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1According to Siskind, the primary incentive for men in Amazonian societies to hunt game is to ________________?

A. Gain access to women.

B. Feed their father’s brother.

C. Keep the animal populations from outstripping the limited forest food resources.

D. Make the forest safer around the village.

2According to Siskand, what is the limiting ecological factor that results in a culturally produced scarcity of women among the Sharanahua?

A. Lack of fresh water.

B. A low density of game animals (protein).

C. Soil fertility.

D. Disease

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Among the Yanomamö, the prescribed marriage partner is:

A. Determined by the headman.

B. A cross-cousin

C. A sexually mature person who has made a garden

D. From a distant village.

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Hunting Traditional methods:

Bow and arrow (curare)

Blowgun (curare)

Spears

Clubs

Contemporary methods Rapid adoption of shotguns. Why? More efficient, shotgun:

1.60 kg/man-hour; bows, 0.53 kg/man-hour

Headlamps (night hunting)

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Paca

Tapir

Guan

Other species:Monkeys, deer, peccary, caiman, snakes, sloths, capybara, slothMany types of birds

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Protein debate

Background Chagnon publishes in 1968

Another prominent anthropologist, Marvin Harris, reads literature and comes up with theory to explain broad patterns.

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Protein debate

Patterns to be explained Mobile population

Micro and macro movements

Vast distances between Yanomamö villages

Unbalanced sex ratio ~120 men to 100 women

Endemic warfare

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Protein debate

Harris proposes that protein is the limiting factor in Yanomamö society (Harris 1971, 1974)

Other anthropologists apply to all of Amazon

Argue against Carneiro’s idea of circumscription.

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Protein debate

Why protein? Many Amazonian groups think meat is scarce and

very important.

10Tapir penis

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Protein debate

Why Protein? Manioc satisfies energetic needs, but not protein

Amazon environment has low animal biomass, patchy distribution of animals, cryptic, easily over-hunted.

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Protein debate Logic of argument:

Groups must limit population growth to assure they don’t exceed local ‘carrying capacity’, key limiting factor is protein (game availability).

Carrying capacity, Borrowed from biology: “The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment”

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Protein debate

Harris argues that Yanomamö are at carrying capacity, maybe even exceeding it.

Evidence is in the unbalanced sex ratio They kill females to limit population

You need males to go out and hunt and defend hunting grounds.

Other evidence: most

Amazonian populations

are not expanding.

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Protein debate Logic of argument:

To stay within carrying capacity certain cultural institutions will arise: Female biased infanticide High incidence of non-territory acquiring warfare High mobility Sex taboos that limit contact between men and women. Small settlements to limit impact of hunting Dispersed settlements Frequent movement of villages Violence

All are characteristic of Amazonian societies.

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Chagnon’s rebuttal

Yanomamö eat plenty of protein, consuming ~50g/day

Other Amazonian societies consume adequate amount.

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Protein debate

Later studies questioned the debate itself Not enough evidence on either side to make sound

conclusions.

Underestimated non-mammalian foods (birds, fish, reptiles, and especially invertebrates (worms)

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Protein debate

Later studies questioned the debate itself Underestimated plant

proteins, Brazil nuts (13.2g/100g), cashew (15g), peach palm (~3g).

Debate does not take into account the size of pre-Columbian populations.

Cashew fruit and nut

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Protein debate

Native populations are a fraction of what they were in pre-Colombian times. Disease

Can current populations be used as a test bed for a protein hypothesis?

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Protein debate

Conclusions that can be drawn from this discussion: Carrying capacity models are still with us because

they ask an important question: “What limits are their on Amazonian populations?”

But any one answer is probably simplistic.

Some anthropologists completely reject this kind of analysis. They argue that humans don’t follow models derived from biology.

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Yanomamö politics

The feast

22Yanomamö Social Organization and

Social Structure

Shabono (village)

23Yanomamö Social Organization and

Social Structure

Shabono (village) Largest single groupings are

shabonos or "clearings." The people that occupy a given shabono are called the people of a given area, -teri.

Each section of it is built by a group of adult males, a father, his sons, and perhaps his brothers.

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Shabono

Typically a shabono is comprised of at least two lineages: a group of people who trace descent(transmission of kin-group membership) in a direct line through a common ancestor.

26Patrilineal Descent With a Male

Ego

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The ‘ideal’ shabono

Two patrilineal lineages who trade sisters between them to supply wives to the other patrilineal line.

Because of SORORAL POLYGYNY andFEMALE INFANTICIDE linked to the need for men in warfare their often is an unbalanced sex ratio which pits brothers against each other for wives, and sometimes even fathers and sons against each other.

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Who to marry in Yanomamöland?

Marriage patterns are based on four principles: lineage exogamy

bilateral cross cousin marriage

village endogamy

(sororal) polygyny

Marriage is mode of

lineage coupling.

29How does bi-lateral cross-cousin

marriage work?

Cousins whose parents are siblings of the opposite(cross) sex. Cross-cousins are important because in unilineal descent systems they are nevermembers of Ego’s own descent line.