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| San Foragers (Human Area Relations Files) |
The most basic form of economy is the foraging economic
unit, and up until about 10,000 years ago, every society in the world was a
foraging society. Foraging societies,
also referred to as hunter-gatherers, are characterized by a reliance on nature
to survive and constant movement across the landscape. They do this by practicing seasonality,
meaning they migrate across their landscape based on the presence of resources
that are in season. Each group exploits
different resources based on the environment of which they inhabit. For example, foraging groups of the Artic
exploit big game animals that are native to the region, including whales, polar
bears, artic foxes, and seals, but foraging groups in the Amazon rainforest
will exploit other natural resources, such as local fruits and vegetables,
snakes, frogs, fish, etc. Because of
their way of life and heavy reliance on their environment foraging groups
cannot be and are not ecologically dominant, meaning they only take the
resources they need but they do not over-exploit the resources in their region.
Foraging societies are distinguished by two social groups
that their members find significant.
These two groups are the nuclear family (immediate family) and the band. The band is comprised of two or three nuclear
families that are related and therefore are each other’s extended family. Membership in the band is fluid and can
change from year to year, as kin networks are created and maintained through
marriage, trade, and visiting.
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| Tlingit Foragers (Human Area Relations Files) |
Foraging bands are egalitarian, meaning there is little
social division within the group and everyone is considered relatively equal in
status. There are, however, some differences
within the group and these differences are based on achieved status, or status
that one earns in their lifetime. In the
case of foraging bands achieved status is based on age and knowledge and
ability to hunt or gather. The advanced
age and/or abilities of an individual nets them prestige, which refers to the
esteem or respect of others.
Foraging societies do have a gender-based division of labor
despite being egalitarian. Women primarily
gather while men hunt and fish, but the reason for this is based on reproduction
and child rearing responsibilities that fall primarily on women. Women give birth and feed their infants through
breast milk until they are weaned. They are
therefore at a disadvantage for hunting large game because the infant requires
a great deal of time and attention, and the infant can be loud and distracting,
scaring away the big game that is being hunted.
Despite this, women, as gatherers, still hunt small game and actually
contribute most of the food resources to the group as big game hunting is not
consistently successful.
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| Figure 1: Map of Historically Known Foraging Groups as Globally Distributed (Gezon & Kottak, 2014) |
Foraging societies are still commonplace today in many
regions in the world but not as prevalent in the past (Figure 1). Modern foraging groups are under state control
of the country that they reside in. They
are often forcibly moved from their traditional lands as a means of forced assimilation
by the state, which results in culture loss among the foraging groups. This occurs because of negative perceptions
of foraging groups that include beliefs that they are less intelligent and
primitive. The reason that foraging
societies continue is not because the group is stubborn or does not desire to
change, but because the environments the group inhabits are not favorable for
changing economic strategies (e.g. horticulture or agriculture). Foraging societies are neither less
intelligent nor primitive. The fact that
they continue to thrive today in their traditional life ways despite
technological advances demonstrates their intelligence, and what we consider
primitive may actually be more beneficial given that their ecological footprint
is minimal and not as damaging to the environment as the state level societies
that dominate them.
Bibliography:
Gezon,
L., & Kottak, C. (2014).
Cultural Anthropology
McGraw-Hill
