Let's say a hunter has killed a deer and arrived
in camp with a lot meat.
Try as they might, he and his family
cannot eat it all in one go.
They could preserve it for later, but then
they will have a surplus of meat,
while someone else is camp might have none,
and that someone could gain a lot
if they attacked and tried to take that surplus away.
But that sort of conflict is quite unheard-of
among nomadic hunter-gatherers.
When the hunter arrives with the meat, everyone
will immediately be there trying to get him to share.
And meat from large game is the most commonly
demanded and the most commonly shared food.
The hunter has enough to both feed his family
and to share, so he would have no immediate
gain from hoarding and defending the meat,
while sharing the surplus with others can
immediately alleviate tensions, so that's
what nomadic foragers do.
Though among the hunter-gatherers on the planet
we live on, that sharing is often not indiscriminate.
Among the Hadza, game is evenly distributed
among all the families in camp, but the hunter's
family gets up to twice as much as everyone
else.
This is the case among the Yanomami as well,
but they also have a strong kin bias in meat
distribution, with siblings, cousins and such
receiving more than others.
And the Mamainde distribute the meat equally
among the families, but they do control for
family size.
I'll go with the first way of dividing the meat
for my foragers, it's simple and not too unfair,
but some societies also have rules
on who receives what portions of meat.
Among the Gunwinggu in Northern Australia,
the head and one of the forequarters of wallabies
and kangaroos go to the hunter, the other
forequarter goes to the hunters companion
or to his brother.
While the rump and the tail go to the hunter's
mother's brother's son, or to his mother's
mother's brother's daughter's son.
It can get complicated, but having rules helps
to prevent various bickering that could arise.
And sharing in general also creates debts.
Instead of storing the meat itself, the hunter
accumulates debts which will be repaid,
and he himself also repays old debts
when he shares the meat.
And the whole network of debts ends up acting
as both a security net and a social glue that
not only connects together the members of
a single nomadic band, but also connects them
to other nomadic bands, and those debt-connections
can always be pulled on in times of need.
Out in the Kalahari, the local foragers often
make long trips across the desert to give
gifts and exchange gossip, in the knowledge
that at some point in the future their gifts
will be reciprocated.
This sort of economy tends to be called a
"gift economy," but because the participants
keep a mental ledger of debts in their heads,
calling it a "debt economy" also works.
But for hunter-gatherers this sort of arrangement
really only works with people who they see
on a frequent basis.
It would not make sense to mentally register
a person's debt if you may well never see
them again, because then they may well never
even get the chance to repay you.
And this is where barter comes in, but this
barter is often more exciting than one might
expect.
Among the Nambikwara, if one band spots the
cooking fires of another band nearby, they will
send people to negotiate a meeting for purposes
of trade.
If their offer is accepted, they first hide
their women and children in the forest,
and then invite the men of the other band
to visit their camp.
The chief of each band gives a formal speech
praising the other party and belittling his own,
and then all the men sing and dance together.
After which individuals from each band approach
each other to trade.
If a man wants an object he praises it, and
the man who own it shows his desire to get
a lot in return for it by talking about how
it's completely no good.
This argument carries on until a settlement
is reached, which is when each snatch the
object they wanted from one another.
Once all trading is over there's a big feast,
which is when the women reappear, and that
can sometimes result in the visiting men trying
to seduce their hosts' wives, which can then
end in fights or even death.
The Gunwinggu of Northern Australia solved
this whole issue by incorporating sex into
the activity of trading itself.
In a description from 1940s, a group that
had access to good European cloth invited
a group famous for their serrated spears into
their camp to trade.
In that part of Australia, Aboriginal men
and women all belong to one of the two moieties.
Nobody can marry or have sex with someone
within their moiety, but anyone in the opposite
moiety is a potential match, even if they
are married.
And so that instance of barter from 1940s
began with a group of Gunwinggu men and women
entering the camp's dancing ground.
Two men started singing, one started playing
on a didgeridoo, and then the women of opposing
moieties from the host camp presented them
with pieces of cloth, and then dragged them
down to the ground for some flirting, and
then led them away for some sexy times.
And it carried on like that with more women
presenting men with cloth, and then the men
of the host group joined in as well, presenting
women from the visiting group with cloth and
then going off for sexy times away from others.
Once the visiting group was satisfied with
all the cloth they'd acquired, the women of
the host camp all lined up.
The men of the visiting group approached them
with spears in hand and hit the women with
the flat of the blade, and then handed the
spears to them.
And the trade was complete!
The Gunwinggu way of doing things seems like
the more fun one, but instead of dividing
my imaginary foragers into two moieties,
I'll go with four sections.
Let's say you are a woman who was born into
Section B. Your husband has to be a man from
Section A, your sons and daughters are in
Section D, and their marriage partners belong
to Section C. Your grandchildren are in Section
B, same as you, and your grand-grandchildren
will be in Section D, same as your children,
and so forth unto infinity.
My hunter gatherers are not territorial up
in the mountains, which means that they will
travel far and wide, and sometimes run into
complete strangers.
But as long as those strangers know each other's
Section and age, they can group one another
with their family members, and treat them
as they would treat those family members.
And this can apply to interactions with foreigners
as well, where a culturally savvy trader can
claim membership of any of the four Sections,
depending on what sort of interaction she
wants to have.
But in addition to the four sections, there's
also the division along the lines of gender,
which will be the topic of the next episode,
so join me there!
