living together of two or more formally distinct descent groups, and they would be unlikely to act well as a unit. However, personality is an equally important factor, limiting the extent to which the village leader can keep his people working together as a unit against the sometimes fissive and autonomous tendencies of the householdcluster leaders. The man whose personality would otherwise qualify him to be a village leader but who lacks the necessary social-structural qualifications feels no necessary compunction to follow the village leader’s instructions in opening a swidden or in building a house if he can gather around him two or three active males – sons, or daughters’ husbands, for example.

Temiar leaders are not redistributors (Benjamin 1968, 32) but, rather, convenors of meetings in which matters of common interest are publicly discussed. “The old-time village leader was regarded primarily as the man whose advice was sought in cultivating the swidden” (33). Villages are internally differentiated between a core group and peripheral members, with the leader emerging from the former (35). Leadership exists in part to control and prevent conflicts, but the peacefulness of the Senoi is not invariable: “We know that the Temiar did sometimes undertake warlike raids on others, and I would guess that this was not so much as a result of any established institution as of the response of his followers to an unusually spirited leader …

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

95

Dentan, too, reports (1968: 139) that the Semai (who are very similar to the Temiar) sometimes gave way to a ‘blood drunkenness’ and killed men, completely against their traditional values and to their own surprise” (Benjamin 1968, 33). The Senoi value social and emotional isolation as well as personal autonomy. “From an early age, the autonomy of the will of the individual is culturally affirmed. No child can be forced to do anything he or she does not wish to do” (Robarchek 1989, 37). “One of the consequences of this reluctance to surrender autonomy is an extreme difficulty in organizing any collective action unless everyone can be convinced that it is in his or her best interest” (40). At the same time, the desire for autonomy is tempered by the recognition of interdependence between people. This is exemplified by the concept of pehunan, the state of vulnerability to dangers that results from frustrating an individual’s wishes. While this concept is central to Senoi attitudes of dependency, it also gives a privileged position to individual’s wishes (38–9). According to Robarchek, “The injunctions to share food and to avoid violence are the most important moral imperatives in [Senoi] Semai society” (34). “During enculturation, individuals acquire, first, an image of themselves as helpless and dependent in a hostile and malevolent world that it is largely beyond their ability to control and, second, a set of habits and expectations that lead them to seek and expect aid and comfort from others in times of distress” (35). The Senoi response to Malay attempts at domination has been not only to maintain their isolation but also to avoid developing strong leadership. Order is maintained by avoiding violence and fostering individual autonomy. By valuing personal autonomy, the Senoi retain a characteristic feature of immediate-return hunter-gatherers. Autonomy remains viable in a sedentary group because it is everyone’s constant task to avoid violence. The injunction to respect personal autonomy is tempered by the social construction of Senoi persons, who learn to feel dependent and helpless by themselves. Emotional needs keep people together. Leaders are present to coordinate agriculture and other common projects, but their lack of authority helps the Senoi to resist Malay encroachment: it is difficult to control a community of swiddeners if one has to put pressure on each domestic group individually rather than simply operating through a leader. Senoi social organization has co-evolved with that of their neighbours. In a process of divergence, Senoi, Semang, and Malay systems have claimed distinct and complementary niches, within which each

96

Rethinking Social Evolution

sector has constructed its own environment. The nomadic Semang have an immediate-return economy, but it is a self-conscious one in which generalized reciprocity is maintained by clearly defining the in-group (i.e., Semang versus the rest). This, however, does not extend to territoriality or ownership of resources (Dallos, personal communication). Rules of avoidance prevent the development of exclusive kin groups, which would fragment the unity of the Semang sector. This unity is protected from external threats. In the previous chapter, I argue that the elaboration of shared values is a first step in complexification. The Semang case shows us that egalitarian hunter-gatherers living at the margin of more complex societies are capable of using shared values in order to resist the intrusion of groups who would absorb and enslave them. While the distinction between insiders and outsiders serves to protect generalized reciprocity among the Semang, among the Senoi it is a prerequisite to a delayed-return economy. Among the Senoi, domestic units are the managers of production and consumption as well as minimal political units (in so far as household clusters have leaders). The egalitarian interaction between household cluster leaders provides the community’s political structure. This is linked to the opposition between core group and peripheral people. While Semang local groups are fluid, the Senoi have rules identifying outsiders, making it possible to absorb some of them in a controlled way. While the Semang counteract the differentiating effect of kinship through rules of avoidance, the Senoi lack these rules because the need for stable groups favours the use of kinship to form corporate cognatic descent groups. In addition to diffuse leadership on the part of household cluster leaders, the Senoi maintain harmony by giving a high value to individual autonomy. This is a useful strategy not only at the local level but also in relations with the dominant Malays. By being socialized to value autonomy, the Senoi are better prepared to avoid being absorbed into the Malay sector. Groups of lowland South America The domestic unit constitutes the core of social relations for all groups of central Brazil and the Amazon basin; however, around this common nucleus, they show great social diversity. Social adaptations crosscut cultural groupings.2 McCallum’s (1990, 412) comment about the Cashinahua has general relevance for the region: “Complementarity

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

97

between male and female in political organisation recapitulates complementarity between spouses, and the relationship between leaders and followers is modelled upon asymmetrical relations between parents and children.” This structure is inserted in a characteristic settlement pattern: “The most immediately striking aspect of the Central Brazilian societies is their geometrical village layout. This always comprises an indefinite number of matri-uxorilocal extended family households ranged in a circular or semi-circular pattern around a central plaza, which is the location of communal institutions such as men’s houses, ceremonial activities, and the like” (Turner 1984, 340). The village forms a totality of which extended families are equivalent parts. The extended family household is internally differentiated in autonomous family units, although the senior couple is identified with the extended family as a whole: “In this capacity they occupy a position of dominance within the household, and their daughters, and particularly their sons-in-law, one of subordination in relation to them. This ‘subordination’ is marked by extreme deference, amounting at first to near avoidance of the wife’s parents by the son-in-law” (Turner 1984, 340–1). The relationship of the wife’s parents to the daughter’s husband, with its connotations of dominance and subordination, is clearly the raison d’être of the uxorilocal rule of post-marital residence, and thus, the central focus, or, as it were, the point of the extended family household structure deriving from that rule. This relationship owes its focal position in Central Brazilian social structure to the fact that it provides the paradigmatic form of the hierarchical relationship of dominance that is generalized … from the segmentary (household) level to the level of the community as a whole, through the medium of the moiety structure. (Turner 1984, 343–4)

In consequence, the lowland South American system requires the tie between father and son to be severed.3 The Kayapó, the Shavante, the groups of the upper Xingu, and the Piaroa show contrasted elaborations of the lowland South American pattern. The first three are in central Brazil and the Piaroa are in Venezuela. The Mekranoti-Kayapó of central Brazil practise swidden agriculture, hunting, and fishing. They occupy a lightly populated area of high productivity and have free access to land. The person who clears an area of jungle becomes the owner of the fallow. The Mekranoti are highly nomadic and have few material possessions (Werner 1981).

98

Rethinking Social Evolution

Everyone has equal access to strategic resources. If people are dissatisfied with their leaders, they can move away (361). In principle, there are two men’s and two women’s societies. The larger men’s society has a younger section with two adult leaders. The women’s societies each have a female leader. The leader of the largest men’s society is considered to be the village leader (362). In practice, “Kayapó society, and specifically its moiety system, is so unstable that there rarely are two men’s houses in a single village … Each village with a single men’s house continues to think of itself as a single moiety, so that the structure is not affected in principle” (Turner 1984, 349). There is “a rather pervasive trend for the same people to occupy every kind of leadership position” (Werner 1981, 368). Warriors and those who deal with government officials, missionaries, and anthropologists have the greatest influence (this is less true for shamans) (367). Mekranoti leaders are poorer than their followers, presumably because they are more generous (368). “For males there is no significant difference between leaders and nonleaders in the amount of time spent on hunting, gardening, or overall work” (369). Mekranoti leaders have more offspring than the average; either they are better parents or people with more children become leaders. Male leaders generally have more brothers than the average. Mekranoti, including their leaders, are monogamous. About half the leaders are descendants of the village chief: even in a society with few material resources, there are inequalities of opportunity (369–70). On the other hand, leadership clearly arises out of individual circumstances (abilities, number of children). It is not articulated with material rewards as the Kayapó can leave leaders with whom they are not satisfied. The limited scope of leadership among the Kayapó shows many similarities with Orang Asli leadership, the main difference being the prevalence of warfare. Verswijver (1992) distinguishes internal and external warfare, the latter consisting of raids on non-Kayapó to obtain children and ritual property. Internal warfare mobilizes all men, who participate in “the elaborate rituals expressing the Kaiapo bellicose male essence when warring against other Kaiapo villages.” While “no more than a handful follow a war leader in raiding nonKaiapo communities … Verswijver concludes that if intra-tribal warfare creates social cohesion (by constituting a strong sense of collective identity around the men’s house), external warfare is socially disruptive (for it leads to disagreements, internal disunity and fission)” (Rival 1994, 781). Captive girls served as “substitute wives”

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

99

after being adopted by war chiefs. This points to an important mechanism of social change: the way in which internal equality can create external inequality. If some people seek advantages over others, then it is difficult for them to impose themselves on members of their own group. The alternative is predation towards outsiders. The Shavante of central Brazil are gatherers who also hunt and practise horticulture. Hunting is the valued activity, though gathering by women is the main source of food. Men spend most of their energy in hunting, one of the ways in which they express their virility. The Shavante are an example of the societies described by Collier and Rosaldo (1981, 276) for which “manly” valour is linked to hunting, killing, and male sexuality. Initiation ceremonies include elements of sexual violence, including rape of women (Maybury-Lewis 1967, 262, 265, 266). As marriage is uxorilocal, polygyny is ideally sororal (87). In adulthood, spouses spend little leisure time together: men in leisure, if not at their parental home, spend most such time in the men’s houses. Women are prohibited from approaching the mature men’s council, which takes place daily in the men’s house when most decisions about the affairs of the community are made. Women are also excluded from most features of the highly elaborated age-set systems. Women have no say in their marriages: often they are married when still babies, or at least by the age of five in a group ceremonial marriage, for youths, held for them at the close of their bachelor hut initiation period. Older men are usually polygynous; thus a youth rarely has available for marriage an age-mate female, and he must wait for a younger generation of females to mature before cohabitation with them … To instil the characteristics of the co-operative warrior, the Shavante seclude boys as age-sets for at least five years, during which period they undergo continual harassment and daily haranguing by older men, suffering endurance tests, such as all night exposures and duels at dawn. The boys during this period of seclusion learn athletic prowess and how to display belligerence. Through the lengthy and arduous training during seclusion, they are: (a) to develop a lifetime corporate spirit within the group, (b) to learn to accept the dominance of older men, and to be prepared in general for (rather violent) dominance relationships among men, and (c) taught to act violently as a group. (Overing 1989, 85) Fellow-clansmen are a class of potential allies … It would perhaps be more accurate to say that Shavante consider people of their own faction to be

100

Rethinking Social Evolution

fellow-clansmen rather than to assume that they consider fellow-clansmen to be members of their own faction. (Maybury-Lewis 1967, 168) As is true in general for lowland Amerindian leaders, the Shavante leader has no power of coercion for the organizing of daily economic activity. He can make suggestions and harangue in the man’s council meeting, but he cannot order people into action. His qualities, nevertheless, are those of the successful hunter/warrior: he must demonstrate his ideal manliness through self-assertiveness, forceful oratorical skill, athletic prowess, and ceremonial expertise … If he is a particularly strong leader, the Shavante chief has no compunction in killing factional opponents within his own village. Should he go too far, the only repercussion, so long as he remains powerful, is for some of the village members to leave the village. (Overing 1989, 84)

The Piaroa, who live along tributaries of the Orinoco in Venezuela, may be contrasted to the Shavante. They do not overvalue meat: a proper meal, they say, should combine meat (the product of men’s labour) and manioc bread (the product of women’s labour) (Overing 1989, 87): “For the Shavante, the essence of manhood is what MayburyLewis … summarizes as ‘sexual bellicosity,’ while for the Piaroa it is the ability to co-operate tranquilly with others in daily life … The Piaroa definition of ideal maturity for men is identical to that for women; but the Shavante define ideal manhood as the achievement of a state that is both opposed and superior to the feminine” (81). “The moral dogma of the Piaroa disallows violence toward anyone who is part of their this-worldly political and social universe” (96). Violence is directed towards otherworldly outsiders, while endogamy reduces the danger of marriage exchanges. The Piaroa are different from the Shavante, who underline internal separation and opposition (ibid.), as well as from the Yanomami, who “may assault, perhaps fatally, a wife, brother, or cousin” (80). In some ways, they are similar to the Senoi as Piaroa men and women share the ideal of social maturity and controlled tranquility. Both men and women are responsible for mastering their emotions (87). In contrast to the Shavante, spouses are usually of the same age, and marriage is a private arrangement (93).4 Leaders have greater responsibilities than laypeople for building harmonious communities. To do so, they display their ability to master their emotions: “one of their greatest duties is to create the tranquil relationships which would allow for the work of building community, and therefore for its wealth” (Overing 1989, 91). The Piaroa “place great

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

101

value upon personal autonomy.” Leadership of multifamily houses is achieved, not ascribed. A territory comprises six or seven multiple-family houses, and there is a territory leader. Politicking between leaders “is kept at a relatively low-key level, for they rarely meet as a group … There are no age sets, no descent groups, no warrior societies, no formal council of mature men, no moiety organizations for the playing out of community life. There exist no mechanisms for corporate group decision-making with regard to disputes or economic matters” (88). In contrast to peoples who believe that their communities have existence through time through rules of corporation, the Piaroa do not understand “community” and the relationships of which it is comprised as a political given that allows for continuity through time. Rather it is for them a process of existence that has to be daily achieved by individuals though work, that is through the individual mastery over emotions and the skills of wizardry [skills of building community are seen as wizardry]. The Piaroa, for instance, place emphasis upon marriage ties in the development of community rather than upon the ties of descent. (90)

The Piaroa are in an intermediate state between the “violent” Shavante and the “peaceful” Senoi. They value harmony between genders and within the community in general, and they value individual autonomy. On the other hand, they regard the cultural principles allowing them to live and reproduce as poisonous forces carrying with them the idea of predation: “The transformational capabilities for fulfilling material needs are dangerous to the self if one takes too many of them, and they can be dangerous to others in contact with one … Each person is responsible for preventing his/her danger to others” (Overing 1989, 91). Leaders have enough power to build a community; if the leader ceases to be tranquil, this power may become dangerous and turn into sorcery (91–2). While generalized reciprocity is learned informally among the Senoi, among the Piaroa moral behaviour is formally transmitted: the leader gathers boys and girls together to teach them social morality (92). As with the Senoi, girls are co-opted into work earlier than are boys. “Unmarried young people, male and female alike, provide a labour force upon which all adults of the communal house may draw, a preparation for the general co-operation upon which the Piaroa place such value among adults within the community” (93). Senoi adolescents have greater autonomy than do Piaroa adolescents. Unlike most lowland South American groups, the

102

Rethinking Social Evolution

Piaroa do not make a major distinction between genders, except for one significant ritual feature: women may not see sacred musical instruments (94). While the groups of lowland South America share a number of social features, they have also developed alternatives. The desire for advantage coupled with internal equality brought aggression against outsiders among the Kayapó. The Shavante combine belligerence against outsiders with domination of insiders (with regard to gender relationships and age differences). The Piaroa are in many ways the opposite of the Shavante in that they emphasize harmony, reciprocity, and moral behaviour, but they do so within the lowland South American model of relationships, which acknowledges the potential for violence and gender differentiation. The ten villages of the upper Xingu basin have gone further than the Piaroa in preventing warfare. With a total population of 1,200 people, they speak languages belonging to different linguistic groups (Tupi, Carib, and Arawak, with Trumai as an isolate), but longstanding political and social contact had created a remarkably homogeneous Xinguano culture that endures today … Although the villages are in some respects opposed to and suspicious of their neighbors, they are intensely and elaborately involved with them through trade, intermarriage and intertribal ritual. What is striking about the Xinguanos is that they are peaceful. During the one hundred years over which we have records there is no evidence of warfare among the Xingu groups. To be sure there have been instances of witchcraft killings across tribal lines, and rare defensive reactions to assaults from the war-like tribes outside of the Xingu basin. But there is no tradition of violence among the Xingu communities. In fact, the value systems of these communities are “antiviolent” in nature. Supernatural sanctions inhibit the expression of aggression, prestige is awarded to men who avoid conflict, and methods of socializing children discourage displays of anger. (Gregor 1990, 105–6)

Villages have specializations and trade with each other. These specializations (e.g., pottery) are maintained by supernatural sanctions (Gregor 1990, 111). Intermarriages take place when suitable spouses are not available in the community, but the in-marrying spouse is subject to abuse (112). Nonetheless, intermarriages establish kinship links between villages. The rituals of inauguration of new chiefs and

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

103

the commemorations of chiefs who have died “require the participation of all the tribes, and are perceived by the villagers as an explanation of the peaceful nature of the Xingu system” (113). The village chief is perceived as a nurturing father figure: “What strikes the observer of the Xingu chief is that despite his role as a negotiator, the status is elaborated far beyond what might be expected from societies with an essentially unstratified political system. The elevation of the chieftainship, particularly its ceremonial component, appears to be a means of celebrating the peaceful intertribal system rather than the chief’s local authority” (114). “In an important sense, the Xingu peace is negatively defined, emerging with greatest clarity in the culture of aggression and violence” (Gregor 1990, 115). In other words, Xinguanos seek peace because they are concerned about violence. Witchcraft accusations are common. One “witch” is killed about every two or three years in the region, and the fear of witchcraft is a reason to be polite with outsiders (119): “Within the villages the apparent good fellowship of everyday life masks murderous intent … Witchcraft beliefs have the potential of dragging the Xinguanos into an abyss of accusations, killings, and ultimately a Hobbesian war of ‘everyone against everyone.’ But even though the villages smolder with anger, only rarely does the violence degenerate into a vengeful feud” (120). Interestingly, “the irony of the uneasy Xingu peace is that the institutions which curb conflict are also those which painfully express fear and anger” (123). The pax xinguana seems to be the result of an evolution: they are peaceful because they were violent. We can draw a comparison between the Xinguanos and the Orang Asli; the latter maintain peace in order to keep outside violence and domination at bay; however, unlike the Orang Asli, the Xinguanos express violence through witchcraft accusations and the abuse of exogamous wives. On the whole, lowland South American leadership is limited in scope. As in North America, the chief is a peacemaker, generous, and a good orator (Clastres 1962, 53, 55). Leaders “gain and maintain followers by being generous with their food products, work, and material possessions … By contrast, men with the lowest political status are those who give least, and thus receive proportionally most” (Lorrain 2000, 302–3). Leadership is accepted because it appears as a service to others (Lorrain, personal communication). “Leaders also provide protection. They interact with outsiders, preventing or waging wars against enemies; and those leaders who have supernatural

104

Rethinking Social Evolution

powers also protect their group against dangerous supernatural forces” (Lorrain 1994, 215). “In some societies the role of a leader as a provider and protector is considered similar to the role of a father, as among the Cubeo, Cashinahua5 or Amuesha … or to the role of elder brother, as among the Nambiquara.” The role of leader may also be associated with the role of husband (ibid.). Kulina leaders address the assembly as “young men,” irrespective of age or gender. Thus, leadership is explained according to the logic of the domestic domain. In some societies, shamans have power: “Among the Kuikuru, headmen have say over some decisions, such as when to move a village, but it is the shaman, with supernatural aid, who divines witches and thereby sanctions punitive reprisals – the only form of Kuikuru legal redress … [A]mong the Tapirapé (Wagley 1977), the headman also acts as a shaman” (Werner 1981, 364). This enhances the headman’s power (cf. Santos Granero 1986). While the power of lowland South American leaders is, on the whole, limited, it shows the first signs of complexification: half of the Kayapó leaders are descendants of a leader. Most Shavante leaders have little power, but a few of them manage to establish themselves in a secure position: they may even murder rivals. In the upper Xingu, chiefs play an important role as peacekeepers. Lowland South American social systems are built on a strong definition of community. The Piaroa are an apparent exception. They lack age sets, descent groups, warrior societies, councils of mature men, and moieties. Their Senoi-like emphasis on personal autonomy and peacefulness has led them to avoid regarding the community as a corporate group; rather, they see it as the result of a social contract maintained by individual action. Nonetheless, the community remains an important organizing principle in so far as the young are a floating labour force available to all adults, irrespective of kinship. This would be impossible without a notion of community. Warfare plays a seminal role in the workings of lowland South American social life: Kayapó internal warfare creates social cohesion. Participation in warfare is part of being a Shavante man, and status is gained through warfare. The Piaroa and the Xinguanos are societies that oppose warfare, remaining peaceful because of the reality of violence. It would be simplistic to characterize these societies as egalitarian regimes lacking political power. In particular, gender and age differences are foci of inequality. Among the Shavante, men make boys into violent warriors; among the peaceful Piaroa, the young are a labour

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

105

force for adults. Gender relationships are expressed in different ways; however, except for the Piaroa, they always entail women’s subordination. The Kayapó are monogamous, but some of their wives are captives from other groups. Shavante men aspire to polygyny, which they accomplish by betrothing young girls. Consequently, among the Shavante, there is a significant age difference between husbands and wives. There are similarities between Shavante and Tiwi marital practices. In the upper Xingu, intercommunity marriages serve to maintain the all-important regional peace, but women are mistreated in their new communities. Focusing on the Kulina, Lorrain (2000) shows the articulation of social inequality with gender relationships. Religious beliefs and shamanic practices play a significant role in buttressing the power of men over women. The gender division of labour is political in so far as it establishes women in a dependent position: “female tasks all require previous male input in the form of labour or equipment, by contrast with male tasks, all of which are self-contained” (299). While men need cooked food – usually prepared by women – this does not establish a dependency of men on women because they have provided the food in the first place and are able to cook for themselves (300). Men also use some physical violence to exercise a degree of coercion over women (298). Women’s dependency is reaffirmed at the ideological level with gender-hierarchical religious practices and beliefs: for instance, foetuses are believed to be made entirely from semen. The interaction between men and women is framed by the logic of giver-receiver relations, which also serves to conceptualize the relationship between leaders and followers. In other words, the relationship between men and women is politicized (Lorrain 1994, 232–3). While gentleness is valued, it coexists with sexual violence against women (Lorrain 1997, 3): “Shamanic practices, love magic, physical violence or threats of violence, economic dependence, and gifts in exchange for sex all contribute to bend female sexual options in favour of men, and to that extent they are forms of sexual violence. Although sexual violence that is coercive to the extreme, such as death threats or gang rapes, is relatively uncommon, it is part of a multidimensional control of female sexuality and reproduction with which the mythical gang rape is fully consistent” (4). Thus, when Rivière (1983, 354 [cited in Lorrain 2000, 302]) says that control over people in lowland South America does not involve control over resources or technology, he is correct only with reference to

106

Rethinking Social Evolution

male producers. Having pointed out that women “consent” to being dominated, Lorrain (personal communication) adds: “I would not only say that power in the Amazon implies consensus, consent, and violence, whether symbolic or physical, but also that violence is embedded in the concepts of consensus and consent themselves. In short, consensus and consent have to be manufactured, whether in lowland South American ‘egalitarian’ populations, or in Western ‘liberal’ democracies.” Among the Kulina, because labour is plentiful, men do not control women for the purpose of controlling sons-in-law; rather, they control them in order to control their reproductive potential. This is because women are valuable as the producers of kin, an important factor in a kinship-regulated society. The basic pattern of female dependence in the division of labour “ensures that all women marry and most remain married, unless they are prepared to endure significant material constraints. In turn this optimises men’s access to social fatherhood, and hence their chances of being part of a close kinship group as parents die, and as siblings die or disperse” (Lorrain 2000, 305). Finally, the question as to whether the ideology of equality encompasses or is encompassed by the ideology of hierarchy, and whether actual social relations are hierarchical or egalitarian, depends on the type of relations involved. Political relations are structured according to multiple factors, among which gender and age are paramount (Rivière 1984, 56). Among the Kulina, relations between members of the same age and gender category are generally egalitarian, whereas relations between members of different categories generally have hierarchical dimensions. This is a typical Amazonian pattern, and hence it cannot be said that, overall, hierarchy encompasses equality or equality encompasses hierarchy. (Lorrain 2000, 296)

Iroquoian groups Iroquoian groups shared several features with lowland South American societies, with some significant differences. They were matrilineal and monogamous, with a strong gender-based division of labour. Matrilineal clans were exogamous (Tooker 1970, 91). They practised swidden agriculture, and group size was limited by the availability of fish and game, which formed a significant part of the diet. There was a clearly marked division of tasks along gender lines.

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

107

Men cleared new fields … built houses, hunted, fished, traded, waged war, and conducted the public affairs of their communities, tribes, and confederacies. Women grew and harvested crops, gathered firewood, cooked, looked after children, and engaged in craft production. They also aided men in hunting and fishing, but their role was limited to helping process and transport the catch. In all of these activities there was a strong emphasis on work teams made up of individuals of the same sex, who were often also members of the same household or clan. Individual men and women were often separated from one another for long stretches as they went about their respective tasks. Except for a period of teenage promiscuity, public relations between men and women were characterized by considerable reserve and a measure of avoidance. (Trigger 1990, 130–1)

Archaeological evidence suggests that Iroquoian social organization developed through the sedentarization of hunter-gatherers in southern Ontario and upper New York State. Before sedentarization, men and women probably lived together throughout the year, in the same way as did other hunter-gatherers in the region, such as the Ojibway (Trigger 1978, 58). Despite climatic limitations, horticulture made it possible for a group to inhabit a site all year round: “If hunters and gatherers had already been trying to extend the time during which summer bands could stay together, even an imperfectly adapted corn crop might have been welcomed as an additional source of storable food” (60). Consequently, it made sense for households to form around a core of closely related women who were used to cooperating with each other (1978, 61). This nucleus developed into residential clan segments (Trigger 1990, 128). Contrary to some interpretations, Iroquoian economies were not controlled by women; rather, a strict division of labour maintained a delicate balance of mutual obligations between men and women (Trigger 1978, 60). As a consequence, men and women generally preferred the company of their own gender (61). Therefore, it is not surprising that divorce was frequent (Tooker 1970, 96n5). Also, while men were regularly in contact with strangers, women stayed within their community and tended to be suspicious of strangers: “Like subsistence, policy-making appears to have involved a delicate balance of obligations between the sexes that was struck between the familial and community interests of women and the more outward-looking obligations of men” (Trigger 1978, 62). Gender equality was associated with age differentiation:

108

Rethinking Social Evolution

Older men and women were generally more esteemed than younger ones. Women and men of the senior generation served as heads and spokesmen for their extended families. The senior women appear to have played an essential role in organizing their household’s female work teams. They could also bring considerable pressure to bear on younger women, especially those who did not yet have children, to divorce a husband who was lazy, unproductive, or otherwise objectionable … Young men were not regarded as reliable witnesses or trustworthy bearers of messages between one community and another … They were suspected of trying to stir up warfare in the hope of being able to acquire personal prestige by performing deeds of valor. This tendency was opposed by older men who were more interested in trade and friendly relations with other tribes, and perhaps not inclined to hurry the process by which younger men could win prestige and challenge their authority. (Trigger 1990, 132)

For strategic reasons, Iroquoians lived in large villages, some with over 2,000 people (Trigger 1990, 127). Warfare was a central factor in social life, and participation in wars was the main source of prestige for men (133). Some captives were absorbed into the group. There was a hierarchy of social groups: clan segments in a village were selfgoverning “and were represented at the village, tribal, and confederacy levels by their chiefs” (128). Institutionalized titles and offices were hereditary in specific lineages, with male leaders being selected and dismissed by women of their matrilineage (Trigger 1990, 131, 133). “In large [Huron] villages there were both administrative and war chiefs, who divided among them the families of the village into so many chieftainships. Further, although most of these chieftainships belonged to certain families, there were some whose influence derived from their intellectual superiority, popularity, wealth, or … bravery” (Tooker 1970, 95). It is possible that chiefs practised avunculocality (Trigger 1978, 58). Iroquoian leaders had to be generous in order to maintain their position; this is a side effect of the importance given to sharing within the community. All Iroquoians were expected to be generous, and leaders had to be more generous than others, both because their leadership role made them more conspicuous and because they had better access to trade goods. When they provided hospitality, they were supported by their clan and sometimes the whole village, but they were expected to dig deep into their own resources as well (Trigger 1990, 134). Relationships between leaders of several communities formed the backbone of multi-village confederations (Tooker 1970, 90): “Trade and ritual exchanges were

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

109

vital aspects of relations between neighboring tribes that were not at war with one another” (Trigger 1990, 136). Chiefs were spokesmen for their groups and coordinators between groups. They could not give orders; if they tried to be overbearing, the community broke up. Decisions were taken by consensus, and lack of chiefly power allowed for endemic factionalism (Trigger 1990, 136, 137). Local groups were not necessarily united in war; there could be wars within confederacies, though the purpose of confederacies was to avoid such wars (1990, 138). Violence within the community was considered unacceptable, as was unsociability and lack of generosity, which could lead to witchcraft accusations. Witches were killed only if their lineages did not support them (135–6, 138). Leading lineages did not accumulate goods for themselves, although valuables were used as compensation payments in order to settle murders (137). Local harmony was strongly contrasted with external warfare, and violence towards outsiders could take the form of torture or cannibalism (124). Captives were worked hard by the families who adopted them and could be killed if they proved unsatisfactory. Otherwise, they eventually became full members of the community. The same was true of defeated groups (144). Lineage segment autonomy, the obligation for generosity, the avoidance of violence within the community, and the chiefs’ inability to command were all mechanisms for maintaining equality. This was articulated with the desire for a stable, supralocal organization. While the Nambikwara chief is the linchpin of community stability, with the group disbanding if the leader retires (Lévi-Strauss 1944), the reverse is the case with Iroquoians. Their chiefs are embodiments of the groups they represent. The transfer of a deceased chief’s title to his successor emphasizes group stability, or at least a desire for stability (Tooker 1970, 93), which seems to be the main reason for transmitting leadership positions within specific lineages.6 However, hereditary transmission did not become a general principle: men who had played a significant role for their group received a non-hereditary title (95). On the face of it, the Iroquoians approximate Boehm’s (1993) “reverse dominance hierarchy,” in which leaders are controlled by their followers. In practice, Iroquoian politics seems to have been a tug-of-war between leaders and their followers, each trying to make their own interests prevail. This does not deny the egalitarian bent of Iroquoian society, but it emphasizes the fact that equality could only been maintained with vigilance.

110

Rethinking Social Evolution

Iroquoian societies raise another question: how can egalitarianism be maintained if Iroquoian groups are violent towards other Iroquoian and non-Iroquoian groups? While endemic violence has the potential to lead to instability, which can be a factor in the rise of inequality, violence is not automatically a cause of social inequality if there is the likelihood of equal counter-violence. Strategies for order in societies with limited leadership Like the Senoi of Malaysia, lowland South American societies and Iroquoian groups display all the minimal features of middle-range societies: conceptual frameworks categorize people and their interaction; households are units of production and consumption; norms regulate generalized and accountable reciprocity; and there are limitations on social mobility linked to group membership. These societies share features with egalitarian foragers, in particular regarding the constraints they place on leadership. Nonetheless, they also differ fundamentally from them. Domestic units play a more important role in middle-range societies than in foraging societies: they form the first – and most important – setting for integrating individuals into a collectivity. While mobility continues to limit the development of enduring inequalities, there is less mobility among middle-range societies than there is among simple hunter-gatherers. Self-restraint and formal rules of reciprocity stress the importance of the local group and help maintain its existence. Whether these groups opt for a strategy of peace or aggression (and whether aggression is internal or external), they do so within the context of formally constituted communities, of which all individuals must be members. Within the general model of limited leadership, gender relationships are variable. The Senoi favour gender equality and relative undifferentiation, while lowland South American societies emphasize power differentials between men and women. Within this context, the Piaroa are unusual: peace and personal autonomy require gender equality, which is established by underlining the complementarity and mutual interdependence of men and women. Iroquoian groups have yet another configuration of gender relationships, with contrasted gender roles giving men and women different kinds of power linked to an egalitarian mutual dependence. The limited authority of leaders in small-scale societies is so striking that anthropologists refer to these groupings as “acephalous” societies. In reality, they are multicephalous, with leaders having

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

111

limited authority because so many people are involved in decision making. Some decisions are taken in an apparently impersonal way. For example, when religious rituals serve to manage the annual calendar of production, the scope of uncertainty is reduced without apparent human intervention. The practice, if not the theory, of hereditary transmission of leadership is already present among some immediate-return foragers, so its presence in small-scale middle-range societies should not come as a surprise. Hereditary leadership, when it becomes normative, does not automatically result in a power monopoly for leaders, but it can be integrated into a theory of human nature: when hereditary leadership exists, it may be justified either on the grounds that parents transmit essential characteristics to their offspring or by reference to supernatural intervention (leaders acquire or are given the supernatural means to be powerful). Whatever its justification, hereditary leadership forms a threshold in the process of complexification because it provides the means for enduring social differentiation. Traditionally, anthropology has tried to understand how some societies operate with only minimal leadership; however, it is equally important to ask why other societies operate with authoritative leadership. The absence of strong leaders can occur by default (there is no reason for them to exist), by choice (people resist attempts at leadership), or by selection (some individuals may impose themselves as strong leaders, but this does not lead to an enduring system of strong leadership). One explanation is that authoritative leaders appear because they are needed. I suggest an alternative: acceptance of or resistance to authoritative leadership are societal alternatives, both of which are viable. The choice of one or the other brings about the development of different social systems. Within this context, “choice” does not necessarily imply a conscious, dispassionate analysis of all the factors and their consequences, but it does assume that social agents recognize alternatives and make choices that seem to be in their interest. The question of choice can be addressed within the context of competitive equality, where individuals (or some categories of individuals) are equal in principle but compete for supremacy.

c o m p e t i t i v e e q ua l i t y In anthropology’s attempt to understand social evolution, equality and inequality have been important, if confusing, notions. This is because “equality” has different meanings in different contexts. Social

112

Rethinking Social Evolution

inequality is limited by default in immediate-return societies because it is not possible to hoard wealth or power. Initially, delayed-return economies provide an answer to some problems implicit in immediate-return economies. They are not motivated by a desire for social inequality; rather, the principles of delayed-return economies call for computations of economic equivalence. This can serve as a blueprint for developing notions of social equivalence (i.e., in our modern terminology, social equality). The Senoi, lowland South American groups, and Iroquoians have experimented with various forms of social equivalence and social differentiation (e.g., their different approaches to gender differentiation and hierarchy). Because social equality becomes computable in the same way as do the economic equivalences at the core of delayed-return economies, it becomes possible to elaborate norms of social equality and, at the same time, to limit equality to clearly defined categories. For instance, Shavante boys are clearly equal to each other, but they are just as clearly subordinate to adult men. In this section, I look at societies that use the ideology of equality to produce a hierarchy. In such societies, all men are born equal, but differences arise between them as some strive to gain influence. In these societies, “egalitarianism” refers to an ideology in which individuals or groups are equal in principle; however, egalitarianism is maintained through competition, which ultimately weakens equality. To be more precise, “competitive equality” really is competitive autonomy, and this leads to differently valued outcomes (Helliwell 1995, 361). The societies of the New Guinea Highlands and the Nuer offer variants of competitive equality. Both take gender inequality as a starting point. In that respect, they have similarities with some groups of Lowland South America, but they intensify social differences even further than do the latter. First of all, both the Nuer and New Guinea Highland societies use a patrilineal ideology to produce enduring coalitions among related males (a strategy that is not available in Lowland South America). While both the Nuer and New Guinea Highland societies start from the principle that all men start as equals and must then compete with each other in order not to be subordinate, they realize this principle in significantly different ways. At first glance, the Nuer might seem to fit with societies that have limited leadership: the Nuer leopard-skin chief is not a secular leader in the usual sense of the word. However, the Nuer differ from lowland South American societies in that they use kinship to establish dominant lineages,

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

113

which, in turn, play a preponderant role in politics. Leadership is further intensified in the societies of the New Guinea Highlands, whose egalitarianism is more ideological than real. In principle, any man can become a big man; in practice, important power and wealth differentials are present. Competition seems greater in the New Guinea Highlands than among the Nuer, whose incipient notions of stratification limit competitive equality to a sector of the population. Gender differentiation is most marked in the New Guinea Highlands, where men’s partial control over women’s labour is an important element of the system. The New Guinea Highlands system is based on an edifice of constant negotiations, alliances, gifts, and counter-gifts, while the Nuer system depends on predatory expansion and the absorption of conquered groups. The Nuer The Nuer are organized in agnatic groups, some of which enjoy an aristocratic position. In the 1930s, 200,000 Nuer occupied swampland and savannah in the Sudan. They are cattle herders and horticulturalists, focusing on maize and millet. The agricultural land is used until it is exhausted, at which point homesteads move to a fresh location. Old fallows are reused after they have regenerated. While horticulture is considered essential, raising cattle is seen as more rewarding (Evans-Pritchard 1940). Homesteads, with a byre and huts, may house a simple or polygynous family. They are often grouped into hamlets, whose members are theoretically linked by agnatic kinship. Homesteads are grouped into villages, which form the smallest political unit (not defined formally by kinship) (114–15). The leopard-skin chiefs – hereditary, religiously legitimated mediators – resolve quarrels and maintain equality in the society (Evens 1984; Haight 1972). When there are blood feuds, the leopard-skin chief provides sanctuary to the perpetrator, thus establishing the first step towards reconciliation (Evens 1978, 102). Leopard-Skin Chiefs have access to political power in two ways. First, in those areas where members of the Leopard-Skin lineage are not members of the dominant lineage, the opportunity to function as mediator (institutionalized in Leopard-Skin Chiefship) was a function of access to religious forces as well as possession of a valued personality and skill in mediation. Second, in those areas where members of the Leopard-Skin lineage were also members

114

Rethinking Social Evolution

of the dominant lineage, and in those situations where a Leopard-Skin Chief was also a senior kinsman, a Leopard-Skin Chief could lead a secular coalition in the settlement of a dispute. (Haight 1972, 1315–16)

Except in those cases where the leopard-skin chief was also part of the dominant lineage, his structural significance in Nuer society was as an intermediary between opposing parties in a dispute (Evens 1978, 104): “Rather than attempting to build an authority structure of which he was the leader, he functioned to lessen the need for any permanent authority through successfully mediating disputes and thus ensuring the maintenance of the essentially acephalous Nuer society, with its continuing need for mediators” (Haight 1972, 1316–17). Hence, the leopard-skin chief, who is not a chief in the usual sense of the term but, rather, a “ritual functionary” (Evens 1978, 110), plays a crucial but limited role: he helps to resolve disputes in a peaceful manner. In a sense, the leopard-skin chief arises as a solution to the problems created by a segmentary system. Evans-Pritchard (1940, 149) suggests “that Nuer political groups be defined, in terms of values, by the relations between their segments and their interrelations as segments of a larger system in an organization of society in certain social situations, and not as parts of a kind of fixed framework within which people live.” The combination of alliances and oppositions creates a conceptual system in which small segments, who may quarrel on occasion, are, in other circumstances, allied into a larger segment against another grouping. Nuer social organization has other components. Some clans are dominant in specific tribes, and we can describe them as aristocrats (dil, plural: diel). These clans are not localized: “Not every member of a Nuer clan lives in the tribe where it has superior status, for most clans are found in all parts of Nuerland” ( Evans-Pritchard 1940, 213). A clan is “not numerically preponderant in the tribe where it is dominant … A man is a dil, aristocrat, only in the one tribe where his clan has superior status” (214). It is difficult to find an English word that adequately describes the social position of diel in a tribe. We have called them aristocrats, but do not wish to imply that Nuer regard them as of superior rank, for, as we have emphatically declared, the idea of a man lording it over others is repugnant to them. On the whole – we will qualify the statement later – the diel have prestige rather than rank and influence rather than power. If you are a dil of the tribe in

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

115

which you live you are more than a simple tribesman. You are one of the owners of the country, its village sites, its pastures, its fishing pools and wells. Other people live there in virtue of marriage into your clan, adoption into your lineage, or of some other social tie. You are a leader of the tribe and the spear-name of your clan is invoked when the tribe goes to war. Wherever there is a dil in a village, the village clusters around him as a herd of cattle clusters around its bull. (Evans-Pritchard 1940, 215)

Diel tend to split up not only because of internal dissension but also “because a man of personality likes to found his independent settlement where he will be an important person rather than remain a younger brother in a group of influential elder relatives” (EvansPritchard 1940, 216). Non-aristocrats may also gain influence (217), but diel are more likely to do so: “It is the ambition of every man, of the dominant clan especially, to become a ‘bull’ and the centre of a cluster of kin, and Nuer say that it is for this reason among others that families often break up and cousins and brothers part, each to seek to gather his own community around him” (Evans-Pritchard 1951, 28 [emphasis added], cited in Holy 1979a, 30). This shows the tension between hierarchy and equality. Aristocrats seek a dominant position, but they do not accept hierarchy among themselves, thus fostering dispersal. The tribal aristocrats are driven into this competition with one another because the success of their political strategy depends on gaining the support of a sufficient number of their mutual cognates and affines … Thus the tribal aristocrats compete with one another, not so much for access to, or control of, natural resources, as for the control of their cognates or affines whom they see as potential followers. As a result of their strategically exploiting the agnatic lineage ideology for the purpose of their political advancement, the ties of close agnatic kinship are less significant for the tribal aristocrats as a basis for their residential affiliation and their day-to-day obligations and loyalties than are the ties of cognatic kinship and affinity. (Holy 1979a, 32)

While communities are theoretically agnatic because patrilocal residence is the ideal, there are exceptions: some leaders “achieve their social prominence partly by giving away cattle to poorer kith or kin or by foregoing their rights over part (or all) of their daughters’ bridewealth in return for the sons-in-law’s political allegiance” (Verdon 1982, 568). Aristocratic status, in principle transmitted agnatically, can be acquired

116

Rethinking Social Evolution

by the sons of outsiders who marry into a dominant lineage. Furthermore, a relationship with the supernatural can be a factor in gaining a leadership position (Holy 1979a, 45). In these cases, the principle of hierarchy is subverted by competition.7 Nuer gender roles are contrasted to one another. Cattle are owned by families and, while the male household head has rights of disposal over the herd, his wives have rights of use over the cows and his sons own some oxen (Evans-Pritchard 1940, 17): “Women and children have always a position inferior to that of men.” While relations between genders are more “equitable” than they are elsewhere in the southern Sudan, women are “subject to men: daughters to their fathers and wives to their husbands” (178). There is a strict division of labour: “Men are forbidden to milk cows unless, as on journeys or war expeditions, there are no women or boys present” (22). Polygyny is allowed; marriages are usually virilocal and young men receive cattle from their father to pay the bridewealth. “Conjugal separation is rife among the Nuer because Nuer women have a strong bargaining power”: they have a monopoly over milking cows and they have access to the abundant land, which is owned privately or corporately (Verdon 1982, 574). Although “the idea of a man lording it over others is repugnant” to the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard 1940, 215), the egalitarianism and acephalousness of the Nuer has been overemphasized. Some lineages are predominant by virtue of being the owners of the country. The leopard-skin chief may not be a chief in our sense of the term, but he certainly stands out in Nuer society. Competition is a reason for some people to leave their lineage, and this, in turn, underlines the importance of social groupings in organizing social relations. Women and children are in a position of dependence. Young men are dependent on older men for access to wives, either through their fathers (who provide bridewealth) or through their fathers-in-law (who may waive the bridewealth in order to increase the size of their group). However, the ease with which women can separate from their husbands limits gender inequality. Nuer society is buttressed by the ideology of the segmentary lineage system, in which individuals gain social existence through membership in a lineage. This is the crux of the segmentary lineage system. Sahlins (1961) has argued that the segmentary lineage system occurs in “tribal” societies8 intruding into an already occupied habitat. For him, it is a device for predatory expansion: when the expansion is complete, the system dissolves. “On closer inspection,

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

117

however, it appears that the assumption that the segmentary lineage structure is a representation of empirically observable social processes is not that well founded” (Holy 1979b, 2). For instance, the Tiv adjust their genealogies to fit political reality, hence “the hostilities and alliances among existing groups are not organized only in accordance with their relations within the segmentary structure” (3). While segmentary opposition does not have the specific form that Sahlins attributes to it, the notion remains important at the ideological level in order to explain the workings of conflicting principles. Differences of interest create conflicts. Without a strong commitment to egalitarianism, conflicts can lead to inequality, where one group dominates the other. In a unilineal society, segmentary opposition (even if it does not closely follow genealogical principles) is a reasonable strategy for resisting and containing pressures towards inequality and differentiation. Segmentary sociability is not the starting point – that is, people do not automatically ally with each other on the basis of agnatic genealogical proximity; rather, they use kinship concepts to explain pragmatic choices. The Nuer have elaborated a streamlined political system in which mediators play a minimal leadership role. Without these mediators, who function to resolve conflict, the Nuer’s delayed-return economy could not persist. The lightness of the Nuer political system does not emerge from a simple desire to maintain equality but, rather, from the tension between equality and competition. All diel feel that they have equal rights to be leaders and, in their desire to be equally superior, they have to disperse so that each of them can be the leader of a small community. This makes it difficult for an ambitious man to become more powerful by keeping his relatives with him in order to gain a power base. By contrast, New Guinea Highlands leaders are more successful in establishing such coalitions. New Guinea Highlands Melanesia has played a significant role in the anthropological imagination. It has been a domain of large-scale economic exchanges and competitive leadership. The rich literature on the New Guinea Highlands provides food for thought about social evolution because it allows us to see how and why various alternatives have been played out. In New Guinea, men put value on equality; at the same time, some of them seek social prominence, which they can achieve through the

118

Rethinking Social Evolution

Table 4.2 Western and Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea West

East

Production

High. Social production is constant

Low (productivity is limited by warfare and the environment). Social production is episodic

Environment

Heavy non-seasonal rains, fertile swamps ideal for taro

Seasonal rainfall, high evaporation, extensive grasslands

Pigs

Large herds; no feral pigs

Small herds; feral pigs

Warfare

Restricted in favour of trade and exchange. Kinship and friendships regulate warfare. Compensation can resolve conflicts. Warfare is less corporate

Unrestricted warfare is a crucial feature of social life and the foremost way of asserting power. Sedentarization is a source of land conflicts (scarcity of trade prevents negotiated settlements). Warfare is more corporate

Local groups

Large groups in dispersed villages, based on patrilineal links, but cognatic and affinal ties are important

Small groups with patrilineal cores; sharp inter-group boundaries. Compact villages. Descent is more important. Nucleated villages

Linguistic groups

Large

Small

Social significance of marriages

Marriages give rise to wealth exchanges and extend trade relationships. Marriages establish political links between groups. There is more polygyny and large bridewealths

Marriages are locally endogamous or in-marrying women sever links with their relatives. There are small bridewealths, if any, and bride exchanges

Wealth objects

Numerous

Few

Social structure

Open

Boundary-conscious

Leadership

Big men, prominent in ceremonial exchanges, with wide networks. This may be a transformation of a system marked by stratification and hierarchy

Great men (warriors, shamans, hunters) and despots (exclusively fighters, leading followers in battle)

Intersexual relations

Complementary

Antagonistic and asymmetric, as a reaction to women’s increased productivity with the development of agriculture; in some cases, isolation of women from their natal group

Male initiations

No

Yes (to cleanse males of female influences), age grades. Young boys stay longer with their mothers

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

119

Table 4.2 (Continued)

Exchange

West

East

Exchanges are less corporate. Ceremonial exchange is a way of asserting individual prowess. Global systems linked to delayed accountable reciprocity. Moka and tee historically derived from compensation payments now disconnected from war

Exchange is more corporate with immediate accountable reciprocity. Local pig feasts

(Feil 1987, 1995; Miedema 1988)

manipulation of personal contacts. Leaders can become powerful, but the combined ideologies of equality and competition make it difficult to hold on to a leadership position. The relevant feature is not egalitarianism but competition. Competition may use the idiom of egalitarianism (“I am as good as the next person”), but the goal is to be better than others. Competition is both a levelling mechanism and a strategy leading towards differentiation and inequality. Unlike the levelling mechanisms of some hunter-gatherers, the goal of competition is not to achieve equality but, rather, prestige and advantage. Competitive equality takes two forms in the New Guinea Highlands. Feil (1987) contrasts Western and Eastern New Guinea. In the east, social groups “conceived of themselves as necessarily opposed to all others, and they responded to neighbouring groups in a similar manner: aggression was countered by aggression” (88). In the west, with its longer agricultural horizon, intergroup hostility was tempered by exchanges that provided an opportunity for another kind of competition between big men who sought to aggrandize themselves. The contrast between east and west is related to different levels of productivity (table 4.2). Feil’s comparison is both geographical and historical. Agricultural production in New Guinea was transformed by the introduction of the sweet potato, which is easier to cultivate and store than taro and is suited to more environments. Before the sweet potato, the Western New Guinea Highlands already produced taro and pig surpluses, allowing for exchange systems in which pigs helped secure political patronage, women, labour, prestige, and power, with an important ascriptive element to leadership. Taro is cultivated in humid soils, hence there was a contrast between productive

120

Rethinking Social Evolution

swamps and poor grounds. The Eastern Highlands environment was less suited to taro; there, it was only a modest adjunct to a foraging regime in which people formed non-sedentary patrilocal bands, with local endogamy supplemented by restricted exogamy (preferably through direct exchange of women): “Population densities ranged at European contact from one to six people per square kilometer … – comparable to many complex hunter-gatherer densities – while the pig population (representing surplus production) varied essentially from zero to about 8 per square kilometer” (Hayden 1995, 30). The introduction of the sweet potato allowed for the development of agriculture, while a modest surplus production of pigs made possible a rudimentary exchange system, the idea of which may have been borrowed from the Western Highlands (Feil 1987). In the Eastern Highlands, sedentarization brought about land conflicts that could no longer be solved by migration. Small local groups with patrilineal cores formed compact villages to defend themselves and look after their interests. Descent became an important principle of social aggregation because it allowed for the formation of stable groups with loyal members. Unrestricted warfare was associated with a low level of exchanges between groups. Leaders derived their position from their roles as warriors, shamans, or hunters; some of them were despots (Feil 1987, 90–8). The increase in productivity made possible by the sweet potato triggered increased warfare. Warfare remained unrestricted because leaders derived their position from participating in war rather than from preventing it. Strategic considerations favoured small nucleated villages, which prevented the development of productivity to the point where exchange systems might have been a substitute for warfare. In both the Eastern and Western Highlands, a patrilineal principle serves as a basis for social organization: “Solidifying unilineal descent group protection of property may remain a significant strategy as groups settle more permanently and build up collective rights in land or other durable goods” (Netting 1990, 53). On the other hand, while descent can be an important factor in group membership, it does not regulate the whole system: “The actions of big men influence membership and so put paid to any straightforward recruitment principles based on descent alone. This means that people do not think of descent as something in the past, by which they simply try to recruit men to local groups. Descent for them is a present situation, men in the same descent groups are ‘as brothers’ and they are obliged

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

121

Table 4.3 Exchange systems in the Western New Guinea Highlands Enga tee

Melpa moka

Main exchange valuable

Pigs

Pearlshells

Source

Locally produced

From far away

Production of valuable

Open to everyone

Limited to big men

This leads to

Equality

Inequality

Status of women

Valued (as pig producers)

Devalued

Durability of valuable

Short

Long

Vulnerability to inflation

Low (based on local labour)

High

Systems of exchange

Complex exchange chains

Short exchange chains

Principle of exchange

Some transactions call for increment, most transactions are equivalent

An increment is expected

Social significance

Interpersonal relations and intragroup competition stemming from equal access to the production of exchange valuables

Competitive intergroup relations headed by big men

Kinship relations between partners

Related

Often unrelated

Partners are

Allies

Can be enemies

(From Feil 1982)

to help another. This means that when people speak of a territorial group as a descent group they are using descent as an idiom to express solidarity and group cohesion in a changeable social environment” (Sillitoe 1978, 259).9 While the small villages of the Eastern Highlands maintain a high level of warfare, even against groups with whom they exchange wives, the greater prosperity of the Western Highlands makes it possible to use wealth as a substitute for warfare. The mechanism for peaceful interaction is the development of extensive exchange systems, including intermarriages between groups, in which leaders play an important role. Global ceremonial exchanges (such as the moka practised by the Melpa and the tee of the Enga), based on accountable reciprocity, became a means for leaders to assert themselves. These exchanges were originally derived from compensation payments but, in the new economy, became disconnected from war. The ceremonial exchanges characteristic of the western Highlands can take different forms (table 4.3).

122

Rethinking Social Evolution

In its essentials, the tee is an intricate economic situation involving credit, finance, and repayment, often with interest. Credit through loans in the forms of pigs and other valuables are invested with partners during an initiatory period of transacting called saandi pingi. Men must give pigs to other men to satisfy obligations, including that of friendship, and pigs that cannot be provided from a person’s own stock must be financed from other partners. These accumulated debts of saandi are then repaid during the tee pingi phase of the cycle. This is a time of great ceremony and prestige-seeking … Men whose rows of pigs are the longest are acclaimed “bigmen.” (Feil 1984, 38)

Loans are made in the expectation of a “profitable increase” in return, but an equivalent return is acceptable (Feil 1984, 39). The loans, their returns, and sometimes counter-gifts of pig meat are moments in an oscillation: each exchange creates the obligation for a similar exchange in the opposite direction (40). The motivation for pig exchanges is not strictly utilitarian because some pork sides are spoiled before the recipients can consume them (50). Exchange has taken on a life of its own, distinct from its initial purpose, which was to allow access to useful items produced by others. In this case, the exchange itself is the goal: it establishes or reinforces a social relation. This explains why, as a pig passes from hand to hand, at least some intermediaries keep an interest in it until it is killed or dies (48). While tee exchanges take place between two individuals, they are organized at a collective level. In peripheral areas, there are a number of ad hoc exchanges; in central areas, there is greater coordination (1984, 64). The Melpa moka, while similar in many ways to the tee, leads to different outcomes. While some tee exchanges call for an increment, most of their transactions are quid pro quo (Feil 1982, 298); the moka always requires an increment. The tee is open to everyone because pigs are produced locally. While it allows for competition, it leads to equality between participants. On the other hand, pearlshells are the main moka valuable, and big men have privileged access to these exotic items. This intensifies an inegalitarian competition between big men, while marginalizing ordinary men. In the tee, exchange partners are relatives and allies. As a tool of personal aggrandizement, the moka is freed from equalizing strategies, and Melpa partners are often unrelated – sometimes enemies. “Leaders of the moka community also worked to suppress warfare in order to enlarge the community they controlled and in which they could extract dependents” (Feil 1987, 118).

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

123

The durability of pearlshells is the main reason for adopting them as a medium of exchange. Pearlshells can be stored until needed, and they can be inherited. Because they are exotic commodities, big men find it easier to gain a monopoly over them – something they could not achieve with pigs. The shift from pigs to pearlshells occurred because it served the interests of the leaders; at the same time, it acted to the disadvantage of other society members, particularly women (by making them more marginal yet continuing to ensure that leaders still benefited from their labour). Although pigs are no longer the medium of ceremonial exchanges, they remain useful as a means of acquiring the necessary pearlshells. In recent years, an increasing number of pearlshells has been brought into the area, and the unintended consequence of this has been inflation. By contrast, the tee is protected from inflation: given agricultural and ecological parameters, the number of pigs is a function of the labour used to produce them. By contrast to the Enga and Melpa, the Maring give more importance to trade than to ceremonial exchanges. Table 4.4 compares these three societies. Ceremonial exchanges are an elaboration of trade relations, whereby “what was primarily a system for the distribution of goods was transformed into a system overtly concerned with the distribution and assessment of political power” (Healey 1978, 205), in particular with regard to the tee. In areas where enemy incursions are likely, big men appropriate trading relations in order to forge alliances and to enhance individual and group prestige. Among the Maring, there would be no advantage to ceremonial exchanges because, by contrast to the Melpa and Mae Enga, Maring homesteads are concentrated “and would seem to offer little incentive to extend military alliances beyond the existing network of affinal relations. These relations, consolidated by unelaborated ceremonial exchanges, are sufficient to provide a population with enough allies to withstand most attacks” (205). This comparison shows that ceremonial exchange systems are going to occur only when ambitious people are able to offer themselves as go-betweens with other groups. They can then harness the labour of relatives under the guise of providing a service to the community, while at the same time managing to increase their prestige. To put it another way, ceremonial exchange systems do play a role in reducing and managing violent conflicts between communities, but they also become tools for political aggrandizement and competition between leaders.

124

Rethinking Social Evolution

Table 4.4 Exchanges among the Mae Enga, Melpa, and Maring Mae Enga

Melpa

Maring

Elaborate ceremonial exchanges

+

(+)

–

Big men are prominent in ceremonial exchanges

+

+

–

Big men are wealthy

+

+

–

Territorial expansion through war is common

+

(+)

–

High population density

+

(+)

–

Emphasis on trade

–

(+)

+

(Healey 1978, 202)

The Mae Enga, Melpa, and Maring use their prosperity to manage intercommunity relationships through ritual and non-ritual exchanges, while Eastern Highland groups, lacking the economic means to manage such exchanges, engage in unrestricted warfare. However, prosperity does not inescapably reduce warfare. The Dani have chosen an alternative approach. They live in the Indonesian part of New Guinea, in and around the Grand Valley of the Baliem River. They form stable communities whose boundaries are maintained by the need for security. The Grand Valley Dani have the highest population density of all Highland groups (Sillitoe 1977, 72). Local-level patrilineages are the building blocks of patrilineage combinations, the main socio-political Dani groups. According to Peters (1975, 51), “Various patrilineages of a clan [maximal lineage] combine with patrilineages of various other clans” to become allies in warfare. War is considered to be a necessity of life, without which there can be no productivity or health (76). According to Heider (1970, 100), “Among the sources of conflict, pigs and women are primary, and land rights run a poor third.” Within an alliance, “each patrilineal combination or group of combinations has its own primary enemy” (Peters 1975, 78). Patrilineage combinations are enduring social groups; they are the building blocks of unstable alliances. These confederacies include 600 to 8,000 people who are culturally and linguistically heterogeneous. The alliance is a territorial grouping surrounded by a noman’s land: “[It] is the maximal unit within which ceremonial, political, and social activity takes place … Fighting between alliances is war and has ritual implications lacking in any fighting within the alliance” (Heider 1970, 77–8). Warfare is the main business of an alliance. Membership in alliances is made evident in big pig feasts, which are

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

125

held every few years and in which all component groups participate. During the feasts, war activities stop, and all parties accept a truce (Peters 1975, 108). These feasts are “the culminating point in the socio-religious life of the Dani” (156). The feast is an occasion to feed ancestors, to perform initiations and weddings, and to reward expressions of sympathy at the occasion of deaths. There is also a ceremony for members of the war confederacy who have been killed since the last pig feast (122–39). The Dani had the means to reduce warfare by developing ceremonial exchange systems, but they did not do so. Frequent warfare and warfare-reducing exchange systems are both valid ways of furthering political ambitions, and it is easy to understand that both the Dani and the people of the Western Highlands might have chosen one or the other. However, once a particular strategy is well established, it becomes costly to reverse direction and try the alternative (although that possibility always remains). This is another example of the notion of fitness landscape (p. 25). So far, the discussion of Highlands societies has focused on men as leaders, warriors, and participants in ceremonial exchanges, but it is impossible to understand the system without a consideration of women’s contributions. Among all Highland societies, women play an important economic role as producers; men’s attempts to control women are motivated by a desire to appropriate the product of their labour: “In the final analysis it is the structural practices of exogamy, patrilineality and virilocal residence, made possible by malecontrolled bridewealth, which together construct the conditions for male appropriation of the surplus. Bridewealth separates a woman from her kin through patrivirilocal marriage, thus permitting the coresidence of patrilineally related men” (Modjeska 1982, 59–60). Women’s subordination is ideologically justified because “women are considered incapable of clearing gardens, building houses, killing pigs, and making fire. Nor can they defend themselves in warfare or enter into relations with the supernatural” (Modjeska 1982, 62). As in lowland South America, women’s work is devalued by defining it as subsequent to men’s work: men produce garden plots, which are the precondition for women’s productive activities (69). Men’s control over women’s labour makes polygyny a profitable strategy, while women’s position is affected by the varying relevance of their productive contribution to ceremonial exchanges. Enga women are valued as pig producers, but Melpa women are devalued because they

126

Rethinking Social Evolution

are not directly associated with pearlshells, which are “produced” by interaction between men: big men receive them from partners in other groups. Ordinary Enga men are dependent upon big men to obtain them (e.g., for marriage payments) (Feil 1982). Senior men control some of the labour of all household members, not only that of women. Members of aspiring big men’s households work harder than others because the extra labour is necessary in order to acquire power (Pospisil 1963). In areas of high productivity, the best strategy for an ambitious man is to increase the number of female workers he controls (through polygyny or otherwise). In areas of low productivity, this strategy will not work because men perform a higher proportion of the work than they do in highly productive areas, where labour-intensive methods can be conducted by women (Modjeska 1982, 74). The appropriation of women’s labour by men is also facilitated by separating exchange-value from use-value. With pigs, “women are granted equal rights in consumption, but their rights in determining circulation are flatly denied” (82): if her husband gives away a pig she has raised, then the woman partakes in eating it. While some women need to be coerced into marrying a polygynous man, women are usually willing to do so because his polygynous status gives him prestige (Peters 1975, 24). In areas of lower productivity, the subjugation of women becomes more marked (Feil 1987, 231). This is true not only in the Eastern Highlands but also among the Western Dani, who have a less productive economy than do the Grand Valley Dani. In the Eastern Highlands, women’s subjugation is exacerbated by their isolation from their natal villages. Another important factor in gender relationships is the significance of marriages. In high-productivity areas, marriages give rise to wealth exchanges and help to extend trade relationships. While this produces more polygyny and increases the value of bridewealth, it also makes women more valuable. In the Eastern Highlands, either marriages are locally endogamous or women sever links with their relatives. Marriages are not used to establish social networks, and bride-prices are low or non-existent. To summarize: women’s subordination appears as a primary fact of society in central New Guinea and encompasses not only their productive activities and child-rearing but their very being as sexual persons. In the African cases women enjoy a larger degree of jural equality. Their actual inequality appears almost as a by-product of the control of bridewealth by the elders. The

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

127

control of bridewealth is crucial to the subordination of junior males and constitutes the primary jural cleavage in production between elders and juniors. In central New Guinea women have neither factual nor jural equality and the primary social distinction in the production process concerns the sexes rather than elder and junior male. Among men, the subordination of juniors to seniors and of lesser men to big-men has a less certain institutional base. (Modjeska 1982m 68)

We can now turn to the notion of the big man, which has become coterminous with a certain understanding of the New Guinea Highlands. In particular, Sahlins’s (1963) paper, “Poor Man, Rich man, Big man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia,” has had a major effect on anthropological thinking. Sahlins argues that New Guinea leaders are big men, that is, ambitious individuals who must cultivate followers in order to obtain resources from them. These resources are then used to gain further prestige. Big men eventually lose their power and are replaced by other claimants. In consequence, the polities of New Guinea are small. By contrast, Sahlins argues, the leaders of Polynesia are hereditary chiefs who derive their legitimacy from their pedigree. They are able to control large polities. While big men are undoubtedly present in New Guinea and hereditary chiefs in Polynesia, the contrast between big man and chief is forced, and it does not adequately describe the diversity of political forms. In particular, the New Guinea Highlands are not characterized by one form of leadership; the importance given to the big man in the anthropological literature is an artefact of observation. As Keesing (1985, 237) points out, “One of the unfortunate distortions created by the elevation of the Big Man as anthropology’s stereotyped Melanesian political leader has been a deflection of attention from warrior-leaders, who in many parts of precolonial Melanesia had power and prestige greater than or coordinate with that of entrepreneurial leaders. Big Men have held center stage in the period of ethnographic observation partly because men whose prominence was achieved in warfare and feuding have been forcibly removed from the stage by pacification.” To account for the variability in Melanesian leadership, Godelier (1982) formulates the ideal types of “great man” and “big man,” to which Feil, following Salisbury (1964), adds “despot.” In great-man societies, “Different men, with separate, complementary functions, lead in specific spheres of life” (Feil 1987, 101): great warriors, shamans, and hunters are not ranked in relation to each other. Great-men societies are

128

Rethinking Social Evolution

small scale and entail restricted exchanges and direct exchange of women between men close to each other. Great men have no privileged role in intergroup affairs (102). By contrast with great men, despots and big men are overall leaders. As Feil (1987, 104) points out, “Despotism as a form of leadership is the result of, and incontestably linked with, an emphasis on aggression in societies that had not yet ‘substituted’ other methods of social control, integration and achievement in the realm of leadership.” Despots gain power because they organize warfare among neighbouring groups; they also resort to violence within their own group to keep their followers in check. Despite, and because of, their violence, they often manage to remain powerful for about twenty years (108). As Salisbury (1964, 228) puts it: “Although ‘public opinion’ did temper indigenous despotism, sufficient leeway existed for leaders to be extremely arbitrary and dominant in their relations with nominal supporters. Arbitrariness was not merely passively accepted but was connived in by supporters, provided that it meant material profits from thefts or other aggression against both group members and outsiders. Only rarely did people feel it was worth trying to oppose a despot; when it was possible to do so – and in most New Guinea societies there is sufficient flexibility to permit this – people preferred to join a despot.” While big men are only one form of leadership in New Guinea, we need to understand their significance. Big-men societies exemplify an innovation in leadership. While retaliation in kind is the inescapable strategy for avenging a death in great-men and despotic societies, homicide compensations are an alternative in big-men societies. The principle of exchanging goods for people also applies to marriages, which are managed by bridewealth payments. Consequently, leaders gain power through wealth accumulation. A workforce of pig producers is a prerequisite; it includes wives, children, and indebted followers. Women and boys have the primary responsibility of caring for pigs, and women also produce other exchange goods (e.g., salt, furs, exchange stones, and nets). Control over a workforce frees ambitious men from productive activities and gives them time for decision making and prestige acquisition. The goal is not to be rich but, rather, to distribute wealth for political advantage. Ceremonial exchanges maintain relationships between big men of different groups; these exchanges help develop larger polities. This more complex strategy can be effective only if the leaders of potentially hostile groups recognize their common interest in maintaining peace in order to preserve their

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

129

position. Ceremonial exchanges, which create a reason to meet within a structured setting, are a powerful tool for maintaining an informal network of leaders. Highlands leadership is not “egalitarian,” nor is it within the reach of all men: “Three fifths of the Melpa big men studied by Strathern (three quarters of the major big men) were sons and often grandsons of big men” (Douglas 1979, 9). In the Western Highlands in particular, there was a hereditary element to leadership. Among the Melpa, this may have led to hereditary stratification. According to Feil (1982, 299): Men of the top class are those of chiefly blood, according to Gitlow (1947), numbering about 100 men in a tribe of 1,700 men (less than 6 percent). These men alone participate in moka exchanges, according to all accounts, and they alone possess and control its magic (Allen 1967: 41–2). These rulers are polygynists and support members of the lower classes. Next, there is a sort of “middle class” (perhaps about 80 percent of the population; see Gitlow 1947: 35), “freemen” who have land rights and some independence from the chiefly class. Below freemen are at least two other classes of “rubbish-men” and “serfs,” perhaps 14 percent of the population (35), who are totally dependent on the upper class for their needs. They support the chieftains, work for them, and are in all ways their minions. Vicedom called them “slaves.” They own no land or other property and live in rough shelters.

Andrew Strathern (1987), who has done extensive fieldwork among the Melpa, disagrees with Vicedom’s (Vicedom and Tischner 1943) and Gitlow’s description. It is difficult to disentangle historical changes – especially after the Second World War – from ideological presuppositions. While the emergence of hereditary stratification among the Melpa would not be surprising (p. 203), Hermann Strauss (Strauss and Tischner 1962), another missionary-anthropologist among the Melpa who was with them during the same period as was Vicedom, does not support the latter’s description of Melpa hereditary stratification (Strathern 1987, 250–5). Nonetheless, some Highland societies may have been on the threshold of a societal change. In any case, even when heredity is not openly recognized as a factor in leadership, sons of big men have an advantage in establishing themselves because their father can help them obtain wives. This is a good investment for the father: in doing so, he not only increases the workforce of his domestic unit but also, by helping his sons, maintains them as dependants (Heider 1970, 93–4).

130

Rethinking Social Evolution

A comparison of Highland New Guinea societies shows that their emergent properties have produced several alternatives (figure 4.1). Early New Guinea Highland societies were hunter-gatherers with patrilocal bands who exchanged women in the same way as did Australian Aborigines. The patrilineal principle was strengthened when they became agriculturalists. Warfare is an emergent property of agriculture: if there is a sufficient population density, then war becomes almost inescapable unless procedures are developed to reduce its incidence. Peace among agriculturalists can be the result of three factors: (1) the existence of low population density and plentiful resources, which reduces the likelihood of hostilities; (2) the position of leaders is enhanced if they persist in peaceful alternatives; (3) recently sedentarized groups (or agriculturalists recently exposed to pressure on resources) adopt from neighbouring groups existing procedures for conflict resolution. Compared to hunting and gathering, agriculture is further from equilibrium because it is designed to modify the environment and requires continued, purposeful activity in order to persist. The extent to which an agricultural system can import and transform energy from the environment into increasingly complex structures depends on energy availability, as is demonstrated by the contrast between the Western and Eastern Highlands. Complexification has proceeded further in the richer environment of the Western Highlands than in the Eastern Highlands. The introduction of the sweet potato has increased production in the whole region, allowing for complexification in all cases. These evolutionary transformations lead to the exploration of available alternatives until limiting factors slow them down. Hostility between groups became a fixed strategy in the Eastern Highlands and led to a stable system of continued hostility, with leadership coming about through success in war. Hostility between groups is selfsustaining because it cuts off possible avenues of peaceful contact: even when there are marriages between groups, women lose contact with their natal groups. A strategy of hostility and limited exchanges can be carried out in great-men societies, where leadership is fragmented, limiting the ability to achieve peace, and in despotic societies, where despots derive their position from their involvement in warfare and have no incentive to seek peace. More productive environments allow some men to appropriate part of the production in order to enhance their position through exchanges. A side effect of

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

131

this strategy is the opening of lines of communication with other groups. This can provide alternatives to war. The need to control valuables encourages big men to increase the size of their dependent workforce, in part through polygyny. The link between wealth and marriage increases a leader’s access to labour in two ways: directly through polygyny and indirectly through providing dependent males with the valuables they require for their own bridewealths. This new system is far from equilibrium, and a variety of transformations become possible. If leaders are successful in reducing warfare, then there is a greater likelihood of individual tenure replacing communal tenure of agricultural land. The crucial factor here is the presence or absence of war, not prosperity per se. If warfare is endemic, then strategic considerations play a more important role than does individual self-interest, and this limits the development of individual tenure. In this respect, the Grand Valley Dani occupy an intermediate position: warfare is at the centre of social life. However, unlike the Eastern Highlands model, it takes place within a highly productive economy, where large alliances go a long way towards protecting land tenure. Consequently, Dani leaders control unused land but not land tilled previously by their followers. Warfare may be more prevalent here than in the Western Highlands because Grand Valley Dani prosperity is more recent, following the introduction of the sweet potato and the increase in pig populations, while high productivity has greater antiquity in the Western Highlands. The increasing significance of heredity as a criterion for leadership is an emergent feature of Western Highland systems: while war continues to play a significant role in making and maintaining leaders, this happens within a context in which control of valuables is essential to maintaining exchange networks. Leaders gain their position through the work of their followers, who must be kept happy, especially their close relatives, who form the core of their power. By helping their sons, big men strengthen their own position, in the process creating the basis for their sons’ prominence within society. This can take place without any hereditary principle, but the practice of fatherson transmission can be a precursor to its formalization into a rule. A hereditary principle may have emerged among the Melpa, but it is certainly not a dominant model in the Highlands. Competition is too ingrained in New Guinea Highland societies to allow for the full development of hereditary principles.

Figure 4.1 Evolution of the New Guinea Highlands

Initial stage

A Non-sedentary patrilocal bands with direct exchange of women. Women play an important role in production

Hunting-gathering with some taro cultivation

A- Eastern Highlands

Severe subordination of women

Less fertile environment limits productivity and population density Limited productivity Moderate development of agriculture and sedentarisation with the introduction of the sweet potato Alternative trajectories Causal link

Unrestricted warfare in the absence of surplus to negotiate settlements

Endogamous marriages or women separated from natal groups

Small compact groups with patrilineal core

Leaders are war leaders or great men

B

B- Western Highlands and Grand Valley Fertile environment

High productivity

Early development of agriculture with surplus

Large groups

Lesser subordination of women

Leaders gain and maintain their position by their role in exchange

Large herds of pigs used in exchanges

Exchanges and compensation payments between groups limit warfare, encourage intertribal marriages

Women can be exchanged for pigs

Consanguineal and affinal links become important alongside patrilineal links

Polygyny

Genders are complementary

The introduction of the sweet potato brings about an increase in overproduction as higher ground is cultivated. Exchanges increase the above processes

To counteract the easier access to leadership because of productivity, some leaders start exchanging a rarer commodity, pearlshells

Warfare remains the main avenue towards leadership and is central to gender differentiation

Wealth is used for rituals oriented towards war Internal violence and warfare maintain gender inequality, but less than in the Eastern Highlands

134

Rethinking Social Evolution

Competition is the motor of further transformations. If the goal is to achieve prominence over other men, then it may be worthwhile to change the rules of the game in order to reduce competition. This is of course the point of hereditary stratification, but if this is difficult to achieve, there are alternatives. The Melpa moka is an example of such a change. The basic valuable ceases to be pigs, which everyone can produce, and becomes exotic pearlshells, which can be controlled by a few people. This strategy counteracts a potential side effect of greater productivity – allowing more men to compete. The Dani preference for warfare over big-man exchanges may be another such strategy: this is a prosperous area where many people could hope to achieve prominence through wealth exchange. If war is a central feature of society, this narrows down the alternatives. It is strategically necessary for individuals to be part of a strong group; only a few people can become war leaders; and they, in turn, are subordinate to the alliance leader. The two strategies are not equivalent. By favouring negotiated arrangements, the Melpa and Enga systems give more stability to leaders than does the Dani system, which, by contrast, ensures that Dani alliance leaders are intrinsically in an unstable position, as their power is dependent on the vagaries of war. This may explain an unusual feature: the Dani and their neighbours to the west are apparently the only people in the entire New Guinea Highlands with a moiety organisation (Heider 1970, 62–3). Dani moieties may be an emergent property of warfare and large polities. Warfare encourages collective action. As people come in contact with larger numbers of people, moieties become a means of claiming assistance from relative strangers. It has been suggested that “The Dani of the Baliem valley may be looked upon as representing the apogee of both agricultural intensification (Brookfield and Hart 1971, 114) and political integration (Ploeg 1988, 520) in the New Guinea Highlands overall” (Golson and Gardner 1990, 409). While the Grand Valley Dani show greater complexification than do most other New Guinea highland societies, they are the apogee of only one trajectory. The Melpa are the end product of yet another trajectory. The transformations of New Guinea societies can be understood as the interaction of two deviation-amplifying mechanisms. A growing population compensates for declining wild food resources by increasing garden and pig production. The greater potential for social conflict due to population growth is controlled by using pigs as compensation for the loss of human life. The use of pigs as blood payments encourages

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

135

further increases in production and exchange. This gives rise to big men and regionally integrated exchanges. This in turn can induce further population growth and competition (Modjeska 1982, 54–6). If we follow the logic of this model, we can expect a greater prominence of patrilineal, exogamic lineages and increased women’s inequality “as changes in technology shift onto them an increasing part of direct productive labour and as separation from their natal lineage and from rights in their children become more absolute” (107). We can also expect more inequality among men as increasingly complex financial manipulation broadens the gap between those who have political-economic leverage and those who do not. While some of these developments indeed take place, Modjeska identifies countervailing tendencies. The intensification of exchanges in high-production New Guinea Highland societies such as the Enga and Melpa “is accompanied by an emphasis upon affinal relationships in exchange partnerships”; these long-term relationships are to women’s advantage. Finally, this deviation-amplifying mechanism has limits: “inequality among men must be contained at some level and cannot be expanded without limit, lest breakdowns in male solidarity should threaten the lineage’s security vis-à-vis other lineages and undermine as well the collective exploitation of women” (108). Competitive equality can take various forms. Competition is high in the New Guinea Highlands, while among the Nuer a form of hereditary stratification limits competitive equality to a minority. Gender differentiation is most marked in the New Guinea Highlands, where men’s partial control over women’s labour is an important element of the system. The New Guinea Highlands system is based on an ultimately fragile edifice of constant negotiations, alliances, gifts, and counter-gifts. The Nuer system is based on predatory expansion, with the absorption of conquered groups. It should now be evident that “competitive equality” is a misnomer. We are dealing here with competitive autonomy, which applies only to adult men; it results in reduced individual autonomy: powerful men gain control over men and women who, in various ways, are followers and dependants. At the same time, autonomy is limited by the need for coalitions between powerful or ambitious men.

p e a c e f u l n e s s , c o m p e t i t i o n , a n d wa r Several themes emerge from the previous ethnographic examples. Delayed-return societies may be either more peaceful or more warlike;

136

Rethinking Social Evolution

gender and age roles are elaborated in several ways; and domestic units are the locus of social experiments. Both peace and war require explanation. Many hunter-gatherers are peaceful by default: population dispersal, weak leadership, and the ability to move away from conflict reduce opportunities for warfare and violence remains at an individual level. As Knauft (1991b, 391) points out, Rather than being valued or associated with kin-group or ethnic oppositions, violence [in simple human societies] emerges sporadically among local cooperative groups, especially as a social-control mechanism or as an expression – commonly displaced – of male sexual frustration. Such incidents are relatively uncontrolled and likely to result in homicide. This pattern of violence and sociality contrasts in very broad terms with that found in more complex prestate societies. In these “middle-range” societies, … sedentism, property ownership, and male status differentiation are more developed, and conflict tends to arise from overt and chronic political status competition, both within and between groups, and from competition over access to resources. In contrast to that in simpler human groups, violence in middle-range societies tends to be valued as a dimension of masculinity, frequently takes the form of collective reciprocating conflict (i.e., warfare), and is often linked with fraternal interest groups, social boundedness, and ethnocentrism.

Before embarking on a general consideration of warfare in unstratified middle-range societies, it may be useful to consider two regions where warfare has traditionally been endemic – New Guinea and lowland South America10 – and compare them with the peaceful Senoi of the Malay Peninsula. Attempts have been made to explain war as a consequence of ecology (e.g., Rappaport [1968] and Vayda [1971]). These explanations are not supported by the evidence (e.g., Sillitoe 1978); in fact, Vayda (1989) himself has criticized his own and others’ ecological explanations of warfare. Sillitoe (1977) has addressed the relationship between land shortage and war (table 4.5). Assuming each group has equal statistical significance, table 4.5 suggests a very weak correlation between density and desire for land. Even the groups with a high density rarely used the land of the defeated group.11 In New Guinea, wars are a consequence of big men’s political intentions. “Men fight wars to win something, and one reason for their never-ending struggles in Papua New Guinea is political gain. Politics centre upon big men who struggle to maintain their

Structures of Order at the Domestic Level

137

Table 4.5 Population density and land conquest in New Guinea Population density per km2

Never fight for land

Rarely use land of defeated group

Low (