G//Ana Territorial Organization Author(S): Elizabeth Cashdan Source: Human Ecology, Vol
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G//ana Territorial Organization Author(s): Elizabeth Cashdan Source: Human Ecology, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Dec., 1984), pp. 443-463 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4602755 Accessed: 15/07/2010 11:40 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=springer. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Human Ecology. http://www.jstor.org Human Ecology, Vol. 12, No. 4, 1984 G//ana TerritorialOrganization Elizabeth Cashdan1 This analysis of G//ana territorialorganization shows how land rights are ac- quired and how they affect patterns of land use. Both spatial and social boundaries are discussed. It is shown that the appearance of overlapping spa- tial boundaries is clarified through a focus on the land rights of individuals and a consideration of historical population movements over the region. The discussion of social boundaries shows that, while interterritorial marriage and mobility networks are extensive, increases in property andfoodproduc- tion appear to be associated with a closing of social boundaries (increased social nucleation). This is suggested by greater endogamy and a trend toward patrilineal inheritance of land rights in recent years. KEY WORDS: territoriality; hunter-gatherers; spatial organization; G//ana. INTRODUCTION This paper describes the territorial organization of the G//ana, a predominantly foraging population of the Central Kalahari. Its emphasis is on how land rights are acquired, and how they determine patterns of land use. I will show, first, that this can best be understood by focusing on in- dividual land rights ratherthan on group territories,and by considering histor- ical population movements that underlie the current pattern of land rights. Second, I consider the effects of property and food production on territorial organization. Preliminary data suggest that an increased dependence on food production is associated with greater endogamy and a trend toward patrilineal inheritance of land rights. Kalahariforagers are well known for having a "fluid,"flexibly organized social and territorial organization. Territorial boundaries are said to over- 'Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260. 443 0300-7839/84/1200-0443$03.50/0 ? 1984 Plenum Publishing Corporation 444 Cashdan lap, and band composition changes frequently as individuals visit kinsmen living in other regions. This characterization, which became popular with the publication of the Man the Hunter symposium (Lee and DeVore, 1968), is accurate, but the concept of "flexibility"really tells us very little. We know from ethnographic descriptions of San land rights that what appears as "flux" on the level of the band arises from a cross-cutting network of individually based land rights and kin ties (see Lee, 1972, 1979; Wiessner, 1977; Yellen and Harpending, 1972). From the perspective of the individual, it is clear that mobility, land rights, and kin ties are not simply "fluid," but are pat- terned and predictable. The implications of this for territorial boundaries have not been well understood, since bands have been considered the territory- holding unit. Do the San have flexible, overlapping territories? When one looks at G//ana territories from the perspective of the group, a picture emerges of overlapping territories shared by populations living in different areas. It will be shown below that the fuzziness of these overlapping territorial boundaries disappears when one focuses on the land rights of individuals. The demise of the patrilineal band as the model for hunter-gatherer social organization (Lee and DeVore, 1968; Lee, 1972), and the accompany- ing emphasis on flux and flexibility, has led to a picture of foragers moving freely about the landscape as ecological conditions dictate. For example, Yellen and Harpending (1972) have argued that "there is much in Bushman culture about land ownership, land inheritance, and living rights, but these serve to justify these underlying ecological processes and should be inter- preted in that light. [They] give each individual the right to live in a number of widely scattered areas, and allow him to move freely from one to another much as he pleases." It is certainly true that hunter-gatherers,especially those in highly variable environments such as the Kalahari, have available social mechanisms that allow them access to resources in often widely separate regions. At the same time, however, these social mechanisms also operate as constraints on mobility and land use. If the norms about land ownership, land inheritance, and so forth were simply justifications that allowed in- dividuals to move freely about the region, one might wonder why they would be needed in the first place. Cultural norms concerning land rights are only necessary because there is often a "conflict of interest"; while it may be advantageous for each individual to have access to as many places as possible, it may also be advantageous, especially under conditions of resource scarcity, to keep others out. As I will show, the system of G//ana land rights acts as a constraint in determining settlement patterns, just as it also is manipulated to enable individuals to move into areas of their choice. The following discussion begins with a brief ethnographic account of G//ana subsistence. The analysis of territorial organization itself is in two G//ana Territorial Organization 445 parts, the first of which considers spatial boundaries and the second, social boundaries. This distinction was made by Lee (1972, p. 126), who pointed out that "the existence of a group and a space necessarily implies the exis- tence of two kinds of boundaries: social and spatial. A social boundary can be measuredaccording to how open or closed the group is .... A spatialbound- ary can be measured along the dimension of overlap/nonoverlap." A closed social boundary, in Lee's terminology, is equivalent to what Yellen and Har- pending (1972) call a "nucleated"social organization, nucleation being a meas- ure of the degree to which social relationships form discrete clusters. In the first part of the discussion of G//ana territoriality, I consider whether the G//ana do in fact have overlapping spatial (territorial) boundaries. I argue that while a static picture that focuses on the boundaries of groups makes it appear that they do, a dynamic approach that focuses on the land rights of individuals suggests otherwise. In the second part, I turn to the interregional social ties that determine the degree of social nucleation. After a discussion of marriage and mobility networks, I consider whether food production and property are associated with increased nucleation in the G//ana population. ETHNOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND The G//ana, who number about 800, live in the nothern and eastern parts of Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve (see Fig. 1). They are a physicallyand culturallymixed population, tracing their origins both to Bak- galagadi pastoralists from southern Botswana and to the hunting and gather- ing San whom these Bakgalagadi married when they moved north into the Reserve over 200 years ago. G//ana territory overlaps that of the G/wi, although the 209 people discussed here live in the northeastern part of the region, some 90-120 km east of the G/wi area. The G//ana, like the G/wi, must cope with an environment characterizedby low and extremely variable rainfall, and by an absence of permanentstanding water. Mean annual rainfall in the regionis about 350 mm per year, and the coefficientof variationis 50-60% (Pike, 1971; see Silberbauer, 1972, 1981, and Tanaka, 1976, 1980, for descriptionsof the Central Reserve environment). The G//ana differ from the G/wi, however, in supplementing their diet of bush foods and game with small-scale cultivation and goat husbandry. The crops cultivated by the G//ana include marotsi (a domesticated melon similar to but larger than the wild tsama), beans, and a small amount of maize. Like the tsama melon, marotsi acts as a naturally storable form of moisture and it is grown and used by the G//ana chiefly for this purpose. The cultivated marotsi provides the G//ana with moisture when the nearby pans become dry, thereby allowing them to remain at one location during 446 Cashdan ZAMBIA ANGOLA G AN NAMI B IA pkga REGION REIO Rakops Moppi *Francistown I \Lake Xau Ghanzi I WI G/IANA REGION G/V \S REGION *Serowe Central Kalahari \ I Game Reserve BOTSWANA 0 100 200km 1f7 G//na rei Fig. 1. Map of Botswana, showing location of G//ana region. the rains and, if the crop has been a good one, for a short period after the rains have ended. During the dry season, the G//ana generally move to tsa- ma melon areas, where they subsist on wild foods; but they may use the garden site as a base camp even during this period to store bush foods (especially dried game meat and grewia berries), cultivated crops (if any remain from the harvest), and skins and furs.