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3. Economic organization: Meaning, scope and relevance of economic anthropology; Formalist and
Substantivist debate; Principles governing production, distribution and exchange (reciprocity,
redistribution and market), in communities, subsisting on hunting and gathering, fishing,
swiddening, pastoralism, horticulture, and agriculture; globalization and indigenous economic
systems.

The Ju/’hoansi of the Kalahari Region ; foraging society

One of the best-studied foraging societies, the Ju/’hoansi, inhabit the northwestern part of the
Kalahari Desert, one of the least hospitable environments in the world. Inhabiting an area that is
too dry to support either agriculture or the keeping of livestock, the Ju/’hoansi have been until
recently totally dependent on foraging for their food. Food-procuring activities were fairly
rigidly divided between men and women. Women collected roots, nuts, fruits, and other edible
vegetables and occasionally snared small game, and men hunted medium and large animals and
occasionally brought back gathered items. Although men and women spent roughly equivalent
amounts of time on their food-procuring activities, women provided two to three times as much
food by weight as men.

Even though the terms affluence and abundance tend to be relative, Richard Lee (1968)
presented convincing evidence to suggest that the Ju/’hoansi were not teetering on the brink of
starvation. In fact their food-gathering techniques were both productive and reliable. For

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example, the Ju/’hoansi’s most important single food item was the mongongo nut, which
accounted for about half of their diet. Nutritionally, the mongongo, which is found in abundance
all year long, contains five times more calories and ten times more protein per cooked unit than
cereal crops. Thus, quite apart from hunting, the Ju/’hoansi had a highly nutritious food supply
that was more reliable than cultivated foods. It is little wonder that they had no strong urge to
take up cultivation when there were so many mongongo nuts available; they remained nomadic
and maintained a group size that fit within their culturally accepted carrying capacity.

Another measure of Ju/’hoansi affluence was their selectivity in taking foods from the
environment. If they had indeed been on the brink of starvation, we would have expected them to
exploit every conceivable source of food. But in fact, they ate only about one-third of the edible
plant foods and regularly hunted only 17 of the 223 local species of animals known to them (Lee
1968).

Australian Aborigines

Before Europeans came to the Australian continent, all the people who lived there (who are
referred to as aborigines) depended on food collection. Although the way of life of Australian
aborigines is now considerably altered, we consider the life of the Ngatatjara as described by
Richard Gould in the 1960s, when they still lived by gathering wild plants and hunting wild
animals in the Gibson Desert of western Australia. The desert environment of the Ngatatjara
averages less than 8 inches of rain per year, and the temperature in summer may rise to 118°F.
The few permanent waterholes are separated by hundreds of square miles of sand, scrub, and
rock. Even before Europeans arrived in Australia, the area was sparsely populated—fewer than
one person per 35 to 40 square miles. Now there are even fewer people, because the aboriginal
population was decimated by introduced diseases and mistreatment after the Europeans arrived.

On a typical day, the camp begins to stir just before sunrise, while it is still dark. Children are
sent to fetch water, and the people breakfast on water and food left over from the night before. In
the cool of the early morning, the adults talk and make plans for the day. The talking goes on for
a while. Where should they go for food—to places they have been to recently or to new places?
Sometimes there are other considerations. For example, one woman may want to search for
plants whose bark she needs to make new sandals. When the women decide which plants they
want to collect and where they think those plants are most likely to be found, they take up their
digging sticks and set out with large wooden bowls of drinking water on their heads. Their
children ride on their hips or walk alongside.

Meanwhile, the men may have decided to hunt emus, 6-foot-tall ostrichlike birds that do not fly.
The men go to a creekbed where they will wait to ambush any game that may come along. They
lie patiently behind a screen of brush they have set up, hoping for a chance to throw a spear at an
emu or even a kangaroo. They can throw only once, because if they miss, the game will run
away. By noon, the men and women are usually back at camp, the women with their wooden

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bowls each filled with up to 15 pounds of fruit or other plant foods, the men more often than not
with only some small game, such as lizards and rabbits. The men’s food-getting is less certain of
success than the women’s, so most of the Ngatatjara aborigines’ diet is plant food. The daily
cooked meal is eaten toward evening, after an afternoon spent resting, gossiping, and making or
repairing tools. The aborigines traditionally were nomadic, moving their campsites fairly
frequently. The campsites were isolated and inhabited by only a small number of people, or they
were clusters of groups including as many as 80 persons. The aborigines never established a
campsite right next to a place with water. If they were too close, their presence would frighten
game away and might cause tension with neighboring bands, who also would wait for game to
come to the scarce watering spots.

The Bemba shifting cultivation

Audrey Richards (1960) provides a particularly good case study with her writings on the Bemba
of Zambia (formerly northern Rhodesia). The Bemba, like a number of other peoples in south
central Africa, practice a type of shifting cultivation that involves clearing the land, burning the
branches, and planting directly on the ash-fertilized soil without additional hoeing. Using the
simplest technology (hoes and axes), the Bemba plant a fairly wide range of crops—including
finger millet, bulrush millet, beans, cassava, and yams—but they rely most heavily on finger
millet as their basic staple. Although predominantly horticultural, the Bemba supplement their
diet with some hunting, gathering, and fishing. The largest and most highly organized group
(politically) in Zambia, the Bemba live in small, widely scattered, low-density communities
comprising thirty to fifty huts. Traditionally Bemba society had a highly complex political
system based on a set of chiefs whose authority rested on their alleged supernatural control over
the land and the prosperity of the people. These supernatural powers were reinforced by the
physical force that chiefs could exert over their subjects, whom they could kill, enslave, or sell.
The power, status, and authority of the chiefs were based not on the accumulation of material
wealth but rather on the amount of service they could extract from their subjects in terms of
agricultural labor or military service. Interestingly, the marked status differences between chiefs
(with their unchallenged authority) and commoners are not reflected in these people’s diets.
Although chiefs and their families may have a somewhat more regular supply of food, both rich
and poor eat essentially the same types and quantities of food throughout the yearly cycle.
Similarly there are no significant differences in diet between Bemba men and Bemba women.

Because sparse rainfall at certain times of the year permits only one crop, a common feature of
the Bemba diet is the alternation between scarcity and plenty. The harvest of finger millet, the
mainstay of the Bemba diet, lasts only nine months (roughly from April through December).
During the lean months of January through March, dramatic changes take place in village life.
Because of the low energy levels of underfed people, most activity—both leisure and work
related—is reduced to a minimum. Given these alternating periods of feast and famine, it is not
surprising that food and diet occupy a prominent place in Bemba culture. In much the same way

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that pastoralists often appear obsessed with their cattle, the Bemba tend to fixate on food. In fact,
according to Richards, food and beer are the central topics of conversation among the Bemba.

Amazon Horticulturalists: The Yanomamö

One South American tribe, the Yanomamö, practices swidden agriculture along with hunting and
gathering in the tropical forests of the Amazon between the borders of Brazil and Venezuela.
There are approximately 21,000 Yanomamö between Brazil and Venezuela (Hames 2004).
Napoleon Chagnon studied the Yanomamö for more than 30 years. Approximately 80 to 90
percent of their diet comes from their gardens (Chagnon 2012). Yanomamö males clear the
forest, burn the vegetation, and plant the crops; the females (and sometimes the children) weed
the garden and eventually harvest the crops. Generally, the Yanomamö do not work on
subsistence activities for food production more than three to four hours per day.

A Yanomamö garden lasts for about three years from the time of the initial planting; after this
period, the garden is overrun with scrub vegetation, and the soil becomes depleted. Early cultural
ecologists assumed that slash-and-burn cultivators are forced to relocate because the soil
becomes exhausted. Chagnon, however, has shown that Yanomamö decisions to move are not
based simply upon soil depletion. In fact, as the soil begins to lose its capacity to support crops,
the Yanomamö make small adjustments, such as extending a previous garden or clearing a new
tract of land near the old one. Chagnon discovered that major population movements of the
Yanomamö are due instead to warfare and political conflict with neighboring groups. Thus, a
sedentary life in these Amazonian societies is not simply a product of ecological conditions; it
also involves strategic alliances and political maneuvers designed to deal with human
populations in nearby communities (Chagnon 2012).

New Guinea Horticulturalists: The Tsembaga

The Melanesian Islands of Papua New Guinea have many tribal horticulturalist populations,
some of whom were not contacted by Western society until the 1930s. Archaeologists have
traced early horticultural developments in highland New Guinea to 7000 b.c. (White and
O’Connell 1982). One group, the Tsembaga Maring, has been studied thoroughly by the late
anthropologist Roy Rappaport (1984).

The Tsembaga live in two river valley areas surrounded by mountains. They cultivate the
mountain slopes with their subsistence gardens. Tsembaga males and females clear the
undergrowth from the secondary forest, after which the men cut down the trees. When the cut
vegetation dries out, it is stacked up and burned. The women then plant and harvest crops,
especially sweet potatoes, taro, manioc, and yams; 99 percent of the Tsembaga diet by weight
consisted of vegetables, particularly these root A tropical forest showing slash and burn
technique crops. The Tsembaga also domesticate pigs, but these animals are usually consumed
only during certain ritual occasions.

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Horticulturalists in Woodland Forest Areas: The Iroquois

In the past, many Native American groups such as the Iroquois, who resided in the eastern
woodland region of North America, practiced horticulture. Actually, the term Iroquois was
derived from a French use of a Basque term that translates as “killer people” because they were
involved in much warfare with other tribes and then with the Europeans when they arrived. The
people themselves use the native Seneca word Haudenosaunee, which means “the Longhouse
people,” because they lived in large longhouses described later (Sutton 2007). The
Haudenosaunee included five major tribes: the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, and
Cayuga. The first major ethnographic study of these people was conducted by the nineteenth-
century anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan, and he relied on his Seneca Indian informant Ely
Parker. These tribes lived in the upper New York State region, where rivers such as the St.
Lawrence and Hudson drain into the area, providing fertile ground for horticultural activities.
These horticultural practices probably appeared between 2300 and 1000 b.c. and were adopted as
a regular subsistence system around 400 a.d. (Fagan 2000). Eventually, the native peoples of this
region began to raise maize and other crops along with local wild species. Most archaeologists
have concluded that this horticultural pattern of maize, beans, and squash originated in
Mesoamerica and then extended across the regions of North America, spreading out to the Ohio
River Valley areas and eastward to Native American groups such as the Iroquois.

The Nuer ; Pastoralists

Anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1940, 1951, 1956) conducted a classic study of a

pastoralist group called the Nuer. The Nuer reside along the upper Nile River and its tributaries
in southern Sudan. Because of the flatness of this region, the annual flooding of the Nile during
the rainy season, and the heavy clay soils, the Nuer spend the wet season on high, sandy ground,
where they plant sorghum, a cereal grass used for grain. This horticulture is very limited,
however, because strong rainfall, as well as elephants, birds, and insects, destroy the crops.
Therefore, cattle are the most important subsistence resource for the Nuer.

The Nuer view cattle herding with a great deal of pride. In the dry season, they move with their
cattle into the grassland areas. The cattle transform the energy stored in the grasses, herbs, and
shrubs into valuable subsistence products. Yet, as is true of other herders in this area, the basis of
the Nuer subsistence is not consumption of cattle. Rather, they depend heavily on the blood and
milk of their animals. Every few months during the dry season, the cattle are bled by making
small incisions that heal quickly. The Nuer boil the blood until it gets thick, roast it, and then eat
it. The cows are milked morning and night; some of the milk is used to make butter. The Nuer
slaughter their old cattle, which then calls for elaborate ceremonies or sacrifices.

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THE LAPPS ; Reindeer herding

The Lapps or Saami practice reindeer herding in northwestern Scandinavia where Finland,
Sweden, and Norway share common frontiers. It is a typical Arctic habitat: cold, windswept,
with long, dark days for half the year. Considerable change has occurred recently, so we first
discuss the foodgetting strategy in the 1950s, as described by Ian Whitaker and T. I. Itkonen.28
The Lapps herd their reindeer either intensively or, more often, extensively. In the intensive
system, the herd is constantly under observation within a fenced area for the whole year.
Intensively herded reindeer and other animals are accustomed to human contact. Hence, the
summer corralling of the females for milking and the breaking in of the ox-reindeer for use as
work animals are not difficult tasks. The extensive system involves allowing the animals to
migrate over a large area. It requires little surveillance and encompasses large herds. Under this
system, the reindeer are allowed to move through their seasonal feeding cycles watched by only
one or two scouts.

The other Lapps stay with the herd only when it has settled in its summer or winter habitat. But
milking, breaking in, and corralling are harder in the extensive than in the intensive system
because the animals are less accustomed to humans. Even under the extensive system, which
theoretically permits Lapps to engage in subsidiary economic activities such as hunting and
fishing, the reindeer herd is the essential, if not the only, source of income. A family might
possess as many as 1,000 reindeer, but usually the figure is half that number. Studies show 200
to be the minimum number of reindeer needed to provide for a family of four or five adults.
Women may have shared the herding chores in the past under the intensive system, but now,
under the extensive system, men do the herding. Women still do the milking. The Lapps eat the
meat of the bull reindeer; the female reindeer are kept for breeding purposes. Bulls are
slaughtered in the fall, after the mating season. Meat and hides are frequently sold or bartered for
other food and necessities.

The Maasai of East Africa ; example of a pastoral society

The Maasai culture of Kenya and Tanzania is an excellent example of a pastoral society. As one
of a number of cultures within the East African cattle complex (e.g., the Turkana, Jie, Samburu,
among others), the Maasai have experienced enormous sociocultural changes in the last forty
years. Occupying an area of about 160,000 square kilometers of savanna in southern Kenya and
northern Tanzania, the Maasai, numbering approximately four hundred thousand people,
traditionally lived mainly on their abundant herds of cattle, goats, and sheep. Like many other
pastoralists in the region, the Maasai got most of their sustenance in the form of milk and blood
from their cows, consuming meat only on rare ritual occasions. This high-protein diet was
occasionally supplemented with grains and honey obtained through trade with neighboring
peoples. Over the past century and a half, the Maasai have gained the reputation, among Africans

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and Europeans alike, of being quintessential cattle keepers. According to their creation myth,
Ngai (God) gave all cattle on earth to the Maasai, and they have used this myth to justify raiding
cattle from other neighboring people. If Ngai did indeed give all cattle to the Maasai, then it
logically follows that any non-Maasai in possession of cattle obtained their livestock unlawfully.
Maasai have long felt that cattle raids were not stealing but rather reclaiming their God-given
property. It is little wonder that cattle are the major source of wealth among the Maasai, in much
the same way that cash is a major concern of Westerners. Cattle serve both economic purposes
(milk and blood for food, dung for building houses, and bone for tools) and non-economic
purposes (stock friendship, marriage payments, and ceremonial sacrifices).

The Yarahmadzai: Nomadic Pastoralists

The Yarahmadzai, who live in the southeastern corner of Iran known as Baluchistan, provide an
example of a mixed pastoralist adaptation that has undergone changes due to both a global
economy and the restraints of adapting to the control of the national state (Salzman 2000).

Yarahmadzai tribal territory occupies a plateau at 5,000 feet above sea level where their chief
environmental problem is finding adequate water and pasture yearround. They solve this by
moving to seek pasture according to the seasons (see Figure 5.3). For much of the year, the
Yarahmadzai live in small camps of between 5 and 20 families. When information about good
pasture becomes available, the whole Yarahmadzai camp migrates. Because even good pasturage
is quickly exhausted, the camp migrates frequently, anywhere from 5 to 25 miles in each move.
Most of the six-inch annual rainfall occurs in the winter. This means that there is good pasturage
on the Yarahmadzai’s high plateau in the spring. However, by June and July, the animals have
eaten all of the spring’s growth and the season has turned very dry and hot. In response, the
Yarahmadzai migrate to areas served by government irrigation projects to earn money by
harvesting grain. They remain there until the harvest ends in early autumn. Then they migrate to
the lowland desert where there are groves of date palms, leaving their tents, as well as their goats
and sheep on the plateau in the care of young boys. During this time, they harvest dates and
prepare date preserves for the return journey to their winter camps. Those who also farm plant
grain, and many women work for cash in nearby towns.

In November, the Yarahmadzai return to their winter camps. At this time, the Yarahmadzai
plateau is almost completely barren, with very little for the animals to eat. They live on their
accumulated fat and small quantities of roots, grains, dates, and processed date pits their keepers
provide. The people depend on food stores from the previous year, but because winter is the
rainy season, water is normally available. Milk is the staple food of the Yarahmadzai and is
consumed in many different forms, both fresh and preserved as dried milk solids and butter. Milk
and milk products are also sold and exchanged for grain. Milk is the main source of protein, fat,
calcium, and other nutrients; the Yarahmadzai, like most other pastoral peoples, do not eat much
meat. Their flocks are their capital, and the Yarahmadzai hope to increase their size. Because

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killing animals for food works against this objective, the Yarahmadzai rarely do it (Salzman
1999:24).

The Lua’: Swidden Cultivators in Thailand.

The historic livelihood of the Lua’ people, who live in the mountains of northern Thailand, was
swidden cultivation. After using a block of land for one or two years, villagers allow it to lie
fallow for about nine years to restore its fertility. Swidden blocks around the village are
cultivated in a regular rotational sequence. Each household normally returns to the same field it
cultivated ten years before, marking their swidden field boundaries with charred logs. In January,
village elders inspect the swidden blocks they expect to use the following year to confirm that
the forest regrowth is adequate to provide the soil fertility needed for cultivation. Using long
steel-bladed knives, the men clear their fields by felling small trees, leaving stumps about three
feet high. They leave strips of trees along watercourses and at the tops of ridges to prevent
erosion and provide seed sources for forest regrowth during the fallow period. They leave taller
trees standing, but trim their branches so they will not shade the crops.

The fields cleared in January and February are allowed to dry until the end of March, the driest
time of the year. In consultation with ritual leaders and village elders, a day is chosen to burn the
fields. First a firebreak is cleared around the swidden block so that fire does not accidentally
spread into the forest reserved for future cultivation or into the village. Then the swiddens are
burned. The men burning the swiddens usually carry guns, hoping game animals such as boar or
barking deer will run toward them out of the burning fields, although this happens less today
than in the past.

Each section of the swiddens is planted with crops chosen to make the best use of its fertility,
soil moisture, and potential for erosion. The cultivators first plant cotton and corn, which they
sow on the slopes of the fields, and then plant yams on the lower, wetter portions. For the next
two weeks, they prop up unburned logs along the contour of the fields to reduce erosion. They
mark the boundaries, gather larger logs for firewood, and build fences to keep livestock out of
the fields. By mid-April, they begin to plant the main subsistence crop, upland rice, jabbing the
earth loose with ten-foot iron-tipped planting poles. They hope the rice will take root and sprout
before the heavy monsoon rains come. Different types of rice are sown in different areas of the
field. Quick-ripening rice is planted near the field shelter, where it can be easily watched.
Drought-resistant varieties of rice and millet are planted on the drier, sandier tops of the slopes.

Generalized Reciprocity ; the Semai of Malaysia:

Robert Dentan (1979:48) describes this system among the Semai of Malaysia: After several days
of fruitless hunting, a Semai man kills a large pig. He lugs it back to the settlement. Everyone
gathers around. Two other men meticulously divide the pig into portions sufficient to feed two
adults each (children are not supposed to eat pork). As nearly as possible, each portion contains
exactly the same amount of meat, fat, liver, and innards as every other portion. The adult men

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take the leaf-wrapped portions home to redistribute them among the members of the house
group.

In some cases of balanced reciprocity, people go to considerable lengths to maintain the

relationship. For example, the Semang of the Malay Peninsula engage in a form of silent trade,
whereby they studiously avoid any face-to-face contact with their trading partners. The Semang
leave their products collected from the forest at an agreed-upon location near the village of their
trading partners. They return at a later time to receive the commodities (usually salt, beads, and
tools) left in exchange. By avoiding social contact, both the Semang and their exchange partners
eliminate the risk of jeopardizing the relationship by haggling or arguing over equivalencies
(Service 1966).

Balanced reciprocal exchange ; The Kula Exchange of Trobrianders

One classic case of balanced reciprocal exchange occurred among the Trobriand Islanders, as
described by Bronislaw Malinowski ([1922] 1961). The Trobrianders, intensive horticulturalists
who raised yams and depended heavily on fishing, maintained elaborate trading arrangements
with other island groups. They had large sea canoes, or outriggers, and traveled hundreds of
miles on sometime dangerous seas to conduct what was known as the kula exchange.

The kula was the ceremonial trade of valued objects that took place among a number of the
Trobriand Islands. In his book Argonauts of the Western Pacific ([1922] 1961), Malinowski
described how redshell necklaces and white-shell armbands were ritually exchanged from island
to island through networks of male traders. The necklaces traditionally traveled clockwise, and
the armbands traveled counterclockwise. These necklaces and armbands were constantly
circulating, and the size and value of these items had to be perfectly matched (hence, balanced
reciprocity). People did not keep these items very long; in fact, they were seldom worn. There
was no haggling or discussion of price by any of the traders.

Trobriand males were inducted into the trading network through elaborate training regarding the
proper etiquette and magical practices of the kula. The young men learned these practices
through their fathers or mothers’ brothers and eventually established trading connections with
partners on other islands. A more utilitarian trade accompanied the ceremonial trade. Goods such
as tobacco, pottery, coconuts, fish, baskets, and mats were exchanged through the Trobriand
trading partners. In these exchanges, the partners haggled and discussed price. Malinowski
referred to this trade as secondary trade, or barter, the direct exchange of one commodity for
another. He argued that the ceremonial kula trade created emotional ties among trading partners
and that the utilitarian trade was secondary and incidental. Because of this argument, Malinowski
is often referred to as one of the first substantivist economic anthropologists.

Negative Reciprocity ; Navajo

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Tribal and peasant societies often distinguish between the insider, whom it is morally wrong to
cheat, and the outsider, from whom every advantage may be gained. Clyde Kluckhohn, who
studied the Navajo in the 1940s and 1950s, reported that their rules for interaction vary with the
situation; to deceive when trading with outsiders is a morally accepted practice (1959).

Redistributional economic exchange ; Potlatch of Kwakiutl

Redistributional economic exchange, involves the exchange of goods and resources through a
centralized organization. In the redistributional system, food and other staples, such as craft
goods, are collected as a form of tax or rent. The chiefs (and subsidiary chiefs) then redistribute
some of these goods and food staples back to the population at certain times of the year. This
system thus assures the dispersal of food and resources throughout the community through a
centralized agency. Archaeologist Brian Hayden emphasizes how these feasting activities and
redistributional exchanges in chiefdoms provide for a “social safety network for families”
(2009).

Potlatch A classic example of a chiefdom redistributional system was found among the Native
Americans of the Northwest Coast. Known as the potlatch, it was described at length among the
Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka’wakw) by Franz Boas (1930) and was later interpreted by Ruth Benedict
(1934). The term is a Chinook word that is translated loosely as “giveaway.” In a potlatch local
leaders gave away large quantities of goods and resources in order to redistribute their wealth.
Potlatches were held when young people were introduced into society or during marriage or
funeral ceremonies. Families would prepare for these festive occasions by collecting food and
other valuables such as fish, berries, blankets, and animal skins, which were then given to local
leaders in many different villages. In these potlatch feasts, the leaders of different villages
competed by attempting to give away or sometimes destroy more food than their competitors.
Northwest Coast Indians believe that the more gifts that were bestowed on the people or
destroyed by a chief, the higher the status of that chief. Benedict found the potlatch feasts and
rivalry among chiefs to be the result of their megalomaniacal personalities. To substantiate this
view, she presented this formal speech made by a Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka’wakw) chief

I am the first of the tribes, I am the only one of the tribes. The chiefs of the tribes are only local
chiefs. I am the only one among the tribes. I search among all the invited chiefs for greatness like
mine. I cannot find one chief among the guests. They never return feasts. The orphans, poor
people, chiefs of the tribes! They disgrace themselves. I am he who gives these sea otters to the
chiefs, the guests, the chiefs of the tribes. I am he who gives canoes to the chiefs, the guests, the
chiefs of the tribes.

Despite the apparent wastefulness, status rivalry, and megalomaniacal personalities suggested by
Benedict, contemporary anthropologists view the potlatch feasts as having served as a
redistributional exchange process. For example, despite the abundance of resources in the
Northwest Coast region, there were regional variations and periodic fluctuations in the supply of

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salmon and other products. In some areas, people had more than they needed, whereas in other
regions, people suffered from frequent scarcities. Given these circumstances, the potlatch helped
distribute surpluses and special local products to other villages in need (Piddocke 1965).

Marvin Harris (1977) argued that the potlatch also functioned to ensure the production and
distribution of goods in societies that lacked ruling classes. Through the elaborate redistributive
feasts and conspicuous consumption, the chiefs presented themselves as the providers of food
and security to the population. The competition among the chiefs meant that both the “haves”
and the “have-nots” benefited from this system. According to Harris, this form of competitive
feasting enabled growing chiefdom populations to survive and prosper by encouraging people to
work harder and accumulate resources. Feasting and exchanges provide for “social safety
networks” and also build the reputation of chief’s families who have more resources to provide
others (Hayden 2009).

DO YOU KNOW ?
Melville Herskovits (1924), an anthropologist who worked among East African pastoralists,
found that cattle served three purposes, from which he derived the term cattle complex.

First, cattle were an economic venture with a utilitarian purpose. Cattle were a source of food;
their milk, blood, and meat were shared and sold; their dung was used for fertilizer, house
building, and fuel; their urine was used as an antiseptic; their bones were used for tools and
artifacts; their skins were used for clothing and shelter; and their strength provided a means of
transportation or traction.
Second, cattle had a social function and symbolic role. Cattle were used in rituals. They were
exchanged as part of a marriage ritual and in other ceremonies throughout the year. They were
important status symbols: Large herds conveyed status to families or enabled sons to secure a
wife (or wives).
Third, farmers were attached to their cattle; cattle were valued and adorned. In fact, among the
Nuer, young boys were named after the appearance of a favorite animal in their family’s herd.

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