Showing papers in "American Anthropologist in 1993"

How Native Is a "Native" Anthropologist?

Abstract: L'A. s'eleve contre la distinction faite entre les anthropologues « indigenes » (interne a la societe) et « non indigenes » (externe a la societe). Si a l'epoque du colonialisme, les etudes faites par, ou a l'aide, des autochtones etaient davantage estimees car refletant une soit-disant meilleure realite, une approche hybride, ou narration et analyse rigoureuse sont melees, aurait tout autant de valeur.

Demand sharing: reciprocity and the pressure for generosity among foragers

Abstract: Despite the prevalence of an ethic of generosity among foragers, much sharing is by demand rather than by unsolicited giving. Although a behavioristic model of demand sharing can be seen as matching sociobiological expectations, the emphasis here is on the social and symbolic significance of the practice. It is argued that demand sharing involves testing, assertive, and/or substantiating behavior and is important in the constitution of social relations in egalitarian societies.

Emergent Properties of Balinese Water Temple Networks: Coadaptation on a Rugged Fitness Landscape

Abstract: For over a thousand years, generations of Balinese farmers have gradually transformed the landscape of their island, clearing forests, digging irrigation canals, and terracing hillsides to enable themselves and their descendants to grow irrigated rice. Paralleling the physical system of terraces and irrigation works, the Balinese have also constructed intricate networks ofshrines and temples dedicated to agricultural deities. Ecological modeling shows that water temple networks can have macroscopic effects on the topography of the adaptive landscape, and may be representative of a class of complex adaptive systems that have evolved to manage agroecosystems. N 1984, ERIC ALDEN SMITH PUBLISHED a devastating critique of the uses ofsystems ecology and simulation modeling in anthropology. While this article is in part a defense of these methods, we do not take issue with any of Smith's conclusions. Instead, we hope to demonstrate that systems models can serve a different heuristic purpose than the naive functionalist, energy-maximization or group-selection models skillfully demolished by Smith. In particular, we hope to show that simulation models are uniquely appropriate for addressing the issues of adaptation and determinism in the development of complex social systems like the water temples of Bali. But before we turn to the uses of simulation models, it may be useful to sketch out how our approach differs from those criticized by Smith. Although simulation models have always been a rarity in anthropology, they continue to be used extensively in biology as a tool to investigate complex interactive processes. For example, we recently served on the doctoral committee of a graduate student who was interested in the growth of algae in Antarctic sea ice, a major source of fixed carbon in the Antarctic Ocean. The student built a model to study the interactive effects of processes thought to influence the growth of the algae, such as temperature, nutrient flow, and available sunlight. The result was a system of differential equations that predicted, on purely theoretical grounds, variations in the growth of algae depending on the relationships among these causal factors. The model's predictions were then compared with observations, helping the student fine-tune his understanding of the mechanistic processes that drive the growth of the algae (Arrigo 1991). However, an obvious problem in extending this kind of analysis from biology to an

The “Eve” Hypotheses: A Genetic Critique and Reanalysis

Abstract: Ext d'A.: The simplest hypothesis is that all the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation found in present-day humans is derived from a single common female ancestor. There is no controversy concerning this hypothesis from a population-genetic perspective. All homologus DNA copies in a population must ultimately be traceable to a common ancestor under the theory of evolution. Since mtDNA is maternally inherited in primates, this implies that all copies of human mitochondrial DNA must trace backward to a common femal ancestor.

Pre-Hispanic Political Change and the Role of Maize in the Central Andes of Peru

Abstract: While archeologists have the capacity to track changing food use in the archeological record, they have not tended to use food systems in the study of social and political change. To do so, an awareness must be gained of the meanings of foods, which then can illuminate the strategic use of a particular food in the creation of relationships of dependence and prestige. Archeological evidence from the central Andes of Peru indicates that the role of maize changed between A.D. 500 and 1500, shifting from a culinary item, simply prepared by boiling, to a more complex symbolic food, transformed through grinding and brewing into beer, with elaborated political meanings. This change in maize processing and consumption occurred at a time of heightened political and social tensions. We propose that the shift in maize use reflected and participated in new political dynamics, demonstrating how foodways can inform archeologists about past social and political systems.

Indigenous Knowledge of Biological Resources and Intellectual Property Rights: The Role of Anthropology

Abstract: Rappelant l'origine et la nature des droits de la propriete intellectuelle, les droits moraux et l'efficacite economique, l'A. s'interroge sur la connaissance biologique en tant qu'heritage commun, sur la comprehension de la connaissance indigene et ses contributions. Les problemes de la connaissance generale, de l'identite du groupe, du statut legal et du marche genent la realisation de tels droits mais l'anthropologie permettrait de mieux comprendre l'importance de l'extension du debat des droits de la propriete intellectuelle a la connaissance indigene.

Shellfish, Gender, and Status on the Northwest Coast: Reconciling Archeological, Ethnographic, and Ethnohistorical Records of the Tlingit

Abstract: Archeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistorical data provide ambiguous evidence of the dietary and economic importance of shellfish in Northwest Coast cultures. In the case of the Tlingit, I find that understanding shellfish from an emic perspective is critical to reconciling these equivocal data on economic importance. The Tlingit associated shellfish with poverty, laziness, and ritual impurity, and those who sought to be “ideal” persons avoided shellfish. An individual's rank and gender determined the degree to which such dietary guidelines were actually followed. The social and symbolic meaning of shellfish in Tlingit culture is partly explained by ecological factors, including the danger of paralytic shellfish poisoning. The analysis also reveals a number of biases inherent in the ethnographic and archeological data.

Distinguished Lecture in Archeology: Beyond Criticizing New Archeology

Abstract: This article was presented as the Distinguished Lecture in Archeology at the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, December 4, 1992, in San Francisco.

Expansionary Dynamics of Some Early Pristine States

Abstract: Immediately following on endogenous processes of state formation, many pristine civilizations expanded further by placing a variety of isolated core outposts at key junctions of their surrounding periphery. This cross-cultural phenomenon is documented here in reference to early Mesopotamian (Sumerian), Classic Mesoamerican (Teotihuacan), Mature Harappan, and Predynastic Egyptian civilizations. The commonality in the use of outposts in these otherwise very different civilizations is explained by three interconnected factors shared by many early states. First, the expanding economies of increasingly urbanized early state polities required regularized access to nonlocal resources. Second, for their own political ends elites in less-advanced surrounding communities would have been amenable to granting such access to early core societies. And, third, transportational constraints common to all premodern societies meant that the most efficient way to channel regular exchanges between distant geographic areas and differentially structured societies was by means of strategically positioned core outposts serving as collection points for peripheral resources and as distribution nodes for core-manufactured prestige goods.

Infant Killing in Primates: A Review of Observed Cases with Specific Reference to the Sexual Selection Hypothesis

Abstract: Discussion of infant killing in free-ranging primates has focused on the sexual selection hypothesis developed by Hrdy during the mid-1970s. This hypothesis suggests that infant killing is a form of sexual competition whereby an infanticidal male gains a reproductive advantage by selectively killing the offspring of his male rivals. Despite criticisms that the evidence in support of the hypothesis is distorted by misinterpretation of data and observer bias, the sexual selection hypothesis, bolstered in part by additional reports of infanticide in a variety of specks, has become entrenched as the primary explanatory hypothesis for primate infanticide. However, the majority of reliably documented instances of infanticide in primates come from a very small number of species, and a careful examination of the specific context of each of these episodes fails to support the interpretation of infanticide as a primatewide adaptive complex. Most importantly, the atmosphere of generalized inter- and intrasexual aggression that surrounds the majority of infant killings obscures the evolutionary significance of this behavior.

Distinguished Lecture in General Anthropology: The Anthropology of Trouble

Abstract: This essay was presented as the Distinguished Lecture in General Anthropology at the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, December 4, 1992, in San Francisco, California.

Land Use in an Urban Hinterland: Ethnography and Remote Sensing in the Study of African Intensification

Abstract: In the study of African agricultural intensification, stronger inferences may be drawn by combining ethnographic study of small samples with the comprehensive coverage afforded by remote sensing than would be possible with either method alone. Study in the hinterland of Ibadan, Nigeria, suggests that land use by small-scale farmers is tending to diverge into two different patterns of cropping, land use and labor intensity. Remote sensing analysis allows us to suggest that, largely due to market response, agricultural practice is developing in a dynamic fashion in advance of population pressure on Ruthenberg's threshold for humid savanna agriculture of four years of cultivation to eight years of fallow.

Personal sentiments and polyphonic voices in Warao women's ritual wailing: music and poetics in a critical and collective discourse

Abstract: Ritual wailing performed during funerals provides Warao women with a vehicle for individual and collective expression and a crucial point of access to political processes. When asked about the significance of these musical and texted laments, women emphasize the importance of crying “right alongside each other.” This article examines the musical and poetic elements that enable wailers to produce a collective discourse while retaining the distinctiveness of individual voices. I argue that the polyphonic and intertextual character of laments plays an essential role in the cultural construction of women's social power; specifically, these performance dynamics engender special forms of subjectivity that enable women to produce a discourse whose “truth” and “strength” resist reappropriation.

Secrecy, Ambiguity, and the Everyday in Kabre Culture

Abstract: Secrecy, the intentional concealing of information, is very much a part of everyday life and discourse among the Kabre of northern Togo (West Africa). This article proposes an interpretation of Kabre everyday secrecy that relies on indigenous understandings and attempts to move beyond the functionalist assumptions of many previous analyses of secrecy in Africa. It also raises more general questions about theories of culture that ignore the everyday and that fail to come to terms with the negotiated meanings and the indirect types of communication that constitute everyday social relations.

Pastoral Transhumance in the Southern Balkans as a Social Ideology: Ethnoarcheological Research in Northern Greece

Abstract: La transhumance pastorale, strategie economique, dans la region de Grevena au nord de la Grece s'exprime aussi dans l'ideologie culturelle de l'identite ethnique et sociale des Koutsovlach : les forces economiques sont inseparables des forces ideologiques et sociales. Mais l'A. veut aussi fournir au prehistorien des analogies utiles tirees de contextes historiques et ethnographiques pouvant etre appliquees aux interpretations archeologiques sur les origines du pastoralisme specialise.

A reexamination of Rendille population regulation

Abstract: Empirical and descriptive survey findings and theory indicate that the Rendille sepaade (those who follow a cultural institution in which females of a specific cyclical age-set delay marriage age) population in Kenya balances population with resource availability despite rather than because of traditional practices. The proximate determinant of fertility regulation is late age at marriage. The late marriage age is found in logistic models to be linked with the lower probability of reproducing male heirs and with less frequent occurrence of polygyny. Women are in productive roles as livestock herders before and after marriage and they assume their husbands duties when husbands leave to become warriors in distant camps. Present decision-making reflects a reorganization of roles and traditional risk-taking strategies which are an attempt to buffer ecological and economic uncertainty. Women report that cultural traditions lead to family disharmony low fertility and the inability to produce male heirs. Data analysis reveals apparent differences in levels and patterns of fertility among nonsepaade and sepaade women. Sepaade achieve only 61% of nonsepaade fertility. The fertility differences reflect the different marriage patterns where nonsepaade women marry eight years earlier than sepaade women. Both sepaade and nonsepaade women have peak fertility around 30-34 years; differences occur with lower fertility between the ages of 15-34 years among sepaade women. In the entire sample the doubling time of population was 47.1 years which was 3.5 times longer than evidenced by Sato. The sepaade had a much lower gross and net reproduction rate. This means that the sepaade have a lower probability of producing a surviving male heir. The analysis supports the model of cyclical fertility regulation particularly among sepaade women. Although Sato argues that the etic model holds for population growth in balance with Rendille camel herds evidence also points to a emic model of social adjustment rather than environmental concern. The Rendille are aware of the causal relationship between sepaade tradition and population growth and consider the relationship a negative one. Women today argue that the sepaade tradition leads to divorce and an inability to produce male heirs. The pattern fits an emic model of beliefs and an etic pattern of cultural behavior.

The Effect of Polygyny on Sex Ratio at Birth

Abstract: Ethnographic data from Kenyan communities show that the sex ratio at birth is influenced by the rate and timing of coitus which is itself affected by the form of marriage. This situation leads to more females being born to polygynously married mothers than would be expected from norms based on children of monogamous mothers. The Guerrero hypothesis that sex-proportion changes may depend on the variations in vaginal and intercervical pH that occur around the time of ovulation is discussed. The findings from Kenya support the thesis that the secondary sex ratio (sex ratio at birth) is more affected by cultural practices than by natural selection. Monogamous mothers in Kenya have sex ratios for children (0.533) that are similar to the pattern among US Whites (0.514). The James assumption that low coital rates favor female offspring is considered to be correct. Data were obtained from the following populations (by number of interviewed mothers and the percentage polygynously married): the Maasai (151 interviews and 61% polygynous) Kipsignis (42 and 45%) Luo (55 and 45%) the Gusii in 1955 (37 and 22%) and in 1975 (276 and 33%) Abaluya (79 and 23%) Kamba (72 and 15%) and Kikuyu (170 and 9%). Most men did not have more than two wives and the wives lived separately. The sex ratio for polygynous mothers was 0.466 (326 boys and 372 girls) and for monogamous wives 0.533 (1490 boys and 1306 girls). The differences are significant at the 0.008 level for all cultural groups. The Maasai and Luo have sex ratios at birth above 0.5 among polygynously married women and the ratios are even higher among monogamous women. Results of a comparison of mothers married first monogamously and then polygynously were ambiguous.

“Critical Ethnocentrism” and the Ethnology of Ernesto De Martino

Abstract: Italian anthropologist, folklorist, and historian of religions Ernesto De Martino was an eclectic and creative intellectual who fostered a whole generation of studies on popular culture in Italy. In this article, I focus on one particular aspect of his work, a method referred to as “critical ethnocentrism,” attempting to situate De Martino's concerns in the historical moment of postwar ideological struggles. De Martino's approach, however, has a wider relevance to understanding the relationships between the ethnographer and the subjects of the research, as well as the historical and political contexts in which they meet.

Marriage, Social Inequality, and Women's Contact with Their Natal Families in Alliance Societies: Two Tamang Examples

Abstract: Data on Tamang ever married and cohabiting women from Timling and Sangila villages in Nepal were gathered during 1987-88. The data provided the basis for the examination of the relationships between family background womens nonfamilial life course experiences and interfamilial relationships and natal home visits for a week longer during the first marriage year. Interfamilial measures were taken as the exchange of cloth from the groom to the wifes family the kinship relations before the marriage womens autonomy in choice of first spouse and the landholding of families at marriage. Womens nonfamilial experiences might be living with some independence from family before marriage. Natal family background pertained to the labor force activity of parents before the marriage. The control variable was the distance between the natal and marital household. The brief review of the literature suggests that womans kin ties before marriage are related to their social standing and security and inequalities in relationships in kinship societies. Community characteristics are provided. the analysis adds to the literature on anthropological contributions to demographic theory general social theory and cross-societal comparisons. The results confirm that interfamilial relationships have an important impact on the nature of womens ties to their natal families. The contextual differences between the two villages change the nature and significance of these relationships. The analysis emphasizes social precesses rather than static normative constructs. Findings indicated that there were weak community level influences for parents labor force experiences; i.e. Timling did not have a weaker relationship than in Sangila. There was a significant positive relationship between natal home visits and parental work even after the marriage process and interfamilial relationships were taken into account. Findings also showed that nonfamilial experiences were the primary causal link in Sangila although autonomous spousal choice was in the right direction. In the agricultural community of Timling autonomy increased the likelihood of visits. The expectation was confirmed that there would be strong relationships between landholding and home visits in Timling and a weak or null relationship in Sangila. The highest likelihood of home visits was associated with matrilateral cross-cousin marriages in both settings.

In Defense of a Folk Model: The “Skipper Effect” in the Icelandic Cod Fishery

Abstract: The Icelandic folk model of fishing success emphasizes the importance of the skipper. The validity of this folk model has recently been hotly debated in the social science literature. In this study an attempt is made to estimate the role of the skipper in fishing success. First, we document by a national survey the composition of the folk model of fishing success held by the Icelandic public. Second, drawing on extensive interview data we outline the model of fishing success proposed by skippers themselves. Third, we test this folk science of the skipper by means of visual and statistical analysis against a social science model that emphasizes the role of material factors. The results show that fishing success is not determined by technological and material factors, leaving plenty of room for human factors, such as the skills and knowledge of the skipper. These results are consistent with folk notions of the skipper effect, but contradictory to earlier results of social science. Finally, the results are discussed in a theoretical context with reference to resource management and the nature of folk models.

Human Genetics, Paleoenvironments, and Malaria: Relationships and Implications for the Settlement of Oceania

Abstract: Lapita is a distinctive ceramic style that first appeared in the Bismarck Archipelago about 3600 B.P. and over the next few centuries spread throughout island Melanesia. For many prehistorians the distribution of Lapita sherds identifies the expansion of Austronesian-speaking populations through Oceania. This article addresses the Lapita language question by exploring the implications of the relationship among gamma globulin (Gm) genetics, paleoenvironments, malaria, natural selection, and prehistoric settlement patterns. Archeological sites with Lapita ceramics are consistently located in coastal lowlands, which in some parts of Oceania would have been malarious areas. Drawing on recent evidence that Austronesian-speaking populations in Near Oceania possess a genetic advantage over Non-Austronesian speakers with regard to malaria, we contend that Austronesian speakers have been able to occupy—on a permanent basis—malarious coastal lowlands that were detrimental to Non-Austronesian speakers. It follows, therefore, that the inhabitants of those Lapita sites spoke one or more of the Austronesian languages.

Subsistence Ecology in the Mediterranean Forest: Implications for the Origins of Cultivation in the Epipaleolithic Southern Levant

Abstract: Examinant les conditions ecologiques probables ayant existe dans la foret mediterraneenne du Sud Levant et reconstruisant la subsistance ecologique des Natufians, l'A. revoit la these selon laquelle ces derniers auraient ete les initiateurs de l'intensification de la culture des cereales.

Torture in the Archives: Mayans Meet Europeans

Abstract: DURING THE SCORE OF YEARS NAMED 2 AHAW, or what the Christian world calls the early 16th century, Europeans began appearing over the horizon of the Mayan world. It was not a meeting of history with prehistory, or of literacy with preliteracy, but of one history and literacy with another. Europeans wrote Mayans into their history and, as we shall see, Mayans wrote Europeans into theirs. Mayan writings have been difficult to read for those of us whose sense of literacy and history are of the European kind. In the case of the texts Mayans wrote before Europeans invaded their world, decipherment was long delayed by our reluctance to entertain either a phonetic reading of the signs of the Mayan script or a historical reading of the inscriptions on Mayan monuments (see Lounsbury 1989:216-220). Soon after the European invasion Mayan writers produced a good many texts in the medium of the Roman alphabet, but in cases where such a text seems to contradict a European one on some point of history, we have tended to favor the European account. And when our only source has been Mayan statements reported by Europeans, we have accepted these with little concern for the circumstances of the dialogues that produced them, even in the case of the proceedings of the Holy Inquisition. So it is that we have conceded a triple hegemony to European over Mayan discourse, in the first instance preserving the opacity of both the alien script and discourse, in the second instance favoring a familiar discourse over an alien one when both are written in the familiar script, and in the third instance giving more weight to the familiarity of a report written by Europeans than to the situation of the Mayans whose spoken words it represents. What will concern us here is the past interpretation and possible reinterpretation of 16th-century alphabetic texts, some written by Mayans and others by Europeans, but all of them bespeaking confrontations between two worlds. The writings of this period are of particular anthropological interest because the distance between the two sides-the coefficient of mutual otherness, so to speak-is at its peak. Mayan writers point directly to the conditions Europeans imposed on certain key dialogues, conditions that did not have the subtlety of hegemony, which does its work implicitly and by sheer inertia, but were rather a matter of the direct application of force. On the European side, where the writings in question are reports of investigations conducted among Mayans, there is an epistemological assumption that truth can be separated from the methods used to obtain it. This assumption, as we shall see, has been shared until very recently by interpreters of these reports, whether they be historians or anthropologists. The earliest Mayan writers to use the Roman alphabet worked primarily in two regions: highland Guatemala, where the best-known works are the Popol Vuh or "Council Book" and the Annals of the Cakchiquels, both written in Quichean languages; and

A Current Controversy in Human Evolution. Overview

Abstract: With this issue, the editors of the American Anthropologist publish the second Contemporary Issues Forum, “A Current Controversy in Human Evolution.” We find it incumbent upon the flagship journal of the profession to encourage productive discussion of issues of relevance to anthropologists and to the public. With this in mind the editors have targeted broadly significant and controversial topics as foci for the forums with a view to encouraging dialogue. The second forum opens an arena for debate in this journal regarding contemporary theories of modern human evolution and their evidential bases in genetics and the fossil record. We recognize the disputed nature of these issues and the potential importance of such controversies to the profession. Commentary on the forum papers from the readership of the American Anthropologist is welcomed.

Kanengamah and Pohnpei's Politics of Concealment

Abstract: Kanengamah is an abstract quality and a manner of behaving fundamental to social life on Pohnpei, in Micronesia's Eastern Caroline Islands. It entails the habit of concealment; most social interactions are conditioned by the expectation that all parties are engaged in dissembling. Kanengamah enables Pohnpeians simultaneously to exalt their leaders and to remain remarkably free from their authority. As a consequence, “hierarchical” and “egalitarian” social forms are interdependent rather than mutually exclusive categories.