Anthropology: A Global Perspective - Raymond Scupin & Christopher DeCorse PDF

17 Social Structure, the Family, Marriage, and Age AFP/Getty Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 17.1 Discuss the general components of social structure, including status, the family, and marriage. 17.2 Discuss how anthropologists understand...

17 Social Structure, the Family, Marriage, and Age AFP/Getty Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 17.1 Discuss the general components of social structure, including status, the family, and marriage. 17.2 Discuss how anthropologists understand incest avoidance and the incest taboo. 17.3 Discuss how anthropologists understand age as an aspect of social structure. 17.4 Describe the social structure, family, marriage, and age in foraging societies. 17.5 Describe the social structure, family, marriage, descent groups, and age for tribal societies. 17.6 Discuss how status differences, the family, and age are related in chiefdom societies. 17.7 Discuss the family, kinship, marriage, and age patterns in agricultural states. 17.8 Discuss the type of stratification characteristic of agricultural states. 17.9 Discuss the social structure, family, marriage, and age patterns in industrial and postindustrial societies. 17.10 Compare the class structures of Britain, the United States, Japan, and the former Soviet Union. Social Structure 17.1 Discuss the general components of social structure, including status, the family, and marriage. All inorganic and organic things, from planets to living cells, have a structure—they consist of interrelated parts in a particular arrangement. Anthropologists use the idea of structure when they analyze different societies. Societies are not just random, chaotic collections of people who interact with one another. Rather, social interaction in any society takes place in regular patterns. As we discussed in Chapter 11, people learn the norms, values, and behavioral patterns of their societies through enculturation. In the absence of social patterns, people would find social life confusing. Anthropologists refer to this pattern of relationships in society as the social structure. Social structure provides the framework for all human societies, but it does not determine decision making of individuals. Components of Social Structure One of the most important components of social structure is status. Status is a recognized position that a person occupies in society. A person’s status determines where he or she fits in society in relationship to everyone else. Status may be based on or accompanied by wealth, power, prestige, or a combination of all of these. Many anthropologists use the term socioeconomic status to refer to how a specific position is related to the division of labor, the political system, and other cultural variables. All societies recognize both ascribed and achieved statuses. An ascribed status is one that is attached to a person from birth or that a person assumes involuntarily later in life. The most prevalent ascribed statuses are based on family and kinship relations (for example, daughter or son) and age. In addition, in some societies, ascribed statuses are based on one’s race or ethnicity. For example, as we shall see in Chapter 22, skin color was used to designate ascribed status differences in South Africa under the system of apartheid. In contrast, an achieved status is one based at least in part on a person’s voluntary actions. Examples of achieved statuses in the United States are one’s profession and level of education. Of course, one’s family and kinship connections may influence one’s profession and level of education. George W. Bush’s and John Kerry’s educational level and status are interrelated with their families of birth. However, these individuals had to act voluntarily to achieve their status. Closely related to status is the concept of social roles. A role is a set of expected behavior patterns, obligations, and norms attached to a particular status. The distinction between status and role is a simple one: You “occupy” a certain status, but you “play” a role (Linton 1936). For example, as a student, you occupy a certain status that differs from those of your professors, administrators, and other staff. As you occupy that status, you perform by attending lectures, taking notes, participating in class, and studying for examinations. This concept of role is derived from the theater and refers to the parts played by actors on the stage. Whether you are a husband, mother, son, daughter, teacher, lawyer, judge, male, or female, you are expected to behave in certain ways because of the norms associated with that particular status. As mentioned, a society’s social statuses usually correspond to wealth, power, and prestige. Anthropologists find that all societies have inequality in statuses, which are arranged in a hierarchy. This inequality of statuses is known as social stratification. The degree of social stratification varies from one society to another, depending on technological, economic, and political variables. Small-scale societies tend to be less stratified than large-scale societies; that is, they have fewer categories of status and fewer degrees of difference regarding wealth, power, and prestige. In some societies, wealth, power, and prestige are linked with ownership of land or the number of animals acquired. In U.S. society, high status is strongly correlated with income and property. Exploring the causes of differing patterns of social stratification and how stratification relates to other facets of society is an important objective in ethnographic research. The social structure of any society has several major components that anthropologists study when analyzing a society. These components are discussed in the following sections on the family, marriage, incest avoidance, and age. The Family In an early comprehensive cross-cultural study, George Murdock (1945) found that all societies recognize the family. Thus, the family is a universal feature of humans and has its roots in our primate heritage (Chapais 2008, 2010, 2017). Anthropologists define the family as a social group of two or more people related by blood, marriage, or adoption who live or reside together for an extended period, sharing economic resources and caring for their young. Anthropologists differentiate between the family of orientation, the family into which people are born, and the family of procreation, the family within which people reproduce or adopt children of their own (Murdock 1949). The family is a social unit within a much wider group of relatives, or kin. Kinship relationships beyond the immediate nuclear family play a significant role in most societies throughout the world. Anthropologists study kinship relationships along with the family to fully comprehend how evolutionary biological processes and culture interact within human communities. Family and kinship are products of both universal goals and particular circumstances and constraints within different environmental and sociocultural circumstances. Although variations exist in types and forms, as mentioned before, George Murdock found that the family is a universal aspect of social organization. The reason for the universality of the family appears to be that it performs certain basic functions that serve human needs. The primary function of the family is the nurturing and enculturation of children. The basic norms, values, knowledge, and beliefs of the culture are transmitted to children through the family. Another function of the family is the regulation of sexual activity. Every culture places some restrictions on sexual behavior. Sexual intercourse is the basis of human reproduction and inheritance; it is also a matter of considerable social importance. Regulating sexual behavior is, therefore, essential to the proper functioning of a society. The family prohibits sexual relations within the immediate family through the incest avoidance behaviors, as will be discussed later. Families also serve to protect and support their members physically, emotionally, and often economically from birth to death. In all societies, people need warmth, food, shelter, and care. Families provide a social environment in which these needs can be met. Additionally, humans have emotional needs for affection and intimacy that are most easily fulfilled within the family. The two major types of families found throughout the world are the nuclear and extended families. A typical nuclear family is composed of two parents and their immediate biological offspring or adopted children. Murdock (1949) believed that the nuclear family is a universal feature of all societies. What he meant by this was that all societies have a male and female who produce children and are the core of the kinship unit. However, as we shall see later, the nuclear family is not the principal kinship unit in all societies. In many societies, the predominant form is the extended family, which is composed of parents, children, and other kin relations bound together as a social unit. Marriage In most societies, the family is a product of marriage, a social bond sanctioned by society between two or more people that involves economic cooperation, social obligations, rights, duties, and sometimes culturally approved sexual activity. Two general patterns of marriage exist: endogamy, which is marriage between people of the same social group or category, and exogamy, marriage between people of different social groups or categories. A marriage may include two or more partners. Monogamy generally involves two individuals in the marriage. Though this is the most familiar form of marriage in Western industrial societies, it is not the only type of marriage practiced in the world. Many societies practice some form of polygamy, or plural marriage, which involves a spouse of one sex and two or more spouses of the opposite sex. There are two forms of polygamy: polygyny, marriage between one husband and two or more wives, and polyandry, marriage between one wife and two or more husbands. Although the majority of the world’s population currently practices monogamy, polygyny is a common form of marriage and is permitted in 80 percent of human societies, many of which have relatively small populations (Murdock 1981a, 1981b). Although polyandry is the rarest form of marriage, a newer survey of polyandry indicates that it occurs in eighty-one different societies (Starkweather and Hames 2012). Although marriages typically involve the uniting of males and females, a number of societies have same-sex marriages that are recognized socially and legally (Stone 2013). As we shall see, anthropologists have developed hypotheses regarding why certain forms of marriage develop within particular sociocultural systems. Understanding Incest Avoidance and the Incest Taboo 17.2 Discuss how anthropologists understand incest avoidance and the incest taboo. One of the topics addressed by anthropologists is incest. During their studies of interrelationships among family members and sexual relations in various societies, anthropologists noted the widespread avoidance of incestuous behavior. They have developed various hypotheses to understand what are referred to as incest avoidance and the incest taboo. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud offered a mythical explanation for the origins of the incest taboo in his book Totem and Taboo (1913). In this book, Freud proposed that the incest taboo is a result of the Oedipus complex and the rivalry between fathers and sons. According to Freud, in the earliest families, the sons rebelled against their fathers, resulting in what he referred to as Primal Patricide. Having killed their fathers, the sons felt a sense of guilt, so they developed the incest taboo prohibiting sexual relations within the family. Although anthropologists no longer take Freud’s myth of the Primal Patricide seriously, there is no question that Freud’s notions once had an influence on thinking about the problems of incest avoidance and the incest taboo. Anthropologists have been studying these issues regarding incest and the family for a long time and have developed a number of different hypotheses to explain the worldwide prevalence of the incest taboo. Incest involves sexual relations or marriage between certain relatives. Incest avoidance refers to the shunning of sexual relations and marriage between certain relatives. Incest avoidance is a universal phenomenon (D. Brown 1991). This appears to be valid for humans, and it is also widely found throughout the animal kingdom (Bischof 1972; Murray and Smith 1983; Pusey 2004). The incest taboo is based on strong cultural norms that prohibit sexual relations or marriage between certain relatives. Although incest avoidance is found universally, incest taboos are not. Anthropologists find that some societies view incest with disgust and revulsion; these societies have strong prohibitions or taboos against incest. Yet in other societies, people view incest as such an incredible and even laughable behavior that no taboo is called for (Van den Berghe 1979). Marriage and sex between parent and child and between brother and sister are forbidden in almost all societies, although certain exceptions do exist. Ancient Egyptians, Hawaiians, and Incas institutionalized incestuous brother–sister marriages within their ruling classes. This phenomenon is known as royal incest. The purpose of this practice was to maintain the ruling family’s economic wealth and political power. For most people in most societies, however, marriages within the immediate family are forbidden. Biological Explanations of Incest Avoidance One ancient and widely held view of the basis for incest avoidance is that inbreeding within the immediate family causes genetic defects. This view is connected with the observation that abnormal or defective negative traits that are carried within the family would be accentuated by inbreeding. The problem here is that inbreeding itself does not cause harmful genes to exist; it only causes these harmful genes to proliferate in a rapid fashion if they already exist within the immediate family. In fact, recent studies of cousin marriage have indicated that inbreeding actually produces mostly positive genetic influences. Obviously, as mentioned before, harmful genes can result in negative consequences in cousin marriages; however, according to the recent scientific findings in the Human Genome Project, every individual has approximately 1,000 harmful genes out of about 25,000 genes. Anthropologists find that populations apparently can be highly inbred for many generations and survive quite well. Although harmful genetic consequences are found within some inbred populations, anthropologists are seeking alternative explanations of the universality of incest avoidance (A. Wolf and Durham 2004). Marital Alliance and the Incest Taboo Rather than focusing on biological tendencies, some anthropologists have concentrated on the social consequences of inbreeding. In an early explanation, E. B. Tylor (1889) hypothesized that incest taboos originated as a means of creating alliances among different small-scale societies. Marriages outside of one’s group create kinship alliances that encourage cooperation and improve chances for survival. Tylor coined the phrase “marry out or be killed out” to summarize his argument that if people did not create these social alliances, dire consequences would follow, including warfare among the different groups. Anthropologists Leslie White (1959) and Claude Lévi-Strauss (1969) have presented variations of this functionalist hypothesis. The problem with these hypotheses is that they explain the origins of marrying outside of one’s group, rather than incest taboos (Van den Berghe 1980; A. Wolf 2004). Another type of explanation was proposed by Malinowski (1927), who viewed the incest taboo as a mechanism that functions to sustain the family as an institution. Malinowski argued that brother–sister, father– daughter, or mother–son marriages or sexual relations would generate status–role conflict and rivalry within the family, leading to dysfunctions and possible dissolution. The incest taboo thus serves to reduce family friction and conflict and to maintain harmony within the family. Obviously, this view is closest to the traditional Freudian perspective on the incest taboo. Childhood Familiarity Hypothesis Another explanation of the origin and perpetuation of incest avoidance is known as the childhood familiarity hypothesis, which proposes that siblings who were raised together in the family do not become erotically involved or sexually attracted to one another because of a biological tendency. Children living in close association with one another would develop mutual sexual aversion and avoid incest. A number of anthropological studies appear to support this hypothesis. Arthur Wolf studied a marriage pattern in Taiwan called “minor marriage” (known locally as sim-pua marriage), in which a very young girl was adopted into the family of her future husband. The boy and the future bride were then raised in a sibling type of relationship. The purpose of this system was to allow the girl to adjust to her new family through a long association with her husband’s kin. Wolf (1970, 2004) interviewed many people who were involved in these arranged relationships and found that most of them were dissatisfied both sexually and romantically with their spouses. Both males and females were inclined to have extramarital relations, and divorce rates were higher than normal. These conclusions appear to support the childhood familiarity hypothesis. Another study, conducted in Israel, also presented evidence to support this hypothesis. When European Jews first settled in what was then known as Palestine in the early twentieth century, they established collective communities known as kibbutzim. Within these kibbutzim, children were separated from the family into peer groups of six to eight children to be raised and socialized together. Children in these peer- group settings had sibling-like relationships with one another. To examine the childhood familiarity hypothesis, Israeli anthropologist Yonina Talmon (1964) studied the second generation of three kibbutzim. She discovered that there were no married couples who had known each other from peer groups in the kibbutzim. Although as small children these individuals may have shown a sexual interest in members of the opposite sex within their peer groups, this interest diminished after maturity. A later comprehensive study of 211 kibbutzim by anthropologist Joseph Shepher (1983) found that of 2,769 married couples, only 14 marriages were from the ranks of the peer groups. Moreover, every one of these 14 marriages had been dissolved through separation or divorce. Israeli children in a kibbutz. Boaz Rottem/Alamy Stock Photo Incest Avoidance: Biocultural Perspectives Today, most anthropologists agree that incest avoidance likely occurs for a variety of reasons. From an evolutionary perspective, the rule of marrying outside one’s family would help to create alliances. It would also induce greater genetic diversity, thereby enhancing the adaptation and survival of different populations. In an extensive cross-cultural analysis of mating systems, Melvin Ember (1975) hypothesized that populations expanding as a result of agricultural development began to notice the spread (not the creation) of harmful genes as a result of inbreeding and, therefore, created incest prohibitions. And, additionally, as Malinowski had suggested, incest avoidance would support family roles and functions. The fact that incest does occur, coupled with the existence of institutionalized incestuous marriage practices in the royal families of some societies, indicates that incest avoidance cannot be reduced to a biological instinct. Some evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists have argued that humans do have specialized mental circuits or “modules” that detect cues of kinship to calculate how close or distant kin relations are to oneself. These calculations induce appropriate emotions such as disgust in relation to the contemplation of sex with close kin (Hames 2016; D. Lieberman, Tooby, and Cosmides 2007). However, humans are not biologically programmed to avoid incest in any mechanistic fashion. The most comprehensive explanation of incest has to take into account generalized biological tendencies along with sociocultural factors. In a refinement of the childhood familiarity hypothesis, Paul Roscoe (1994) offers an interactionist explanation of incest avoidance. He suggests that relatives who are raised in close association with one another develop a strong emotional bond, or kinship amity—culturally based values that lead to a sense of mutual support and intense feelings of affection. In contrast, sexual arousal and sexual relations are connected to some degree with aggressive impulses, which have a physiological and a neurological basis. Thus, sexual-aggressive impulses are depressed between close kin, who have developed kinship amity. In addition, according to Roscoe’s hypothesis, kinship amity can be extended to distant kin through enculturation, resulting in an incest taboo that prohibits sex between more distant relatives. Interactionist explanations such as Roscoe’s, combining both biological and cultural factors, are producing insightful hypotheses regarding incest avoidance (Chapais 2008, 2010, 2017; J. Turner and Maryanski 2005). Despite the fact that incest avoidance is found universally and is likely tied to biological processes, many social workers and psychologists note that we appear to be in the midst of an epidemic of incest in the United States. By one estimate, one in twenty women may be a victim of father–daughter sexual abuse (Rusell 1986). Anthropologist Mark Erickson (1999) has been exploring this incidence of incest using a model based on evolutionary psychology and medicine. He suggests that within contemporary societies, as the family unit has become more fragile with weaker kinship attachments, incest is likely to occur more frequently. In the cases of incest that do occur between father and daughter, the father is usually a person who has been sexually abused himself and has not developed close kinship and familial attachments with his children. An extreme lack of nurturance and mutual bonding between family members increases the likelihood of incest arising within families. Erickson’s findings suggest that the incest avoidance biological processes can be stunted and distorted, leading to tragic results in contemporary societies. Age 17.3 Discuss how anthropologists understand age as an aspect of social structure. Like family and marriage, age is a universal principle used to prescribe social status in sociocultural systems. The biological processes of aging are an inevitable aspect of human life; from birth to death, our bodies are constantly changing. Definite biological changes occur for humans in their progress from infancy to childhood to adolescence to adulthood to old age. Hormonal and other physiological changes lead to maturation and the onset of the aging process. For example, as we approach old age, our sensory abilities begin to change: Our capacities for taste, eyesight, touch, smell, and hearing begin to diminish. Gray hair and wrinkles appear, and we experience a loss of height and weight and an overall decline in strength and vitality. Although these physical changes vary greatly from individual to individual and to some extent are influenced by societal and environmental factors, these processes are universal. The biology of aging, however, is only one dimension of how age is related to the social structure of any specific culture. The human life cycle is the basis of social statuses and roles that have both a physical and a cultural dimension. The cultural meanings of these categories in the life cycle vary among different societies, as do the criteria people use to define age-related statuses. The definitions of the statuses and roles for specific ages have wide-ranging implications for those in these status positions. Age and Enculturation As people move through the different phases of the human life cycle, they continually experience the process of enculturation. Because of the existence of different norms, values, and beliefs, people in various societies may be treated differently at each phase of the life cycle. For example, the period of enculturation during childhood varies among societies. In the United States and other postindustrial societies, childhood is associated with an extensive educational experience that continues for many years. In many preindustrial societies, however, childhood is a relatively short period, and children assume adult status and responsibilities at a fairly young age. Another factor influenced by aging in a society is how individuals are viewed at different ages. How is old age defined? For example, in many societies, old age is not defined strictly in terms of the passage of time. More frequently, old age is defined in respect to changes in social status, work patterns, family status, or reproductive potential (D. Cowgill 1986). These factors influence how people are valued at different ages in a society. Age and the Division of Labor The economic roles assumed by a person at different stages of the life cycle may also depend on age. Children everywhere are exposed to the technological skills they will need to survive in their environment. As they mature, they assume specific positions in the division of labor. For example, in some preindustrial societies, older people occupy central roles, whereas in others, they play no important roles at all. In industrial and postindustrial societies, the elderly generally do not occupy important occupational roles. Age and Status Age is one of the key determinants of social status. People are usually assigned a particular status associated with a phase of the life cycle. The result is age stratification, the unequal allocation of wealth, power, and prestige among people of different ages. Anthropologists find that age stratification varies in accordance with the level of technological development. For example, in many preindustrial societies, the elderly have a relatively high social status, whereas in most industrial societies, the elderly experience a loss of status. One of the most common ways of allocating the status of people at different ages is through age grades. Age grades are statuses defined by age through which a person moves as he or she ages. For example, the age grades in most industrial societies correspond to the periods of infancy, preschool, kindergarten, elementary school, intermediate school, high school, young adulthood, middle age, young old, and old old (D. Cowgill 1986). Each of these grades conveys a particular social status. Social Structure in Hunter-G atherer Societies 17.4 Describe the social structure, family, marriage, and age in foraging societies. The fundamental social organization in foraging societies is based on family, marriage, kinship, and age. The two basic elements of social organization for foraging populations are the nuclear family and the band. The nuclear family is the small family unit associated with procreation: parents and offspring. The nuclear family is most adaptive for hunting-gathering societies because it allows for the flexibility needed in a society that depends on hunting and distribution of hunted game (R. Fox 1967; Pasternak 1976). Frequent nomadic mobility favors small nuclear family groupings for foraging tasks. Typically, hunting and gathering is conducted by small groups of nuclear families. For example, during certain seasons, the Baka forest people in Cameroon forage in the forest and build small huts made of bowed limbs covered with leaves for their nuclear families (Campagnoli 2005). Later during the season, these Baka nuclear families settle in more permanent camps for several months with other relatives. The most common type of band is made up of a related cluster of nuclear families ranging in size from 20 to 100 individuals. At times, in societies such as the desert-dwelling Shoshone Indians, the bands may break up into nuclear families to locate food and other resources. Under other circumstances, several families may cooperate in hunting and other foraging activities. In some instances, bands may contain up to four or five (sometimes more) extended families, in which married children and their offspring reside with their parents. These multifamily bands provide the webs of kinship for foraging societies, enabling them to cooperate in subsistence and economic exchanges. The specific number of people in a band depends on the carrying capacity of the natural environment. Most foraging groups had a range of 20 to 100 people. Foragers in the desert, the Arctic, and the tropical rain forest all lived in small multifamily bands residing in separate territories. Typically, band organization is extremely flexible, with members leaving and joining bands as circumstances demand. Personal conflicts and shortages of resources may encourage people to move into or out of bands. In some cases, when food or water resources are scarce, whole bands may move into the territories of other bands. Marriage and Kinship Although a number of foraging groups such as the Aché practice polygyny, marriage between one male and two or more females, the most common type of marriage found in foraging societies is monogamy (M. Ember, Ember, and Low 2007; Hill and Hurtado 1996). Marriages are an important means of cementing social relationships. In some cases, betrothals are arranged while the future spouses are still young children. Typically, the female is much younger than the male. For example, Ju/’hoansi San girls are often married between the ages of twelve and fourteen, whereas males may be eighteen to twenty-five or older. Although these marital arrangements are regular features of foraging societies, it does not mean the couple easily accepts these arranged marriages. A San woman expressed herself on her first marriage: When I married my husband Tsau I didn’ t fight too hard, but I cried a lot when I was taken to sleep in his hut. When the elders went away I listened carefully for their sleeping. Then, when my husband fell asleep and I heard his breathing, I very quietly sat up and eased my blanket away from his and stole away and slept by myself out in the bush. In the morning the people came to Tsau’ s hut and asked, “ Where is your wife? ” He looked around and said, “ I don’ t know where my wife has gone off to.” Then they picked up my tracks and tracked me to where I was sitting out in the bush. They brought me back to my husband. They told me that this was the man they had given to me and that he wouldn’ t hurt me. After that we j ust lived together all right. At first when we slept under the same blanket our bodies did not touch, but then after a while I slept at his front. Other girls don’ t like their husbands and keep struggling away until the husbands give up on them and their parents take them back. (Lee 2013, 89) Marriage Rules Marital arrangements in foraging societies are intended to enhance economic, social, and political interdependence among bands and to foster appropriate band alliances (R. Walker et al. 2011). To do this, rules are established to determine who may marry whom. Many of these rules concern marriages among cousins. A common marriage rule found in foraging societies is referred to as cross-cousin marriage. A cross-cousin is the offspring of one’s father’s sister or one’s mother’s brother. In effect, a cross-cousin marriage means that a male marries a female who is his father’s sister’s daughter or his mother’s brother’s daughter. Figure 17.1 Kinship and Marriage Patterns in Hunting-and-Gathering Societies The hierarchy tree maps the members within one person’s band and their interactions with members outside the band. The central member is named Ego. The diagram consists of 4 layers and one primary pathway and two secondary pathways. The pathways are as follows: Pathway 1.  Layer 1. Ego Grandfather and Ego Grandmother. Layer 2. Ego Father and Ego Mother. His mother comes from outside the band. Ego has an aunt, his father’s sister, who marries outside the band. Layer 3. Ego marries his cousin, the daughter of his aunt. Ego has one brother and one sister. Layer 4. Ego has one son and one daughter with his wife. His son marries his cousin. Pathway 2. Layer 1. Ego Grandfather marries a second time. Layer 2. The son marries within the band. Layer 3. The brother marries within the band. Layer 4. The brother has one son and one daughter. Pathway 3. Layer 1. Ego’s grandparents outside the band. Layer 2. Ego’s uncle on his mother’s side marries outside the band. Layer 3. Ego’s uncle has one son and one daughter. In addition, foraging societies frequently have rules of residence that specify where the married couple must reside. Most band societies practice patrilocal residence, in which the newly married couple resides with the husband’s father. Thus, if a man marries a woman from a different band, she must join her husband’s band. In such societies, the patrilocal residence rule and cross-cousin marriage combine to create a system called restricted marital exchange, in which two groups exchange women (Lévi-Strauss 1969). The purpose of this system is to foster group solidarity by encouraging kinship alliances. Primatologist Bernard Chapais (2008, 2010, 2017) suggests that the origins of cross- cousin marriage were based on early exogamy and exchange of females among our common ancestral chimpanzee lineage. The kinship diagram in Figure 17.1 gives a visual model of the social structure in some foraging societies. In the diagram, Ego is used as a point of reference, and kinship relationships are traced from Ego’s offspring, parents, grandparents, and other relatives. Note that Ego has married his father’s sister’s daughter (his cross-cousin on his father’s side). Because of the rule of patrilocal residence, Ego’s father’s sister had to move to another band with her husband. Therefore, Ego is marrying outside his own band. Like Ego, Ego’s wife’s brother has married a woman outside his band. In keeping with the cross-cousin rule, their daughter has married Ego’s son. Ego’s daughter will eventually marry someone from another band. Through the rules of cross-cousin marriage and patrilocal residence, this restricted exchange develops strong networks of interfamily and interband kinship relations. These kin networks widen over the generations, expanding reciprocal economic, social, and political relationships. Although these marriage rules provide the norms of many interrelationships in hunter-gatherer societies, it has been noted by many anthropologists that a great deal of individual choice is involved in selecting one’s partner. For example, Colin Turnbull (1963) indicates that among the Mbuti foragers of Central Africa, betrothal and marriage are very permissive and the males and females develop strong attractions for one another and manipulate the norms of sister exchange to marry the individual of their own choosing. As noted earlier, Ju/’hoansi San women exercise considerable choice in determining who their partner will be, and parents do not push a daughter to accept an arranged union if she objects strenuously (Shostak 1981). Thus, many individuals in many hunter-gatherer groups are not just mere puppets of their elders, but they exercise their agency and a degree of freedom and autonomy in choosing their partners. Romantic love has been found to be a near universal pattern regarding mate choice throughout the world and shows up in these foraging societies as a means of forming marital bonds (Jankowiak 1995, 2008; Jankowiak and Fischer 1992). Brideservice Some foraging societies practice brideservice, in which a male resides for a specified amount of time with his wife’s parents’ band. The rule of residence that requires a man to reside with his wife’s parents is called matrilocal residence. Among the Ju/’hoansi San, brideservice can last eight to ten years, and the husband and wife don’t return to the husband’s father’s band for residence (the patrilocal rule) until after several children are born (Lee 2013). The husband will help his wife’s band in its subsistence activities, which helps consolidate both economic and social ties between the two bands. Another reason the Ju/’hoansi San practice brideservice is that females are not sexually mature at the time of their marriage. San girls who marry before their menarche are not expected to have sexual intercourse with their husbands. Thus, the brideservice period coincides with female maturation. But brideservice also functions to reinforce the kinship and reciprocal ties between bands. Other foraging groups like the Aché of Paraguay practice matrilocal residence without brideservice (Hill and Hurtado 1996). Other Marital Patterns Among Foragers Not all foraging societies conform to the marital patterns just described. For example, in the past, most Eskimo (Inuit) marriage involved no preferred rules regarding cousin marriage or rituals and ceremonies sanctioning the new couple’s relationship. Traditionally, the man and woman simply begin residing with each other. To some extent, the Inuit viewed this marriage arrangement as a pragmatic and utilitarian relationship for economic and reproductive purposes (Balikci 1970). In addition, polyandry (marriage between one woman and two or more men) has been a feature of Inuit culture (Starkweather and Hames 2012). Undoubtedly, polyandry was associated with the long absence of males on hunting trips and the fear of wife abduction or unfaithfulness. In addition, as men produce most of the food in Inuit society, women would benefit from having more than one male provider. In some cases, the Inuit would establish formal polyandrous relationships with other males, frequently brothers, in what is known as fraternal polyandry. Divorce In most cases, divorce is easily accomplished in hunting-and-gathering societies. For example, Ju/’hoansi San divorces, which are most frequently initiated by the wife, are simple matters characterized by cordiality and cooperation. The divorced couple may even live next to one another with their new spouses. Because there are no rigid rules or complex kinship relations beyond the nuclear family to complicate divorce proceedings, the dissolution of a Ju/’hoansi San marriage is a relatively easy process (Lee 2013). As mentioned earlier, the Aché foragers of Paraguay practice polygyny, which is unusual for hunter- gatherers (Hill and Hurtado 1996). The Aché also practice a serial monogamy form of marriage with frequent divorces, and a woman may have twelve or more spouses during her lifetime. The Aché marriages endure from several hours to forty-seven years (Hill and Hurtado 1996). Divorce was also frequent and easily obtained among the Inuit (Balikci 1970). As with the San, one reason for this was the lack of formal social groups beyond the nuclear family. Another reason was the absence of strict rules governing marriage and postmarital residence. Significantly, divorce did not necessarily lead to the cutting of kin ties. Even if an Inuit couple separated, and this happened for nearly 100 percent of the marriages studied, the kin ties endured (Burch 1970). Sometimes the couple reunited, and the children of first and second marriages became a newly blended family. Thus, divorce actually created kin ties, an important aspect of sociocultural adaptation in severe Arctic conditions. Age Like kinship, age is used in virtually all foraging societies as a basis for assigning individuals their particular status in the social hierarchy. Patterns of age stratification and hierarchy vary considerably from society to society, depending on environmental and cultural conditions. Age is also a primary aspect of the division of labor in foraging societies. The Roles of the Elderly In foraging societies, old age tends to be defined less in terms of chronology and more in terms of some change in social status related to becoming less involved in subsistence or work patterns or to becoming grandparents (Glascock 1981). In all societies, however, the onset of old age is partially defined in terms of the average life span. The general demographic and ethnological data on foraging societies indicate that definitions of “old age” vary from forty-five to seventy-five years old. An early study of aging hypothesized that in hunting-and-gathering societies, older people wield little power and have low status (Simmons 1945). This argument was based on the assumption that because foraging societies had few material goods that older people controlled and could use as leverage with the younger generation, old age represented a loss of status. This hypothesis suggested that the status of older people is correlated with subsistence and economic activities. As foraging people age and decline in strength and energy, their subsistence contribution may be limited, thereby diminishing their status. Most of the current ethnographic data, however, do not support this hypothesis. In an early account of foragers in the Andaman Islands off the coast of India, for example, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown ( 1964) described the reverence and honor given to older males. Among the Mbuti in the Central Congo in Africa, age is a key factor in determining status, and the elders make the most important economic and political decisions for the group. Despite the fact that young people sometimes openly ridicule older people, the elders are able to dominate Mbuti society because of their cultural knowledge (Turnbull 1983). Anthropologists who have studied the Ju/’hoansi San point out that though there was little material security at old age, the elderly were not abandoned and had a relatively high status (Lee 1979, 2013; E. Thomas 1958). Despite the fact that older people do not play a predominant productive role in subsistence activities, they are able to remain secure because of close kinship ties. Anthropologists find that older people in foraging societies have a higher status than do younger people. Because of their accumulated knowledge, which is needed for subsistence activities, political decision making, and intellectual and spiritual guidance, older people tend to be respected. Human memory serves as the libraries of these societies and is important for the preservation of culture and the transmission of knowledge. Cultural traditions are memorized and handed down from generation to generation, and control of these traditions forms the basis of esteem. In general, only in cases of extreme deprivation are the elderly in foraging societies maltreated. In their investigation of the treatment of the elderly in a wide variety of foraging societies, researchers concluded that practices directed against the elderly, such as abandonment, exposure, and killing, occur only under severe environmental circumstances, in which the elderly are viewed as burdens rather than assets (Glascock 1981). These practices have been documented for groups such as the Eskimo, but these cases appear to be exceptional. In most foraging societies, the young have moral obligations to take care of the elderly. Childcare Activities Universally, all human parents depend on others to help care for and enculturate children. In her book Mothers and Others (2009), anthropologist Sarah Hrdy indicates how both many nonhuman primate mothers and human mothers draw on alloparenting, or allocare, to help care for children. She refers to this pattern as cooperative breeding. Alloparenting is the supplemental care of children by others distinct from the mothers and fathers in the community. This alloparenting is based on a type of kinship reciprocity and altruism that involves an investment in energy, time, and resources. Although alloparenting caregivers are frequently older female siblings, allocare is often carried out by the elderly aunts or grandmothers in foraging societies. The late Colin Turnbull (1983) had remarked that one of the significant universal roles of elderly grandparents is babysitting. While the parents in foraging societies are involved in subsistence chores like hunting and collecting, grandparents often are engaged in childcare activities. Among the Ju/’hoansi San and the Mbuti, elderly grandparents care for small children while the children’s mothers are away on gathering activities. The elderly teach the grandchildren the skills, norms, and values of the society. Reflecting on the Mbuti elders, who spend time telling stories and reciting myths and legends, Turnbull indicates that this role is the primary function of the Mbuti elderly in the maintenance of most culture. In most foraging societies, this is the typical pattern for relationships between the young and the old. Anthropologist Kristen Hawkes (2004) studied how the “grandmother effect” and the longer life span of women have had significant survival value in providing childcare for and nurturing the young children in foraging societies. She did ethnographic research on the grandmother effect among the Hadza foragers of Tanzania. Hawkes notes that in both historical and contemporary foraging societies, a third or more of women live beyond forty-five years of age. The evolutionary survival of these postmenopausal women would be extremely important for the welfare and survival of the grandchildren in these foraging communities. Subsequent studies have found lower childhood morality and better nutritional resources in families where a maternal grandmother was present in a household (Pasho 2017; Sear and Mace 2008). An indigenous Bushman/San or Ju/’hoansi elderly couple (sixty-four and seventy-five years old), Namibia. Martin Harvey/Photo Library/Getty Images Plus Social Structure in Tribes 17.5 Describe the social structure, family, marriage, descent groups, and age for tribal societies. Tribal societies differ from foraging societies in that tribal peoples produce most of their subsistence foods through small-scale cultivation (horticulture) and the domestication of animals (pastoralism). The evolution of food production corresponds to new forms of social organization. Like bands, social organization among tribes is largely based on kinship. Rules concerning kinship, marriage, and other social systems, however, are much more elaborate in tribal societies, which have to resolve new types of problems, including denser populations, control of land or livestock, and sometimes warfare. New and diverse forms of social organization have enabled tribal societies to adjust to the new conditions of food production. Unlike foragers, who sometimes have to remain separate from one another in small, flexibly organized bands, food producers have had to develop social relationships that are more fixed and permanent. Tribal social organization is based on family, the descent group, and age. The social organization of tribal societies is much more complex than that of band societies. Families The most common social grouping among tribal societies is the extended family. Most extended families consist of three generations— grandparents, parents, and children—although they can also contain married siblings with their spouses and children. Compared with the nuclear family, the extended family is a larger and more stable social unit that is more effective in organizing and carrying out domestic economic and subsistence activities (Pasternak 1976; Stone 2013). Even the extended family, however, cannot satisfy the complex needs of tribal societies for cooperation, labor, and reciprocity. To meet these needs, tribal groups have developed even more “extended” types of social organization, based on both kinship and non-kinship principles. Descent G roups One of the more extended social groupings that exist in tribal societies is the descent group. A descent group is a social group identified by a person to trace actual or supposed kinship relationships. Descent groups are the predominant social units in tribal societies. One major type of descent group is based on lineage. Anthropologists define lineages as descent groups composed of relatives, all of whom trace their relationship through consanguineal (blood) or affinal (marriage) relations to an actual, commonly known ancestor. Everyone in the lineage knows exactly how she or he is related to this ancestor. Unilineal Descent G roups Unilineal descent groups are lineage groups that trace their descent through only one side of the lineage or through only one sex. The most common type of unilineal descent group is a patrilineal descent group, or patrilineage, composed of people who trace their descent through males from a common, known male ancestor (see Figure 17.2, top). Patrilineal descent groups are the predominant form of lineage in tribal societies (Pasternak 1976; Stone 2013; Strassmann and Kurapati 2016). These patrilineal descent groups promote political solidarity in interethnic strife and warfare, enhance cooperation in defense of resources, and perform other activities. Another form of unilineal descent group is the matrilineal descent group, or matrilineage, whose members calculate descent through the female line from a commonly known female ancestor (see Figure 17.2, bottom). Matrilineal descent groups occur most frequently in horticultural societies, although they are not the most common organizations. Matrilineal descent is found among a small number of North American tribal societies such as the Iroquois, Hopi, and Crow; among a number of tribes throughout Central and South Africa; and among a few peoples who live in the Pacific islands (Stone 2013). Figure 17.2 Patrilineal and Matrilineal Descent Systems There are 4 layers in each hierarchical tree. Tree 1 illustrates the members of Ego’s patrilineal descent group, highlighted in orange, and his mother’s patrilineal descent group, highlighted in blue. These are as follows: Layer 1. Ego Patrilineal group: his grandfather on his father’s side. Ego’s Mother’s patrilineal group: her father. Layer 2. Ego Patrilineal group: his father, uncle and aunt on his father’s side. Ego’s Mother’s patrilineal group: her sister and her brother’s wife. Layer 3. Ego Patrilineal group: his brother and sister. His uncle’s son and daughter, his cousins. Ego’s Mother’s patrilineal group: her 2 sons, including Ego, and her daughter. Her brother’s son and daughter, her nephew and niece. Layer 4. Ego Patrilineal group: his son and daughter. His brother’s son and daughter, his nephew and niece. His male cousin’s son and daughter. Ego’s Mother’s patrilineal group: her nephew’s son and daughter. Tree 2 illustrates the members of Ego’s matrilineal descent group, highlighted in orange, and his father’s matrilineal descent group, highlighted in blue. These are as  follows: Layer 1. Ego matrilineal group: his grandmother on his father’s side. Ego’s Father’s matrilineal group: his father. Layer 2. Ego matrilineal group: his father, uncle and aunt on his father’s side. Ego’s Father’s matrilineal group: his wife’s sister and brother. Layer 3. Ego matrilineal group: his brother and sister. His uncle’s son and daughter, his cousins. Ego’s Father’s matrilineal group: his 2 sons, including Ego, and his daughter. His sister-in-law’s son and daughter. Layer 4. Ego Matrilineal group: his female cousin’s son and daughter. Ego’s Father’s matrilineal group: his daughter’s grandson and granddaughter. One very rare type of unilineal grouping is based on double descent, a combination of patrilineal and matrilineal principles. In this type of social organization, an individual belongs to both the father’s and the mother’s lineal descent groups. Several African tribal societies, such as the Afikpo Igbo in Nigeria, have a double-descent type of social organization (Ottenberg 1965). Ambilineal Descent G roups One other type of descent group is known as ambilineal. An ambilineal descent group is formed by tracing an individual’s descent relationships through either a male or a female line. The members of these groups are not all related to each other through a particular male or female. Therefore, technically, this form of descent group is not unilineal. Usually, once an individual chooses to affiliate with either the father’s or the mother’s descent group, he or she remains with that descent group. Because each individual may choose his or her descent group, the ambilineal system offers more opportunity for economic and political strategizing. This choice frequently takes into account the relative economic resources or political power of the two family groups. Bilateral Descent G roups A number of tribal societies practice bilateral descent, in which relatives are traced through both maternal and paternal sides of the family simultaneously. This type of descent system does not result in any particular lineal descent grouping. For that reason, it is not too common in tribal societies. In those cases in which bilateral descent is found among tribes, a loosely structured group known as a kindred is used to mobilize relatives for economic, social, or political purposes. Kindreds are overlapping relatives from both the mother’s and the father’s side of a family that an individual recognizes as important kin relations (see Figure 17.3). In U.S. society, for example, when a person refers to all of his or her relatives, that person is designating a type of bilateral kindred. This bilateral kindred, however, has no functional significance in U.S. society compared to its role in a tribal society. Figure 17.3 A Kindred Consists of Relatives From Both Sides of a Family that Ego Recognizes as Important Kin Relations. The tree diagram has 2 layers. Ego is at the center of the tree diagram. Layer 1 Ego’s mother and father. Ego’s uncle and aunt on his mother’s side. Ego’s uncle and aunt on his father’s side. Layer 2. Ego. His 4 cousins on his father’s side. Male cousin and female cousin from his uncle and male cousin and female cousin from his aunt. His 4 cousins on his mother’s side. Male cousin and female cousin from his uncle and male cousin and female cousin from his aunt. Clans A clan is a form of descent group whose members trace their descent to an unknown ancestor or, in some cases, to a sacred plant or animal spirit. Members of clans usually share a common name, but they are not able to specify definitive links to an actual genealogical figure. Some clans are patriclans, groups distinguished by a male through whom descent is traced. Other clan groupings are matriclans, in which descent is traced through a female. Some tribal societies have both clans and lineages. In many cases, clans are made up of lineages that link their descent to a mythical ancestor or sacred spirit. In such systems, clans are larger groupings, consisting of several different lineages. Phratries and Moieties Among the more loosely structured groups found in tribal societies are phratries and moieties. Phratries are social groupings that consist of two or more clans combined. Members of phratries usually believe they have some loose genealogical relationship to one another. Moieties (derived from the French word meaning “half”) are composed of clans or phratries that divide the entire society into two equal divisions. In some cases, such as among the Native American Hopi Indians of the Southwest, the moiety divisions divide the villages in half. People have to marry outside their own moiety. In addition, each moiety has specific functions related to economic and political organization and religious activities. Wherever phratries and moieties are found in tribal societies, they provide models for organizing social relationships. Functions of Descent G roups Descent groups provide distinctive organizational features for tribal societies. They may become corporate social units, meaning that they endure beyond any particular individual’s lifetime. Thus, they can play a key role in regulating the production, exchange, and distribution of goods and services over a long period of time. Family rights to land, livestock, and other resources are usually defined in relation to these corporate descent groups. Descent G roups and Economic Relationships Descent groups enable tribal societies to manage their economic rights and obligations. Within the descent groups, individual nuclear families have rights to particular land and animals. In most cases, horticultural tribes inherit their rights to land owned by their entire lineage. The lineage allocates the land to members of the lineage through what anthropologists (and attorneys) call usufruct rights or corporate rights to the land. Among some more advanced patrilineal horticulturalist peoples, land is sometimes transmitted from generation to generation through an eldest male, an inheritance pattern known as primogeniture. A less common pattern is ultimogeniture, in which property and land are passed to the youngest son. In horticultural societies, separate families within patrilineages have joint rights to plots of land for gardening. For example, among the Yanomamö, villages are usually made up of two patrilineages; families within these lineages cultivate their own plots of land (Chagnon 2012). In this sense, the Yanomamö patrilineage is a like a corporate group. The transmission of status, rights, and obligations through these patrilineages occurs without constant disputes and conflicts. In these tribal societies, land is usually not partitioned into individual plots and cannot be sold to or exchanged with other descent groups. The Haudenosaunee (formerly known as the Iroquois) tribal society was based on matrilineal corporate groupings. Matrilineages among the Haudenosaunee resided together in longhouses and had collective rights over tools and garden plots. These matrilineages were also the basic units of production in the slash-and-burn cultivation for maize and other crops. Property was inherited through matrilineal lines from the eldest woman in the corporate group. She had the highest social status in the matrilineage and influenced decision making regarding the allocation of land and other economic rights and resources (J. Brown 1970a). Sometimes in societies with bilateral descent, kindreds are the basic labor-cooperative groups for production and exchange. People living in bilateral societies can turn to both the mother’s and the father’s side of the family for economic assistance. The kindred is thus a much more loosely structured corporate group. The kindred is highly flexible and allows for better adaptation in certain environmental circumstances. Marriage Corporate descent groups play a role in determining marital relations in tribal societies. Like foragers, most tribal peoples maintain exogamous rules of marriage with respect to different corporate groups, meaning people generally marry outside their lineage, kindred, clan, moiety, or phratry. Marriages in tribal societies are guided by rules that ensure the perpetuation of kinship ties and group alliances. Figure 17.4 Different Types of Cousin Marriage The tree diagram has 2 layers. Ego is at the center of the tree diagram. Layer 1. Ego’s mother and father. Ego’s uncle and aunt on his mother’s side. Ego’s uncle and aunt on his father’s side. Layer 2. Ego. His 4 cousins on his father’s side. Male cousin and female cousin from his uncle are parallel cousins. The male cousin and female cousin from his aunt are cross cousins. His 4 cousins on his mother’s side. Male cousin and female cousin from his uncle are cross cousins. The male cousin and female cousin from his aunt are parallel cousins. Some tribal societies practice different forms of cousin marriage, which are illustrated in Figure 17.4. For example, among the Yanomamö, a pattern called double or bilateral cross-cousin marriage and patrilocal residence, in which a newly married couple resides with the husband’s parents, is practiced among patrilineages in different villages. Males in one patrilineage, in effect, exchange sisters, whom they may not marry, with males of other patrilineages. When the sons of the next generation repeat this form of marriage, each is marrying a woman to whom he is already related by kinship. The woman whom the man marries is both his father’s sister’s daughter and his mother’s brother’s daughter. The woman is marrying a man who is both her mother’s brother’s son and her father’s sister’s son (Chagnon 2012; Chagnon et al. 2017; Hames 2004). This form of patrilineal exogamous marriage is common in many tribal societies. It is a type of restricted marriage exchange that helps provide for the formation of economic and political alliances among villages. Some patrilineal tribal societies, including several in Southeast Asia, prefer a more specific rule of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. In this system, males consistently marry their mother’s brothers’ daughters. This produces a marital system in which females move from one patrilineage to another. More than two lineages are involved in this system. The patrilineages become specialized as either wife givers or wife takers. In an example with three lineages—A, B, and C— anthropologists have noted cycles of marital exchange. Lineage B always gives women to lineage A, but B takes its wives from lineage C (see Figure 17.5). Claude Lévi-Strauss (1969) refers to this type of marital system as general exchange, in contrast to restricted exchange, which is practiced between two lineages. Another form of cousin marriage found in some patrilineal societies is parallel-cousin marriage, in which a male marries his father’s brother’s daughter. Unlike the other forms of cousin marriage, parallel- cousin marriage results in endogamy—marriage within one’s own descent group (see Figure 17.6). This form of marriage is found among the Bedouin and other tribes of the Middle East and North Africa. Figure 17.5 Matrilateral Cross-Cousin Marriages Among Three Lineages  The tree diagram has 3 generational layers, labeled 1, 2 and 3. Local groups are as follows: 1. Lineage A. 2. Lineage B. 3. Lineage C. In each generational layer the female cousin from Lineage B always marries the male cousin from Lineage A and the female cousin from Lineage C always marries the male cousin from Lineage B. Figure 17.6 Parallel-Cousin Marriage (Ego Marries his Father’s Brother’s Daughter) The tree diagram consists of 2 generational layers as follows: Layer 1. Ego’s parents and his father’s brother and sister.  Layer 2. Ego and his sister. Ego’s wife is his uncle’s daughter. His uncle also has two sons. Polygyny Cross-cultural research has demonstrated that polygyny, in which a male marries two or more females, occurs most frequently in tribal societies (M. Ember, Ember, and Low 2007). In a classic cross-cultural study, anthropologists Kay Martin and Barbara Voorhies (1975) emphasized that polygyny is an ecologically and economically adaptive strategy for tribal populations. The more wives an individual male has, the more land or livestock he will control for allocation and exchange. This leads to an increase in both the labor supply and the overall productive value of the household. In addition, wealth in many of these tribal societies is measured in the number of offspring. Reproducing children for one’s descent group is viewed as prestigious, and the children also become productive members of the household. Anthropologist Douglas White (1988) did extensive cross-cultural research on polygyny. He describes one widespread type of polygyny as a wealth-enhancing form of marriage in which elder males accumulate several wives for productive labor, which increases their wealth. Strongly correlated with this wealth-enhancing polygyny is the ability to acquire new land for expansion. As new land becomes available, the labor produced by co-wives is extremely valuable. According to White, this wealth-enhancing form of polygyny is also related to warfare and the capture of wives. In his research, he found that tribal warfare often involved the capture of women from other groups as a major means of recruiting new co-wives for elder males. Recently, a carefully controlled statistical multiple regression analysis of a broad cross-cultural sample from the Human Relations Area Files has indicated that the prevalence of warfare and the loss of males from warfare is highly correlated with polygynous marriages in nonstate societies (M. Ember, Ember, and Low 2007). This research indicates that the frequency of warfare, which as we will see in Chapter 19 is a fundamental aspect of most tribal societies, is associated with the shortage of males and an increase in polygyny. In addition to increasing wealth, polygyny enables certain individuals and lineages to have a large number of children. For example, roughly 25 percent of Yanomamö marriages are polygynous. One sample group of 20 Yanomamö political leaders had 71 wives and 172 children among them (Chagnon and Irons 1979). One Yanomamö individual named Shinbone had 11 wives and 43 children (Chagnon 2012). The Yanomamö case tends to demonstrate that polygyny is associated with warfare, high male mortality, and other factors including reproductive fitness. Bridewealth Exchange Among many tribal societies, marriages are accompanied by an exchange of wealth. The most common type of exchange, particularly among patrilineal societies, is called bridewealth, which involves the transfer of some form of wealth, sometimes limited-purpose money like shells or livestock, from the descent group of the groom to that of the bride. Bridewealth is not a commercial exchange that reduces a bride to a commodity; that is, the bride’s family does not “sell” her to her husband’s family. Bridewealth serves to symbolize and highlight the reciprocities and rights established between two descent groups through marriage. In a patrilineal society, the bride becomes a member of a new corporate group that acquires access to her labor and, eventually, to her offspring. In return, the husband’s kin group has certain responsibilities toward the wife. The bridewealth reflects these mutual rights and obligations and compensates the bride’s family for the loss of her labor and her reproductive potential. Once the bridewealth is paid, any children she has belong to the groom’s family. It helps to forge an alliance between the two kin groups. One cross-cultural study of marriage transactions suggests that bridewealth exchanges in tribal societies relate to the need to introduce new female labor into the household, the transmission of property, and the enhancement of status for males (Schlegel and Eloul 1988). Failure to pay the bridewealth usually leads to family conflicts, including the possible dissolution of the marriage. Additionally, bridewealth is associated with polygynous marriages in tribal societies (Hartung et al. 1982). Young daughters are often married off to much older males, sometimes even as children. In pastoralist tribes with high rates of polygyny, payments of cattle as bridewealth increase the bride’s father’s herd and household wealth (Mair 1969). Polyandry Not all tribal societies are polygynous. Just as in some hunter-gatherer groups, polyandry exists in tribal societies (Starkweather and Hames 2012). Polyandrous marriages are between a woman and two or more men. Systematic formal patterns of polyandry are found in formerly tribal societies in the Himalayan regions of northern India, Sri Lanka, and Tibet and, until recently, among the Todas of southern India. The most common type of classical polyandry is fraternal polyandry, in which brothers share a wife. The Todas were a buffalo-herding, pastoralist tribe of approximately 800 people. Traditionally, parents arranged the marriages when the partners were young children. When a Toda girl married a specific individual, she automatically became a wife of his brothers, including those who were not yet born. Through patrilocal residence rules, the wife joined the household of the husband. There was little evidence of sexual jealousy among the co-husbands. If the wife became pregnant, the oldest male claimed paternity rights over the child. The other co-husbands were “fathers” in a sociological sense and had certain rights regarding the child, such as labor for their households. Biological paternity was not considered important. The most prevalent explanation for the development of polyandry among the Todas was that female infanticide was practiced, leading to a scarcity of females (Oswalt 1972; Rivers 1967; A. Walker 1986). Among other cases of formal polyandry, such as in the Himalayan areas, a lack of land and resources fostered this practice. Nancy Levine (1988) found that among the Nyinba of northwestern Nepal, the ideal form of marriage is a woman who marries three brothers from another family (see also Boyd and Silk 2017). This enables one husband to farm the land, another to herd livestock, and a third to engage in trade. Levine discovered that the males in these polyandrous marriages were very concerned about the paternity of their own children and favored close relationships with their own offspring, just as would be predicted by an evolutionary psychology hypothesis. Anthropologists indicate that nonclassical cases of polyandry are much more frequent than indicated within the ethnographic record (Borgerhoff Mulder 2009; Hrdy 2000; Starkweather and Hames 2012). In some cases, informal types of polyandry are usually recorded as serial monogamy and polygyny where females are married to different males at various periods during their lifetimes. Monique Borgerhoff Mulder’s (2009) ethnographic research among the horticulturalist group known as the Pimbwe of Tanzania discovered many cases of women mating with multiple men during their lifetimes. Informal polyandry is also found in many tribal societies such as the Yanomamö when there is a shortage of males due to warfare or diseases (Starkweather and Hames 2012). The Levirate and Sororate The corporateness of descent groups in some tribal societies is exemplified by two rules of marriage designed to preserve kin ties and fulfill obligations following the death of a spouse. These rules are known as the levirate and the sororate. The levirate is the rule that a widow is expected to marry one of her deceased husband’s brothers. In some societies, such as those of the ancient Israelites of biblical times and the contemporary Nuer or Tiv tribe, the levirate rule requires a man to cohabit with a dead brother’s widow so that she can have children, who are then considered to be the deceased husband’s. The essential feature of the levirate is that the corporate rights of the deceased husband and the lineage endure even after the husband’s death. It also provides more security for women than remaining a widow. The sororate is a marriage rule that dictates that when a wife dies, her husband is expected to marry one of her sisters. Both the levirate and the sororate provide for the fulfillment of mutual obligations between consanguineal (blood) and affinal (marital) kin after death. Reciprocal exchanges between allied families must extend beyond the death of any individual. These marital practices emphasize the crucial ties among economic, kinship, and political factors in tribal societies. Postmarital Residence Rules in Tribal Societies Anthropologists find that the rules for residence after marriage in tribal societies are related to the forms of descent groups. For example, the vast majority of tribal societies have patrilineal descent groups and patrilocal rules of residence. A less frequent pattern of postmarital residence is matrilocal residence, in which the newly wedded couple lives with or near the wife’s parents. Yet, another rule of residence found in matrilineal societies is known as avunculocal, in which a married couple resides with the husband’s mother’s brother. Causes of Postmarital Residence Rules By studying the relationships between postmarital residence rules and forms of descent groups in tribal societies, anthropologists have found that residence rules often represent adaptions to the practical conditions a society faces. The most widely accepted hypothesis states that rules of postmarital residence usually develop before the form of descent groups in a society (R. Fox 1967; Keesing and Strathern 1998; Martin and Voorhies 1975). For example, limited land and resources, frequent warfare with neighboring groups, population pressure, and the need for cooperative work may have been important factors in developing patrilocal residence and patrilineal descent groups. The purpose of these male-centered rules of residence and descent may have been to keep fathers, sons, and brothers together to pursue common interests in land, animals, and people. What, then, creates matrilocal rules and matrilineal descent? One explanation, based on cross-cultural research by Melvin and Carol Ember (1971), proposed that matrilocal rules developed in response to patterns of warfare. The Embers suggested that societies that engage in internal warfare—warfare with neighboring societies close to home— have patrilocal rules of residence. In contrast, societies involved in external warfare—warfare a long distance from home—develop matrilocal residence rules. In societies in which external warfare takes males from the home territory for long periods of time, there is a strong need to keep the women of kin groups together. The classic example used by the Embers is the Haudenosaunee (formerly known as the Iroquois) whose males traveled hundreds of miles away from home to engage in external wars, and this produced matrilocal residence and matrilineal descent. Marvin Harris (1979) extended the Embers’ hypothesis to suggest that matrilocal rules and matrilineal descent emerge in societies in which males are absent for long periods, for whatever reason. For example, among the Navajo, females tended sheep near their own households, and males raised horses and participated in labor that took them away from their homes. The Navajo had matrilocal residence and matrilineal descent. G eneraliz ations on Marriage in Tribal Societies It must be emphasized that descent, marriage, and residence rules are not static in tribal societies. Rather, they are flexible and change as ecological, demographic, economic, and political circumstances change. For example, tribal groups with rules of preference for marriage partners make exceptions to those rules when the situation calls for it. If a tribal society has norms that prescribe cross-cousin or parallel-cousin marriage and an individual does not have a cousin in the particular category, various other options will be available for the individual. There are usually many other candidates available for an arranged marriage. As anthropologist Ward Goodenough (1956) demonstrated long ago, much strategizing goes on in tribal societies in determining marital choice, residence locales, and descent. Factors such as property and the availability of land, animals, or other resources often influence decisions about marital arrangements. Often tribal elders will be involved in lengthy negotiations regarding marital choices for their offspring. These people, like others throughout the world, are not automatons responding automatically to cultural norms. Kinship and marital rules are ideal norms, and these norms are often violated. Divorce Among tribal peoples, especially those with patrilineal descent groups, divorce rates may be related to bridewealth exchanges. One traditional view suggested that in patrilineal descent societies with a high bridewealth amount, marriages tend to be stable. In his account of Nuer marriage, Evans-Pritchard (1951) noted that one of the major reasons for bridewealth is to ensure marital stability. In lineage societies, the man’s family pays a bridewealth in exchange for the rights to a woman’s economic output and fertility. The greater the bridewealth, the more complete the transfer of rights over the woman from her own family to that of her husband. The dissolution of a marriage, which requires the return of bridewealth, is less likely to occur if the bridewealth is large and has been redistributed among many members of the wife’s family (Gluckman 1953; Leach 1954; Schneider 1953). In contrast, when the bridewealth is low, marriages are unstable, and divorce is frequent. As Roger Keesing (1975) has pointed out, however, this hypothesis raises a fundamental question: Is marriage stable because of high bridewealth costs, or can a society afford to have a norm of high bridewealth only if it has a stable form of marriage? Keesing’s own theories concerning divorce focus on rules of descent. In general, societies with matrilineal descent rules have high divorce rates, whereas patrilineal societies have low rates of divorce. In matrilineal societies, a woman retains the rights to her children and so is more likely to divorce her husband if he misbehaves. Among the matrilineal Hopi and Zuni, for example, a woman has only to put a man’s belongings outside her house door to secure a divorce. The husband then returns to his mother’s household, and the wife and children remain in the wife’s household (Garbarino 1988). Marriages in matrilineal descent groups tend to be less enduring than those in patrilineal groups because of the clash of interests (or corporate rights) over children. When a woman’s primary interests remain with her lineage at birth and the people of her descent group have control over her and her children, her bond to her husband and his lineage tends to be fragile and impermanent (Keesing 1975). In contrast, in patrilineal societies, the wife has been fully incorporated into the husband’s lineage. This tends to solidify patrilineal rights over children, leading to more durable marital ties. Age As mentioned earlier, all societies have age grades, groupings of people of the same age. Within an age grade, people learn specific norms and acquire cultural knowledge. In some tribal societies, age grades have become specialized as groupings that have many functions. Age Sets In certain tribal societies of East Africa, North America, Brazil, India, and New Guinea, specialized age groupings emerged as multifunctional institutions. In some tribal societies, age grades become much more formalized and institutionalized as age sets. Age sets are groups of people of about the same age who share specific rights, obligations, duties, and privileges within their community. Typically, people enter an age set when they are young and then progress through various life stages with other members of the set. The transition from one stage of life to the next within the age set is usually accompanied by a distinctive rite of passage. Age Sets and Age G rades Among the Tribal Pastoralists A number of tribal pastoralists of East Africa, such as the Karimojong, Maasai, Nuer, Pokot, Samburu, Sebei, and Turkana, have specialized age-set and age-grade systems that structure social organization. The Sebei, for example, have eight age-set groups, each of which is divided into three subsets. The eight groups are given formal names, and the subsets have informal nicknames. Sebei males join an age set through initiation, in which they are circumcised and exposed to tribal secret lore and indoctrination. The Sebei initiations are held approximately every six years, and the initiation rituals extend over a period of six months. Those who are initiated together develop strong bonds. Newly initiated males enter the lowest level of this system, the junior warriors. As they grow older, they graduate into the next level, the senior warriors, while younger males enter the junior levels. Groups of males then progress from one level to the next throughout the course of their lifetimes (Goldschmidt 1986). The Sebei age sets serve an important military function. The members of the age set are responsible for protecting livestock and for conducting raids against other camps. In addition, age sets are the primary basis of status in these societies. Among the most basic social rankings are junior and senior military men and junior and senior elders. All social interactions, political activities, and ceremonial events are influenced by the age-set system. The young males of other East African pastoralists, such as the Maasai and Nuer, go through similar painful initiation rites of passage at puberty that move them from the status of a child to that of a warrior adult male, and they live separately from other younger and older people (Evans-Pritchard 1951; Salzman 2004). The corporate units of age sets provide for permanent mutual obligations that continue through time. In the absence of a centralized government, these age sets play a vital role in maintaining social cohesion. In a recent twenty-month ethnographic study of the Turkana, a pastoralist tribal group in northwest Kenya, Pierre Lienard (2016) found that the age-set system facilitates extensive cooperation and reduces individual conflicts within families and the community. The age-set system among the Turkana emerged as a means to coordinate warfare as they were involved in cattle rustling and raiding by coalitions of warrior males. Each generation of Turkana males has its own independent age set that is fully recognized as a corporate group with a collective identity with a specific name. Age-mates count on one another to enhance their social capital, to assist in cattle raids as a means to acquire bridewealth, and to further their investments in wealth. These age sets of the Turkana herders provide a solution for organizing unrelated men to coordinate their activities in many different types of economic, social, political, and ritual arenas. The Elderly Among tribal pastoralists and horticulturalists, older people make use of ownership or control of property to reinforce their status. Societies in which the elderly control extensive resources appear to show higher levels of deference toward the aged (Silverman and Maxwell 1983). The control of land, women, and livestock and their allocation among the younger generations are the primary means by which the older men (and sometimes older women, in matrilineal societies) exercise their power over the rest of society. In many cases, this dominance by the elderly leads to age stratification or inequalities. The system in which older people exercise exceptional power is called gerontocracy—rule by elders (usually male) who control the material and reproductive resources of the community. In gerontocracies, elderly males tend to monopolize not only the property resources, but also the young women in the tribe. Access to human beings is the greatest source of wealth and power in these tribal societies. Additionally, older males benefit from the accumulation of bridewealth. Through these processes, older men tend to have more secure statuses and economic prerogatives. They retire from subsistence and economic activities and often assume political leadership in tribal affairs. In this capacity, they make important decisions regarding marriage ties, resource exchanges, and other issues. Gerontocratic tribal societies continue to be prominent today. Among the ancient Israelites—once a pastoralist tribe—the elders controlled the disposition of property and marriages of their adult children, and the Bible mentions many examples of tribal patriarchs who were involved in polygynous marriages. In a modern pastoralist tribe—the Kirghiz of Afghanistan—the elderly enjoy extensive political power and status gained partially through the control of economic resources. In addition, the elders are thought to be wise, possessing extensive knowledge of history and local ecological conditions, as well as medical and veterinary skills crucial to the group’s survival (Shahrani 1981). Thus, the possession of cultural knowledge may lead to the development of gerontocratic tendencies within tribal societies. Social Structure in Chiefdoms 17.6 Discuss how status differences, the family, and age are related in chiefdom societies. In our earlier discussion of social structure, we introduced the concept of social stratification, the inequality among statuses within society. Chiefdom societies exhibit a great deal of stratification. They are divided into different strata (singular: stratum), groups of equivalent statuses based on ranked divisions in a society. Strata in chiefdom societies are not based solely on economic factors, but rather cut across society based on prestige, power, and religious beliefs and practices. Rank and Sumptuary Rules Chiefdom societies are hierarchical societies (see Chapter 16) wherein some people have greater access than others to wealth, rank, status, authority, and power. The various families and descent groups— households, lineages, and clans in chiefdoms—have a specific ascribed rank in the society and are accorded certain rights, privileges, and obligations based on that rank. Social interaction between lower and higher strata is governed by sumptuary rules or cultural norms and practices used to differentiate the higher-status groups from the rest of society. In general, the higher the status and rank, the more ornate the jewelry, costumes, and decorative symbols. For example, among the Natchez, Native Americans of the Mississippi region, the upper-ranking members were tattooed all over their bodies, whereas lower-ranking people were only partially tattooed (Schildkrout and Kaeppler 2004). Some of the Pacific chiefdoms had sumptuary rules requiring that a special orator chief speak to the public instead of the paramount chief. The highest paramount chiefs spoke a noble or honorific language with an archaic vocabulary containing words that commoners could not use with one another. Other sumptuary rules involved taboos against touching or eating with higher-ranking people. Sumptuary rules also set standards regarding dress, marriage, exchanges, and other cultural practices. In many of the chiefdoms, social inferiors had to prostrate themselves and demonstrate other signs of deference in the presence of their “social superiors.” Symbols of inequality and hierarchy were thoroughly ingrained in most of these societies. Tattooing in Samoa in the Pacific Polynesian islands is used frequently to symbolize status relationships. DOZIER Marc/hemis.fr/Getty Images Plus A Case Study: Polynesia and Stratified Descent G roups The ethnohistoric data on the Polynesian islands contain some of the most detailed descriptions of social stratification within chiefdom societies. The ideal basis of social organization was the conical clan (see Figure 17.7), an extensive descent group having a common ancestor who was usually traced through a patrilineal line (Goldman 1970; Kirchoff 1955; Sahlins 1968). Rank and lineage were determined by a person’s kinship distance to the founding ancestor, as illustrated in Figure 17.7. The closer a person was to the highest-ranking senior male in a direct line of descent to the ancestor, the higher his or her rank and status were. In fact, as Marshall Sahlins (1985) suggested, the Hawaiians traced not descent, but rather ascent toward a connection with an ancient ruling line. Figure 17.7 Model of a Conical Clan The clan genealogy diagram consists of 5 layers, starting with the clan ancestor. The layers are as follows: Layer 1 consists of one branch, the Clan ancestor. Layer 2 consists of branches from layer 1, as follows: 1. Ancestor of immediate lineage 1. 2. Ancestor of immediate lineage 2. Layer 3 consists of 4 branches, as follows: 1. Ancestor A of local lineage 1. 2. Ancestor B of local lineage 1. 3. Ancestor C of local lineage 2. 4. Ancestor D of local lineage 2. Layer 4 consists of 8 branches which lead directly to Layer 5.  Layer 5 consists of present lineage chiefs in 16 branches divided into 4 subgroups, named A, B, C and D. These subgroups can then be grouped according to local lineage and chief as follows: Local Lineage A under Chief A. Local Lineage B under Chief B. Local Lineage C under Chief C. Local Lineage D under Chief D. Subgroups A and B come under the District of Intermediate Lineage 1, chief A. Subgroups C and D come under the District of Intermediate Lineage 2, chief C. All subgroups and intermediate lineage groups come under Chief A based on the territory of the conical clan. Although Polynesian societies reflected a patrilineal bias, most had ambilineal descent groups (Firth 1957; Goodenough 1955). Senior males headed local descent groups in the villages. These local groups were ranked in relation to larger, senior groups that were embedded in the conical clan. Because of ambilateral rules, people born into certain groups had the option of affiliating with either their paternal or their maternal linkages in choosing their rank and status. In general, beyond this genealogical reckoning, these chiefdom societies offered little in the way of upward social mobility for achieved statuses. Marriage As in tribal societies, most marriages in chiefdoms were carefully arranged affairs, sometimes involving cousin marriages from different descent groups. People who married outside of their descent group (exogamy) usually married within their social stratum (endogamy). In some chiefdom societies, however, marriages were sometimes arranged between higher-strata males and females of lower strata (a hypergynous marriage). Anthropologist Jane Collier (1988) noted that women in chiefdom societies that emphasized hereditary rank tended to avoid low-ranking males and tried to secure marriages with men who possessed more economic and political prerogatives. One chiefdom in North America illustrates a situation in which marriage provided a systematic form of social mobility for the entire society. The Natchez Indians of the Mississippi region called themselves Théoloë l or “People of the Sun” (Graeber 2017). They built large earthen platforms or mounds, one with a large temple and the other for their ruler bordered by a spacious plaza. They were a matrilineal society divided into four strata: the Great Sun chief (the eldest son of the top-ranking lineage) and his brothers, the noble lineages, the honored lineages, and the inferior “stinkards.” All members of the three upper strata had to marry down (hypogamy) to a stinkard. This resulted in a regular form of social mobility from generation to generation. The children of the upper three ranks took the status of their mother unless she was a stinkard. If a woman of the Great Sun married a stinkard, their children became members of the upper stratum, the Great Sun. If a noble woman married a stinkard, their children became nobles. And, if a noble man married a stinkard, their children would rise to the stratum of the honored lineage. Through marriage, all stinkard children moved up in the status hierarchy. Although this system allowed for a degree of mobility, it required the perpetuation of the stinkard stratum so that members of the upper strata would have marriage partners. One way the stinkard stratum was maintained was through marriage between two stinkards; their children remained in the inferior stratum. In addition, the stinkard category was continually replenished with people captured in warfare. Endogamy Marriages in chiefdom societies were both exogamous and endogamous. Although marriages might be exogamous among descent groupings, the spouses were usually from the same stratum (endogamy). These endogamous marriages were carefully arranged so as to maintain genealogically appropriate kinship bonds and descent relations in the top-ranking descent group. Frequently, this involved cousin marriage among descent groups of the same stratum. Among Hawaiian chiefs, rules of endogamy actually resulted in sibling marriages, sometimes referred to as royal-incest marriage. One anthropologist categorized these sibling marriages as attempts to create alliances between chiefly households among the various Hawaiian islands (Valeri 1985). Polygyny Many of the ruling families in chiefdom societies practiced polygyny. Among the Tsimshian of the Northwest Coast, chiefs could have as many as twenty wives, usually women from the high-ranking lineages of other groups. Lesser chiefs would marry several wives from lower- ranking lineages. In some cases, a Tsimshian woman from a lower- ranking lineage could marry up through the political strategies of her father. For example, a father might arrange a marriage between a high- ranking chief and his daughter. All these polygynous marriages were accompanied by exchanges of goods that passed to the top of the chiefly hierarchy, resulting in accumulations of surplus resources and wives (Rosman and Rubel 1986). Among the Trobriand Islanders, male chiefs traditionally had as many as sixty wives drawn from different lineages. Many chiefdom societies exhibited high rates of polygyny in the high-ranking strata. G eneral Social Principles in Chiefdoms Among chiefdom societies, the typical family form was the extended family, with three generations living in a single household. In the Pacific region, for example, the basic domestic unit was usually a household made up of three generations; in some cases, two or three brothers with their offspring were permanent residents of the household. The households in a specific area of a village were usually part of one lineage. The extended family household was usually the basic economic unit for subsistence production and consumption in chiefdom societies. Postmarital residence varied among chiefdoms. Patrilocal, matrilocal, and ambilocal types of residence rules were found in different areas. The ambilocal rule, found in many chiefdoms of the Pacific, enabled people to trace descent to ancestors (male or female) who had the highest rank in the society. This flexibility enabled some individuals to attain access to property, privileges, and authority in spite of the inherent restrictions on status mobility in chiefdom societies (Goodenough 1956). Age In many chiefdom societies, senior males had much more authority, rank, and prestige than other people. As in some tribal societies, this form of inequality produced gerontocratic systems. As people— especially in the higher-ranking descent groups—aged, they received more in the way of status, privileges, and deference from younger people. Because senior males controlled the production, marriages, labor, and other economic activities, they became the dominant political authorities. Senior males also possessed special knowledge and controlled sacred rituals, reinforcing their authority. One of their major responsibilities was to perpetuate the beliefs that rank depended on a person’s descent group and that status was hereditary. As in some of the tribal societies, the combination of patriarchy and gerontocracy resulted in cultural hegemony—the imposition of norms, practices, beliefs, and values that reinforced the interests of the upper stratum. This cultural hegemony will become more apparent in the discussion of law and religion in chiefdom societies (see Chapter 20). Slavery In Chapter 19, we will discuss how chiefdoms frequently engaged in systematic, organized warfare. One consequence of this warfare was the taking of captives, who were designated as slaves. Slavery in chiefdoms generally did not have the same meaning or implications that it did in more complex state societies, and it usually did not involve the actual ownership of a human being as private property. In this sense, it was very different from the plantation slavery that developed later in the Americas. With some exceptions, most of the slaves in chiefdoms were absorbed into kin groups through marriage or adoption and performed essentially the same type of labor that most other people did. Nevertheless, in contrast to the more egalitarian band and tribal societies, chiefdom societies did show the beginnings of a slave stratum. We have already mentioned an example of a chiefdom slave system in our discussion of the Natchez. Recall, however, that upper-ranking members were obliged to marry members of the stinkard stratum; thus, the Natchez did not have a hereditary slave population. One exception to these generalizations involves some of the Northwest Coast American Indians, who maintained a hereditary slave system. Because marrying a slave was considered debasing, slavery became an inherited status (Kehoe 1995). The children of slaves automatically became slaves, producing a permanent slave stratum. These slaves— most of them war captives—were excluded from ceremonies and on some occasions were killed in human sacrifices. In addition, they were sometimes exchanged, resulting in a kind of commercial traffic of humans. Even in this system, however, slaves who had been captured in warfare could be ransomed by their kinfolk or could purchase their own freedom (Garbarino 1988). In a recent roundtable discussion, anthropologists David Wengrow and David Graeber (2018) compared the Northwest Coast chiefdoms with the foragers of coastal California. In the Northwest Coast, slavery was an endemic aspect of these chiefdoms, whereas the Native American foragers of coastal California did not enslave others. Recall from Chapter 15 (p. 327) that the Northwest Coast chiefdoms were based on foraging, primarily fishing salmon but also hunting other game animals in a resource-rich area. The coastal California Native Americans were also dependent on fishing and hunting, but relied on acorns and nuts as staple foods. These anthropologists discuss the factors that determine the presence or absence of slavery in these societies. Wengrow and Graeber note that indigenous Californians had periodic contact with their neighbors in the Northwest Coast. Drawing on some historical sources, these anthropologists argue that the coastal Californians viewed their northern Northwest Coast neighbors as warlike and their capture of slaves as exploitative and morally inhumane. Because they were fearful that these patterns might become a possibility in their own aboriginal Californian communities, they consciously rejected th