Why Women Hunt: Risk and Contemporary Foraging in a Western Desert Aboriginal Community Author(S): Rebecca Bliege Bird and Douglas W
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Why Women Hunt: Risk and Contemporary Foraging in a Western Desert Aboriginal Community Author(s): Rebecca Bliege Bird and Douglas W. Bird Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 49, No. 4 (August 2008), pp. 655-693 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/587700 . Accessed: 22/01/2014 13:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . 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]. The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.8.234.130 on Wed, 22 Jan 2014 13:01:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Current Anthropology Volume 49, Number 4, 2008 655 Why Women Hunt Risk and Contemporary Foraging in a Western Desert Aboriginal Community by Rebecca Bliege Bird and Douglas W. Bird An old anthropological theory ascribes gender differences in hunter-gatherer subsistence to an econ- omy of scale in household economic production: women pursue child-care-compatible tasks and men, of necessity, provision wives and offspring with hunted meat. This theory explains little about the division of labor among the Australian Martu, where women hunt extensively and gendered asymmetry in foraging decisions is linked to men’s and women’s different social strategies. Women hunt primarily small, predictable game (lizards) to provision small kin networks, to feed children, and to maintain their cooperative relationships with other women. They trade off large harvests against greater certainty. Men hunt as a political strategy, using a form of “competitive magnanimity” to rise in the ritual hierarchy and demonstrate their capacity to keep sacred knowledge. Resources that can provision the most people with the most meat best fit this strategy, resulting in an emphasis on kangaroo. Men trade off reliable consumption benefits to the hunter’s family for more unpre- dictable benefits in social standing for the individual hunter. Gender differences in the costs and benefits of engaging in competitive magnanimity structure men’s more risk-prone and women’s more risk-averse foraging decisions. They were putting up the boughshed for the mourners in the and Berndt 1988; Tonkinson 1991). Women hunted and men reburial ceremony that was due to take place in Parnngurr gathered, but at times men focused entirely on hunting kan- the following day. Martu were coming in for the ceremony garoo and emu, failing often and acquiring less than 10% of from all over the Western Desert and Pilbara—Jigalong, War- the total calories consumed (Gould 1980). Women occasion- burton, Bidyadanga, Wiluna, Yandeyarra, even Kiwirkurra— ally hunted kangaroo but more often smaller animals, and and there was little to eat in the store. Karimarra was preparing there were periods when their production was almost entirely jurnpa (ash) behind the house for her husband to mix with based on roots, fruits, and seeds (Kaberry 1939; Sackett 1979; his tobacco. A strong, cold wind blew steadily from the south- Gould 1980). Most scholars have emphasized that gender east. It was a good time to set fire to a tract of spinifex for differences in foraging emerge here through the political and hunting sand goanna, but no one wanted to go. They all reproductive benefits men gain from provisioning affinal kin wanted to look for bigger meat. “We should go kipara-karti and influential people with meat from large animals, partic- [bustard hunting],” she said, poking at the small fire with a ularly kangaroos, bustards, and emus (Sackett 1979; Hiatt stick. “Look for kuwiyi [meat].” 1982; Altman 1987; Tonkinson 1988b). Men hunt kangaroo What Karimarra said called to mind something her brother to gain the approbation of in-laws in order to marry younger had once said about Martu foraging gender roles: “Women (or additional) wives (Altman 1984, 1987), to build their dig goanna,” he grinned, knowingly oversimplifying. “Men reputations as good hunters in order to rise in the ritual chase kangaroo.” Ethnographers working in the Western Des- hierarchy (Sackett 1979; Tonkinson 1988b), and to share gen- ert have long noted that throughout much of the arid zone erously in order to establish networks of “followers” (Myers the sexual division of labor was flexible, variable, and sea- 1986). It has been argued that hunting in ways that contribute sonally overlapping (Gould 1969, 1980; Cane 1987; Berndt to the collective good demonstrates a commitment to the Law, which may ultimately allow a man control over more ritual Rebecca Bliege Bird is Assistant Professor and Douglas W. Bird knowledge (Sackett 1979). But what about women? Do they is Assistant Professor (Research) in the Department of Anthropology prefer to hunt the smaller goanna lizards, or are they con- at Stanford University (450 Serra Mall Building 50, Stanford, CA strained from hunting kangaroo? What social, political, and 94305, U.S.A. [[email protected]]). This paper was submitted 15 reproductive benefits do they gain from their foraging choices? V 07 and accepted 15 II 08. Most of the explanatory models of gender difference in for- ᭧ 2008 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2008/4904-0005$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/587700 This content downloaded from 128.8.234.130 on Wed, 22 Jan 2014 13:01:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 656 Current Anthropology Volume 49, Number 4, August 2008 Figure 1. Martu gender division of foraging labor (the proportion of calories acquired by women and men in each foraging activity). Activities toward the center line (0 difference in relative proportional contribution, or 50–50 division of labor) are characterized by equal contributions on the part of each gender; those toward the top end are characterized by high women’s contribution and those toward the bottom end by high men’s contribution. The pie charts show the percentage of all men’s and all women’s foraging time spent on each activity. aging do not consider such costs and benefits; instead, they “Yes,” she said, “Better to come back just as hungry as ev- draw on notions of the economic benefits of cooperative spe- eryone else. We hunt to share.”1 cialization or the difficulty of hunting while caring for Being a hunter is an important part of being a Martu2 children. woman. Unlike most other hunter-gatherers, Martu women Asked why none of the ladies wanted to go goanna hunting, spend most of their time hunting3 and provide just as much Karimarra continued to poke the fire for a long time. Finally meat on foraging camps as men do. While sometimes over- she said, lapping, men’s and women’s foraging strategies often differ (fig. 1). Women will occasionally hunt bustard and kangaroo They don’t want anyone to call them malya [selfish]. It’s selfish to go get goanna when so many people are visiting. When you go hunting goanna, you just sit and eat it. You 1. Quotations from Martu were recorded in a variety of formats (Mar- tuwanka, pidgin, and English) and were rewritten here in standard English only get enough for yourself and the people hunting with at the request of the speakers. you. You might be able to save one, if you’re lucky. You 2. “Martu” is a contemporary self-referential term with a variety of come back here and if people see that you went out for meanings depending on context. Most specifically it is used to refer to goanna, they’ll say, oh that one, she’s selfish, she only “the People” from a number of linguistic groups whose homelands make up about 150,000 km2 of the northwestern portion of the Western Desert. thought about herself, she didn’t think about us hungry When we refer to Martu in this paper, we refer only to those Martu we people left behind. have lived with in this portion of the desert. 3. Here we define “hunting” as the search for mobile prey, that is, Was it better to spend the day bouncing along hunting tracks prey with some chance of eluding pursuit once encountered. This is in in the Land Cruiser with a .22 poking out the window, looking keeping with Martu classification of wartilpa (hunting mobile resources) for a bustard in the bush, and come home with nothing? versus nganyimpa (collecting immobile resources). This content downloaded from 128.8.234.130 on Wed, 22 Jan 2014 13:01:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Bliege Bird and Bird Why Women Hunt 657 but prefer to search for smaller prey, particularly cat, goanna, The Risk Model and snake, which are dug from burrows in the winter after burning large areas of overgrown spinifex grass and in the From Mer Island, where women’s intertidal foraging is over summer are tracked and chased. Men will sometimes hunt three times more reliable than men’s and is usually more goanna but more often pursue larger, more mobile game. productive (Bliege Bird, Smith, and Bird 2001; Bliege Bird Plant or insect-derived resources are a minor component of 2007), to Botswana, where Ju/’hoansi men’s success rates foraged foods during most times of the year, but there are hover around 25% per hunt (Lee 1979), and Tanzania, where an average Hadza man acquires game at a rate of .03 prey again important distinctions between men and women in the per day (Hawkes, O’Connell, and Blurton Jones 1991), and way they prefer to spend their time: men forage for honey from the boreal forest of the Cree, where hare trapping and and nectar and women for grubs, fruit, and roots.