Egalitarianism among Hunters and Gatherers

Author(s): Elizabeth A. Cashdan

Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 82, No. 1 (Mar., 1980), pp. 116-120
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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 REPORTS AND COMMENTS
Egalitarianism Among Hunters
and Gatherers
ELIZABETH A. CASHDAN
Population Studies Center
University of Michigan
The literature of anthropology is rich in
theories and discussions on the causes of stratifi-
cation, while egalitarianism has largely been
considered to be simply the baseline upon which
stratification develops. Material from !Kung
ethnographers, however, indicates that the
egalitarianism found among most Bushman
groups is a phenomenon resulting from strin-
gent constraints, not simply a natural condition
that represents the absence of stratification.
These constraints arise from high spatial and
temporal variability in food supply, together
with a paucity of means to buffer this variabili-
ty. The //Gana Bushmen of the northeastern
Kalahari, on the other hand, have ways of buf-
fering environmental variability that are not
available to most other Bushman groups, and it
appears that these buffers allow a relaxing of
the constraints that make strict egalitarianism a
necessity. Among the //Gana one sees a greater
tolerance for individual accumulation, and
greater (although uninstitutionalized) economic
and political inequality. The following discus-
sion considers the implications of those environ-
mental buffers on the question of egalitarian-
ism, using data collected by the author in 1976
and 1977.
Bushman Egalitarianism
One obvious reason for the economic egalitar-
ianism prevalent among hunter-gatherers in
general and Bushman groups in particular is
that the mobility associated with hunting and
gathering hinders the accumulation of proper-
ty; material goods cannot readily be carried
from camp to camp, and without a home base,
any substantial accumulation of property is pre-
vented. If that were the sole cause of Bushman
egalitarianism, however, an "equality" based on
lack of material goods would arise automatically
116
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from the conditions of hunting and gathering,
and no social sanctions to reinforce sharing and
egalitarianism would be needed. Bushman
groups, however, are in fact typified by strong
and continual socialization against hoarding
(i.e., toward economic equality) and against
displays of arrogance and authority (i.e., to-
ward social and political equality). This has
been discussed most fully for the !Kung; Lee
(1969) has eloquently described how his at-
tempts to provide a large ox for a Christmas
feast were met with scorn by the !Kung recip-
ients, the scorn succeeding as a mechanism that
prevents any tendency on the part of a good
hunter or provider to become arrogant and
think of himself as a "big man." The proper
behavior of a !Kung hunter who has made a big
kill is to speak of it in passing and in a
deprecating manner (Lee 1969; Draper 1978); if
an individual does not minimize or speak lightly
of his own accomplishments, his friends and
relatives will not hesitate to do it for him. The
social pressure toward economic equality and
sharing is equally strong. Both food and ma-
terial goods are continually shared and circu-
lated (Marshall 1961; Draper 1978; Wiessner
1977), and if a person is not generous, the
norms of sharing are "reinforced" by continual
badgering and dunning for gifts (Draper 1978).
Draper (1978) and Wiessner (1977) argue that
the emphasis on sharing and recirculation is a
kind of "insurance" against local scarcity and en-
vironmental variability among a people who have
no other means of buffering the variability.
Speaking of the !Kung, Draper says that because
their "mobility renders food storage virtually im-
possible, the !Kung have no insurance against
hard times . . . For the !Kung . . the stored
surplus is the group and the more distant groups
scattered in the bush, with the social and eco-
nomic insurance which they provide" (1978:40).
She argues that "under these circumstances, one
would expect to find cultural values . . . in favor
of regular sharing of temporary windfalls"
(1978:40). Wiessner (1977) argues similarly that
the !Kung have no means of coping with envi-
ronmental variability other than a strategy of
"pooling risk." In Wiessner's discussion this
 REPORTS AND COMMENTS
takes the form of a "storage of social obliga-
tions" through the delayed reciprocity of hxaro
exchange, but it applies also to all the mecha-
nisms for economic leveling among the !Kung.
Because an individual shares what he has when
someone is in need, without regard to the direct
equality of balanced reciprocity, such a strategy
protects the !Kung from an uncertain but devas-
tating loss by substituting a certain but small
loss (Wiessner 1977). Mechanisms for leveling
wealth (which include the pervasive socializa-
tion against the individual accumulation of
property) are therefore a kind of social insur-
ance that protects the !Kung from the extreme
variability of their Kalahari environment.
/,'/Gana Subsistence and Economic Buffers
The relationship between egalitarianism and
lack of economic buffers among the !Kung ap-
pears to be typical of most Bushman groups,
but the //Gana are an interesting exception-
an exception that in fact "proves the rule." The
//Gana are a population of about 800 in-
dividuals who live in the northern and eastern
parts of Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Re-
serve. Their territory overlaps with that of the
G/wi, to the southwest, but the //Gana de-
scribed here comprise 209 individuals who live
in the northeastern parts of the region. The
//Gana, like the G/wi, must cope with an en-
vironment characterized by low and extremely
variable rainfall, and by an absence of perma-
nent standing water (see Silberbauer 1965,
1972; Tanaka 1969, 1976). Unlike the G/wi,
however, the //Gana supplement their basic
hunting-and-gathering subsistence strategy with
a small amount of food production as a measure
of protection against environmental variability
that is unavailable to other Bushman groups.
Together with beans and some maize, the
//Gana cultivate a type of domesticated tsama
melon called marotsi, which is valued for its
water storage capacity. Because water does not
last in the pans of this region for longer than one
or two weeks after a heavy rain, cultivation of a
naturally storable form of moisture (the marotsi
melons) is a buffer against local variability in
water and is important also in that it permits the
//Gana a degree of sedentism unavailable to the
G/wi. Unlike the G/wi, who must move from
pan to pan in search of water even during the
rainy season, the cultivated marotsi melons pro-
vide the //Gana with moisture between showers
when the nearby pans become dry and help
them to remain virtually sedentary throughout
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117
the rainy season. If the crop has been a good
one, the marotsi provides additional moisture
for a few months into the dry season as well.
The resulting sedentism is particularly impor-
tant in that it makes it feasible for the //Gana
to have a permanent home-base settlement at
the field location. The //Gana spend about half
the year at wild-melon locations, where they
subsist chiefly on game and bush foods, but they
use their home base as a storage site throughout
the year for both bush foods (in particular dry
game meat and dry berries) and cultivated
crops (beans, marotsi, and maize). The practice
of storing meat is particularly striking in view of
its absence in other Bushman groups, where the
rules of meat distribution ensure that all meat
gets distributed widely and the hunter himself
keeps only a small portion of his own kill. Al-
though considerable informal sharing of food
occurs among the //Gana, even with agricul-
tural food, there appears to be considerably
greater tolerance for accumulation than among
other Bushman groups.
The home base also enables the //Gana to
store items of wealth and the means to obtain
wealth, particularly skins and furs, which are
collected in quantity and traded outside the
Central Reserve. Some of the items purchased
in exchange for the skins (drums and other
water containers) are further protection against
the uncertainties of local rainfall. The wealth
that the //Gana have derived from the sale of
furs and skin mats has even enabled a few
//Gana entrepreneurs to purchase in the last
few years a small number of cattle. These ani-
mals are kept with relatives outside the Central
Reserve because there is insufficient water for
cattle within the reserve. Because they are kept
outside the region, they have no direct effect on
//Gana subsistence, but they have a potential
indirect effect since, like the hard cash that pur-
chased them, they can be converted into food by
trading them to Bantu farmers outside the re-
serve.
Food production among the //Gana also
takes the form of goat husbandry. Goats, unlike
cattle, are able to obtain sufficient moisture
from wild plants (chiefly moisture-bearing
melons and roots), and therefore remain with
the //Gana in the Central Reserve throughout
the year. The potential significance of goat
meat as a buffer in a hunter-gatherer diet is ob-
vious although the actual impact of goat meat
on the //Gana diet is difficult to assess. In "nor-
mal" years of abundant game the number of
goats killed solely for food is extremely small,
118 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [82, 1980]

even in bands with a large number of goats, but
goats are also eaten on certain ritual occasions
and are eaten when they die of natural causes.
During my stay with the //Gana, there was
abundant game meat, and goats appeared to be
a very minor part of the diet, but it would be
reasonable to expect that goats, as a "stored"
form of meat on the hoof, would be an impor-
tant source of meat during years of little game.
Lack of Egalitarianism Among the //Gana
Although this summary of //Gana subsis-
tence is brief (further discussion is in Cashdan
1977 and in press), it can be seen that agricul-
ture, storage, and husbandry are important
buffers that protect the //Gana to some extent
from temporal variability in the supply of water,
bush foods, and game. It can therefore be ex-
pected that the //Gana are somewhat less de-
pendent on the insurance provided by the eco-
nomic leveling mechanisms typical of other
Bushman groups, and therefore a greater toler-
ance of the accumulation of possessions by indi-
viduals and a greater disparity in wealth among
both individuals and bands could also be ex-
pected.
Comparison of animal ownership is par-
ticularly revealing as a measure of equality, be-
cause, together with the possession of cash, it is
probably the best way of storing wealth. The
//Gana invest in few possessions other than
some basic household effects such as blankets,
cups, and pots. The inequality of ownership is
illustrated in Figure 1, which shows ownership
of the most expensive items--donkeys, horses,
drums, and cattle. Since the people who own a
large number of any one of these items are also
likely to own a large number of the other items,
the inequality in total ownership is consider-
able. Wealth varies not only from individual to
individual but from band to band, as Table I il-
lustrates. The variance in ownership between
bands is particularly obvious with respect to
goat ownership, with a wealthy band owning
about 150 goats (including kids) and a poor
band owning only about 20. These figures are
based on observations of goats kept in kraals
and camps, and the actual range of ownership is
probably even greater than these figures sug-

10
-J

-70

a 7
6 6-
z-" -,
5 -,
u_
0 4
w3 3-

Z 1-

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

NUMBER OF WEALTH ITEMS OWNED

Figure 1. Distribution of ownership, by individual. This graph summarizes the number of adults
owning any combination of wealth items (donkeys, horses, cattle, and drums). For example, ten in-
dividuals own only one of these four wealth items; five individuals own some combination totaling
two items, etc.

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 REPORTS AND COMMENTS 119
TABLE I. DISTRIBUTION OF OWNERSHIP, BY BAND.

Band number: 1 2 3 4 5
# adults in band: 26 23 11 32 13

# donkeys owned 7 8 5 21 5
# donkeys per adult 0.27 0.35 0.45 0.66 0.38

# horses owned 4 2 2 5 0
# horses per adult 0.15 0.09 0.18 0.16 0

# cattle owned 5 0 0 17 0
# cattle per adult 0.19 0 0 0.53 0

# drums owned 9 2 5 8 2
# drums per adult 0.35 0.09 0.45 0.25 0.15

total owned 25 12 12 51 7
total per adult 0.96 0.52 1.09 1.59 0.54

gest, because people with few or no goats care
for the goats of wealthier individuals.
Evidence for economic inequality among the
//Gana can be found also in their compara-
tively high rate of polygyny. Polygyny is per-
mitted in other Bushman groups but is rare.
Among the IKung, fewer than 5% of married
men have more than one wife, although within
this population the more sedentary !Kung tend
to be the most polygynous (H. C. Harpending:
personal communication). Among the //Gana,
on the other hand, approximately 25% of mar-
ried men have more than one wife; almost 10%
of married men had 3 wives (4/41), while 15%
(6/41) had two wives. Marriage among the
//Gana typically involves a bride-price of goats
(in 9 marriages, the mode was 10 goats paid as
bride-price), so only a wealthy man can afford
to have many wives.
Unfortunately, I have no data on political in-
equality to compare with the data on economic
inequality, but, impressionistically, the differ-
ence betweeen the //Gana and other Bushman
groups is striking. Before my first meeting with
the //Gana, I had visited the Dobe area and
had seen for myself the self-deprecating manner
of the !Kung.
I was thus totally unprepared for my first en-
counter with the //Gana, in which several indi-
viduals each claimed to be the "headman" of
Molapo (a major //Gana home-base location)
and attempted to speak for others, including
those in other Molapo bands. As such behavior
would indicate, there are no clear-cut positions
of authority among the //Gana; it became ap-
parent, however, that there is a fairly general
agreement about which individuals have the
prestige and authority to speak for the group.
Not surprisingly, these prestigious individuals
were chiefly middle-aged or older men with
three wives and were among the wealthiest of
the //Gana. They owned most of the animals
and drums, and were the sole owners of certain
other scarce and valuable items (e.g., the
firearm and the two large steel traps known to be
in the region). The exceptions to this association
of wealth with political prestige are younger men
who have recently begun leaving the Central
Reserve for several months at a time in order to
do wage work in the Johannesburg mines.
Among the //Gana, then, wealth and prestige
are associated, and a wealthy person is re-
spected. This contrasts strikingly with other
Bushman groups, where there are constraints
against the accumulation of property by indi-
viduals, and a "wealthy" person who does not
recirculate his possessions is subject to disap-
proval and criticism rather than respect.
Conclusion
The inequality that exists among the //Gana
has an entrepreneurial, "big man" flavor; there
are no formal positions of leadership, and the
"headmen" have no economic redistributive
role, nor any formal political power. Inequality
among the //Gana can therefore be explained
best not as the development of any formal
organization of "ranking" or "stratification,"
but, rather, as the inevitable result of the lifting

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120 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST
of the constraints that produce strict
egalitarianism among other Kalahari hunter-
gatherers. These constraints arise from a lack of
means to buffer environmental variability, and
are a form of social insurance for hunter-
gatherers living in unpredictable environments.
This view, then, holds that there is nothing
"natural" (statistically or socially) about the ex-
treme leveling typical of most Bushman groups
and suggests that the type of inequality found
among the //Gana can be seen as the inevitable
result of economic buffers that make such level-
ing mechanisms unnecessary.
Acknowledgment. This work was supported
by NSF Grant SOC 75-02253 to Patricia Draper
and Henry Harpending.
References Cited
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[82, 1980]
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Submitted 9 November 1978
Accepted 21 March 1979
Final revisions received 28 October 1979
More on Misconceptions
about Workload and Birthrates:
Reply to Spenser and Hum
RICHARD W. THOMPSON
University of Illinois, Urbana
MICHAEL C. ROBBINS
University of Missouri, Columbia
Spenser and Hum (AA 79:911-912, 1977) re-
cently challenged a number of our conclusions
concerning relations between workload and sea-
sonal variation in birthrates and conceptions in
Mexico and Uganda (Thompson and Robbins
1973). Basing their challenge on a reanalysis of
our published data, they suggest that we
overlooked the importance of workload as a de-
terminant of conception rates and imply that
our claim for a relation between seasonality of
conceptions and climatic variables is unsubstan-
tiated. They contend that ". .. workload and
migration seem to be the factors requiring most
emphasis in determining seasonal variation in
birthrates" (p. 912).
While we welcome this reanalysis of our data
in the interest of resolving the issue of seasonali-
ty in birth and conception, we are somewhat
puzzled as to why Spencer and Hum seem to
think their results contradict our basic conclu-
sions. In fact, their reanalysis reinforces our po-
sition. They seem most disturbed by our state-
ment that "These findings do not support and
in fact appear to contradict the hypothesis pro-