Full Description
The papers collected in this volume present important information on the history and culture of contemporary gathering and hunting peoples from Canada, India, Africa, Australia and the Philippines. The volume focuses on two themes: first, on the techniques which band-living foraging peoples employ to organise their social and economic lives; and second, on their fight for the right to their own lands and for a measure of cultural and political autonomy. The contributors maintain that gatherer-hunters are not examples of a disappearing way of life, but peoples who have maintained their social and economic practices through long periods of contact with stratified societies. The aim of this volume it to make known to as wide an audience as possible the daily lives, the patterns of relations between the sexes and the political orientations of the world's contemporary foragers.
Contents
Notes on the contributors; Introduction Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee; Part I. Dynamics of Egalitarian Foraging Societies: 1. Political process in G/wi bands George Silberbauer; 2. Politics, sexual and non-sexual in an egalitarian society Richard Lee; 3. Risk, reciprocity and social influences on !Kung San economics Polly Wiessner; 4. Descended from father, belonging to country: rights to land in the Australian Western Desert Annette Hamilton; 5. Living dangerously: the contradictory foundations of value in Canadian Inuit society Jean L. Briggs; 6. The ritualisation of potential conflict between the sexes among the Mbuti Colin M. Turnbull; Part II. Forgager-farmer Relations: 7. Relations of production in band society Eleanor Leacock; 8. The family, group structuring and trade among South Indian hunter-gatherers Brian Morris; 9. Aka-famer relations in the northwest Congo Basin Serge Bahuchet and Henri Guillaume, translated by Sheila M. Van Wyck; 10. Adaptive flexibility in a multi-ethnic setting: the Basarwa of the Southern Kalahari Helga I. D. Vierich; 11. Patterns of sedentism among the Basarwa of eastern Botswana Robert K. Hitchcock; 12. Nomads without cattle: East African foragers in historical perspective Cynthia Chang; 13. In the land of milk and honey: Okiek adaptations to their forests and neighbours Roderic H. Blackburn; Part III. Contemporary Political Struggles: 14. Utter savages of scientific value Renato Rosaldo; 15. From foragers to fighters: South Africa's militarisation of the Namibian San Richard Lee and Susan Hurlich; 16. Dene self-determination and the study of hunter-gatherers in the modern world Michael I. Asch; 17. The future of hunters within nation-states: anthropology and the James Bay Cree Harvey A. Feit; 18. Hydroelectric dam construction and the foraging activities of eastern Quebec Montagnais Paul Charest; 19. The outstation movement in Aboriginal Australia H. C. Coombs, B. G. Dexter and L. R. Hiatt; 20. Aboriginal land rights in the northern territory of Australia Nicholas Peterson; 21. Political consciousness and land rights among the Australian Western Desert people Daniel A. Vachon; Indexes.
