Richard B. Lee

Foragers, Genuine or Spurious?: Situating the Kalahari San in History

2 case studies of the Western Kweneng San and Dobi San in Botswana are examined historically to show that contact with the Bantu-speaking neighbors or dominant societies may take other autonomous forms rather than dependency and abandonment of foraging. Revisionists have argued that hunter-gatherers were absorbed into regional economic networks and ceased to be independent societies however it they continued to exhibit traits of hunter-gathers it was because of their poverty and resistance to domination by stronger societies. This is a spacious argument. The Kweneng San are described as having lived for 200 years among the Bantu-speaking people in the southern Kalahari. Loss of autonomy was neither automatic nor complete. The pre and protohistoric period and the fur trade period are described as having some subservient to effect but institutionalization came later. The San had a flexible social organization and there was fluidity between village and bush. Agropastoralism reduced the Sans foraging base and the fur trade was the link between the San and Kgalagadi. By the 1950s the San became the Kgalagadis labor force when foraging became more precarious. The Dobi San were isolated from 19th century colonial southern Africa as hunter-gatherers and traded with the Goba between A.D. 500-1500. The trade involved indirect contact through the Goba and later the Tswana and direct contact with European hunters and traders. The prehistoric and fur trade periods are described. There were barter systems and mafisa or contracted animal husbandry which afforded the ]Kung a complement of beef to be added to their foraging diet. After 1954 non-San (Hereros) dominated the areas with the ]Kung as herders. There were 2 groups: a foraging mafisa herding and horticulture group living in camps and client groups attached to cattle posts. The pattern of hunter-gatherers remained as one of collective ownership of resources and food sharing. This final dependency from fierce autonomy was a result of the inability of the land to support foraging due to environmental degradation. The relationships between the Kwena San and Dobi San with non San-were different. The internal organization of the San was unaffected. In the discussion of genuine and spurious foragers attention is paid to terminology and distinguishing between fact and discussion. In the transition to dependency it is cautioned that revisionism trivializes the history of these people and inaccurately characterizes the nature of their autonomy. Commentary which supports the general position and provides constructive criticism is provided by replies from by 19 anthropologists.

!Kung spatial organization: An ecological and historical perspective

The ecological and social bases of spatial organization among hunters and gatherers are examined. After criticizing the patrilocal band model of social organization, the author documents the flexible, nonterritorial groupings of the !Kung Bushmen of Botswana and relates them to rainfall and surface water scarcity and variability. The paper goes on to consider the effects of extra-Bushman contacts on the breakdown of sociospatial organization and finds that the observed flexibility occurred in both the pre- and the postcontact periods. The final section attempts to relate the analysis to general issues. Three areas that need further work if a more valid model of hunter spatial organization is to be developed are the problems of time perspective in research, adaptation to long-term climatic variability, and critical thresholds of population density.

Mongongo: The ethnography of a major wild food resource

The Dobe area !Kung San (Bushmen)t are a foraging people living in northwestern Botswana. Of the 150 species of wild plants and animals that form their diet, by far the most important is mongongo (Ricinodendron rautanenii). This remarkable fruit and nut provides up to one half of the vegetable component of the !Kungs’ diet. The botany, ecology and nutrition of the mongongo, and the role it plays in the Bushman economy and society are discussed.

Anterior Segment Optical Coherence Tomography and Ultrasound Biomicroscopy in the Imaging of Anterior Segment Tumors

PURPOSE To evaluate the utility of anterior segment optical coherence tomography (OCT) in the imaging of anterior segment tumors and compare the images to ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM). DESIGN Prospective observational case series. METHODS Eighteen eyes of 18 patients with anterior segment tumors were evaluated at Princess Margaret Hospital. The evaluation included clinical examination, clinical photography, anterior segment OCT, and UBM. Comparison of images obtained by both methods was done. RESULTS Anterior segment OCT imaged small hypopigmented tumors with complete penetration. Cysts were incompletely imaged behind the iris pigment epithelium. Highly pigmented tumors, large tumors, and ciliary body tumors were incompletely penetrated. Even without complete penetration it was possible to differentiate cystic lesions from solid lesions. UBM penetrated all tumors completely. CONCLUSIONS Anterior segment OCT can penetrate small hypopigmented tumors and supply some information on internal characteristics of other tumors. UBM is preferable for clinical anterior tumor assessment and follow-up because of its superior ability to penetrate large tumors, highly pigmented tumors, and ciliary body tumors.

Twenty-first century indigenism

The late 20th century has seen a renaissance in the fortunes of indigenous people and their visibility on the world’s political agendas. But the term ‘indigenous’ covers a multitude of contradictory meanings and these are deployed in a range of contexts. This article traces the historical trajectories that have brought diverse peoples together under the banner of ‘the indigenous’, introducing the concept of Indigenous One and Indigenous Two. The article then attempts to situate these peoples politically in the current conjuncture, drawing upon the twin discourses of rights and authenticity. The article concludes with a challenge to anthropologists to support the aspirations of indigenous peoples and explore with more depth and sensitivity their political use of the concept of ‘strategic essentialism’.

Politics, Sexual and Non-Sexual, in an Egalitarian Society

women play an important role in production, in fact providing a greater proportion of the subsistence than do the men (Marshall, 1960; Lee, 1968). The same predominance of female over male work productivity has been observed among many other tropical and warm-temperate hunter-gatherers (Woodburn, 1968; Lee and DeVore, 1968; McCarthy and McArthur, 1960). The economic importance of women has led observers to question the maledominated ’patrilocal’ model of hunting and gathering society and to revise and upgrade women’s role in human prehistory (Friedl, 1975; Rohrlich-Leavitt, 1975; Slocum, 1975; Hiatt, 1974; E. Morgan, 1972; Tanner and Zihlman, 1976; Reed, 1975; Leacock, 1972). The counterposing of ’Woman the Gatherer’ to ’Man the Hunter’ has been part of a welcome and long overdue reexamination of the implicit and explicit male biases in an-

AFRICAN HUNTER-GATHERERS: SURVIVAL, HISTORY, AND THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY

Given the continents ongoing crises, African hunter-gathgerers have been remarkably successful at surviving difficult times. They have faced war in Namibia, Angola, and the Congo, genocide in Rwanda, and economic difficulties almost everywhere else. Through the last three decades San, Pygmy, Hadza, Okiek, Mikea, and other foragers have sought to maintain coherent societies and systems of meaning and identity in the face of great odds, at times aided by sympathetic outsiders. This paper will explore the challenges they have faced and their responses, while atempting to situate these diverse peoples within the broader historical and political currents of the Twentieth century.

Male-female residence arrangements and political power in human hunter-gatherers

The origin of male political power has been sought in the dominance behavior of the nonhuman primates. Data from the living hunting and gathering peoples offer a corrective to this viewpoint. Several theorists have developed models of early human groups that placed males at the center and females drawn in from outside through exchange networks. These models contradict the known facts about hunting and gathering peoples, among whom we find a social grouping consisting of both males and females at the center. The burden of the hunter-gatherer evidence (along with that from primate field studies) favors a model of early human society in which females wielded considerable political power as a result of their economic independence and their ability to exercise discretion in their choice of spouse.

Hunter-gatherers on the best-seller list: Steven Pinker and the “Bellicose School's” treatment of forager violence

Purpose – The question of violence in hunter-gatherer society has animated philosophical debates since at least the seventeenth century. Steven Pinker has sought to affirm that civilization, is superior to the state of humanity during its long history of hunting and gathering. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon a series of recent studies that assert a baseline of primordial violence by hunters and gatherers. In challenging this position the author draws on four decades of ethnographic and historical research on hunting and gathering peoples. Design/methodology/approach – At the empirical heart of this question is the evidence pro- and con- for high rates of violent death in pre-farming human populations. The author evaluates the ethnographic and historical evidence for warfare in recorded hunting and gathering societies, and the archaeological evidence for warfare in pre-history prior to the advent of agriculture. Findings – The view of Steven Pinker and others of high rates of lethal violence in h...

Politics and history in band societies

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 Africas 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.