The mounted buffalo hunters of the North American Great Plains, common in popular literature and cowboy movies, constituted a type of nomadic hunting society. But they represented a brief and very special development: an interaction and amalgamation of elements of Indian culture with Spanish horses and the training of them, as well as with metal and guns. The Indians, once mounted, could follow, surround, and kill tremendous numbers of buffalo, where previously the Indians had found the buffalo herds nearly impregnable. So productive was mounted buffalo hunting that tribes of diverse languages and customs were quickly drawn into the Great Plains from all directions. A distinctive, picturesque culture arose among them, reaching its peak about 1800. But from 1850 through the 1870s the tide of white settlers virtually wiped out the buffalo. By that time most of the Indians had been defeated in battle and confined to reservations.
Equestrian Indians can be regarded as a special form of nomadic hunters rather than as a form of pastoralists. Pastoral culture is dominated by the requirements of domesticated livestock and by the relation of herds to pasture. The Plains Indians’ nomadism, however, was determined by the habits of the wild buffalo herds. The natural cycle of the buffalo was to concentrate in huge herds in summer and disperse into smaller groups in winter and spring. The Indians accordingly traveled in small camps of a few related families in winter and formed huge encampments in summer and fall for tribal ceremonies and organized cooperative hunts. The summer camps sometimes numbered several thousand people.
The continual intrusion of new groups into the Plains—first Indians, then whites—and the introduction of new weapons constantly altered the balance of power and kept the region in a state of belligerent turmoil. Equestrian bow-and-arrow Indians were superior militarily to those on foot; Indians with guns, of course, were superior to bow-and-arrow Indians; but Indians with both guns and horses—as happened in the Central Plains first—were vastly superior to the others. But the supply of horses and guns and especially ammunition continued to fluctuate wildly as access to sources varied greatly from place to place and time to time.
Nomadism places limitations on property and material technology, and the Plains Indians consequently manufactured no pottery, cloth, or basketry, although leatherwork and beadwork were highly developed. On the other hand, being equestrian, they could carry far more goods than nomadic hunters on foot. Perhaps the most notable thing they carried was the large conical tent (tepee) of decorated buffalo hide.
Sociopolitical organization was informal, probably because of the fluidity of the population. On the other hand, some tribal cohesion and systems of alliance were required because of the constant raiding. Consequently, a large number of pan-tribal associations arose, especially military societies and male age-graded societies.
Religion among the Plains Indians reflected the varying sources of the original religions of the pre-horse tribes. Some elements, however, became widespread in the Plains. The folk hero of a great many myths was the trickster Old Man Coyote. There was a widespread concept of Manitou, the pervasive spirit. Most notable was the nearly universal importance attached to the Sun—but without the notion of the Sun as a supreme deity. Ordeals and self-torture and mass ritual self-torture were common Plains religious practices. The Indian tortured himself and fasted in order to suffer hallucinations that would reveal a personal guardian spirit for his protection in the hunt and in battle.
As in other nomadic hunting-gathering societies, principal ceremonies were related to the life cycle, with special prominence given to male puberty rites to instill bravery, endurance, and hunting and raiding skills.
Settled hunting and gathering societies
Outstanding examples of the settled hunters and gatherers were the peoples of the North Pacific Coast of North America, roughly from Oregon to southern Alaska. The resources of the sea and inlets and rivers were of astonishing variety, and some, like the salmon during their runs, were so easy to catch that the word “harvesting” seems more appropriate than “fishing” for this activity. In central and northern California there were numerous sedentary Indian groups, such as the Pomo, Wintun, and Yurok. Their basic food was the acorn, which was ground and stored as flour. Many of the streams had salmon, and the Indians also gathered roots and berries and hunted wild fowl and deer. Other sedentary hunter-gatherer societies are rare and scattered. The most prominent of these are in southwestern New Guinea, as represented by the Asmat. These groups rely on the sago palm, whose starchy pith is easily reduced to flour. Fish, wild birds, and semidomesticated pigs supplement the basic sago.
The basic foods of these sedentary peoples had two common characteristics: they were reliable and they could be stored, much as can the products of agriculture. Salmon were smoke-dried and stored in wooden boxes by the Northwest Coast Indians, and acorn flour obviously could be stored just as can grain flour. Sago flour can also be stored, but it has no season; a palm can be cut at any time the food is required. So abundant and reliable are these resources that such peoples are said to practice a “natural agriculture.”
Sedentary life makes possible many improvements in material culture. Houses become larger and more elaborate and are improved over time. The Asmat of New Guinea and the Northwest Coast Indians make huge houses of planks and are among the best wood-carvers of the primitive world.
Permanent villages and a consistent abundance of food make possible high population densities. The California tribes are estimated to have reached 11 or 12 persons per square mile, as did those of the Northwest Coast. The Asmat of New Guinea have villages ranging up to 2,000 people, which is from 10 to 20 times the size of the average hunting-gathering settlement. Usually such large villages remain politically independent. Intermarriages occur, of course, and some local cohesion is achieved by secret societies and other clublike associations. But such integration is only incidental.
The Northwest Coast Indians elaborated a hierarchical form of organization, or chiefdom. They were the only hunter-gatherers to have done so. Chiefs or nobles occupied positions of high status that were inherited in a single descent line by primogeniture. Secondary lines of descent, collateral to the above, were of lesser status. Finally, there were the commoners.
Along with chiefly status went the socioeconomic institution of redistribution. Surplus products of family production were passed on to the chief, who in turn gave a large feast (or “potlatch”), during which he distributed gifts to those who needed them. This process of redistribution had the economic function of encouraging specialization and division of labour. The potlatch in late times on the Northwest Coast became famous for its competitiveness. A chief of a lineage or longhouse, for example, would amass as much food and material goods as he could in order to lay on a feast and give presents lavishly in hopes that the guest lineage would be unable to reciprocate on the same scale. One lineage, house, or perhaps village thus might “defeat” the others.
The Northwest Coast Indian type of chiefdom is primarily social and economic. It can be called political only to the extent that a certain amount of personal authority for decision making may reside in a high social status. This authority can serve a purpose, however. The egalitarian nature of hunting-gathering bands tends toward anarchy, which becomes perilous in populous societies. Quarrels can turn into feuds for lack of a higher authority to settle them.
Horticultural societies
Primitive agriculture is called horticulture by anthropologists rather than farming because it is carried on like simple gardening, supplementary to hunting and gathering. It differs from farming also in its relatively more primitive technology. It is typically practiced in forests, where the loose soil is easily broken up with a simple stick, rather than on grassy plains with heavy sod. Nor do horticulturalists use fertilizer intensively or crop rotation, terracing, or irrigation. Horticulture is therefore much less productive than agriculture. The villages are small—some no larger than many hunting-gathering settlements—and the overall population density is low compared with farming regions.
Forest horticulturists use fallowing techniques variously called “slash-and-burn,” “shifting cultivation,” and “swidden cultivation” (a northern English term now widely used by anthropologists). After about two years of cropping a plot is left fallow for some years and allowed to revert to secondary forest or bush. Before resuming cultivation the bush may be cut, left to dry, and then burned. The ashes bestow some fertilization, but the foremost benefit of this procedure is that the plot will be relatively weed free at first.
Since the fallowing periods of the plots are much longer than the planted periods, the swidden horticulturalists must gradually encroach on more distant land. Sometimes this results in semisedentary villages when the newly arable plots finally are so distant that a few horticulturalists must start to build huts near the newer fields, to be joined later by others. Such a land-hungry system, in a region of competing populations, greatly increases the chances of conflict. Population dispersal thus becomes a grave threat in horticultural regions. Land for expansion inevitably must be found at the expense of neighbours or by shortening the fallowing periods—which eventually results in lower production.
Many forest tribes—typical are the horticulturalists of the South American tropical forest—constantly maintain a military posture. Large-scale warfare is not usual (because of the lack of political leadership) but raids, cannibalism, torturing of captives, and other forms of belligerence are.
Horticulturalists have more material goods than most hunter-gatherers, though not more than such societies as the Indians of the Northwest Coast. This suggests that the accumulation of domestic goods is related not so much to the higher productivity of the horticulturalists as to their greater stability of settlement.
The most highly developed of aboriginal slash-and-burn horticulturalists were undoubtedly the Maya of Guatemala and Yucatán, who had a chiefdom or primitive state. But this was most exceptional, for almost all other primitive horticulturalists did not go beyond simple tribes with egalitarian and nearly autonomous communities. Any regional confederation was likely to be only on the basis of intermarriage and clanship. Sometimes an ephemeral sort of near-chiefdom arises, founded on the capabilities of a charismatic leader. In Melanesia, where a well-established form of personal politics thrives, the leader is called Big Man or Centre Man.
The Big Man in Melanesia is big because he has a following. He begins with his own family and near relatives and friends, who provide goods that he, on behalf of his group, gives away to other groups at a feast on some ceremonial occasion. He and his faction are feasted reciprocally by others at other times. His ability to redistribute on an increasingly lavish scale to larger groups expands his following. He thus amasses what the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski, in reporting on the Trobriand Islanders, called a “fund of power.” With the public esteem gained in this economic contest, the Big Man is sought out for giving advice, adjudicating quarrels, planning ceremonies, and admonishing and conciliating. But this is influence, not the true authority that inheres in a status or office in an established hierarchy. A really big Big Man may succeed in integrating a region of several villages, but when he loses to a rival or dies, the unity of the region dissolves until some other unusually influential man unites it again.
In many respects the religion of horticultural peoples resembles that of hunting-gathering peoples. Shamans, life-crisis ceremonies—especially puberty rites—totemism (ceremonies for plant or animal species believed to be ancestral to particular human groups like clans or lineages), and the worship of animistic spirits are common in the religion of many kinds of primitive societies. The egalitarian society does not usually practice ancestor worship as does the hierarchical society. Among horticultural peoples with chiefdoms, the chief’s ancestors, in time, become gods. The most remote ancestors, the founders of the chiefly lineage, are the most important gods; more recent ancestors and those of related but collateral lines have a lesser status. The result is a hierarchy of gods resembling the political hierarchy on Earth. Furthermore, the chiefdoms tend to be theocracies, with the hierarchy of priests closely and functionally related to the political hierarchy.
