As Americans with our vast wealth and technology, we often stereotype hunter-gatherers like the Bushmen as ‘primitive.’? But how long could you do it?? No running water, no automobiles, a

PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura Tubelle de González

2020 American Anthropological Association 2300 Clarendon Blvd, Suite 1301 Arlington, VA 22201

ISBN Print: 978-1-931303-67-5 ISBN Digital: 978-1-931303-66-8

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SECOND EDITION

Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology by Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura Tubelle de

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5 5 SUBSISTENCE SUBSISTENCE

Isaac Shearn, Community College of Baltimore County [email protected] http://ccbcmd.academia.edu/IsaacShearn

Learning Objectives Learning Objectives

• Identify the four modes of subsistence and describe the major activities associated with obtaining food in each system.

• Explain the difference between wild and domesticated resources and how plants and animals are domesticated.

• Explain the relationship between the subsistence system used in a society and the amount of private property or wealth differ- ences that develop.

• Assess the ways in which subsistence systems are linked to expectations about gender roles.

• Categorize the social and economic characteristics associated with agriculture and describe the benefits and drawbacks of the agricultural subsistence system.

• Analyze the ways in which the global agricultural system separates producers from consumers and contributes to wealth differ- ences.

• Appraise the ways in which human intervention in the environment has made it difficult to separate the “natural” from the human-influenced environment.

Think about the last meal you ate. Where did the ingredients come from? If it was a cheeseburger,

where did the cow live and die? Now think about all the food you consume in a normal week. Can you

identify the geographic origin of all the ingredients? In other words, how much do you know about the

trip your food took to arrive at your plate? How much you know about where your food comes from

would tell an anthropologist something about the subsistence system used in your community. A sub-

sistence system is the set of practices used by members of a society to acquire food. If you are like me

96

Figure 1: Carrying Capacity: The area in the orange box, which is not under cultivation, might provide enough resources for a family of four to survive for a year. An equivalent area, marked by the blue box, could provide enough resources for a significantly larger population under intensive agricultural cultivation.

and you cannot say much about where your food comes from, then you are part of an agricultural soci-

ety that separates food production from consumption, a recent development in the history of humans.

People who come from non-agricultural societies have a more direct connection to their food and are

likely to know where 100 percent of their food comes from.

Finding food each day is a necessity for every person no matter where that person lives, but food is

not just a matter of basic survival. Humans assign symbolic meaning to food, observing cultural norms

about what is considered “good” to eat and applying taboos against the consumption of other foods.

Catholics may avoid meat during Lent, for instance, while Jewish and Islamic communities forbid the

consumption of certain foods such as pork. In addition to these attitudes and preferences, every society

has preferred methods for preparing food and for consuming it with others. The cultural norms and

attitudes surrounding food and eating are known as foodways. By studying both the subsistence system

used by a society to acquire food and the foodway associated with consuming it, anthropologists gain

insight into the most important daily tasks in every society.

STUDYING SUBSISTENCE SYSTEMS

Since the need to eat is one of the few true human universals, anthropologists have studied subsis-

tence systems from a variety of perspectives. One way to think about the importance of food for human

populations is to consider the number of calories an individual must obtain every day in order to sur-

vive. Anthropologists use the term carrying capacity to quantify the number of calories that can be

extracted from a particular unit of land to support a human population. In his 1798 publication An Essay

on the Principle of Population, Thomas Malthus argued, “the power of population is indefinitely greater

than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.”1 He suggested that human populations

grow at an exponential rate, meaning the population climbs at a rate that is constantly increasing. How-

ever, the availability of resources in the environment increases at only an arithmetic rate, which means

that left unchecked human populations would soon outstrip the environment’s ability to provide sus-

tenance. Malthus famously argued that war, famine, and disease were “good” or at least “functional” in

the sense that they kept populations from growing too large.

While Malthus presented a grim view of

humanity’s future, research suggests that the

rate of human population growth, currently

about one percent per year, is actually slowing.

It is also not necessarily true that population

growth has an entirely negative impact on

human communities. The Danish economist

Ester Boserup, for example, argued that human

history reveals a connection between popula-

tion growth and cultural innovation, particu-

larly innovation in farming techniques.

Because necessity is the mother of invention,

she reasoned, the pressure of having more

mouths to feed could be the dynamic that dri-

ves societies to develop new solutions.2

Modern anthropological studies of subsistence systems draw on insights and perspectives from sev-

97

eral different fields, including biology, chemistry, and ecology, as well as a range of ethnographic

techniques. This interdisciplinary perspective allows for cross-cultural comparison of human diets. In

several decades of anthropological research on subsistence systems, anthropologists have observed that

the quest for food affects almost every aspect of daily life. For instance, every person plays a role in soci-

ety as a producer, distributor, or consumer of food. In the journey of a fish from the sea to the plate, for

instance, we can see that in some societies, the same person can fill more than one of those roles, while

in other societies there is more specialization. In a small fishing village, the same person might catch the

fish, distribute some extra to friends and family, and then consume the bounty that same day. In a city,

the consumer of the fish at a fancy restaurant is not the same person who caught the fish. In fact, that

person almost certainly has no knowledge who caught, cleaned, distributed, and prepared the fish he or

she is consuming. The web of social connections that we can trace through subsistence provide a very

particular kind of anthropological insight into how societies function at their most basic level.

Figure 2: These images show how fish are harvested in two different subsistence systems. Consider the amount of investment and labor that went into the development of technologies that make mass fish farming, or aquaculture, possible compared to fishing with simple nets.

MODES OF SUBSISTENCE

Like all human systems, a society’s subsistence system is intricately linked to other aspects of culture

such as kinship, politics, and religion. Although we can study these systems in isolation, it is important

to remember that in the real world all aspects of culture overlap in complex ways. Consider harvest rit-

uals, for example, which are religious ceremonies focused on improving the food supply. These rituals

are shaped by religious beliefs as well as the demands and challenges of obtaining food. Likewise, sub-

sistence systems are the economic base of every society. Working to put food on the table is the essential

task of every family or household, and this work is the basis of a domestic economy that interacts with

the modes of production and modes of exchange described in the Economics chapter.

When anthropologists first began to examine subsistence systems, they started like all scientists do,

with classification. Early on, anthropologists saw the benefit of grouping similar societies into types, or

categories, based on the range of practices they used in the quest for food. These groupings allowed for

comparisons between cultures. At a basic level, societies can be divided into those that have an imme-

diate return system for finding food and those that use a delayed return system. The residents of a

small fishing village who eat the fish they catch each day have an immediate return on their labor. Farm-

98 PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

ers who must wait several months between the time they plant seeds and the time they harvest have a

delayed return system.

Beyond this basic division, anthropologists recognize four general types of food system known as

modes of subsistence. The four modes of subsistence are foraging, pastoralism, horticulture, and agri-

culture. Each mode is defined by the tasks involved in obtaining food as well as the way members of

the society are organized socially to accomplish these tasks. Because each mode of subsistence is tai-

lored to particular ecological conditions, we can think of each culture’s subsistence system as an adapta-

tion, or a set of survival strategies uniquely developed to suit a particular environment. Because culture

shapes the way we view and interact with the environment, different societies can adapt to similar

environments in different ways. Foraging, sometimes known as hunting and gathering, describes soci-

eties that rely primarily on “wild” plant and animal food resources. Pastoralism is a subsistence sys-

tem in which people raise herds of domesticated livestock. Horticulture is the small-scale cultivation of

crops intended primarily for subsistence. Agriculture, the subsistence system used in the United States,

involves the cultivation of domesticated plants and animals using technologies that allow for intensive

use of the land. Can all societies be categorized neatly into one of these modes? No. In fact, almost every

society combines one or more of these strategies into their subsistence practices. For example, in the

United States there are individuals who participate in all of these subsistence modes, including foraging.

When anthropologists analyze a subsistence system, they look for the dominant mode of subsistence,

or the most typical way that members of a society procure food. So, while some people in the United

States grow their own food or hunt wild animals, the dominant mode of subsistence is agriculture, and

people obtain food primarily by purchasing it.

Foraging

“Why should we plant, when there are so many mongongos in the world?”

-/Xashe, !Kung forager3

Foraging is a mode of subsistence defined by its reliance on wild plant and animal food resources

already available in the environment rather than on domesticated species that have been altered by

human intervention. Foragers use a remarkable variety of practices to procure meals. Hunting for ani-

mal protein is central to the foraging lifestyle and foragers capture and consume a wide variety of ani-

mals, from squirrels caught with a bow and arrow or blow dart to buffalo once killed by the dozens in

communal hunts. Fishing for marine resources forms the basis for acquiring protein in many foraging

communities and includes a range of practices from exploiting coastal shellfish and crab, to harvesting

offshore resources such as deep sea fish and marine mammals such as whales and seals. Augmenting

the protein from hunting or fishing, gathered wild plant resources, such as fruits, nuts, roots, tubers,

and berries typically provide a large percentage of the calories that go into any meal. Gathering requires

expert knowledge of where plant resource can be found, when they will be best to harvest, and how to

prepare them for consumption. Foraging is the only immediate return subsistence system.

Foraging societies tend to have what is called a broad spectrum diet: a diet based on a wide range

of resources. Many of the foods regularly eaten by foragers, such as insects and worms, would not nec-

essarily be considered edible by many people in the United States. For example, many people do not

know that earthworms are a good source of iron and high-quality protein, roughly equivalent to eggs,

but that is exactly what anthropologists learned by studying the diet of foraging societies in Venezuela.4

Foragers are scientists of their own ecosystems, having acquired extensive knowledge of the natural

99

world through experience that allows them to exploit many kinds of food resources. The Aché, a forag-

ing group living in the subtropical rainforest in Paraguay, eat 33 different kinds of mammals, more than

15 species of fish, the adult forms of 5 insects, 10 types of larvae, and at least 14 kinds of honey. This is

in addition to finding and collecting 40 species of plants.5 The !Kung foragers, who live in the Kalahari

Desert in southern Africa, treasure the mongongo nut, which is tasty, high in protein, and abundant for

most of the year, but they also hunt giraffes, six species of antelope, and many kinds of smaller game

like porcupine.6

In general, foraging societies are small, with low population densities of less than 5 people per square

mile. Large families and communities are not necessarily desirable since more mouths to feed can

equate to increased pressure to find food. Another factor that contributes to a lower population den-

sity is the fact that it is more difficult for the young and the elderly to participate in food procurement.

Children only gradually acquire the skills necessary to successfully find food and generally do not make

significant contributions to the group until their teenage years. Likewise, elders who can no longer pro-

duce enough food themselves expect to be cared for by others.7

One important hallmark of foraging societies is their egalitarian social structure. Stark differences in

wealth, which characterize many societies, are rare in foraging communities. One reason for this is that

foragers have a different perspective on private property. Foraging societies tend to move their camps

frequently to exploit various resources, so holding on to a lot of personal possessions or “wealth” is

impractical. Foragers also place a high cultural value on generosity. Sharing of food and other resources

is a social norm and a measure of a person’s goodness. Those who resist sharing what they have with

others will be ridiculed, or could even become social outcasts.8 Over the long term, daily habits of giv-

ing and receiving reinforce social equality. This practice is also an important survival strategy that helps

groups get through times of food scarcity.

Though foragers have high levels of social equality, not everyone is treated exactly the same. Gender

inequality exists in many communities and develops from the fact that work among foragers is often

divided along gender lines. Some jobs, such as hunting large animals, belong to men whose success in

hunting gives them high levels of respect and prestige. While women do hunt in many communities

and often contribute the majority of the group’s food through gathering, their work tends not to be as

socially prestigious.9 Likewise, elders in foraging communities tend to command respect and enjoy a

higher social status, particularly if they have skills in healing or ritual activities.

Rule-Breaking Foragers

Nomadic lifestyles are the norm for most foragers, but there have been some societies that have bro-

ken this rule and developed large-scale sedentary societies. This was possible in areas with abundant

natural resources, most often fish. Historically, fishing formed the foundation of large-scale foraging

societies in Peru, the Pacific Northwest (the Kwakwa ̱ka ̱’wakw), and Florida (the Calusa). These societies

all developed advanced fishing technologies that provided enough food surplus that some people could

stop participating in food procurement activities.

The Kwakwa ̱ka ̱’wakw of the Pacific Northwest provide an excellent example. In that region, the

salmon that spawn in the rivers are so abundant that they could support sedentary populations of a size

that would normally be associated with intensive agriculture. Because there was a surplus of food, some

members of society were able to pursue other full-time occupations or specializations such as working

as artisans or even becoming “chiefs.” This led to wealth differences and social inequality that would

not normally be found in a foraging community. Conscious of the corrosive effect of wealth and sta-

100 PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

tus differences on their community, the Kwakwa ̱ka ̱’wakw developed a tradition of potlatch, a kind of

“extreme gift-giving” to neutralize some of these tensions.

Assessing the Foraging Lifestyle

In 1651, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes became one of the first scholars to comment on

foragers, describing their lifestyle as “nasty, brutish, and short.” We now realize that his viewpoint was

colored by ethnocentrism and, more specifically, Eurocentrism. Hobbes, as well as many scholars that

came after him, viewed Western societies as the pinnacle of social evolution and viewed less technolog-

ically advanced societies as deficient, antiquated, or primitive, a perspective that persisted well into the

twentieth century.

In the 1960s, the anthropological perspective on foragers changed when Marshall Sahlins suggested

that these communities were “the original affluent society.” He argued that foragers had an idyllic life,

in which only a small percentage of the day was spent “working,” or acquiring resources, and most of

the day was spent in leisure and socializing, leading to stronger community and family bonds:

Hunter-gatherers consume less energy per capita per year than any other group of human beings. Yet

when you come to examine it the original affluent society was none other than the hunter’s—in which

all the people’s material wants were easily satisfied. To accept that hunters are affluent is therefore to

recognize that the present human condition of man slaving to bridge the gap between his unlimited

wants and his insufficient means is a tragedy of modern times.10

Today anthropologists recognize that foraging, far from being primitive, is one of the most effective

and dynamic subsistence systems humans have ever developed, yet Sahlins’ conception of the original

affluent society is overly romantic. Foraging is a challenging lifestyle; some groups spend up to 70 hours

per week collecting food. The amount of leisure time and relative comfort of the foraging lifestyle vary

significantly based on differences in the availability of food and environmental conditions.11

Contemporary studies of foraging also recognize that foragers have rarely lived in isolation.

Throughout the world, foragers have lived near farming populations for hundreds or even thousands

of years. Conflicts and competition for resources with non-foraging societies have characterized the

foraging experience and foragers, with their relatively small population size and limited technology,

have often been on the losing end of these confrontations. Government policies containing foragers to

small “reservation” areas or forcing them to settle in towns have had catastrophic effects on foragers, as

has the destruction through agricultural and industrial development of the ecosystems on which many

groups once depended. A sad worldwide pattern of exploitation and marginalization is the reason that

many foragers today live in dwindling communities in marginal ecological zones.12

The Built Environment and Domesticated Landscapes

None of us live in a natural environment. Current research on the causes of global climate change

have demonstrated that humans are having a profound effect on the Earth and its ecosystems, but

it would be a mistake to conclude that human effects on the environment are a recent development.

Humans have been making environmental alterations for a long time and we have been engaged in a

process of domesticating the planet for several thousand years. For this reason, no part of the planet can

really be considered 100 percent “natural.” When anthropologists study subsistence, they gain a win-

dow into the ways in which cultures have co-evolved with their environments, a field of study known as

101

historical ecology. Analysis of the ways in which cultures and the environment are mutually intercon-

nected, demonstrates that there is no way to separate the “natural” world from the human-influenced

world, or what anthropologists refer to as the built environment.

This can be seen by considering the historical ecology of the Nukak, a group of foragers who live

in the Amazon rainforest near the headwaters of the Rio Negro along the southern border between

Colombia and Venezuela and whose subsistence demonstrates the blurry line between foraging and

agriculture and “natural” and “domesticated.” The Nukak are a small linguistic and ethnic group who

are part of the larger culture known as Makú. The Nukak were the last among the Makú to be contacted

by the outside world and perhaps owing to this fact, they practice the most “traditional” way of life. The

Nukak were not known to the public at large until 1988, when a group of 41 individuals came in con-

tact with a school in the rural town of Calamar, in southeastern Colombia.

The Nukak are a highly mobile group of foragers who make an average of between 70 and 80 residen-

tial moves a year. The frequency of their moves changes seasonally: infrequent short-distance moves

in the wet season, and more frequent long-distance moves occurring in the dry season. Anthropologist

Gustavo Politis, who spent years living with the Nukak, observed that the Nukak will never occupy the

same camp twice, even if they are moving to an area where an old camp is still in good shape. When

they establish a camp, they remove all the light brush and some of the medium-sized trees, leaving a few

medium-sized trees and all the large trees intact.

Due to the selective nature of the forest clearing, a habitat, which can most readily be described as

a “wild orchard,” is produced. This wild orchard offers nearly perfect conditions for the germination

and growth of seeds because the large trees provide enough shade to prevent the invasion of vines and

shrubs. As the Nukak use the camp and consume fruit they have gathered, they discard the uneaten por-

tions, including the seeds. Significantly, the kinds of fruit the Nukak tend to eat in their camps are the

ones that have hard outer seed cases. Once discarded in a Nukak campsite, these seeds have a higher

chance of germinating and growing in the abandoned camp than they do in other parts of the rainforest.

The result is that Nukak territory is peppered with wild orchards that have high concentrations of edi-

ble plants, an

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