The Reciprocal Practice
A reflection on the economies of hunting and gathering society
A Marxist’s model has been illustrated repeatedly in Petersen’s lecturers to aid in our understanding of the economies in hunting and gathering society. The model is broken down to three components, production, distribution, and consumption. When it comes to production, we are discussing the relationship between nature and hunter-gatherers. The means of production consists of land resources, technologies which in hunting and gathering society primarily refers to tools, knowledge and skills, labor and so on. Distribution talks about the way total output is distributed among hunter-gatherers which reflects the relationship between individuals. Consumption is the stage where output is consumed. By using the model, we believe that through consumptions, individuals learn what they want and what makes up their sense of identity. Therefore, when we study consumption, we are discerning the relationship between individuals and society.
As surprising as it sounds, having enough to eat is not a problem for hunter-gatherers. “Wildlife was abundant,” described by Richard B. Lee in his book The Dobe Ju/‘hoansi. Despite the rich resources available for production, the Ju hunter and gathers hold on to one principle that helps maintain a harmonious relationship between them and nature — — respect the laws of nature. The law is that natural resources clustered around one area are never endless. After reaping the fruit at one region, hunter-gatherers give time for the nature to recover from human “invasion” and re-generate resources. Although hunter-gatherers keep a certain amount of food storage for emergency use, the fact that resources in one area are limited forces hunter-gatherers to adapt by moving around to survive in the long run. Foraging is the official term for this nomadic lifestyle of hunter-gatherers’, in which they are moving constantly from one place to another. As the essence of Ju adaptation, mobility strongly influences their settlement pattern and leads to the formation of five types of villages and camps suitable for different natural conditions. This is confirmed by Lee’s studies which indicates that Ju’s habitations are built in a few hours or a few days, and campsites are rarely occupied for more than a few months.
For hunter and gatherers, their knowledge and skills are the most powerful technology. Not long does the knowledge of the fauna and climate of one region serve them in choosing a site and establishing habitats, it’s also imperative to their tool makings. For example, the Ju learned the most important insects for subsistence are the species of chrysomelid beetles that are used by them for poisoning their hunting arrows. While the grubs can produce a slow-acting but highly effective poison that kills a wounded animal in 6 to 24 hours, the substance doesn’t poison the food and is safe for human bodies. The knowledge of plant identification, growth, ripeness, and locations is extremely complicated and the Ju’s diligent studies of these aspects enable them to produce delicate devices for carrying and gathering. The universality of those devices and their functional importance constitutes a prerequisite for human economic and social life and has implications for the evolution of human subsistence during the Pleistocene Era, according to Lee.
Reciprocity is what characterizes the distribution process among hunter and gatherers, meaning people take with the expectation of giving. Hunter-gatherers practice reciprocity because it provides insurance of their subsistence. More specifically, chance plays a great role in hunter-gatherers’ production, such as the capture of animals, collection of wild foodstuffs, and the success of rudimentary forms of agriculture. Because there is no guarantee whether hunter-gatherers would harvest anything on inevitable rainy days, the best way for them to sustain their living is to be generous.
Furthermore, the system of reciprocity depends on the value of egalitarianism, that is everyone has equal access to production resources and people do not specify how much or exactly what they expect to get back or when they expect to get it. As expressed by anthropologist Richard Gould, “The greater the amount of risk, the greater the extent of sharing.” Among the relatively small society that hunter-gatherers live in, sharing without calculation is the underlying principle of their sustainable development. As for our societies, we also carry out a reciprocal practice among close kin and friends that resembles the practice within hunting and gathering society. However, the distinction lingers on the expectations held by us and hunter- gatherers. We expect our generosity to be acknowledged with the expression of thankfulness, whereas the etiquette among hunter-gatherers is that generosity should be taken for granted. Any form of calculation on how much one gives and takes is considered by them as ungenerous and rude.
What might seem even more bizarre for our industrialization culture is that when a hunter returns from a successful hunt, people often display indifference or negativity at the news of a successful kill, which is described as the insulting the meat scenario in Lee’s narrative. The discouraging remarks turn out to be a deliberate act that teaches young people to be humble and generous for the praise on the hunter’s achievement might give him the illusion that he is a chief and superior to the rest of them, which may potentially lead to killings one day. Because hunter- gatherers’ survival relies on reciprocity and selfishness can pose a threat, through speaking of his hunt as worthless, others cool the hunter’s heart and make him gentle. We can conclude from hunter-gatherers’ deliberate education for youth on egalitarianism that hunter-gatherers are of no many difference by nature from humans nurtured in industrial culture and we weren’t at all born to be generous.
In the past 50 years, new anthropologists’ research such as Lee’s in the !Kung area challenges popular notions that hunter-gatherer societies are always near the brink of starvation and continuously struggle to survive. Rather than suffering from deprivation, hunter-gatherers are living in a society where their needs are easily satisfied. Petersen described this phenomenon as primitive affluence in his lecturers. Lee’s studies on work efforts and caloric returns on the Ju/‘hoansi confirmed the assumption that the Ju lives in a primitively affluent society. The estimate of work effort in hours per week is about 44.5 hours for men and 40.01 hours for women to maintain adequate resources for subsistence, which is far below that level of work expected of people in the industrial societies.
Moreover, hunter-gatherer societies possess a different notion of property than we do. While our economic system is organized around different types of property ownership that clearly define individual access to resources, hunting and gathering society let people have equal access to means of production. Not having to worry about property ownership makes nomadic lifestyle easier for hunter-gatherers because they then don’t need to “shlep” too much stuff on their go. Egalitarianism extends throughout procedures of distribution to consumption in hunter- gatherer societies in which they all share everything equally. On contrary, disparities among individuals derived from property ownership are constantly “leveraged” by smart merchants to remind us of how inadequate we are, therefore, the only cure to our insufficiency is to purchase and consume.
Work Cited
Lee, Richard B. The Dobe Ju/‘hoansi. Toronto Canada: Thomson Learning, 2003. Print. Harris, Marvin. “Life Without Chiefs.” Our Kind. New York: HarperCollins, 1989. Print. Petersen, Glenn. “Introduction to Anthropology.” ANT 1001H, 14 Mar 2019, Baruch College, New York, NY.
