the yanomamo of the mississippi valley? some reflections on larson (1972), gibson (1974), and...

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Society for American Archaeology The Yanomamo of the Mississippi Valley? Some Reflections on Larson (1972), Gibson (1974), and Mississippian Period Warfare in the Southeastern United States Author(s): D. Bruce Dickson Source: American Antiquity, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Oct., 1981), pp. 909-916 Published by: Society for American Archaeology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/280116 . Accessed: 08/05/2014 17:55 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Society for American Archaeology is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Antiquity. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 17:55:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: The Yanomamo of the Mississippi Valley? Some Reflections on Larson (1972), Gibson (1974), and Mississippian Period Warfare in the Southeastern United States

Society for American Archaeology

The Yanomamo of the Mississippi Valley? Some Reflections on Larson (1972), Gibson (1974),and Mississippian Period Warfare in the Southeastern United StatesAuthor(s): D. Bruce DicksonSource: American Antiquity, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Oct., 1981), pp. 909-916Published by: Society for American ArchaeologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/280116 .

Accessed: 08/05/2014 17:55

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Society for American Archaeology is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toAmerican Antiquity.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 17:55:52 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: The Yanomamo of the Mississippi Valley? Some Reflections on Larson (1972), Gibson (1974), and Mississippian Period Warfare in the Southeastern United States

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THE YANOMAMO OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY? SOME REFLECTIONS ON LARSON (1972), GIBSON (1974), AND MISSISSIPPIAN PERIOD WARFARE

IN THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES

D. Bruce Dickson

Larson's (1972) hypothesis that warfare during the Mississippian period in the Southeast was primarily a struggle over the fertile silt and sandy loam bottomland soils is summarized. This is then contrasted with Gib- son's (1974) thesis that, at least in the Lower Mississippi Valley, warfare was caused by the "asymmetrical" nature of the kinship systems found there. Such systems led to status decline over several generations and forced individuals to attempt to offset the decline by achieving success in warfare. The Larson-Gibson dispute is essentially an ontological argument which pits the materialist's view of reality against that of the idealist. This dispute is compared to a similar one between Harris (1971, 1974, 1977, 1979) and Lizot (1977) concerning the explanation of Yamomamo warfare in South America. Following this, the basic material conditions of Mississippian warfare are suggested. The importance of mechanisms such as Gibson has proposed for understanding Mississippian warfare at the "tactical" level is recognized. Finally, primacy is given to Larson's materialism at the "strategic" level.

"Reality-what a concept!" -Robin Williams

Not long ago Larson (1972) published a provocative and original paper in which he suggested that warfare during the Mississippian and Early Historic periods in the southeastern United States could largely be understood as a struggle over a key element in the productive equation of any agricultural society: fertile farmland. Larson effectively mustered archaeological and historical data to suggest that the late prehistoric Southeast was characterized by population growth, and that such demographic change led to geographic expansion of Mississippian culture. Inevitably, such growth and expansion led to pressure on scarce resources and eventually to com- petition and warfare between Mississippian social groups. According to Larson (1972:389), the relatively limited availability of the highly fertile and easily cultivated sandy and silt loam bot- tomland soils of the Southeast led to their becoming the focus of such competition and warfare. Ultimately, the aim of Mississippian period warfare commenced to be the destruction or expulsion of rival social groups and the appropriation of their lands.

Larson's thesis is, of course, classic realpolitik as surely as if it were drawn from the writings of Tallyrand, Clausewitz, Henry Kissinger, or even the editors of National Review. It is more likely, however, that Larson's direct inspiration can be found in the works of Harner, Carneiro, Harris, and numerous other latter-day savants whom Karl Marx, were he alive today, would cer- tainly add to his lengthy list of "vulgar materialists" (cf. Friedman 1974; Godelier 1977:42; Harris 1979:ix). Like the three aforementioned scholars, Larson seems intent on explaining culture history in terms of material, economic, demographic, and ecological correlates and causes.

Several years after the publication of Larson's article, Gibson (1974) advanced a partial counter to its materialist thesis. While willing to grant the possibility that Larson's arguments fit-

D. Bruce Dickson, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843

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ted conditions in the middle portions of the Mississippian cultural domain, Gibson suggested that the evidence from the Lower Mississippi Valley did not seem to conform to Larson's rather Dar- winian picture of the rule of talon and claw. Instead, Gibson (1974:132) pointed to the early Euro- pean accounts which indicated that, while warfare was certainly endemic to the Lower Missis- sippi Valley, at least by early historic times, the struggles between what the early chroniclers called Indian "provinces" did not seem either to seek, or to end in, the conquest and appropriation of the loser's territory by the winners. Instead, the chief objectives of such wars seemed to be glory, revenge, and the capture of prisoners.

Gibson turns to the social structure of the highly stratified historic Natchez to explain Mississippian warfare in a fashion alternative to that of Larson. According to him, the "asym- metry" of the kinship structure of the Natchez was such that, over but a few generations, even people of noble grandparentage could theoretically fall back into the ranks of the "stinkards" at the lowest stratum of society. Success in warfare, however, provided an avenue either for up- ward mobility or status retainment outside of, and despite, the asymmetrical kinship system. Generalizing from the Natchez to the surrounding early historic societies in the Lower Mississippi Valley and to late prehistoric Mississippian groups as well, Gibson (1974:132) concludes, for that region at least:

armed conflict can be seen as a major institution for regulating or maintaining equilibrium in social relations within hierarchically ranked societies [emphasis in original].

That is, the perpetual warfare in the region provided Mississippian men with a ready means of countering the built-in tendency of their social system to drop them over time to ranks lower than those held by their parents or grandparents. Gibson thus eschews invoking material causes for warfare in the Southeast in favor of an idealist's explanation. In order to accept Gibson's inter- pretation as a fully adequate statement of the cause of Mississippian conflict, we must also ac- cept the postulate that what human beings call "reality" is largely, to use Berger and Luckmann's (1966) auspicious phrase, a "social construction." Men fought one another in the Lower Missis- sippi Valley to overcome the inexorable downward trend in their ascribed rank in society by achieving rank through warfare. Yet, both the ascription and the achievement were in the eye (or eyes) of that awesome beholder "society"-a beholder which, of course, was itself a mental con- struct, an abstraction.

Now, the necessarily post-hoc nature of both Gibson's and Larson's research make testing and verification of either of their theses difficult. Yet, things are little improved when the phenomena can be witnessed firsthand. For example, in recent years a number of scholars have been able to observe and document warfare and violence among one of the last largely independent Amerin- dian societies left in the New World: the Yanomamo of the Orinoco River basin in northern South America (Chagnon 1966, 1967, 1968a, 1968b, 1968c, 1972, 1974, 1976a, 1976b, 1977; Lizot 1971a, 1971b, 1971c, 1972, 1975a, 1975b, 1976; Cocco 1972; Neel et al. 1970; Neel et al. 1972; Neel and Chagnon 1968). Years of field time have been spent among these peoples by an- thropologists working both alone and as part of sophisticated interdisciplinary teams. Yet does such contemporary work result in a clear consensus on the causes of Yanomam6 warfare? Hard- ly. On one hand, Harris (1971:263-267, 1974:83-107, 1977:47-54) has advanced an elegant, classically materialist (although he prefers the term "cultural materialist") explanation of Yanomam6 warfare. According to him, the violence that characterizes the lives of these village agriculturalists stems directly from the fact that their populations have grown to such proportions that they have over-hunted the surrounding rain forest. The result of their having exceeded the carrying capacity of their environment has been acute protein deficiency in their diet. Conse- quently, the Yanomamo villagers war with one another because they are competing for scarce hunting territory. Using this explanation, Harris can account for a variety of other aspects of Yanomam6 life such as the level of interpersonal violence between men and women, female infan- ticide, village fissioning, and so forth. The major effects of Yanomam6 warfare are, according to him, to disperse the population throughout the environment and to slow the rate of population

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growth (Harris 1977:54). Harris's argument is comprehensive, parsimonious and, according to Lizot (1977), totally at variance with the truth.

Lizot (1977), in an engrossing, if occasionally rambling and vitriolic, paper, disputes Harris's postulates that the tropical rain forest is basically deficient in exploitable animal species and his assertion that the Yanomama consequently fight over hunting territory (also cf. Gross 1975; Beckerman 1979; Chagnon and Hames 1979). He concludes that Harris has exaggerated the degree of sexual dominance of males over females and the extent of female infanticide. In sum, Lizot regards Harris's entire explanation to be mere distortion. Why then, according to Lizot, do the Yanomamo war so vigorously with one another? "The Yanomamo make war to punish insults, avenge deaths and fulfill kinship obligations" (Lizot 1977:515). Here society is again, it would seem, defining "insult" one moment, demanding vengeance and "socially constructing" kinship obligations the next. Like Gibson and Larson, Lizot and Harris are separated not so much by the facts of their respective cases as by the nature of their ontologies. Perhaps the old saying that each person is born either Platonist or Aristotelian is true after all.

As for myself, I am fully prepared to accept the cliche that "ideas have consequence." Ideas about the need to avenge a murder or slander, ideas about one's duty to kith and kin, ideas about glory or about remedying one's declining relative social position-not to mention ideas about the triumph of Universal Socialism or Manifest Destiny-can become possessed of truly obsessive af- fective power. Such ideas are certainly capable of persuading men to willingly perform risky, unpleasant, often dastardly acts against one another. Yet, while ideas may motivate individuals to fight, do ideas really create the conditions that bring about warfare-or are such ideas themselves largely the effects of such causes?

To illustrate my point, let me bring each of the two varieties of explanation of warfare to bear on a problem area in our own contemporary politics. American society has never been without its ideological and social mechanisms for motivativating men into combat. However, are we really well served by an analysis of the current situation in, say, the Middle East, which concludes that our involvement in that throubled region is a product of the American macho-complex or the desires of our military officers to enhance their social and political status through warfare? Most people would conclude that whatever roles such phenomena played in the problem, they are largely secondary to the compelling and long-term dependence which our economic and social system has developed on the huge petroleum supplies located there. Put another way, the fact that the United States could successfully motivate and field men with well-developed macho-complexes and lead them with officers seeking to enhance their reputations and status through aggressive field leadership, might be useful in explaining the success of the U.S. intervention in Lebanon in 1958. However, the behavior of troops and officers in attaining immediate goals in the presence of the enemy constitute "tactical" considerations. In order to understand the causes of that intervention one must look to the larger "strategic" military and political considerations of the parties in- volved. In Aristotelian philosophical terms, such tactical considerations constitute "efficient" causes-since they bring some change about-but it is the strategic considerations which must be classed as the "final" cause, for they define the ends or purposes for which the change is wrought in the first place (cf. Taylor 1967:11:56).

Likewise, what Gibson has discovered in the "asymmetry" of the Natchez kinship system is not the cause or germ of Mississippian warfare. Rather, it would seem that he has isolated one of the mechanisms whereby Natchez society (and presumably other societies in the Lower Mississippi Valley) were able to motivate men to do battle. The existence of this and certainly other such "mechanisms" was no doubt a critical ingredient in the success of the Natchez social and political system in the years before European contact. After all, in the violent and warlike en- vironment described by the Spanish and French chroniclers for the Lower Mississippi Valley in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it seems obvious that social groups which could con- sistently field motivated and aggressive military forces for defense and attack would have been the most likely to survive. However, just as in the foregoing modern example, the problems of motivation and recruitment strike me as basically "tactical" considerations. Warfare and sur-

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vival during the Mississippian period no doubt hinged on far more profound and persistent prob- lems.

Clearly, the first condition of existence for a Mississippian social group would have been the continued provision of a minimum level of sustenance for its population. Archaeological evidence indicates that Mississippian subsistence systems were "mixed" in their makeup. That is, while depending upon numerous wild plant species for nuts, fruits, and seeds, Mississippians collected molluscs, fished, hunted animals such as white-tailed deer, raccoon, and wild turkey, raised domestic dogs, and cultivated such domesticated plant species as marsh-elder, sunflower, maize, beans, squash, and gourds (Muller 1978:307-308; Smith 1978:483). The elements of this mixed subsistence base would presumably have been produced or collected largely in the land surround- ing the site, a catchment zone which has variously been called the "sustaining area" or the "ter- ritory" of the system.

The concept of territoriality, derived in large measure from animal ecology, has received a good deal of attention in the anthropological literature in recent years (for example, cf. Wynne- Edwards 1970; Krummer 1971; Jarman 1972; Peterson 1975; Jochim 1976:133-139). A consensus that a relationship exists between territory and population in both human and animal species seems to be emerging. In its simplest form this relationship is as follows: if it takes one acre of ter- ritory to support one adequately nourished individual for a year's time, then a social group which consists of 25 individuals must have access to the resources of 25 acres. If they have access to less than this amount, either their level of nourishment or their population must decline. It is therefore critical to the interests of that group that they maintain access to the requisite 25 (or preferably somewhat more) acres of territory. However, this does not mean that they must defend the territory from which they obtain their subsistence. Dyson-Hudson and Smith (1978:21) suggest that formally defined and defended territories emerge among human groups only when the resources upon which these groups draw their livelihood are "sufficiently abundant and predict- able in space and time, so that costs of exclusive use and defense of an area are outweighed by the benefits gained from resource control."

Building on the logic of Dyson-Hudson and Smith's model, we can infer that, if the social and physical environment in which a group is located is filled with other, more-or-less contiguous systems which are all attempting to maintain control over their critical resources and, if all these systems are characterized by growing populations, then each system is faced with the necessity of either: (1) maintaining and defending its territory and resources against the encroachments of its neighbors and internally limiting its own population, or (2) expanding its own territory at the expense of its neighbors. In such situations most systems will probably develop some combination of these two strategies and will expand where possible, defend when necessary, and limit popula- tion as best they can through a variety of conscious and unconscious practices and institutional mechanisms.

According to Smith (1978:480), the Mississippian cultural system was closely adapted to a very particular and limited environmental setting: the "meander-belt zone" habitat of the Lower Mississippi River and its major tributaries. Smith (1978:481) characterizes this zone as composed of "linear bands of circumscribed agricultural land and concentrated biotic resources" and states that the specific location of any particular Mississippian settlement within the zone was a function of two major factors:

1. The availability of well-drained, easily tilled, .. natural levee soils suitable for horticultural garden plots.

2. Easy access to the rich protein resources of fish and waterfowl in channel-remnant oxbow lakes [Smith 1978:488].

Certainly these two classes of territory were capable of producing resources sufficiently "abundant and predictable in space and time" to render it practical for Mississippian social groups to maintain fixed territories around them. At the same time, Smith (1978:482-483) observes that, since natural levee soils and oxbow lakes are limited to and concentrated within

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the meander-belt zone habitat, the societies dependent upon their resources were sharply "cir- cumscribed" by the environment. As Smith notes, Carneiro (1970:736-737) suggests that elsewhere in the world such environmental "circumscription" seems to have fostered competition and warfare among societies dependent on the same sets of resources. The presence of stockades and the evidence of violence found at so many sites of the period suggest that such might have been the case in the Southeast as well.

If the foregoing is a fair rendering of the basic material conditions of Mississippian life, it is safe to say that the determination of policies and strategies for dealing with the immediate and persistent dilemmas presented by these conditions must have occupied generation after generation of Mississippian "councils of state." What could these strategies and policies have been? We can only guess, of course, but surely they were Byzantine compounds of diplomacy and maneuver, ly- ing and forgiveness, malice and miscalculation, bluff and threat, charity and cruelty and honor. Of course, all this is lost to the archaeologist. What we do have is clear and unambiguous evidence-again in the form of stockaded settlements-that military force and violence loomed very large in the strategies of the Mississippians. Shall we account for this through kinship "asymmetry" and social decline of the participants, or instead as part of the long-term competi- tion between complex systems struggling to survive?

One final point. If a material cause like the struggle over critical resources was really at the heart of Mississippian warfare, why, as Gibson (1974:132) points out, did the early European chroniclers state that warring parties in the Lower Mississippi Valley fought by raid and stealth and never sought to appropriate the territory of their adversaries? I would suggest four possibly interrelated hypotheses to explain this apparent anomaly.

(1) Defensive technology in the Southeast may have outstripped offensive military technology. Perhaps by the early Historic period, the technology of southeastern warfare had reached a stalemate situation similar to the one arrived at in Europe in the late Middle Ages. Thus, Mississippian villagers, ensconced behind their stockades and ditches, were generally able to successfully resist and outlast the efforts of their attackers. For their part, the attackers knew that they had to rely on stealth and surprise if they were to take a stockaded village and, failing that, knew that the best they could hope for was the ambush of a few unwary souls whom they found outside the walls (cf. Larson 1972:390). This possible stalemate situation reported by early Historic period chroniclers may not have characterized the preceding Mississippian period. Of course, shortly after the introduction of gunpowder and Old World diseases, the defensive advan- tages of the stockaded village were destroyed forever.

(2) Prior to European contact, a balance between the size of the human population and the abun- dance of critical wild and domestic resources in the environment may have been established. If this were the case, early Historic period chroniclers in the Lower Mississippi Valley region may have encountered an "equilibrium" situation in which warfare had come to play the role of a regulating mechanism keeping the human populations of the various competing systems below the carrying capacity of the environment by: (a) reducing the real numbers of people exploiting it, and (b) by causing population aggregates to disperse as widely as possible. In other words, perhaps a functional similarity exists between the warfare of the early Historic period in the Southeast and that of the Yanomamo as interpreted by Harris (1977:54). Please note that, as in the first hypothesis, we must conclude that what the European chroniclers would have observed in the Lower Mississippi Valley in the Historic period would have been only the final act in the drama. Prior to the establishment of this proposed equilibrium state, the character of Mississippian warfare and settlement may have been much different.

(3) The early chroniclers were incorrect in concluding that simply because it consisted largely of small-scale intervillage guerilla activity Southeastern warfare was strategically ineffective. Con- temporary observers of the Yanomamoi have described intervillage warfare patterns in the Orinoco drainage which exhibit similarities to those reported for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Set battles involving large numbers of warriors are rare among the Yanomamo, and sustained sieges of one village by the warriors of another are nonexistent. Instead, military conflicts between Yanomamo villages consist largely of raiding ex-

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peditions and ambushes by small groups of warriors, supplemented occasionally by treacherous feasts where hosts slaughter guests or vice versa. Nevertheless, both Chagnon (1968a, 1968b, 1977) and Lizot (1977:505) report that such tactics are pursued assiduously, and the pressure of constant raiding and harassment is often sufficient to drive a village from its lands and force its members to seek sanctuary with their allies or to establish a new settlement in more remote ter- ritory. Thus, although the losing side in a struggle between two Yanomamo villages is rarely van- quished in a formal battle and is never forced to capitulate after a sustained siege, persistent forays by their rivals can force them to vacate their territory just as surely. It seems likely that the small-scale raiding and stealth reported by the early European chroniclers in the Southeast could, over time, have had a similar effect on village settlement there as well.

(4) The struggles reported by the chroniclers may have been efforts to maintain or defend trade or other interactive networks. If such causes were at work, the destruction of an opponent may have been less desirable than simply neutralizing him.

It is important to note that if any (or all) of these hypotheses adequately characterize the nature of Mississippian warfare, little archaeological evidence of actual struggles or single military events would remain. The small-scale, incremental nature of such struggles would mean that only rarely would we expect to uncover a village which had been sacked, burned, and left populated only by unburied, traumatically injured skeletons.

In conclusion, the Mississippians seem to have been a practical, resigned people. Surely their "emic" view of their struggles would have differed markedly from the interpretations attached to them by Larson, Gibson, or myself. Perhaps they would have laughed at the ontological joustings engaged in by modern academics striving to account for those ancient acts. Still, the ontologies of the participants in the debate remain a central impediment to its resolution. To remove it, I sug- gest we ask which explanation seems to account for a greater portion of the archaeological record. Using this criterion, I submit that we must recognize the importance of mechanisms such as Gibson proposes in understanding Mississippian warfare at the "tactical" level but give primacy to materialist explanations such as Larson's at the "strategic" level.

Acknowledgments. R. Berle Clay's provocative 1976 paper led me to distinguish between "tactical" and "strategic" levels in Mississippian geopolitics. In addition, I should like to thank Cynthia Gillette, Mary Ann Dickson, and Jean McConal of Texas A & M University as well as two of the anonymous readers for American Antiquity for providing me with valuable criticism and suggestions for this work. I also wish to thank my research assistant. A. J. Taylor, for typing and proofreading the manuscript and for correcting the bibliography. While I greatly appreciate the excellent contributions of all of these scholars, responsibility for the contents of this paper remains my own.

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Neel, James V., and Napoleon A. Chagnon 1968 The demography of two tribes of primitive, relatively unacculturated American Indians. Proceed-

ings of the National Academy of Science 59:680-689. Peterson, Nicolas

1975 Hunter-gatherer territoriality: a perspective from Australia. American Anthropologist 77(1):53-68. Smith, Bruce D.

1978 Variation in Mississippian settlement pattern. In Mississippian settlement patterns, edited by Bruce D. Smith, pp. 479-503. Academic Press, New York.

Taylor, Richard 1967 Causation. In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (vol. II), edited by Paul Edwards, pp. 56-66. Mac-

millan, New York and Free Press, New York. Wynne-Edwards, V. C.

1970 Social organization as a population regulator. In Science in archaeology, edited by Don Brothwell and Eric Higgs, pp. 273-282. Praeger, New York.

RETHINKING RAMON: A COMMENT ON REINA AND HILL'S LOWLAND MAYA SUBSISTENCE

Charles H. Miksicek, Kathryn J. Elsesser, Ingrid A. Wuebber, Karen Olsen Bruhns, and Norman Hammond

A recent identification of ram6n in Miranda's sixteenth-century relaci6n of Alta Verapaz more likely de- scribes achiote. There is very little archaeological evidence to suggest that ram6n was more than a famine food in ancient Maya times.

In their recent article reaffirming the importance of maize as the caloric base of ancient Maya subsistence, Reina and Hill (1980:76) seem to have overemphasized the possible contribution of ramon by misidentifying it in Miranda's sixteenth-century relacion of the Alta Verapaz in Guatemala (Miranda 1953-1954):

Miranda also stated that between milpas and between houses there were trees with deep foliage, which was always green. They bore small edible fruits (castanias) which had small grains surrounded with a red- dish substance. Miranda reports the Indians would take a large quantity of these seeds and boil them a long time to remove the "grease" and most of the color. From these they make tortillas and a spice to color their drinks [present authors' note: more precisely-"From these they make cakes which are like a spice which gives color to their drinks"]. He goes on to say that the "ladies" of this land were "good witnesses" for this preparation. Additionally, many Spaniards were using the seed instead of saffron to give color to the food [present authors' note: "guisados"-more precisely, "stews"].

Rather than describing a red variety of ramon as Reina and Hill imply, the above description more likely refers to achiote (Bixa orellana L.). Achiote (or annatto) is a large shrub or small tree with evergreen, heart-shaped leaves. For most of the year it bears brown capsules with soft spines that resemble a chestnut (castana). Inside the capsule (- 3 cm in diameter) are some two dozen small seeds covered with an oily red dye high in carotenoids. Achiote is commonly used to add color and some flavor to tamales and stews, and, because of this use as a "spice," it is an im- portant item of commerce throughout modern Central America. When diluted and used with a

Charles H. Miksicek, Arid Lands Studies Program, University of Arizona. Tucson, AZ 85721 Kathryn J. Elsesser, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 Ingrid A. Wuebber, Archaeological Research Program, Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Bruns-

wick, NJ 08903 Karen Olsen Bruhns, Department of Anthropology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132 Norman Hammond, Archaeological Research Program, Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Bruns-

wick, NJ 08903

Neel, James V., and Napoleon A. Chagnon 1968 The demography of two tribes of primitive, relatively unacculturated American Indians. Proceed-

ings of the National Academy of Science 59:680-689. Peterson, Nicolas

1975 Hunter-gatherer territoriality: a perspective from Australia. American Anthropologist 77(1):53-68. Smith, Bruce D.

1978 Variation in Mississippian settlement pattern. In Mississippian settlement patterns, edited by Bruce D. Smith, pp. 479-503. Academic Press, New York.

Taylor, Richard 1967 Causation. In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (vol. II), edited by Paul Edwards, pp. 56-66. Mac-

millan, New York and Free Press, New York. Wynne-Edwards, V. C.

1970 Social organization as a population regulator. In Science in archaeology, edited by Don Brothwell and Eric Higgs, pp. 273-282. Praeger, New York.

RETHINKING RAMON: A COMMENT ON REINA AND HILL'S LOWLAND MAYA SUBSISTENCE

Charles H. Miksicek, Kathryn J. Elsesser, Ingrid A. Wuebber, Karen Olsen Bruhns, and Norman Hammond

A recent identification of ram6n in Miranda's sixteenth-century relaci6n of Alta Verapaz more likely de- scribes achiote. There is very little archaeological evidence to suggest that ram6n was more than a famine food in ancient Maya times.

In their recent article reaffirming the importance of maize as the caloric base of ancient Maya subsistence, Reina and Hill (1980:76) seem to have overemphasized the possible contribution of ramon by misidentifying it in Miranda's sixteenth-century relacion of the Alta Verapaz in Guatemala (Miranda 1953-1954):

Miranda also stated that between milpas and between houses there were trees with deep foliage, which was always green. They bore small edible fruits (castanias) which had small grains surrounded with a red- dish substance. Miranda reports the Indians would take a large quantity of these seeds and boil them a long time to remove the "grease" and most of the color. From these they make tortillas and a spice to color their drinks [present authors' note: more precisely-"From these they make cakes which are like a spice which gives color to their drinks"]. He goes on to say that the "ladies" of this land were "good witnesses" for this preparation. Additionally, many Spaniards were using the seed instead of saffron to give color to the food [present authors' note: "guisados"-more precisely, "stews"].

Rather than describing a red variety of ramon as Reina and Hill imply, the above description more likely refers to achiote (Bixa orellana L.). Achiote (or annatto) is a large shrub or small tree with evergreen, heart-shaped leaves. For most of the year it bears brown capsules with soft spines that resemble a chestnut (castana). Inside the capsule (- 3 cm in diameter) are some two dozen small seeds covered with an oily red dye high in carotenoids. Achiote is commonly used to add color and some flavor to tamales and stews, and, because of this use as a "spice," it is an im- portant item of commerce throughout modern Central America. When diluted and used with a

Charles H. Miksicek, Arid Lands Studies Program, University of Arizona. Tucson, AZ 85721 Kathryn J. Elsesser, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 Ingrid A. Wuebber, Archaeological Research Program, Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Bruns-

wick, NJ 08903 Karen Olsen Bruhns, Department of Anthropology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132 Norman Hammond, Archaeological Research Program, Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Bruns-

wick, NJ 08903

916 916 [Vol. 46, No. 4, 1981] [Vol. 46, No. 4, 1981]

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